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brandwhorestarscream · 1 month ago

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Uhm, heyo! It’s the sparkling “husk” lady again. How you don’t mind me popping in here. But I’ve been tossing a few more ideas around in my head for that AU. Adding into the idea on these “husks” kind of being the cybertronian equivalent of changelings. Maybe just like human folklore, cybertronians tell stories to each other about these “false sparklings” that infiltrate their homes. And just like changelings, there are methods you can use to determine if something is a husk. Some more brutal than others. Maybe some cybertronians are so paranoid about their adopted sparkling potentially being a husk, that they end up seriously harming or even killing their child only to find out it wasn’t a husk at all. Just like how some humans in the past hurt their own babies out of fear of them being a changeling :(

Sorry that got a little depressing towards the end…but that’s also how folklore often is :0

On a sort of lighter note, wonder what the specific reason the quintessons have for kidnapping cybertronians in this AU? Maybe to act as unwilling servants?

(Oof that was a lot wordier than I was planning, pardon the thought dump!)

Don't be sorry at all!!!! These are excellent ideas and I LOVE rambling about this 🥰

Originally the Husks were intended to be relatively new Quintesson weapons. Since Cybertron is offline, their population is way down, and any survivors are scattered across the universe, the quints no longer have easy pickings for their favorite slaves. They developed the Husks as a way to infiltrate dens of "wild" cybertronians, to collect data and make them easier to poach. The reason they hunt wild ones is because, while they can be bred in captivity, it takes a looong time for them to reach maturity, and it's so costly it's often deemed as not worth it (even if the resultant captive-bred cybertronian is much more docile and easier to train).

Eventually, I think Husks might become well known enough that the above described paranoia could happen 🥺 but it'd be really sad, and far into the future 👀 which insinuates a lot going down beforehand. The Husks simulate being alive perfectly: they play and laugh and cry, they have their own thoughts and feelings. But without sparks, without souls, they'll never be real. Every single sparkling has a spark chamber that's frightfully empty, not a speck of light in their chassis'. It's the fastest way to check, but no one in their right mind would just rip open a baby's chest like that 🤭

Imagine a couple of the very first perfected Husks ever made being dispatched to earth. Continuity isn't really important, but just imagine a cybertronian escape pod being detected entering earth's atmosphere, and the precious cargo within is several damaged-but-functional cryotubes. Giving off a distress signal once it hits the planet, the beacon designed to register as being from a créche. Perfect bait 😌 autobots or decepticons, it truly doesn't matter whom, falls for it hook line and sinker. Let the bonding begin >:)

#remember how i said the quints make these babies from harvested genetic material??#WELL imagine theyve been discretely harvesting it from autobot-decepticon battlefields on earth and have basically made fankid Husks #optimus takes one look at this blue and silver megop looking baby and immediately assumes the role of a father #comes home with a baby like “im a dad now :)”#husk au #also please you dont ever have to apologize foe aending me long rambly asks! those are my FAVORITE!!!

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rkn001 · 2 years ago

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hi random question but are there any flowers you associate with the rkns + quint? how about the stardroids or your ocs? if no, then what flowers do you think would be good?

gonna put this under a read-more since my explanation is going to be extremely long, but tl;dr:

rkns+quint: daffodil, gladiolus, forget-me-not

my fcs: sunflower to pilot man, dahlia to patch woman

i'm not going to elaborate so much about the stardroids because: (1) i haven't spent that many braincells thinking about them, (2) they're quite varied within a group so i'd choose a flower per stardroid individually, and (3) i've already exhausted a lot of hours researching into these flowers and their associated mythology / etymology and this post is getting too long… so i'd like to invite anyone to try to answer this ask for the stardroids!

daffodil

i associate this flower mainly just to enker, but also to quint and to ballade. here are my reasons:

depending on the variety, daffodils tend to bloom sometime from late winter to early spring, although they can survive the winter months as they're known to be particularly hardy; the daffodil variants in japan, for example, are known to bloom from december to january. the yellow daffodils thus symbolize resilience, because of this quality. how does this relate to enker? well if you squint at his profile overall, there’s a recurring motif one can pick up: his cold exterior and gloomy nature. being into new year’s eve (a winter holiday) and nabiyaki udon (a hot-pot dish often served during the winter season). his jpn catchphrase, “grit your teeth and bear it” (hardiness). do you see that all of these things are associated to winter and the cold season, and the commonalities shared with the daffodil?

in addition, here's some fun facts about daffodils: daffodils can accelerate the death of other flowers when placed into a vase with them. all parts of a daffodil are poisonous, but one kind of daffodil also has strong emetic effects and can cause headaches, just by being in a closed room with a bunch of them inside. it's quite a toxic flower that needs to be handled with care in order to cooperate with its flowery compatriots… which reminds me of a certain character…oh…wait…that couldn't be enker, could it...

i think it’s also worth mentioning that the scientific name for the daffodil genus, narcissus, is linked to (but not known to be originated from) the greek myth of narcissus, a hunter who rejected all romantic advances and was eventually punished for that by being led to his reflection in the water and falling in love with it so much that he drowned, where a daffodil sprang from where he died. the part which, i think, relates to enker; not so much about him being narcissist (in fact i hc to be very far from that), but rather, with him circling around in a never-ending state of reflection that distorts the image of his identity and his place in the world (which i suppose is ironic, considering the name of his weapon).

the violet daffodils represent selfishness in honor of narcissus, which isn’t what i would associate enker with (i don’t think he’s that selfish), but on a more positive note, they symbolize self-esteem, and can be used to give to someone who has self-doubts. which, i think, is perfect to give to him (and to quint) really.

the meanings of the daffodil are usually pretty positive, but i think the associations to these can be pretty…bittersweet. one of the meanings of the daffodil includes rebirth and new beginnings. interestingly enough, these meanings are also what pluto symbolizes in astrology—which is associated to the origin myth of the seasons: the greek analogue of pluto is hades, who was known to have kidnapped persephone, the daughter of the demeter (the goddess of harvest and agriculture), by luring her with daffodils, and when demeter found out about this, caused the vegetation and flora of the world to wither, before some negotiation happened where persephone can spend some time with demeter but only up to eight months (namely, spring and summer).

who was also kidnapped? quint. who also encountered a "rebirth" and "new beginnings"? ballade. who also stands on the threshold between two different worlds, one in the past, the other in the present, like persephone? well…i can argue both quint and ballade do, because i think quint still retains his memories of him being rock and is powerless to do anything about them now that he's quint, and ballade…well…i headcanon to be experiencing the brunt of grief and sorrow of being reborn from the other killers+quint, or rather, being born to a space his old self once occupied and now feels pressured to fill in.

anyway, i’m just ad libbing associations here, but this is my argument for why the daffodil is the flower for both enker, quint, and ballade.

gladiolus

the name of this flower, gladiolus, originates from the latin word gladius or "sword," referring to the sword that roman foot soldiers used in battle. it should also be noted that in ancient greece, this flower was called xiphium, which comes from the greek word xiphos for "sword." both of these refer to the sword-like leaves; this is the flower for fighters, and indeed, that's what the rkns are.

the meanings of the gladiolus are integrity, honor, faithfulness, and strength. i mostly associate these qualities to punk for some reason, since we know he prefers to have a fair-and-square fight and he believes in his own strength—but this also somewhat applies to all rkns, as each upholds their own version of some moral code when fighting, and their devotion to the cause is what defines them as a group.

furthermore, these meanings of the gladiolus seem to come from what roman gladiators stand for. going back to the naming etymology of these flowers, they refer to the swords that roman foot soldiers use. after the martial reforms for the roman military were enacted, these soldiers were given a shield, some javelins, a sword, and a dagger. in battle, they would wield the sword and shield for close combat after breaking their enemies' defenses and formations with the javelins—so in some sense, the sword is used a secondary means of offense and defense against enemies. which is the role of each of the rkns + quint as well! in the gameboy games, they're always the enemy you fight after fending off the robot masters from the main series or the stardroids. which, i think, is fitting.

as a last addition to this, it should be noted that these soldiers must follow the oath of allegiance, or sacramentum militare, that they have to swear once they enlist. this is a pledge to loyalty towards the consul of the roman republic in the republican era, or towards the emperor in the imperial era, of the roman republic. breaking this not only becomes an act of disloyalty against the state or the emperor, but also against the other members of the unit—which serves as a deterrent against revolts, despite the numerous records of civil conflicts arising from betraying the oath. i think these conflicts are also at the heart of the rkn—automatically programmed to swear their allegiance to an empire just to kill one small boy is what also defines the group, and what might also threaten the integrity of it; how each of them uses that devotion to the cause, or rather, how much they stick to it is what defines them individually, and it's an interesting thing to look into when considering each rkn as an individual and their place in the group. such themes, i believe are relevant, and this is what makes me choose the gladiolus as a flower for them.

forget-me-not

this would be the flower mainly associated to ballade, but also to quint.

the etymology of the scientific name for its genus comes from the ancient greek term for "mouse's ear," but its actual name supposedly comes from a german folktale, about a knight and a lady strolling along the riverbank. the knight fell into the water in an attempt to pick up flowers for the lady, and before he drowned, he cried out the name of the said flower and threw the flowers he picked up to his loved one, and since then, in grief, she would wear forget-me-nots in commemoration for him.

throughout the world, forget-me-nots would be used for remembrances of those who died in wars (especially the world wars), as well as from well-known disorders like dementia and alzheimer's disease.

and that's what the forget-me-nots symbolize: remembrance and memory.

just like the knight in the folktale, ballade saw something, something beautiful in the last moment he faced rockman, and it led to the end of that brief span of life that ballade has occupied up, which wouldn't be easily forgotten by the other rkns + quint. he might've been just one flower, one casualty, plucked out in a long series of unnecessary wars between two roboticists—and sure, he might've been rebuilt afterwards—but the rkns + quint don't see it that way as just one robot who died and was reborn. he was somebody—maybe a fucking idiot beforehand, but at least he was their idiot.

similarly to quint: he was rock(man) before, and the moment wily reprogrammed him is the moment those two identities have died. him meandering through life, through the halls of the wily fortress, trying to reconcile with the death of his past self... don't you think he deserves some of these flowers to commemorate what he was? i don't think he's ever completely processed that himself. i think these flowers are also for him.

sunflower

when it comes to the sunflower, their meanings include optimism and strength, warmth, and unwavering faith. all of which describes pilot man; his good quality is his ability to make the best of a situation no matter how bad it gets, and he's a pretty warm dude if any character gets to know him.

the binomial nomenclature of the sunflower, helianthus annuus, comes from the greek words helios ("sun") and anthos ("flower") and the latin word annuus ("annual"), referring to how the sunflower quite literally looks like sun and how it is a perennial flower that blooms in the mid-summer until fall. often, when i think about where pilot works, he's always under the rays of the sun, running around from hanger to hanger, ensuring that things in his little private airport are in operation...and also, his best work on building plane models comes out during the mid-summer months, when things aren't as busy for him as they are in the rest of the year.

it's also thought the reason this flower gets its named is how many believed that it is heliotropic (that is, the sunflower head tracks the sun). note that i said "believed." sunflowers aren't truly heliotropic; only the immature flower buds, leaves, and the stems do orient themselves in the direction of the sun. this reminds me of a very young pilot man, bouncing with vigor and always eager to work with the company that created him and have his abilities tested as much as possible, to the point where both the company and pilot believed he can do so much more, until they... flew close to the sun, y'know?

(which…reminds me of the greek tale of icarus, who he and his father daedalus, a master craftsman, escaped from imprisonment by flying with the winds daedalus created using wax, feathers, and blankets. icarus was warned not to fly close to the sun, lest the wax melted, nor close to ocean they were flying over, lest the dampness of the sea weighed his wings down; icarus unfortunately fell into his own hubris by doing the former. which is pretty close to the disaster that happened with pilot within a year of his activation, due to his company's hubris, haha.)

but mature flowering buds actually only face east, which is still pretty interesting to note; the earth rotates in such a way so that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, but such buds continuously look in the east—it's like they always expect for the sun to rise no matter where the sun shines or goes, without so much following the sun's direction. to me, this says much about an over reliance of faith to take over things can overshadow the true gifts of life, instead of having just a little of it, which can go a long way...it's reflective of pilot's outlook on life prior to and after the disaster.

dahlia

this one is chosen purely out of symbolism, haha; the differing colors of the dahlia and their individual meanings actually do represent different facets of patch woman.

some meanings to the dahlia include inner strength, staying graceful under pressure, and elegance. patch woman's work is constantly her being under pressure, because her job is to tap into connections, find some interesting information about a company or a person whose life she's gonna destroy, and leak it into the world without leaving so much of a trace or negotiating with other parties about this information or wiping such information from everywhere if she feels it's necessary (often a big decision to handle). she handles this with a quiet sort of dignity and poise that can leave others baffled into how she's not...fizzling out from handling all of this info and intel.

dahlias with mixed blue/green colors represent fresh starts and big changes. part of patch's origin story is that she was originally [redacted] and prefers to keep that part even unknown to herself, lest bad parties might use this against her—and the fresh start wily gave her is what drives her to go on (and sometimes influences her decisions handling such intel).

the negative connotations of the dahlia also represent patch woman as well. in particular, the black dahlia symbolizes betrayal—which, yes, one should be careful when around patch because once a piece of information about oneself is thrown into the well that is patch's information network, one better watch their back because she may as well use it to step on them for her own purposes. in fact, betrayals, compromises, and deceit are what fuels her and gives her repute in the dark world of info.

there's an interesting little historical tidbit (or possibly myth or tale, unclear) about dahlias, related to empress joséphine, the empress of the french. she was well known to be into botany and was overly protective of her garden at the château de malmaison. having been offered some dahlia tubers from the french minister, she fell in love with their bloom so much that she wouldn't permit a single seed or root from the garden to exit the malmaison. except...a polish count visted the malmaison and bribed the gardener to dig up a hundred of those dahlias to propagate, making the empress extremely angry and having her destroy the remaining dahlia tubers. it's a funny little story exemplifying how value works: when one values something so much, it can be easily used against them. it's a key principle that patch keeps in mind when handling intel, and it's something which patch deals with on a daily basis.

okay, alright. this was way too damn long, but i appreciate the pretty cool and thoughtful question; it was certainly a fun writing exercise to be thinking about over this past weekend. thanks for indulging me!

#ask #mega man #megaman #rockman #mega man oc #rockman killers #enker #quint #punk #ballade #pilot man #patch woman #thanks for the ask!#so can you tell that the daffodil is one of my favorite flowers of all time or nah #also i'd like to offer some apologies if the writing is unclear at places; i kinda rushed this since tumblr's editor is garbage

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