#Uses for an optical isolator

[soon-palestine]

Hostages tortured to death. Parents executed in front of their children. Doctors beaten. Babies murdered. Sexual assault weaponised. No, not Hamas crimes. This is part of an ever-growing list of documented atrocities committed by Israel in the five months since 7 October – quite separate from the carpet bombing of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and a famine induced by Israel’s obstruction of aid. And yet while the western establishment media has been chock full of the most lurid allegations of savagery directed against Hamas, sometimes with little or no supporting evidence, Israeli atrocities are excused or quickly forgotten. Accusations against Hamas are endlessly reheated to paint a picture of a supremely dangerous and bestial militant group, in turn rationalising the slaughter and starvation of Gaza’s population to “eradicate” it as a terrorist organisation. But equally barbarous atrocities committed by Israel – not in the heat of battle, but in cold blood – are treated as unfortunate, isolated incidents that cannot be connected, that paint no picture, that reveal nothing of import about the military that carried them out. If Hamas’ crimes were so savage and sadistic they still need to be reported months after they took place, why does the establishment media never feel the need to express equal horror and indignation at equivalent or worse acts of cruelty and sadism being inflicted by Israel on Gaza – not five months ago, but right now? Israel's torture of doctors, its sexual assaults of Palestinian women, it's leaving premature babies to die after its forces stormed a hospital. Where is the outrage? This is part of a pattern of behaviour by the western media that leads to only one possible deduction: Israel’s five-month-long attack on Gaza is not being reported. Rather, it is being selectively narrated – and for the most obscene of purposes. Through consistent and glaring failures in their coverage, establishment media – including supposedly liberal outlets, from the BBC and CNN to the Guardian and New York Times – have smoothed the way for Israel to carry out mass slaughter in Gaza, what the World Court has assessed as plausibly a genocide. The role of the media has not been to keep us, their audiences, informed about one of the greatest crimes in living memory. It has been to buy time for US President Joe Biden to keep arming his most useful of client states in the oil-rich Middle East, and to do so without damaging his prospects for re-election in November’s US presidential vote. If Russian President Vladimir Putin was a madman and a barbarous war criminal for invading Ukraine, as every western media outlet agrees, what does that make Israeli officials, when every one of them supports far worse atrocities in Gaza, directed overwhelmingly at civilians? And more to the point, what does that make Biden and the US political class for materially backing Israel to the hilt: sending bombs, vetoing demands for a ceasefire at the United Nations, and freezing desperately needed aid? Worrying about the optics, the president expresses his discomfort, but he carries on helping Israel regardless. While western politicians and commentators worry about some imaginary existential threat those brief events of five months ago pose to the nuclear-armed state of Israel, Israel is quite literally wiping Gaza off the map day by day, quite undisturbed.

[keferon]

Part 4 of Drift/Deadlock and Hot Rods adventure in the mecha au!

Here comes the Sun do do do do- here comes the Sun at Mach five.

———————————————————————

Deadlock needed to kill something. Badly.

He’d kept it together through Ratchets confession. And he kept a relaxed mischievous banter going from the Hangar all the way to Ratchets makeshift clinic. When they finally arrived in Dead En-

The refugee camp. It was called a refugee camp and nothing else.

Deadlock almost transformed in the fragging middle of a refugee camp.

The memory snuck up on him okay?

Ever since he cracked open that one, tiny, memory from before he was Deadlock, pieces of Drift kept floating to the surface.

He gave Ratchet a quick goodbye, saying he needed something to eat. And sped off before the medic could question him.

He needed violence and isolation. Needed to reset his whole damn processor and banging his helm against a hard-organic-stick-thing? Whatever the fuck. Frag? Ugh. It wasn’t working.

He was shaky, couldn’t focus. His chassis felt like it was put inside a vise and someone who hated him had control of the handle.

Ratchet had been a breath of fresh air when Deadlock hadn’t even known he was buried alive. And since then the medic had been stubbornly digging him the rest of the way out.

It. Just felt good.

Being cared for. Being able to relax around someone. And knowing with absolute certainty it wasn’t just an act.

He got used to it. Comfortable with a certain level of vulnerability. Then Ratchet brought in Hot Rod.

If Ratchet was a breeze that slipped inside Deadlocks mental fortress, then Hot Rod was a Fragging bunker busting missile. None of it felt like he deserved it.

Ratchet laid out his spark for judgement. Because Ratchet, amazing and wonderful and impossible Ratchet, didn’t want Deadlock to be stuck with someone like him.

Something shitty inside him whispered, “What if Ratchet doesn’t want to be stuck with someone like him?”

He ignored it. Pushed it down. He didn’t leak coolant over slag like that. He didn’t need people like Ratchet or Hot Rod in his life. He just really, really wanted them in his life. For completely selfish Decepticon-y reasons.

You’d die for them you know.

Shut up.

Deadlock’s processor wouldn’t stop spinning.

He felt exposed.

He felt like slag.

He felt like Drift.

So Deadlock set out to do the most Deadlock thing he could think of.

———————————————————————

Deadlock fucked up.

Deadlock fucked up very badly.

Snow was getting caught in his optics, melting on contact into a slush that made it that much harder to see.

The fragging swarm of quintesson scouts surrounding him were not having that same problem.

They moved in a pack. Smaller and smarter than the standard issue quints that normally devastated the planet, these things unfortunately had a tiny sense of self preservation which made mowing them down that much more difficult.

Deadlock was forced to constantly turn on his peds to avoid the majority of the quints that kept going after his back. There wasn’t a moment he wasn’t beating them off with the stock of his rifle. He couldn’t switch to any close range weapons because if he stopped fighting them off for even a second, the quints would rush him all at once, forcing him to continue.

Couldn’t stop moving for the same reason.

They kept trying to get behind him. Snapping barbed tendrils at the backs of his knees, the gaps of his armor. Trying to force him down.

If I fall I’m dead.

Deadlocks vents were screaming. A brave little fragger went for his face, Deadlock swung his rifle like a bat.

Distraction.

Shooting pain went through the back of his left knee joint. Something with barbs was forcing it apart. Something tore.

Deadlock immediately brought down the barrel through an eye socket and pulled the trigger. Didn’t have time to register if the quint was dead before another one came at him from the opposite side. His peds dragged furrows through the earth and snow. Spinning. He had to keep spinning.

He was slowing.

If I fall I’m dead.

The quints redoubled their efforts to get behind him. More lashes at his back. Another quint darting the other direction. Didn’t even attack. But Deadlock wasn’t ready for the feint and swung at empty air.

The pack leapt at his back as one.

I’m going to die.

Deadlock wedged his rifle between him and the ground. The quintessons tore into his back but the weight was too much to throw off without help.

I’m not gonna see them again.

The rifle dug into his pauldron.

I don’t want to die.

A tendril wrapped around his neck. He clawed at it.

I don’t want to die like this.

One of them was dragging a ped backwards. Forcing his weight onto his injured knee.

I don’t want to die alone.

Drift screamed.

For a moment, from the corner of his blurry optics, he saw a light growing brighter and brighter.

“Huh”, Drift thought deliriously. “I always figured the last light you see before death would appear in front of you.”

IMPACT against the mob at his back sent Drift and the quintesson scouts scattering across the ground.

He fell.

He wasn’t dead.

Deadlock scrambled into an upright kneel, ignoring the lightning like pain shooting up his knee.

Leaning on his rifle, Deadlock saw another mech. Orange and gold with propane blue lights, he had multiple quints trapped in a bear hug. What hit him the hardest was an EM field overflowing with wild, unrestrained joy.

“HOT ROD?!?”

The mecha pilot only got about half the squirmy, bite-y little scrappers in the hold. The other half were quickly shaking off probable Roddy-induced concussions and began leaping at the nearest, newest prone target.

Hot Rod waved.

“Hey dude! Holy shit, that gun looks awesome!” Deadlock looked on in disbelief as more quintessons piled onto Hot Rod.

“What are you doing?! Rod get up!” Deadlock lurched to his feet, his last few thoughts repeated like a skipping track.

I was going to die. I was going to die. Hot Rod is going to die.

The cybertronian rushed towards the mecha. Hot Rod released the remaining quints who quickly turned to join the crushing mass subsuming him.

Hot Rod raised a hand, “Stop! Stop! Don’t get closer!”

Deadlock stopped just short of where the quints would turn on him. “Are you insane?! I’m trying to help you!”

“Just trust me!” Half of Hot Rod’s helm was covered in blackish tendrils. “And then help me in about five seconds!” Orange and gold disappeared under the writhing mass, the light snuffed out before Deadlocks optics.

He finally subspaced his rifle, switching to duel short range handguns that were both messy and loud. He counted five, fucking human seconds.

Something happened to the mass. The squirming suddenly stopped, and in the gaps of the knots surrounding Hot Rod, Deadlock saw something start to glow.

In the next instance, the quintessons exploded off of the mecha. Partially from the act of fleeing, entirely because Hot Rod was completely engulfed in flames.

���WOO! Now the party can get started!” Hot Rod wasted no time in engaging duel flamethrowers and began chasing after the remaining quints with manic glee.

Deadlock stopped questioning shit and started shooting with a vengeance.

Soon enough, the field around them was littered with the quintesson scouts burned and shredded remains.

Deadlocks vents were finally kicking down from maximum and he finally managed to wipe the stupid slagging slush out of his optics.

For the moment his eyes were offline, Deadlock felt a spike of happy that almost bowled him over. A half second before Hot Rod physically bowled him over.

Deadlock’s overtaxed fight or flight systems just gave the fuck up and let the tackle happen.

Hot Rod had him in a tight enough embrace he wasn’t sure he could have gotten away anyways.

“Holy shit I thought you were going to die.” Hot Rod crushed him to his chassis. The twin waves of Worry and Relief were doing things to his processor again. Deadlock (Drift?) was still feeling the aftershocks of it all. Memories skipped again. I’m going to die.

Dea-Dri- he wrapped his shaking arms around Hot Rod. Later, he could just say his knee gave out. Everything was spinning. Wait. No. Hot Rod picked him up and was spinning with him.

“You’re so lil now!” Hot Rod was ecstatic.

Deadlock was back. “Put me down. Gently.”

Hot Rod acquiesced, but seeing Deadlock nearly fall on his own, took the liberty of slinging one of his arms over his shoulders.

“M’kay. You look like shit. Need help walking back to Ratchets? Or can you drive?”

Deadlocks knee and entire back ached, but it wasn’t so debilitating once he’s had a chance to process it for a click.

“Uh, I think I’ll be okay to drive once I get to a road.” Hot Rod pulled him a little more securely into the supporting hold and started walking in the direction of the nearest road.

“Man, that’s still so cool you can do that. I wish I could turn into a car.”

Deadlock snorted, “Oh I’m sure if you keep practicing you’ll figure it out. Try stretching.”

Hot Rod laughed. It was so weird to think there was just a little guy in there. Sitting in like, a fancy cup holder. He sounded like the real thing. Moved like it too. If Deadlock hadn’t met Hot Rod the human first, the uncanny valley would have tipped him off something was wrong, but teeny tiny guy in a big person-puppet would not be his first guess.

Hot Rod stopped short, snapping his helm toward Deadlock.

“Wait. Do you ever drop off Ratchet at the shatterdome?”

Deadlock rolled his optics at the third near spark attack Hot Rod had given him that day.

“Yeeeah?”

Excitement started bubbling over.

“YOU’RE THE MOB BOYFRIEND?!” Hot Rod was stomping his peds while scream-laughing, probably because he couldn’t go for a run without dropping Deadlock.

“Dude! Dude dude dude. Pharma haaates you!”

Well that put Deadlock in a better mood. Albeit, only due to a “misunderstanding”.

“S’not like that. I just give him a lift sometimes. Make sure he doesn’t forget his lunch. Or to take care of himself. We’re not, you know.” Deadlock was pointedly looking the other direction.

Hot Rods cackled at the confirmation of the rumor, and his field steadily shifted towards mischief.

“Oooh Ratchet!” Hot Rod had begun speaking in a falsetto voice. “I love you sooo much! I’m from space but my favorite stars are the ones twinkling in your eyes! I wanna drive you to every beautiful place on this planet and when we finally come home we can watch Golden Girls while you pet my big bald metal head!”

“I’m going to punt you into a fragging Sun.”

Hot Rod laughed harder. He started making some weird wheezing noise that Deadlock hoped meant the imaginary strangling he was doing was working.

“THE UNICRON DAMNED SUN.”

Deadlock’s threatening was severely undercut by the fact that he was laughing now as well. They’d just about made it to the edge of the forest when Hot Rod asked a question that made Deadlock freeze.

“How’d you piss off so many scouts at once anyways? They’re normally way too spread out to all be grouped together like that.”

There were only two times when a pack of quintesson scouts were all gathered in the same place. When they first get dropped off, and when they gather to get picked back up.

Deadlock unhooked his arm from Hot Rod, turning behind them.

The change in air pressure made his finales tingle. Between the snow and the darkness, it was almost impossible to spot with the untrained optic. The snow had stopped falling. It was being blocked.

“Oooh shit.” Hot Rod checked the fuel levels on his flame throwers, glancing between those and the telltale green bio lights of the fuck off massive quintesson descending like the lethargic offspring of a meteor and a shark.

Deadlock brought out two of his heaviest duty guns. And then a third he handed handle first to Hot Rod. Ratchet had only warned him against encouraging Hot Rod’s stupid ideas.

Hot Rod was now looking rapidly between three points of interest.

“Wha-?”

Deadlock gave Hot Rod a gun.

“Do not tell Ratchet.”

Hot Rod held up the side arm. Focus zeroed in. Pretty nasty piece that looked more intimidating than it was. Slagged range but it packed enough of a punch to be worth keeping. Covered in spikes and blades and heavy enough to act as a crude but very nasty club, it was also one of the most over the top looking things Deadlock owned.

Hot Rod’s free hand started flapping faster and faster. His peds similarly bounced rapidly in place, until Deadlock was certain he was about to combust. Hot Rod was making A noise. One that was steadily rising in both pitch and volume. His field going supernova.

The quintesson broke through the clouds, maw open, carving up the earth before them with the bottom of its jaw. A cliffside of teeth was closing in at speed.

Hot Rod screamed.

And Deadlock followed suit.

Sprinting towards death, guns blazing and voices raised in preemptive victory, Deadlock and maybe also Drift, had a suspicion the he and Hot Rod were friends in every universe.

Much to the terror of everyone else.

———————————————————————

And that’s the soft finale to this tale!

Over the course of writing this, the story kept getting longer, but the two scenes it started with were “Hot Rod Meets Deadlock” and “Hot Rod Saves Deadlock” and then more ideas kept popping in between those two scenes.

There is more I plan on writing for these dipshits as well as Jazz and Prowl now but we’ll see what comes first.

I just wanted to say as well that @keferon you are a very talented writer and you’re the reason I was brave enough to share my own stuff. You fit so many little details into your work that just hits like a hammer down the line.

-SSTP

THE SWEET SWEET COMFORT YESSS THE SHENANIGANS!! ABSOLUTELY. Y E S. PL E A S E fklgjgidowjehrkrndhdof

Oh this is amazing. The dynamic you give them. The enERGY. It's like a candy for my soul I love it so so much ogkfhdgd I'm so happy you decided to share your writing! It's filled with joy and and I-dont-fucking-know purified enthusiasm?? I can't remember the right words rn but hopefully you get what I mean haha

[therobotsarestuckinmyhead]

♡ "ENTERTAINMENT" — Megatron [TFA]

scenario: maybe law-enforcement officers and Megatron can get along, only if he’s in a cell though.

setting: takes place post season three. Megatron is locked up in Trypticon for a year or so. after team Strika fails to bust him out.

cross posted on ao3!

Trypticon Prison, Kaon. What a wonderful place to work at. You mentally prepare yourself for him as you type in the codes into the door-panel of the maximum security wing. You let out a long vent before you enter the wing, the large metallic door whirrs open with a hydraulic hiss.

“If it isn't my favorite Autobot.”

You have to physically hold back a resigned sigh at the sound of the smooth velvety voice you had yet to grow accustomed to despite him being locked up here for nearly a year now. Autobot has become his name for you, you sincerely hoped that he didn’t know your name even if it had been quite a while since he's been under your custody. You trudged along a trolley containing the trays of low-grade fuel for all the Decepticon prisoners of the wing which was basically just him.

Megatron sat in his rather-cramped-for-his-size cell with one leg on top of the other as he leaned onto a wall, his helm resting on the barrier that you were so grateful for. Other than the occasional sounds from the two of you, it was only the static from the energy barrier that could be heard. This sector was eerily quiet, just Megatron and his silence. His loyal soldiers were in the other corridor of the same wing right next to Megatron’s isolated holding, it made sense why the cunning spawn of a glitch had an entire cell block for him. You couldn’t trust the mecha with even an energon scrap...

Trypticon was once one of the mightest Decepticons that had ever been a Decepticon. But after Trypticon’s defeat thanks to the introduction of Omega Sentinels, the stasis locked Trypticon was repurposed into an Autobot POW camp– empty halls with cells specifically built to accommodate Decepticons for millennia. But as the years went on, Trypticon was yet again repurposed but this time as a civilian prison. The old warden, Codexa, had given you a long lecture on the history of Trypticon years ago when you first joined. The place was a fortress, virtually inescapable. Only the worst of the worst were locked up in here.

But after the whole Allspark incident a year ago, Decepticons were back in the cells of Trypticon. The leader of the ruthless Decepticons, the infamous warlord, Megatron himself along with most of the remaining lackeys of the already crippled Decepticon ranks had been captured and as the days go by, they just seem to find more and more. The sector was almost half-filled.

The possibility that there were still more out there remains to be the current speculation. Every bot had their optics zoomed in for any suspicious activity nowadays. Especially in Kaon, where you lived. Given it was the former capital of the Decepticon empire, it made sense.

You were initially relieved, like any other Autobot would’ve been knowing that the fearsome Decepticons were finally put down.

But when you heard the news from Highbrow that The Megatron would be imprisoned in the wing you were in charge of? Primus, you felt your spark drop. The fact that High-Command seriously believed you were tough enough to handle the Megaton was comical. You were a senior guard so it sort of made sense why they assigned him to you but this was no murderer, criminal mastermind or Cryotek that you had gotten used to… this was a seasoned war-criminal that had quite literally killed more bots than has ever lived.

The worst part? The mech had landed himself a life imprisonment so he was here to stay. He was not going anywhere any time soon. Miraculously, he avoided a death-sentence… and you’ll never know how. No bot knew how actually. Tyrest must've had a few screws loose. Some think it was an inside job. Nobody really trusted Autobot High Command after the literal head of Cybertron Intelligence was a damn Decepticon Spy. Even if the historic millennias long war had an official and actual conclusion, there was a newfound mistrust… and Sentinel Prime didn’t really help out with that when he was Acting Magnus.

Either way, whether you liked it or not. Megatron was in your care for almost over a year now and it was… unpleasant.

Even despite your years of experience as a Prison Guard, Megaton was just too much. He was unpredictable and easily bored. In fact, Megaton was, from what you could understand, incredibly bored. To a point where around two months into his imprisonment, he tried to actually converse with you. You honestly didn’t know what to feel about that.

“Bored as usual, I assume?” You shot back at the grey mech trapped behind an energy barrier, tone refusing to hide your disapproval of his antics. He chuckled and then let out a sigh, expression momentarily softening and then returning to its usual sharp stare and slight smirk.

“Incredibly.” He practically purred that out, his piercing crimson optics narrowed at you in interest. It sent a shudder up your spine but you were an experienced guard, your frame did not betray you.

It started off small at first. He’d try casual small talk with you. You never replied… at first but somehow Megatron just knew how to rile you up enough to get the reaction and response he wanted. Of course you wouldn’t just let him get away with it. You’d stand up to yourself with your own sharp glossa. You had a pride! You might’ve not been a big military big-shot but you were a senior guard nonetheless and Megatron was exploiting that little shred of ego for his own amusement.

But that escalated, fast. Now he was full blown hitting on you sometimes. Might’ve found it amusing if it were literally any other prisoner. But him? That just didn’t even make sense nor did it sit right with you. He was clearly the proud, elegant, quiet and calculating type… to see him act like the total opposite for that was unnerving to say the least. More importantly, it brought up a bigger question:

Just how bored was he?

“You're lucky then. I have guard duty tonight.” You frowned, clearly not happy with the predicament of having to spend the night in Trypticon of all places with Megatron of all bots. You always ended up with the night shift, following orders you didn’t want to follow. Megatron knew that, he relished it.

“Don't make this any more unbearable than it has to be.” You sighed, resigned. He won't listen, he's Megatron after all but maybe for once, out some sense of.. non-existent pity, he might.

Megatron was quite happy with your predicament and it was evident in the small laugh he let out at your words and the way his derma slightly curved upwards.

“You can’t expect me to not make it unbearable,” He said with the usual sly grin, “Especially not when you give me such… entertaining reactions dear. After all, its unbearable for just you.”

“Do you do this with Fort Max too?” You raised an optical ridge as you opened the fuel chute, putting in some low-grade energon cubes.

Megatron clearly didn't like the mention of your fellow guard, his signature smirk slightly faltering at the mention of the mech. Made sense, the younger guard was silent with a hatred for Cons that rivalled Magnus’ own. Megatron hummed.

“Mmm. He’s not half as entertaining as you.” He sighed, Megatron wouldn’t show it to anyone but he did not like Fort Max.

“So I’m the only guard you annoy like this?” You huffed, shutting the fuel dispensing chute and making sure to lock it. Prison guards were supposed to maintain a menacing aura but clearly, the warlord was never intimidated and Megatron had a talent of making your exterior stoicism crack.

“Perhaps.” From all of your time stuck guarding him, you were aware that this was his fancy way little way of saying yes. The mech was quite dramatic for a bot in a cell.

“Am I supposed to feel flattered or concerned?” You scoff at his words, he spoke as if you were some sort of exception to a rule you weren't aware of.

“You tell me Autobot.” He leaned in closer, the static of the energy barrier cackling as he did so. Megatron looked as amused as ever.

“Concerned then.” Your optics narrowed at him, maintaining your usual nonchalant demeanour. If it weren’t for the tone of your voice, Megatron would’ve had a hard time reading you.

“Of course.” Megatron gave a slight smile, amused at the predictability of your answer. Even if you kept up your stoic façade, Megatron has been alive for long enough to see right through it. He was determined to shake that mask off of you, the slight flustered reactions you’d often give as a response were so entertaining and your annoyed ones even more so.

And that was just from his words.

“You don't find even a slight thrill in our little… thing?” He cooed, mockingly.

“There is no thing. There never has been a thing between us.” You retort, clearly unamused and annoyed by his implied words. Megatron feigned a mock offence, a servo on his chassis. How he loved playing his little game, even if it was one-sided.

“You're quite cold sparked.”

“And you don't know how to shut up.” You hissed, annoyance increasing as the moments went by. There was that snark he had grown to be so fond of. His smile grew slightly.

“You forget who you talk to, Autobot.” Megatron replied amused but the slight warning in his tone didn’t go unnoticed. You let out an amused laugh.

“Says the one in a cell.”

Now that, that got to him a bit. He absolutely despised being made ever so blissfully aware of his own predicament. Megatron kept his composure but his optics momentarily shone with pure rage at your gentle reminder. You were quite brave, he admitted that. Not a lot of ‘Bots or ‘Cons spoke to him in such a manner, not even that meddling nuisance Starscream. It was slightly amusing, refreshing even but Megatron will never tolerate two things– disrespect and insubordination.

That mouth of yours would cost you someday. He’d make sure of that.

However, the grey mech was a master of control. The both of you were aware of the fact that you mouthed off as much as you wanted only because of the purple energy barrier that kept the two of you separated and you thanked Primus with every glow of your spark everyday that Trypticon never faced power outages, unlike the rest of Kaon.

“Such a bold little Autobot but that mouth of yours will bite you back someday.” His voice was low but Megatron had his signature smile.

“Some day in the next… what? Five million years? I have time until then.” You shot him back with your own cocky grin. Megatron let out an amused chuckle. Even if you were able to get under his plating (funnily enough, a feat only his own soldiers managed to do), he’d be lying if he said he didn't find the exchanges between you two amusing and entertaining.

You were leaning against the wall opposite to the energy barrier now, a gun in servo. It was more like a standard prison guard uniform given how you rarely had to ever really use it but a necessary precaution given how they had to deal with Decepticons now.

“So cocky.” He huffed as he shifted on his seat a little, playfulness never leaving his demeanor. Megatron was still leaning against the energy barrier, he shifted a little to catch a better glimpse of you. You didn't really respond to that and let the silence take over for once which allowed Megatron’s deep red optics to actually study you carefully for once.

You were much taller than the average Autobot. It probably was a mandatory upgrade given your rather unsavory profession and clearly, you had some experience on you but you weren’t as old as to be alive during The Great War. Maybe the first generation of post-War Cybertronians, he assumed. But clearly nowhere near as experienced as he was. You had some combat training, he could tell from the way you held your gun. Your servos weren’t gripping the blaster like most amateurs end up doing. You had some skill. A useful, tidbit of information.

While Megatron wouldn’t say it outright, he had grown seemingly interested in your life. What was your name? Why did you work here? What made you pick this as a profession? Did you live in Kaon? He only ever heard bits and pieces of your life from the conversations he overheard across the empty halls. It's not like he wanted to listen but he was bored and quite literally had nothing better to do. His audials were more sensitive than most, especially given how he was a seasoned fighter. He needed to rely on every sense he had on the battlefield.

“What?” You raise an optical ridge with a quizzical look, questioning his lingering stare.

“Hm. I'm curious. You know, we've spoken for so so long, dear yet… I don't even know your name.” Megatron spoke, a slight mock gentleness to his tone.

“Not happening.” You deadpan, the one thing that kept you comfortable was knowing that Megatron was behind this cell and he’d never see the stars again with absolutely no knowledge on anything about you, other than some basic information. The last thing you want to hear is him calling out your designation with his velvet, silky voice… even if it did sound strangely hot. Wait what? You quickly threw away that thought as soon as it came, mentally scolding yourself for even thinking such a thing. why would you even think that?

“They don’t teach you manners at Autobot boot camp, do they?” A hint of annoyance laced his tone. But he knew it was not a matter. He’d find out your name, eventually.

“Nah. Not really.” You couldn’t help but chuckle slightly at his annoyance. Megatron didn’t like the taste of his own medicine, it would seem. Who would’ve guessed?

“Besides, professionalism. You’re the only prisoner that I’ve met who wants to know a guard personally”

Megatron holds back a snort. “Professionalism? You? Don’t mock my intellect.” He retorts, Megatron thought you were quite hilariously casual with your duties. When he found out he’d be under the supervision of a senior guard, he was expecting some rough and tough old mecha that was absolutely no-nonsense. Not a slightly stern and strangely amusing bot.

“Very funny.” You mutter, optics narrowing at him in disapproval. Oh, how he cherished your look of reproval. “I’m not even permitted to speak to you. Its against the code of conduct.”

There it was. That stick up your pipes. “So prim and proper…” The ex-warlord rolled his red optics as he remarked. Such a prude but it was a part of your charm. It oddly suited you. Ultra Magnus definitely would’ve liked the way you do things but he was glad you weren't working under the Magnus, oddly.

“But even then, why do you want to know that?” You are curious, what’s with the sudden interest? Wasn’t he the one that thought of you as just ‘entertainment’? He just grinned at your little question.

“Hm. Like you said, pet: ‘Not happening’.”

“Touché.”

The boredom must’ve been chewing him out if he was interested in your life, that was what you could conclude and honestly, you could care less if he died from his own boredom. But oddly enough, despite how weary you are around him (and how you fear him on the inside), a part deep within your spark would slightly miss this strange back-and-forth banter between the two of you.

“Wait. Pet?” You’re taken off-guard by his new nickname. Megatron always had one for you. This had to be by far the worst. A sly grin formed across his faceplates, you were so reactive to his words at times. Made his little game all the more fun.

“Mhm. You heard me, pet.” He cooed with a teasing softness, his velvety voice and it’s lilt provides emphasis on his playful mocking. He had that usual cocky look to his faceplates that you wish you could just slap off of him. Scratch that, you would not miss this banter.

“Again. You’re the one in a cage.” You retort in an effort to get back at him, slightly gritting your denta as your faceplates begin to form a sour expression. He was trying to get under your plating again and it was working, Megatron had your personality pinned down and discredit at this point, he was always an observant mech— He knew how to make you take the bait, hook, line and sinker.

“Maybe so but you’re the little guard dog following orders like some organic puppy.” Megatron’s tone was as mocking as ever. The anger continuing to bubble up. “So devoted to protecting your master, aren’t you?” He swore he saw your vents puff out steam at that one. It was all so amusing.

“Never compare me to an organic ever again,” You felt a slight disgust at the prospect of being compared to an organic which Megatron took notice of and chuckled, he shared your disdain. “And even then, I’m quite sure that pets don’t paid.” Working in the most hardcore penal facility on Cybertron did come with a massive paycheck.

“A monetary minded Autobot I see?” Megatron remarks, a smug snarkiness dripping from his tone. He was smart enough to know that wasn’t the reason why any bot would pick a job in a maximum security prison. “You must get along well with Swindle in the other wing then hm?”

You scoff, taking offence in being compared to Swindle. Unsavory memories of having to stop the cheapskate fraud from selling energon cubes, literally just the coverings guised as ‘special grade prison food’ to Blitzwing creeped onto your processor. A frown took over your features. “Please. He’d sell his own protoform if he could.”

That made Megatron laugh, it startled you. A deep, rumbling laugh. A genuine laugh— not him being amused or snarky or smug or teasing. Actual humor. You had never heard him laugh. The thought of Swindle selling his literal life was funny to him, strangely. Your priceless ‘caught off guard’ face made it all the more hilarious to him. You really were his only source of entertainment. Megatron hated law-enforcement. It was a well known fact. But to your dismay and his surprise, you might’ve wiggled your way up to be an exception but the proud mech would never admit that.

“Oh, you’re adorable...” Its slightly out of character, but he says this between held back laughs.

“...excuse me?”

second one this might take longer than i thought... also, this one is kinda old so im not very proud of it. im gonna go back to the few requests i have left now

[quirekey]

Can i request an Orion x gn!reader x d16 but the two try to fight for readers attention and friendship?

<3 pleeeeeeeaaaassse?

Live laugh Orion x Reader x D16 fr dude, I love this request dude I WAS WAITING FOR THIS

[ ORION PAX ] x [ GN!READER ] x [ D16 ]

[ Orion pax x D16 x Cybertronian!GN!reader ]

You were a pretty quiet Cybertronian Miner. Socialising wasn’t something you enjoyed and you preferred the peace and quiet instead of the constant bustling that you will hear. Not having any connections did make your job more lonely since every-bot had someone to call a friend while you are working your aft off in the mines.

After working in the mines for a while, these two mechs named Orion Pax and D16 turned out to become your closest friends you ever had yet. The three of you guys always got into some sort of trouble that was started by Orion and you three are inseperatable in the mines.

Overtime, the two have become possessive and each wanted one-on-one time with you and only you. It’s not that they were not friends anymore, they just had a disagreement on who should talk to you.

D16 thinks it’s unfair how Orion can just pull you away from him just to get in trouble by the higher-guards. D16 thinks that it’s rude to pull you away from what you are already doing and assumes that you just wanna talk to him instead of going around since it’s better to stay by the the rules instead of rebelling.

Orion thinks that it’s unfair because D16 is constantly bickering and yapping to you about whoever his new interest or idol is and nothing else. Orion assumes that you think it’s boring and it’s better to get your body moving and frame in shape instead of being isolated in the mines.

They’re both fair reasons but they keep vouching for you and assuming what you want, you’re just too scared to speak up. The two are now constantly fighting over you since they always want your attention and that you enjoy only their company.

“D, you have kept them inside of this isolating waste for so long! It wouldn’t hurt to at-least go outside and get some real light in your optics!”

“Well, I want to keep (Y/N) safe unlike you. You always get them into trouble and you guys could get punished! This is for their safety.”

“Well, you’re only online for so long.”

“At-least I’ll be online for longer than you.”

“And at least I am actually doing something with my life instead of staying in the mines.”

D16 just scoffed and walked off. D16 still cares for Orion but doesn’t want to admit it due to their friendship being at stake. Orion just smirked and shrugged at you, basically not caring one bit about the guy he used to hang out with every klick (minute).

“(Y/N), why is D now so down? He’s changed.”

“I’m not sure…”

You lied to him, you knew both of their secrets to a T but it was best to not share. You are pretty observant so you took some mental notes overtime and you’d reflect over them. Both D16 and Orion Pax are always fighting for your approval and friendship but seemingly their actions prove otherwise. They are way more affectionate than your regular friends and some could never be considered as platonic unless you are really close with them. You didn’t mind their affection but it was strange that they wanted you and only you.

It gets to a point where D16 gives you small kisses on the cheek when he walks by or Orion brings you somewhere empty then asks you to cuddle. You never declined because you didn’t mind but it was hard to pick between the two. You knew they liked you and you liked them back, the problem was that they didn’t want to share.

You just walked away from Orion and thought to yourself

‘Why did this have to happen to me…?’

Well you’re lucky enough that I enjoyed this because now I’m gonna continue this overtime… bigger poll than normal that’s for sure.

[revelboo]

hiya! just a lil guy in your inbox who is trying to get into writting, this stuff is hard hard but i get so baffled by how fast you do your work! im genuinely suprised you havent got burned out while im out here chipping away at my first fic... whats your secret 👀?

I’m just doing these for fun, so I don’t get too worried about making them perfect and Twitter’s word limits got me used to writing short and concise. I know with novels, just getting started can be the hardest part, that first chapter intimidating and serious fanfiction is probably the same. I’ve absolutely skipped ahead to scenes I was excited to write and then came back to the harder chapters before. I tend to just stick ‘888’ in the middle of a manuscript along with a sentence like (something happens) that way I can search for the 8’s later to fix it instead of getting stuck trying to write that one scene or chapter that I’m just not feeling at the time.

Even if it Kills Me Pt 23

Armada Starscream x Reader

• Painfully aware of him as you slide into his cupped hands and he ferries you down onto the floor of his habsuite before turning to go get food, you don’t regret what you did, but you can’t stop from feeling awkward about it. And the mini-cons are all staring at you, chirping softly among themselves to make you positive they know exactly what you and Starscream did while they were out. They’re grown, you remind yourself. Not that it makes it any better that they know you slept with their giant roomie.

• Venting as you sit crosslegged and put your face in your hands, he shoots the mini-cons a look and they fall silent, little faces innocent as they look up at him. And he’s not buying it at all. Lowering himself to sit with you and them, he nudges you with a box of your food before distributing energon to the waiting mini-cons. Why won’t you meet his optics? Watching you dig out a handful of your human food to eat, your silence bothers him. Still overthinking things? Dealing with hangups as you’d called them?

• You can feel his optics on you and that awareness twists to heat and need to your embarrassment. Is it just because you like him and he didn’t change after sex? That he’s still treating you the same, not like a belonging now? Chewing your dry cereal, you wonder if it had ever really been love with your ex. He’d been sweet until he’d managed to isolate you from everyone else and you’d been so infatuated, you’d not realized what he was doing until those bridges were burned and by then you’d been too ashamed to ask for help.

• Where did your thoughts go just then? Your expression emptying to make his wings fidget. “I thought we could go out,” he says to distract you because he hates when you go distant like that. Afraid you’re remembering painful things. “That you might like some sun?” And there’s a small smile. Spark aching when you look up at him, smiling like everything’s okay when it’s clearly not. Knows smuggling you in and out of the base increases the risk of getting caught. Of the Autobots kicking him out and losing the only place he’s ever felt truly safe, but he wants you to be happy. He’s not sure when that became more important than his own happiness.

• “I’d love that,” you manage, forcing a smile for him because he worries and broods when you’re unhappy. And it would be nice to feel the sun on your skin, the breeze in your hair. Leaning against his leg, you watch him tip up his own energon cube to drink. It’s still so strange, to have someone that’s not family looking out for you, to care if you’re happy or not. This is what love should be, you’re sure of it this time even if it scares you. Because loving him gives him the power to hurt you and you’re so tired of being hurt. He wouldn’t. You know that, trust him, but that fear is still there.

Previous

Next

[sightseertrespasser]

Odds of Survival Part 5

Customer Service Prowl.

Credit to @keferon for creating the tf mecha AU!

———————————————————————

The door behind the tactician hissed shut, isolating him from the outside world.

Prowl had a short walk, 11.2 clicks, to the communications terminal. He took exactly as long as was necessary. Not a click sooner.

Injury warning messages were manually silenced. He’d neglected his own self repair for lower priority tasks before. This was no different.

Shutting Tacnet off from working on the Jazz Mystery was a greater struggle. It’d been so long since Prowl had gotten to work through a puzzle like this, it had him booting up long dormant scripts he hadn’t used since working as a detective. The mental stretching warmed him up. It felt good. But it wasn’t what was currently required of him. He shut off that branch of his processor too.

Tactical estimates only.

For now.

Like packing up his room, Prowl “got into uniform”.

Optic hue shifted to within the parameters of the socially accepted spectrum.

Doorwings lifted high and almost pressed together, neither spread out in intimidation nor lowered in submission.

Helm tiled forward 24 degrees to cast the maximum level of shadow over his features while not obscuring vision.

Prowl reached the terminal like a silent storm.

He nodded the minimum angle required to be interpreted as bowing for the manifestation of War resolving on the screen.

“Lord Megatron.”

He glared from beneath his chevron, pricks of light in a darkened room.

“What are your demands?”

———————————

The course of action Megatron required tactical support for was frankly amateur. The solution incredibly simple.

Sentinel Prime had once more prodded the leader of the revolution into a vengeful fury, so now Megatron wanted to, of course, retaliate violently.

The correct course of action was to not engage.

It was clearly a trap designed to whittle away their limited resources, which would have been idiotic even if the Quintessons were not a factor in the equation. Since they were however, it lowered Prowls opinion of both leaders even further that they’d even considered reigniting the civil war at a time like this.

No, what truly challenged Prowls strategic prowess wasn’t the request itself, but how to tell Megatron “That is an idiotic idea and how dare you expect me to entertain it.”

The trick, after much trial and error, was to not tell him at all.

“There are 24 optimal targets for a retaliatory attack Lord Megatron. 8 of which would yield material gain if taken and 3 of which would yield additional territory.”

All three of the territorial land grabs overlapped with the material gains category. However, when phrased correctly, it both implied even more options for Megatron to pick through and forced him to choose from plans Prowl had decided in advance.

Megatron gave the illusion of consideration.

He selected the land grab options, for the obvious purpose of irking the standing Prime. It took one to know one and megalomaniacs despised having their property made smaller. Stolen goods were numbers on a page. A map was a picture of what was lost.

“Very well. For the most expedient retaliatory strike, the mining depot on ES 9-B33 will be ideal for your conquering.”

Prowl had the mining depot mission lined up for close to a vorn. It was on the edge of Cybertronian territory, minimally guarded and would provide the Decepticons with a cache of ever needed raw materials. And while it was a great boon for their small faction, to the sprawling colonial power of Cybertron, it was hardly worth notice.

Which meant Sentinel and the Functionalist government shouldn’t waste resources on restarting the Civil war (66%).

Megatron, satisfied in his ignorance, ordered Prowl to draw up the assault plans immediately.

Prowl was sorely tempted to tell the deception to “do it himself” and not just to get him out of the picture for a time.

It was a very rare thing for Tacnet to come up with 100% certainty. However, Prowl could say, with terrible absolute certainty, that nothing short of a true Prime, or maybe an exploding star, could take Megatron in a fight.

The mech had forced Prowl to reset his parameters of what a cybertronian could physically survive no less than 13 times. At least 5 of those being assassination attempts from Starscream, whose preferred method of execution was “beyond all reasonable restraint.”

Until further notice, Megatron was an immovable piece of the board that required skillful circumvention.

“The plan will be drafted in 4 breems Lord Megatron.” Prowl dipped his helm and did not break eye contact until the screen went dark.

Prowl connected to the communications system, pinging Soundwave for the most recent updates on ES 9-B33, layering the new information over his original outline.

Once received, it required only a fractional amount of processing power to run through which decepticons were available for action, filter out those not suited for the job and sort the minutiae of coordinating supply ships to reroute to arrive at the depot as the assault team would be wrapping up.

Will softened by boredom, temptation won out and Prowl turned the bulk his processing power to Jazz.

Details laid out plainly, it painted a concerning picture.

Jazz was a highly skilled combatant, he solely exists to kill Quintessons by his own admission.

And he loves music.

Jazz speaks a language neither Prowl nor Bluestreak have ever encountered, Jazz himself having never interacted with Common, let alone standard Cybertronian.

Jazz was exceptionally sociable, even going as far as to try and play card games with hostile organics. Yet even pressed chassis to chassis, not once did Prowl detect an EM field.

And he’s a shameless flirt.

Jazz had many unusual physical attributes, such as abnormal ranges of motion, multi jointed legs, and in spite of all his injuries, Prowl hadn’t seen so much as a drop of energon.

Jazz possessed a disturbingly high pain tolerance, and was at best accustomed to substandard medical treatment, if not outright abuse.

And he’s never felt a kind touch before.

When Bluestreak had asked about him, Prowl had told his brother that Jazz was an alien mechanical lifeform and to not harass him unnecessarily. Between his physical bizarreness and lack of common knowledge among cybertronians, it was a natural conclusion.

But something hadn’t been quite right ever since Prowl had rescued the mech. There was this nagging inconsistency with Jazz’s behavior.

He was very curious about Prowl, yet seemed far more in awe of the other alien life forms and ships they’d been traveling with. There was also the immediate (and somewhat overwhelming) familiarity with which Jazz conducted himself around Prowl.

It was almost as if…

Jazz doesn’t consider Prowl to be alien (88%).

If he thinks Prowl is the same species as him, then would that mean Jazz doesn’t realize he’s the alien?

Unless.

An alternate, unpleasant theory began to weave.

Unless Jazz isn’t an alien at all.

Prowl finished the assault plan and sent it with a harsh hand. Re-opening his comms to the backlog of messages from Bluestreak, he scrolled back to something his brother had said when he’d been repairing Jazz’s visor.

BLUESTREAK: [WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF.]

Too far.

PROWL: [Please do not comment aloud.]

BLUESTREAK: [Is he really fully in recharge? Just like that?]

PROWL: [No. Jazz is still conscious. He’s not completely limp either just… very sedated.]

BLUESTREAK: [Just from holding his face? C’mon Prowl, that’s weird. This is weird. You found a weird, weird mech who definitely has a thing for you.]

PROWL: [He does not have a “thing” for me.]

BLUESTREAK: [Oh yeah? What are you getting from his EM field then?]

PROWL: [Nothing. He doesn’t have an EM field Bluestreak. Jazz is an alien and likely doesn’t have all the same traits as a cybertronian.]

BLUESTREAK: [Are you sure? I mean, the anesthetic worked fine. And he looks pretty cybertronian to me.]

BLUESTREAK: [Maybe he has field atrophy? You had that once. I couldn’t feel you even if I was touching you.]

That was when Prowl had been apart of the decepticon High Command. He’d spent multiple Vorn isolating himself, doing nothing but churning through battle plans and inventory logs and reconnaissance reports with little rest. Then there was the first time he crashed.

A minor setback at first. Almost immediately Prowl went back to work. Over and over again, he’d bypass previous limitations of the decepticon military. With each success, the bar was placed a little higher, with is successive crash, the recovery took a little longer.

There were always improvements to be made. He’d long moved on from the most needed structural changes to continuously finer tuned modifications to how the entire faction operated. He sharpened Megatrons rebellion scrap into keen edged blades.

Prowl did anything for the edge.

Even down to the smallest percent.

Even down to the smallest decimal point of a percent.

At Prowls worse, when he had just started to tip over to spending the majority (51%) of his waking time in recovery from continuous Crashes, he had come up with a strategy that would give the decepticons a 0.04% advantage in the long run against the Quintessons.

Repairing critically damaged ships was not cost effective. If a ship’s structural integrity fell beneath 14%, Prowl had instituted a script to cause the ship to self destruct. Therefore causing maximum damage to surrounding attackers in a final blow.

Prowl stared at his reflection in the black glass.

You couldn’t see the break in his nose anymore, Smokescreen had punched him in the medbay so it was fixed fairly quickly.

0.04%

Bluestreak was stuck in the medbay for a quarter of a Vorn.

Prowl straightened, optics returning to his default blue. The injury warning messages eeked back into his processor, causing his doorwings to shake briefly before Prowl allowed them to drop.

If the Functionalists had someone like him in their employ, then Jazz may not be an alien at all.

———————————————————————

To all the folks who picked up on the clues, good job! There’s no Optimus and there’s no Autobots. Yet.

There’s more to how Prowl got into his current situation later and I’m sure Jazz will be “totally cool” with Prowls past life choices. And current life choices. And general sense of ethics.

Bluestreak knows Prowl’s responsible for blowing him up and uses it to blackmail him constantly once their relationship got better again.

(Cybertronian timescales are weird, but a Vorn is basically a “year” for them, and fifty years for a human. A breem is pretty consistently 8 minutes.)

-SSTP

<- First Next ->

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Namib Sand Geckos: these nocturnal geckos have biofluorescent markings that emit a bright, neon-green glow when exposed to the moonlight

This species (Pachydactylus rangei) is found only in the Namib Desert, which stretches across Namibia, Angola, and South Africa; the geckos typically inhabit the arid, coastal region known as the Skeleton Coast.

In order to escape from the blistering heat of the desert, they use their webbed feet to burrow down into the sand during the day, and then emerge only at night, when the temperature has finally dropped. The webbing on their feet also enables them to run more easily across the dunes.

Namib sand geckos are covered in translucent scales, but they also have a strangely colorful appearance, as the colors/shades of their circulatory system, spinal column, internal organs, and optical membranes remain partially visible through the skin, producing various shades of pink, dark blue, purple, magenta, orange, and yellow.

They also have several distinctive markings running along their lower flank and encircling their eyes; these markings are known to fluoresce when exposed to UV light (including moonlight), emitting a bright, neon-green glow.

Some researchers have theorized that the biofluorescent markings may act as a signal to other geckos, allowing them to locate one another in the vast, desolate expanse of the desert, as this paper explains:

The fluorescent areas of P. rangei are concentrated around the eyes and along the lower flanks. This positioning is practically invisible to predators with a higher perspective (e.g. birds and jackals), but highly conspicuous from a gecko’s perspective. As P. rangei is sociable but generally solitary, and occurs at low population densities, such a signal might serve to locate conspecifics over greater distances ...

Encounters in P. rangei might serve purposes beyond mating opportunities: as the Namib desert has extremely low precipitation, fog is a key water source for its flora and fauna. Fog condenses on the bodies of the geckos, and they lick it from their faces. In husbandry, we have observed individuals licking water from conspecifics, taking advantage of a much greater available surface area.

Additionally, after short periods of isolation, the geckos run to meet each other. The combination of vital hydration with socialisation might reinforce signals that enable such meetings, and the cost of visibility to predators with higher vantage points, might constrain the signals to regions best visible from eye-level and below.

The Namib sand gecko is the only terrestrial vertebrate that is known to use an iridophore-based form of biofluorescence (you can find a more detailed explanation of that mechanism in the article mentioned above). The fluorescent dermal markings are also unique to this species.

Sources & More Info:

Scientific Reports: Neon-green fluorescence in the desert gecko Pachydactylus rangei caused by iridophores

Animal Diversity Web: Pachydactylus rangei

Dr. Mark D. Scherz's Blog: A Neon-Green Glowing Gecko!

Australian Geographic: Skeleton Coast - Namibia's strange desert dwellers

[techhiz]

Can do Resquest TFA Longarm/Shockwave with femme cybertronian reader, where both are married and the reader is a housewife and is also pregnant and she doesn't know that Longarm is a decepticon spy but one day when she goes to the elite guard because Longarm forgot something but she discovers him in his true form and Longarm kidnaps her and puts him in the nemesis where later Bumblebee helps her out, and Y/N visits Shockwave in the prison letting him see the Sparkling

Deceptive Ties.

Y/N hummed softly as she moved about the cozy quarters she shared with Longarm Prime, her sparkmate. Life as a housewife in the heart of Cybertron wasn’t always exciting, but it was filled with moments of warmth, like preparing his energon cubes or decorating their space with trinkets and mementos. And now, with their sparkling on the way, her days were filled with a sense of purpose and quiet joy.

She placed a hand on her gently rounded abdomen, a smile tugging at her lips. Their sparkling’s arrival was only a few cycles away, and the anticipation filled her spark with both excitement and nerves.

“Y/N,” Longarm’s calm and familiar voice called from the doorway, snapping her out of her thoughts.

“Longarm! You’re back earlier than usual!” she exclaimed, moving to greet him. He smiled, his gentle demeanor masking the darker truth that lay beneath.

“I needed to grab something before heading to a meeting with Ultra Magnus. Important Elite Guard matters,” he said, leaning in to place a kiss on her helm.

“Take care, love,” she said softly, watching as he left.

Hours later, Y/N realized Longarm had forgotten a data pad. “He’s always so organized. This isn’t like him,” she mused. Deciding it might be important, she resolved to take it to him.

Arriving at the Elite Guard headquarters, she was met with the usual pleasantries and directed toward Longarm’s office. As she approached, she noticed voices inside and paused, not wanting to interrupt.

Her optics widened as the conversation unfolded.

“I’ll report to Megatron shortly,” the voice said, its tone chillingly different from Longarm’s usual calm cadence.

Y/N peeked in and gasped silently. Before her stood a figure she barely recognized—Longarm, but in a new form, darker and more menacing. His frame was bulkier, his optic a glowing crimson. Shockwave.

She stumbled back, unable to process what she had seen. The mech she had bonded her spark to, the father of her sparkling, was a Decepticon spy.

The slight noise of her movement alerted Shockwave, who swiftly turned. His optic locked onto hers.

“Y/N…” His voice was devoid of pretense now, cold and calculating.

Before she could flee, Shockwave closed the distance between them, grabbing her wrist.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” he growled.

“Let me go!” she pleaded, struggling against his grip.

“I can’t,” he said flatly, his optic softening for just a moment before hardening again. “You know too much now.”

Despite her protests, Shockwave used his abilities to create a ground bridge, pulling her through to the Nemesis. The dark, imposing warship was a stark contrast to the home they had shared.

“You lied to me!” she cried, her voice trembling with anger and betrayal. “Everything we had—was it all a facade?”

Shockwave’s expression flickered with guilt. “Not everything,” he admitted. “I did love you, Y/N. I still do. But my allegiance to the Decepticon cause comes first.”

Her spark ached at his words, but she refused to let him see her break.

The Decepticons were quick to isolate her in a secure chamber, though Shockwave ensured she was treated with care. Despite his actions, he couldn’t bear to see harm come to her or the sparkling.

Days turned into weeks. Y/N grew more withdrawn, her spark heavy with sadness. She spent her time speaking softly to her unborn sparkling, finding solace in the life she carried.

One day, she overheard the Decepticons planning an attack. Determined to escape and warn the Autobots, she used the little freedom Shockwave allowed her to send a coded distress signal.

Bumblebee was the first to intercept the signal. His energetic nature and determination drove him to act quickly. With the help of Optimus and the team, they launched a daring mission to retrieve Y/N from the Nemesis.

The battle was fierce, but Bumblebee managed to locate Y/N’s chamber.

“Y/N! I’m here to get you out!” he called.

Relief flooded her systems as she ran to him. “Thank you, Bumblebee,” she whispered.

Shockwave appeared, blocking their path.

“Leave her, Bumblebee. She’s safer here,” he said, his voice void of emotion but his optic betraying his internal conflict.

“She belongs with the Autobots!” Bumblebee retorted, shielding Y/N.

A tense standoff ensued, but Optimus arrived, forcing Shockwave to retreat.

Back at the Autobot base, Y/N was safe but emotionally shattered. The weight of Shockwave’s betrayal and the safety of her sparkling consumed her thoughts.

Weeks later, Shockwave was captured during a mission and imprisoned in a high-security facility.

Y/N visited him one last time, her sparkling cradled in her arms.

“This is your sparkling,” she said softly, her optics filled with sorrow.

Shockwave’s crimson gaze softened as he looked at the tiny mechling. “I’m… sorry,” he said, his voice breaking.

“You should have chosen us,” she replied, her voice firm but filled with pain.

As she turned to leave, the sparkling cooed softly, unaware of the weight of the moment.

Though life was never the same, Y/N found strength in her sparkling and the support of her Autobot family. The past lingered, but she vowed to protect her child from the shadows that had once consumed her life.

Shockwave remained a prisoner, haunted by the life he could have had.

[respectthepetty]

Pit Babe 2 Colors - Ep. 6

I'm watching the second season of Pit Babe on mute with no subtitles and double-speed just like I did the first season, and although I know the optics aren't looking good for William right now, I don't think he is *the* baddie who will ruin everything.

I DO think that Charles should be allowed to fuck him up. Yes. Definitely. For sure. 100%

But I also think he is in this for Charles. From the teaser trailer, I have been thinking he was doing all this to get Charles. If not, why the pink lighting?

Like the pink doesn't feel pink when he is with his bff. (I'm ignoring that chef doll holding the pig on the left because it scares me)

But he is also red around Barbie (it's in the drink) while blue with Charles (the drink once again).

And although the go-cart racing reminds me that the second season is a different beast than the first (yet these boys always have their damn helmets on them at any given time), we still got callbacks to the first season with the red and blue lighting and Sonic's use of flares (yes, I wrote his name . . .)

The old bar might be gone, but for a brief second it felt like the first season with Sonic and Southwest Airlines out of color and watching late-night drag races, so why wouldn't there be more than one bad guy? And why wouldn't one of them be *in* the team? But more importantly, why does Sonic have a red drink?!

Barbara has a red car, which really pisses me off, but he was raised by Team Evil.

At the end of the day, he is still a Black Brooder.

Even in the Rainbow Tunnel of Love.

But Sonic entered this season colorless, and now twice in this episode when he regained some color, he had a reflection that didn't include the people around him. Kinda as if he is isolated or living a double life.

But mirrors were used multiple time this episodes, like to show Barbie and Charles still aren't great in their light and dark towels because their reflection was fogged up, but also the light kept fizzling in and out, and I don't think that was just because of sex, so either their love is still on the rocks or someone's powers are about to go haywire.

Charles has always been a solid Blue Boy who brings light to Barbie's life (and A+ stalking skills by still watching Barbie on the cameras).

And Black Brooder Barbie clearly misses him because he wakes up in the blue.

But they are obviously fighting. I don't need subs for that.

So now Charles is ignoring Barbie's calls (who is in his phone as "Mama💗")

Because whatever he heard William say rattled him enough that he is about to sacrifice himself since is he now dressed in all white. jfc

Then we got Peter and Christopher Waymundo's reflection, yet the focus was on Christopher with a tiny barrier coming between him and Peter, so they too were arguing.

Also, when the focus shifted away from the reflection, Christopher had the horns near his head.

So although Christopher is constantly the light one and Peter is consistently the dark one,

And unlike Kentana and Kimberly, who I think are demonstrating a perfect balance between light and dark,

The show seemed to play up that whatever they were discussing, Christopher was the bad guy and Peter was the good one, specifically in regards to Blue Boy Charles.

I do think both Peter and Christopher are good because the blue backs them up.

But from the looks Christopher Waymundo keeps giving Barbie, I don't think he likes him, and I think he wants that blue potion more than anything else.

He is no angel like Kimberly.

But it's probably because lives are depending on that blue potion, like Alan's (yes, Alan's!), so Christopher needs to figure this out NOW! I asked several questions last episode and although people told me Alan is just a normal dude who is growing older, the show is really harping on him being hurt and in pain, so I think he'll be the perfect experiment for Team Evil to see if their potion works.

Imagine this hot man with superpowers? If I was Team Evil, I'd kidnap his fine ass and juice him up!

Because not only would it distract Jeffrey who has the ability to see the future, but it would hurt Barbie and truly leave him without anyone. I think William wants Charles, but Tony wants Barbie, and the only way to do that is through isolation.

Jeffrey, can I get a vision of the future? I see the red and blue on you, so you have to know some shit's about to go down! Is Sonic really Shadow?

Dean, you're lucky you keep wearing that uniform. It's the only thing saving you right now!

[oddthumbswetsleeves]

Hiding - Oneshot

Inspired by this post by @crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington <3

“Have you heard from B today?”

Elita-1 looked up from her datapad at her former-incompetent-subordinate turned leader. He looked stressed, or maybe nervous? It was hard to tell ever since he received the matrix.

“No. I haven’t seen him since the last time he messed up putting the supplies in storage.’ She looked back at the forms she was filling out. “He’s probably avoiding us cause he’s embarrassed.

“Embarrassed?” Optimus sounded confused. Elita realised she had neglected to tell the prime about B’s latest incident.

“He put a lot of the supplies he was sorting into the wrong places. I mean, seriously! I gave him possibly the easiest job I could have, and he still messed it up.” Optimus didn’t look like her answer had put him at ease. “He’ll be fine. If he’s embarrassed it might teach him to listen a little more.”

“Just-“ They met optics, “Tell me if you see him, or if you can get through to him. He won’t answer my comms.” He sighed. “I’m worried.”

He definitely looked nervous now.

“Yeah, sure.” Elita went back to reading. Optimus was silent for a moment, as if he wanted to say something else, but left quickly.

Once he was out of audial-range she tried B-127’s comm, certain Optimus was exaggerating. B never missed an opportunity to blabber.

“B”

Nothing

“B-127, respond.”

Still nothing

“B, this isn’t funny. Answer me.”

Silence

Elita never thought she would be able to use that word to describe the yellow bot. She started feeling slightly worried before it was replaced with something else.

How dare he hide away from his duties as an Autobot because he was embarrassed. He wasn’t the only one struggling with his new status. Being the Autobot commander and essentially second-in-command of Cybertron was exhausting. Every moment she wasn’t recharging or refuelling she was working. B was not going to get away with skirting his duties.

She was gonna find him.

Where the frag was he?

Elita had spent nearly half the orn asking around for the little mech. No one had seen him since she had. Not Jazz, not Ratchet, not even Prowl, who was usually aware of all Autobot activity. The other scouts had gibed her about B-127’s unrivalled skills in what they called “Extreme Hide and Seek”.

“If B’s hiding from you there’s no chance you’ll find him” one taunted. Primus, she hated being around the scouts, nosy bunch.

“Wait, why do you think he’s hiding from me?”

“Why else would you be looking for him? He’s told us about how busy you are.” Another one answered.

“Well, you’re not helping!” She stormed off before they could peeve her off more.

Elita was definitely getting hangry, so she decided to stop to get energon before anyone could risk mentioning it to her. Everyone had really been enjoying the abundance of it. The decreasing rations had been affecting the cogless bots hard. She remembered after being transferred to waste management seeing how some of the supervisors were stealing others rations off the delivery lines for themselves. That was one of the first things she fixed, especially since many of the bots on lower levels didn’t leave their stations during their breaks. Mostly the bots on the sub-

The sub-levels

“The best hiding spots are ones that other bots don’t know exist.” B-127 told her that once while he was training to be a scout. He was mostly talking about places that taller bots couldn’t get to, but almost no one knew about the 10 extra sub-levels.

“Scrap”

The elevator rattled more the lower it went. It was also getting noticeably hotter. The doors opened and after stepping out they surprisingly didn’t close behind her. Strange. She didn’t say anything at first, trying to hear any noise that wasn’t coming from the furnace.

She felt isolated.

Even though Elita knew she could contact anyone she wanted instantly, there was just something about the room emanated loneliness, but B had to be here.

She looked around. The room was small, nothing besides the furnace, the conveyor belt, and the trash chute.

Unless…

One of the walls seemed to have a handle, and when she moved it... Another room! She pushed it over.

What on Cybertron?

The walls were lined with multicolour string lights. The room had a table and chairs, but in the chairs were 3 piles of trash. They were kind of bot shaped. She guessed one of these were what “Steve” was, who Orion supposedly killed and D-16 insisted wasn’t real. Primus this guy was weird. Just before she turned away, she saw it. There was something golden-yellow barely poking up from behind the table. Elita had to stop herself from groaning. Some hiding expert he was.

“B” He didn’t move. Elita crossed her arms.

“B-127 I can see you.” He slowly ducked out of view. Elita’s face scrunched up, “Get out here right now or so help me, I will drag you back up to Iacon by your finials.”

The bot cautiously stood up, looking anywhere except her face. Neither one said anything for a few moments. Elita tapped her finger against her arm, making sure B could hear it. He still did not say anything. Elita started feeling nervous again, B didn’t even recharge this quietly. She wouldn’t show it though, he wasn’t getting any pity from her.

“Well?” she prompted.

“Why are you down here?” He asked quietly.

“I could ask you the same thing.” Elita leaned forward, but B still didn’t look up. “Why are you hiding? Do you think I’ll just forget your screw-up if I don’t see you for a few orns?”

“I’m not hiding. You know I’m here now, you can go back to work.” He fidgeted with his servos.

“What, so you can keep sulking here?”

“I’m not sulking.” His voice was low, but a bit rough.

Had he been crying?

“Then why are you down here?”

“You were really mad at me the last time I messed up. You said I was running out of chances.”

“So?” Her gaze steeled. His breath hitched.

Was he going to cry again?

“Well, that’s what supervisors used to say to me before I would get demoted” their optics met, “and you were a supervisor…”

“So, you came down here?” She gripped her arms a bit tighter.

“I’ve never had a boss who was my friend before.” He looked down at his servos, still keeping his voice low. “I just didn’t want to see your face when you decided to give up on me.” Fluid dripped from his optics.

“Give up?” Her voice was suddenly much softer. She cleared her throat. “Why would you think I’d give up on you? We’re friends, you said it yourself.”

“Megatron was Optimus’ friend, and he dropped him to the centre of Cybertron.”

Elita felt a pang in her spark. That might have been the scariest moment of her life, including everything that happened leading up to it. B had been the one to stop her from trying to grab Orion as he plummeted. In the frenzy she might have fallen after him. B had probably saved her life.

She was definitely failing to hide her pity now.

They were both silent for a while, the furnace rumbling softly behind her. Elita sighed and walked around the table. B shrunk under her gaze. This was the first time she had ever felt bad about making a subordinate scared of her. She put her servos on his shoulders, taking care to be gentle, and bent down slightly to be at optic level with the scout.

He was definitely crying.

Elita wrapped her arms around him tightly. He tentatively moved his servos up to her back. She felt him shake.

“Are you not mad at me?” B’s voice quivered. She sighed, squeezing tighter.

“I’m not sure I am anymore.” Letting go to hold his shoulders again. He sniffled and she moved her servos to cup his face. “Why haven’t you answered any comms? Optimus is practically beside himself.”

“I didn’t know you guys were calling me.”

“What?! Is your commlink broken?” She turned his helm to look at his audials. He pulled her servos away from his face. They had tears on them.

“No.” He looked towards the furnace. “I’m pretty sure no signals reach down here from the surface.

Elita’s face scrunched. She turned away, reaching a digit up to her commlink.

“Optimus, come in.”

No response. She swore quietly.

“We’re going back to Iacon before the boss starts pulling walls down to find you.” She held her servo out. B hesitated.

“He’s looking for me?”

“Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be?” B tapped his pedes nervously.

“I thought you guys were kinda fed up of me.” Elita chose not to address that. She grabbed his servo and pulled him towards the elevator. It was still open.

“How come these doors didn’t close behind me?”

“Cause they don’t open from this side. It’s so if somebot comes down here to get something they won’t get stuck.”

“But that means…” Her spark sank in her chassis.

“Yeah, I can’t call the elevator.”

She stared at him. She felt the rage she frequently had for Sentinel and his lackeys build up.

“So you planned on staying down here forever?” B started wringing his servos again.

“I dunno”

“Well how would you have come back up if I hadn’t found you here?”

“Optimus, Megatron and I climbed up through the chute.” He pointed at it. “I probably could have done that again.”

“Would you have?”

B didn’t answer.

“You’re coming back to Iacon with me.” She put a servo on his shoulder. “I cleared my schedule when I went looking for you so we can do whatever you want, ok?” She led him into the lift. He shrugged. “There are a couple movies I’ve been too busy to watch. We can watch them in my quarters if you want.”

“Sure” He smiled for the first time since she found him.

“We do have to go see Prime first. I’m a bit worried he has actually turned headquarters upside down in my absence.” B giggled. Elita felt a weight lift off her spark. Once the elevator started moving, she pulled him into another hug, more forcefully this time.

“Never scare me like that again, or I will actually kill you.”

“Okay”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Utah’s getting some of America’s best broadband

TOMORROW (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the country, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading and downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.

This broadband service is, of course, delivered via fiber optic cable. Of course it is. Fiber is vastly superior to all other forms of broadband delivery, including satellites, but also cable and DSL. Fiber caps out at 100tb/s, while cable caps out at 50gb/s – that is, fiber is 1,000 times faster:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/why-fiber-vastly-superior-cable-and-5g

Despite the obvious superiority of fiber, America has been very slow to adopt it. Our monopolistic carriers act as though pulling fiber to our homes is an impossible challenge. All those wires that currently go to your house, from power-lines to copper phone-lines, are relics of a mysterious, fallen civilization and its long-lost arts. Apparently we could no more get a new wire to your house than we could build the pyramids using only hand-tools.

In a sense, the people who say we can't pull wires anymore are right: these are relics of a lost civilization. Specifically, electrification and later, universal telephone service was accomplished through massive federal grants under the New Deal – grants that were typically made to either local governments or non-profit co-operatives who got everyone in town connected to these essential modern utilities.

Today – thanks to decades of neoliberalism and its dogmatic insistence that governments can't do anything and shouldn't try, lest they break the fragile equilibrium of the market – we have lost much of the public capacity that our grandparents took for granted. But in the isolated pockets where this capacity lives on, amazing things happen.

Since 2015, residents of Jackson County, KY – one of the poorest counties in America – have enjoyed some of the country's fastest, cheapest, most reliable broadband. The desperately poor Appalachian county is home to a rural telephone co-op, which grew out of its rural electrification co-op, and it used a combination of federal grants and local capacity to bring fiber to every home in the county, traversing dangerous mountain passes with a mule named "Ole Bub" to reach the most remote homes. The result was an immediately economic uplift for the community, and in the longer term, the county had reliable and effective broadband during the covid lockdowns:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Contrast this with places where the private sector has the only say over who gets broadband, at what speed, and at what price. America is full of broadband deserts – deserts that strand our poorest people. Even in the hearts of our largest densest cities, whole neighborhoods can't get any broadband. You won't be surprised to learn that these are the neighborhoods that were historically redlined, and that the people who live in them are Black and brown, and also live with some of the highest levels of pollution and its attendant sicknesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

These places are not set up for success under the best of circumstances, and during the lockdowns, they suffered terribly. You think your kid found it hard to go to Zoom school? Imagine what life was like for kids who attended remote learning while sitting on the baking tarmac in a Taco Bell parking lot, using its free wifi:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/02/elem-s02.html

ISPs loathe competition. They divide up the country into exclusive territories like the Pope dividing up the "new world" and do not trouble one another by trying to sell to customers outside of "their" turf. When Frontier – one of the worst of America's terrible ISPs – went bankrupt, we got to see their books, and we learned two important facts:

The company booked one million customers who had no alternative as an asset, because they would pay more for slower broadband, and Frontier could save a fortune by skipping maintenance, and charging these customers for broadband even through multi-day outages; and

Frontier knew that it could make a billion dollars in profit over a decade by investing in fiber build-out, but it chose not to, because stock analysts will downrank any carrier that made capital investments that took more than five years to mature. Because Frontier's execs were paid primarily in stock, they chose to strand their customers with aging copper connections and to leave a billion dollars sitting on the table, so that their personal net worth didn't suffer a temporary downturn:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

ISPs maintain the weirdest position: that a) only the private sector can deliver broadband effectively, but b) to do so, they'll need massive, unsupervised, no-strings-attached government handouts. For years, America went along with this improbable scheme, which is why Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave the carriers $45 billion in public funds to string slow, 19th-century-style copper lines across rural America:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Now, this is obviously untrue, and people keep figuring out that publicly provisioned broadband is the only way for America to get the same standard of broadband connectivity that our cousins in other high-income nations enjoy. In order to thwart the public's will, the cable and telco lobbyists joined ALEC, the far-right, corporatist lobbying shop, and drafted "model legislation" banning cities and counties from providing broadband, even in places the carriers chose not to serve:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

Red states across America adopted these rules, and legislators sold this to their base by saying that this was just "keeping the government out of their internet" (even as every carrier relied on an exclusive, government-granted territorial charter, often with massive government subsidies).

ALEC didn't target red states exclusively because they had pliable, bribable conservative lawmakers. Red states trend rural, and rural places are the most likely sites for public fiber. Partly, that's because low-density areas are harder to make a business case for, but also because these are also the places that got electricity and telephone through New Deal co-ops, which are often still in place.

Just about the only places in America where people like their internet service are the 450+ small towns where the local government provides fiber. These places vote solidly Republican, and it was their beloved conservative lawmakers whom ALEC targeted to enact laws banning their equally beloved fiber – keep voting for Christmas, turkeys, and see where it gets you:

https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map

But spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible.

Which brings me back to Utah, a red state with a Republican governor and legislature, and a national leader in passing unconstitutional, unhinged, unworkable legislation as part of an elaborate culture war kabuki:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165975112/utah-passes-an-age-verification-law-for-anyone-using-social-media

For more than two decades, a coalition of 21 cities in Utah have been building out municipal fiber. The consortium calls itself UTOPIA: "Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency":

https://www.utopiafiber.com/faqs/

UTOPIA pursues a hybrid model: they run "open access" fiber and then let anyone offer service over it. This can deliver the best of both worlds: publicly provisioned, blazing-fast fiber to your home, but with service provided by your choice of competing carriers. That means that if Moms for Liberty captures you local government, you're not captive to their ideas about what sites your ISP should block.

As Karl Bode writes for Techdirt, Utahns in UTOPIA regions have their choice of 18 carriers, and competition has driven down prices and increased speeds. Want uncapped 1gb fiber? That's $75/month. Want 10gb fiber? That's $150:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/15/utah-locals-are-getting-cheap-10-gbps-fiber-thanks-to-local-governments/

UTOPIA's path to glory wasn't an easy one. The dismal telco monopolists Qwest and Lumen sued to put them out of business, delaying the rollout by years:

https://www.deseret.com/2005/7/22/19903471/utopia-responds-to-qwest-lawsuit/

UTOPIA has been profitable and self-sustaining for over 15 years and shows no sign of slowing. But 17 states still ban any attempt at this.

Keeping up such an obviously bad policy requires a steady stream of distractions and lies. The "government broadband doesn't work" lie has worn thin, so we've gotten a string of new lies about wireless service, insisting that fiber is obviated by point-to-point microwave relays, or 5g, or satellite service.

There's plenty of places where these services make sense. You're not going to be able to use fiber in a moving car, so yeah, you're going to want 5g (and those 5g towers are going to need to be connected to each other with fiber). Microwave relay service can fill the gap until fiber can be brought in, and it's great for temporary sites (especially in places where it doesn't rain, because rain, clouds, leaves and other obstructions are deadly for microwave relays). Satellite can make sense for an RV or a boat or remote scientific station.

But wireless services are orders of magnitude slower than fiber. With satellite service, you share your bandwidth with an entire region or even a state. If there's only a couple of users in your satellite's footprint, you might get great service, but when your carrier adds a thousand more customers, your connection is sliced into a thousand pieces.

That's also true for everyone sharing your fiber trunk, but the difference is that your fiber trunk supports speeds that are tens of thousands of times faster than the maximum speeds we can put through freespace electromagnetic spectrum. If we need more fiber capacity, we can just fish a new strand of fiber through the conduit. And while you can increase the capacity of wireless by increasing your power and bandwidth, at a certain point you start pump so much EM into the air that birds start falling out of the sky.

Every wireless device in a region shares the same electromagnetic spectrum, and we are only issued one such spectrum per universe. Each strand of fiber, by contrast, has its own little pocket universe, containing a subset of that spectrum.

Despite all its disadvantages, satellite broadband has one distinct advantage, at least from an investor's perspective: it can be monopolized. Just as we only have one electromagnetic spectrum, we also only have one sky, and the satellite density needed to sustain a colorably fast broadband speed pushes the limit of that shared sky:

https://spacenews.com/starlink-vs-the-astronomers/

Private investors love monopoly telecoms providers, because, like pre-bankruptcy Frontier, they are too big to care. Back in 2021, Altice – the fourth-largest cable operator in America – announced that it was slashing its broadband speeds, to be "in line with other ISPs":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

In other words: "We've figured out that our competitors are so much worse than we are that we are deliberately degrading our service because we know you will still pay us the same for less."

This is why corporate shills and pro-monopolists prefer satellite to municipal fiber. Sure, it's orders of magnitude slower than fiber. Sure, it costs subscribers far more. Sure, it's less reliable. But boy oh boy is it profitable.

The thing is, reality has a pronounced leftist bias. No amount of market magic will conjure up new electromagnetic spectra that will allow satellite to attain parity with fiber. Physics hates Starlink.

Yeah, I'm talking about Starlink. Of course I am. Elon Musk basically claims that his business genius can triumph over physics itself.

That's not the only vast, impersonal, implacable force that Musk claims he can best with his incredible reality-distortion field. Musk also claims that he can somehow add so many cars to the road that he will end traffic – in other words, he will best geometry too:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Geometry hates Tesla, and physics hates Starlink. Reality has a leftist bias. The future is fiber, and public transit. These are both vastly preferable, more efficient, safer, more reliable and more plausible than satellite and private vehicles. Their only disadvantage is that they fail to give an easily gulled, thin-skinned compulsive liar more power over billions of people. That's a disadvantage I can live with.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

Image: 4028mdk09 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_LED_Fiberglasleuchte.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[wolfeoflullabies]

First Meetings: Chapter 1

I figured I'd post my ao3 fic on here. This is inspired by @keferon's amazing reverse mecha au. I love their stuff so much!

Summary:

Jazz broke into the Quintesson base to steal back a battle computer that could change the course of the war.

At the same time Prowl, who had the battle computer they stole from the Quintessons installed in him, was captured by the Quintessons trying to get their battle computer back.

Jazz crept through the Quintesson base’s vents. They had finally managed to track down where the battle computer the Quintessons stole was being stored. Every mech that tried to use it had it removed after a few orns—and those were mechs whose entire jobs were to crunch numbers and make plans. It was too powerful for even the best mechs to safely handle it. There was no way they could let the Quintessons figure out a way to use it.

That meant it was Jazz’s job to steal it back from the Quints. By any means necessary.

If the Quints could get the battle computer to work for them it might be the tipping point of the war, moving it in their favor.

Jazz managed to sneak into the base behind a group of Quintesson scouts returning from patrol before jumping into the first set of vents he could find that were large enough to fit his armor. It was a tight squeeze, but he managed to make it. Jazz would leave his armor behind and continue in his unshrinkable form if he needed to, but he’d rather not leave himself so vulnerable in enemy territory, even if it was stealthier.

Hopefully he could find some sort of lead before then.

He just needed to keep an optic out, and—

There.

A Quintesson scientist walking through the halls. If anyone could lead Jazz to the battle computer, it would be one of them. He just needed to wait for the Quintesson to get somewhere a little more isolated before interrogating him.

Jazz followed the scientist through several hallways before they made their way to a dark room. Jazz’s visor automatically adjusted his vision allowing him to see the other scientist already in the room at a computer and, more importantly, the motionless mech in the center of the room.

The mech was laying on their front, his servos and pedes restrained to the table. His legs were bent at an awkward angle, possible damage from how the Quints captured him. More importantly there was a massive cable plugged into the back of their neck that directly connected them to the Quintesson’s computer.

What the frag were the Quintessons doing to the mech?

“Any progress on accessing the battle computer?” The Quintesson Jazz followed asked.

What?

The other scientist’s tentacles wiggled in agitation. “It continues to resist my attempts to access the battle computer.”

“Why do you insist on keeping it alive? It would be more productive to work directly with the battle computer.” The first scientist sneered.

“Because it is capable of using the battle computer. Your attempts to utilize the battle computer were nowhere near as successful as it is. If we can utilize it as an interface for the battle computer, it can actually be useful to us.”

Frag. He thought he would be able to carry the battle computer out the way he came in. There was no way he could sneak an unresponsive mech out through the vents. It would be too loud and draw the Quintesson’s attention. He couldn’t just leave him here though.

Jazz was debating how to get himself and the other mech out of the base in mostly one piece as the scientists continued arguing with each other. They might be able to sneak through the halls, but they’d need to be really lucky to avoid everyone who might raise an alarm. No, that was a terrible idea. Fighting their way out wasn’t a good idea either—even if the other mech was still able to fight. They were in the middle of a Quint base, they’d be swarmed.

The mech’s servo briefly twitched before he began convulsing and screaming. The battle computer must have been going in overdrive because the cable and computer began sparking and smoking. The scientists backed away swearing.

“I thought you said there’s no way it could wake up.”

“There isn’t. I don’t understand how—”

The scientist didn’t get to finish his sentence because Jazz killed both of them with a single shot each. Dropping out of the vent he approached the convulsing mech. He had never seen a mech convulse like this before. Was it a crash?

How did he fix this?

He needed to get the mech out, and Jazz would rather not have to haul a lifeless frame out.

Maybe the cable was the problem? If the Quints were using it to query the battle computer, it might have sent it into overdrive. With no better idea of how to help the mech Jazz ripped the cable out of the mech’s neck and he immediately went limp.

“Hey, you feeling better?” Jazz asked as he started cutting open the restraints. And wow, was this mech’s legs weird. Now that he was so close Jazz could see that the mech’s legs were naturally bent like that instead of being damaged. At least Jazz didn’t need to worry about him being able to walk in the escape.

The mech turned to face Jazz as soon as he was freed, letting Jazz see his face for the first time. Only, there was no face. A dark red chevron led into a visor and smooth battle mask below that. The connection seams between these pieces were too thin to be a battle mask.

Was he an empurata victim? That could explain the face and legs. Or did the Quints do this to him?

The mech said something, but Jazz couldn’t understand a single glyph. “I don’t understand you. Do you understand me?” Jazz asked, but the mech didn’t answer that.

Instead, the mech asked in the Quintesson’s language, “Who are you?”

“I’m Jazz. You?” Jazz responded with a grin. Friendly, he needed to be friendly. Get this mech to trust him and escape the Quintessons together. They could figure everything else out afterwards.

“Prowl. Why are you here?” Prowl asked, standing up from the table he was strapped too. And, wow, Prowl was big. Standing a full head taller than Jazz and broader as well. Not to mention the three pairs of sort-of-doorwings that stretched out. There was no way Prowl could fit in the vents. He needed a new plan to sneak them out.

“I’m here to recover the battle computer the Quintesons stole from us. Which means rescuing you.” Jazz grinned leaning towards Prowl.

Prowl nodded decisively at Jazz’s statement and started walking to the door. “Follow me.”

“Hey, wait. You’re going to die if you try walking out of here.” Jazz shouted reaching over to grab Prowl’s shoulder and stop him from leaving. “Do you even know the way out?”

 Prowl froze at the touch. “Of course I do. While I was plugged into their systems, I found the structural plans of the base and the patrol schedules. I’ve already calculated the optimal path for escape.”

“And after you get off base? How do you plan on leaving this planet yourself?” Jazz asked. They were on a desolate rock whose notable feature was the base they were in right now. The ship he came in on was the only way Prowl was getting out of here. Even if it would be a tighter fit with an extra person. He didn’t expect this to turn into a rescue mission and focused on stealth and speed, not space.

“I’m leaving through their space bridge, not the front door.”

“Do you know how risky using the Quintessons’ space bridge is?” Jazz hissed. Did this mech have a death wish?

Prowl turned to face Jazz. It was hard trying to tell what Prowl was feeling with his lack of a face or EM field, but the way Prowl tilted his head to look at Jazz screamed exasperation.

“I know how to operate the space bridge. It’s our best chance of escaping this place.” Prowl flatly said.

“Or we could fly out of here in my ship and not risk taking a space bridge.” Jazz suggested.

“No. Leaving the base has an 82.8% chance of us dying. Bridging away, however, only has a 22.4% chance of us dying.”

Wonderful.

“Is that the battle computer talking?” Jazz asked.

“Yes. Now, are you coming with me or not?” Prowl asked.

Jazz vented. He didn’t think it was a good idea, but the battle computer was supposed to be able to calculate the best course of action in any situation. “Fine. But if this fails, we’re doing things my way.”

Prowl sharply nodded and headed towards the door. This time Jazz didn’t try to stop him and instead followed him out.

[lets-try-some-writing]

I wonder what was Mars reaction to humans sending him rovers the first time. i imagine Earth probably warned him in advance that humans planned on sending him something (Sojourner was the first sent if i believe correctly) and he knowing what humans are like prepared for the worst definitely

Mars: I really hope this thing won't infect me with anything..

Sojourner: *beeps*

Mars:

Sojourner:*starts collecting rocks*

Mars:

Moon: Earth asks if you're al- *senses Mars em field*Are you crying??

Mars: *deep in fatherhood*No *he is*

This is adorable and it deserves a mini fic. Enjoy.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━

Mars always told himself he didn’t mind the solitude. He was near his brother and close enough to Mortus—or rather Pluto—to feel content with himself. Sometimes Halley came to visit, which was always a pleasant surprise. It was not often someone immune to the rust corroding him happened to be both nearby and actually interested in communication. Earth was certainly nice enough, and Mars eagerly awaited her every message when she saw fit to reach out to him or use Moon as a proxy.

Moon. Mars. Pluto. He would never fully adjust to the new names given to them by his brother’s beloved Terra. Personally, he preferred his Cybertronian name, but he would never dare say as such aloud. Mortus didn’t care, and Fengari, his elder brother, would be prone to lash out if Mars ever voiced his objection to his new name. Not only that, but he wasn’t keen on making Terra upset. 

How many vorns had he been in orbit around the Unmaker and the life giving Titan who shielded him? It was hard to keep track without any citizens on his surface to constantly chatter to and about him.

Right. Citizens.

Being in his alternate mode, Mars was incapable of sighing as he wanted to. But as he took control over one of his drones and piloted it to the surface, he let the drone pause and linger on the view. Why had he lived while his wards died? It was not fair. He should have carried them until the very end, bringing them to salvation and away from the fires of Cybertron.

If only there hadn’t been plague. Maybe then he could at least have the chance to take on new citizens and ease the ache in his spark.

No, no. He couldn’t think like that. Contemplating such things almost always led to dark thoughts. It was not allowed. He had to stay calm and composed for Fengari. His poor brother was blind for Prima’s sake. Fengari lost his optics, his citizens, and his ability to take to the stars if he so desired in order to stay with Earth. Fengari suffered more. It was not Mars’s place to weep when he at least had remnants of his people upon his frame in the form of paintwork.

He still had them with him, in his spark and through the echoes they left upon his surface. Sweet Solus, many of their inner habitations were still untouched. He’d ensured it remained that way.

He still had relics. He had echos. He was fine. He had no reason to cry.

Right?

“Primus, our maker... we are so far from you. Can you hear us? Do our sparks still resonate with yours?” He spoke through his drone, letting his voice ring out with only a slight bit of static due to the corrosion of his vessel. He sighed as he received no answer, not that he really expected one. He stared though his drone in silence for a while, the quiet of the void all but deafening.

If he listened closely with his real body, he could hear the faint song of stars, the thrum of their very being radiating nearby. Earth’s Star had quite the pleasant melody. Enough for him to fall into recharge.

But he couldn’t allow that. If he slumbered, he may not wake. Instead, he endured the silence, the isolation. Perhaps Mortus would be kind enough to come and pay him a visit during one of his patrols. 

‘Mars? I have news.’

He stalled for a moment as waves of emotion crashed against him. Mars had to pause to translate the EM field communication he found himself assaulted with. Young Terra was not the most educated in matters of gentle or polite correspondence, but she could most certainly be heard.

‘Earth, it is  a pleasure to hear from you. What news do you have for me?’

He tried to keep his communication controlled and neutral. But as he sent back a response, he sensed something coming near to him. It had been heading in his direction for a while, but for the longest time he’d simply assumed it to be space debris. Looking more closely, it appeared to be some kind of device.

‘My children have created a drone of sorts. They are sending it to your surface to analyze you. Do not fear; the drone appears to be insignificant and designed purely for observation. I simply wished to warn you.’ 

Mars almost stiffened, but he forced himself to relax so that his surface would not shift as the thing drew closer. Without a second thought, he moved his drone as far from the potential landing site as he could get without losing track of this incoming drone that was apparently headed his way. He forgot to send a reply for a long while as he watched the thing draw ever nearer.

Earth’s humans were such deadly and destructive beings when they were left unchecked. Mars had witnessed the horrors himself when he watched them drop bombs all over poor Terra’s surface. Even now, the wounds still brought her pain from time to time. 

What would happen if her humans found him to be of use for some grand scheme? Would they harm him too? Mars was a Titan; he could survive if he had to. But he would rather not expose himself and, consequently, his kin to Earth’s destructive little scraplet farm. Why she loved them so dearly was beyond him.

‘Thank you for the warning.’ 

He eventually sent back curtly as he watched the drone finally land on his surface. It felt so very strange to have a new entity roaming his frame. Halley rarely landed, and when she did, her very frame eliminated warmth like a young star barely contained within living metal. This thing was cold, but not necessarily in a wicked sense. It seemed... almost like a protoform, yet lacking a spark. The emotions were familiar, the feeling of potential almost overwhelming.

Mars stared through his drone, his very spark flaring in its chamber as ancient desire rose within him. The drone was tiny, barely the size of the smallest newsparks that he had nurtured before the fires of Cybertron. And yet, as he looked upon the small wheeled entity roaming and prodding at rocks and pebbles like they were the most interesting thing on this side of the galaxy, Mars, or rather, Bellum’s spark, swelled with love.

The ache that had long burned within his core seared as he gazed upon the youth of the small thing roaming his surface. So small. So pure. So full of potential. 

Ancient coding sang within him, and before Bellum knew it, his drone moved just a bit closer, although still out of view. This one did not appear to be affected by the rust of his surface. It roamed freely, without a care in the world. Such innocence… Bellum needed to guard it.

Had Earth’s humans sent him this little gift out of kindness? No. They couldn’t have. They did not know he lived. And yet, he couldn’t help the way every part of his processors screamed at him to accept the offering. Such things were done for the sake of an alliance between Titans back on Cybertron. Old habits died hard, and Bellum could hardly contain himself as he fought the urge to have his drone snatch the Earth-born drone and drag it toward his core so he could connect to it intimately.

He couldn’t expose himself. Not yet. But Bellum was a patient being. Let the humans explore through their gift. His scans indicated that the poor drone wouldn’t last more than a few years without maintenance. He would wait until the humans abandoned it, and then, when all was done, he would finally have a chance to serve his purpose once more.

“Sweet little roamer, do not fear. You may not understand now, but soon, when your creators have let you fly away from them, I will take you under my wing.” He all but purred, keeping his vocalizations below the range of the drone as he observed it. 

“You will not know fear. You will suffer no illness. I will give you a spark, and when the time is right, I will make you into something more.” His spark flared in affection as the tiny Earth-born gathered rocks, observing and producing soft sounds of affirmation as it went. What a lovely voice it would have once Bellum granted it a spark. 

He could hardly wait.

‘Mars, are you in distress?’ 

Fengari, Moon, whatever designation he went by, sent a message that snapped Mars back to attention. Only after he refocused did he realize he’d been sending out waves upon waves of countless emotions in short, and likely unsetting bursts. His brother’s concerns made sense now.

‘I am perfectly fine, brother. In fact, I feel better than I have in millennia.’

Confusion met Mars’s response. He didn’t pay it much mind as he continued to observe the drone upon his surface. It was just so small. 

‘Let Terra know that so long as more of these drones are sent to me, she shall have my full allegiance.’ 

Shock met him this time, but Mars merely hummed. He had something to hope for now, and he had no intention of missing a single moment of his new firstborn’s life. He would have to get his visual images printed at some point for the little one to see once they developed mentally.

“Explore to your spark’s content, sweet roamer. I shall wait for you.” Mars felt his frame ease and a faint song escape his true vocalizer as he watched the small drone pick up a rock and stare at it.

Soon. Soon he would be a Sire again.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Olivia Troye at Olivia of Troye:

I've seen the signs abroad, in intelligence briefings, crisis war rooms, and inside Trump's White House. The raids in Los Angeles weren’t about immigration. They were a televised warning, a declaration not just of Trump’s return to power, but of his intent to rule by force. Days after the raids sparked protests, Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops, claiming they were needed “to ensure law and order.” White House hardliners like Stephen Miller are branding demonstrators “insurrectionists,” deliberately reframing peaceful action as criminal uprising. Then Trump escalated again: dispatching more Guard units and U.S. Marines. Secretary Pete Hegseth stated during Congressional questioning today that the Guard troops will be there for sixty days, costing taxpayers $134 million. When your government is acting lawlessly, it’s the height of hypocrisy to accuse the American people of disorder. Trump keeps invoking “order” while operating outside the very boundaries of our Constitution. And now, we brace for the next act: a military parade in Washington, D.C.—funded, staged, and weaponized by a White House that dreams of autocracy. Let’s call this what it is. These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re steps in a sequence. The mass ICE raids, the armored vehicles, the media spectacle, they were the rehearsal. The parade is the performance. Martial law is no longer theoretical. It's coming. Trump’s obsession with parades dates back to his first term. I was there. He envied strongmen who stood before tanks and troops, not as symbols of service, but of personal power. Ask anyone in South Korea what it feels like to watch a North Korean military parade: the missiles, the precision marching, the unspoken threat: We can unleash this on you. That’s not theater. That’s control. That’s not speculation; that’s exactly how North Korea uses these parades to control its population and project dominance abroad. That’s the template Trump is following. The parade in Washington, D.C. isn’t about honoring the military. It’s about flexing it. While the Army’s 250th birthday celebration was long scheduled, Trump announced plans to hijack the event, conveniently timed to his own 79th birthday, and turn it into a full-blown military showcase. Sixty-ton M1 Abrams tanks and Paladin howitzers are now set to roll through D.C. "No Kings" counter-protests are planned nationwide, with a mass march to the White House expected on Saturday. Officials worry that clashes in L.A. could spread to D.C. or other cities. That’s the climate being engineered: confrontation by design.  This parade isn’t symbolic. It’s strategic. It’s meant to normalize the military’s presence in civilian life, to blend uniforms with political power. This isn’t optics. It’s indoctrination. Again, this was never just about immigration. It’s about conditioning the public to comply. Making people too afraid to question authority. The raids didn’t just detain undocumented individuals. They terrorized entire communities. And Trump’s crackdown on protest was meant to instill fear—of speaking, of gathering, of being seen.

It’s a line we were never meant to cross. Legal scholars are sounding alarms over Trump’s expanded use of Title 10 powers, federalizing troops without state consent to suppress protest. It’s a direct threat to the balance of power between states and the presidency, and it blurs the lines between civil governance and military rule.  This isn’t paranoia. It’s a blueprint. Once the public gets comfortable with militarization, it’s easier to justify curfews, surveillance, emergency powers, and martial law. U.S. Marines are no longer just on standby, they’re being deployed. These are troops trained for combat, not crowd control, now backing federal operations on American soil. This isn’t public safety. It’s a message: stay in line, or else. I’ve deployed with the military. I’ve stood alongside troops overseas whose mission was to defend this country, not be turned against it. There is no foreign enemy on our shores. We are not in a war zone. What’s unfolding is a domestic power grab. Authoritarian regimes use troops to silence their people. Democracies train them to protect people. That distinction is vanishing. And if we let it vanish now, we may never reclaim it.

[...] Protest is powerful when it robs the strongman of his narrative. So protest with purpose. Don’t become the story Trump wants. If you go to D.C. on June 14, or attend a counter-protest elsewhere, be peaceful. Be disciplined. Bad actors are looking to exploit this moment. Trump’s people are hoping they succeed. Bring your flag. Bring the banner of your cause, your heritage, your identity. But bring the American flag, too. Own it. This is your country, too. It always has been. Don’t let MAGA extremists twist your presence into propaganda. Be proud. Be peaceful. Be unmistakably American! We cannot afford to freeze in fear. We must move in defiance.

Olivia of Troye is right: The ICE Raids in Los Angeles and the protests that subsequently followed it were provoked by the Trump Regime’s obsession for control over the American citizens in a bid to try to invoke martial law.

See Also:

The New Republic: Trump’s Version of Federalism Is a Perverse Death Trap

[mariacallous]

Russian President Vladimir Putin is skilled at escaping the optics of defeat. He came to power in 2000, projecting authority in Russia’s ongoing war against the breakaway region of Chechnya, where Russia did over time prevail. He put himself forward as a decisive leader in Georgia (via the 2008 Russo-Georgian War), in Ukraine (via the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and full-scale invasion in 2022), and in Syria (via a Russian military incursion in 2015). In none of these theaters has Putin notched a lasting success. Georgia is up for grabs, and Russia’s presence in fading away in Syria, but Putin will accept no responsibility for setbacks on the global stage. He always acts the victor.

With Ukraine, Putin can orchestrate scenes of success. He did so on May 9—Victory Day in Russia, commemorating the Nazi surrender in 1945—standing shoulder to shoulder with Chinese President Xi Jinping. They watched Russian troops marching proudly by on Red Square, sending the message that Russia is not isolated; it is unvanquished. It is Ukraine, the Russian state media tells us, that will falter. It is Europe that cannot overcome its post-national anomie. It is the United States that has bowed to Russia, acknowledging that NATO expansion caused the war, that Ukrainian intransigence has perpetuated it, and that in 2022, when the war began, President Joe Biden was the doddering man who brought the world to the brink of World War III.

But for Russia, Ukraine is not Syria, and it is not Georgia. Syria was a far-away adventure where Russia’s retreat can be swept under the carpet. Georgia is stuck in a holding pattern, vacillating between Russia and the West, which is no disaster for Moscow—whereas Ukraine is a disaster for Moscow. In Ukraine, Russia’s military is stalled while deaths and casualties mount. Putin has no way out of the war—other than to admit a version of defeat. The Kremlin can try to hide the war’s misery from Russians but only to the extent that it can tell the war’s story. Putin cannot as effectively erase evidence of a faltering economy. Nor can he offer Russians any coherent political promise other than endless Putinism. Slowly and not yet suddenly, Russia is starting to lose the war.

Long wars demand integrated efforts. Military aims rest on diplomatic capacity and economic heft, which in turn rest on political will. Russia is struggling in each of these domains. The problem for Putin is that the military and diplomatic challenges of the war compound one another, as do the economic and political challenges. Were the war going well or were it an obviously defensive war, diplomacy might be peripheral, uncertainty and economic hardship might be bearable, and political discontent could be put on hold. This was the Soviet Union in World War II. With his massive war against Ukraine, Putin is in almost the opposite position. Nor can he procrastinate by narrating his way out of this strategic cul-de-sac. With an autocrat’s toolkit, he can only postpone the eventual reckoning.

Russia faces two serious military dilemmas. One is its own inability to advance. In some technical sense, momentum is on Russia’s side, as it takes square miles of Ukrainian territory, but this momentum is going nowhere. For months, Russia has tried and failed to take the Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk. Its failure has been accompanied by enormous losses: an estimated 790,000 killed or injured since the beginning of the war (plus 48,000 missing), including more than 100,000 casualties this year alone. By the end of 2025, at this rate, Russia will have over a million casualties, and its strategic situation will not be any better than it was in 2022. Putin has no easy way to alter a trajectory that translates (if unaltered) into stalemate. Mostly war zones, the territories that Russia controls in Ukraine are of no material benefit to Russia.

Russia’s other military dilemma is Ukraine. When Russia failed to deliver a knock-out blow in 2022 and to split Ukraine down the middle, Putin had a choice between a reduced war and a war on civilians across Ukraine. He went with the war against civilians—not to be seen as backtracking and to compel Ukrainians to surrender. This decision also backfired. The brutality of the Russian occupation coupled with countless assaults on civilians and civilian infrastructure convinced most Ukrainians that they had to fight. Ukraine is poorer and smaller than Russia, not ideally suited to a war of attrition, and on the battlefield Ukraine is acting alone. These circumstances matter, of course, though not as much as Ukraine’s morale and its formidable ability to innovate (such as in drone warfare), which among other things is a function of Ukrainians’ morale.

Russia has ways to gain advantage in a long war of attrition. It could facilitate a U.S. withdrawal from the war, which would have a severe effect on Ukrainians’ morale, limit the day-to-day capabilities of the Ukrainian military and send a strong signal globally that Ukraine was unable to sustain its most important bi-lateral relationship. Were the United States to opt out, Russia could then try to pick off individual European states, pushing them either toward neutrality or toward active support for Russia in the war. By driving a wedge between the United States and Europe, Russia could do more than improve its position in Ukraine. It could move closer to its dream of a Russian sphere of influence in Europe and of a transatlantic alliance in utter disarray.

But Russia has mismanaged its diplomacy with the West. It squandered the opportunities presented by an avowedly pro-Russian Trump administration in February, March, and April, bombing its way past multiple cease-fires. This has pushed Trump toward Ukraine and Europe, and Moscow has found no way to separate Europe from Ukraine. Germany’s newly elected chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who has excellent relations with the United Kingdom, France, and Poland, is staunchly pro-Ukraine, and he has committed Germany to some half a trillion dollars in defense spending. Russian diplomacy cannot engineer a friendly or neutral West, not least because of the way Russia fights in Ukraine. Putin also prevents Russian diplomats from exploring the compromises that might save Russia from the wartime nightmare he has fashioned for his country.

Putin’s obsession with not losing in Ukraine has damaged the Russian economy. The sugar high of military spending is over, and growth has dwindled from 5 percent at the war’s start to zero. An overheated labor market has inflation running at around 10 percent. Falling energy prices due to Trump’s burgeoning trade wars and China’s slumping economy could eviscerate Russia’s state budget, which relies heavily on the sale of gas and oil. Russians, who are far from going hungry, have to be asking themselves about the wisdom of their government at the moment, about higher prices and a grim economic horizon for the sake of a stalemated, counterproductive, and unnecessary war. The only thing more dangerous to a political leader than a war of choice is a war of choice that goes badly.

Putin has asked the Russian people to trust him on the war in Ukraine. Many have, and many do. Those who do not trust Putin might encounter the repressive tactics of a police state, although Russia is not totalitarian. Its social contract is a curious mix of mobilization for the war (in parts of the country) and disengagement from politics (in all of the country)—a largely apolitical society alleged to be fighting a holy war.

Real political power is concentrated in Putin’s hands. But his dictator’s prerogative makes him uniquely the man in charge, which is as much a vulnerability as it is a strength—a strength to the degree that he can win the war and a vulnerability to the degree that he is losing it. Perhaps for this reason, after years of silence on the topic, Putin has begun to speak about a successor. As he himself may be aware, he has staked his political fortunes on a foolish war, and he is not winning.

[plaguedocboi]

Waterfalls! These gorgeous, powerful features of nature have been oddly lacking in my past lists, I think in part because their danger has always seemed more “obvious” to me. But doing the research for this list has reawakened my phobia of the water. Some of the later entries (numbers 9 and 10 especially) brought back anxieties that I thought I had gotten over long ago, but it was kind of thrilling. Like watching a particularly scary horror movie. Let’s get into it!

1. Underwater Waterfall, Mauritius

No, it’s not really a waterfall. It’s just an optical illusion caused by sand falling off the island’s slope down into the deeper water below. But it looks cool and scary, and the drop-off is 2.5 miles deep so that’s pretty impressive and I think it deserves at least a mention.

2. Blood Falls, Antarctica

There’s nothing particularly dangerous about this one, it just looks incredibly creepy. Obviously, it’s not actually blood, it’s just water that’s very rich in iron. But the really fascinating part of this waterfall is that its source seems to be a subglacial lake that contains a unique microbial ecosystem which has been isolated for two million years! These microbes are like nothing else we’ve ever observed in nature before. They live in an incredibly cold and extremely saline lake, and metabolize sulfur and iron ions with no oxygen present. They are being used as a model to study what life on ice-covered alien planets could be like.

3. Khone Falls, Laos

This waterfall is not nearly as famous as some of the others on this list, which is surprising because it’s the widest waterfall in the world, with an average width of six miles! Although not particularly tall, it is the second most powerful waterfall in the world, more than double the power of Niagara Falls! The Khone falls divide the Upper and Lower Mekong river, making travel by boat between the north and south impossible. What makes it kind of unsettling to me is that during the rainy seasons the falls are basically swallowed up by the river, turning them from a spectacular waterfall to a series of massive rapids.

4. Huntington Gorge, Vermont

When water levels are low, this river is a popular and scenic swimming spot, and the canyon has an almost otherworldly quality with its unique bends and overhangs. Unfortunately, these very features are what makes it so dangerous. Much like the infamous Strid, the gorge is full of holes, steep drop-offs, and powerful currents hidden beneath the water, which can suck people in and trap them against the cliff walls. Over fifty people have died here since the 1950s, and many more have been injured. With proper precautions, one can safely explore the gorge and swim in the river, but don’t forget that this water has swallowed up many people before you.

5. Victoria Falls, Zambia

I’m sure most of you already know about Mosi-oa-Tunya, more widely called Victoria Falls, as the largest waterfall in the world. Formed as the Zambezi river pours into a series of massive gorges, this curtain of water spans nearly a mile and falls 300 feet with such force that columns of rising spray can be seen for miles around. Despite this, the pools around the lip of the falls can be relatively tame, and locals have fished while balancing on the edge of the cliff for generations. The safest and most famous of these fishing holes is the Devils Pool, which allows you to literally swim right up to the edge of the world’s biggest waterfall. The pool is actually very safe when the correct precautions are taken, and I can only find one death attributed to the pool specifically, when a tour guide in 2009 fell while trying to help a man who had slipped and was dangling off the edge (and, honestly, I was expecting a lot more deaths given the amount of clickbait articles advertising it as the most deadly swimming hole in the world). Although that was the only death from the Devils Pool, there have been many other deaths at Victoria Falls, mostly tourists who underestimate the power of the river or get too close to the edge. So if you ever visit this spectacular waterfall, please observe it from a safe distance and follow all the rules.

6. Huka Falls, New Zealand

This is not a traditional waterfall, but rather a series of small waterfalls along a narrow stretch of the Waikato river, creating an incredibly turbulent chasm that ends in a whirlpool. The 300-foot wide river is funneled into a 50-foot wide stream, causing a torrent of water that flows at a rate of 58,000 gallons per second. Obviously, this is not an area that you should get in the water, but not everyone takes that advice. There have been multiple deaths at this waterfall, and a few narrow escapes, including two swimmers who, incredibly, survived after trying to raft down the falls on pool toys. Please, for the love of god, don’t do that.

7. Niagara Falls, US/Canada

These falls are the only place on this list that I’ve visited, and I can tell you they are certainly an incredible sight, but also rather intimidating due to their sheer size and power. These three massive waterfalls are fed by the Great Lakes and, combined, have nearly 700,000 gallons of water thundering down every second. There is also a permanent whirlpool in the river that has existed for over 4,000 years and reaches depths of 125 feet! Besides being huge and awe-inspiring, these waterfalls are known for their appeal to daredevils who have gone over the edge in barrels or, in one case, a giant rubber ball. But these famous success stories are punctuated with tragedy. Roughly 20-30 people die at Niagara Falls every year. Most of these, sadly, are suicides, but others are failed attempts to replicate the successful daredevils of the past, and others are accidental. An estimated 5,000 bodies were recovered at the bottom of the falls between 1850 and 2011.

8. Murchison Falls, Uganda

Also known as Kabalega Falls, this is the worlds most powerful waterfall. Formed as the Nile River flows from Lake Kyoga to Lake Albert, this waterfall is so strong it literally causes the ground to shake around it. Here, the Nile is constricted from a river nearly 400 ft wide to a passage only 20 ft wide, creating an incredibly turbulent and violent tunnel of water that tears its way into the pool below at 79,000 gallons per second. And this is no ordinary pool. Waiting below the falls is the highest concentration of large crocodiles observed anywhere in the world, waiting for any dead or stunned animals caught in the falls to wash into their lair. Although the waterfall and surrounding park are now a beautiful tourist attraction and wildlife refuge, the history of the falls includes tales of human and animal sacrifices, thrown in alive to appease the gods that some believed resided beneath the raging waters.

9. Bath Fountain, Jamaica

This is just a random little waterfall along a hiking trail, but the video triggered some intense bathophobia in me for the first time in a while. Like, I was scared to get in the shower after watching this. Proceed with caution:

10. Kipu Falls, Hawaii

This one scares me because, despite my research, I can’t actually figure out what the hell is happening here. Multiple people have died here; all tourists, all drownings, all of seemingly very unclear causes. Kipu Falls is a beautiful and popular swimming spot, and locals frequently dive off the top of the falls with seemingly no danger. However, five deaths over the course of five years from 2006-2011 challenged its reputation of being a safe swimming hole. All the articles I could find seem to repeat the same information; there is no current in the pool and the waterfalls are not especially powerful. Despite these established facts, all five deaths were the same. Someone jumped in, surfaced, and then were dragged back down to the bottom of the pool and held there until they died. This has resulted in a lot of speculation, including everything from a hidden whirlpool current to evil spirits. I’m just. Really unsettled by the lack of information on this one. Every article I found was published in 2011 and I couldn’t find any updates, which hopefully means people aren’t still dying here, but… what the fuck???? Was going on????? Sorry guys this one might not be as dangerous as some of the others but it freaks me out a lot so it’s getting a higher rating. I want to know what’s going on but I’m sure not going to investigate it myself.