#and smokes because his only company for thousands of years was magnus

[theweirdestroller]

Every time the rat and I talk to each other about Transformers, some new AU or canon divergence comes into existance.

The latest of which is a Breakdown redemption for Transformers Prime that involves Breakdown taking most of Smokescreen's plot and screen time whilst making Smokescreen besties with Ultra Magnus.

Allow me to explain:

Breakdown properly switches sides somewhere during or shortly after Crossfire, or sometime around Toxicity for that nice replacement thing with Breakdown instead of Smokescreen. He gets to have his whole redemption arc, things happen, Darkmount happens, and Breakdown is the one left trying to save Optimus. (He also has the phase shifter at this point)

Now, you may be asking, "Where is Smokescreen?" And boy let me tell you!!

For this all to work, Smokescreen has to remain in the Iacon Hall of Records for just a little bit longer. For you see, after Alpha Trion knocked him out, he was sequestered away somewhere where he could remain hidden and escape on his own. This did not happen.

What did happen was one Ultra Magnus, just about to leave Cybertron, comes across the rubble of the Hall of Records. He scours the area for a short amount of time, hoping there's some supplies, relics, or energon he could use for the long journey to who-knows-where. He comes across none of the above. He does, however, find one passed out, rather young-looking Elite Guardsman. Magnus grabs the kid, takes him to his ship, and the two leave Cybertron. The planet's dead, Iacon had fallen, there was nothing left for them here.

So now Ultra Magnus is in space with an unconscious kid. Not for long, as Smokescreen does wake up rather quickly. Explanations are had, and Smokes discovers the fall of the very place he was supposed to be protecting. Magnus hears Smokescreen's side of the story as well. (Certain things aren't adding up, but he isn't sure exactly why. His best assumption is that there was a Con on the inside who knocked the kid out before the Hall was attacked.)

And so begins the very, very long journey through space.

I have so many ideas for this and so many fun things that happen. Not only do I love a good Breakdown redemption, this one isn't at the cost of Smokescreen. In fact! I would say that Smokescreen is having a much better time here compared to in canon.

[iztarshi]

Boatswain’s Call

In which I reread the episode and, despite how much I love him, will probably wind up dragging Peter Lukas.

Why is Peter drinking black coffee in a seedy bar? It does serve black coffee so he can’t be the only one, but still.

Even by those standards he was very pale, weirdly so for someone who apparently lived their life on the sea.

This could be a Spooky Lukas Thing, or it could be because Peter never comes out of his cabin.

His eyes only moved a fraction of an inch to focus on me, but it felt as though the movement had the weight of a heavy stone door. Like a tomb. Don’t know why that’s what popped into my head, but there you go. I asked if he was Peter Lukas, and he said, “Yes”. I’d gone blank on what to say next, and it was then that I noticed the silence. I looked around to see that the place was now completely empty.

Spooky! Also really funny once you know Peter, although it probably does feel like stone doors and tombs to have someone suddenly focus on you while connected to the Lonely.

He seems to drag them halfway into the Lonely, which might be because he doesn’t want this conversation overheard, or might just be that she startled him while he was having a quiet coffee and not paying attention to his surroundings.

He’s much less talkative than with Martin, but he always initiates social contact with Martin, so I think we see him there having actively prepared to be “on”.

Tadeas Dahl is very interesting. Presumably that’s a fake name, because Peter decided to be weird about names, but he’s someone who almost fades into the background of a “Lukas statement” despite doing 90% of the work in it. He’s the one who both carries and uses the Boatswain’s Call. Normally contact with an artefact for that length of time either messes someone up or converts them into an avatar eventually, but he appears to not threaten the Lukas monopoly on the Lonely, or at least he doesn’t automatically spook people the way Peter does.

It was like they were doing everything in their power not to think about each other. It took me less than a day of ignored hellos and grunted answers before I fell into line, becoming just as quiet as my crewmates.

This seems to be a reaction to what they’re about to do, but they don’t just avoid the new crew members who are likely to be sacrificed, but others too. Later someone says it “wasn’t an easy choice”, implying they may vote (rather than Peter choosing), meaning it’s possible any of them could be in danger even if it’s nearly always the new crew members.

The only person who spoke was Tadeas Dahl. The mate would walk among the crew, giving instructions and orders in a dozen different languages, as the crew scrambled to carry out his commands. He was just as composed as he had been when I met him, and it soon became clear that, if he had emotions, he kept a tight wrap on them.

He’s clearly a very useful person, since I am very sure Peter only speaks English. Not to mention that Peter doesn’t actually run the ship anyway. Tadeas seems to be the Martin of the Tundra, the one who actually knows how to do the job that Peter has officially. But it does make me wonder about his relationship with Peter -- Peter lumps him in with the crew as “loyal to my money” but Peter also lumps Simon -- who is visibly fond of him -- in with avatars who can’t be bothered to murder him. So I don’t necessarily take his word for it.

I didn’t see Captain Lukas at all that first week. I only knew he was onboard because every meal time the cooks would hand a tray of food to the mate, who’d take it up to the captain’s cabin.

See? Not doing his job.

Also, as @odetoviscera pointed out to me, Tadeas feeds Peter both physically and metaphysically.

Which made me think, because the only other place we see that relationship is Eugene making candles for Agnes. It’s clear you can feed an avatar on someone else’s work, but it’s very rare.

I’m hoping for Tadeas to turn up in season 5, tbh.

There was one crewmember who did catch my eye. He was a young guy, white and, from what I could tell, Scottish.

Does Peter specifically eat white people?? With a crew implied to be heavily multi-racial heading out from a port in Brazil, he’s somehow picked up two white people from the UK as potential snacks.

Then there’s the racial profiling of the Silence Tower Block.

If this is racism it’s a really weird form of it.

From a distance it looked fine, new paint shining in the sun, but looking closer I saw that it had rusted all the way through. Not just that, but checking out where the rod connected to the container, it became clear that they had rusted together.

Peter, WHY!?

Why on multiple levels at that.

First he’s travelling cargo routes with a full crew, it would take nearly no extra effort to ship cargo.

Second, he can take the time to have someone paint over it but not to get new containers? Or clean up the rust?

Is this just his aesthetic?

I like that the lifeboats are not the lumpy orange modern ones. First, those actually would be more awkward to get in and out of regularly. Second, they would definitely ruin the aesthetic.

The only time Peter turns up and it’s to get in the lifeboat with the rest of them. Is his presence actually necessary? Does he just want to be there? Is the Boatswain’s Call powerful enough it would actually be a bad idea for him to remain?

I have never heard a whistle sound like that. It was shrill, so high and piercing that I felt my hair stand on end, but it also seemed distant. Like I was hearing it from far, far away. I don’t know how long he blew that boatswain’s call for, but by the end, I realised we were surrounded by thick sea smoke. We should have far too far south for it, but it rolled and billowed around the lifeboat, obscuring the Tundra.

The Boatswain’s Call is really complete overkill for what it’s used for? It engulfs the ship in order to throw one person into the Lonely, something Peter can do on his own without disturbing people in the next office.

I suppose the spookiness and the fear it spreads among the crew are also ends in themselves.

No-one said a word, but I could have sworn a few of my shipmates were crying.

Peter says in his statement that his crew have no qualms about what they do. Which is either him being extremely unobservant or lying to himself (I doubt he can lie to Jon at that point) given that some of them are crying here.

I don’t know how he feels about it either. He seems to have no trouble throwing people into the Lonely, either physically or emotionally, when he’s working at the Archives. But here he seems to prefer to have as little to do with any of it as possible. He’s just sort of there while it happens.

Possibly he’s just lazy and/or depressed, because “not doing anything” seems to be Peter’s default state.

After that night, the atmosphere on board changed. People talked, and you’d occasionally hear actual laughter on board. Games were played, people drank, and there was this sense of relief to it all.

It might just be a relief once you’re not waiting to commit murder? It doesn’t seem like it’s a Lonely ship, though. The crew are probably lonely, isolated by what they do, but they only act unwilling to socialise while waiting for the ritual to happen.

I didn’t even think about my pay until it came through a couple of days later: twenty-five thousand pounds. For barely two weeks work. I don’t mind telling you, it was almost enough to tempt me back.

Does Peter just have infinite funds? No one in his family seems to care how he spends their money, and he never makes any.

Solus Shipping PLC, a company founded and majority owned by Nathaniel Lukas.

Did Nathaniel found a shipping company just so the family heirloom can get some use? Or does he actually ship things on other ships? Or is Peter not the only Lukas out there on a boat?

The Lukases funding the Magnus institute is also interesting, although this statement isn’t the first time we hear about it. A lot of their pull -- and a lot of what Peter is implied to use to carry out his deal with Martin -- is more to do with them funding other avatars than being dangerous to them. Both money and favours get traded a lot, and of course for Peter there’s gambling.

Even though the official crew manifest for the Tundra has remained the same for the last ten years.

Obviously the immediate implication here is that Peter doesn’t register people he’s going to eat as crew. But I also wonder whether ten years ago marks when he went back to sea after the Silence.

[edelwoodsouls]

the light behind your eyes

The Magnus Archives, JonMartin, pre-relationship

You'll never go through with it, he said. Watching the blood drip, maybe he doesn't know Jon as well as he thought.

Word Count: 2464

Ao3

inspiration

(this art and this show apparently single-handedly cured my months-long writers block, i only started the show like a month ago, holy shit im in love)

--

The Institute's halls are darker than they used to be.

He's not sure when it happened, really. Just a few short years ago, he could have called this basement home. It didn't matter that he was sleeping there, that his real home was writhing with worms - that wasn't what gave it that comfort, that warmth. But the knowledge that someone was always there, the camaredie of close-quarters living and near death experience...

He misses it. He misses Tim, with his awful sense of humour. Sasha's laugh. Even Melanie's angry tirades about whatever was pissing her off that week.

He misses keeping Jon company over slowly cooling cups of tea late into the night - not talking, not acknowledging each other, simply existing quietly in the same space, an assurance that he wasn't alone-

He laughs out loud at the thought, the sound echoing like a gunshot down the hollow corridor, because isn't that the point? He's miserable, he's lonely, so it must be working. It'll all be worth it.

But still. The corridors feel cold and empty. Even though he knows Melanie is around somewhere, probably using the pages of some ancient research tome as cigarette paper, and Daisy has been haunting the spaces between the stacks for the last few weeks. And Jon, of course, most likely recording another statement and pretending it satisfies that primal itch in his soul that screams for fresh trauma.

It feels more like a haunted, ghostly archive than the home of several nearly-human disasters who should really be banding together for emotional support.

In these moments, with the others sequestered away in their own problems, Martin likes to wander the halls himself. It's so hard to leave the office without making human contact usually, but over the last few months he's come to sense the pathways of the others, how best to avoid their company. Almost like a sixth sense, or - ironically- a third eye. He takes the chances when he can, stretching his legs, letting himself get lost in the ghosts of better memories.

He's not sure if it's voluntary, or a method of making himself feel more Lonely.

It's the early hours of the morning now, not that he can tell without windows. He hasn't seen sunlight in so long, he's sure his skin must be paler than the pages of a Leitner - even turning on the overhead lights makes him squint.

His footsteps echo off the brick. It must be raining outside, he thinks, because there's an odd, sharp smell in the air, damp and cloying. He almost wants to run outside, feel it on his skin. Maybe it could wash away his - his Loneliness? His attachments? Which would he prefer to lose more at this point?

He can't deny the power that slipping through the cracks, going unnoticed but noticing everything, makes him feel.

His feet guide him thoughtlessly, in tracks he's paced a hundred thousand times before. Through the stacks of old statements, still barely organised from Gertrude's original mess - fifty years is a hell of a lot of statements to manage, after all, especially when the mess is deliberate. Past Tim's old desk - it's Daisy's now, technically, but Martin's never really been one for change.

Of course, his feet always lead him to Jon's door.

He hates to admit how many times he's sneaked up to the small porthole window in the door, peeking in to check in on the archivist. He's seen Jon recording statement after statement, seen him staring absently into stone-cold coffee for hours, seen the absent-minded scratching of  burn scars, the many times he's been straight up passed out on top of a mound of files. Only sheer will-power has kept the door firmly between them.

He'll only sneak a quick look, Martin tells himself now, tugging absently at his shirt sleeve. Just to check that the archivist is still alive and breathing - not that anything else is possible now, he supposes.

His thoughts are interrupted by the unmistakeable sound of Jon groaning, a low, agonised noise that sounds forced out involuntarily, through gritted teeth. Martin's heart stutters. For a moment, his feet still. Then he's speeding the rest of the way down the hall and, before he can think better of it, throwing open the door.

Martin freezes. Hand gripped white-knuckled around the door handle, to keep himself standing upright, to keep himself grounded so he doesn't throw up at the sight before him.

That scent is thicker in the air the moment he opens the door, and he realises with a plunging horror that it isn't raining outside, that the stench now shoving its way down his nostrils is metallic and all-too familiar.

Jon is sat at his desk, as he always is, slumped over it, head held in his hands like he's about to fall asleep on the pile of blood-soaked papers below. But it isn't fatigue dragging at him now. It's the steady stream, the waterfall of crimson forcing its way past his palms, curling past his fingers in almost mesmorising, intricate patterns, dripping audibly onto the statements below.

Spread before him among the papers are an assortment of tools. A kitchen knife, a letter opener, a screwdriver - is that a blowtorch? With a sick sense of humour, Martin notices the corkscrew he had kept so closely for protection during the Filth's first attack, now sticky with blood, clutched limply in between Jon's fingers.

His voice cracks as a strangled noise emerges froom his throat in place of words. He swallows down the bile, resisting the urge to clamp a hand over his nose. "Jon?"

Silence stretches deafeningly across the table. Jon doesn't even react to the sound, though his limbs are shaking with a brittle tension.

The corkscrew slips slickly from between the archivist's fingers, clattering on the table like a gun going off, and yet the silence rings louder still. There's an awful static in the air, like when Jon uses his abilities, except now it doesn't seem to stop, doesn't seem to end, just reverberates in his head to the point of pain. Like the very air is crying out silently in pain.

A small sound emerges from behind Jon's hand. He still hasn't moved, hasn't looked up, but Martin would recognise that dry chuckle, tinged with disbelief, any day. It's a sound that's brought him no small amount of delight to hear over the years, even when that disbelief was more indignant and exasperated at Martin's incompetence, because it meant that he had Jon's attention - had, in some way, broken through that stiff upper lip that Jon had once been adamant on presenting.

Now it sends a horrified shiver down his spine. There's no pain in that laugh, just a resignation.

"Martin." The word is spoken so softly he almost doesn't hear it - a whisper, a prayer; a drowning man accepting his fate.

Panic rears, finally, inside Martin's chest like a suddenly startled animal. "Jon, Jon are you okay-" Stupid, stupid, of course he's not bloody okay, but what else can he say, with Jon sitting so calmly as he bleeds out onto his desk? "I'll- uh- hang on a sec, I don't have my phone with me, I'll call the ambulance, oh god-"

You won't go through with it, Martin had said, in a voice as cold as he could make it, as detached and unwelcoming as he could bear. You're a coward, looking for an excuse.

Hit Jon where it hurts the most, cut off any emotional connection keeping them tethered. It's the only way, he told himself, ignoring the sick satisfaction he got from finally scaring Jon the way Jon had often scared him.

He'd really thought he was right, but apparently he doesn't know Jon as much as he thought he did. Or maybe it's his fault, he drove him to this. Who and what has Jon got left, without Martin? Abandoned by those he loves, treated as expendable by Basira, blamed for things he can hardly control by Melanie and Tim, left alone to face that wide, unrelenting eye that pulled their strings.

Jon is far more Lonely than Martin has ever managed to be, and he isn't even trying.

The words continue to fall from his mouth in a panicked babble. "Do you have your phone with you, Jon? Jon? Or did we reconnect the landline after the last attack? I know the hospital ignores calls from the Magnus Institute when possible, but surely they can do something, it's gonna be okay-"

"Martin." Jon lets one of his hands shift slightly, and a trickle of red bursts forth onto the pages. "I guess-" there's that endearing, terrifying laugh again- "I suppose its for the best, that you didn't agree to come with me."

"What?"

"Would've made this a bit awkward, if you'd said yes."

And finally Jon raises his head, and Martin is horrifyingly unsurprised when deep brown irises meet his own. Blood still drips from the nearly-healed whites of his eyes, spilling over like tears. He can see the tissue knitting back together before his eyes, until the only evidence that anything awful ever happened is the drained pallor of Jon's skin, and the sticky wash of half dried blood spread around him like a pool. He's clearly been at this for a while, judging by the dry patches, and the variety of tools at his disposal.

Martin can't take his eyes off the sight. "I..." The words vanish on his tongue like so much smoke.

It's almost worse, he thinks, that Jon is healing so quickly. That the one avenue of escape offered to the rest of them is closed to him forever by the very thing he's attempting to flee. He hadn't regret saying no to Jon, shutting him down, not with the very existence of the human race hanging in the balance - and he still doesn't. It's the mental image of him hidden away in his office, unnoticed, hacking away at his own face for hours without anyone so much as wondering where he was, noticing his cries of pain, that makes him sick with guilt.

"No need for an ambulance, Martin," Jon's face tugs into an awful almost-smile. "I'll be right as rain any second now. But if you happen to have some painkillers, I wouldn't be opposed. Bit of a headache, you see."

Despite himself, Martin lets out a disbelieving laugh of his own. How the hell did they get here? He even misses the long hours of investigation, the haunting paranoia. Even that was better than this resigned certainty of tragedy. None of them are planning to survive this, and if they do? Where the hell can they even go from here?

His feet carry him over the threshold into the office, and he can almost feel the Lonely loosening its clutches, just a little. He offers a hand out, surprised at how steady it remains in front of him. "Come on, Jon."

Oh, how that soft, shocked expression on Jon's face makes his heart break. The fingers that clasp around his feel like burning, an electricity leaping across his skin. When was the last time he touched another person, skin to skin?

It takes a long time to clean up the blood. Martin wishes it could take just a little longer, every touch rekindling an unnameable something in his heart. Sat in the bathroom, Jon is quiet, retreating into himself. His newly healed eyes are vacant. Martin sponges away the crust from Jon's sickly skin, brushes it from his hair, and Jon simply yields to his touch like a doll.

They find a fresh change of clothes in his locker, but judging by the stale air released from the compartment Martin is pretty sure Jon hasn't changed clothes in a long time. When was the last time he took a shower? Brushed his hair? Hell, Martin can't remember the last time he saw Jon eat. Does he even need to eat anymore?

He throws the bloodstained clothes away, and leads Jon back to his office. The statements on the desk are barely legible beneath the crimson, but as he goes to throw them away, too, Jon's hand catches his wrist, the first voluntary movement in almost an hour.

"Jon?"

"I...need those."

"They're unreadable."

"Not to me."

Worrying his lip, Martin silently hands them back, watching as Jon smooths them out carefully on one of the only clean patches of desk. As if he can feel the gaze on him, Jon looks up, finally meeting his eyes once again. God, that softness in his stare is an arrow in Martin's heart. He's painfully aware that he's viewing Jon without any of his walls up, stripped bare, at his lowest. Once he might've considered it an honour that Jon trusted him this much - wanted nothing more, really - but now he just wishes Jon would get angry at him again. It would make this so much easier.

Martin swallows, throat suddenly a desert. "I have to go."

Jon doesn't look surprised, or even hurt, just nods, gaze never leaving his. It occurs to him that the last time they spoke, Jon probably thought it was the last time he would be able to lay eyes on him.

Silence yawns across the room.

"Talk to someone?" It comes out more of a desperate plea than he would've liked. "Daisy, or Basira, or Melanie-" he knows even as he lists them that only Daisy would be willing to bear Jon's company at this point, and she's hardly in any better a place mentally.

"Okay, well..." Words can hardly be adequate enough in this sort of situation. "Don't, uh, don't get too Lonely, Jon?" The archivist's expression sharpens at that. "Before you can't come back from it."

A second of hesitation. Jon nods slightly, jerkily, as if he hadn't even considered the possibilty. "As long as you remember, I'm always here, Martin. I- I trust you, but if you need an anchor... I can be your rib."

"How romantic," Martin snorts drily, before he can think better of it. A flutter of panic ignites in his chest, but Jon just nods, and the flutter becomes something more like hope.

It's not an assurance that everything will be okay. They both know the impending disaster rushing towards them at full speed as they themselves hurtle towards it.

But it's a promise. A thin, invisible cord, anchoring the two of them together.

Today, whatever fresh hell this is, they can take the punches and commit the sacrifices until they're bled dry.

But tomorrow - what if. If there is a tomorrow, any semblance of future? They can take on the world, together.

He leaves the door ajar when he slips back into the corridor.