#but i don't like using them in spread teams so i scrapped that idea

[irminsuls]

in honour of my beloved albedo's birthday im showcasing my personal favourite team of his which is double geo spread (i swear it works its fun pls try)

[ckret2]

Do you have any fun ideas or headcanons regarding Aku and Jack's relationship? It's so weirdly casual sometimes

sure, a few random thoughts:

1- there oughta be more incidents where they show up to battle and one of them is like "i'm sorry, i'm just not feeling it today, can i take a rain check on this fight?" and the other one instead of going TIME TO PUSH MY ADVANTAGE AND FINISH HIM OFF FOR GOOD just goes "ah, yeah, sure, how do you feel about Tuesday" without even thinking about it. because it's funny. in canon typically aku's the one who goes whoa time out so we need some times where jack does it and aku's just like sure.

2- I think it'd be really easy to force Aku & Jack to team up. All you have to do is have Earth get invaded by something more threatening than Aku. The show's established that Jack's sword is the only thing that can kill Aku, but it's not the only thing that can overpower Aku; just within the show we know that the goddess of water is strong enough to prevent Aku from stealing her jewel, there's gotta be other forces that can take him.

Aku wants to hold Earth at any cost. Enough to recruit Jack? Sure; it's not the first time he's exploited Jack to achieve one of his villainous goals.

Jack wants to save Earth from evil at any cost; and Aku is an evil dictator who's hard to defeat, but this alien conqueror is an even more evil dictator who's even more difficult to defeat and whom Jack HASN'T spent his whole life specifically training to defeat. So better to work with Aku to defeat a would-be conqueror so that Jack only has to fight Aku, rather than let this other conqueror take out Aku and then try to fight that new conqueror without a superpowered shapeshifter's assistance.

It also doesn't necessarily have to be an evil conqueror. (Or, well, not conventionally "evil" by the way the show defines the good/evil dichotomy as something that can be inborn & tangible.) Like, say the gods that slew the black mass go "okay it's taking too long to kill Aku and we don't want his influence to spread off Earth. better just blow up Earth to be safe, we don't want a tiny scrap of Aku escaping like last time." Aku doesn't want that, Jack doesn't want that, now they have to team up. It's probably fine to kill some gods as long as you're eventually planning to go back to the past and undo the circumstances that necessitated killing the gods in the first place, right? right??

lots of options! If you wanna make it happen, you can make it happen.

3- if you headcanon that Aku spawned already knowing stuff because he was, like, absorbing info from his immediate environment and/or sucking info out of the brains of his victims or whatever (which is what I headcanon), then that means he and Jack basically come from the same culture, Fantasy Kingdom in Fantasy Japan. And Aku gave himself a Japanese name (and kept it for millennia rather than telling people to call him "Evil" in their own languages) so like, it seems likely that he was somehow magically culturally Japanese from birth.

And that means they're the only two people in the future from this culture. Jack runs into a few people trying to maintain Japanese culture, but they're thousands of years removed from the world he knew. If he wants to talk to somebody who knows and understands the world he grew up in, his options are this one immortal Shaolin monk (who's Chinese, so not quite from home), aaand Aku himself.

Which you can use for angst, of course. But you can also use it for clowning around.

Aku's at some meeting trying to strike up an alliance (which he totally plans to violate) with some alien demigod or whatever, and he's sucking up to the demigod to their face, and then under his breath he's talking shit about them in 5000-year-old Japanese, and one of the servants at this meeting involuntarily snort-laughs so hard he drops his tray, and Aku goes "what? ... THERE'S ONLY ONE HUMAN IN THE WORLD WHO COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT I JUST SAID" and jack rips off his disguise and goes for his sword and curses himself for his mistake but unfortunately aku was right the demigod's face DOES look like a goat's butthole and he did NOT expect to hear aku say that how was jack supposed to not laugh

Jack compares Aku to the villain in some play that was popular when he was a kid and Aku's like "that villain was a boss tho" and Jack goes "HE WAS LITERALLY EXECUTED AT THE END" and Aku goes "THANKS TO A BADLY-WRITTEN PLOT TWIST AND A DEUS EX MACHINA" and Jack goes "LIKE THE DEUS EX MACHINA I'M WIELDING??" and now they're arguing about the plot of a play that's been forgotten for millennia while a dozen allies/minions stand around awkwardly waiting for them to get to the point.

Jack's taking a day off because today happens to be some holiday from his home and he's confused that no one else seems to be working that day and everyone's like "oh yeah Aku kept that holiday, he actually liked it" and as much as Jack hates Aku for destroying all the good things from the past, now he kind of hates Aku for preserving one good thing, like what could this day possibly mean to Aku, how dare he taint it with his evil. (it's probably, like, Fantasy Japan Arbor Day or something. Aku's a tree, of course he kept tree day.)

Jack's taking a day off because it's his birthday and there's a huge festival going on in the city and he goes "what??" and everyone's like "oh yeah annual holiday, it's Aku's birthday" and that fucks Jack up a little.

4- the title of the guy in charge of commanding samurai was "shogun." Like that's what the word MEANS, it's the general who runs the army during an era when the army consisted of samurai. and Aku calls himself "the shogun of sorrow." which makes it interesting that the only threat to Mr. Guy-In-Charge-Of-Samurai is a single very determined samurai.

I imagine that for perhaps thousands of years—probably before he got his robot army—Aku likely had an army of samurai. Either humans forced to fight for him, evil humans voluntarily fighting for him, or some sorta shadow demon things he created himself.

(i think, in spite of Jack's influence, Aku may still have a tendency to turn to samurai as his default idea of Something That Should Be Fighting For Me—but that's a whole nother headcanon post.)

Jack doesn't seem to dig much into the history of Aku's rule—he's much more preoccupied with the current state of Aku's rule—but if he does do even a little digging, he'd probably find that, for millennia, the image of samurai has been Aku's earliest and most loyal warriors.

and if you roll with this headcanon, it says a lot that it took so little time for Aku to start using the phrase "the samurai" to mean "that one specific samurai that isn't loyal to me." Millions, perhaps billions of samurai may have been in his army over the millennia; but the one that stands out—THE samurai—is Jack.

5- idk if it says anything about his relationship to Jack Specifically but it's wild to me that Aku just left what's left of Jack's homeland. When Jack transported into the future, I assumed the city he ended up in was the same location he'd just left, and Aku had just stayed put for the next few millennia building the place up into his capitol as he expanded over the rest of the world. But no, Jack finds the ruins of his home, abandoned.

You could use it as an example of Aku's callousness—he was born here, he got his start here, but it meant so little to him that he just moved out one day without a glance back and didn't even think about the devastation he'd left behind. But that doesn't quite ring true to me. This location is ground zero for Earth's Aku-ification but it seems almost untouched by Aku's influence, as if he'd never been there. It wasn't destroyed. It wasn't razed to the ground. It was never built over with something new. I feel like there's a deliberateness to that abandonment.

I feel like he wanted to give off the appearance of callous careless abandonment—"oh, this place means nothing to me. I care about it so little I'm not even interested in calling attention to it by destroying it! I have zero emotions about this place. So don't notice it. It doesn't tell you anything about my history."

[scorchieart]

C is for Collaboration

Clavis: Gentlemen, and Chevalier, thank you for agreeing to meet on such short notice.

Luke: Ya dragged us here in a net.

Nokto: Against our wishes, I might add. My bum's all bungled, you bum.

Clavis: The urgency of the matter demanded I forgo comfort, little brothers. I promise my next trap will be more considerate of your posteriors.

Nokto & Luke: Hooray for us.

Clavis: Customer satisfaction is as important to me as my own, which brings me to the point of this meeting. Luke, the new dolls you distributed, while immensely adorable and true-to-form, have a glaring issue.

Luke: Like ya said, they're life-like. If you got a problem with the doll, bring it up with the model.

Clavis: Oh, no. You misunderstand me. The figures themselves are flawless. I, for one, find my likeness impeccably accurate. But as a concerned consumer, I must leave a comment on the detailing. You see, you reused the same letter for both Chevalier and myself.

Luke: So, on top of lousy handwriting, ya can't spell. Got it.

Clavis: Do let me finish. This is merely constructive criticism from your initial testers. We wouldn't want to cause a scandal once your products release to the market. Trust me, the public can be vicious.

Luke: Don't need 'em. I only ever planned on making the one set.

Nokto: Aww, so they're personalized gifts? Your sincerity is enough to make me vomit.

Luke: It ain't like that. I just had a lot of extra fabric... is all... really.

Clavis: I'm being serious here. The fact that even one version of them exists the way it is poses a huge risk for the royal family. One look at our dolls and people might mistake us for *gulp* f r i e n d s.

Nokto: [monotone] Oh, no. How could anyone possibly come to that conclusion?

Clavis: Exactly my point, brother dear. Now you understand the severity of this matter.

Nokto: Can I go now? Evie's making coconut clusters. Just you try and make me miss out on them again, Clavis. I dare you.

Chevalier: *ears perk up from behind his book*

Luke: Yum, coconut drenched in honey~ Hey, maybe I'll make a tiny cookie tin to go along with Yves's doll. Bet he'd like it? I mean— only 'cuz now I'm stuck with a bunch of fabric scraps.

Clavis: Back on track, boys. I'll bake you treats later.

Luke: Pass. I don't hear Chevie complaining. And Leon and Licht didn't yap about it either.

Clavis: That's because L is a regal letter to represent you three. You're the lovely little lads of Lelouch!

Nokto: [muttering] More like loony Lelouch.

Clavis: What was that, naughty Nokto?

Nokto: Oh, real clever. Is that why I'm really here? You're jealous my doll's got a unique letter so you're taking it out on me with lame alliteration? I didn't choose my name, I'll have you know.

Clavis: Perish the thought! You are here to help workshop ideas for our baby brother's newest business venture. Our combined experiences will set him on the path to financial AND social success.

Luke: Like I said, I ain't planning on selling 'em.

Clavis: [ignoring] Additionally, that dunderhead Sariel says we need to fill a monthly all-hands team meeting quota so people believe we are a legitimate faction. He's more full of stuffing than his doll, but I will not allow the public to spread rumors that we are less capable than the domestic faction.

Luke: I thought you didn't want anyone thinking we're friends. That part I actually agree on.

Clavis: [ignoring x2] Have faith, Nokto. We need you here. Your letter is as fitting and unique as you are.

Nokto: He said to the twin.

Clavis: I meant what I said, dear.

Nokto: So did I. Keep that mushy talk up and I'll puke for real.

Chevalier: Directed away from my desk, if you must.

Luke: Want me to sew a barf accessory for your doll?

Nokto: Spew you lot! I'm out of here.

Clavis: Wait! Luke, that's a wonderful idea!

Luke: Oh, so that part you heard. It was just a joke. I am always overstocked on shades of green, though.

Clavis: Yes, you're brilliant! You and Nokto both! What better way to differentiate Chevalier and myself than by depicting us as complete antitheses! The dashing, debonair, suave gentleman versus the uncouth, slovenly beast. We'll modify our dolls' looks with accessories and come up with new nicknames to boot. V can work nicely for Chev: 'Veritable Vomit'. But let's come up with some more options and pick the best ones. Ooh, I am simply bursting with inspiration! Let's see, we can do A for 'Abominable Aberration'. B for 'Bloodcurdling Behemoth" — Hey, where are you all going? We're just getting started!

Luke: Nah, I'm keeping it C for 'Can it, Clavis. Coconut clusters are calling'.

Nokto: Or D for 'Don't you dare drag us here again, you dunderhead'!

*Nokto and Luke look expectantly at Chevalier, who is the first to reach the door.*

Chevalier: ...E for 'The End'.

[evolutionsvoid]

I already know that this entry is going to drive Eucella crazy, what with my...limited knowledge on this species. To be fair though, the information we have on this species as a whole is rather meager, but I feel like it would be a missed opportunity if I didn't write at least something about it! It is important that my readers know of every species, even those we have yet to fully understand! Indeed, I know Eucella is going to be furious at the idea of adding in an entry that is mainly scraps and shoddy guesswork, but when has her temper ever stopped me before? Onwards, I say!

This entry is on the Hundun, a species I feel that a lot of folk aren't even aware of. It would certainly make sense, as not a lot has ever been said or spread about this creature. One of the big factors for this is because the Hundun has (currently) only ever been found in one cave network in one specific region of the world. And even then, one needs to go in real deep to find them, so much so that discovering this species was pretty much an accident, done when an explorer got lost in the labyrinth of tunnels. Thankfully, a rescue team was able to find them and get them out so that their story could be told, resulting in a group of better equipped researchers going in to confirm their existence. At the time, most people thought the poor sap had gone crazy, losing their mind in the absolute darkness and silence only a cave can create. When researchers found the chamber deep within the network, the fantasy was found to be real.  

So what is a Hundun? A good question, because we are currently still trying to find a way to properly answer that. They got no bones, so we can strike a whole branch of life out the equation there. No real exoskeleton means another chunk of the tree taken out, but once we rule those pieces out, we have very little else to narrow it down with. There are a staggering amount of creatures out there that have no bones and aren't bugs, and we still struggle to even sort those properly! Now, we find a species in the depths of some remote cave network, whose anatomy makes even less sense. Back to the question of: what is a Hundun? The answer is that it is a blob of juice, jelly and odd organs that is wrapped in a thick membrane and given six "legs" and four "wings." I stress those words because we don't really have the confidence to truly say that those are what they are. The "wings" have had some folk liken them to gills, yet the Hundun has been seen flapping these appendages and gliding with them from time to time. But no real flight has been observed, and their use of them as a glider is quite sparse. As for their legs, they do aid in travel and climbing, as these are what they use to cling to cavern walls. However, despite their claws, there are no other rigid structures to them, and openings on the bottoms of these "feet" makes these limbs feel more like protruded orifices. And those aren't even the weirdest parts! If one ever got a good look at a real live Hundun, they would have the same question as every researcher: Where's its face?!

Indeed, the striking thing about the Hundun is that it doesn't appear to have a face, or head, or anything we could equate to a noggin. The front of them ends in a smooth membrane, as blank and curved as an egg shell. There are no eyes, no nose, no mouth, nothing. Now some may point out that just because it doesn't have the typical organs and holes that common animals have on their face doesn't necessarily mean they are faceless. Surely there is something there, we just aren't seeing it! And aren't their plenty of cave animals with no eyes? Correct you are! However, when I say they don't have these things, I literally mean they don't have them. On the surface of their front end, we cannot find anything that we could equate to the usual sensors or openings that other creatures have. Perhaps, these special organs are found within the body, but that is another mystery we have yet to figure out. We can't exactly cut a Hundun open and lay it out for all to see. This is because their bodies are practically bags of gelatin just waiting to pop and slosh to the floor in a sloppy mess. Their organs and insides are so sensitive and fluid-like, that they pretty much melt into a puddle of useless juice once their hide is ruptured. Attempts at dissecting dead specimens has resulted in incomprehensible slop and zero answers. Some have used magic to freeze samples solid before cutting, but this process inevitably causes damage to the organs and insides, so we cannot observe them as they normally would be. It's just....baffling. 

If it has no face, how does it breath? How does it eat? Plenty of these questions arise when faced with such an enigma. Breathing is one we feel we figured out, pointing to the wing gills and the soft damp nature of their membrane. We think they can pull in air through these gills and even straight through their skin. As for eating, we have wondered if the skin breathing can also result in skin eating, where it can absorb particles from the air or stuff that settle on their skin. The discovery of their foot orifices now makes us think they eat through those, sucking up food as they walk or cling to the walls. What do they eat? Not really sure. Don't have much of a stomach to open up and poke around through. Probably lichens and tiny creatures that live on these cavern walls, as we have never seen a Hundun chase after food or hunt anything of notable size. What we do know is that their diet is so niche, that keeping them alive outside of these cave systems is near impossible. Specimens removed for long periods of time will starve to death, or die from complications due to eating something that doesn't settle well in their system. All attempts to keep them alive outside of their cave system has been met with failure, so all research is done just outside of these caverns, temporarily capturing specimens for quick tests and observation, before immediately putting them back.

Thankfully, we do know that they lay eggs, but how they get the stuff to make and fertilize eggs, we don't know. No mating rituals have been observed, and no mated pairs have been spotted in the cavern. They simply lay eggs, that then hatch into more Hundun. So even there, are answer is laughably simple.

So if we are utterly clueless about the workings of the Hundun, then what does the world think of them? To be fair, most of the world doesn't really know they exist. Live specimens don't survive long, and preserving dead ones isn't easy either. Any preservatives eventually melt them into colorless goop, and taxidermy doesn't really work on a bag of juice. And with our sad amount of information, most folk would think it is all a lame researcher joke. Locals wound up having stories about this species, but this was all veiled in legends and myth. Tales of ghostly spirits in the depths of the caves, of lost souls in the pits of a dark hell. Obviously, most folk thought these were ghost stories, but now with a glowing orb of living flesh, it feels that these were encounters with the Hundun long ago. Even now, the people of the region speak of this species as a primordial creature, one that has been around since the forming of the world. Some even claim that these creatures are tiny unborn worlds themselves, walking eggs waiting for their day to hatch. It is times like these where I do not turn to my usual scoffing of superstition and dramatics, because I feel that they are onto something here. A primordial being, not a bad theory! Perhaps the Hundun are truly a prehistoric species, one that existed countless centuries before! Isolated in the depths of the earth, far from other creatures and the ravages of nature and time, there is no telling of when they split from the rest of life, or perhaps when the tree of life diverted from them! This could be an incredible case where we found a pocket in the world where time froze, where the ancients still survive to this day! It is an incredible thought, now if only we could figure them out in the slightest!

One last frustrating note: one of the times I was doing research down in the Underworld, my travels took me to a remote cavern town in my pursuit of strange new specimens. While I was visiting, I spotted Hundun on some of the cavern walls, and just as I was going in for a closer look, I saw a demon and their imp playing with one! I was quick to ask about what they were doing, and they straight up tell me that these Hundun are like pets to them! Adorable little squishy beans! I nearly burst out of my own bark hearing this, because here was a community of people who have interacted with these things for decades, perhaps centuries! Such close contact with this species that has never been documented before! I almost threw all my current notes into the nearest fire, because here was my new research! My new thesis! My masterpiece! I would be able to find out answers about the species that puzzled researchers for decades! So I didn't waste any time, barraging everyone with questions about the Hundun and what they know of them. You know what I got? "No idea, but they sure are cute!" THAT'S IT!? YOU PEOPLE HAVE BEEN LIVING WITH ONE OF THE GREATEST ENIGMAS IN NATURAL HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY FOR DECADES AND YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THEM?! I ask "what do you feed your pets?" and they say "oh we don't feed them, they somehow do it themselves." I say "isn't it weird you don't feed these things? Haven't you noticed what they do when they're hungry?" and to that they say "Yeah, it sure is weird, isn't it? Got no clue, but they seem to be doing fine!" I sadly admit that my research of this town and the Hundun had to be cut short for that trip, as my guides had to drag me out of there before I had a total mental breakdown. I will probably have to wait awhile before going back, because I think my crazed screaming rant in the middle of town left a rather poor impression.  

Chlora Myron

Dryad Natural Historian

Oh good! An entire entry of you just saying "I don't know!" Wonderful! Excellent! Just what your book needs, Chlora! You are doing this on purpose, I swear! - Eucella -

[ccomilk]

oh man ok you asked for mikey fics? i gotchu, but idk which ones you have read yet so here's just all of them

the entire turtle instinct series by dysfunctional request. they're usually p silly but the mikey ones dip into light angst

apricity by very angry gremlin and empathy amplified by filsamek are two of a kind, where mikey uses his mystics to make problems for himself in favor of being his bros' therapist

taking care of your brothers by calliopes anon is a sweet pb&j twoshot

the sun and icarus by sibilla scribbled 08 is about mikey's powers going haywire, and the imagery used in it is fascinating, def drawing worthy

song of a sunny day (fading into dusk) by idk_im_just_here_now is p good, and updates frequently!

if you want a fic specifically about mikey going into brumation and freaking his brothers out bc a box turtle's heartbeat stops being detectable in that state, there's freezerburn, hyperactive hyperthermia, and the shoebox (which is part of the turtle instinct series)

there's also time ticks by, which is another cold mikey fic, but the stakes are higher. tho that one seems to be discontinued

i have a few more, like a hurt-no-comfort, some that are not really far enough in to the story for me to rec, and also some shellshock fics, but I have no idea if you want those so ill hold off until further notice.

i hope this helps! i'm always on the lookout for mikey fics, so if you have recs i'd love to hear them!!!

OH YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY SPOILED ME. OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH THIS IS SPLENDID TYSM <33333333

i am absolutely down to hear the ones you didn't list!! even if they're not my style, the more the merrier!!!!!!

unfortunately i don't have many saved BUT here's my faves:

Mystic Malfunction by VanillaVengence, where after the movie Mikey's powers go haywire and he accidentally strands himself in the 2012 dimension. one of my favourite fics ever of all time (in case the truckloads of sketches i've been making didn't make that obvious)

Angelo by daniartonline - a oneshot about how mikey got the nickname Angelo!

A Heart Of Sunflower by Knight_Of_Breath - a crossover with DC, where Mikey teams up with the Batfam to save his brothers. very cute and almost finished

the rest aren't mikey centric BUT i adore them:

A Tale of Spirits by unorthodoxx - where the brothers accidentally find themselves spread across the ATLA world, and have to find their ways back to each other - and help stop the war. VERY very good. an all-time favourite. lots of very good mikey content.

the new york conspiracy corner by blueh - a social media fic about new york's reaction to the mysterious turtle cryptids lurking about. this one is SO good i love it sm.

juxtaposition by SpectrumWriting - a 2012 crossover that juxtaposes the two families

Little Scraps of Wisdom by clandestineClairvoyant - AU where Splinter doesn't get mutated, so he raises his turtle sons in the human world. SO much to love about this series.

bustin' heads by GODZILLA90095 - raph strikes out on his own in the 2003 battle nexus tournament, and his brothers sneak out to follow them. captures the show's vibes PERFECTLY this fic is so funny

hollow mind by paperxcrowns - leo gets captured by the government and has to find his way home. i was so tensed up this entire fic, i love it.

Very Thoughtful by theashemarie - a low empathy study of donnie

this year we lost our dear brother leonardo by catatonicatnap - explores the direct aftermath of defeating the krang and pulling leo out of the portal. this one also captures the show PERFECTLY and is extremely funny <3

anyway i'm going to binge read all the ones you sent TYSM <33333

[lets-try-some-writing]

So a few days ago, I bumped into this.

That just made me think of how much ANGST this au would have. Like Team Prime leaves to restore Cybertron (Ratchet leaves too) once the war is over and a few months later, they come back to visit the kids only to find out they can’t remember them. The Autobots are not happy!

What are you headcannons on this? How exactly do you think the team finds out about the kids? Also, I was wondering if this could ignore the movie after S3 so Optimus can be alive here and Team Prime brought Cybertron back without any issues.

What a wonderfully angsty idea. Don't mind me while I expand upon it :)

Missing Memory

It took some effort to convince Ratchet to come along, but once the bots left for Cybertron, they were hopeful and promised the children they had cared for that they would come back soon. They did what was needed of them over the course of around a year. Optimus collected the Allspark, the team worked to rebuild, and once Cybertron was restored the team stayed for a while to ensure the bare bones of a new government got set up. Then, as promised, they returned to earth to check up on their human wards.

They were met with something they could have never expected.

Upon stepping through the space bridge, they were met with increadible awe and weapons raised at them the moment they entered the premise of the military base they had called home previously. It shocked the team as they had not been gone all that long in the grand scheme of things, but still they raised their servos up as a show of goodwill and asked to speak with their assigned agent. However before they could so much as get another word in, the humans open fired on them, even going so far as to use missile launchers and tanks to try and fight.

The team were in total shock as they threw themselves into their alt-modes and sped away. Optimus took to the skies and did his best to lead the human aircraft following the team away and somewhere they could not go. Meanwhile on the ground the team split up, each spreading out and making a mad dash across the states. They kept in contact over comm links, but remained on the run for days, swapping alt-modes more often than they cared to count all while having no fragging clue what was going on.

When they left earth a year prior they were on good terms with the government, then all the sudden they were being shot on sight. When the team did gather again after around a week of trying to keep the government off them, they tried to find out what had really gone on. Residing in an old scrap yard and taking on alt-modes that were as ordinary as possible (that is save for Optimus who was forced to forgo taking on a alt-mode altogether because of his size) the team spread out to search for their human partners to get answers. Calling for aid from Cybertron granted Ratchet and Optimus access to the materials needed to set up a base without the aid of the human government, hiding them from the prying eyes of humans with the use of cloakers. All the while the team, save for Knockout who opted to remain on Cybertron throughout the debacle, quietly began doing recon to find their human wards.

With some help from a few agents on Cybertron, Ratchet and Optimus worked their way through a starting number of encryptions and firewalls to find the children. To their relief the children were all still in the Americas. But they were all scattered, with Jack living in Texas, Rafael in Washington, and Miko all the way in Hawaii. It was suspicious as pit once the dots started to connect.

Agent Fowler had up and disappeared, the government had deemed them a shoot on sight type target, and the children had been thrown all across the continent. It was the type of suspicious set of coincidences that the old Council on Cybertron would have waved off or forcefully silenced any who spoke of it. That alone was enough for Optimus to make an executive decision and send out three of the team to retrieve the children and bring them to base unharmed for questioning. Bumblebee, Bulkhead, and Arcee were deployed and quickly made their way to their individual wards homes. It was not difficult to find their location with Ratchet supplying them data, but what startled them was the startling amount of security at each of the children's homes.

Armed soldiers patrolled the property of the children's homes and no amount of sneaking was going to get a bot into the residence and out with a child without causing a scene. It almost was enough to have Optimus call the team back... but it was all too suspicious. The humans were obviously keeping something important from them and they needed to know the truth. So giving a command he had never hoped to give, Optimus issued the order for the team to transform and collect the children even if it meant conflict. He was near certain the children would be safer with them than with the soldiers, if for no other reason than because the children knew them.

The order was followed, albeit with slight hesitation. Bumblebee transformed as he few over the walls surrounding Rafael's home, and then praying slightly for forgiveness, he scanned the buildings even as bullets flew at him. He then punched a hole through a wall and pulled his ward out as carefully as he could. He wasn't startled when Rafael screamed and flailed, after all a huge servo busting through the wall and grabbing you isn't exactly fun. As such he put Rafael into his passenger seat and flew down the road as more firearms were turned on him before going through the groundbridge Ratchet called for him.

Bulkhead didn't bother with any kind of subtly and brushed off bullets and even a small missile with no issues as he barreled onto Miko's property, busting a hole through her home as well to grab her. It was difficult since she screamed the whole time and tried to scurry away, but eventually he got her and did his best to calm her as he put her in his passenger seat and similarly drove through the groundbridge called for him. As for Arcee? She used her small size to drive through the door of Jack's home before anyone could stop her, and then she hurriedly transformed as well as she was able in the small space and grabbed the two humans inside. Jack and June also screamed in terror as she picked them up and made a dash for the groundbridge.

Once the team arrived at base with their charges, Optimus and Ratchet closed the groundbridges they had called and secured the area, ensuring no eyes could see them, human or otherwise. When this was done, the team placed their human charges down, causing June and the children to shy away in fear. Ultra Magnus watched on in concern as he saw their reaction and stepped aside with Ratchet and Optimus to discuss a possibility he was not fond of bringing up. As they did that, the team tried in vain to try and get the humans to recall them and calm.

Jack: What the hell are you!?

Smokescreen: Heyo little buddy! Don't you remember me? It's me, Smokescreen!

Jack: I don't know who you are or what you want, but leave me and my mom alone!

Arcee: Jack, what's going on? It's just us, the Autobots.

June: Stay away you things! Don't touch us!

Bulkhead: Miko, you remember me right? We're Wreckers! You, me, Jackie, and Magus are a team!

Miko: I don't know you... but you seem to know us.

Wheeljack: Of course we know you kiddo! We've fought together! We were a team for over a year!

Miko: I don't remember any of that.

Bumblebee: Rafael, please, tell me you remember me at least. Somewhere you must remember...

Rafael: I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are...

Bumblebee: That can't be! You don't just forget a whole year!

As the team tried in vain to make the humans remember, Optimus, Ratchet, and Ultra Magnus came to a dark conclusion. Ratchet took a few scans from a distance, but that alone was enough to pick out the primitive technology that had been used on the humans. The Council had done similar things to the minds of rebellious bots, and it was so common that the three knew exactly what to look for. When they found the signs of a memory wipe on the humans based on their brain activity and general scans, Ratchet nearly shattered his datapad and both Ultra Magnus and Optimus almost burst circuitry in rage.

Seeing this the team turned their attention to the trio in time for Ratchet to reveal what they had all been fearing.

Ratchet: They have been mind wiped, all the memories associated with us and our conflicts have been completely cleared.

June: What on earth are you talking about!?

Optimus: You do not remember, but nearly two and a half years ago we revealed ourselves to you by accident while fighting against our foes the Decepticons.

Ratchet: You worked alongside us for roughly a year and a half while we battled our foes to stop them from destroying your planet and dooming ours.

Optimus: However an earth year ago we completed our mission and defeated our foes. And so we returned to our homeworld to oversee its restoration.

Miko: You mean we fought with you!? Wow!

Bulkhead: Yeah... you did. And you fought well.

Optimus: We left with a promise to return in a year's time. That time has passed and so we returned to your world to check up on you.

Ultra Magnus: However it seems your government has used taboo alteration technology, primitive as it is, to remove any memories you had of us or your association with us.

Jack: You mean we forgot everything? A whole year?

Rafael: But how!? That shouldn't be possible!

Ratchet: We don't know how or why, we just know that it was done and now there is no changing it.

The humans were left in shock and the team in mourning for all that had been lost. Bulkhead and Wheeljack were physically pained by the loss of the Miko they knew. Bumblebee looked like he wanted to cry and he eventually moved to hug Optimus as a way to try and stave off some of the sorrow. Arcee appeared most distraught, her adopted son of sorts having forgotten all about her. Ultra Magnus was largely composed, but his fists clenched in anger as he watched the humans scramble for memories they no longer had and the team grieve. Smokescreen seemed lost more than anything else, not knowing who to comfort or what to do. Ratchet worked feverishly to see if there was a way to undo the work done on the humans. And Optimus... Optimus was wrathful and silently began tapping away at his console, searching for the only remaining human who might have answers.

They needed Agent Fowler.

It took weeks of effort on Optimus's part while the team cared for the humans, keeping them at base where it was safe while also simultaneously making trips back to Cybertron to continue reconstruction efforts during downtime. It was surprisingly hard for Optimus to dig around in the human datanet to try and find the missing agent. But eventually, just when the team were finally reconnecting with the humans by regaling them with tales and showing them videos of their time together, Optimus found Fowler.

The agent was being kept hidden away in some facility, one that Optimus, during the dead of night, had exactly zero issues busting into once he found out what was going on down there. The bodies of Cybertronian dead, abandoned weaponry, and even torn plating was being studied and taken apart for the human scientists. Optimus burned every such room he found in the facility to the ground, destroying or confiscating anything belonging to his kind. Then he found Fowler tied up in a dark room, seemingly having been interrogated for any and all information on Cybertronians he might have had. Optimus quickly gathered up the agent and decisively moved to leave, of course not without jacking up all the data the humans had collected.

When all was said and done, the team had four humans who remembered squat about their time together, an agent who was mentally unstable and stuck in a comatose state, and a government that was corrupt enough to be tearing their dead apart for science. The team were ready to raise hell for it.

[themagiciansreccenter]

The Great Blank Spot: @cldfiredrgn

So much goes into creating fanfiction even before the first words hit the paper. And in-depth spotlight on our writers and the process behind their work.

Tell us about your current project.  

My current project has been my project for nearly 2 years now. 'Shoulder to Shoulder with You' turns 2 on February 6th!

The fics are finally posted from The Trials. Did you participate?

I wanted to, I had a team, and a fully outlined project, but the muse refused to cooperate when I sat down to write on it.

What is your current word count?

StS is currently over 130K! 

Do you try to write daily? Do you have a word count or other goals you try to hit for each writing session?

I don't write daily. I binge write (aka type) a chapter, and that chapter is as long as it needs to be. Once the muse starts flowing I usually write a 3-4 k chapter in a couple of days. Mentally, however I constantly work on this project. It's so developed in my mind that it can be frustrating trying to keep it fresh.

What was the inspiration for this fic?

It started as a one-shot, I don't remember what exactly inspired the first chapter.

How do you stay motivated between chapters/stories?

I work on this story, mentally, almost non-stop. For every decision that makes it into a chapter I've probably thought through a dozen ideas and scenarios that didn't.  

I stay inspired because I love the story. Its shaping up in ways that still floor me. I'm getting to the point where I'm really diverging from canon in major ways, and a lot of the ideas I've been seeding in since the early chapters are finally bearing fruit. Having Jane not die via the Beast opened up so many options. I have 1 chapter left in the current Fall arc, then I'm into arc 3 and I'm so excited! A lot things are going to be different! 

Did this fic require any research? How much research do you typically do for your fics?

It's required a good bit of research in certain respects. I did a lot of research with abuse survival and PTSD to flesh out Eliot's reactions to everything his ex did to him. I did research on substance abuse to make his addictive habits believable. 

Quentin is still struggling with trying to be a successful dominant partner - though that dynamic will become a more even one now that Alex's emotional hold on Eliot is loosening. 

I looked at watches for ages to pick the one I'd use for my story.

Do you typically write ahead or post as you go?

I post as I go.  

How much planning and outlining did you do before you started putting words on paper?

I started this fic as a one-shot, so initially there was no long term plan. As I go farther in, and realized just how big an impact Alex was going to have, I started an outline.  Believe it or not I've mostly stuck to it. Naturally, there have been some diversions along the way, I didn't anticipate some of the pressures that introducing the relationship dynamics would create.  

Has it been pretty smooth sailing or rough waters? When things get rocky, how do you handle needing to rewrite sections or scrap scenes entirely?

Since most of the work on this series is mental I can slide scenes in and out and move things around with relative ease. There have been some rough waters sorting out what exactly will happen once they reach Fillory. 

I'm not a huge fan of Fen, so figuring out how she will fit has created the biggest headaches. I considered excluding her completely, but she is so central to setting up the fairy plot that I can't. 

I've had to reorder a lot of things to make them fit my altered timelines, or to fit the characters being in different places. The plans I have for Alice's niffin arc vary massively from the show, that she and Penny are dating creates huge ripples in not only their stories but in Julia and Kady's Reynard arc as well. 

The worst thing that can happen to me to really set me back is losing a typed chapter. Once I've typed something I have a hard time recreating it to my liking. 

Teaser

Once they were safely past the party to the warded quiet of their bedroom Eliot thumbed off the coin's enchantment and wagged the base of the champagne bottle back and forth.   

"You shouldn't be drinking with the pain meds they gave you." Quentin's fingers slipped against the clouded green glass as Eliot lifted it out of his reach. 

"One glass. A celebration of me not dying." Quentin's hand found the middle of his back then dragged down his side towards the gauze square hidden by his clothes.   

"One glass." A grin spread across Eliot's face as he dropped and looped his arms around Quentin's neck. Quentin was warm and solid in his arms. "One glass and then I'm taking you to bed, and we're going to an entirely different kind of celebration."  

The Great Blank Spot is an in-depth spotlight focusing on the writing process and previewing in-progress fics for our fandom. It is meant to be an organic, ever-evolving feature. Previously interviewed fic writers can reach out to us here, to have a specific work featured. If you’d like to have a work featured but haven’t done the author spotlight, reach out to us to get started. If you have suggestions for questions you’d like to see answered, shoot us an ask!

[abloodycrow]

tbh my favorite thing about this dove discourse is that people come to the lodge fandom to tell us that she demanded a role for dating thomas just because we're the only ones that love them and simply dont care,,, some people are really mad if u don't hate who they hate ☕️☕️

It’s true it’s true.

I mean I’ll be honest, to begin with, I felt a tad ‘meh’ about it because I was pretty damn foolish. But now I’m looking at it at a whole different way?

Sophie and Luke are dating, and that doesn’t get involved with the story (I mean I think they’ve kind of scrapped the idea of Sken now)...

Why should there be an uproar when Thomas’s girlfriend appears on the show? There shouldn’t be.

The writing team and the actors have both shown their professionalism and have kept the reality away from the on-screen world. Full faith and trust goes to them.

And what should it matter to people who aren’t invested in the show? It’s not going to affect them at all? It’s not going to interfere with a show they like?

I feel like some of these people are just spreading the hate because they want to degrade somebody - and to that, I say get a new hobby.

And again, Dove is happy to be guest starring, the cast are happy that she’s guest starring. I swear, every single one of Dove’s IG posts, I see a member of the cast like it and that honestly makes me smile so much - and when Dove will like one of theirs. They are all friends and happy to have worked together, the angry people need to just chill, because our cast is happy and our little fandom it too.

[topicprinter]

IntroductionOne of the most common issues that entrepreneurs run into, that no one seems to like to talk about, is the lack of a technical cofounder. In the startup world, it is almost a bit of a taboo to mention that you don’t have anyone that can actually build out your idea. Telling someone this will often elicit from them an exasperated but sympathetic “oh…” accompanied by a glazing over of their eyes as they lose interest. My goal here is to relieve the pain, confusion, and desperation that I so often see this issue causing entrepreneurs. What do you do when you have a great idea and are ready to execute but there is no one on the team who can actually build the product?You have four options. Yes that is right, the decision can actually be distilled into four different options one of which, depending on your unique situation, will stand out as a much better choice than the others. The path you choose has far reaching consequences for the future of your company so don’t make this decision lightly. At various companies and times in my life I have experience with every single one of these options and have seen the resounding successes and devastating catastrophes that can result from each, many times over.Finding a Technical CoFounderThis option is both the best option and the most unrealistic. Finding a technical cofounder is like entering into a marriage, it is an important decision and one which a lot of the time does not work out. If you rush into a cofounder relationship out of desperation there is a high likelihood that it will not end well.On the list of why startups fail “Not the Right Team” is the number 3 reason at 23% (https://www.cbinsights.com/research/startup-failure-reasons-top/).A potential technical cofounder has to have a combination of high commitment, sufficient technical ability, and right cultural fit with the rest of the cofounders which is very rare to find. Often chasing a technical cofounder will result in a long period of fruitless searching after which you are back to where you started, so if you pursue this option, make sure that your budding venture can support this potentiality. Hiring a Local DeveloperThe second option is to pay a developer to code it. This option is split into two sub-options.The first sub-option is to pay a local developer to join the team full time. This is a great option but requires money. A local developer (assuming you live in the states) usually commands a six-figure salary. Most startups that don’t have a product yet just cannot afford this. Furthermore, without a product and traction, it is very difficult to impossible to raise enough money to cover a six figure salary. You are in a bit of a chicken and egg situation with this option where you need the money to build the product and you need the product to raise the money.Hiring an Overseas DeveloperThe other sub-option is to hire an overseas developer (typically somewhere in Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe) to build the mvp. This option can be affordable for most startups (https://medium.com/existek/top-it-outsourcing-countries-in-2019-772df2af7705) but comes with its own host of problems.Typically, chief among the issues are code quality and communication barriers. Overseas developers are priced more cheaply because they tend to produce a lot buggier code and are less fluent in English than their local counterparts. These two things combined can mean you spend a chunk of money on an overseas developer and come out with something unusable that will need to be scrapped and recoded from scratch anyways.There are some ways to mitigate these two issues. If you are fluent in the overseas developer’s native language you can mitigate the communication issues. If you rigorously filter which developers you hire and go slightly upmarket in price you can partially mitigate the code quality issues. Taken to an extreme, with these two strategies sometimes a startup can successfully have their entire dev team overseas. Usually this works best when the startup founders are from the same country as the devs, can fly overseas when necessary, and all the overseas devs work in the same office together with its own management hierarchy and are not remote (i.e. all overseas devs work together in one office in Bengaluru and are not spread out across India). This is the exception and not the most common case. More often than not, going with overseas developers wastes time and money with not much to show for it in the end.Learning to CodeThe final option is for one of the current cofounders to learn to code. Most of the time this is going to be the answer. The strategy takes advantage of what many early stage startups have (time of the cofounders) while not requiring what many early stage startups don’t have (resources). Long term, this strategy also tends to reap the most benefits. The better you understand the technology you are using the better you can manage, understand, and filter developers. Even if you are not always going to be coding the product, it is a worthwhile investment to learn how to so that you understand the technical aspects of the product better down the line. History supports this option as generally the best route. Google, Facebook, Airbnb, and almost all of the other unicorn startups had their founders code the mvp. In fact, it is difficult to find examples of mega-successful startups that did not follow this model.This path comes with its own gotchas however. First, it will take a matter of months to develop the mvp and a huge time commitment. The amount of time taken to code the mvp is a function of the aptitude for learning to code of the cofounder pursuing it, the time they put in per week, and the complexity of the mvp. Tinker with these factors and you can go from having a working mvp in two months (cofounder with aptitude for coding, putting in 12 hours a day, and relatively simple mvp) to never having an mvp (cofounder has a very low aptitude for coding, won’t or can’t put in the sufficient time, or complexity of the mvp compounds a combination of low aptitude/insufficient time).The Final DecisionSo final decision tree goes like this:Can you afford a significant amount of time looking for a technical cofounder and abide by the possibility of not finding one or one not working out?Then try to find a technical cofounder.Otherwise, can you afford to pay out a six-figure developer salary?Then hire a local developer after a rigorous filtering process but keep in mind that most of the time you will be better served by learning to code it yourself.Otherwise, do you have the technical knowledge/native bilingual proficiency to manage overseas developers?Then possibly hire overseas developers but keep in mind that most of the time you will be better served by learning to code it yourself. Finally, if you didn’t fulfill any of the conditions of the routes above, learn to code it yourself.ConclusionA lot of people will tell you that learning to code will take years and is a waste of time. I was told something similar by a lot of very talented technical people at well-known companies. There is a lot of a gatekeeping attitude around coding unfortunately.For someone who is intelligent and committed this is just not true. Learning to code is one of the most useful and rewarding things you can learn as a software-focused entrepreneur that will bear fruits for the rest of your career.Note: I offer this opinion free of commercially influenced bias. I am not selling nor am associated with any product that teaches people to learn to code.​See full post including the charts: https://loopinput.com/what-to-do-if-you-dont-have-a-technical-cofounder/