#finicky as hell

[macking-cheese]

Okay so this probably sounds dumb but at least for now I'm calling it a Mindtrapped AU (my thing with ES Bumblebee getting put under Mandroid's control)

I went back and rewatched the last three episodes of S1 (I replayed Stowed Away. Stowaways so many times I can't count it) but basically I'm rewriting that entire episode plus tweaking the last two. Now I have a canon-relevant reason for Bee going into the G.H.O.S.T Headquarters (his secret mission) and the kids stay home!!!! What compelled them to follow him in canon?! It's like they wanted to get captured or smth,,

So Bee's basically crawling through the walls like a roach to get his business done *insert cool spy stuff that me am not smart enough to write*. I also think that (just my opinion) Optimus kinda acted too obviously suspicious of Croft and that ruined the element of surprise because she immediately clocked that something was up.

And Schloder's complete 180 opinion of Bee?! Wasn't he eager to put that minibot in cuffs just episodes ago??? I think I'm going crazy

Anyway I'm trying to make it flow more cohesively while I build up to the bigger events

I have an oc that would fit perfectly into the plotline but idk if I should actually flesh that out or keep it more canon compliant. On one hand, I'd have an excuse to write them (an unaffiliated Velocitronian bounty hunter with relations to G.H.O.S.T but not officially working for them), and on the other I wanna keep the main antagonist a human (Croft, Mandroid)

Orrrrr, I could write them in and turn it into a double betrayal? (They're so gonna get killed off btw, it was destined in the scriptures)

I'm completely torn on this, y'all can decide whether or not they debut in the fic.

ANYWHO,,,,,,,

Bee gets got at the wrong time and the mission is a failure, and instead of being put in a cell, is immediately put into interrogation (read: torture) for espionage and conspiring with "the enemy". Y'know how everyone else has a badge on their chest/shoulders? Well, Bee gets one implanted directly into his neural net, attached at the spinal cord in the lumbar region, and it's so tightly interconnected that it hurt, threatening to sever the delicate circuitry. (It's fully intended to actually cut the cord if it gets deactivated, a fun surprise for later. I plan on exploring the potential of Cybertronian mobility devices. I also like the prospect of Bee using a cane)

During the fight, Breakdown comes back after getting his shit together, feeling terrible for abandoning his bbg and his family. He takes the responsibility of doing everything he can to keep the mind controlled minibot focused on him and nothing else, which leaves the terrans relatively unscathed at the end. Breakdown just kinda,,, lets his shit get rocked, feeling like he deserves to get beat up like that for even thinking about abandoning Bee. He comes out less unscathed, but alive.

Because it's a different type of control chip, and also connected to a computer at G.H.O.S.T and not that hand thing Croft has, Bee is still under when that big energy wave hits in the last episode, though since the connection was abandoned, there's no input coming through and Bee is left standing there uselessly, waiting for a signal that never arrives.

I think it'd be funny if Breakdown were to try and mess with him, making stupid faces and poking at him to try and get a reaction. He manages to get a few doorwing and horn twitches, and a full body movement when he jostles him hard enough. Other than that, nothing, and it's lowkey disconcerting. None of the others can get any other reaction, and especially Jawbreaker feels somehow responsible and keeps clinging onto him like a koala, hoping that behind the chip, he can feel that his little brother is there trying to support him.

What if the only reaction he gives is because of Hashtag, due to her G.H.O.S.T affiliation? He can sense a signal bouncing through her from that computer and he gives attention to her, awaiting for a command. She of course is freaked out about it but also enamored, because that's one of the craziest situations she has ever been in aside from the major fight earlier.

She can't properly intercept the signal because it's out of access, but now they have a better clue on where to look to shut the computer down and get Bee back.

And boy is that reunion uneasy.

[shepscapades]

how do you find songs for your character playlists? is it generally just songs you like to listen to or do you have a process to choose specific songs for each storyline? how do you find/choose them? I’ve really been enjoying listening to the playlists lately!

Omg thank you so much!! Honestly, I very very rarely seek out songs for specific moments for each characters' playlists. More often than not, I will be listening to a batch of new music (my brain can be very picky as to when it's ready to consume new media and new music especially), and I usually just have my ears open for 'which character does this remind me of,' and if a character kinda clicks, 'what moment does this best represent?' and if it's not a perfect match I'll usually try to think of other characters to see if there's a better fit. Sometimes if a song is reaally close to a moment or feeling but not quite perfect, I'll try to re-imagine the events to more closely match the song more, to see if i vibe more with what the song could imply for character relationships, plot-points, etc if i were to keep and use it on the playlist. Sometimes it works and creates a plot point that matches a song like, perfectly, and sometimes I'll just keep a song because it means something verrry specific to me that others wouldn't pick up on without me explaining haha

As far as what new music i listen to, sometimes i'll rely on Spotify's smart shuffle to give me similar-sounding songs for a playlist, other times stuff will hit me while i'm listening to an artists' discography or a random album, or hell a couple of weeks ago i was re-listening to musical albums and got punched in the throat by a couple of songs that ended up being perfect fits for bdubs and 24.

It's not a super reliable system, and it leaves playlists with some big empty chunks (such as, for example, Docs playlist, which has the beginning of s8 and a large chunk of s9 pretty thoroughly covered, but a lot of the meat of s8 is missing, which bothers me because all of that i think is important for his character), but i listen to new music often enough that i'm slotting new songs across my playlists at least a couple of times a week! It's a system that works for me, and i end up putting a good variety of songs onto each playlist since i'm not searching for anything specific for each moment. Hopefully that's helpful!! :D

[rocketbirdie]

one of the things ive been doing as i replay rebirth is taking nice screenshots of enemy/monster designs because i feel like it can be hard to appreciate the work done on them while one is frantically trying to keep cloud and friends alive. however, the way the photo mode works is very frustrating because the camera's focal point is locked onto whichever character the player is running around with, making it very difficult to hone in on anyone who isnt that character. what i end up having to do is running behind whatever im trying to take a picture of and hit the photo mode button before it can turn around and then toggle the party visibility off if they're still in-frame. as annoying as it is to have to jump through hoops to get the shots I want, the results are often extremely funny.

here is tifa photobombing a necrotic entity

very rude of this necrotic entity to photobomb this otherwise lovely picture of tifa, in my opinion

[stanliestduo]

I found your blog while looking for some old 2016 art and I gotta say as someone who doesn’t ship Stancest I can really appreciate your take on why you do. And I think you’ve made solid points on why they work as a ship that’s more than just “uwu incest”

I often feel like adding sex or romance to Stan and Fords dynamic cheapens it, generally because I enjoy platonic relationships over romantic ones, but also because the stancest stuff I have seen often disregards their characters to make it into a “uwu incest” ship without taking into account the chemistry the characters have in canon.

Also I think you’re right about people who don’t ship stancest depicting emotional incest on accident, because I see it man, like actually.

Hello! I'm sorry I didn't get to this sooner. I've had a lot going on. (I'm curious to know what art you were looking for...) Let me start by saying- thank you for this ask. I was having a shitty day and it's nice to get to reply to something like this. I actually really like that you use the word "cheapens" when describing how sex and romance can affect a bond or the perception of it... Because I've used that EXACT same word myself before! I actually do also enjoy purely platonic Stan and Ford, btw. Huge fan! Personally, I think a LOT of relationships can be ruined in writing by the random inclusion of romance or sex, ESPECIALLY sex, and I'll always want to see more platonic stuff. However, I think Stancest is a special case. While this rant is long enough and I don't want to bog it down with more bullshit. there is a lot of reasonings I have even beyond what you saw as to why I think Stan and Ford COULD (not should, not necessarily will, but COULD) be in a relationship. And the thing is, I know what you mean when you mention characters being put into ships with no regards for their chemistry. I've encountered this problem with literally every ship I've ever enjoyed. Thing is, sometimes it's hard not to have their chemistry ADJUSTED or in some ways influenced and changed by putting them in a ship. Let me ask you- have you ever been changed by a relationship? Have you ever had a partner that influenced you in small ways, large ways? Changed your habits or how you thought of yourself? I think one of the interesting things about ships is that it isn't just a tool for cute interactions or sexy stuff- although it can certainly be that as well!- but it is also a tool to explore new depths to characters that may previously have not been uncovered. My goal when I ship is not to maintain perfect harmony parallel to the canon, because otherwise I couldn't do any fandom work at all- it's to keep some ESSENCE of the character intact while also thinking about changes in them, progress both negative and positive in them as people if they were to end up in a relationship. I like to think that many other people aim for that goal too, because otherwise why ship these characters at all? Why did the brain latch onto THESE characters in particular? I have a lot I could say on the actual chemistry and characters of Stan and Ford in my version of Stancest, but that's for another rant.

Also if I may, I want to focus on this bit you said- I think you’re right about people who don’t ship stancest depicting emotional incest on accident, because I see it man, like actually.

You can't hear it, but I'm cracking my knuckles in delight. SO glad someone else sees it. If there's one thing I wish I could project into everyone's brains, is that there is a difference between friendships and QPR. That's a very specific thing, but as an aroace person, I think a lot of other aroace people in particular (and some non-aroace people) are not taught the differences between the two and so misunderstand what writing a friendship or a brotherhood vs writing what a QPR means. Because that's what I think is happening when people write emotional Stancest- they're writing the brothers in a QPR without realizing it. There's one artist in particular that is very popular right now- I won't name them; They've made it clear they don't see their stuff as Stancest and don't want to be involved with it so I'm going to respect that (and if you know who it is, please leave them alone!) who, to me, is an aroace person who, like many of us, who has never been taught that difference, that QPRs involve a type of fixation, bond, and chemistry that friendships do not. They WRITE the Stan twins as if they are in a QPR constantly, and so many people really emotionally feel attuned with their work. I myself too enjoy it so much, but looking at it, I'm always struck by just how much it resembles the strongest QPRs I've ever witnessed. They're not the only culprit by far, but there's a lot of people who I think would ship these two except that the very suggestion is poison to them, even while they're actively doing it. Something I'll admit to as well while I'm at it- There are a lot of people who ship the same things as I do that I actually don't want to interact with. I've made a joke before to people who know me that I more often than not start in a fandom's yard only to pack up my toys and go home, but that's been my fandom experience. There are other Stancest shippers who ship other things that make me uncomfortable. There are Stancest shippers who ship in WAYS that make me uncomfortable. This isn't me saying that my way of doing things is better or that I'm above them in any way, this is just about what lines I draw. I go through periods of sex revulsion that get aggressively agitated by how some people ship characters for sex. If sex follows chemistry that's one thing, I can participate in that forever, or if it's just a bit of sexual art that's nothing, I draw that too. ...But for that to be the FOCUS of a person's enjoyment of the characters or ship genuinely makes me sick to my stomach. I also have a dicey relationship with "physical attraction", depends on the day. So, a lot of stories that get written about the Stans where they have physical crushes on one another from their youth into adulthood make me feel strange inside in a way that full on smut written with them wouldn't. I know, it's weird. It's because of my weird relationship to all this stuff that I often end up with just me and a friend in a fandom- but with Stancest, I don't even have that. It's just me alone on this blog. So, it's really nice to have people like you who don't even like Stancest reach out to speak to me. I appreciate you 💟

[mini-uzzy]

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[krash-8]

[referring to old broken laptop] is it weird that im sad to say goodbye

[dubioushonour]

As soon as I get a full combo on 'good weather' I'm never fucking playing it again

[vaimetanyx]

I recently had time to practice using water colours using photos I'd taken while traveling

[ofallthingsnasty]

oh my gawd i am SO glad they let us put colors into the rich text editor now 😭💕 finally no more html shenanigans for the extreme tags on my dead dove things

[moonstandardtime]

love my digital art class but god it is filling me with rage and hatred for adobe.

[tejoxys]

I think I might be working too much when I start having thoughts like, "I think someone bullied my wife (the airfuge); she's just not herself today"

[carterashofficial]

Premium Loaf for the Premium Dog

[angeltism]

it could be that theyre shadowbanned since that's usually why there's ghost notes but it sucks they're doing that 😭😭

YEAHH like man imagine seeing "haha please don't interact with this blog unless I know you because it's personal!" and going "I see no reason to not like this person's posts"

[the-rat-k-ing]

in computer science today the teacher let gave us some coding courses to play around with if we were done with all the other work and one of them was making images...

so here they are

i have named them “the butterfly watches” and “the fight” respectively

[cyanidetide]

Things I found on my first laptop that I got when I was 12.

[dysphanic-redshift]

Thanks tumblr I really couldn't tell