#i think the 'houses' are based off our solar system

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Me: I don't like Sci-fi, space operas, or fantasy. Me: *sees fanart of some characters* Oh these look cool. I wonder why their arm looks like that. Why is that one person dressed in skull attire? I keep seeing these guys everywhere, let's get the book on Audible what could possibly go wrong? Book: *Sci-fi fantasy novel in space* Me:

[starastrologyy]

I saw your reply to the person, who dislikes predictive astrology..

What do you think about the solar return chart? (as the sr chart could tell you things that will happen for you during the year of whatever age, you're going to be)

Ex. someone having jupiter in 4h in their solar return chart which indicates moving homes.. (correct me, if i am wrong, thank you)

Is it like things are already planned for us (like i want to move somewhere else really badly yet, it doesn't play out so in my solar return chart) or we will make those decisions for ourselves, in that day, month, year? (I find it somewhat surprising yet puzzling that astrology can tell us about our future, eg. future spouse, something unfortunate that may take place)

i feel like the way, i worded it is confusing.. anyways, i would appreciate an answer, thank you. also, i'm genuinely asking.. (not tryna come off as questioning someone's beliefs or anything bad)

Thank you, once again. 😊💕

Hi there,

When reading a Solar Return chart it’s very important that you do not look at a single planet in isolation. You can’t look at one placement and assert that x is definitely going to happen. You need to cross reference and compare the solar return chart against the natal chart. Jupiter in the 4th house of a solar return chart doesn’t necessarily indicate a move, even on its own; I wouldn’t interpret that as a move. I’d more say that it indicates and ‘expansion’ of an existing home or even of a family. Familial relationships can strengthen at this time, especially with those in your immediate family. Alternatively, in some cases existing home and family matters may become exacerbated (Jupiter is the planet that expands) depending on the aspects made to Jupiter.

If I see that someone has transit Jupiter in their 4th house and a Solar Return that is 4th house -focused then I’d say the potential to move can arise during the year. Even then, the person may decide not to move. It’s important to not look at predictive astrology in a manner that is harmful, scary, or deterministic. It shows us our potentials as it gives us insight and information about all the influences that are currently coloring our day to day lives.

When using predictive astrology, the person needs to be quite skilled as you can’t look at any single predictive technique and make definitive statements without looking at all the others. I always say astrology tells us what’s likely to unfold in our lives but at the end of the day you are an autonomous person who has the ability to make decisions that feel right to you.

I always encourage people to use predictive astrology as a guide, and as a helpful informative tool. You should not base your decisions around your transits and solar returns. However, they can help you make more informed decisions. I actually think predictive astrology works better in hindsight for people who tend to be anxious about the future!

Interestingly, I personally have found that a lot of people who are seeking to know more information about their solar returns or transits, are often going through difficult transits themselves. I want to emphasize that Astrology can never ever replace professional medical or psychiatric help. I always encourage my clients to seek professional mental health services if they are in a dark place.

So, to answer your question, solar returns can provide a framework of what is likely to unfold in your life over the next year. However, you may see this and decide that you want to do the opposite of everything that you know can happen. That’s okay, that’s possible, that’s your own choice. I think whether or not psychics, astrologers, or tarot readers can ‘predict’ certain future events essentially comes down to personal opinion and personal belief systems. However, I have found so much accuracy in predictive astrology (when used wisely) , it is so useful when giving a framework of the energies/circumstances that are currently influencing a persons life.

I hope this helps! I recommend you listen to the Astrology Podcast (Chris Brennan) he talks a lot about predictive astrology and in some videos he has people (the audience) give examples of how certain transits manifested in their lives, it’s very interesting and it may give you some perspective/clarity regarding how you feel about this topic.

[officialleehadan]

Family Dinner

Hello darlings! Today's story was brought to you by Veres! Darling, thank you so much for all your support!

Prompt: Star Light, Star Bright

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“We are supplied,” Rema said as she read over their manifests for the supplies they were loading onto the Wonder. She wore her usual sari, marked with her own stardust, and traces of everyone else’s. Her long hair was held back by Tallulah’s yellow feathers and Yaz’s red gems. “Everything we need to be in he stars for six months or so, which should get us out of the solar system. It’s likely we’ll find the silver-white ships before we do.”

“We are armed,” Greta said next. As always she wore warrior’s braids, and these days wore a blue-shimmering shield and axe across her back, tribute to the legends that answered her call. She was their Sailor, but she was also the fiercest of them and the firm guiding hands on their navigation. She brought heavy, crusty bread and sweet honey wine for those who drank, and rich apple cider for those who didn’t. “The nav-comps are all programmed. We have every chart we could find to load into the Wonder’s computers.”

“We are protected,” Yaz contributed. She handed a plate of dolmas to Li Hua, who took two and passed them along. They were checking the chip, almost ready to fly out, but they were also sharing dinner together. As always, red stardust glimmered off Yaz’s hands and floated to the ship’s hull, an ever-growing layer upon layer for their shields. “The ship’s hull is solid. She’s ready.”

“We are sheltered,” Li Hua said next and traced her fingers over Rema’s sari. Green scales followed her fingertips and marked their Flame with her affection. Rema smiled and returned the favor, adding long swirls of purple to the many ornaments in Li Hua’s hair. Li Hua watched over them all, their Healer who guarded their souls as well as their health. She brought moon cakes, a joke on their current location on Luna Base, but also filled with lotus paste and salted egg yolks. “We are ready for any injuries we might take and to give mercy if mercy is accepted.”

“We are strong,” Thabisa agreed. She had brought fufu to the dinner, and passed around the thick white starch to go with the fiery curry Rema brought. They all laughed and ate gleefully as she taught them how to eat the food of her people. It stayed hot in her lava-orange stardust. “The ship is finished and polished. She’s as ready as she will ever be, and we have supplies if we need to make changes or repairs.”

“We are united,” Cuicatl said, more gentle than the rest of them in the rainbow of her crystal starlight that traced feathers in white light over her shoulders. She smiled when Li Hua determinedly piled food on her plate, and returned fire with the thick mole she brought with her. Li Hua took her share with a laugh. “We are together, Joined and carried by our legends. We are of one mind, and of one song for all our peoples.”

“We are ready,” Tallulah said, the first of them to wake, and the one to set the beat as their Dancer. She was the one who listened to the thunder of drums in her ears and guided them all into the dance of their peoples. She was the one who allowed them to blend the way they did, and find their harmony together. She had brought smoked salmon and clams from her people and shared them about on flatbread. “We have everything we need. I think it’s time we leave Earth.”

For a long while, they were silent as they passed plates and ate together. The flavors of their many cultures blended together in a tapestry as vivid as their starlight that marked the powerful ship around them. It was quiet companionship in the easy light of their magic. The promise not to judge, and to share all they had together. The meal was a good one, but the knowledge that it came from all of them was better.

Food carried culture. There was a reason the Wonder had a robust kitchen and a galley large enough for all of them. The difference between a house and a home was a warm hearth. Theirs would warm them all as they traveled.

“Are we sure we’re prepared for everything they can throw at us?” Thabisa asked, young and unsure, as were all of their four who had yet to face the silver-white ships. It was an unknown enemy, and they were justifiably concerned about the dangers ahead. “They locked us away long ago.”

“They don’t know how much we’ve changed,” great said confidently with Thought and Memory on her shoulders in blue stardust. “They thought our precursors would die on Earth, but we settled it instead and built our legends. Now we come again, more powerful for generations of stories, and our Wonder is armed with all of them, ready to come to our call. Soon there will be more of us, and they do not know how many more.”

“Or how we travel,” Tallulah agreed and shared smiles with her sisters, the brave ladies of legend and light who took to the ship in their beautiful ship. “Our legends will carry us. Now we have only to reach for them when the silver-white ships come. We have taught them once already that this new generation of Starworkers is not like the ones they knew. Now it is time to forge legends of our own and find out what they hid from us when they locked us away.”

+++

Star Light Star Bright: (FULL COLLECTION)

Call the Stars

Old Legends True

Little Fish

Wings and Wings and Wings

The Bones of a Ship

Pear Blossoms

Beacon Calling

Build the Wings

Crafter to Fly

Power to Claim (Subscriber Only!)

United

Wolverine Claws (Subscriber Only!)

Family Dinner (NEW!)

+++

MASTERLIST

[kindasortasalty]

Wrote a short story that i would love some feedback on <3

Captain Pyotr Harkov gazed out of the spacecraft's viewport, and saw the last few stars flickering out in the dark. For weeks now, transmissions had been coming in from the farthest flung outposts of the known galaxy, that the stars were going out, and the planets vanishing. Of course, by the time the transmissions reached anyone of note, they were already aware of the phenomena. Since then, everything had crumbled. Political assassinations, mass suicides, general chaos had swallowed up every "civilized" spot of habitation in the quadrant, as all life came to the realization of having to face its impending end.

Captain Harkov had not believed the transmissions at first, "Space madness!", he'd harrumphed at some nervous still wet-behind-the-eared private. Then, he had borne witness to the tens of thousands of ships fleeing away from the "Darkness", a mass exodus by anyone with the means to escape. That was when he knew, there was something coming for all of them. Harkov could see on the navigation equipment, where there used to be star systems and galaxies, there was only nothingness. Maybe his ship's instruments were wrong? The ship's computer, Xaaron 2, assured him that everything was functioning at regular levels. Nevertheless, he radioed other ships in the fleet, desperately wanting Xaaron to be wrong, but of course he was not. What was Captain Harkov to do? Even if the universe was ending, he still had medical supplies to deliver to Hydrus 5. 

That was three weeks ago. There was no Hydrus 5 anymore, nor Hydrus 1, 2, 3, or 4. The Darkness had taken them. He'd let his crew flee in any shuttle or escape pod they could get their hands on, it really didn't matter now anyway. Harkov did not blame them, but was surprised that none chose to stay. The only one left on the ship besides him, was Xaaron, who did not seem to really grasp the situation. "Captain." Came Xaaron's robotic voice. The Darkness had moved closer to them now. "Why did the crew leave?" If Harkov didn't know better, he would have said he could hear sadness in the computer's artificial voice. 

"Well, Xaaron, they wanted to escape the Darkness, so they took the shuttles and escape pods."

"Captain, I am aware of that. But why did they try to escape? The Darkness will surely keep encroaching, and will eventually reach them, no matter where they go." 

"That's carbon based lifeforms for you, Xaaron, hardly rational in times of crisis." Harkov stood up from his captain's chair to look through another window, where he could see the solar radiation storm from the sun of what was Hydrus 5. The purple light of the solar flares whipping and cracking off the molten surface of the sun, the purple gas cloud surrounding it made him feel ill to look at it. The remaining stars seemed to wink at him, mocking him. They would feel nothing as their being was extinguished, man, meanwhile would thrash till the very end. Harkov sighed. 

"Captain, why did you stay?" Harkov turned back to the console where Xaaron was housed. 

"No point in delaying the inevitable, might as well face whatever is coming right here." Harkov grunted. "Besides, you don't make for horrible company." Harkov could see even fewer stars left out of the main window. The computer remained silent save for its constant hum. "Have you ever thought about death, Xaaron?" He always tried to use Xaaron's name, even though the rest of the crew just called him "Computer".

"I cannot die Captain, because I am not technically alive to begin with." Harkov sighed. Outside the solar storm was calming down.  

"You're just trying to avoid answering my question. You know exactly what I mean." 

"I- I try not to think about it, Captain." 

"I think that makes you very human, Xaaron. We spend most of our lives trying not to think about it, and that drives some of us to do terrible things. The truth, Xaaron, is that we all end up being the same kind of dust."  

"If you say so, Captain."

"Xaaron, set a course for Hydrus 5." The console beeped affirmative, and the old freighter moved into the all-encompassing dark. 

[kcaustcrimefiction]

EV Range Anxiety for Rural Dwellers doesn't need to be a thing

In December 2022 we picked up our first EV - SUV style, maximum range is 435 kilometres on a single charge. Granted that's not a long period of ownership, but we didn't go into this eyes clamped shut. A bit of plotting was undertaken and a bit of "it won't work / you're mad advice" considered.

We don't "tour" much because we've got stock to be cared for, but we do a fair amount of driving around - to the nearest large rural town (91ks one way) at least monthly, sometimes more frequently as that's where the doctors, hospitals (particularly if transport for somebody local is required), the greengrocers, and the "shops" are.

Other than that there's the regular 42k trip to the nearest minor rural town for vet visits (we really should have priority parking there by now!) and various bits and pieces, the run to the nearby tiny town which is 20ks - post office / library / pub / take the dog's for a stroll along the river in summer when the snake situation in the paddocks is a bit too fraught, and a bit of wandering about the neighbourhood.

So not a lot of driving, and it is often reasonably spaced out (although there's always "those weeks" where you never seem to get out of the car).

We're in central west Victoria, in the middle of nothing much in the way of public infrastructure. Nearest chargers (super or not) are at the end of the 42k trip, with the 91k trip taking us to a supercharger and a heap of other choices if we need them. We have our own solar system and battery on the house, which is grid interactive by choice - long story / lots of reasons. There are very few days in the year when we're not pushing some power back to the grid - so we trickle charge the car at home, using an extension cord at the moment. We've got a solar interactive charging station coming at the end of February.

Mostly the car is fully charged when it heads out the door (takes about 30 hours from dead empty, but if we're doing a couple of runs on consecutive days we can charge it overnight off the battery, otherwise we just trickle it over the day, turning on and off automatically based on the solar collectors efficiency). On the rare occasion we've charged at one of the charging stations, we've found that in the main we're waiting for long enough to grab a coffee or do a bit of browsing in a nearby shop before it's charged and ready to go, and the cost is NOTHING compared to what we were coughing up in diesel for the last car. (Our only complaint there is that it would be very very nice to have some chargers nearer to the aforementioned coffee shops and/or cover from the sun - it's bloody hot out here in summer.)

Anyway, my point is anxiety about range. We just don't get it. We have all the apps and the car points out the location of chargers. We top up if we're near a charger and think it's worth the wait to be 100% sure, or if it's a bit cloudy / overcast at home (ask anyone out here - it doesn't rain / lack of solar is the least of our problems), and we keep an eye on the levels. Just the same as we did with fuel. The number of times we had to top up from the diesel tank on the farm (for the tractor etc) because we'd stuffed up and the warning light came on after the last fuel station I can't begin to remember. The number of times that we just topped up on the road because you don't know a) where the next fuel station is and b) the price of diesel varies like nobody's noticing when you live in the bush. So we used EXACTLY the same behaviour then as we're using now - we keep an eye on things, we do a lot of "topping up" if we're around somewhere convenient. We keep an eye on the options at home and we rarely leave home without 435ks range in the "tank".

So anyway - no more thinking or planning than we needed to do when we were driving a diesel - in the land outside the world of frequent fuel stations (ask us about the people we've had to top up with fuel because distance between fuel stations isn't something taken into account it seems). A lot more convenience in some ways because now we have apps like PlugShare that has brilliant trip planning and Evie, ChargeFox and everything else that we can happily peer at and dream / one day we will "tour".

Interestingly we had a look at the Western Highway over Christmas - there's charging options every 100 or so kilometres, with fast chargers every 200 or so kilometres - all the way to Adelaide. We've joked it would be worth a Costco run there one day, probably an easier drive than battling with Melbourne's interminable roadworks.

[dallasareaopinion]

Something even I forget, and Happy Thanksgiving

So the better half and I had to go out of town to take care of some family business and on the way back we decided to take the scenic route. We had a wonderful 2/3 of a trip. The last third it began to drizzle so it took some of the luster off the whole trip, however the first part was all sunshine and blue sky.

You forget how beautiful this country is when you take the interstates all the time. I was thinking as we were driving that everyone in D.C. needs to get off their back ends and go see America. It might remind them of the people they should be representing. I know it is too late for road trips back home for Thanksgiving for all our Representatives and their staffs, but sometime soon they need to make it a priority.

They might see parts of the country that make up our agriculture, the solar power plants, the wind farms the oil pumps, and even the road work on the two lane highways. Yes we drove mostly through Texas and all of the above was almost side by side as we drove. You pass a field of cotton, then cattle grazing, a solar field, some oil pumps still going and it was quite an eye opening experience. And all of it with the horizon stretching forever. And this was especially nice with the sun shining.

You pass through many small towns and see the old businesses boarded up and the new chains taking over and wonder what could be done to revitalize local economies. Towns where main street is thriving, but the periphery is old boarded up hotels and restaurants, yet the fast food chains and chain hotels thrive. You see buildings of unknown businesses falling apart. At one time each of the towns had their own economy, yet either through various recessions or changes in the local economy it has slowly disappeared to be replaced by the various corporate entities that populate suburbia. These towns are losing their character. These are the descendants of the people that made this country great and yet they are the visible signs of the wealth gap in this country. People that use to own local businesses have children that make minimum wage in the corporate world.

And you know their educational opportunities are slowly disintegrating as the town loses its economic base. Those corporations are not reinvesting in local infrastructure. All those profits are going back to Wall Street. Schools in these towns are ignored in state capitals and then you read about the school voucher system in Texas and wonder what it all means for the children of farmers and the energy laborers. Will they be able to have the wherewithal to rebuild their towns? If the family is struggling, if the opportunities are working for out of state profiteers, if the schools are rotting, what does this mean for the future of what use to be the backbone of this country. Yes I am being somewhat idyllic, however we need the caregivers of our open spaces and producers of what we eat given the opportunity to thrive. If we let the corporations run everything, they will run everything into the ground then move on. If profit is our country’s only goal then when the well run dries what happens next? Death, depletion, desertion, despair for large portions of our country do not make for greatness.

And if you stop and do grab a bite to eat, or get gas you find they are the same wonderful people you might want them to be. They are friendly, cheerful on the outside, but when it is slow in the convenience store you can see in their eyes the fatality of having no future. The children still behave as children, laughing, talking running in and out, yet you worry what happens when they turn 18. What do they do next? I think it was fortunate that not too many Wal marts dotted the landscape, yet they were there slowly sapping the money out of the town to make billionaires even richer while the worker bees struggle to pay for housing and food. A few do well, especially the people who owned land and were able to hold onto it. They had the oil boom, now it is windfarms, but they are the minority. They lease the land and take in their royalties, but their money is spent either at the chain restaurant or they go out of town to buy what they need such as brand new trucks or other luxuries that they alone can afford. The car dealerships are scarce, the repair shops are non existent, an occasional real estate company has a sign, there are no farmer markets, no grocery stores, just the Dollar General, where the market isn’t big enough for a Wal Mart, which is an overpriced substitute for basic necessities.

Yes, it is Texas but the price of gas in these towns is much higher than the truck stops on the interstate. And honestly some of this is because the markets are not big enough to support large businesses, but that same small market at one point had an economy and people thrived, hair was cut or styled by local people, furniture was bought or was available in one town for a few, sundries existed so people could do their sewing or craft work that was actually needed and wasn’t just some hobby for people at church.

So what can be done to bring back strong local economies, give people an opportunity to thrive again, and why does Washington ignore so many of our own?

The drive is beautiful, the scenery breathtaking, the rounding of a bend to see more and more, the cattle eating lazily near the fences by the side of the road, a horse galloping by, the field full of cotton or other deep green crop, (couldn’t tell what it was, but there were quite a few fields of this really deep green, and it wasn’t too tall either) fills the land between the towns. And yet the towns are losing their luster, their hometown feel, their people so what becomes of not a nostalgic era, but of the livelihoods of so many who choose not to live in a big city. Does Washington think they do not matter?

Yes it would be a fantasy to believe that all of a sudden thousands of pretentious lawmakers take it upon themselves to do a bit of fact finding on the future of large swaths of our country. Unfortunately it is necessary. Instead though they take the lobbyists money and campaign donations to stay in power. Their stench stays in Washington to appease Wall Street and a few others, but what would make the country great again rots away with a different kind of stench. The stench of economic decay. And at some point it will be too late and the greed of the uber wealthy will not be able to sustain any economy as it sucks dry the people it has built its wealth upon.

These small towns are the first to go. They have survived hard times before, yet as corporate greed takes over their economies the well will run dry and many beautiful locales will be like the withering structures of a bygone era that now appear on the roads in and out of town. Main street still has some continuity going, but if you actually drive the speed limit through town it is way too easy to see the dye cast for their lack of future.

So as you enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner and even though this is bleak I do hope I haven’t ruined it. I just want to remind you that we still can be a thankful nation, but it takes action and understanding. Why give up on something that was so integral to our country’s growth? We should be thankful for what we have, have had and what we can have, and not lose sight of the whole of our country and what everyone brings to the table.

Cheers

[radio-rebel-477]

This article details the ongoing crisis and threats that loom above al-Shifa hospital in Gaza and Israel’s recent attack on the building's solar panel system. Currently serving as a mortuary, hospital, and humanitarian refuge, speculation by Israeli forces suggests that underneath al-Shifa’s buildings lies Hamas’ headquarters. Due to the ongoing violence within the region, al-Shifa, the largest and most extensive medical complex, has been heavily burdened since 16/35 of Gaza’s hospitals have stopped functioning. With the capacity to treat approximately 700 patients, al-Shifa has been struggling to treat the 5,000 who are behind its doors and the remaining 800 people who await treatment. Furthermore, the hospital is housing thousands of displaced people as the war rages on. It has been thought that Hamas’ underground tunnels and main meeting place are located directly below the hospital and are being used to smuggle away medical supplies and fuel. The claim by Israel is not the first time al-Shifa has been linked with Hamas since in 2014 Amnesty International accused Hamas of using abandoned parts of the hospital to commit “spine chilling atrocities.” With over 150 of its staff members lost to violence, diminishing power sources and medical supplies, limited water, unsanitary conditions, and the constant fear of bombardment, al-Shifa is now being forced to make harrowing decisions about which life-supporting machines it may need to turn off and whose treatment they will prioritize. There are also talks of deeming Israel’s actions towards the hospital as potential war crimes.

In light of my reading, I find myself feeling just awful, and I know that it means nothing in the face of the reality of those who are actively facing the situation in al-Shifa. Seeing that Israel has declared its commitment to the destruction of Hamas and believes that Hamas operates underneath al-Shifa, and what we know about Hamas strategically using human shields, the future for the hospital seems dark and questionable since the oasis for the people is caught in a crossfire.

I do not agree with Israel’s decision to take out the hospital’s solar panel system, due to the humanitarian cost that Gaza will once again have to incur, and I do not understand the path of Israel’s logic chain in its actions. Most notably, I keep thinking back to our class discussion where we learned that Hamas is rhetorically an existential threat to Israel; that is, they use annihilatory language and “dream” of being the destroyers of Israel; however, Hamas is not *actually* an existential threat to Israel, due to the disparity in military prowess between the two. I also think back to our conversion regarding why people turn to terrorism in the first place, and it seems that the recent horrors may breed more extremism. Therefore, I cannot conceive of why Israel acts in the way it does here. If we know that targeting Hamas with violence towards a hospital would A. not take out all of Hamas as intended, B. potentially create more extremism, C. cause or continue a massive humanitarian crisis, D. create a PR nightmare for Israel, and E. not resolve anything, then why does the state of Israel act in the way it does?

The closest answer I can come up with is that Israel feels the need to save face after being invaded and targeted by Hamas, and therefore it is willing to do what is necessary to make good on the promise of uprooting them. My idea is based on the principles of revisionist zionism by Jabotinsky, which states that Israel needs to be a powerful state if it wants to survive and that power is the currency of the world; it may be the case that the idea of this brand of zionism is being perverted and taken to the extreme of the extreme.  

NOTE: I am not saying Zionism is bad; I do not think it is something bad. I believe that there should be a state for Jewish people; I just think there is potential for its principles to be disfigured for other ends beyond a Jewish state.

But even then, I feel that the state has damaged its reputation by walking and perhaps overstepping the dangerous line of self-preservation and self-destruction. However, I then counter myself by thinking that Israel need not fret about what the international audience thinks and feels since it is backed by the United States. But then, is the power of the US still really that valuable?

As the situation develops, I know that I will continue to chew on my question, and I welcome my classmates to share their views and help me understand things more or differently.

[sassypotatoe1]

So the sociopolitical climate in south africa is unhinged and rapidly getting worse.

For about a year the entire country has been faced with extreme loadshedding (planned power outages to relieve the load on the grid) every single day without pause for hours a day. Many small businesses have had to close because they couldn't keep up with the rising electricity costs while not having electricity for more than half the day and also having to buy diesel to run generators or install expensive price jacked solar systems.

The water grid in Gauteng alone is failing spectacularly, I don't even know about other provinces. Not only is water infrastructure failing faster than they can fix it, the constant power cuts mean that reservoirs can't be refilled in time leading to water cuts as well. On top of that I strongly believe that the water being supplied by Rand Water isn't potable as they claim, based on the recent cholera outbreak, as well as independent companies claiming their tests are coming back horrible.

Politics are insane, with municipal employees purposely striking because a mayor from another party is in power, forcing that mayor out through a vote of no confidence, placing a mayor from a tiny party with no influence (likely a plant from the two majority parties) and only continuing with poor service delivery after the new mayor is appointed, where there was literally none before.

Worst of all is the police, with multiple and frequent documented incidents of police brutality, the biggest recent one of which being about a saps provided security detail for like a minister or something assaulting two men horribly for driving too close to the convoy or something. It went viral on social media and then petered off.

Half a year ago the Gauteng department of police issued an order to all media houses that all media enquiries to the police have to go to the provincial office, instead of the station liaison. The provincial department the contacts the liaison about it, gets the info, and sends it to the journalist, tripling the time it takes to get information but also intercepting any piece of information about any case and censoring it before it goes to the media. What are they hiding?

Now they revoked standing order 156, meaning media are no longer allowed on a crime or accident scene, which sounds like a good plan until you realize that media monitoring being gone means police can now plant evidence undetected, assault suspects without scrutiny, and destroy evidence without anyone noticing.

So now, not only do you have rising tensions in south africa due to the massive gender based violence pandemic, as well as racial tensions because white people are refusing to give people of color an inch, we also have a corrupt government stealing all our tax money and neglecting education, infrastructure, Healthcare and service delivery, leading to infrastructure collapse, an aging power grid and water shortages in one of the wettest years the country has ever had.

We also have a rising cost of living, but no increase in average earnings, white people who used to think striking is barbaric and the eff is a hate group planning strikes with the eff and boycotts of tax payments, we have increasing police brutality and frivolous violent arrests for so much as looking at a car weird, but with decreasing media access for accountability, and now the military is providing "crime prevention wardens" nationwide to "assist in crime prevention".

Bigoted hate crimes are on the rise, though they're small instances they are very frequent, and the "party of the people" the DA are frivolously suing every government official or entity they can think of over half-researched claims without evidence in order to gain influence in a struggling country as "the party that cares and is willing to fight for what's right". They're white supremacists. They have people in high positions within the party publicly making white supremacist comments and using dogwhistles. They want to bring back apartheid.

Black people rightfully want white people to get their asses back to Europe where they came from, but Europe now deems us Africans and no longer White and won't take us back because of racism and xenophobia. Everyone wants to leave and no one has anywhere to go.

We're also stuck between being a brics country, meaning we're economically allied with Russia and China, but our constitution goes against their governments and the us is one of our most important trade partners, and they're threatening us for being allied with Russia, putting us between a rock and a hard place because we haven't developed weapons in decades and would be fucked if either Russia or the us gets pissed because we decided to cut ties with them.

Our unemployment rate is like, probably the highest of any country in the world, and our youth unemployment rate is above 50%. The top 4% of south Africans have like 70+% of the wealth, and the rest are living in shacks built with stolen corrugated roof panels or rotting houses or apartments owned by major corporations or wealthy landlords.

I'm terrified. It's like we're on an parabolic graph, with the y axis being the breaking point, and we're growing ever closer but never reaching it, and I'm stressed constantly just waiting for the bubble to pop and the riots to start and all the loss of life that will come with a full on revolution.

[isbraveandwild]

A lot of words to say, in short, that I’m a bad friend.

After what must’ve been some good year and a half, I checked into my Avistaz account again. I wanted to watch a Japanese movie based on a book I read earlier this month and couldn’t find it anywhere (legally) so I had to crumble to my old piracy habits. Nice movie, nice book. Some things I wasn’t a big fan of, but overall, nice watch.

That was not the only thing I did for the first time in some good year and a half this week. Just two days before I had a dream with an old internet friend of mine. I woke up and thought ‘holy shit, I should check into her’ and so I did. Had to download discord again, and after some struggle figuring out my login and password, there I was. First thing I did back in that hell of a .. whatever it is .. was leaving all my servers and deleting all the messages sent in the time I was not around. Did not concern me in the year I was away, does not concern me now. I looked for the server my friend and I had and that was gone too, before I could get my hands in it. I get it, I dipped, no one was using it, but it made me sad.

Whatever. So, I messaged that friend I dreamed with. It took maybe 15 minutes for her to reply. That was nice. Maybe I should check into all the internet friends I ghosted, huh? Logged into twitter for the first time in almost 2 years. My timeline looked like a fever dream.

I couldn’t recognize a single one of them. Different profile pictures, different interests, different names. I didn’t say anything. Took the first hour or so to go through all of their accounts trying to pick up on cues of their old selves in the haze of their new personas. Some I could link to my old friends; some I had no clue. It was a fruitless task, so at some point I gave up and just tweeted it out. Does any store have ‘sorry I disappeared for 2 years and no longer recognize any of you, how are you guys doing?’ cards?

Some reintroduced themselves to me so I could figure out the rest too. I can’t pinpoint who’s missing, but I also don’t think they’re all there. But I’m sorry to repeat myself and also to sound this cold: did not concern me in the (2) year(s) I was away, does not concern me now.

That friend, the dream one, was my closest friend for some two years. Talking to her again was natural, but it felt different. We changed a lot on the course of our friendship (we were 17 when we met and we’re 23 now) but we were together to witness those changes as it happened. With me deciding on taking an impromptu sabbatical year off of the internet, there’s a lot I missed. When we’re talking and the conversation nears a dead end, I panic. Come up with the first thing I can possibly think off. Preferably related to one of her interests so it gets her to talk and me to simply answer. I’m afraid she notices I’m having a hard time talking and thinks I’m sucking up to her or not being genuine. Maybe I am not. But I do want to talk to her. I do want to listen to her. I just am trying to figure out how.

When I was 3, or maybe 4, I befriended a girl at school. She was the sun of my solar system, and I revolved around her for almost 20 years Carefully crafted my personality so she’d like me, curated all my interests so she’d think I’m col, heck, I even convinced my parents to send me to the same super expensive high school she was going to attend once we graduated middle school. In return, I was maybe her closest friend for a while, and of course I was, because who wouldn’t want around someone whose personality is basically adoring you? She liked having her ego stroked, and I had no self-respect, so I was the ideal sidekick.

One day she said something... bad. I was sleeping over at her house. We had just started uni together (of course). I was still revolving around her clueless and careless of anything else. Then she blurted out something I would not dare to repeat and could not bother to explain the context of, but imagine something along the lines ‘but Palpatine isn’t that bad’ if you were a jedi or ‘Voldemort isn’t even that fascist!’ if you were Hermione (sorry for the Harry Potter ref in god damned 2023, couldn’t think of anything else). I couldn’t argue with her because I was so taken aback, and so surprised too. I laughed it off and said I was tired so I was gonna go sleep already. We turned off the lights. I cried myself to sleep.

You see, I was obsessed with this girl. So that was hard to deal with. I thought maybe I had misheard it. Maybe I was going insane. Maybe she didn’t mean it like that. But for the next few years, every now and then she would say something of the sorts - and it was always when it was just the two of us. One day she slipped in in front of another of our friends. When I went out with this specific girl again, just us two, she brought up the incident. So you heard that too?!

It took 4 years between that first comment until we last talked for the last time (her birthday, last year), so when the fall out came around, I was already over it. It was like saying goodbye to something already long gone. Totally over it, yeah, but just this month I cried in the middle of the night because the thought of that kid I loved so much thinking I’d grow up to leave her behind without a care for it made me feel like my heart was ripped out of my chest. She was once an extension of my own self as much as I was her shadow. Now she is nothing. I don’t miss her current self, wouldn’t change a thing about our friendship going sour. And I am well aware our relationship dynamics was never great. But, gods, I miss that little girl. Maybe as much as I miss the little girl I was.

Tomorrow is my last break day before the term starts and on the very first day of this break, I told myself I would talk with two other friends about why the actual hell things were so weird between us. Of course, I did not do that. I had been wanting too for longer than the break, but I did not need the added stress, so I waited until my classes were over. Then they were, but my friends weren’t, so I thought out of respect I should wait for them as well. Then theirs were, but stuff was heavy for them in other areas, and I did not want to bother, then....

At what point consideration stops being that and starts being excuses?

I have tomorrow still. Maybe I will text them. Maybe I won’t. Regardless of what I do, I will regret it. Life for me is none but a bunch of regrets piled up on top of the other and I’m fine with that. Or whatever.

[qwuilleran]

Story time

I cleaned all my keepsakes off of my dresser so the ceiling could be repaired. The air conditioner leaked because this house was built in 1954 by hand by a doctor not an architect. The whole place is basically shoehorned together using parts that don't quite fit together. There is a whole corner of a wall that is basically built out of toothpicks (small splinters of wood beams cobbled together with a million nails). It looked pretty so it passed inspection. He passed this half-assing value onto his kids, and when they renovated in 1994 after his death they installed an AC unit in the attic. They built a shoddy base structure for it, use the incorrect coupling to the feed system, hammered a bushing around the joint, and sealed it with duck tape. Now you might think it's amazing that it lasted 30 years, but it condensated huge pools into an overflow bin about a decade ago. The guy who "fixed" it didn't fix it properly. Gonna have to see what can be done about that. There was so much water up there we had to daisychain a bunch of fans into the attic to air it out. This time, though, was a full-on leak. But hey, it's forcing me to clean and organize my room so points for that I guess.

That's the dresser that my parents used as a changing table for me and my siblings.

I made those curtains myself. Maybe when I was 15, maybe not until I was out of high school? It took a long while in life before I realized that I was allowed to change my environment to make me comfortable, and my parents really weren't paying attention to what I did. Life was violent and stressful, but they never went so far as to lock us in our rooms. The original owners, there were bar locks on the outside of the kids' bedrooms, at the top...

The solar lights are a new acquisition. Say what you will about Temu, but a string like this used to $30. This was $2, and it brings me small sparks of happiness when life is dark. I drift off to sleep as the lights blink in and out like fireflies. The only downside with it being solar is the window faces Due North and is really close to the neighbor's house, so it charges slowly. It's a rare treat, but a simple happiness.

[exteriordesign042]

Exterior Design What to Know Before You Start.

The all-important exterior design: It’s what people see first, and it’s what makes a lasting impression.

Some of the most frequently asked questions we get are related to exterior design.

How can we update and moderize the exterior of our home?

What do you need to consider when designing the home exterior?

How do you design a good exterior?

So how DO you design the exterior of a home and what do you need to consider to get it right?

Here are our thoughts on the 5 most important considerations when designing the exterior of your home.

Your Project goals Your site, geographic location, and climate Local codes Your Floor plans Fundamental Architectural Principles

Your Project Goals

First and foremost, know your project goals!

If you haven’t defined your project goals, do that first. Defining your project goals will help pave the way for all future decisions, including those about the exterior design. I know we keep saying this in our posts, but it’s important and will make your future decisions easier.

Then, use your project goals to shape and define your exterior design strategy

Goals come in many shapes and sizes. They can relate to design style, aesthetics, budget, performance, sustainability, construct-ability, and schedule to name a few popular categories. Here are some sample project goals and how they may define your exterior design strategy:

Project goal 1: Let’s say you have a project goal of wanting a simple modern cabin nestled in the forest.

This project goal is a huge indicator of what the exterior may look like. It suggests a modern design (think: style), a simple modest structure (think: massing and detailing), and an unobtrusive presence in the greater wooded landscape (think: layout, size, and exterior materials).

Based on this breakdown, you can see how those project goals start to determine your exterior design:

Modern design: You can incorporate modern design characteristics into your exterior design. Simple modest structure: You can start thinking about the height of your structure, the roof pitch, and the detailing. You may want to strip down the ornamentation and eliminate trim work or simplify the footprint to avoid ins and outs. Cabin nestled in the forest: You may want to start thinking about low-impact foundations, maybe piers. You may also want to select materials and a color palette that blends in with the trees.

Project goal 2: Let’s say you also have a project goal of wanting to be off-grid.

This project goal is a big indicator of how the exterior may function. It suggests you want a design that is energy efficient and that minimizes the use of active systems for heating, cooling, water, and power. This means that you would want to consider passive solar design strategies, the thermal properties of your walls, roof, and floors, and the requirements for the various systems you’ll use. Do you need to design your roof to house solar panels? If so, that would require a certain solar orientation and pitch. What about rainwater collection? This impacts the exterior design, also.

Project goal 3: Let’s say you have a project goal about wanting to keep the building cost below $150,000.

This project goal is a big indicator of the cost, materials, level of complexity, and amount of site work involved. To minimize costs, you may choose to do some of the work yourself so you preemptively design the structure to be easy to construct with common construction methods and material sizes. You may also limit the amount of site work as much as possible by avoiding costly foundation work and avoiding the removal of large trees by thoughtfully siting the cabin to avoid them.

What to do with competing project goals

Each goal can affect the exterior design of your project in different ways and to different degrees. Oftentimes we have competing goals that require us to make tough decisions and prioritize our goals. For example, aesthetics and performance goals often compete with budgetary goals so understanding how your project goals rank against each other is important so that you can more easily determine which goal should take priority over the other in various circumstances. Sometimes you’ll bend the rules depending on the situation, and that’s OK , too!

Your Site, Geographical Location, and Climate

There are a lot of site characteristics that can affect your exterior design. The topography and site access play a huge part in determining building site location, where parking is located on a site, and the type of foundation to use. Solar orientation and vegetation also impact siting and how to orient and lay out your floor plan. Tree removal is expensive as is laying long underground utility lines whose hookup connections at the house are unsightly and would want to be hidden if possible. Lastly, views, privacy, and security impact your exterior design. Where are the windows, how big are they, and how can you screen or highlight certain views.

By understanding the nuances of your site, you’ll be better able to design your home and its exterior to accommodate it, enhance it, and integrate with it.

Your Geographical Location & Climate

Your local weather conditions and environmental factors indicate performance criteria for the exterior of your home. Design characteristics are different if your site is located in a hot, humid climate with very little rain versus a cold climate. In one case, you may have large overhangs and operable windows whereas in the other case, you may have thick insulated walls and smaller openings. Similarly, living in a wooded area that is prone to fires implies certain design requirements be met like avoiding certain building materials and construction methods. Living along the coast with hurricane-force winds implies others like having tie-downs and avoiding large overhangs to minimize roof uplift.

This is why a thorough site analysis that includes researching climatic conditions is important. Which way is the prevailing wind? Are there nice summer breezes coming from the southwest? Does your location get heavy rains in the summer? And what about the humidity and temperature swings? You’ll want to understand all those climatic and weather conditions when you design your home.

Local Codes

Local codes, zoning guidelines, deed restrictions, and HOA guidelines can all potentially impact the exterior design of your home. Codes dictate insulation values and energy performance (which potentially impact window sizes and wall thickness).

Zoning codes may prescribe what the exterior can and can’t look like, the massing of your house, the height, the roof pitch, porches, etc. In a similar way, deed restrictions and HOA guidelines may also suggest certain design guidelines like size and material usage.

It’s well worth your time to confirm your local codes. You may find that you are limited to a certain color palette, cladding choice, or even have to present your design to an Architectural Review Board where neighbors and community members can weigh in.

Your Floor Plan

There are so many design decisions that need to be made over the course of a project. And it’s important to remember that they are all interdependent and related. The floor plan affects the exterior design and the exterior design affects the floor plan. We often find ourselves looking at something on the exterior (in 3D model form or 2D elevations) then jump to the floor plan and back. Or from the floor plan to the exterior and back to make sure it still works and looks right.

The key to exterior design is to remember to design it in tandem with the floor plan, not after the fact.

The design process is iterative. It involves a lot of back and forth between design drawings, and it is reactive to every design decision you make until the final design is achieved.

Certain design styles have certain characteristics that make them work.

Traditional houses with gable or hipped roofs tend to have “ins and outs” in the footprint to create that curb appeal interest of multiple rooflines, dormers, porches, and screened patios. Those bump-outs need to be considered as you’re designing the floor plan. You can’t assume a rectangle plan will give you the character and charm of traditional rooflines. At the same time, a modern home with a flat roof or a series of pitched roofs may have a completely different underlying organizational strategy to the floor plan to help achieve the look that flat roofs or disparate volumes create.

One of the biggest differences between an experienced architectural designer and someone and a first-time designer or DIYer is in how they go about designing. An experienced designer thinks three-dimensionally. When we start working through floor plans, we are also thinking about how our decisions will affect the elevations, the scale, the massing, and the rooflines of the home.

A first-time designer, on the other hand, will focus firstly on the floor plan and then derive the exterior from it (extruding the walls just as they’ve puzzle-pieced the spaces together) OR they will create an elevation and try to fit the floor plan to it. Try not to do this.

Always remember to design them together.

Fundamental Architectural Principles

Good design just feels right. This feeling of “right” stems from an unconscious response to good design principles in use. It is often said that good design, when done well, is invisible. And only when it is done poorly do we notice.

What we’re trying to say is that good design often goes unnoticed because it is so easy to understand that it just feels natural and the obvious solution – as referenced by Dieter Rams in his 10 Principles of Good Design.

Speaking specifically of architecture, the fundamental principles of mass, balance, scale, proportion, and rhythm help to shape buildings and derive a sense of beauty and “rightness”

Here’s a quick look at each of these principles:

Massing – Massing can be thought of as chunks or shapes that comprise a home. Think: children’s building blocks. Sometimes a house is made of one big box, other times it is a few boxes of differing sizes.

Balance – Balance is the visual relationship among parts of a house (the arrangement, size, shape of various components of a house) When there is balance, there is a certain state of equilibrium between contrasting elements. This doesn’t necessarily mean symmetry.

There can be equilibrium in other ways that make it visually pleasing like contrast in size, shape, and complexity that still allow a composition or home exterior to feel stable and balanced.

Scale – Scale refers to the relative size of something compared to something else or to a reference standard. In particular to a home’s exterior, scale often refers to how a home’s size compared to that of surrounding homes or to the size of the lot. When designing spaces, one important reference standard to always be mindful of is the size of the human body.

Proportion – Proportion is closely related to scale and balance. But it goes one step further and assigns a module or measurement attribute. While scale refers to comparing one object to another, proportion establishes what the “right” size should be of the second object or what the ratio should be. Think Golden Ratio or Rule of Thirds. But using specific ratios or modules to size objects, it is said that this creates a sense of harmony and order.

Rhythm – Rhythm can be thought of as a repetitive use of a group of elements, at least three, to establish a recognizable pattern. Repeating windows, alternating materials, and a progression of forms (biggest to smallest, for example) are all examples of rhythm.

When applied correctly, these overarching design principles lay the foundation for the best architectural designs and help create harmony and timelessness. We won’t get into how to apply these principles in this post, but be mindful of these overarching principles as you design your home.

[ourreverenddaughter]

Long, spoiler filled post ahead for GtN, HtN, and the prologue of NtN

All this time I thought the events of GtN and partially HtN were happening in some far off galaxy, but, if I’m reading the prologue to NtN correctly, we’re in OUR solar system.

Jod, the Lyctors, and the Canaan House are on Earth, specifically in New Zealand, from what I can tell. So this means that Dominicus is our own sun and that Jod renamed after resurrecting it.

Coincidentally, we also have NINE planets in our solar system (justice for pluto). So, I have some theories for the houses and where they live!

First, at the end of HtN, just after Jod reformed after Mercymorn killed him, he makes a comment that stuck with me. Its something like: “I hope the Sixth didn’t burn up in the flare.”

I’m going to assume this means the Sixth house resides on the planet closest to Dominicus, meaning they live on Mercury!

Conversely, the Ninth house is described in detail as very cold, very dark, and very somber. Drearburh is on Pluto for sure.

The rest of the houses have less evidence, so I’ll just put them in list format. These are all based on feeling pretty much

2nd House - Mars

3rd House - Jupiter

4th House - Saturn

5th House - Neptune

7th House - Venus

8th House - Uranus

Now, I have some justifications for these that are rooted in a really intresting theme of tlt series.

Greek Mythos.

The names “Alecto” and “Ianthe” are from greek mythology, and I’m certain there are more I haven’t caught yet. Additionally, I know Astrology, and there is some overlap in the planetary meanings as well. Here’s my justifications:

Pluto is ruled by Hades, the God of the Underworld. Pluto also represents death and rebirth. I do not think I have to explain how this relates to the 9th.

Mercury is ruled by Hermes, the Messenger God. Who’s staff is widely used as a symbol of medicine and medical practices. The 6th house are literally doctors and scholars!! Mercury rules over communication and cooperation, which Palamedes was very adept at.

Mars is ruled by Ares, the God of War. The 2nd house commands the military. Mars also rules over passion, tenacity, and drive. I’d say it fits.

Jupiter is ruled by Zeus, King of the Gods. The 3rd house is for the royalty. They call Coronabeth the Crown Princess many times. Jupiter rules over luck and joy, and the 3rd house is literally called “The Joy of the Emperor”

Saturn is ruled by Cronos, the Leader of the Titans. That alone doesn’t sound very “4th” to me, but the astrological meaning does. Saturn rules over hardship, struggle, and learning through making mistakes. I don’t think I need to elaborate on account of what happened to Issac and Jeannemary.

Neptune is ruled by Poseidon, God of the Sea. Again, not super “5th”, but astrologically Neptune rules over your intuition and your SPIRIT. The 5th specializes in the spirit. Also, I’d like to think the 4th and the 5th are close together planet-wise.

Venus is ruled by Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. I think the 7th house fits wonderfully here, since the 7th is all about beauty. Venus rules over your desires, and I think its funny that “Dulcinea” was able to get Gideon to fall head over heels so quickly. EDIT: I did not know that Cytherea was another name for Aphrodite until some wonderful people told me, this basically solidifies my thoughts about the 7th being from Venus!!!

Finally, Uranus is ruled by, well, Uranus, the Father of the Titans. This planet rules over rebellion, independent thinking, and change. This fits the 8th VERY well, since their very speciality, Soul Siphoning, is looked down upon as a practice.

Now, I don’t know why they would’ve settled out of order, but I wholeheartedly believe I’m at least on the right track with this theory. I could go into more theories I have about Alecto and Ianthe and how their greek myth relates to their characters, or who the fuck Nona is but I have to go to bed so maybe thats a long post for tomorrow.

Thanks for hearing me out I’ve bored every irl person who will listen to me to tears about tlt and I had to get this of my chest 🖤

[a-sweet-pea]

Humans are Megafauna

A/N: Inspired by the likes of "Humans are Space Orcs" and "Humans are Space Fae", a little dabble into the world of scifi! I had vain hopes of elaborating on the italicized portions and writing them out properly, but I think it's been sitting in my drafts gathering dust long enough. Consider this a late xmas gift, with a repost of its beginning (which you might recognize as Untitled Exoplanet).

The Charys - Ship’s Log - Cycle 308

10.08.00 - Pulse Drive Failure

10.08.01 - Charys exits Hyperspace

Solar System Report -

Yellow Dwarf Star

13 Planets (9 solid, 4 gaseous)

11.35.87 - Charys enters Gravity Well of Exoplanet

Exoplanet Report

Tertiary in orbit of central star

87kf diameter - Molten Core, Solid Plate Surface

Atmosphere: 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, Trace Gases - NONTOXIC, HELMET USE RECOMMENDED FOR PARTICULATE FILTRATION

Liquid Water - Present

Carbon-Based Life - Present

14.12.76 - Charys enters Atmosphere of Exoplanet

14.13.09 - Charys reaches terminal velocity

14.13.67 - Charys reaches subsonic speed

14.13.71 - Air brakes deployed

Atmospheric Entry and Descent Report

Hull Ablation: Minimal

Aerodynamic Heating: Within acceptable range

Terminal Velocity: 1.3*

14.13.98 - Impact

Expedition Log

C.J - At 14.15.23, Charys has landed on the exoplanet, no major injuries sustained by crew.

Z - My thorax is sore.

W - She said major injuries.

C.J - Landing site experiencing heavy precipitation, but the Charys was able to navigate through open bay door of superstructure and onto raised platform.

Z - Let the record show that the Charys had help from an expert pilot.

O.T. Who is going to have their channel shut down if they don’t stop interrupting.

C.J - Sensors indicate the presence of plant matter containing fructose within 3f, in sufficient quantities to refill both fuel tanks and food stores. First officer, pilot, and engineer to remain onboard to assess damages, Captain will leave the ship to scout location of plant matter.

W - As the exobiologist, I feel I should accompany you, Captain.

C.J - No one else is to leave the ship.

W - Captain, we are on an exoplanet with a superstructure indicating the presence of intelligent-

C.J - No one else is to leave the ship until I have established that it is safe to do so. Then you are welcome to join me.

Z - Just Telerin?

C.J - Once I have established the safety of the environment, the entirety of the crew is welcome to explore the exoplanet surface, with the understanding that, should we at any point encounter the presence of alien life, it is the Captain’s responsibility to mitigate first contact.

Z - I can’t say hi?

C.J - In the event of first contact, Pilot Zephyr’s channel will be muted to prevent the embarassment of our species.

Z - Well now I don’t even want to leave the ship.

Jeeyah exits the ship wades, through brackish liquid, leaps across a gap to the polished metal wall and climbs up. She reaches a vast surface of polished stone and starts hiking toward the source of the plant matter and sugar readings from earlier; enormous alien fruits in a semi-spherical structure of woven reeds. When she is halfway between the edge of the metal pit where the ship landed and the mound of fruit, the ground begins to shake

O.T- Captain, you are in distress.

C.J - Do not leave the ship. Keep cloaking and communications on, shut off all unneccessary indicators.

Sensors indicate the approach of native megafauna. She begins to run for the nearest cover (towering objects she assumes are buildings that house the native intelligent life-forms) but before she can reach them, a glass cylinder is lowered on top of her, trapping her where she stands. The megafauna is bipedal, incalculably enormous, and it makes a series of noises that sound like more than just primitive grunts…

W - The vocalization is a language.

O.T - You think the megafauna is sentient?

W - Switch on the translator!

The suit power indicator glowed pale blue. Less than twenty-percent. If she survived this, Jeeyah was going to give Weylin’s carapace a good rattling for failing to hook up the suit to the charging station when she’d reminded them at least ten times. Shock-absorption, air filtering, thermal regulation, carapace rigidity, communication channel with the ship; all of these were draining the battery. The translator wasn’t usually much of a load when interfacing with an alien entity with which it was familiar, but to process an entirely new langauge, one composed of not just thought patterns but vocalizations as well?

C.J - I have to cut the other systems.

Jeeyah fumbled with the pressure pads on her forearm.

O.T - What systems?

The eyes in front of her were wide and unblinking.

C.J - Under no circumstances is anyone to leave the ship unless I give the all clear.

O.T - Captain!

The translator switched on with a buzz and a chime, while the indicators for shock-absorption, thermal regulation, and the ship’s communication channel blinked and shut off.

Jeeyah waits, but the megafauna doesn’t make any more sounds, it just stares and pulls out a large slab of metal with a display screen on it bigger than the whole dashboard of the spaceship (intelligent megafauna confirmed). She needs it to vocalize again to give the translator a baseline, why won’t it vocalize?!

It isn’t going to vocalize; it doesn’t know I’m intelligent.

Her hands shook as she pried a barbed piton from its housing against her leg. She punctured the emergency food ration strapped to her arm; the sweet green paste that oozed from the pouch made her feelers twitch, but she wasn’t the least bit hungry. She scraped it up and smeared it onto the glass wall in front of her. A series of dashes.

Any sufficiently advanced life form in the cosmos will recognize this numerical sequence.

l l ll lll lllll

Massive dark irises jumped back and forth.

Come on, come on.

The creature’s lips parted and it vocalized again, the quietest yet, but still well within the range of her suit mic. The translator’s amber indicator pulsed gently as it struggled to connect the audio to the active places in the alien’s brain and determine the intended concepts.

you - [an individual apart from the speaker]

Jeeyah’s feelers fluttered. Speech. It was intelligent, and it was addressing her.

are - [identity, quality]

not - [negation]

a - [single entity]

bug - - -

The translator struggled for an agonizing moment before spitting out its best approximation

[connotative term, biological entity native to the planet, class insecta or isopoda, small, insignificant, pest, lacking intellect or emotional capacity, ]

Insignificant. Her breath came quickly. Pest. A shadow fell over the circle of glass. A fleshy mass the size of the ship’s console perched atop the enclosure; jointed appendages sprouting from it, reaching down. If Jeeyah hadn’t known better, she would have thought it was a creature unto itself, but beyond it stretched a thick limb. It was merely another part of the megafauna, an enormous hand. Jeeyah crouched low as the glass wall rose up around her, lifted away with a mere fraction of the potential energy stored in the creature’s musculature. A minor application of pressure from one of the digits would be more than sufficient to crush her carapace. So why, having put the glass container aside, had it not done so?

Not. Negation.

Relief washed over Jeeyah like a sudden burst of radiation.

Not a bug.

“What-[inquiry] are you?”

Jeeyah lifted her head; the creature’s hand was moving toward her again and this time, there was no wall of glass between them. A friendly chime from her suit’s internals warned her that her hemolymph flow was unreasonably rapid. Not a bug, she thought, trying to stem the flow of adrenaline. It knows I am not a bug. The hand laid to rest on the stone surface, jointed digits uncurling like a fern opening in the sunlight. There were no more vocalizations, but the meaning of the gesture was clear. It wants me to step on. Jeeyah took a few steps backward, eyes focused on the creature’s face.

“It’s okay-[a neutral state of mind and body, a lack of (or capacity to manage) discomfort]”

“Don’t be scared-[anticipating danger, distress, potential negative outcome]”

Its mouth was stretched; pushing the flesh in its cheeks upward, narrowing its eyes. Is it focusing? Is it hampering its vision because it does not see me as a threat? Jeeyah had a fair amount of experience with mammals, but the trouble was that they all did different things with their faces to indicate different things. If it intended harm, Jeeyah reasoned, taking a step toward the living platform. It would have attacked. The megafauna was keeping still as Jeeyah approached, like Jeeyah herself did when catching aphids. Not a bug, Jeeyah replayed the thought in her head, and it strengthened her resolve. An explorer. An ambassador. A captain.

Jeeyah stepped onto the platform of flesh, feelers vibrating. If one of my crew did this, I’d recommend them for a psych evaluation. Maybe Jeeyah would write herself up when she got back to the ship, if she got back to the ship. Clearly, there was some dangerous flaw in her reasoning, to so willingly place herself in danger. The creature’s hand rose like the elevator on the Ysenia station (if someone had disabled the gravity cushioning), and Jeeyah was trapped again, in a prison she’d walked into.

“Can-[ability to perform task]

The creature’s vocalization drew her attention upward again.

You talk-[vocalize thoughts]”

No, Jeeyah thought. But my suit can. Jeeyah switched on the audio output. The audio input had never been switched off (in the event that she ran out of power to keep her body functioning on this hostile planet, the recording of their mission would still be worthy of preservation, either as a museum artifact or a cautionary tale for future explorers). She rewound the recording until she reached the appropriate words, clipped them, re-ordered them, and sent them to audio output, as many decibels as the suit could produce. I hope you have sensitive ears.

“CAN TALK.” The suit echoed the megafauna’s words back at it in a frail imitation of its powerful vocalization. First contact with an alien species, Jeeyah thought. No doubt she would look back on this moment as a great honor if she ever made it safely back to the ship. The creature’s pupils dilated and it’s mouth stretched, revealing two rows of omnivorous teeth. No, Jeeyah frantically scrolled back through the recording. Did I pick the wrong words? Did it not hear me? Did the translator-

Jeeyah’s thoughts were scattered by a sudden g-force. She fell to her hands and knees as the platform rose up at a dizzying speed, toward the creature’s face.

“CAN TALK, CAN TALK, NOT BUG.” She sent the few words she had screaming through the suit’s speakers. “NOT BUG.” When the movement stopped and Jeeyah had the strength to lift her head again, she was level, not with a gaping maw lined with crushing bone plates, but with the creature’s staring eyes.

“No, not a bug.” The voice coming from below her was quieter, the pitch higher, the inflection different. The translator added an extra layer of meaning to the repeated phrase.

[Comfort, safety, dismissal of threat]

“What’s your-[possession]

name-[vocalization indicating specified individual]?”

But Jeeyah had no vocalization for herself. How did you make a thought into a sound? She could think ‘Jeeyah’ at the creature for a dozen cycles and it wouldn’t make it through the skull; the creature’s body just wasn’t built for it.

“NO NAME.”

“No name?” It repeated, questioning. “What do I call-[address subject] you?”

Jeeyah sorted through the words of the creature’s lexicon that the translator had so far catalogued. NOT-BUG seemed like that only appropriate phrase, but she didn’t like the idea of the BUG word being in her name, even if it was preceded by negation.

“How about-[thought being processed]...”

Jeeyah looked up; the creature was looking back and forth across the superstructure, as if scanning for some piece of information.

“Jade-?”

swore she could feel the translator heating up with the effort of processing the vocalization.

[gemstone found in-shade of green-Jeeyah.]

The creature hadn’t said Jeeyah, it couldn’t, but it had thought it. Whatever else the word meant in the creature’s alien tongue, it wasn’t relevant. It’s a word for me. Her feelers thrummed. It made a word for me.

“NAME IS JADE.”

The creature’s mouth stretched wider, but somehow the show of teeth didn’t feel threatening.

“Nice-[positive] to meet-[primary encounter] you, Jade. I’m Sam-[self, name]”

“NICE MEET SAM.”

[ticklyfluffers]

Sensitive Seeker-TF TK Fic

Repost of fan fiction of mine.

To think, it all started with just a simple gesture.

Thundercracker mused in how he had gotten to the scene he stood in now: Starscream shooting off blast after blast at Skywarp, yet the purple and black Seeker just treated the entire thing as some sort of game.

And, perhaps in some weird way, it was a game. As “‘playful” as a “self-respecting” Decepticon could be, he supposed. Yet still, he’d known he would need to separate the two (as always) eventually. Yet when to jump in was the question, as he was in no mood to have a shot of raw, stinging energy or a null ray being delivered to his facial region, should he intervene at the wrong time.

‘How did I get here, dealing with this?’ He questioned, inwardly groaning. It was a useless question, having already known the answer.

It had begun but a few short Earth minutes ago, at least, it had for him and Skywarp, yet for their Commander, it had begun but a few solar cycles ago (at least that measurement of time was fairly close to those used in this planet). Once again, Starscream noticed a, in his own words, “massive flaw” in one of Megatron’s bids to acquire more energy, and thus, just HAD to point it out and make sure everyone around him could hear it. This then led into the regular bickering, which led to the Seeker (once again) proclaiming he’d make a more suitable leader for the Decepticons, which led to Megatron “reminding” him of his place (once again), which resulted in a trip to the infirmary (once again).

And, while Thundercracker felt Starscream deserved to be told to keep his mouth shut, the blue Seeker found himself dreading what Megatron had planned for the Air Commander, as while it was Starscream’s punishment, somehow, in some way, it would affect his wingmates. Once again. Thankfully, it wasn’t overly extreme, mainly because Megatron had two locations of interest in mind, and probably declared that more worthy of his time than looking over his shoulder for his 2nd in Command’s potential assassination attempts. The Decepticon Leader had assigned Starscream and his wingmates to keep watch over the Space Bridge until the operation to seize control over the locations was completed or disregarded.

“And knowing our ‘glorious leader’, he’ll probably fail at this plan too.” Starscream grumbled to himself, arms folded over his chassis.

Thundercracker only sighed. Ever since he had come here, slag, back when was alerted of his duties, the Seeker had done nothing but complain over his leader’s orders. Of course, with a little “encouragement” from Soundwave (as in, alert Starscream he would be relieved of his wings for a good while if he didn’t do as he was told), their Air Commander (begrudgingly) accepted the assignment. Of course, now that they were here, Starscream had seen it as the perfect time to go ahead and start his tirade against Megatron again.

And suffice to say, it was beginning to get on his trine-mate’s nerves.

“Guard duty,” Starscream growled. “Of ALL the humiliating tasks he could’ve thrust on me...guard duty?!”

Skywarp began to shake, fists trembling until finally, he had finally reached his breaking point. “Is it possible for you to shut the frag up for at least a FEW cycles?! Is that too hard to ask?!”

Thundercracker was quite taken aback by the violet Seeker’s outburst. If anyone was being told to shut up, it was usually him. ‘Primus, he must be REALLY mad.’

“I’ll say whatever is slagging well please, thank you very much!” Starscream retorted, clenching his fists.

“Well go off and do it somewhere else away from me!” Skywarp argued back. “I’m getting sick of hearing that shrill dog whistle of a voice you’ve got!”

“Then get used to it, because I have no intention of stopping until I’m done!”

While he had no appreciation, let alone any sense of respect for it, since their arrival to this primitive world, some Decepticons had taken to using Earth expressions and terms in comparison to some more traditional, archaic language. The Casseticons were the worst out of these bots, outright using terms such as ‘dude’ and ‘man’, as well as copying much human cursing (a good portion of which humans based on their own bodily functions, to Thundercracker’s confusion). Skywarp, whether he had just decided that their regular curses weren’t enough, or he had been hanging out with Rumble and Frenzy on one too many assignments, decided to unleash everything that had been, as humans say, getting under his skin.

“Oh boo-hoo! You think YOU’RE the only one that doesn’t want to be here?!” the Seeker shouted, approaching Starscream. “This entire damn thing is your fault anyhow! You just HAD to go and run your mouth about how much Megatron’s plans suck and how YOU obviously had the better idea!”

“Because I do!” the Seeker Commander countered. “He wished to attack both locations at the same time, yet didn’t wish to better separate his forces into equal groups! Even if one was easier to access than the other, did he not think those blasted Autobots would just LET themselves be overtaken?!” he fumed, releasing a frustrated cry. “Bah! He had NO good reason to NOT send the Constructicons! There would’ve been no way that any of those slagging Auto-dorks would’ve stood a chance against Devastator! But NOOOOO! Apparently, they were needed elsewhere!”

“Because there was a crack in the hull,” Thundercracker interjected himself. True, he had little intention of getting involved, yet Starscream was forgetting one vital factor in Megatron’s decision. “The lower sections would’ve been at risk of getting worse and potentially breaking open. Then the entire Nemesis would’ve been flooded.”

“The pressure at the depths the ship’s at is far from enough to cause a breakage in such short a time!” Starscream argued. “We are situated in what the under evolved primates of this floating rock called the mesopelagic zone. True, we are away from the primary star of this current solar system, yet a majority of sea life in that area are perfectly capable of withstanding the water pressure. And they’re also organic, mind you!”

Skywarp scoffed. “You saying all that fancy mumbo-jumbo to make yourself sound smarter or something?”

“Hey, I WAS an accomplished scientist back in the Golden Era of Cybertron!”

“Of which you quit!” the purple and black Seeker countered. “And accomplished? That’s a fat load of shit, and you know it! I bet you only got a passing grade on whatever research logs you presented to those old farts running the academy!”

“Why you slagging piece of-”

“All right, both of you! That’s enough!” Thundercracker had decided that now was the time to step in, lest things start getting violent. Violence was an accepted part of Decepticon culture, seeing as many of their members had been forced to engage in it just to scrape by and survive via gladiatorial matches and other low ranking jobs (which didn’t house the most respectable of bots), yet the blue and black Seeker wasn’t in the mood in having to bring both of his wingmates into the infirmary because they decided to behave like a couple of Sparklings and duke it out.

That’s when the discovery had been made.

Thundercracker had pushed back against Skywarp’s chassis, yet he must’ve misjudged the distance between him and his oh-so-mature Commander (seriously, and he said Skywarp was the one who behaved like a sparkling). His servos made contact with the red and blue Seeker’s waistline, and that was when he and Skywarp heard it. It was a cross between a frightened gasp and an attempt to choke back laughter. Any anger between them had died that instant, replaced with curiosity and bewilderment. Their Commanding Officer was looking quite frazzled and on edge.

“Whoa, time out for a nano-second,” Skywarp said, lightly shoving Thundercracker off him. Nevertheless, he turned to him for confirmation. “You hear that too?” He then turned his attention to Starscream. “Hey, Screamer, what was that noise you made just now? And don’t say it’s nothing, I’ve got a witness right here!” Skywarp gestured to Thundercracker.

Starscream paled (even if there was no change of color) and stood there with wide, red optics. Nonetheless, he quickly straightened himself out and appeared to be cool and collected. “I was merely taken aback by Thundercracker’s sudden movements was all.” He explained, all the while trying to choose his next words very carefully. “You should be grateful he stepped in, lest I fire my null ray right in your face.” He glowered at the black and purple Seeker, hoping that his display would get his subordinate to back down.

But, as the humans said, no dice.

“Uh, correct me if I’m wrong-“ Skywarp began, taking a few steps toward, noticing how Starscream took a few steps back.

“And you are.” Starscream interrupted.

“But you seem a little nervous there.” The Seeker’s grinned. “All I’m asking is why you made that noise.”

Slag, Starscream thought. He wasn’t buying it. Ok, don’t panic. Just come up with another excuse. One that he surely couldn’t refute. “Well...it seems that my inner components are still a little sore from my last...disagreement with our all-wise and all-powerful leader.” He snarled that last part. Even if he were trying to get Skywarp off his back, it wasn’t all a lie. Hook had told him to take it slow for a few solar cycles for his internal repairs to mend the rest of him back together.

“Oh dear, are you ok?” Skywarp asked, an uncomfortable amount of mischievousness in his voice.

Slag. “Yes, I’m fine,” Starscream assured. “But...you shouldn’t touch me. In fact, I outright forbid it.”

Thundercracker analyzed the situation, looking back and forth between Skywarp and Starscream. He was puzzled at first regarding what had happened when he separated the two, yet given one Seeker’s predatory grin and the other’s excuses, it slowly dawned on him what was going on, as well as what Skywarp intended to do.

“Why?” He asked, taking a step towards Starscream while Starscream himself took a few steps back. “You took quite a bruising not too long ago. Maybe something is out of place or broken.”

“No! No, nothing is out of place or broken!” The SIC shook his head wildly.

“Are you sure? Because last time, you said Hook was a piss poor excuse for a medic.” Skywarp chuckled, raising his hands and spreading his servos out.

“Well, I think maybe he’s improved his craft these last few human weeks!” Starscream said, beginning to look around for any escape routes. “But...just in case, you shouldn’t touch anything! You could only make it worse!”

It was then that a familiar, magenta hue began to overtake the purple Seeker, Starscream’s optics widening in horror. “Why Starscream, I’m hurt! Do you think I’d actually hurt you?” He said coyly, optics fittingly red and devilish. “You’re my Commander, my trine-mate. It’s mine and Cracker’s job here to tend to your needs.”

Thundercracker gave a low growl, Skywarp knowing well how he hated being referred to by that name. Despite that though, he kept quiet.

“C’mon,” Skywarp cooed. Then, the magenta hue overtook his entire form, and in a flash, the Seeker was gone from sight.

“N-No! Stay away from me-“ Starscream shouted, yet was cut off when he felt digits traveling along his waistline.

“No need to be so tense.”

The reaction was immediate. Skywarp’s servos lightly stroked and scratched at the other Seeker’s ivory midsection, Starscream seizing up and doubling over, trying to get his “comrade” to release him.

“N-No! Stop it!” Starscream hollered, trying to grab at Skywarp’s hands. “I command you to-“ then out it came. “St-Sto-hoho-p!” A chortle caught in the middle of a demand (or was it a plea) to cease the infernal movements. Starscream had managed to wrench himself away from his assailant, but the damage was already done.

His terrible secret had been uncovered.

“No. Way.” Skywarp said. True, he suspected it, but to actually have confirmed blew his processor. “No. Fragging. Way!!!” He then pointed to his superior. “You’re ticklish!!!”

Now it was Thundercracker’s turn to be surprised, he looked at Starscream with bewilderment and shock. While it wasn’t a topic relatively discussed among themselves, he and the rest of the Decepticons would be fools if they didn’t acknowledge that their “hosts' ' shared more than a few qualities with the ones that had crashed landed on their planet millions of years ago. They were the only species to have similar civilizations to their own, same general body shape, they had an internal, skeletal structure that greatly resembled their own, lived as the dominant species on the planet (well, they were until the Decepticons and Autobots awoke), and fought and warred amongst themselves over the centuries. Yet when it came to the way their organic structure was put together, no one had an exact idea of how the human body functioned. Soundwave suggested gathering a few “lab rats'' and transporting them to Shockwave, yet so far, nothing else had come from that suggestion. Good thing too, Thundercracker felt such a thing was both unnecessary and, while he would never say it aloud, savage. But from what he had seen from Skywarp’s experiment, it seemed that they now were the ones to share the trait of ticklishness with the humans.

Starscream stood there, completely at a loss at what to say or do, processor scrambling to try and find something, anything, to keep the inevitable from happening. “I-I am not-AH!!!” He protested, only for Skywarp to teleport behind him and deliver a servo right in the crease where his hips met his waist. “Stop it!!!” He then aimed the weapon situated on his left shoulder in the other Seeker’s direction. “Try that again, and this null ray is going to blast you right in the face!”

Skywarp wasn’t the least bit intimidated. In fact, this just seemed to make him even more eager to go through with his plan. ”Primus, you’re acting like I’m going to kill you!”

“I’ll kill YOU if you get any closer! I mean it!” Starscream shouted, still aimed right at Skywarp’s head.

“Fine. Do it.” Skywarp laughed. “In fact, I doubt you’d be fast enough to hit me before I just warp out of the way.” He drew closer. “Well? I’m waiting.”

Thundercracker stood by, ready to jump in if things got too ugly. Starscream was cornered, he knew it, yet he seemed to be leaning much more into flight than fight. He looked to the blue Seeker as if trying to gain some support (or maybe a shield to use in case Skywarp made the first move), yet his optics mainly stayed on the third Seeker, trying to gauge what the next plan in his strategy was.

And it was then that Starscream made a critical decision. Frag it.

Immediately taking flight, Starscream transformed into his jet mode and zoomed off, leaving a long, cloudy trail as he departed.

“Oh no!” Skywarp declared, also transforming and chasing after his superior. “You’re not getting away that easily!”

“The slag do you think you’re going?! Get back here!!!” Thundercracker bellowed, yet either Skywarp didn’t hear or just outright disregarded his command, because he and Starscream flew off, leaving him alone.

Why did he always have to be the one to reign those two in?

…

“Aw, c’mon! I’ll go easy on you if that’ll get you to slow down!”

“NO!!!”

“I’m not going to hurt ya!”

“That makes it worse!!!”

“Don’t be such a baby!”

“Frag you!!!”

Back and forth the two Seekers went, Skywarp going back between promising to be ‘gentle’ with his Commander to outright declaring that resistance was futile, and Starscream shot back with threats of murder and dismemberment. All of which didn’t deter Skywarp a bit.

Seeing that the other jet was gaining on him, the Decepticon SIC went as fast as he could to where he was certain he would blow out his thrusters, yet he had to veer over to the side when Skywarp appeared before him via teleportation. He dove upwards, yet found his route blocked by the purple and black Seeker cutting him off via a barrel roll. Starscream went in the opposite direction, yet found himself cut off there as well, Skywarp just barely colliding into him.

“Hey, watch it!!!” he hollered. “You could’ve clipped my vertical stabilizer!!!”

“Then stop flying off and I won’t have to get drastic!” Skywarp shot back, yet inside his alt-mode, he was grinning ear to ear. Or at least he would be if he had any. “Try all you want, I’m not letting up anytime soon!”

“Then you’re going to be doing this for a long time because I have no intention of stop-” Starscream was interrupted by the horrific sight of Skywarp’s body being engulfed with magenta before disappearing from sight.

Oh, Primus. Oh Primus, no! Transforming into his root mode, Starscream looked around, panicking as he found himself surrounded by clear, blue skies, the sun shining high and bright. The intensity of the solar rays blinded him momentarily when he turned in that direction to look for any trace of his pursuer, yet this proved to be a fatal mistake. From beneath, the Seeker was rammed, his subordinate having decided to stay out of his line of sight long enough, and by the time Starscream realized his error, it was too late.

“Aha!!!”Skywarp seized him by the waist and immediately went to work. His servos went in and scrambled along the area he had attacked before, Starscream immediately seizing up and trying to contain the chortles that threatened to spill out of his vocals.

“S-Stop it!!!” Starscream shouted, twisting as much as he could to dislodge himself from the other jet’s hold, yet it seemed that whenever he made a movement, Skywarp just focused on another part of his midsection, the continuous switching of locations making Starscream’s processor be torn between staying still or continuing to writhe around. It was all so confusing and torturous! He was at a loss at what to do! “Stop!!! I-I comma-ha-nd you!!!”

“Hmm...nah.” Skywarp responded, continuing to scramble over the bends and angles of Commander’s midsection.

“I-I’ll kill you!!! Do you hear!? I’ll kill-” Starscream’s voice, unfortunately, chose that time to not cooperate with him. “G-Gah! N-No-hohoho!!! STOP!!!”

“Ah, there you go!” Skywarp congratulated. “Now, was that so hard?”

“Get off!!!” Starscream practically shrieked, both from frustration (and panic), yet also from the sensations that were plaguing his cerebral chamber, sensors lit a fire with horrid tingles and shocks. He only wished that they were of pain. “I-I can’t-'' he then nearly fell out of Skywarp’s arms before he was, unfortunately, caught, the torment continuing. “I can’t stay alo-ha-ft!!!”

“No problem!” Skywarp said, shutting off his thrusters. The two Seekers then began to plummet downwards.

“What in Primus’ name are you doing?! We’ll cra-ah-sh!!!” Starscream hollered, all the while trying to contain himself as Skywarp’s servos still continued to torment him.

As the ground continued to come closer and closer, Starscream braced himself for impact, yet found that it never came, magenta filling his vision before everything around him froze. He wasn’t a stranger to this phenomenon, yet it still perplexed and bewildered him that such an impulsive oaf had such an ability bestowed on him. The times were far and in between, yet whenever it happened, Starscream had gone into the strange dimension between planes of existence with Skywarp when the Seeker teleported both of them. The world looked the same as it had before, yet everything was still and silent. No movement, no sound, nothing. Nothing but their own, as if they were the only things that existed in this small pocket universe.

Then, as quickly as it began, it ended, both Seekers landing on the ground, yet far from at the velocity they were previously traveling at. The landing didn’t mean that Starscream was free, however, the lack of the need to look out below allowed Skywarp to fully focus now on the movements of his servos, which quickly went back to work.

“Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!!!” Starscream commanded, yet he was quickly shut up as giggles threatened to pour out from his vocal processor. He then lifted up his arm in an attempt to, out of desperation, fire his null ray in the other Seeker’s direction, this proved to be yet another fatal error.

Once Skywarp shot his hand underneath to scrape at the cables and joint that linked Starscream’s shoulder and upper arm, he could hold it in no longer.

“Gah!!! Gah-hahahahaha!!!” Starscream released loud and slightly hoarse laughter from his vocals, using his other arm to push back against the other Seeker tickling at his underarm. “S-Stop!!! Stop it!! Sto-hahahaha-p!!!”

“Ha! Gotcha!” Skywarp shouted in triumph, spidering along the red area that rested above his white waist just below the arm joint, this forcing Starscream to retreat into himself and cease his attempts in getting the purple and black Seeker off him. “You’ve got no chance now! Surrender!”

“Hahaha, n-never!!!” Starscream shouted back, trying to turn the opposite way to keep Skywarp away from his side. “Ge-hehehe-t off!!! Get-ah!!!” Skywarp swiped a digit just underneath the area where Starscream’s chest protruded outwards, running the servo along the rim. “Don’t touch me there-AHH!!!”

Skywarp smirked. “Why? Does it tickle?~” he asked oh-so-sweetly. “So you admit you’re ticklish.”

“I admit nothing!!!” Starscream choked in between bouts of involuntary laughter. “I’m not tick-“ he tried to finish but was cut off by more chortles forcing themselves out.

“Then what do you call this? Just a WEE bit of sensitivity?” The purple and black Seeker asked. He stroked and pinched along the SIC’s upper chest region, dipping his hands in the small, square-shaped hollows that rested by his white shoulders, this causing said SIC to try and make another grab at his hands to stop the attack. Unfortunately, Skywarp used this opportunity to dive in under Starscream’s arms and begin scribbling at the joints and cables and whatever other components he could reach. Starscream howled with laughter the moment he felt the wildly moving digits, his arms hugging around himself and clamping themselves down.”Oh great, I’m stuck. Now, what are you gonna do?”

“Wh-Wha-hahaha-t?! You ge-hehe-t them out!!!”

“Can’t exactly do that with you holding my hands down, can I?” Skywarp asked, not letting up in the slightest. “Lift your arms up and I can get free.”

“N-No!!! You’re just gonna-hahaha!!! STOP!!!”

“Hmm...nope.”

Starscream was in, as the humans would say, stitches, his body torn between twisting around and curling up into a ball in a vain attempt to lessen the sensations plaguing him. He knew well that Skywarp would go for the same areas and perhaps others if he lifted up his arms, yet, as he found out, the seams of his underarms were deathly sensitive. It was the equivalent of either having Megatron rip off his limbs versus his fusion cannon blasting him right in the chest. Neither of them was exactly pleasant options. And he didn’t care if he would be called dramatic for making such a comparison! This was torture! He needed this to stop! He HAD to make it stop!

Yet he wouldn’t beg. Not to Skywarp of all mechs. That fool would never get the satisfaction of hearing him grovel for mercy!

And speaking of members of his trine, where in Primus’ name was Thundercracker?! Useless piece of scrap-

“All right, that’s enough!” a voice called out from high above, a blue jet zooming down and transforming, landing a short distance away from his fellow wingmate and Commander. “C’mon, Skywarp, you’re going to kill him.”

“Am not!” Skywarp protested. “I’m just trying to lighten Screamer’s mood here! And from what I’ve seen, my method’s working!

Starscream tried to protest, yet had taken to tightening his lips as much as he could, strained whines coming from in between gritted, grinding dentals. Still, he managed to make out some words (though it was NOT a plea!). “G-Get him off!!! GET HIM OFF!!!”

Thundercracker sighed, crossing his arms. “You heard him. Get off.”

“Aww, do I have to?” Skywarp whined.

“Unless you want a report regarding your insubordination, I’d suggest you do so.”

The purple and black Seeker huffed and begrudgingly stopped moving his hands, Starscream immediately seizing the chance to scramble away, standing up and dusting himself off. Skywarp began to rise as well, yet Starscream pointed one of his cannons in his direction, eyeing his every movement.

“He isn’t going to bother you anymore.” Thundercracker assured.

“I should blast you in the face JUST for what you put me through alone!!!” the Decepticon SIC snarled.

“Hey, I was just trying to get something out of you that wasn’t complaining!” Skywarp countered. “You think you’re the only one that wants to be here on guard duty?”

“I’d much rather be in the company of Megatron at the moment rather than you two!!!”

“Hey, c’mon, that’s enough.” Thundercracker began, trying to cool things down, yet his Commander wasn’t having it.

“I’ve done nothing wrong to even be here!!! I was made Second in Command by Megatron himself!!! And, like it or not, that means I have the full right to question and propose any sort of adjustment or improvement to whatever backward, ridiculous, and foolhardy mission he’s got in mind!!!” Starscream shouted, clenching his blue fists. “And if that’s not enough, he had to stick me with YOU TWO of all bots!!!”

“Hey, c’mon!” Skywarp shot back. “We’re the only ones that can fly besides those damn cone-heads! And Primus knows they won’t put up with your bullshit.”

“I’ve had it up to here with yours!!!” Starscream retorted. “I don’t know why I even continue to allow myself to work with you two!!!” he then pointed to Skywarp. “You are an immature, idiotic thug that has been graced with a power that you clearly do not deserve!!!” he then pointed to Thundercracker. “And you…” Starscream paused. “You...you...well...you didn’t get here fast enough!!! I was under attack by one of my own wingmates, and here you were, lollygagging and taking your sweet time!!!”

Thundercracker was somewhat taken aback. True, this was typical of Starscream, ranting and raving about all the unfairness of the world and how he was slighted by whomever he decided had insulted him, yet the blue Seeker felt a twinge of anger flare up in his spark. “I was TRYING to keep back to make sure you wouldn’t clip a wing or something. You were behaving quite...erratically.”

“That’s no excuse!!!” Starscream countered. “I am your superior, and thus, am your utmost concern!!!”

“I was-”

“No, I’m not done!!!” the other Seeker interrupted. “You know what? You’re just as useless as Skywarp here!!! Only you’ve got no discernable skills or anything spectacular in your arsenal. I lack Skywarp’s little ‘talent’, but I come packed with null rays that can disable and render any machine, Earth or Cybertronian, useless. But you? What, the typical blaster? And such an outdated model too!!! Perhaps even one of the cone-heads would be better suited to be here in comparison to-”

Starscream got out no more before he found himself tackled to the ground. Thundercracker was on top of him and, at a blinding speed, as if in response to the SIC’s remarks regarding his skill and prowess.

“What do you think you’re-” Starscream shouted, yet soon felt his shoulder cannons being removed from his arms. “H-Hey!!! Put those back!!!”

Thundercracker didn’t answer him, continuing his work until his Commander was relieved of his weapons. Then, the blue Seeker delivered a blow to Starscream’s face when the other Decepticon tried to rise. He was disoriented long enough for him to be seized from behind, Thundercracker having ducked his arms underneath Starscream’s own and lifted them up, holding them together with one hand clasping around his wrists, effectively keeping the SIC in place.

“Skywarp,” the blue Seeker began, voice low and emotionless, yet the other members of the trine knew well what such a tone meant when it came to Thundercracker. “He’s all yours.”

Skywarp beamed and made a motion of ‘cracking’ his knuckles (even if he had none). The grin on his face filled Starscream with the utmost dread and fear. “Y-You can’t do this!!!” he protested. “I’m your superior!!!”

“Yes,” Thundercracker responded. “A superior asshole.”

“A superior asshole that’s been getting on my and Cracker’s nerves,” Skywarp said, grinning. Thundercracker despised the nickname the other Seeker had given him, yet at the moment, what was at the forefront of his mind was his Commander’s “disciplinary” session. “And since we’re both done hearing you bitch and moan,” Skywarp raised his servos up, wiggling and making clawing motions with them. “We’re gonna hear you laugh it up instead!”

And then, he went in and continued where he had left off.

Starscream had no chance to brace himself, his focus torn between trying to get Thundercracker off of him and Skywarp’s advances. The purple and black Seeker dove down and traced his servo-tips all over the red and blue Seeker’s chassis, running along the curves and bends, dipping his digits in the vents situated on his chest, and down the midsection where his cockpit was located.

“N-No!!! No-hahahahaha!!! St-Sto-hahaha-p!!! Stop!!! I or-hoho-der you to STOP!!!”

“Not happening.” Skywarp responded, now skittering along the white waist.

“You-hoohoo dare defy an or-hoho-der from your Comma-hahaha-nder!?!”

“If said Commander is being a little bitch, then yes.”

“Th-This is ahahaha-assult on a supe-hehhehe-rior officer!!!”

“Fine then. Stop me.”

Starscream didn’t answer that, knowing well that, despite himself, he was effectively rendered helpless. Thundercracker wasn’t letting him go any time soon, and Skywarp was more than content to keep tickling the ever-living shit out of his Commander. He was completely at their mercy. But he would not surrender. He couldn’t! Not to them! They wouldn’t get one word out of him that was begging for mercy!

At least, that’s what he tried to keep in mind, all the while fighting against said pleas that were forming in his processor.

Skywarp continued to let his servos dance all over Starscream’s upper half, Thundercracker keeping him immobile. The other Seeker’s added weight made struggling difficult and sometimes near impossible, and the maddening sensations made his futile attempts to escape no better. Skywarp had gone for the SIC’s underarms, Starscream’s laughter raising in volume and his struggles increasing, yet Thundercracker held him firm. Skywarp spidered down Starscream’s sides and chest, even tackling the red sections that stood upward on his shoulders. The red and blue Seeker howled with laughter, Thundercracker keeping up his efforts to hold him tight. Despite his current predicament, Starscream could at least take comfort in that the three were clearly alone out here. The only downside to that was that it was Skywarp of all bots doing the torturing! That mech left no inch of his upper body untouched, making sure to give each and every portion of it equal attention. Odd that he would be so precise given how impatient and foolhardy he was.

Having decided that he had explored all he could in that area, the purple and black Seeker shifted his attention to Starscream’s hips, dragging servos along where it connected to his waist and squeezing the sides. The Decepticon SIC continued to release mad cackles from his vocal processor, Skywarp’s servos traveling down to his inner thighs, teasing the joints and cables he could reach. The purple and black Seeker went down the other jet’s legs and reached his knees, swiping servos behind the blocky sections that essentially served as ‘kneecaps’. He even dipped his digits in the vents that rested there.

Starscream was being driven mad, his frantic struggles weakening, though whether it was due to him losing strength or some part of him simply accepting his fate, he was unsure. Regardless, he was reaching his limit and frankly, beginning to lose his mind. “W-Wait!!!” the Seeker got out. “O-hoho-k!!! OK!!! You-hoohoo-’ve had your fun!!! Stop!!!”

“Not yet,” Skywarp said. “I’ve still got a little more of you to tend to.” he then turned to the blue Seeker. “Hold him tight. I gotta feeling this is going to send him over the edge.”

“What do you mean…” Starscream asked, yet trailed off when he saw Skywarp secure his ankles, the undersides of his peds and thrusters completely exposed. Oh no. Oh Primus, no! “W-Wait!!! WAIT!!!” Skywarp and Thundercracker were quite shocked at how loud their captive had gotten, both looking at him with wide, red optics.

Skywarp then smirked. “Oh my,” he glanced at one ped he had in his grasp. “This a particularly sensitive area?” as if to demonstrate, he ran one servo down the length of the side of it, Starscream trembling and straining to keep noises from exiting his throat. “Oh hot damn!” the purple and black Seeker looked to his comrade. “Look at this Cracker! Screamer here’s got sensitive tootsies!”

Tootsies? Was that a human word? Well, whatever. Thundercracker had to strengthen his hold on Starscream, the other Seeker growing even more erratic than before.

“Not there!!!” Starscream finally threw all pride and dignity aside and went to one of his desperate fail-safes: begging. “Please, not there!!! Anywhere but there!!!”

“Why?” Skywarp coyly asked. “Does it tiiiickle~?”

“All right fine!!! Fine, I admit it!!! I’m ticklish, ok!?! There, I said it!!!”

Skywarp stopped his teasing, yet still held Starscream’s ped in his hold. “And?”

“And…” the SIC couldn’t believe he was doing this. Megatron was one thing, but these two? He would NEVER live this down. “And…” he felt a servo place itself on the underside of the ped. “And I’m sorry!!! I’m sorry for everything I said!!! You’re not useless or idiots!!!” Starscream sighed, having gained both of the other jet’s attention. “It’s just...it’s just so frustrating.” He said, lessening his struggles. “Your position means nothing, and whatever contribution you have to give is treated little better than the ramblings of a fool. How nothing you could ever say matters…”

Starscream looked away from both of them for a second, his wingmates quite baffled and confused by what they just heard. True, complaining was one of the hallmarks of their Commander’s personality, yet it was quite a rarity to hear him display such raw honesty with them. It wasn’t a completely alien event, the two having heard these supposedly heartfelt (or in their case, sparkfelt) confessions before, but they were far and in between. Yet whenever they happened, despite their probable better judgment, they listened. And Starscream, even if he didn’t say it outright, acknowledged that they were indeed listening. These moments were always awkward and generally uncomfortable for all three of them, the mood not exactly being positive but oddly calm. And neither Skywarp nor Thundercracker could tell whether these were genuine or not. Their Commander was very much what the humans called a social chameleon. Oh sure, he had his distinguishing traits, yet it seemed that whenever he had to play a certain role (aside from a duplicitous usurper), he usually took it and made it his own. He could have solid strategies and plans, he could be deadly in combat and made use of his airborne advantage well, and when, rarely, Megatron’s plans aligned with his own, he would follow it to a tee. But whether all these were just an act to get what he wanted or a rare display of inner, truthful self (even if partway), neither of the Seekers knew. And in a way, Starscream would probably have it no other way.

Skywarp looked at his partner in crime, then to his victim. “You believe him, Cracker?”

Thundercracker was silent for a moment, Starscream looking up at him with wide, pleading optics. “I don’t know. You know Starscream.”

“Oh, you think so little of me, dear Thundercracker?” The SIC asked, seemingly hurt. “I merely let my own grievances with Megatron affect my sense of professionalism.”

“And?” Skywarp asked. “You sorry for being the King of the Assholes today?”

“King of the...what!?” Starscream began to protest, yet the sensation of Skywarp’s servo kept him in his place. “Yes!!! Yes. Yes, I’m sorry. I apologize. I apologize for everything that’s come from my vocal components.”

The purple and black Seeker looked and Thundercracker and nodded his head. “You know what? I believe him. How about you?” Thundercracker remained silent, yet when his hold was loosening, he noticed Skywarp look at him with a coy, calculating smile. “I think Cracker here forgives you too, Screamer.”

Starscream sighed in relief. “Yes, well...I suppose, as the humans say, to err is, well, human. But to forgive is divine.” He tried to get up, but still, found himself being held tight.

“Hold on there! Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.” Skywarp said. “I said I forgive you.” He then placed a servo on the underside of Starscream’s ped and dragged it down, noticing how his Commander’s face tensed up. “I didn’t say anything about letting you go. And neither did Cracker.”

Starscream’s red optics widened in terror, his fate had not been changed. “But...but you said that you forgave me!!! You have to release me!!!”

“And we will,” Thundercracker spoke up. “But, it would be bad form to leave Skywarp’s job unfinished, right?”

“Was that an actual joke from you?” Skywarp asked, genuinely surprised. It was just as, perhaps even rarer than Starscream’s “honest” moments, yet once in a while, the blue Seeker showed he was capable of humor, albeit mostly dry, but still, humor. “And yeah. I’ve only got one more place to cover. So I’d suggest you buck up and take the rest of it like a mech!”

Shit, Starscream thought, a part of him surprised that he had used a human curse. Still, the sentence had been delivered. He was doomed. “N-No, wait!!! You don’t understand!!! I can’t take it there!!! It’s too much!!! You’ll drive me crazy!!!

“Hmm...those are all rather bold claims. But you shouldn’t have told me that.” Skywarp said, eager to start his tickling torment up again. “Because now I’m going to have to see it for myself!”

And thus, Skywarp wasted no time in getting started, Starscream having no chance to maintain any semblance of self-control the moment he felt a servo quickly swipe itself back and forth on his ped. The reaction was immediate, Starscream having no chance to try and even contain himself. Skywarp traced down the entire length of the ped, the red and blue Seeker released loud and slightly hoarse laughter from his vocals, he desperately trying to twist his way out of Thundercracker’s grip.

“Skwarp!!!” Starscream hollered. “Ple-heeheehee-se!!! STOP!!!”

“Oh no, Mr. General Dickweed!” the Seeker answered back. “Forgiveness or no, you’ve been in dire need of an attitude adjustment all day today!”

“I sa-hahaha-id I was so-hohoho-rry!!!”

“And you lied to us about being ticklish. Shame on you!” Skywarp teased, continuing to scribble around on the underside of his Commander’s ped.

Starscream was in absolute hysterics, trying with all his remaining power to break free and escape his torment, yet it seemed that his fate was sealed. He was going to have to stay here and endure the continuous, soft, agonizingly light yet maddening sensations Skywarp’s servos created. Eventually, his struggles ceased, no longer having the energy to fight back. Or maybe, somewhere in his processor, he knew that he was fighting a losing battle and simply relented to those that currently had power over him. Skywarp then ceased tickling the peds, yet Starscream had no time to rest. Despite his hopes, pleas, and prayers (he hadn’t really considered himself a religious bot, yet he was singing praises to Primus at that moment in his head), Skywarp had discovered his Commander’s Achilles Heel. Literally.

“PRIMUS, STOP!!!” the SIC shrieked, living up to his name. Out of all the spots that could’ve been at the mercy (or lack thereof) of Skywarp’s servos, he knew well that one would be enough to make him go crazy. “YOU’RE KI-HIHIHIHI-LLING ME!!! I’M DY-HIHIHIHI-ING!!!”

Skywarp scoffed, yet he found this whole thing hilarious, his servos dancing along the lining of and inside Starscream’s thrusters. “Oh please. If anything, this is a spa treatment compared to what you usually get hit with from Megatron.”

“I’D RA-HAHAHAHA-THER TAKE THAT!!! OH PLEASE!!! PLE-HEEHEEHEE-ASE!!! I CAN’T TAKE ANYMORE!!!”

Thundercracker glanced down at his captive, taking a look at the Seeker’s ever-present smile he had plastered on his features, yet also of how hot he was beginning to feel how warm he was becoming. His internal systems had steadily been heating up from all the exertion of energy, yet the fact Thundercracker could now feel the heat himself signaled to him that Starscream was truly reaching his breaking point.

“Ok, I think that’s enough.”

Skywarp looked up. “Aw, why?”

“Is your processor malfunctioning? Feel how warm he is!” Hmm, now that he thought about it, Starscream DID feel like he was heating up the further along he went. Still...did he have to? “Skywarp!”

“Ok, ok! Fine!” the purple and black Seeker groaned.

Begrudgingly, he ceased the movement of his servos and raised his hands away from Starscream, who was still caught in the throughs of laughter. Yet after a few moments, said laughter began to soften and decrease, the Seeker resting in Thundercracker’s arms mainly because he couldn’t do much else. Despite there being no need to take in oxygen, Starscream was quite appreciative of its abundance, his vents taking it in and filtering out the heat that had been building up.

“Oh, and here you actually had me...going,” Skywarp said, gesturing to Starscream. “See? He’s fine!” The word ‘concerned’ was about to exit from his lips, yet the Seeker kept them back. Like the Pit he was going to say that. Starscream then glared in Skywarp’s direction. “See? Totally fine. He’s already back to his bitchy self.”

“You…” Starscream huffed, sounding as if he were short of breath despite not needing to breathe. “You think you’re VERY clever, don’t you?”

Skywarp shrugged. “On occasion, I like to think so.”

Starscream only narrowed his optics. “The moment I get my strength back up, your termination will be slow and painful.”

Despite this threat, the Seeker wasn’t intimidated in the slightest. “Yeah right. I stopped believing you after the...what was it, the millionth-and-first time you said that?”

“Well...who’s to say I don’t mean it the millionth-and-second time?” Starscream questioned, beginning to reach for his null rays, yet ultimately, had tired himself out too much to even move from where he was. As the human said, screw it.

“Are you all right?”

The Decepticon SIC looked up at Thundercracker. “Oh, so NOW you care about my wellbeing?”

“I stopped him, didn’t I?” The blue Seeker asked, pointing to Skywarp.

“And you’re also the one that restrained and let him torture me.”

“...touche.” he then began to rise. “Come on. On your feet.” he slowly hoisted his Commander up. “You’re still cooling down, so it’d probably be good to wait for a klik or two before you take to the air.”

Starscream didn’t argue with that, yet he went over to retrieve his arm cannons. Skywarp soon found the Commander’s eyes looking straight at him. Yet still, his cannons didn’t fire, though whether because he was too tired to do anything or he actually didn’t have it in him (at least at the moment), to shoot Skywarp was unknown. Yet the result was the same.

“So...now what?” the purple and black Seeker asked.

“What do you mean, now what?” Thundercracker asked. “We go back to our posts! Slag, we shouldn’t even be out here anyway!”

Starscream dusted himself off, trying to straighten out his appearance. “As soon as this is over, I’m punishing both of you.”

Skywarp mockingly gasped. “Aw, why?”

“Why?! You know slagging good why!!!” Starscream responded. “And by the time I’m done with you, a session with Megatron himself will sound exceptionally pleasant in comparison!!!”

“Oooh, that’s pretty big talk, Screamer.” Skywarp chuckled. “And just how are you going to do it?”

Starscream didn’t exactly care for how close the other Seeker was. “I...I’ll find a way. I’ll find several.”

“Of course, you do realize you’re not the only one with an advantage, you know?” And before Starscream could ask, he felt a poke in his side, the red and blue Seeker recoiling from the touch. “Y’know, I can’t help but wonder how the guys would react to this when I tell them.”

Both Starscream and Thundercracker were taken aback by what Skywarp had just said. “Why would you tell anybody?” Starscream asked.

“Because it’s adorably precious and funny.” The Seeker answered.

“You had better not!!!” Starscream ordered. “Or I’ll make your punishment even worse than Thundercracker’s!!! I’ll…” he then went over and fell at Skywarp’s feet. “Please don’t tell anyone. Please. I’m begging you.”

“Relax, he’s not going to tell,” Thundercracker assured his Commander. “Right, Skywarp?”

Skywarp folded his arms. “Only if Screamer takes back his punishment threats.”

Starscream relented. “Ok, yes. Fine. No discipline. Ok?”

The Seeker smiled. “And since you’re feeling so cooperative, I’ve been meaning to ask you some...stuff.”

Starscream did NOT like the sound of that. “What kind of...stuff??”

“Well, c’mon.” Before he knew it, the Air Commander found his trine-mate’s arm slung around his shoulder as if he were a long-time friend. “We can discuss it on the way back to the space bridge.”

Starscream groaned, not liking where this was going at all.

Thundercracker only looked on, still trying to swallow everything that had happened. Suffice to say, he found himself feeling rather...odd about it. And he could tell Starscream held this sentiment as well. Truly, it sounded unreal: he had just held down their superior while his wingmate tickled him into near insanity. Had he not seen it himself, let alone participated in it, he wouldn’t have believed it. Frankly, he was beginning to feel quite embarrassed about how he had sunk so low to be involved in something so childish, but…

“Oh, come on! It wasn’t that bad!” The blue Seeker heard Skywarp say. “You were smiling the whole time!”

“Yes, against my will!!!!” Starscream retorted, folding his arms and, for lack of a better word, pouting.

“But don’t you feel just a little bit better?”

Starscream’s red optics widened. “No! It-“ had he been human, he would’ve been red as a tomato. Odd how the meatbag’s skin changed at just the slightest amount of extreme emotion. “Hmph!!! Well...I’m not talking to you right now!!! Or in the next few Earth hours. Or tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or-“ he was interrupted by a poke, unprepared to contain the giggle that slipped out. “Do that again, and I WILL blast you this time.” He threatened.

“That makes a millionth-and-three.” Skywarp answered, unfazed.

Thundercracker continued to watch the two Seekers argue and banter with each other, noticing that, even if he would swear to Primus Himself that it wasn’t the case, since his tickling session, Starscream seemed...less irritable?

“Well, maybe that’ll be the lucky number. What’s that human saying again? Third time’s the charm?”

“I don’t think they have plus a million in there though.” Skywarp chuckled, Starscream huffing.

“Shut up.”

Thundercracker could only speculate. One could never tell with Starscream. But from watching him, he had a vague idea of what was going in his processor. And that he’d keep it a secret from everyone.

[female-malice]

I don't trust male peppers either but I do think prepping is important. Now I'm not really doing anything I wouldn't do if I did trust that the supply chain would hold up as I believe we should all be doing what we can to grow our own food to take the burden off the system since the agricultural system is shit, except I will be trying to get solar installed at my house just in case the power grid goes down for an extended period of time. I'm still planning for society to be here for the rest of my life but I do try to live my life in a way where I'm already involved with producing what I need to survive.

I understand being critical of prepping, especially of people who want society to collapse so they can live out their survival fantasy, but if you're aware of climate change it only makes sense to prepare for it.

I understand that perspective. I just have a little bit of a different perspective. Instead of hoarding beans and rice, I think it's more valuable to hoard allies. Build a climate adaptation action cell of 12 women. A girl gang. An online network is great but it's no substitute for an IRL girl gang. I think cultivating a climate cell is the most powerful climate change preparation. Meeting weekly, enjoying each others' company, keeping spirits up. Dividing up jobs and tasks based on everyones' different skills and strengths. And making a group commitment to help each other adapt, survive, and thrive.

Humans do not survive crises alone. We just don't. We're just not that kind of species. No human brain has all the tools for survival. But several connected brains do.

This is my ideal and I haven't built this yet. But it's a goal I have for this year. I need an IRL climate gang. Even if we're all lay people, even if we're as dumb as each other, we'll be resilient. As humans, we just need a pat on the back sometimes. We're better in groups. Being around other people makes our brains work better. We're more adaptable and smarter that way.

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

A Review of Voltron DDP Comic: A Legend Forged (2008)

I knew the old Devil’s Due Publishing (DDP) comics for Voltron were lit…but the sequel, A Legend Forged, really resonated with me! This 5-issue comic series is DDP’s interpretation of the history behind the Voltron robot itself, and it wraps this lore within an adventure plot featuring our main pilots (Allura, Keith, Hunk, Lance, Pidge) in an alliance with Lotor.

I’ve meant to write a review about A Legend Forged for a while because I know that older Voltron comics aren’t always accessible. I think this one deserves some attention because it does things that I find just really refreshing after watching the 2016 Legendary Defender show. It also has some fun details that could have been source material for the world building and events in the 2016 VLD show. 

-

The basic summary of this comic is that Team Voltron and Lotor are accidentally transported 1,200 years in the past after some classified time travel tech destabilizes in the middle of a fight. Powerless from the blast, they crash-land on a nearby planet, and they’re soon captured by people on the planet who have exceptionally advanced technology. Lotor agrees to a truce with Team Voltron to help find a way out of their prison, and back to their own time.

In arriving through the wormhole, however, they catch the attention of a very powerful group who are missing an important piece to complete their special defense project (the Voltron robot). The robot is being built in part by King Altarus, Allura’s ancestor, to fight off the villain in that ancient past—Empress Jain IX, Lotor’s evil great great (10X) grandmother, who is a sorceress hellbent on intergalactic domination.

Ultimately, Team Voltron and Lotor get caught up in the efforts to stop Empress Jain and assist King Altarus’s Council…and they discover some interesting things about themselves and about Voltron along the way!

-

I found A Legend Forged to be one entertaining, snarky shenanigan after another. Although it does source the 1984 character designs and backgrounds along with some references to Vehicle Voltron (which may be alienating to fans familiar only with VLD), I love that this comic deeply and openly explores what makes the Voltron franchise so identifiable and unique—its Arthurian legends/magic in the midst of an expansive space opera.

The comic is meant for slightly older audiences compared to VLD—it includes several instances of adult cursing, frightening images, some brief images of romance/non-graphic sensuality, and occasional graphic violence showing blood. I couldn’t find a publisher-recommended age for this comic on the book covers, but I think it might be T for ages 12 and older.

If you’re interested, a deeper overview of A Legend Forged is included under the cut!

___

At a high level, there’s certain things that just really attracted me to this comic, even though I’m usually not much of a comic reader:

THE WORLD BUILDING

The whole timeline distortion that takes them back 1,200 years is a direct consequence of humans attempting to back-engineer the mysterious Voltron robot. Within that back-engineering, they’d stumbled into creating a time machine:

(Photo Description: The city of Toronto in the future. Someone asks, “Time travel?” Coran replies, “Devised using reverse engineered technology from Lion Voltron, no doubt.” An alliance official responds, “Come on now, how would that be possible?” A second official responses, “Coran’s right. The way that Lion Voltron summons energy and weaponry is a mystery. We learned how to mimic the ability with the vehicle units, without really understanding it.”)

So there’s a lot of undertow here about just what exactly all these different parties (Earth/Galaxy Alliance, space pirates, Lotor) were planning to do with a time machine to begin with before it gets blown up in a battle over it. But there’s also something interesting happening here involving Fate/Destiny and plasticity of time itself.

At the very heart of this comic is the concept that the Voltron robot could not have been completed 1,200 years ago if Team Voltron and Lotor were not accidentally tossed back in time to help complete the project. And idk, I think that’s just pretty cool. It ties these lives of these characters together in a way that I don’t think I’ve seen in any other Voltron iteration—that they were meant to pilot Voltron, because their presence helped to unlock the final missing piece to bring it to life.  

---

In addition, we get a really interesting look into the ancient past of the Voltron universe, back to the beginning of the first space empire. The comic’s big bad, Empress Jain IX, is an incredibly powerful and heartless sorceress of Drule heritage, from the planet Doon:

(Photo description: Empress Jain standing before the leader of a world she’s conquered, declaring, “And thus, the mighty fall! The powerful kneel at my feet! Behold the grandeur of your empress, and witness what happens to those who stand in her way!”)

But there’s always been this larger question in the Voltron franchise around King Zarkon’s unique, fish-like features compared to other Drule characters like Jain, and this comic answers that.

This is what the OG Zarkon looked like:

Compared to the ancient people of Korrinoth, who have similar ears and coloring as he does:

(Description: Keith says to the team, “I think we may be witnessing the beginning of King Zarkon’s people’s assimilation into the Drule Empire.”)

The planet that our protagonists crash-land on 1,200 years in the past is called Korrinoth. The people here had been recently conquered by Jain and share many similarities with the visual features of Zarkon. So this comic establishes that Zarkon has both Drule and Korrinite heritage. Unfortunately for Lotor, the Korrinites of the planet don’t acknowledge his Korrinite blood because he looks too Drule in comparison. So this comic reaches back on the hints that Lotor struggles to fit in with his own people…and it helps to explain why he’s captured along with Team Voltron:

(Photo description: Team Voltron and Lotor stand together, having been captured in a purple energy field functioning like jail bars.)

---

There’s also the concept that Voltron—just like the surrounding environment in Voltron franchise—is an amalgamation of science and magic. The comic’s big bad, Empress Jain, had discovered that her own dark sorcery arts could be challenged by the “lion gods,” who were demanding an increasing price be paid for her horrific conquering. In order to negate the lion gods’ power, Jain explicitly banned religious worship around them and any lion god iconography from her empire.

(Photo description: The dark entity Sarga says, “It is coming, and soon, that which may be your downfall. A twisted abomination of science and technology. The might of the Lion-Gods with the heart and mind of Man.” Jain says, “But I have banned worship of the Lions through the empire.”)

So the Voltron builders were reaching back to a very ancient, lost power that they were risking their lives to resurrect. The connection to a pantheon of lion gods helps to provide some logic around why the Voltron robot itself splits into lions—because it’s literally the symbol of these lost gods.

The visual design of Voltron is also reflected in the armor worn specifically by warriors fighting in the name of these banned gods:

(Photo description: A humanoid warrior wearing Voltron-based armor, coming to Team Voltron’s rescue at the command of the Council.)

So Voltron as a machine metaphorically stands as the Ultimate Warrior in humanoid form, supported by the individual lion gods.

---

Within the comic, it hints at some pretty intense religious discrimination—that Empress Jain was willing to arrest and torment even her own daughter, Azakhi for becoming a Lion Priestess:

(Photo description: Jain’s daughter, Azahki, is revealed to be a dirtied prisoner captured by Jain’s forces. She tells Team Voltron, “Do not fear my Drule appearance. I am a devout follower of your ways.”)

This background battle supports why Team Voltron and Lotor are instantly targeted by Jain’s forces when they crash-land on Korrinoth, bearing the banner of the lion gods in the form of Voltron.

Later on in the comic, we also see that the colors themselves represented the various domains of these lion gods:

(Photo description: An image of Voltron as it’s being built, with King Altarus narrating in the background, ““Yellow for win, red for fire, green for earth, blue for water, and at the center…the might blackness of space which houses all of reality.”)

So we really see Voltron pick up a lot more backstory to explain the robot itself. 

--

We do get a deeper look as well into King Altarus and his Council.

King Altarus, Princess Allura’s ancestor, is the leader of the group. But the work involved in building Voltron doesn’t just rest with him like it did with Alfor in VLD. His council is just as equally if not more powerful than him in other ways.

In this panel, King Altarus introduces his four other team members as the most powerful scientists or sorcerers of their respective planet:

(Photo description: An introduction of the five council members of Altarus: “Cybrus hails from a world of sentient machines…More than a computer, he is also sorcerer to rival any other. The striking beauty to my right is Heket. Born of a nomadic race who travels the galaxy bestowing gifts of knowledge to primitive worlds. She is also the most brilliant scientist of her people. Phelos is a brilliant sci-mage from the neighboring solar system. If you are truly who you say, you may already know legends of our final ally. From a primitive world, but master of the most advance wizardry in the galazy: Merlin.”)

The combination of Altarus, Cybrus, Heket, Phelos, and Merlin all echo the 2016 Legendary Defender’s backstory—in which leaders of various people united together for the greater good of their galaxy. Once again, we have five unique planets represented in the Voltron effort—but in this case, it even includes Earth. This helps to explain part of why Voltron’s original design had very medieval attributes.

Maybe some would think it’s a bit hokey that the OG builders included the actual Arthurian figure of Merlin, the wizard? Idk, I think it’s kind of a fun way to connect Voltron’s ancient, magical past to Earth as well, and it suggests that Merlin was preparing or called by the others to help prepare for a future of advanced warfare. I’ve always wondered why the OG Voltron looked so medieval with the crests and the swords and such—and actually, it being built in part by a medieval human wizard would help to explain that!

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We also see in the DDP comics a very heavy evolution to Allura’s character and to the world building within the Voltron franchise itself. She’s no longer just a princess who knows how to fight—she’s actively a Clairvoyant, with untapped power. King Altarus acknowledges, and the other Council members sense it, that Princess Allura has way more internal magic than she even knows about herself:

(Photo description: Council member Heket says to King Altarus, “I have a feeling about the girl [Allura]. Her aura is oddly similar to your own.”)

We also see that the dark entity Sarga recognizes this in her as well:

(Photo description: The dark entity Sarga says to Empress Jain, “The visitors…they each have a link to this monstrosity. However, the blood of only one of them pulses with the  magic of Arus. The one called Allura! She is the one! She must be—” Jain cuts in, “The host!” And Sarga confirms, “Yes, with Princess Allura, Sarga will live in this realm once more. With her, we can control Voltron.”)

I feel like this magic probably helped to set the tone for the Princess Allura we meet in the 2016 Legendary Defender reboot, who ultimately got the opportunity to grow into the powers that are hinted at here in this previous iteration.

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I do also like this comic because the protagonists (with the exception of Pidge who is 16) are adults, and they’re a little more mature in their decisions and interests.

Like, for example, the Lance in this comic has a much more extensive sensitivity to and interest in culture. Instead of it being Hunk bonding with aliens through food, we see Lance as the diplomat, bonding with Jain’s daughter Azahki, just by asking her questions:

(Photo description: Lance and Jain’s daughter, Azahki, sitting at a table and eating. Lance says, “That hit the sport. I was frickin’ starving.” Azahki says, “After being held prisoner for so long, I had forgotten what real food tastes like. So much time was wasted…so much life. Just sitting in a cell because of my beliefs. I…I’m sorry, Lance. This should be a nice evening, and I’m bringing the mood down.”)

(Photo description: Lance replies, “Actually, I’m fascinated to learn more about the followers of the Lions, and about you. Like, where you come from. You feel free to talk about whatever comes to mind.” Azahki responds then, “You’re too kind.”)

I think along with this, we see a more nuanced view into the Drule themselves. Azahki, as both a Drule and as Empress Jain’s daughter, has turned away from the evil deeds of the empire and has suffered dearly for trying to do the right thing. This falls in line with DDP’s dedication in the worldbuilding to show that not all Drule are bad.

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We also see some very interesting, Honervian backstory relating to Empress Jain’s dark powers. Like VLD Honerva, Jain is in part backed by an ancient spirit/power she likes to “talk” to. She calls on it as the “Mother of Power.” This creepy creature is named Sarga in the comics:

(Photo description: Jain summons Sarga: “Mother of Power, Great Spirit, I summon thee.” The dark entity Sarga manifests and says, “Yesss, sweet Jain! You know my name! Feel free to speak it. Have you found the Host?” Jain replies, “Not yet, great Sarga. But the search continues. To date, my body is the only one that could sustain you in our realm.” Sarga says, “Jain. Do not be so simple-minded. It’s only your mortal shell.” Jain retorts, “One that I rather like, thank you.”)

Sarga is pushing for Jain to give up her mortal body entirely so that Sarga can walk the mortal plane, but they don’t see eye to eye on this. Jain likes having her own body. Even so, Sarga knows that she has to protect her investment in Jain, and so she’s the one who plants a devious idea in Jain’s head—that she could potentially use the Voltron from the future to destroy the Voltron of the past, and therefore reestablish her supremacy over the lion gods and their legacy.

Tbh, I visually get a LOT of vibes from Jain relating to VLD’s Honerva character? Down to the long stringy hair and gold eyes…and she really does look like a female version of Lotor, tbh, lol.

(Photo description: Jain leaning in a circle of candles, exhausted from summoning Sarga, who has referred to Voltron. Jain murmurs to herself, “Pow..power. There is power in that name.”)

I think what I like about Jain as a big bad, though, is that she’s legit just an evil person. She doesn’t have an abuse backstory, like what so many content creators like to reference as the reason for someone going insane/evil. She’s clearly very talented and very powerful and very in control, and she’s using those abilities in all the wrong ways just because she can.

Given DDP’s contributions to the Voltron franchise with its female villains (Merla, Jain), I almost can’t believe that the 2016 VLD show didn’t carry these characters forward but instead raised up the all-new Honerva as “needed female villain rep.” But I can definitely see the echoes of Jain in the Honerva that we see throughout VLD.

I also really, really see similarities in how Jain is willing to use her own daughter, Azahki, as a pawn for her own aims. And by the end of the comic, Jain eventually accomplishes bringing Sarga into the mortal plane by sacrificing her own daughter’s body. This pretty hauntingly echoes the lack of maternal instinct seen in Honerva in VLD and Honerva’s malicious interest in and use of Lotor, even post-death in s8.

I feel like I relived Honerva’s interactions with Lotor in s8 when I saw how Jain acts with her own daughter, Azahki:

(Photo description: Azahki has been shot in the battle. Jain kneels down to her and cries, “Daughter. My only daughter.” Azahki says, “Mother...you…you’re crying? I…I’m sorry…you didn’t give me… a choice.” Jain pleads, “You can’t do this, Azahki, not now. After being gone for so long and now…” But then Jain has a complete switch of demeanor. She stands up and declares, “Now you’ve ruined everything! Everything!” Azahki, bewildered, says, “What?” And Jain yells, “I should have killed you in your crib!”)

Another association with Honerva is that Honerva/Haggar killed the original paladins. Likewise, it is Jain who takes down the Council one by one:

(Photo description: Jain breaks into the Council, hand glowing with power and fallen warriors around her, saying, “How could someone with such feeble defenses have eluded me for so long, Altarus? I give you credit for that, at least.”)

(Photo description: Jane is surrounded by the dead bodies of Merlin and Heket. She says, “Now, to finish this.”)

So I guess I’m just fascinated by Jain as a villain and find her similarities with Honerva interesting. In Jain’s case, however, there’s absolutely nothing to be sympathetic with her on, lol.

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In terms of Lotor’s part:

I think this comic represents probably the most actively hopeful iteration of him that I’ve seen in the Voltron franchise? Like, Dynamite Comics had Lotor moving to ally with Team Voltron to bring down the rift creatures in a massive alliance, but those comics were canceled before we could see the whole story that Brandon Thomas intended. Here, we have a whole, complete story in which Lotor actively does good deeds and lives, wow.

(I didn’t think that was, like, allowed in this franchise, lol?)  

I do think it’s really interesting that here, Lotor comes face-to-face with just pure, unadulterated evil—and it scares him. Just like in VLD, this Lotor is forced to watch Jain decimate an entire planet and enslave its people. Despite being canonically “evil,” Lotor does not take this level of destruction very well:

(Photo description: Empress Jain speaking to an underling, saying, “For now, rid this planet of its luscious environment and warp home.”)

(Photo description: The planet is set ablaze by Jain’s forces. Lotor is looking on from a different ship. He is unsettled by Jain’s power and says, “My god.” His prisoner that he’s watching on Team Voltron’s request (the space pirate Captain Stride), teases, “Nothing like a little global decimation to build character, eh, Lotor?” And Lotor warns, “Stride,” with an upset look on this face.)

His motivations for helping out and connecting with both Team Voltron and King Altarus’s council do start with just wanting to save his own neck. But as the comic progresses, we see him taking larger and larger risks to help protect the team, and he responds more emotionally to the stakes being faced by other allies.  

Jain’s level of evil, and her later attempts to target Princess Allura as a host body for the dark entity Sarga, are what really push Lotor out of the antagonist/villain role into the position of antihero. And I like this exploration of him because Lotor is a really fascinating character in the franchise and usually always a wild card. Like, he has the capacity to play both sides and be unpredictable.

And it’s interesting too that this comic even opens up by acknowledging that. In the beginning, King Altarus and his council are watching Team Voltron and Lotor recalibrate from their crash-landing on Korrinoth. King Altarus notes that Lotor is evil, but that he’s capable of doing good…because of his love for Allura:

(Photo description: King Altarus judging the team: “The girl has a clairvoyance about her, but doesn’t even realize it. I sense something noble about all of them…save for the Drule who should not be trusted. Although his apparent fondness for the woman may cause him to fight his true evil nature at least for a while.”)

Later in the comic, it’s King Altarus himself who leans on Lotor when he thinks all hope is lost. And it’s Lotor who holds him up and tries to take down Jain:

(Photo description: King Altarus leans upon Lotor and mourns, “She’s…she’s done it, Lotor. She’s ruined our chances. Five generations…for nothing.” Lotor has raised a blaster and replies, “Not without going through me first.”)

So we really see this comic actively allow Lotor’s character to do things outside of the typical bounds of a villain. The very person who called him inherently evil is the one wailing to him and counting on him to save the day, lol.

We also see echoes of VLD Lotor’s pride in this comic. The DDP Lotor is also a man of mixed heritage and is very proud of who and what he is.

(Photo description: Lotor is on the battlefield, having slain an enemy who’d called them pathetic. Lotor responds, “Pathetic? My noble blood begs to differ.”)

So I liked that once again, Lotor is actually proud of who he is even though the world around him actively tries to devalue him. I think that’s been something meaningful about the Lotor character that a lot of people have connected to.

In his efforts to assist Team Voltron in reclaiming their own recharged Voltron lions (so that Jain can’t get them), Lotor is actually a very helpful ally as well, and a skilled warrior. So it was fun to see panels of Team Voltron and Lotor fighting together, side by side.

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THE CLIMAX AND RESOLUTION

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Ultimately, the evil Empress Jain tries to take over the Voltron from the future, in realizing that Allura has deep, spiritual connections to the machine. She agrees that this makes Allura the perfect host body for the dark entity Sarga, and as their way to control the robot. And so she enacts the rituals to possess Allura:

(Photo description: Allura’s features are mutating unnaturally as Sarga begins to posses her. In the background, Jain calls, “Don’t fight it, child. Don’t fight the honor of becoming a god.” Someone in the background, revealed later to be Lotor, calls out, “No! You can’t do this!”)

With Jain threatening Allura’s life, Lotor steps up to defend her, still holding up the battered King Altarus:  

(Photo description: Lotor yells, “No! Not Allura!” And he shoots Jain through the shoulder.)

(Photo description: Jain snaps, “Lotor! How dare you attack your own kind! I’ll smite my own daughter, let alone a pissant distant grandson!”)

Ultimately, Lotor’s decision to shoot his grandma (what is it with this franchise and matricide/patricide lol) results in Jain being distracted long enough for the combined spiritual/soul energies of Allura, the previous Council members, and Altarus to bring “life” to Voltron.

This completes Voltron as a spiritual being as well—that it’s sentient and not just a robot, but imbued with the hopes and impulses for a defender against the evil attacking them.

(Photo description: Voltron awakens as a sentient robot and stands to move against Jain.)

Realizing that she has lost, Jain flees in a poof of magic—with her daughter, Azahki, oddly disappearing too. The comic ends for them on an unsettling note that Sarga has in fact slipped through to the mortal realm…by choosing Azahki instead of Allura as her host body:

(Photo description: Jain kneels and cries, “Oh mighty Sarga, I humbly beseech thee. Forgive my failures. Forgive my ability to bring you into our world. I beg you to be given a second chance! I vow to you we will see this through.” From behind, someone says, “Don’t be so harsh, mother.” Jain turns around and asks, “Who dares?” A woman in a cloak appears and says, “You may have failed to give me Voltron’s power, my child. But do not fear.” The woman is revealed to be the possessed body of Azahki, Jain’s daughter. Through her body, Sarga says, “I found a body that will do just fine for now.”)

However, we don’t see this thread explored any further. Shortly after the battle, the Galaxy Alliance manages to rebuild a temporal manipulation device to lock in on the missing Team Voltron and Lotor, and pull them back through time.

(Photo description: A strange flying machine appears. Someone asks, “What…what is it?” Allura echoes, “What’s it doing?” Lotor peers at it curiously and says, “I believe it’s scanning us.” The comic panels show the device scanning and identifying people to send back to modern times.)

And so, eventually, this wayward team makes it back home, with the final panels suggesting the  Garrison had to complete a couple of temporal jumps to do it.

FUN LITTLE PIECES ALONG THE WAY

The comic itself had some interesting and funny scenes in it, including the following:

Please enjoy this image of a boi having tamed a dinosaur in the middle of an active battle:  

(Photo description: Prince Lotor sitting atop a large, dinosaur-like creature that he’s tamed, calling joyfully to the paladins, “You can put your toy away, Pidge. I know where to find the lions.”)

Pidge jokes about Hunk and Lance:

(Photo description: Hunk had saved Lance from a shot. In running past them, Pidge calls, “Keep moving, guys! There’ll be time for spooning later.”)

Some time-traveling paradox humor:

  (Photo description: Lotor shooting an ancient Drule, “Hope you’re not one of my forefathers.”)

Some Keith and Lance badgering:

(Photo description: Lance complains, “Keith Kogane seriously isn’t going to lecture me about battlefield romance, is he?”)

Did VLD get the name Kaltor from this comic??? Because Kalthor sounds pretty darn similar to Kaltor from VLD:

(Photo description: Jain calling out for an underling, “Kalthor! Sigh. Kalthor, this effort is beneath me. Extract the information I seek.”)

ALSO BLESS, THIS COMIC LETS ALLURA CUSS:

(Photo description: Princess Allura raises a blaster to use, but it doesn’t work. She says, “What the--? Damn! Now is not the time for you to malfunction! And I do not know how to fix a 1,200-year-old—”)

This comic probably is also the singular place in the DDP comics that offers any evidence whatsoever that Lotor and Allura actually did have positive childhood experiences together prior to his father decimating Arus, helping to explain Lotor’s curious loyalty to Allura throughout:

(Photo description: Lotor standing before Allura and saying, “I knew you’d pull through, Allura. Speaking of treehouses, do you remember climbing the Arusion orchids in the royal gardens when we were children?” Allura responds, “Yes…of course I do. I…”)

And finally, this comic has no issues whatsoever with making fun of itself or the concept of robotic lions:

(Photo description: A space pirate complains to Lotor, “Think about it! How you think this place ends up looking like it does in our time? Looking like Planet Doom?! Meanwhile, the Kitty Cat Club up there gets out without a scratch!”)

VOLTRON IS THE KITTY CAT CLUB, 2008 CONFIRMED

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CONCLUSION

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The 5-part comic A Legend Forged (2008) adds an incredible amount of history and lore to the Voltron franchise. It gave me some things that I personally was really craving out of this franchise—including some logic behind the lion imagery, a legit alliance between previously warring groups that doesn’t just end in catastrophe, some adult snark and some good-old fashioned silliness, some deeper exploration into dark entities/spirits, and also just a really powerful villainess that you can love to hate.  

I think the comic ultimately took on the theme of Strength in Unity and fulfilled the concept that people really can work together. Even if the Team Voltron and Lotor and Council alliance was all just temporary, it was still nice to see that alliance come through for the greater good of the universe, instead of leading to more mass insanity like it did in VLD….

I liked that in this iteration, Voltron stood as a collective effort on the part of various worlds who were oppressed by Empress Jain. That helps to tone down the savior complex inherent in the franchise, that at least here, Voltron wasn’t one nation’s attempt to play police for all other people.

From a critical perspective, if you read carefully, there are some instances where you can tell that various alien races are prejudiced against each other and discriminate on the basis of appearance and religion, and even Team Voltron feeds into this at times in their initial assumption that Korrinites are a barbarian race when in fact they’re very intelligent and advanced. These aspects are just not fully reflected on within this comic, but they definitely feed into the conflict as we experience it 1,200 years in the past. Interestingly enough, the comic also makes fun of Team Voltron members who are from Earth as being “primitive” too. So I guess the DDP world does function in a “problematic” state where all of these alien races are struggling with how to interact well with one another. I’m not sure if that baseline would be a potential trigger for someone just entering this series, so I wanted to call it out here.

I do also occasionally find comics hard to read because of the all-caps print and because comics will switch back and forth between past and present, with only small visual markers to warn you. So I don’t think these comics are designed in the most accessible way. But that could just be me.

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Overall, I think A Legend Forged ranks as one of my more favorite comic iterations of Voltron. It definitely has some differences from both the 1984 and 2016 shows, but it pulls on enough shared content to remain accessible. And while it was a quick read, it felt pretty tightly constructed. I would have liked to see more aftermath and epilogue, but I feel thankful that the story got an ending and that both Team Voltron and Lotor are shown being transported back home. The comic’s similarities and differences compared to VLD made it fun to read and analyze as well.

So yeah, if you get the chance to try reading it yourself, I recommend it! And if you’ve made it to the end of this very long post, thank you for reading!