#if it looks weird it's because i glazed every frame :P sorry

[deirakizuna]

For Azul's birthday (art by me!)

Links and story under Read More!

Azul opens the new set of birthday photos taken in a new location (this time we're shooting in a specialized room inside our house, right outside of NRC, so they won't have to walk too far from the school!), this year's theme being 'Artisanal Fashion'! The birthday boy is sporting the following items in case you're interested in stealing his look:

* Embroidered belt (in purple) by Idna Ladies Association

* Pin - Peace Dove (Mother-of-Pearl) by Holy Land Handicraft Cooperative

* Palestine Coin Necklace (gold) and Bethlehem Olive Wood Bracelet by Paliroots

Remember to also do your daily click! It's free (Azul approved)!

We would also like to show support to the following countries: Congo, Sudan, Hawaii, Yemen, West Papua, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Armenia, Lebanon, Tigray and Uyghur.

If you know about any store from any of these countries or whose proceeds go to support them, please let us know so we can promote them!

Art by @deirakizuna (Also posted on Boxitty's insta and Youtube's community tab)

[scintillating-galaxias]

simpatico week day 2 - time travel

because we all need a little brainstorm whump in our lives :,)  @simpaticoweek​

read it here on ao3!

-

Perceptor wasn’t sure what prompted him to sit with Brainstorm. Hell, he wasn’t sure what prompted him to enter Swerve’s in the first place. Perhaps he’d had enough of the solitude the lab provided. That must be it. His processor needed stimulation, and a loud, busy environment was an obvious solution. Only, he hadn’t expected it to lead to him sitting down across from a morose looking Brainstorm and awkwardly making stilted attempts at conversations.

He said, ‘attempts.’ In reality, he hadn’t tried, too concerned about saying the wrong thing. Brainstorm has been giving him weird looks since he’d sat down with his drink and sipped at it in complete silence, but he hadn’t gotten up and left yet. So... perhaps that was a good sign. Or maybe Brainstorm felt obligated to stay here since Perceptor had sat down. He couldn’t be sure. Social cues didn’t come naturally to him.

Finally, Brainstorm let out a heavy vent, took off his blast mask, and sighed, “What do you want, Perceptor.”

Perceptor tensed. “You looked like you needed some company,” he said stiffly. This was true enough. Everyone kept a wide berth from Brainstorm these days as if his EM field could emit the same poison he’d used on them all those weeks ago. Even now, the nearby tables surrounding where Brainstorm and Perceptor were noticeably empty.

But if Brainstorm was aware of this, he did not seem all that bothered by it. In fact, he didn’t seem aware Perceptor had said anything at all. His optics were unfocused, glazing off to stare at something to the right of Perceptor’s shoulder. Perceptor followed his gaze. Unsurprisingly, it led to where Chromedome and Rewind were curled around each other in a booth. Their drinks were untouched, each of them content to drink in the sight of the other instead.

“You’re thinking about Rewind,” Perceptor quietly guessed.

“Ding, ding, ding,” Brainstorm said. His voice was flat, lifeless without his usual chirpy enthusiasm. “We have a winner.”

Perceptor spent a second too long trying to formulate a response. A brittle smile spread across Brainstorm’s face. “It’s fine,” he said. “You don’t have to pretend to care. You didn’t before, and I don’t know why you’re bothering now.”

Perceptor shuttered his optic. “I’m not pretending,” he said, faintly hurt, but he knew his hurt was unwarranted; he understood the doubtful reaction and couldn’t blame Brainstorm for having it. It wasn’t as though they’d had many positive interactions in the past to say otherwise.

“Hm.” Brainstorm’s mouth twisted in a way that told Perceptor he didn’t believe him, but he wasn’t willing to pursue the topic. “Sure.”

Perceptor resisted fidgeting with his monocle in the awkward wake of silence that followed. Instead, he tentatively asked, “May I ask what it is about Rewind you’re thinking about?”

Brainstorm shot him an unamused look that positively screamed, Seriously? Perceptor’s frame heated up a bit; he’s never been a fantastic conversationalist, but he refused to let it be for lack of trying. So he tilted his helm with a slight flush to his face and waited until Brainstorm sighed and fell back against his seat, helm tipping up to stare listlessly at the ceiling. “What everyone else is thinking about,” he said dully. “The fact that he’s back. His second life. And just… Hah. What’re the chances of that?”

“Almost incalculably small,” Perceptor said quietly. “It’s really quite the marvel.” Brainstorm’s optics dimmed. Perceptor wanted to smack himself. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to aggravate you. I thought I should ask because you seemed upset, is all.”

“I am,” Brainstorm said simply. Perceptor blinked; he’d been expecting another non-answer. But Brainstorm, evidently mistaking his surprise to be towards something else, grimaced. “Well, no. I’m not upset about Rewind coming back. God, no, I’m—I’m glad he’s alive, and I’m glad that Chromedome got a good twist to his story for once. Mech’s had a sad life.” Perceptor did not know much about Chromedome’s past aside from his work with Prowl, so he merely nodded. Brainstorm made a frustrated sound. “This is making me look like a complete aft. Why are you even asking? You don’t care.”

Perceptor’s scope dipped thoughtfully. After a moment, he finally said, “That’s not necessarily true. You are hurting. It’s only right someone should at least ask how you’re doing.”

Brainstorm gave him a long, considering look. Like he was searching for something—No, testing Perceptor for something. Perceptor remained silent, patiently waiting as the orange light of Brainstorm’s optics washed over him.

He seemed to find whatever answer he was looking for, because finally, he warily asked, “You want the short answer or the long answer?”

“Whichever suits you best.”

“Short it is. How am I doing? Fragging terrible. Thanks for asking.” Brainstorm flapped his servo at him. “You can go now.”

Perceptor hummed, but he did not move. “That is to be expected. But I’m afraid I do not know what exactly this has to do with Rewind.”

Rewind’s lively, bright bout of laughter cut across the bar chatter as Chromedome murmured something in his audial. Brainstorm fixed Perceptor with a piercing stare.

“Have you ever loved someone to the point of invention, Perceptor?” he suddenly asked, deadly serious.

Perceptor shook his helm. “No.”

Oh, he loved to invent. That certainly couldn’t be denied. But that wasn’t what Brainstorm asked. He’d asked if Perceptor had created something that had never before existed in the whole grand vastness of the universe, all in the name of love, and for that, Perceptor could not say he had.

“Mm. I don’t blame you.” His wings drooped even further, making him look impossibly small as he fixed his gaze on some unseeable spot on the table. “Did I ever tell you about why I made that briefcase?”

Again, Perceptor said, “No.”

Brainstorm’s face smoothed over into a pensive wistfulness. “All I ever wanted was for Quark to be safe. I loved him, you know. I loved him with everything I had, and I gave everything I had to get that silly old sod back. I was ready to erase the entire concept of my existence so he—and everyone else, I guess, but it started with him—could live. I invented a way, possibly the only way, to inconsequentially time-travel so he could live. Well,” he said, shooting Perceptor a faintly amused glance, “it would’ve been inconsequential.”

“Your work is incredible,” Perceptor blurted. “The designs behind your briefcases are nothing short of ingenious, as are your proofs for the paradox locks, and—” He stopped when he noticed Brainstorm raising an optical ridge at him. This time, Perceptor really did flush shamefully. “I—I apologize. I don’t know what came over me. That was highly inappropriate. Please. Continue.”

Brainstorm gave him a careful look. Then, he chuckled bitterly. “It was incredible,” he corrected. “You and Rodimus destroyed all of it.”

Perceptor cringed. “I… yes, I suppose that is deserved. If it means anything to you, I didn’t particularly want to do it.”

That, at the very least, he could say was true. He couldn’t stand destroying Brainstorm’s beautiful feats of engineering. It’d almost physically hurt, watching the dying sparks the electronics in the briefcases coughed up as the flame fused the lot of it into a twisted, blackened mess. They weren’t just extraordinary pieces of technology he’d destroyed; they were answers to questions he’d had for millennia. They were the definition of a new future of possibilities. And now they were gone.

Guilt twisted around Perceptor’s spark like a tangled net free-floating in an ocean, suffocating and cutting. He should’ve at least tried to argue that it was in their best interest to spare one of them for the sake of science. Rodimus could be reasoned with when it came to these kinds of things. Instead, he’d stood by and watched it all burn, compliant to the end.

“We could build them again,” said Perceptor.

“They wouldn’t like that,” said Brainstorm.

“I know.”

“So why do it? There’s no point in you of all mechs going down with me.”

Perceptor didn’t know.

Brainstorm sighed. “It doesn’t really matter. The point is, it wasn’t enough. I don’t think there ever could have been ‘enough.’ It was bound to happen anyway.” He tipped his helm towards Chromedome and Rewind with age-old yearning burning away at his smile. “I made up a whole new rulebook for the universe to abide by, and it wasn’t enough to get him back. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. I gave Quark everything I had to offer. And now? I’ve got nothing. I’m not allowed in my own lab. Nautica hates me. No one trusts me, and I can’t blame them. My life’s work is a pile of melted circuits. Quark’s still gone, and it was Chromedome who got his conjunx back from the dead.” Brainstorm’s laugh was this horrible, weak little thing that tugged at Perceptor’s spark. “I sometimes wish I’d been left in the past. At least I had something worth living for there.”

Perceptor once believed he knew failure. It’d taken more from him than he thought possible. His friends, his home, his faith. But he’d never seen it take everything but life from someone, scraping out every last thing they had inside them until they were a hollow, bleeding vessel for defeat.

He looked at Brainstorm. Really looked at him. There was something tired worn into his frame, an exhaustion that ran so deep, there was no other way Brainstorm could be perceived. Gone was the puff-chested, bravado-filled Brainstorm Perceptor had somehow managed to convince himself into believing to be callous, distant, and cowardly. He couldn’t believe it to be the same Brainstorm before him. This one, who was once filled with so much devotion and passion, it hurt him to hold it all.

Never, in all of his functioning, had Perceptor been so wholly wrong.

“I’m sorry,” said Perceptor.

“It’s not like it’s your fault,” said Brainstorm.

“No,” said Perceptor. He reached out and grasped Brainstorm’s servo with his own, squeezing it tight. “I’m simply… sorry.”

Brainstorm stared at their linked servos. Then, tentatively, hesitantly, like he’s afraid he’d lose this too, he squeezed back.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “Me, too.”

[crwndsprkzy]

Damon Hugh’s Diary

30/1/2021 9:30 pm

I’m Damon Hugh. I’m 16 and am in year 10 in high school. I am a boy who likes to draw, paint and listen to MCR and P!ATD. My favourite colour is dark purple. I’m an absolute loner: no friends, no life, ignored by everyone unless they’re bullying me.

At least this diary I got (stole) from my (someone else’s) school supplies will listen to me.

 15/2/2021 10:30 am

I’ve been at school for less than two hours now (I arrived late). It’s a normal school day so far, regular boring classes, all that jazz. But I can’t help but feel like someone is watching me, like intensely. Meh, not likely though, I’m really uninteresting. I mean, yeah sure, I “befriended” that popular Mia Talune, but I’m not liked by anyone. Oh well, at least science is finishing soon.

 15/2/2021 11:03 am

Not a normal day any more. That Heath Forest guy who bullies me? I found him dead outside the main building. Stabbed in the chest and abdomen. Yeah no, first on the scene on accident equals not fun! So I called the police then rushed to find a teacher. It wasn’t that hard (the main building, duh). But now people think that I killed him! Which I definitely did not! As if the bullying about the heterochromia, me being ace, my height, the fact that I’m a guy who’s artsy and having anxiety wasn’t enough.

Whatever. But still, now I’m wondering who killed Heath? I’m not torn up about it since I don’t like anyone here, I just want to know why someone actually had something against him. He was only mean to me after all...

 15/2/2021 2:30 pm

Yeah no, I’m getting weird vibes from this girl in my class. She keeps staring at me with this glazed look. Her name is Bianca Cornwel (only found that out through the roll) and to be honest, that last name is atrocious. 

There’s been questioning taking place all day because of the cops, and my class has been talking non-stop about it. I have noticed whenever anyone brings up that it was me, the class prez, Rory Dee, gets very defensive and brings up that it couldn’t be me (a few points he made were hurtful: “He’s too weak to do something like this”). He also seems to turn his head from his front seat and glare at Bianca.

 15/2/2021 10:37 pm

A quick sum-up of today:

-woke up

-went to school late

-had to sit through science 

-found the dead body of a regular bully 

-got accused all day (for the murder)

-was stared at by a girl (every lesson)

-was defended by the class president (why?)

-was questioned twice by the police 

-went home 

-wrote this instead of sleeping

 16/2/2021 2:48 am

I was woken up by my phone. It’s a news story. I only really get notifications from the news (I’m a loner) so this is regular.

So I had a look at it and the headline reads: “16-year old’s body found dumped in a sewer”. Ew.

Oh. The murdered teen was Tanisha Andre, a girl in my class.

 Something’s up.

 16/2/2021 8:55 am

I got to school on time. My problem now is that I don’t have an alibi as I did for Heath. Hopefully Class Presi-Dump has something to defend me with. Clearly he will. I mean, he’s perfect in every way! He’s good at everything, popular, a high achiever, kind blue eyes, lightly tanned skin, fluffy looking golden blonde hair, cute little freckles around his nose and cheeks, his pearly white smile, his smooth voice that’s perfect for singing, the fact that he smiles softly at the people who he passes, his laugh; he’s just perfect. I mean, prince charming 2.0 much. 

But still, why is he defending me of all people? We’re polar opposites! He’s tall, I’m short. He's popular, I'm a loner. He's class president, I'm assumed to be a murderer. He's brave and strong, I'm shy and weak. He listens to pop music, I listen to emo music.

It is a bit refreshing now that Bianca isn’t staring at me, but now Palace Tucker (one of the chicks that hang around The Mythic B***h Mia) has been glaring at me ever since I arrived today.

I wonder if there’ll be questioning today following Tanisha’s death?

  16/2/2021 12:30 pm

President Perfect did defend me, as I expected. 

I have noticed that after Palace left Maths class, Bianca followed after her. So far Bianca has come back, but Palace has not.

Yeah, I don’t trust Bianca. I mean, that’s a given considering she’s always watching me. I’m in the middle of the class and she’s at the back, so she can stare at me without suspicion. Which is REALLY uncomfortable! But I’m not going to tell the teacher, duh, debilitating social anxiety.

 16/2/2021 1:35 pm

I found a hall-pass on the ground. It's one for Bianca and Palace. It says “mental health break”. I did see them both wandering the edge of the oval when I was in class. It’s a regular route for me at break time, so I’ll see if Palace is out there.

 16/2/2021 1:38 pm

I definitely found Palace. Just drenched in… blood. And stab wounds through her head and her eyes gouged out. That too.

The song I’m listening to (Teenagers-MCR) ABSOLUTELY describes my realisation. My realisation being: Bianca is the killer and because I’m weak, I’m probably next.

And because of Tanisha's death being out of school, I can't hide at home. Hell, since I walk home, practically everyone knows where I live. I would know, a ton of them egg and t-p the house.

What if I encourage dad to get us moved to a city further away? What if we got out of the country? What if I learn how to fly planes and land on a deserted island? What if I went back in time and posed as an artist who sculpted attractive men for the church? What if I got astronaut training early and flew to Pluto?

I don’t know, but my anxiety is worsening just thinking about it. I'm just going to run and scream.

Hopefully they don’t think it was me.

 16/2/2021 2:45 pm

The cops are back and that’s not helping my anxiety. If anyone talks about it again or to me, I'm gonna break down.

 16/2/2021 2:57 pm

The police questioned me alright. But I couldn’t answer any of their questions; non-verbal panic attack. It wasn’t helped by intrusive thoughts about me getting framed, getting killed and being called a liar.

Bianca watched me on the way out and on the way back into the classroom. But so did Rory. He also looked at Bianca.

Has he realised? He's smart, he probably has.

Guess I’ll have fun for the last bit of class by listening to bands.

 16/2/2021 3:51 pm

So Class King didn’t know anything about it. Then what does he have against Bianca? He can’t be glaring for no reason.

I did overhear Callum Jones talking to Bianca about how he's “going to a totally rad party with lots of babes tonight”. Bianca just told him to “stop lying” and that “everyone knows you're going to go home and DM Mia with your 5 different insta accounts”. Oof. There was nothing saying he was lying though. How did she know? 

Oh yeah, Callum was definitely offended by that and took a swing at Bianca, but she was already gone.

 17/2/2021 12:30 pm

I'm not dead yet, but I am going to be soon. I decided to, for whatever reason, talk to Rory about the murders. I could not stop stammering or going quiet for extended periods of time, but when I was talking I asked royal Rory what he thinks of Bianca. I haven’t got a response but I'm slowly dying…

Nobody has died yet today, but I'm absolutely paranoid. I just keep thinking I'm next or that I'm going to be confronted by the football team and they’ll punch me to death. Whenever I think these things, I can practically SMELL the blood. Even when I'm not imagining them I can smell blood.

Wait, what are those red stains on Jules Elvis’ yellow cardigan?

That’s what I've been smelling! Wait, was I wrong about Bianca then? Was it really this eager to please girl who did this?

No, if she was a murderer, she would know how to dissolve blood, or at least know not to wear the clothing worn while committing the crime.

But nobody is noticing Bianca.

 17/2/2021 2:30 pm

The teacher has announced that there has been another body found- Felicity Forest, Heath’s younger sister. They showed a fairly censored version of the security tape to us. It showed a tall girl with brown hair, pale skin and a yellow cardigan on.

Guess who fits that description perfectly? Jules. The blood-stain on the yellow cardigan was pretty telling. Felicity was also Jules’ best friend, so the connection was there.

But Bianca has the exact same cardigan, I've seen her wear it. The tape was early, so she could have easily framed Jules. She was also asking our health teacher how healthy it is to be awake all night.

When the police came in for Jules, she was violently sobbing. She was saying stuff like “I would never!” “I didn’t do it!” “But… I was going to ask her today to be my girlfriend” “I LOVED HER!” “Our friendship bracelets said ‘together forever’!” and more.

I don’t think it was Jules at all. I know it wasn't Jules. 

But I couldn’t speak up, the words got caught in my throat as if a dagger had cut them off.

Sorry Jules…

tags- @fallenfromforgotten @random-artsy-stuf @flowersanddinosaurs (you can request to be added at any time!)