#ratchet's most occuring dream

[ikkosu]

you want pharma and prowl? I’ll give you pharma and prowl!! Them both as romantic rivals trying(and failing) to woo reader (gn, can be whatever species) cause they are both losers (affectionate) they keep trying to flirt with reader, but are so jealous and possessive they keep getting in each others way, which is not helping their image in front of readers eyes. Maybe reader is a secretary and has worked under both, and their personality(and bod) attracted them in the first place . Here’s your pharma and prowl <3

author’s note : YESSSS YESSSSS THIS IS THE CONFLICT I NEED. ILL GIVE YOU A SMOOCH FOR THAT IDEA ALONE ANON. I’m a sucker for these tropes on goddd. Also don’t mind me as I change it to a medic, since it’s more flexible for me to work with <3 possible three some later ;;)) also, whoo! This is a lot longer than I expected.

ONLY ONE WAY UP THE HIGH WAY

summary : prowl and pharma finds themselves as rivals when they pine for the same darling pet and thus the inevitable egos clash.

You hate rom-coms.

Now, you might be a hopeless romantic; delving and losing yourself in romantic stories, tugging even the most deepest heartstrings which gets you all giggly and kicking your feet. What you hate, however, are bland characters. A random, mix and mash kind of chemistry, forced with no substance, set up as a love triangle.

Which is, quite literally, what's occuring right now.

You see, you’re a medic up in Delphi for some time before being paired up as Prowl’s buddy-buddy partner, because Chromedome insists someone needs to look after that unruly cop who’s always destined get himself killed.

And so you do. Upon Ratchet’s introduction to the Autobot SIC he’s not exactly someone friendly. He's, ah, rigid and prickly, the know it all by the book, kind of prickly. His unresolved anger issues takes quite the toll wheb you tend his wounds or even so much as to touch his arm. Though, demure as you are, you know when to stand up for yourself when the situation gets out of hand. And this kind of resistance managed to ease down his sharp edges. Now, he’s still a prick, a tolerable prick more accurately, but you’re both good pals!

Or so, that’s what you thought.

One unassuming day, you were lounging off as usual in the main area, gathering your bearings after another tough match with the hoards of patients when your communicator buzzes with a ping. It's a message from Pharma.

An Autobot base will be set up here in Messatine at due time. Will be expecting your arrival promptly.

Ah, Delphi. How long has it been, seven years? Meeting your mentor again was something of a, well, it wasn't far from a dream. Wasn't really a need, either. But it's definitely something, at least. Besides, Prowl said he had to monitor the new crew in case they messed up the communication systems, again. So, you decided, with a hopeful heart, to follow along with the Coppa to Delphi.

Yeah, bad decision. Whomp, whomp.

That hospital might have it's up and downs, and while saving patients might not be it's strongest suits, it's decor are definitely a catch to mind. Goodness, since when did they have the funds to do that? The stark white of the tiled floor ( since when did they had marble designed pillars? ) embellished with grey, engraved carvings stumped your prior, blatant distaste of the facility.

It's safe to say you're surprised.

You're sauntering across the halls of the hospital, admiring the added features of new wards, machinery and nurses, when you bump into a wall that is, apparently, Pharma. Your, uh, very, very nice superior who you squint at your notes is definitely obsessively clingy BUT very smart , but also crazy. Like, mad crazy. Haha....

Why do you attract people like this.

"And, who ..? is this?" Condescension spools from his tone as he sizes up the Autobot SIC with a careless wave of his hand like he's some newly discovered specimen.

"Their partner." He makes sure to emphasize the 'partner' like it's a bullet. "The 'who', here is a Prowl."

"Oh, is it now. I didn't expect you to move on that quickly, dear."

"You're in a relationship?" You feel his glare on you; it's not a question.

"No, he's just—"

"Kidding! I'm only kidding." Pharma gives a hearty laugh. "My, my, officer. You know, tight muscles are a sore to deal with if you're not going to loosen them anytime soon."

"No thanks. I'll stick with a stroke."

"Ah, the ever so pessimistic. Pleasure to meet you then, officer. I've heard lots about you."

The doctor gracefully extends a hand to which Prowl ignores and then replies without much a look to him.

"If that's so, then I'm not very pleased."

The hand falls sharply, so does the smile.

"Oh, good,"

You swore you heard a joint breaking when he snaps his neck to your direction, and while you look away, you knew the chesire grin-like smile on his face is nothing but a threat.

"Very, very good." He straightens up. "How about a tour?"

Honestly, you expected the two would be more civil since they’re both so heads over heels about their reputations in front of another superiorly defined character. What you didn’t expect, however, is intruding in a tug of war that materialized from, seemingly, out of nowhere.

Right, the doctor insisted on an individual tour of your own. He suggested Ambulon show Prowl around, while he would take the pleasure of doing the same to you.

Obviously, Prowl isn't having any of that. So, you're currently between them, one arm in Pharma’s grip and the other in Prowl’s unrelenting grasp. You wince as their digits dig into your skin. If they're not careful, that's gonna leave a mark for sure.

“They already know their place around the medical facility, Jet-fuel. I’m sure they’re able to handle themself just fine without your guidance,”

“Oh, yes indeed,” Pharma, despite Prowl’s 100 degree glare, grits through his forced grin and yanks you back by the scruff of your collar, right into his chest, “I invited them here, I might as well show them around. If I didn’t know any better you’re trying to hog my staff.”

You know better than to voice your opinions. Their inner brain workings, all the cogs and mannerisms were already familiar; operating under their influence is like treading around a field of broken hards bound to prick you at any moment lest you misstep.

"Your staff?” The Autobot SIC scoffs. “Im not hogging them. It's long gone. They're not working for you, anymore. But I'm sure you're not aware of that since you've got a stick up your ass."

“Not quite, actually. Before they became your little pet—“

“They're. Not. My. Pet. I’d prefer it if you didn’t reduce them to some mindless animal—"

“Doesn’t matter. they’ll be fine. I know you haven’t you heard about this since you’re new here but Delphi has its new additions around the facility. I’m merely trying to greet back an old prodigy of mine back. In fact, they’ll be fine without you.”

"Oh, really." Prowl's up in his face now, grinding his dentas.

"How about you push my buttons and let's see where this leads?" Pharma taunts with an obvious tick on his under-optics.

That’s last week and you’re surprised when Prowl is frequenting your work station more often, always nagging you about your reports and how you ‘incorrectly’ structure them. That's strange, he never does that. Why is it only now he's bothering you about it?

When you asked him to take a look, however, he merely tosses it elsewhere and hands you his own datapad for you to look through. Of course, Pharma pops up round the corner and chastises the strategist for hogging his medic’s working hours. He says it's 'unethical' use of Power-play and authoritism and that Prowl should be locked up in jail.

Even worse, they’ve had this tug of war battle where they would try to ‘woo’ you when they can. You weren’t surpised; Pharma’s quite full of himself, so obviously he’s got territorial problems, even though you're not sure why he's so possessive over you. But later you realized he IS the entire problem. Not singular, not plural, he’s a walking embodiment of a complicated problem.

It gets worse when you're trying to do your work and here they are barging into your cubicle with another problem. At this point, you’re convinced it’s just a fight Pharma puts up because he hates sharing his pets. Now? He’s gotten too far down the rabbit hole to get up. For sentient robots who’s been through a war and back, they’re so damn petty.

Pharma’s idea way of flirting is more up and personal, he doesn’t care about your personal space and he never will. Brother in Christ, this mech does NOT leave you alone. AT ALL. He touches you whenever the time allows him to and you knew he's doing that to get under the lesser affectionate Cop-bot's skin, who finds physical touch repulsive.

Sometimes, you feel his hands up on your waist, your back against his chest as he leans over to regard your report, chin on your shoulder. If he’s feeling more bold, he often puts in his two cents of insinuating a quick session in the office which you, uh, politely decline because you’ve got a meeting with the new interns.

There's always another time, he'd jest. Yeah, well, not so funny. He’s clingy, obsessive and despite the charming suave-esque front of a Bond Villain he puts up, he’s easily the best person you can turn into a pile of seething venom.

“My little pet, I think it’s high time Prowl has his duties transferred off elsewhere, don’t you think?” His optics are twitching, and his unusually sharp talons pierce the metal desk. “ Not that I mind, that rancid Cop-bot has been getting in my nerves, recently. Wrong, this, regulations that. Can you believe it, he terminated half of my crew for, as per his words, carrying out unsanitary operations! Thats defamation! A false accusation. It takes a whole restraint not to shove him down the grinds of the accelerator.”

Please, don’t.

“He’s just monitoring the district, sir.” You maintained a neutral tone. He’s at your desk again. And, instead of trying to woo you into his bed he’s complaining. Oh, my god. I’ve got a report due tommorow. And you’re complaining. Someone, help me.

“Well, he’s not monitoring anything anytime soon with how much blood he’s leeching from your body. I should've known better than to agree with his demands to stay in your office as well. He’s stuck to you like a damn mosquito.”

Like, you're any better. You deadpan.

Prowl, on the other hand is aware and accepted the fact that he’s definitely not the most likable or the best lover kind of material out there. And, to take someone like YOU to like him, someone playful and fun, not ripping out his head every two seconds, is a blessing in and of itself.

He can't even stay a second around someone without pissing off their early descendants. So, with his glock locked and loaded he takes 'counteractive measures' to ensure that nobody is going to take that moment of happiness away from him. Even if in unethical terms he’ll have to ensure it.

“You’re been forty five meters off from your office.”

You let out a startled yelp, swivelling around to meet Prowl, oh thank god prowl, who's expression is pinched, lips pressed in a thin line and his hands are intertwined behind his back, military-like.

“I’m buying drinks,” You clutch the myriad of snacks and drinks in your arms, blinking away your pounding heart. “ H-how’d you find me?”

Prowl merely glances at the contraption on his wrist where, when you crane your neck to look over, is a circular radar with a blinking red dot.

“You’re to notify your disappearance when necessary.” He grunts out and turns on his heel. “Let me know when Jet-fuel decides to harass you again,”

Weird. Still, you brush off his disdain for the medic as nothing when instead his, ah, paranoia (?) goes on for months. That one instance youre in the bathroom? Yeah. Hello, there. I'm just walking. Totally not peeking. Totally not—

Is that a new sock?

"Prowl!"

"I'm checking if there are cameras here."

"It's a bathroom?!"

"All the more reason why I should ensure there isn't."

What's more strange is the fact that there's a blatant evidence of someone meddling with your schedule. And, you had an inkling their tug of war session travelled even to technological seams.

This rivalry continued on (despite, literally, the entire hospital's annoyance) until you eventually lost it.

It was a Friday night.

A party was held in the lounge. The younger mechs had set the celebration up to mark the lethargic end of July. Of course, since you’re invited to the party, the two came along despite not being known as party-dwellers themselve. So, it was quite a sight for the young mechs to see.

You thought they’d tone down the hostility a little and even warm up with how much time they spnd trying to one up the other. That's enough months to start a relationship, God damnit. Unfortunately, you’re not able to drink freely without the two mechs pushing against your personal space. Prodding, blabbering away about how skimpy your outfit looked. You're wearing your uniform.

At some point you drink in defeat, squished between their two frames as either tries to stop you from drinking your misery out while the other eggs you on with another bottle.

After the party they insisted dragging you back to their quarters. You’re not even halfway into your room when they start bickering again.

“Don’t you have anything better to do, Prowl?” His name is a venomous jab in the guise of a forced, seething smile. “Your presence in the hospital is unnecessary as the security guard up front. A mandatory monitor check doesn’t require you here all the time. If i didn’t know any better, you’re deliberately trying to distract them so they’ll end up in your berth.”

You hold back a vomit as Pharma nabs you into his hold, the alcohol seething your veins aren’t doing much for your psyche and you stare dumbly at the floor, wanting to retch over it.

”I’m checking up on my partner.” Prowl stands his ground then tugs you into his chest again, “Doesn’t have anything to do with you, Jet-fuel.”

“Oh, it does, actually.” Another tug back, “ It’s called harassment and I'm going to report to your superiors for pestering one of my medics.’’

“Your medic?” He scoffs. “You’re a sad sorry bunch who’s got no chicks up his ass. If I didn’t know any better you’re manipulating them into caving into a newly registered scheme. A play toy, plaything, exhausted for pleasure. Don’t think I know you used to work with the D.J.D, Jet-fuel.”

“Call me that one more time and I’ll ensure your processor isn’t he only thing I’m dislodging from that helm."

“Illegal malpractice of surgery is an offense. Is that a threat, Jet-fuel?”

“Oh, you’ll see, Officer. You’ll see just how skilled I am with my Servos.”

They’re both at already each other’s throat, servos clenched, door wings, jet-wings flaring and blasters at the ready. The Engex they’ve ingested earlier only prompted the hostile ambience and as they were about to—

“Why won’t you both fuck me already!?”

In a fit of annoyance, inebriation and stupidity, the three horsemen of your misery, the words left your lips before you even think. They stop bickering and it felt like forever as they did a 180 , full, joints creaking swivel of a ‘What did you just say???’ baffled expression thrown at your direction.

But you’re still seething and only then you’ve realized your slip-up, you’re a crumpled mess on the floor, palms wide and open, clutching your face that’s unrelentingly burning. Pharma looks like he's been kicked in the crotch and Prowl looks like he's seen God.

Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.

“Both of us, hm?” You hear Pharma muse and whether or not Prowl is considering the prospect, all you want to do as of now, is to rot in this hole you dug for yourself.

[story-weavr]

A Hidden Story

Notes:

Inspired by The Bot Who Went Through Time by Commoncoral

This can be read as just TFA or a mixed universe.

The Autobots led by Optimus Prime were in a covert Autobot lab where experimentation for an energy source was underway. Due to the dangerous nature of the experiment, a secluded and hidden location was chosen for a lab.

Unfortunately, the Decepticons found the lab and attacked!

During the battle, an explosion occurred.

Waking up, Optimus Prime found himself on a Cybertron of the past. Unfortunately, he was smack-dab in the territory of Tarn. The most dangerous city-state on Cybertron, where crime, corruption, & brutality go hand-in-hand.

Knowing the danger he was in as well as the risks, Optimus opted to disguise himself with a new body and identity: Convoy.

He quickly found work where no one really cared who you were: Mining.

Luckily, he quickly made friends with another miner, Dion. He showed the young Convoy the ropes, and the two quickly became inseparable.

One day, a cave-in occurred. Convoy, furious at the foremen’s disregard for the trapped miners, immediately started the rescue effort. He, Dion, & others managed to save them.

The group was punished with cut pay and overtime for the resulting effect on production. Convoy, for leading it, was put on half-rations.

Later, at his hut in one of the miner camp-towns just outside the Tarn mines, Convoy received visitors. All but one were the mechs his actions saved.

Terminus, unfortunately, could not come with the others due to his damaged legs. Instead, he sent his son, Kilotron.

Kilotron was a gentle and noble soul within an intimidating frame. The mech was often visited by those who wanted him to work as a thug or a gladiator.

But Kilo was uninterested; he wouldn’t risk dying or killing.

After becoming closer with Kilo, Convoy later learned the young miner’s dream: to become a writer. One who could help, not just Tarn, but all of Cybertron to become better.

Something his grandmother, a Tarnian politician, failed to do. This resulted in her becoming a mining prisoner, and her son born in mining.

Over a short period of time, Convoy and Kiltron’s feelings became that of love. At first, Convoy tried to keep it platonic. But he started to lose hope that he’d ever return to his time.

One day, another cave-in occurred. This time, Convoy and Kiltron were trapped alone.

When they dug themselves out, something terrible greeted them. Among the casualties, Dion and Terminus had passed.

Convoy knew then: he or Kilo could die at any time.

That day, Convoy and Kilotron moved in together. In mining culture, they were now Conjux.

Time passed. Kilo moved up the miners’ informal ranks becoming a Head for a large team. Convoy had been reassigned to logistics and was now expecting their first sparkling. The two had become respected figures in their camp-town. They often met with other leaders to better organize the mine work and supply distribution.

One day, however, something terrible happened. The city-state of Vos, eternal arch-rival of Tarn, sent a squadron of bombers to various mining sites on the outskirts of Tarn. The plan was to take the mines for Vos by hitting the headquarters that were always a fair distance from the valuable mines themselves.

Unfortunately, Convoy and Kilo’s camp-town was right next to one of the targets.

Kilotron was still deep in the mines with his team. Convoy was surrounded by flames and panicking miners and civilians. He helped as many as he could escape.

Unfortunately, he himself became trapped. All hope seemed lost.

Then a portal appeared in front of him. Ironhide screamed Optimus’s name. Desperate, Optimus Prime ran through the flames and passed through.

Back in an Autobot lab, surrounded by old familiar faces, Optimus screamed in Ratchet’s familiar arms.

His Conjux was gone. Possibly dead in the attack. If not, he would die by the mines, Tarn’s corruption, the Vos’s attacks, by the Decepticon-Autobot war.

But worse than that, if Kilotron did survive, he’d be completely alone.

And the only thing Optimus had left of his beloved… was the sparkling he carried. The sparkling he would name Windblade.

When Kilotron finally came out of the mines, all he wanted to do was go straight back to Convoy and their unborn sparkling.

When he got out however, he was greeted by a group of miners led by one of the other camp leaders.

What he said caused Kilo to drop his tools and take off running. He ran, and ran, and ran.

Until finally he reached the hill that overlooked his home.

Where a dilapidated but lively camp-town once was, there was only smoking ruin and the smell of ash.

Kilotron let out a ROAR. One of grief… and rage!

That day, Kilotron… the miner… the writer… the mech with a family…

Was dead.

A short time later, Tarn’s infamous gladiator circle was shaken by the criminal lord Cryotek’s newest talent!

Megatronus!

[lets-try-some-writing]

Living Remnant

When Optimus dreams, he relives the memories of his predecessors, often believing that he is them until he wakes. But when he does this, odd things tend to occur.

Sleepwalking

More often than not, when Optimus dreams and delves into the memories of the other Primes, he ends up sleepwalking as the Matrix's way of keeping him safe while he is unavailable. The Matrix will pilot his frame, using the remnants of the Primes minds and muscle memory within it to operate. It normally isn't an issue, the team will just let Optimus wander for a bit and one of the more insomniac members will lead him back to his berth. However his sleepwalking is highly volatile, one wrong move can lead him to lash out instinctively as the Matrix is unable to tell friend from foe.

Not only that... but Optimus is rather terrifying when the Matrix controls his frame. He wanders the base like a machine. Everything he does when sleepwalking looks wrong, almost like he is a broken record stuck on loop. Sometimes he won't move for hours, not even so much as twitching, just standing in the shadows and watching with empty optics. Other times he will repeat the same set of actions over and over, lifting and item, carrying it to another spot, and putting it down before doing it all over gain. Startlingly, he also might wander looking lost and repeating ominous phrases as he walks, usually something about it "hurting". And most frighteningly, but thankfully most rarely, Optimus's frame will start to mimic previous Primes.

One such instance led him to wander around the base with his blades extended, lashing out and trying to attack any bot he saw. The team spent the entire night hiding behind locked doors, terrified for their lives. They never mentioned what happened to Optimus after he woke, not wanting to make him feel guilty for things he had no control over. But still, the team hypothesize that the memories that the Matrix was using must have belonged to Nova Prime, a Prime notorious for his paranoia and his death at the hands of his own inner circle.

Another similar instance led Optimus to begin working with dangerous chemicals trying to make... something in his zombified state. Ratchet tried to intervene but he was stopped by a startlingly empty stare and a few muttered sentences about how "There must be a cure" and how he "Must find the cure". Ratchet ended up watching in fear as Optimus created an antidote for the rust plague, something not hard to make with their knowledge but concerning when the thought of which Prime the memories originated from came into play. Optimus woke from his stupor with nearly a dozen vials of rust plague antidote's surrounding him and with his servos covered in all sorts of cuts and chemical burns. Ratchet was thankfully there to calm him down and treat his wounds, but neither have spoken of that particular instance since.

The last instance of such terrifying behavior taking place that the team are aware of started with Optimus sleepwalking as he normally would. But when day came... he didn't wake. The team tried to break him out of it but he was completely unresponsive, totally immersed in the Matrix. He remained in a state of waking sleep for days... hardly moving and only doing one of two things, that being singing songs in the ancient tongue and drawing murals with whatever resources were available to him. It was a horrifying experience, that with the team being unable to wake him in any way, not even to get him to consume energon. Ratchet ended up giving him shots of energon directly to his systems as he spent nearly a whole week in that state. The team were beginning to worry that he wouldn't wake, that he had finally fallen too far into the Matrix's grip when he finally showed signs of stirring. By the time Ratchet dragged him to the medical berth for a checkup, Optimus had already created dozens of highly unusual and very... disturbing murals depicting everything from the creation of the Primes to the great war.

Some were indecipherable, only depicting mecha in various states of agony or other forms of discomfort. Others were clear as day and nearly prophetic in nature, depicting the omega lock, Unicron spark chamber, and even one of Smokescreen with the omega keys. And then there were a few that shook the team to their cores, murals that told a tale of horrible suffering. Those murals showed the deaths of a Prime or Optimus being dragged down into a sea of corpses, always with his face scribbled out in a mess of blue paint.

The team hide those murals away before Optimus could notice them and only brought them out a few weeks after the incident, fearful that he might panic upon seeing the murals or fall right back into the Matrix's grip.

Mistakes

After a particularly intense session with the Matrix, Optimus tends to leave its grip a bit... off. He is never completely right in the helm afterward, either being eerily emotionless or saying and doing worrying things.

He will... mistake things around him on those days, speaking of mecha who have been dead for millennia as if they were present and looking at the team and not really seeing them, instead thinking them to be someone else. Bumblebee was mistaken for Senator Shockwave at one point due to his cheerful disposition, much to the discomfort of the whole team. Arcee was Elita-1 in Optimus's view for nearly a week at one point, leading to some rather awkward situations. Ratchet was referred to as Pharma in part due to their similar appearances, ultimately leading Ratchet to temporarily redo his paint to help Optimus see him for who he really was. Bulkhead and Wheeljack kept getting mixed around, being called by any number of names ranging from Tailgate, Hightide, Ironhide, to even Kup. Ultra Magnus and Smokescreen didn't fare much better when it came to getting misnamed.

It isn't just names either. When out on the battlefield Optimus's fighting style, way of speech, and even his priorities can be warped depending on which Prime he interacted with in the Matrix. Nova's memories made him extra violent, often leading Megatron to retreat quicker but at the cost of the team having more injuries or missing the actual target. Guardian's memories made him far more calculating but less caring of the loss of life, usually requiring another of the team to take over handling civilians or potential casualties. Sentinel's memories made Optimus paranoid as pit, unwilling to take any risks whatsoever if there was a way around it, tending get the team better results when the plan worked, but only if the plan actually worked.

Of course there are other smaller things, like habits that linger during those days. Things like Nova's tendency to constantly have a weapon on hand and keep every bot on high alert was commonplace. Sentinel's notorious paranoid patrols and continual health checks were both common and both the best and worst thing to ever happen to Ratchet. And Guardian's habit of organizing everything that could possibly be organized due to his impossible workaholic nature was something that also become prominent in Optimus on days where the Matrix's touch lingered.

Drowning

It doesn't happen often, in fact it only happens after events that even the powerful emotional suppression of the Matrix can't handle. But sometimes, when times are most stressful for Optimus or when he feels the most useless, the Matrix will activate it's in built defenses and take control of Optimus's frame during his moment of mental weakness. It will push Optimus's mind back, sending him to consult the memories and experience the more... safe ones while it operates his frame. It is the Matrix's way of keeping its Prime safe, and it works for the most part... except for a few occasions.

Usually when the Matrix takes over it will do what it does when Optimus dreams, merely piloting his body somewhat aimlessly until he is ready mentally to take control again. But sometimes while Optimus is still recovering within the Matrix, something happens that the Matrix can't handle, leading to it pulling Optimus back into a semi-operational state in panic. In those instances Optimus isn't fully aware, his mind still half submerged in the Matrix and vulnerable. And so to not damage Optimus's recovering mind, the Matrix will feed him memories from its previous holders on loop depending on the situation so that he can still rest while performing as needed.

If it is battle that causes the Matrix to wake Optimus prematurely, it will feed Optimus the memories of a battle that matches the circumstances best. This is by no means foolproof and leads to more problems than solutions usually, but the Matrix does what it must. In those instances, Optimus truly believes that he is the Prime whose memories he is experiencing. He will act like them down to the smallest details, matching their memories expertly. He will give orders that match the scenario he is in, but they are always off, generally directed toward an enemy that has long since been defeated.

Ultra Magnus: Sir! Vehicons incoming!

Optimus: The Quintessions will fall! Shoot them down! Show no mercy! They will not take Cybertron from us!

Ultra Magnus: *Looking at the others nervously* You heard him, man your blasters and shoot the Vehicons down.

Everything he does seems off, almost like an NPC rehearsing the same lines over and over again. He even has an idle action depending on the memory set.

Ratchet: Prime, I need to check you for injuries

Optimus: *Standing guard periodically checking his blaster* All non-essential personnel are to remain indoors throughout the quarantine cycle. The rust plague is a real threat and should not be underestimated.

Ratchet: ...Just hold still

It is incredibly off-putting and can either be downright strange or dangerous with very few instances of there every being a situation in between. It can take up to a week for Optimus to break from his memory loops as he finishes his recovery mentally. The team always breath a sigh of relief afterward, even though Optimus does not recall what he did.

[autobotmedic]

10/11/7

Prompt

What did they dream of doing when they grew up? How and why did it change, if it did?

Ratchet left Domus in pursuit of learning more about sciences and repair and healing than he could at home, but he initially considered becoming a blacksmith to assist with gathering and guiding new sparks that emerged from the Well as an actual occupation. This changed as he began to learn first-hand of societies’ issues outside the seclusion and independence of his home, and his desire to provide options and help to those who were not receiving it lead to becoming a general surgeon. But he still had QUITE a lot of knowledge of various fields outside his ‘official’ qualifications, branching into non-medical technology and engineering out of personal interest. Good thing too, when you find yourself being the only scientist among a handful of refuges eons later.

What’s a typical night’s sleep like for them?

Ratchet does not frequently dream, but when he does, the one consistency is the unpleasantness of reliving memories of severe situations. Or reliving decent memories, only to wake up and remember most of those individuals are gone. He prefers not to dream. Nothingness is more peaceful, and more restful.

Are their friends still a part of their life? Are there people they are no longer in touch with, or newly important people?

As a general principle, a healer is someone you visit when you need them, not for average aspects of life. Ratchet is well aware of this. Even with the ones he becomes fond of to a personal extent, when there is no longer war and battle injuries, he is not regularly needed. Which is a good thing. Both human and Cybertronian should be adapting and growing and forging their own lives and future. He is still available if he is needed or sought for advice, and that is satisfactory as far as visiting him.

Such is the natural cycle of things, and the very same occurs with teaching apprentices on Cybertron post-war. Ratchet does not actively seek to pry into others’ lives, he has his own focuses and agendas, too. He does not even expect mail or calls without reason (although they are a pleasant surprise to receive, on occasion).

[rustedservos]

once upon a dream

Ratchet had been asleep for once, curled up and feeling hollow on his berth. His frame twitched with the deep need to find something to help with this pain. His spark hurt, aching and throbbing in his chestplate, his field tight and constricting against his frame, but he was asleep. His optics burned as his processor whirled, when the soft scuff of a pede from the doorway awoke him ( but, honestly, was he really asleep?).

He turned, blinking bleary optics at the white frame hunched and uncertain in his doorway. Drift had frozen, plating flared before slicking down against his frame as his dim blue optics were locked onto Ratchet’s own.

“Drift?” Ratchet called out softly, breaking the silence with his sleep husked voice. He watched as Drift’s frame sagged in on itself, drawing in and away from Ratchet.

“I apologize. I….” Drift said, optics flicking to the floor before glancing back at the medic, field pulsing with uncertainty and nervousness as he edged further and further back towards the door.

“I will go.” He said, before Ratchet sighed, dragging his aching frame out of the uncomfortable, cold berth and standing before the speedster. His exhaustion drained into his pedes as he reached out, catching Drift by his wrist, his field almost crashing over the both of them, awash with affection and a subtle, thready pulse of need and stay and safe.

“Can’t sleep either, can you?” Ratchet rumbled, gently tugging the suddenly limp and unresistant Drift towards his frame. The speedster was light on his pedes, optics flicking between the red hand caught around his wrist and the others own washed out optics. His faceplates were drawn as he finally was drawn close enough to accidentally brush against Ratchet’s frame if he wanted. Ratchet released the others wrist, hand twitching with the desire to touch the white swordmech before him. He sighed, rubbing a hand over his faceplates, turning back towards the berth, his back now to Drift as he looked down at the rumpled blanket.

“Ratchet….”Drift whispered, a heat at Ratchet’s back increasing as soft, careful hands wrapped around the others waist cautiously, a faint tremble exposing his inner thoughts. Ratchet gently cupped a hand over the others own, rubbing the others plating with his thumb as his affection turned into something more, a desire to show Drift how much he meant to him. He turned in Drift’s grip, gently holding onto the others plating to keep him there as he maneuvered him towards the berth.

“Do you trust me, Drift?” He murmured softly, optics brightening as the speedster’s vents picked up, glancing behind him at the berth before looking at the gentle, cautious way the hands on his plating were placed.

“Always.” The other mech breathed softly, optics dimming as Ratchet withdrew his touch.

“I want to show you something.” Ratchet said, gently reaching for Drift again with his field and his hands. His optics were bright and clear as he peered into the others faceplates.

“I need your permission to touch you, Drift. I need to hear you say it.” He said, wanting to make sure that everything was completely consented to. Drift’s smile was soft as it bloomed on the others faceplates, his own field reaching out to tangle gently with the medic’s own, shy hands reaching back out for the others plating.

“Yes, Ratchet, always. Please show me.” He said, a small pulse of curiosity tingling in his field with the awe and admiration for the medic before him.

Ratchet gently laid the other mech on the berth, his field caressing the others plating as much as his hands started to. He gently crawled onto the berth himself, cautious to not touch the others plating and to give him plenty of space, so he didnt feel crowded, forced into this position. His hands trailed softly over the others gleaming plating, a soft sigh of awe that this mech, this beautiful, younger mech, would trust his aching hands to touch him like this.

“So beautiful.” He said softly, optics trailing over the temptation of the speeder in his berth, his spark spinning faster in its casing as his engine rumbled. Drift’s vents hitched at the soft trail, hands reaching for Ratchet’s own plating which he didnt deny, gently nuzzling into the touch on his faceplates. He kissed the others white hands softly, a small pulse of arousal tinging his field before he drew it back, closer to his chestplates. Yes, having Drift this close was arousing, but he wasnt doing this for a quick frag. This was to show his appreciation for the other, for his frame and his company.

“Ratchet….”Drift whispered, and damn if that didnt just spike straight through Ratchet’s spark. His fingers continued their soft trail, reaching into joints he knew were sore from past experience, gently massaging wires and checking lubrication levels, cleaning out grit and grime with a cloth he had pulled from subspace when Drift touched the berth. Drift’s own engine rumbled and whined at the attention, his optics brightening as arousal tinged his own field, tangling deeply with Ratchet’s own. He continued his soft treatment of the others joints, occasionally feathering kisses over the freshly cleaned plating. This was what he had craved, closeness without the draining task of interfacing, the contact without the burning arousal. The others own hands curled and gently tugged, wanting the medic closer to him, to try to wash him in his own affection.

“I want to worship at your altar.” Ratchet rumbled, warmth wrapping through his frame as comfort and a soft sense of companionship was laid over their frames like a blanket. Drift drew Ratchet down over his frame with greedy fingers, drawing him into a soft, unheated kiss. Ratchet optics drifted closed as Drift maneuvered him to lay down beside him, curling closer and enjoying the contact of each others plating brushing against one another. Ratchet’s frame sagged into the others hold, his own arm snaking across the others thinner waste as recharge washed over him like a blanket. He leaned forward to kiss Drift one last time on the forehelm…..

….and awoke alone, clutching onto his blanket as if it was the speedster. Despair washed through his field as he realized his own processor tricked him into thinking Drift was here, into thinking Drift would willingly crawl into his own berth. His hands lifted, crushing into his burning, exhausted optics as his frame seized, field so tight against his palting that he felt as if it should be crushing him. Pain would be a welcome distraction from this empty, hollow, crushing weight in his spark chamber. He muted his vocalizer as his frame jerked with the strength of his silenced sobs, tears dripping down his faceplates before tumbling forward in a steady stream.

This was not his first Drift dream, and would not be his last one.

[polyhexianchicken]

M!A Imagine if a major event had never occurred in your life. Or if something that fell through instead came to fruition. Let us take a glimpse at what you would be like if one of these rang true.

If Whirl hadn't been 'taken in' by the Functionists after he lost his Shop, his life would've developed much differently.

Let's say he was taken in by the Autobots, more specifically Ratchet and his entourage, likely after a devastating fight that left him almost dead.

After being nursed back to health, he'd devote his time to helping Ratchet. He wouldn't quite go into full medical work, but he's the one that patches up the plating back to its original glory, alongside immense detailing and quality patch ups- and the chronometers will get sorted out everytime, alongside adding upgrades to HUDS.

What he would be most of all his emotional support to those in medical care, having the experience and knowledge of the pain experienced out there by the unfairness and bias.

He would've fought as an Autobot, not as a Wrecker, used for risky Aerial maneuevers with his skill and precision, and as a help in patching up wounded soldiers, alongside raising moral by showing others how to make simple crafts.

After the war, he'd still stay in the medical field as a nurse in some degree, but only part time, all the rest is used to building up his clockwork/chronometer skills and fullfilling his dream of starting a chronosmith/clock shop.

-----------

This Whirl I'll keep around for 2 Weeks for interaction, he has all the memories of usual Whirl, which is confusing naturally, but, he's also got memories and experiences from this divergent life.

[yandere-toons]

Aside from horrifying scenarios, are you interested in writing tragedy for the Yanderes and/or lovers? Not dying, since you’ve voiced boredom with that trope and its killing of potential, but, like, the Yandere doesn’t get the reader or vice versa, or they lose something important in the process of getting the reader? Maybe even a scenario where we actually feel bad for the Yandere, if they’re the right type for that?

Many of my stories have tragic elements. Imbuing horror with tragedy reminds me of The Phantom of the Opera, and it's a combination I often entertain.

Night Owl is about a mentally ill person being ignored when they warn others of the malevolent witch coming to kill them. This ignorance has led to the deaths of everyone with which they attempt to have a relationship.

Your Wildest Dreams and Just Desserts involve people who are so distressed by their current lives that they invent a new, more comfortable reality.

Dances with Daisies is Daisy slowly losing faith in what she thought was the most important relationship of her life, only to have a breakdown and decide that her friend no longer cares about her.

There are plenty more examples (e.g., Scream of the Butterfly).

The death of the reader is not a concept that I'm invariably opposed to exploring in scenarios as long as it occurs in a universe with either a definitive afterlife, such as Danny Phantom and Hercules (1997), or a documented ability to resurrect the dead/save the dying from usually mortal wounds, such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Count Duckula.

If you want to request something like, "How would [character] react to the reader dying?" as a headcanon, I'm fine with that.

If you want to be cruel and request something along the lines of, "How would Dr. Nefarious react to Qwark or Ratchet accidentally killing the reader?" I will most likely break my no-scenario rule and write a drabble. The same applies if someone asks for Duck Dodgers mistakenly blasting Queen Tyr'ahnee's friend/partner with a laser pistol.

[signaturedish]

What was OP thinking when Harry asked him to rename him? And then his happy dancing? Bc tbh that was cute as hell and OP just—fritzing was also funny

Aww thanks, I had a lot of fun writing such an adorable scene!

Sorry about the wait, I got a weirdly intense influx of business. Idk why every third family in my area had to vacation right now.

I’m just gonna jump right into it, since I really did love that scene and would be happy to expand on it a little further.

At first he was completely shocked. He really thought it was gonna be Ratchet who named him if Harry was gonna pick a new name at all, so that came right out of nowhere. 

And then when Harry asks about shooting him down, some jaded part of Optimus wonders if Harry simply doesn’t want a new name and is using Optimus’ comparatively calmer presence to come to terms with that.

He was glad to provide security, it was his duty, but it would be unwise to hope for more.

As a Prime and then, later, as the Prime who banished the Allspark, he hadn’t ever thought he’d have the opportunity to name a sparkling. He hadn’t even considered it, the notion was so far past what he felt could he had the right to expect.

Still, on the off-chance Harry was being sincere, no matter how unlikely, he would give Harry the one and only name Prime would ever give another being.

He spent the entire night silent and apart from the others, contemplating all he knew of Harry. They hadn’t interacted directly very often, but Prime was always watching, always checking on the physical and spiritual wellbeing of their youngest charge.

It was a difficult decision.

What he’d seen, since their very first day at the base, was humbling. Harry was a gentle creature, naturally empathetic with a strong sense of justice. Genuinely good sparks like that were rare to the point of nonexistence now, an age of battle and death had tarnished even the most honorable of Autobots by the end. 

Besides that, how could Prime concisely summarise even a vague approximation of the hopes and wishes pinned on Harry at this very moment? The first child in a millennia, holder of the Allspark, alien-born, so much of him was new and stunningly bright in their darkest hour.

When Harry finally reconvenes with him the following morning, Prime awaits his decision. He’ll make his peace with whatever Harry decides, whether it be to ignore him completely, contemplate the matter further, or demand his answer as soon as they come to a halt out beyond the base.

It was then, when Harry did ask for a name, that he understood his own caution to be a complete lie. He hadn’t realized how much of himself he’d invested in this endeavor, how unfathomably precious this moment would be to him, until Harry peered up at him oh so shyly, and requested Prime’s designation.

This wasn’t a duty, Prime realized past the searing ache of his own spark expanding far past the limits of its casing, it was a gift in every meaning of the word. And he had been desperate to recieve it.

It was all he could do to croak out his heartfelt gratitude. Wonder was such a rare thing to feel, and yet Prime felt fit to bursting. He had inspired within the last sparkling enough trust and affection to allow him a lifelong connection, and he wasn’t terribly certain how to exist in a world wondrous enough for that to occur.

He can see it the moment Harry accepts, the flurry of coding burrowing it into the deepest recesses of Harry’s processors, overwriting and overruling until it is Silverline who looks back at him. 

And Prime...soaks it in. Like a flower towards the sun, he is enraptured. For once, he is not a Prime staring down at his charge, that is much too plain for what he’s feeling. Formalities and obligations withered and died in the intensity of his own vulnerability. Here, he is simply Optimus, watching over his child. 

Silverline warbles a simple thanks over his com, as if he hadn’t given him the greatest blessing Prime could dream of, as if Prime could part with any of his own gratitude and share it with the sparkling. He is helpless to communicate this, though. The appropriate words too grand and complicated to fit past the lump in his throat.

Silverline’s expressive optics shimmer with gentle care, his posture is open and utterly relaxed, and his charming little wings pluck and pull at his heartstrings with every swoop.

Optimus doesn’t dare reach out and interrupt the sparkling, he’s never had the privilege of being so close to Silverline without a pall snuffing out any of his natural light and he couldn’t bear to ruin this moment stumbling through affection. Silverline’s happiness was dazzling at it’s brightest, it was easy to see how his troops might become possessive over this feeling.

Then, the world melts.

A syrupy, honey-sweet haze slogs Optimus’ processors to a crawl. His spark skips. splutters, and dies right in his chest and Optimus can only watch as overheating warnings and system failures roll in.

Muddled and confused, Optimus waits for the burning fire in his fuel pump to ease and for death to take him.

Except, he doesn’t die? It feels like he should be dead by now, he has most certainly ceased functioning. But as one second, two seconds, fifteen seconds carries on without him, he remains trapped in place.

True awareness swam just before him, elusive, but close enough to that snippets of stimuli brushed him. It was overwhelming, a tidal wave of excruciating emotions, none of which were upsetting, but that only made them more confusing.

His feeble matrix buzzed and whirred with the effort to drag him to the forefront of himself, and he is forced to process the audio data first. It is a purring hum, low and easy. It is a single note that snatches him up by his very core and yanks him out of his daze.

It is an optimal status alert, and it is directed solely at him.

If there were air left in his vents, Optimus might’ve choked. He was left reeling, the burning in his fuel pump ticking higher and higher as what he understood that it must be elation scorching through him. Satisfaction, praise at its highest, acceptance at it’s deepest, a bot wasn’t built to withstand such a brutal onslaught of unrefined joy.

His visual data was processed next, unrelenting, and the sweet haze gumming up his processors doubled its efforts.

Silverline was killing him, Optimus was sure. It was the most deadly, precious attack he’d ever witnessed.

Silverline was dancing. His paper thin wings fluttering wide and trusting, his optics huge and bright and focused right on Optimus. His steps were spiraling, childish, shrouded in Optimus’ shadow as Silverline danced mere inches from him. The optimal status alert hikes higher in volume with each almost-brush of armor, and Optimus couldn’t have torn himself away for all the galaxy.

I trust you, Silverline said in so much more than words, I love you. Stay with me and love me too.

It was a moment of intimacy that would only feel like hello in hindsight. Like they were finally reaching each other, like a bond could be forged. Whatever struggles cluttered their path were at once, easily defeated so long as they stayed together.

Optimus drifted in the euphoria of that connection. In so fiercely loving and being loved in return that he was rooted in place like an insect in warm amber. He could’ve stayed like that for eons, or until Silverline did something else so unreasonably dear that he really did crash.

Thankfully, although he did not feel very charitably toward Bumblebee in that moment, the scout shattered his amber with a loud radio clip and ushered Silverline back to their human charges with a teasing whistle.

Creaking, aged and wizened beyond his admittedly formidable years, Prime straightens and tries to look less wrecked. From the aura of smugness permeating the air, he isn’t succeeding.

-Ventilate, Prime- Bumblebee eventually suggests, and it is only then that it occurs to him that he should do something about the overheating problem reaching critical temperatures in his systems.

He ventilates.

[libermachinae]

Fault Lines Under the Living Room

Part III: Watch - Chapter 8: Registered Purple

Also available on AO3 Chapter Summary: Drift thinks he has the situation on Vitrious handled when he receives unexpected support. Chapter Word Count: 3134

---

Wing had taught him a mantra.

Many mantras, in fact, a few glyphs composed to hold him to the path of redemption and humility, charity and strength. Most he had deleted moments after being taught, having witnessed by then the intangible, transient nature of words, but this one he’d kept. He had never recited Wing’s version in full, his bastardization of the lines one of the few acts of rebellion he could get away with, but like most of the training he had received in Crystal City, he had discarded the substance and retained the structure.

In the years since, he had modified it as his circumstances changed and his path wound out of sight. Its recitation had proven one successful method to ground himself, so he focused now on the words, the shape of the glyphs against his thoughts.

My name is Drift.

He dodged behind a pillar as the spot he had been standing on exploded, a hail of blasterfire igniting the organic soil in his wake. The shots followed him, peppering his defenses, and he knew he had only a moment before the porous material gave way.

I’m not an Autobot.

He ducked, rolled, and unfurled into a sprint out the other side. Grit’s crew hesitated, their aim swinging wide before locking onto their target, giving him enough time to dive behind a larger building, a step closer to the cliff wall the city backed into. A lucky shot clipped his shoulder pauldron, sending him stumbling, but he was back behind cover before they could follow it up with a more decisive blow.

I’m not a Decepticon, either.

He pressed his back to the wall and waited for the barrage to let up. Rogue Decepticons tended to go heavy on ammo and light on fuel and medical supplies, but even Deathsaurus’ storage capacity was limited, and these runaways had nothing on that mammoth. The shots eventually petered out, replaced by footsteps.

“That’s it? You think you can just sabotage my operation and run?”

Drift’s spark burned at the reminder of Grit’s business on this planet: non-aligned organic labor procurement. Slave trade. They did not deserve their Deceptibrands, to count themselves among a movement that had fought for freedom. It was an effort to remind himself that he had already been stripped of his badge and was no longer obligated to defend it, and further effort to convince himself, again, that the symbol no longer represented the ideals he had sworn himself to. The people of Vitrious, they were the ones who needed his anger right now. Not a long-dead dream.

He braced his hands against the ground.

What I am is in trouble.

Drift sprung as the muzzle of a pistol appeared around the corner. Pushing off, he lobbed himself over the wall, onto the roof. Two strides and he landed on the other side, crouching to absorb the impact. He was up and sprinting again before Grit could register which way he had gone.

He was looking for an opportunity to catch one on their own, but the trio stuck together and moved as a unit. Hoping he might force them to spread out, Drift jumped for a narrow ledge, sacrificing a moment of vulnerability for the sake of speed. From his new vantage point, he spotted the pier. He considered it, adjusting his plans.

I’m also—

His thoughts were cut short by the roar of a shuttle’s engine.

Drift leapt from the wall and landed back on the rubble strewn street. Not as maneuverable, but like Pit he was going to stay up top to be fried by Grit’s reinforcements. Or the Galactic Council executive force, come to cleanse this system of its Cybertronian problem. He kept moving with his head down, not wasting the seconds it would have taken to look up and confirm. Either presence meant things were about to get complicated.

He stole into an alley just as heavy artillery formed the percussion over the engine’s bass with the Decepticons on vocals, the onslaught driving them to panicked shouting. Galactic Council, then, Drift reasoned. Decepticons gave each other a chance to posture before they started blasting.

Drift’s opinion on the Galactic Council was complicated. He trusted their judiciary system, insofar as he doubted there was anything better. Certainly not where his own kind was concerned. Cybertronians had failed at holding each other accountable for their crimes, given that judge, jury, and prosecution tended to be guilty of actions one step removed from those of the defendant. Their shared history had resulted in societal biases, and while Bumblebee and his enemies might have been trying to reestablish their sense of justice to one another, there yet remained a galaxy of people who did not have the luxury to wait for Cybertronians to realize they were incapable of convicting themselves. The victims of their atrocities deserved control over their justice, and the Galactic Council courts had structures and precedent to provide it.

Galactic Council defense squads operated on a precedent of eliminating Cybertronian threats at any cost. Its structures included battle cruisers, drone swarms, and mobile tactical arrays. They were not lawless entities, but they had been granted all necessary privileges to apprehend those who were, and had, in Drift’s opinion, become that which they had been commissioned to destroy. A single recon squad versus a handful of desperate rogue Decepticons could level a minor metropolitan neighborhood, and most of their standoffs occurred in locations with significantly less infrastructure than that. Drift never called the Council before all combat capable Cybertronians were subdued and removed from vulnerable areas, because otherwise it almost always ended up like the nightmare scenario he was now racing toward.

His priority trees reoriented: he had to get the fight out of the city. He remapped his route and updated acrobatic and combat protocols, shifting stealth to standby. His plating flared out to catch the sun as his pauldrons relaxed, swaying with each step to create a blinking effect. He revved his engine and pushed it into a lower gear, opting for more power, and drew his swords, using them to add volume to his movements as he jumped and spun, landing mid-stride on a roof.

That his optics registered purple when he looked up did not disrupt his momentum and only barely adjusted his plans. A rival group, here for their share of the cube, would be less likely to kill potential merchandise but have no qualms about murdering Grit before the Retins could serve their own justice.

Drift charged forward, up onto a ledge and then across, rooftop to rooftop. The newcomers were staying high and playing cautious, likely because their ship was more transport shuttle than combat vehicle. Offensive capabilities amounted to a single turret lowered from the underside of the ship, but the rapid-fire machine gun was much more intimidating than Grit’s shotgun and his team’s pistols. They were returning fire, but their shots angled wide or fizzled out before they breached the hull, the few that left a pockmark of warped metal the only reason Drift’s acrobatic leaps had yet to gain him any attention.

He got a foothold in the battered outer wall of a tower and launched himself up, arm outstretched. He caught a ledge and propelled himself further, calculating his trajectory in the split seconds he spent with hand or pede on the wall. Up, higher, he flung himself, until he was brushing the sky with his fingertips, brought high by the weight of his frame.

With one final leap, he reached the peak.

From here, the shuttle was still above him, but close enough that he could have seen into the cockpit, had he the time to adjust his lenses that much. Instead, he bent to one knee and retrieved a throwing knife from his lower leg. He pulled his arm back, lining up a shot at the central forward end of the viewshield, approximately where he remembered the pilot’s seat to be. He doubted it would penetrate, but maybe the noise would—

His comm buzzed.

He startled, losing his aim, at the assault of static from a component that had gone too long without use. It was not white noise, though: it peaked and valleyed, following the pattern of speech, until the sound coalesced into recognizable syllables, spoken by a familiar voice.

“Drift, it’s us.”

He almost dropped his knife.

“Ratchet?!”

“And Rodimus,” Ratchet said. “He wants me to say hi. He’d do it himself, but he’s focused on those guys that were giving you trouble.”

“Stop shooting!” There would be explanations later; he had come up here with a purpose, and despite his brief shock, he had not forgotten it. “The Retins are still down there.”

“Got it.”

The turret stopped firing, though it remained engaged and ready, staring down at Grit where he and his crew had been backed into a corner. Their shouting turn to celebratory whoops, assuming their enemies had run out of ammo, and their own assault gained a new vigor as they pressed their assumed advantage.

“No guns,” Rodimus agreed as he joined the channel. “What do we do about them?”

“I’m taking care of it,.” Drift stooped to slot his knife back in, using the familiar motion to calm his scrambled thoughts.

“How do we help?” Ratchet asked.

“By staying out of the way.” He stood and jumped, scaling down the tower pede over hand a fraction faster than he had ascended it. He landed in a roll on the ground, stealth programs back online, and made his way in the direction of Grit’s shouting. There was more rubble the closer he came to the center of town, chunks of walls that had been blown out and shards of glass, and he focused on keeping his movements light and quick, hard to trace as he came closer to listening audials.

“Decepticon ship, fragging answer me,” Grit demanded from around a corner. Drift stilled; he stalled his fans and dropped his engine. “You have some nerve, showing up here without an ident. Who do you think you’re gonna fool, a colorblind Autobot?”

“50 shanix that jerk is dead,” one of the others said. They had stopped shooting.

“What’s the point?” the third asked. “You saw him jumping all over the place like a flashy piece of target practice. I could’ve blasted him myself with my aiming module offline.”

“Just not with your blaster fully loaded, huh?”

“Screw stripper, you weren’t any better.”

“Decepticon shuttle, this is Grit of Polyhex. You’d better answer, or we’ll blast you out of—”

Drift whipped around the corner with an elbow aimed at the back of Grit’s head, where he should have found the exposed juncture between spinal strut and helm. Instead, he hit solid armor, and though Grit stumbled forward a couple steps it was nowhere near the complete freeze Drift had been banking on. He started to reach for a gun, so Drift knocked it away, then danced back as the others realized what was happening and started shooting.

Drift was back where he had started, in close quarters and surrounded. He cursed himself for not realizing how thick Grit’s plating would be while he dodged the incoming fire. He leaned to the side as he hopped out of the way, then back twice and behind a wall. They were following fast, though, he only had a couple seconds to—

“Incoming,” Ratchet warned, before the gunshot.

Drift looked up and saw the shuttle had descended, its hatch lowered with a familiar, flame-like beacon spilling out. Rodimus kneeled at the edge, an oversized Earth rifle perched on his shoulder.

He fired again, the gunshot accompanied this time by the sound of a solid matter bullet hitting plating. Drift peeked around just in time to see one of Grit’s grunts topple over backward with a dent in the front of his helm. Rodimus’ weapon didn’t puncture armor, but it packed enough power to put a bot in stasis.

“Got ‘im!” Rodimus shouted.

It was also concentrated enough to minimize the risk of collateral.

Drift sprung over his cover to the other Decepticon, who had just enough time to shout, “Hey, that’s an Auto—” before a sharp blow with the heel of his hand knocked him back. The Con automatically reached up to his face and Drift took the opportunity to sweep his legs out from under him, ending with a firm kick to the helm that put him out as well.

Grit was alone, swinging his gun between two targets. Drift withdrew his sword as he stepped forward, mindful of the gun but not scared of it.

“Should I shoot him?” Rodimus asked. Drift held up his hand, wait.

“That was a scummy trick,” Grit growled, finger starting to squeeze around the trigger.

Drift moved. Grit fired and he felt the plasma burn the air past his audial, but then he was in front of his assailant, sword pressed to the fuel lines in his neck.

“This was barely a trick,” he said. “Now, enslaving people? That seems pretty ‘scummy’ to me.”

Grit glared at him, optics fritzing. He glanced at the sword, then the gun in his hand.

“You should drop it!” Rodimus called down. “Drift takes things like disarming literally!”

Grit glanced at Rodimus, realized his mistake, and looked back at Drift. Miraculously, his lapse in judgment did not result in getting his head cut off, and that realization seemed to be what forced him to stand down. His optics settled into a steady glow and he set the safety on his gun before dropping it. Drift waited for the clatter before he retrieved his cuffs and fastened them around Grit’s wrists.

“What’s the plan now?” Rodimus asked as Drift set to cuffing the other two. He was surprised the others had not dropped into the fray. Ratchet had the excuse of being confined to the cockpit, but it seemed exactly like the kind of dramatic entrance Rodimus preferred.

Something wasn’t right.

“Same as before,” Drift said. “I take these three to the authorities and we leave the citizens of Vitrious alone.”

“Want us to watch these three while you go get it?” Ratchet asked.

Drift paused snapping on the last pair of cuffs to swivel and side-eye the shuttle.

“Uh, no,” he said. “You do realize how sus that sounds, right? I've had no one but rogue Decepticons for company for," he realized he had no idea how long he'd been out here, "a while, and that’s still the second sketchiest offer I've been made.” He glanced at Rodimus, and this time zoomed in. His face was pinched, frame stiff with tension. “What’s going on?”

He was not looking for an answer, though, his processor already generating the scenario and inserting it into his queue like it was fact. It laid out the team: a back-alley medic could retune a vocalizer, a gifted outlier could copy a frame, and enough living people were owed vengeance against Deadlock to fund the venture. Well honed instincts had him standing up, hands moving to clasp the hilts of his swords.

“We’re here for you,” Rodimus said.

“Then get down here.”

Rodimus stared at Drift. He set the rifle down behind him, at the top of the hatch, but he made no move to disembark, nor did Ratchet lower them to the open street.

“Why are you here?” Drift demanded.

“It’s complicated,” Ratchet and Rodimus said simultaneously, and Drift bristled. He drew his swords and put himself in front of the prone Decepticons, senses cast outward in case this proved to be a distraction.

“Whatever business you have with me, fine, we can deal with,” he said, “but that’s personal. You’re going to leave these bots and this planet alone.”

“Fraggit, of all the lousy—we’re not here to hurt anyone, Drift,” the voice that sounded like Ratchet’s said. “Least of all you.”

The tips of Drift’s swords came up as his grip tightened.

“We need your help,” Rodimus said. “Have you ever heard of the Enigma of Combination?”

Drift’s guard did not waver, but he combed through his archives for anything relevant and was surprised when several files were flagged. Those were old memories, from well before he had joined Turmoil’s squad: a decade in which his service was turned over to Shockwave to act as a research assistant. Test subject might have been a more accurate term, but since he had been designated Subject A and assigned to pull the trigger, Deadlock had stuck around long enough to earn a more permanent title.

Shockwave never mentioned the Enigma outright. Deadlock discovered it while flipping through research materials, trying to pass the boring period between trials, a few entertaining horror stories hidden within the precise jargon. Long lost and, he had assumed, made up.

“Where did you hear about that?” Any potential impersonator could flip through a copy of the Lost Light Insider and gather he had history with Ratchet and Rodimus, but these details were top secret, and he doubted Shockwave cared enough about Subject A to send experienced hitmen after him.

“It’s an ancient artifact, from what we’ve heard,” Ratchet said. “It’s…”

“It’s weird,” Rodimus said, glancing toward the cockpit.

“We have it onboard.”

Drift sheathed his sword, though he kept his position in front of Grit.

“You didn’t—”

“It’s complicated,” they repeated.

“Frag,” Ratchet swore.

The story was outlandish and the circumstances suspect, and Drift’s logic centers were trying to work through his complex feelings even as he shoved them down. It meant something, that the latest reminder of his old life came in the form of these two bot specifically. There was a story here, and it seemed he was intended to hear it.

He glanced at the Decepticons, then back at the ship.

“There’s a clearing west of the city,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere else. I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay,” Rodimus said. “Will you be alright with those guys?”

“Yes.” He turned his back on Rodimus and finished clamping on the last set of cuffs, focusing on keeping his hands gentle while he handled the unconscious prisoner. The other was starting to stir, and Drift debated whether it would be easier to let him wake up or put him back into stasis.

“We’ll see you there, then,” Ratchet said.

They waited to leave until Drift was standing again, one body lugged over his shoulder and the other supported with an arm around his back, Grit walking out in front of them. He heard the raise, then the engines fire, and the shuttle gently peeled away from the city. Drift watched it to confirm its direction before he grunted to Grit to start moving.

“Fraggin’ Autobots,” Grit muttered. Drift was inclined to agree.

[rebelsofshield]

Star Wars: The Clone Wars “The Phantom Apprentice” -Review

The Clone Wars creates a horror movie of inescapable dread in the game changing, “The Phantom Apprentice”

(Review contains episode spoilers)

Maul and Ahsoka Tano are now face to face. As the battle for the future of Mandalore unfolds around them, it becomes clear that something much larger is at stake. The fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance and everything that is known will change. And our heroes and villains are powerless to stop it.

It’s been known for quite a while that the end of The Clone Wars would tie into the events of Revenge of the Sith. The show has been on a collision course with this darkest installment in the Star Wars saga ever since it premiered in 2008 and now the inevitable moment has arrived. Everything in the galaxy is about to upend itself and the feeling of dread and tragedy hangs over everything. While The Clone Wars has dipped its feet into the horror genre before, director Nathaniel Villanueva and writer Dave Filoni have created a half hour experience of impending dread and terror.

The Clone Wars was always going to end in heartbreak. Revenge of the Sith was the inescapable end point for this series, but the unspoken cruelty of this series is in the unaware insignificance of its own cast. Ahsoka Tano, Rex, Maul, the Mandalorians are doomed to be side notes in the galaxy altering Skywalker Saga. Their narratives are twisting, emotional, and undeniably engaging but they will never escape living in the margins of the adventures of the mythic figures they count as their friends, allies, and enemies. There is a knowing futility to Filoni’s script for “The Phantom Apprentice” that pervades everything. We can be watching titanic battles unfold on the streets of Sundari and daring lightsaber duels, but it’s all for nothing. Composer Kevin Kiner, still the only musical talent that has come close to mirroring and expanding off the legendary work of John Williams, turns the aural landscape of this conflict into a sound that can only be described as Star Wars meets Hereditary. We are never once made to feel comfortable. There are no hints that this will work out. It won’t.

Like the standout season finale to Star Wars Rebels’ second season, the title of “The Phantom Apprentice” is deceptively nuanced. It’s actually in conversation with three different characters, one of whom never actually appears on screen.

The most obvious of the three is of course Maul, the original apprentice to The Phantom Menace. I’ve never hidden my adoration for the long, strange character arc that Lucasfilm Animation has taken this formerly one note villain on. Sam Witwer, Dave Filoni, and the rest of the creative team have transformed this former Sith assassin into a perpetually broken and emotional frail man that is never more than a few steps away from collapse. First hinted at in one of his first appearances on this series, Maul was always aware to some degree of The Clone Wars and the larger machinations of his master. The pieces were always in place and now Maul is slowly realizing that the end goal of his master’s decades long plan is finally upon them. And it terrifies him. Long gone is the confident Maul who thought he could carve out an Empire for himself in the shadows of the galactic underworld. After Darth Sidious’s humiliating beatdown of him in “The Lawless” and the murder of his mother in the Son of Dathomir comic series, it’s now clear to this lost Zabrak that his master is the most powerful being in the galaxy and something to be feared above all else. Witwer plays Maul’s former anger and jealousy at having his dreams of grandeur robbed of him as a transformation into existential collapse. He realizes that he really is nothing more than a cast aside bit player in the revolution that is about to come and he is determined to stop it from happening. Not out of any kind of good will or redemption, but out of his own desperation for survival and relevance.

I’ve always been a tad skeptical of one of the final confrontations of the series being a duel between Asoka Tano and Maul. Not at all because Ahsoka isn’t capable of taking on a character like this wayward former Sith. She’s more than proven herself able and “The Phantom Apprentice” more than sells that Maul is definitely not acting at full capacity. (We’ll talk more about that fantastic confrontation later along with the rest of the stellar action here.) Instead, I was concerned that this clash would feel hollow. Ahsoka and Maul do not have an existing relationship prior to “The Phantom Apprentice.” Their big climactic meeting of sabers could have been nothing more than a set piece that was created only because they were the only characters free during the Revenge of the Sith era to have one. That is very thankfully not the case.

Filoni smartly positions Maul and Ahsoka as two sides of the same coin. As Maul was eventually cast out and discarded as useless by Darth Sidious, Ahsoka was also tossed away by the Jedi order by their own dedication to doctrine and lack of trust. Both are victims of their respective order’s worst qualities and exist as relative outcasts. However, the true dramatic irony of it all is that by doing so, both Ahsoka and Maul are arguably in better positions to survive the coming slaughter and possibly put an end to it. Sure, Maul’s argument for their teaming up to stop Sidious is mostly self-serving (even if I suspect that it does have some root in the sad sack of a Sith’s perpetual need for companionship and belonging), but Ahsoka considers it for a moment because she can see the truth in it all. It’s a fascinating moment and the fact that it feels emotionally genuine is a true feat of Ahsley Eckstein, Witwer, and the entire creative team. We can’t not acknowledge that incredible shot of the shattered glass and embers blowing through the wind as Maul’s fateful offer is made.

The final apprentice is of course Anakin Skywalker. Perhaps the most startling development of “The Phantom Apprentice” is Maul’s revelation that he is more than aware of Anakin’s eventual slip to the Dark Side and it was probably in the cards for quite some time. (His moment of post-mortem pity for Dooku is a fun wink to how doomed all of Sidious’s apprentices were on their eventual march toward Anakin’s ascension.) It recontexualizes so much of the final days of The Clone Wars and of Sidious’s plan itself. Of course as Anakin’s fateful seduction to the Dark Side is occurring parallel to the events of the Siege of Mandalore it is more than fitting that Maul is not the only one with Anakin on his mind. The brief call between Obi-Wan and Ahsoka comes from a place of compassion, but it ultimately serves as further example of Ahsoka’s suspicion of the Jedi. She sees a kindred spirit in Anakin at the moment that the Council betrays his trust and how could she not. The fact that Ahsoka and Maul’s duel happens mostly as a retaliation to the assertion that Anakin will fall speaks to her unbreakable trust in her surrogate older brother. It ends up playing as a bit of a fight for Anakin’s soul. Hope versus despair and denial versus inevitability.

And what a battle it is. Dave Filoni mentioned at Star Wars Celebration last year that they brought in original Darth Maul stunt actor Ray Park to assist with the animation for this fight and it certainly shows. While it may not be the most sprawling duel ever or as brutal as Pre Vizsla and Maul’s duel to the death, The Clone Wars has never featured a confrontation as fluid and dynamic as this one. The constant back and forth of the upper hand and the emotional instability of both fighters gives this encounter a strange edge that ratchets up the tension even if we know both combatants are destined to make it out of this alive. The final stage in the scaffolding that holds up the city of Sundari is a standout and brings to mind a similarly stellar set piece from Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.

It’s not just our phantom apprentices that get in on the action this week. A claustrophobic showdown between Bo-Katan and Gar Saxon in an elevator shaft is one of the most inventive set pieces that the series has produced and Villanueva sells it with a cluttered intensity that never loses clarity. A prolonged battle between the liberating forces and Maul’s loyalists is similarly brutal and striking with sweeping tracking shots of the action that smartly know when to cut into the carnage and when to transfer back to other scenes. It brings to mind some of the great multi-tiered battles in Star Wars history and it once again gives big screen live action installments of the franchise a serious run for their money.

 A few random final thoughts!

It seems only fitting that Almec would be gunned down by one of his own allies. Gar Saxon is poised to take over Almec’s position as the self-serving Mandalorian leader in the era of the Empire and there’s certainly some poetry in this sort of cyclical killing. Poor Mandalore. Planet’s not going to sort itself out anytime soon.

Jesse lived! I’m sure every one of us clone junkies were prepared for one of our last surviving 501st boys to fall to Maul this week, but through some small glimmer of positivity the newly minted ARC Trooper survived. I’m not sure we can be as hopeful in coming episodes, but I’ll take the positivity where I can find it.

I actually really loved Maul’s cameo in Solo: A Star Wars Story and it’s nice to see “The Phantom Apprentice” tee that up with the blink and you’ll miss appearance by Dryden Vos. Was really hoping for a tiny line of dialogue from Paul Bettany, but I guess that’s as good as we’ll get for right now.

Sam Witwer remarked several months ago that the scripts for the final arc of The Clone Wars were the best the series ever produced and it’s hard to argue with that. Never before has this saga had more on its mind or felt as emotional or consequential. It’s a nail biting stunner of a chapter and I’m genuinely in awe that we are only half way done. Buckle in folks. This is when the pain really begins.

Score: A+

[shesey]

Wintering by Katherine May

“Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider. Perhaps it results from an illness; perhaps from a life event such as a bereavement or the birth of a child; perhaps it comes from a humiliation or failure. Perhaps you’re in a period of transition, and have temporarily fallen between two worlds. Some winterings creep upon us more slowly, accompanying the protracted death of a relationship, the gradual ratcheting up of caring responsibilities as our parents age, the drip-drip-drip of lost confidence. Some are appallingly sudden, like discovering one day that your skills are considered obsolete, the company you worked for has gone bankrupt, or your partner is in love with someone new. However it arrives, wintering is usually involuntary, lonely, and deeply painful. Yet it is also inevitable. We like to imagine that it’s possible for life to be one eternal summer, and that we have uniquely failed to achieve that for ourselves.” “Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible. Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season when the world takes on a sparse beauty, and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.” “That’s what humans do: we make and remake our stories, abandoning the ones that no longer fit and trying on new ones for size.” “In the changing room later, I experience a different kind of warmth: the nakedness of a dozen women, all unashamed. These aren’t the posing bodies you find on the beach, dieted beyond al joy to be bikini-ready, and tanned as an act of disguise. These are northern bodies, slack-bottomed and dimpling, with unruly pubic hair and the scars of hysterectomies, chattering companionably in a language I don’t understand. They are a glimpse of life yet to come: a message of survival, passed on through the generations. It’s a message I rarely find in my buttoned-up home country, and I think about the times I’ve suffered silent furies at the treacheries of my own body, imagining them to be unique.” “Ghost stories may be a part of the terror of Halloween, but our love of ghost stories betrays a far more fragile desire: that we do not fade so easily from this life.” “Winter has decorated ordinary life. Some days, everything sparkles.” “You realize that no one is what they look like, on the surface. Everybody has their dose of suffering; it’s just more hidden in some than in others.” “I think about this a lot, she says, the needle breaks the fabric in order to repair it. You can’t have one without the other.” “In the absence of sunlight, it would be too costly to maintain the machinery of growth.” “I’m fairly certain that my decision not to have a second child rests squarely on my worship of sleep.” “I have nothing to show for my forty-odd years on this earth, except for a pile of dusty books.” “4am. The ego flares like a struck match: bright, blue, fleeting. I am thankful to be alone when this happens, to let it burn out in private. We should sometimes be grateful for the solitudes of night, of a winter. They save us from displaying our worse selves to the waking world.” “Certainty is a dead space in which there’s no more room to grow. Wavering is painful. I’m glad to be travelling between the two.” “Sometimes writing is a race against your own mind, as your hand labours to keep up with the flood tide of your thoughts, and I feel that most acutely at night, when there are no competing demands on my attention. That slightly sleepy, dazed state erods the barriers of my waking brain.” “I can confess all my sins to a piece of paper, with no one to censor it.” “Our personal winters are so often accompanies by insomnia, but perhaps we are still drawn towards that unique space of intimacy and contemplation, darkness, and silence, without really knowing what we’re seeking. Perhaps, after all, we are being urged towards our own comfort.” “Lucy is a symbol of absolute faith and utter purity, but the sins for which she suffers are not her own. Instead, she shoulders the weight of the male gaze, and is destroyed by it.” “Some winters creep up on us so slowly that they have infiltrated every part of our lives before we truly feel them.” “We felt broken into pieces, but at the same time, never so loved.” “We changed our focus away from pushing through with normal life, and towards making a new one. When everything is broken, everything is also up for grabs. That’s the gift of winter: it’s irresistible. Change will happen in its wake, whether we like it or not. We can come out of it wearing a different coat.” “I could have stood there and cried on the spot, just knowing that I wasn’t alone.” “I felt accepted in a way that I hand’t for months.” “This isn’t just an unkind attitude, it does us harm, because it stops us from learning that disaster happens, and how to adapt when it does. It stops us from reaching out to people who are suffering. And, when our own disaster comes, it forces us into a humiliated retreat, as we try to hunt down mistakes that we never made in the first place.” “I simply had no defence against the changes that were happening in my life.” “Life never does quite offer us those simply happy endings. I often that that it’s all part of my own craving: the moral clarity of cause and effect, reward and punishment for my actions. A map for living that renders everything explicable.” “All her desires were for elemental things: love, a little comfort, the society of interesting people. Everyday life is so often isolated, dreary, and lonely. A little craving is understandable. A little craving might actually be the rallying cry for survival.” “I love the inconvenience [of snow] the same way that I can sneakingly love a bad cold: the irresistible disruption to mundane life, forcing you to stop for a while and step outside of your normal habits.” “In autumn, the male drones are sacrificed because they’re no longer of any use, and would otherwise just be hungry mounts to feed.”  “Our lives take different shapes: we do not work in a linear progression through fixed roles like the honeybee. We are not consistently useful to the world at large. We talk about the complexity of the hive, but human societies are infinitely more complex, full of choices and mistakes, periods of glory and seasons of utter despair. Some of us make highly visible, elaborate contributions to the whole; some of us are just part of the ticking mechanics of the world, the incremental wealth of small gestures. All of it matters. All of it weaves the wider fabric that binds us.” “We may sometimes drift through years in which we feel like a negative presence in the world, but we come back again, not only restored, but bringing more than we brought before: more wisdom, more compassion, a greater capacity to reach deep into our roots and know that we will find water.” “Usefulness, in itself, is a useless concept when it comes to humans. I don’t think we were ever meant to think about others in terms of their use to us.” “We flourish on caring, on doling out love.” “Winter is a time for the quiet arts of making: for knitting and sewing, baking and simmering, repairing and restoring our homes.” “We sing because it fills our lungs with nourishing air, and lets our heart soar with the notes we let out. We sing because it allows us to speak of love and loss, delight and desire, all encoded in lyrics that let us pretend that those feelings are not quite ours.” “As I walk, I remind myself ot the words of Alan Watts: ‘To hold your breath is to lose your breath.’ In The Wisdom of Insecurity, Watts makes a case that always convinces me, but which I always seem to forget: that life is, by nature, uncontrollable. That we should stop trying to finalize our comfort and security somehow, and instead find a radical acceptance of the endless, unpredictable change that is the very essence of this life. Our suffering, he says, comes from the fight we put up against this fundamental truth: ‘Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is in pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought. There is no escape.” “The future, to which we devote so much of our brainpower, is an unstable element, entirely unknowable.” “When we endlessly ruminate in these distant times, we miss extraordinary things in the present moment. They are, in actual fact, all we have: the here and now; the direct perception of our senses.” “I’m beginning to think that unhappiness is one of the simple things in life: a pure, basic emotion to be respected, if not savoured. I would never dream of suggesting that we should wallow in misery, or shrink from doing everything we can to alleviate it; but I do think it’s instructive. After all, unhappiness has a function: it tells us that something is going wrong. If we don’t allow ourselves the fundamental honesty of our own sadness, then we miss an important cue to adapt. We seem to be living in an age when we’re bombarded with entreaties to be happy, but we’re suffering from an avalanche of depression; we’re urged to stop sweating the small stuff, and yet we’re chronically anxious. I often wonder if these are just normal feelings that become monstrous when they’re denied. A great deal of life will always suck. There will be moments when we’re riding high, and moments when we can’t bear to get out of bed. Both are normal. Both, in fact, require a little perspective.” “We need friends who wince along with our pain, who tolerate our gloom, and who allow us to be weak for a while when we’re finding our feet again. We need people who acknowledge that we can’t always hang on in there; that sometimes, everything breaks.” “I recognized winter. I saw it coming (a mile off, since you ask), and I looked it in the eye,. I greeted it, and let it in. I had some tricks up my sleeve, you see. I’ve learned them the hard way. When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favoured child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable, and that my feelings were signals of something important.” “We tend to imagine that our lives are linear, but they are in fact cyclical. I would not, or course, seek to deny that we grow gradually older, but while doing so, we pass through phases of good health and ill, of optimism and deep doubt, of freedom and constraint.”

[togglesbloggle]

The Island Where Dreams Come True

"Fly! Fly! About with your ship and fly! Row, row, row for your lives away from this accursed shore."

"Compose yourself," said Reepicheep, "and tell us what the danger is. We are not used to flying."

The stranger started horribly at the voice of the Mouse, which he had not noticed before.

"Nevertheless you will fly from here," he gasped. "This is the Island where Dreams come true."

"That's the island I've been looking for this long time," said one of the sailors. "I reckoned I'd find I was married to Nancy if we landed Here."

"And I'd find Tom alive again," said another.

"Fools!" said the man, stamping his foot with rage. "That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I'd better have been drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams — dreams, do you understand — come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams."

There was about half a minute's silence and then, with a great clatter of armour, the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before…

---- C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

---------------------------------------------------

I’ve been thinking about this text a lot lately, partly with the help of that nasty fever I got a few weeks ago.  If I had to pick one chunk of prose to summarize my 2020 mood, this would be it.  Stumbling through a landscape that feels like one of those Deep Dream images, too unreal to have consequences in itself but real enough to count as a kind of darkness, real enough to obscure whatever reality it is that’s two feet off the prow.

At least some of this feeling comes down to the phenomenon I talked about here (and I’m rather pleased with how well that post aged), and at least some of it comes down to the fragmentation of media that Kojima saw coming some two decades ago.  But it was accelerated by the lockdown, probably a lot.  Our sense of truth is just so powerfully mediated by society, and that fabric has been disrupted more by the plague than by anything else I’ve ever lived through.  And what’s exposed behind that tear in the world is… stories, uncontrolled and associative.  Dreams.

We’re drifting apart, not just physically, but into our own dreamworlds.

There’s a question I sometimes ask when I’m in a conversation with folks in my native blue tribe.  It’s this: what evidence is there that there are more Nazis now than there were ten years ago?  And I’m not sure that I’ve ever gotten an actual answer to this question.  One guy got super mad, but that’s unusual.  Mostly they’re just confused by the question mark at the end, as if it was something that you didn’t need to ask.  Of course there are Nazis now, right?

Because-

I don’t mean the question as a ‘gotcha’, I’m not trying to trip people up with it so much as figure out where people are coming from epistemologically.  There are individual media stories, of course.  Charlottesville still looms large, as does the current president in his way.  And I suspect most of us have direct experiences with somebody espousing such views, if only in passing as through a comments section or twitter.  But actually counting them, comparing that number to estimates throughout recent history, gathering enough anecdotes that in their multiplicity they become data- it’s not being actively resisted as a process, but nor is it something that occurs to people.  It’s just not in scope, not part of the modern (and especially the 2020) experience. 

There are, of course, easy examples on the other side of the aisle.  I’ll never forget the weird lurch that happened when I realized my parents were sincerely worried about the imposition of sharia law in the United States.  But I’m trying to keep it close to home because I don’t see the blue/red fracture line as particularly important in the root causes of the phenomenon.  That was just the particular weakness in our civic order that happened to give way first, like a bum knee in the body politic.

Of course one must be concerned that the trends pushing us in this direction are ratchets, not cycles.  Ordinary politics tends to come and go, just waves in a very large bathtub.  But forces like science and technology give real history to the world, making ‘then’ different from ‘now’ in a way that isn’t mere happenstance.  And there are some worrying reasons to think that our slow fall into dreamland may be a consequence of those technologies and learned skills, not just the weird result of reality-show-presidents and news media balkanization.

And when I think hard enough about this stuff I’m pretty worried about my own dreams too- no way I’m immune to this process.  But how would I know?  I’m certainly a very odd man in my way, and what social anchors I have are as idiosyncratic as I am.  Is this feeling itself just a dream, something that surrounded me bit by bit as I and my helper algorithms gradually wrapped me up in a solipsistic media cocoon, while the rest of the world goes along as it always has?  Surely not, surely it’s the world that’s going crazy, right?  Not me?

[district7]

A Mockingjay Joniss AU - pt. 1: i’ve made up my mind (i’m never going back)

11.11.19 

A Mockingjay Joniss AU - pt. 1: i’ve made up my mind (i’m never going back) 

A Mockingjay AU WIP where Katniss reevaluates whether her best future is a path she had never considered. After Johanna fails the Block, it occurs to Katniss that her future is not pre-destined, that she’s done enough, and that she doesn’t owe any one, or any cause, a suicide mission. 

A/N: There are no promises of quality assurance. Also, I make no promises about updates. (If I add that sort of pressure on myself about it, I’ll end up loathe to work on it.) This will likely hold a lot of things in common with other Mockingjay Joniss AUs, namely a return to District 7 instead of District 12, and an emphasis on the pair helping each other recover set against a backdrop of quasi-homesteading. I make zero assertions POV and tense will stay consistent across updates. This is an adventure in pantsting with a general goal in mind, rather than something I’m pre-plotting.

Feel free to send me constructive witticisms, requests, asks, comments, trolling, whatever.

_______________________

District 13 - Medical

Johanna’s limbs twitched, body emitting a mix of grunts and whimpers. Katniss guessed she was fighting in her sleep.

Or maybe running. The morphling line in her IV was a rifle with vicious recoil. Awake, it tricked you into believing pain was farther away and anxiety quieter than they actually were. Helpful. Maybe. Asleep, it made it harder to wake from the nightmares.

“Jo...” 

Katniss nudged her shoulder with a knuckle, leaning forward out of her visitor’s chair only far enough to breach the edge of Johanna’s medical bed. Best to keep out of the way of swinging arms, if Johanna woke up fighting. “Johanna, wake up.”

In response, Johanna’s grunts and twitches ratcheted in intensity. 

Katniss guessed at what she was dreaming. Maybe fighting mutts while they tried to pull her under water. What kind of mutts might the Capitol design for that? Giant fish with fiery eyes, men’s arms, and children’s hands?  Eels with multiple tails which encapsulate you while the monsters drag you deeper into the pressing blackness, down until you finally have no choice but to gasp in water and drown yourself?

The Capitol and its mutts. 

Katniss tried again to wake Johanna, but she only rolled in her hospital bed, tangling herself and her IV line in her bleached, too-white sheets while letting out a sleep-garbled plea.

Maybe not Capitol mutts, Katniss thought. This happened in The Block, the Rebellion’s own customizable mini-Arena. So, Rebellion mutts. Coin and her well-oiled machine could squeeze and fracture a person every bit as well as Snow and the Games could a Tribute. Less horrific and premeditated, definitely. Better justified, absolutely. Without the evil intent, hopefully.  But they could still do it, all the same.

What was it Peeta had said in that interview? 

Once you’re in the arena, the rest of the world becomes very distant. All the people and things you loved or cared about almost cease to exist. As bad as it makes you feel, you’re going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it’s very costly. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people? It costs everything you are. So you hold on to your wish.

His wish had been for Katniss to live. Katniss’ had been for him to. And here they were. Everyone, except for Cinna, who she’d gone into the Quarter Quell caring about was somehow, miraculously, still alive. Prim. Her mother. Gale. Haymitch. Effie. Peeta might still be mentally disordered, but at least with her staying away, he was progressing well enough to decorate a wedding cake. 

A wedding cake. That image made Katniss grunt. Finnick and Annie.

It wasn’t just those she cared about before the Quarter Quell who were still alive, it was also those she newly cared about. Those two. Beetee.

Johanna.

Johanna, for whom Katniss had experienced the impulse to volunteer as roommate. The one she’d sidled up to as a training partner. The one whose nightmares and traumas she’d been ready-fit acquaintances with. And also the one whose crass, doesn’t-give-a-fuck facade had gone from infuriating Katniss, when they’d first met, to actually making her laugh.

She sat on the edge of the bed and made one last, forceful attempt to stir Johanna, managing to cajole her onto her back and into wakefulness enough that she blinked with hazy recognition.

“Shit. Can’t a girl sleep without being molested?” Johanna was mumbling, voice rough.

“You were having a nightmare.”

“I can see your face, so clearly I must still be having it.”

“Funny.”

Johanna’s lids drifted shut.

“Have to be good for at least something, brainless, or else these wonderful District Thirteen people might decide it’s not worth the cost-benefit to feed me.”

“You’re good at lot of things,” Katniss joked. “Or at least that’s what you’re always going on to everyone about.”

Still with eyes closed, Johanna’s face pulled a smirk. “And wouldn’t you be lucky to experience every last one of those things, Everdeen.”

Katniss snorted and rolled her eyes. “You’re incredible.”

“Most wait ‘till after to tell me that.”

“You know what I meant,” Katniss corrected, refusing to fall prey to the attempt at embarrassing her. She started untangling the sheet from around the IV as something else to focus on.

Johanna peeked open one eye to watch, then wiggled the rest of her arm free from the bedding as soon as Katniss was done, purposefully floundering it through the air until she thwacked her palm against Katniss’ cheek. She pushed her face away with token force, punctuated by a complaining groan.

“Go a-way. Your sickening goodness makes my ass itch. How’s a mentally disordered person supposed to sleep?"

Katniss managed to huff like she was offended, but when Johanna’s hand didn’t move away from her face, she pulled it down to her lap and held onto it, frowning.

“They’re re-classifying you as that again?”

Johanna’s hand twitched in Katniss’.

“What? No. It’s nothing.”

“Johanna...”

“I’m fine, leave it.”  She yanked her hand free. “Aren’t you supposed to be prepping for an assassination mission right now anyway? Why are you here?”

Katniss frowned again at the abruptly acerbic tone, but she’d built up some resistance to it over time, and was tired herself, so she chose not walk into the trap. She was about to lay her own, anyway, after a fashion.

“You mean the suicide mission?” Her voice was a whisper, and she said it only after looking away from Johanna and picking her cuticles for a few long moments.

“What?” Johanna shimmied up into a sitting position, eyes wide and body instantly tense. “What are you talking about?”

Boggs’ words from a group meeting with Coin weeks before had been revolving through Katniss’ mind for the previous twenty-four hours.

Even if we’re careful, we can’t guarantee her safety. She’ll be a target for every-

He hadn’t gotten to finish, because Katniss herself had interrupted him. But she could definitely fill in the blank herself.

“Think about, Johanna. Because since the Block, I’ve certainly been thinking about it. At best, it’s a mission doomed to fail. At worst, it’s a death sentence. I think I’ve slept less than you in the last forty-eight hours.”

“You promised.” Johanna and pulled her arms tightly around her shoulders to make herself smaller. Triggered into a minor episode, she shook her head non-stop, as if doing so could change the reality of what Katniss had said. “You promised you’d kill him for me. I need him to be dead!”

Katniss sighed loudly and stared up at ceiling, fighting her own frustration as well as Johanna’s. Fighting to keep her voice calm.

“I know. I know I did, Johanna. And he will.“ She put a hand on Johanna’s knee to calm her, only to have Johanna swipe it away. But she went on. “We’ve breached the Capitol. We have forces there. Everyone wants Snow’s head. The Rebellion has come too far to stop, and Coin is going to make sure he ends up dead one way or another. But think about it. I’m not a trained assassin, I’m barely a solider. I don’t have an anonymous face. What chance do I really have? I’m a girl with a rifle and a bow. In the middle of a city decked out with Gamemakers’ traps, thousands of peacekeeper who know my face, and tens of thousands of Capitol citizens ready to raise an alert.” She gave Johanna a grim smile. “Those odds are way higher against than we faced in all of our games combined. And my target? One man on the far side of a war zone, almost certainly sealed away in a well-guarded bomb shelter.”

Katniss gave a weak shrug. “Boggs is right. He didn’t call it a suicide mission out loud, but he knows it is. I’ve been seeing it in his eyes, the hoping that I'd see it for myself.”

“Fuck,” Johanna hissed. “I’m so fucking tired of all this SHIT!”

The sudden screaming brought in the medical staff. Johanna shouted wild curses at them, alarming them all the more, but Katniss eventually talked them into leaving. It took long minutes, but Johanna’s shaking slowly evolved to despondent rocking. And then her chin sank to her chest, followed a moment later by a sniff, and then her dragging an arm across her face to wipe at it. Finally, she gripped her skull and let herself fall back flat onto the bed.

“Jo, I don’t know what kind of a life you want to have when this is over, but I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going back. I’ve done enough. We’ve both done enough. We don’t owe anyone. It’s not selfish: We’ve reached the point where we’re no longer necessary. Coin and the other District Leaders can duke it out; it doesn’t need to be Mockingay business. The only thing I want is to live a quiet life where I know Prim is safe and I can shrink out from under the spotlight. That’s what started this for me. That’s the promise I need to keep. The one I made to her on Reaping Day. That I’d live and come back to her.” She added, “You can’t tell me that at least part of you isn’t interested.”

There was more sniffling, and more face wiping. And a few ragged breaths before there was an exhausted response.

“Do you really believe that’s possible?”

“I think Coin will give it to us. She needs popular Victors around after the Capitol falls like a bear needs bees stinging at its nose when it wants honey. At this stage, my quiet exit might be as tempting for her as it is for me. And face it, from her perspective- If I’m right- if I do go, at best my death makes a good propo, except that it comes at the cost of the Capitol claiming credit for killing me. But if I actually succeeded, she risks me having an even bigger voice in Panem’s future. Considering how we’ve butted heads already, that’s not something she’s likely to want. And that puts not just me, but everyone I care about right back in danger.” Katniss had risked sneaking that train of thought into a whispered conversation with Boggs over that morning’s breakfast.

The look he’d given her had been answer enough.

“For once, I’d like the chance to choose my own fate instead of being manipulated into one.”

Johanna continued to stare up at the ceiling.

“You’re serious about this.”

“I have the bone-chilling feeling I need to be.”

“And so what,” Johanna struggled for the energy to push herself up on her elbows, glaring, “this is you asking my blessing to beg Coin to send you, your family, and lover boy back to Twelve so you can have a guilt-free happily ever after?”

Katniss gave herself time to cycle through a slow breath. Being about to say it aloud made it feel more like killing someone than letting them go. But Johanna was impatient.

“I’m sick of this visit, Katniss. Just say whatever it is and get it over with.”

“Fine.” Katniss sucked in a breath. “Peeta’s a long way from being able to go anywhere without a counselor. Maybe things could be different. In the future, after time passes and he’s better and I don’t feel constantly conflicted over what I should be feeling and how much of that is me over what people keep telling me I feel. And-”

“There goes your self-righteous we-really-love-each-other act, princess.”

“Shut up, Johanna! It’s complicated and you know it. And like I said, maybe things could be different. None of us knows that, though. But what I do know is that neither he or I need that sort of pressure right now, and right now is when I need to make a decision for the people who are still within my reach.”

Johanna relented, begrudgingly.

“If you go back to Twelve, you realize he’ll just end up back there at some point. If you go home, he follows. He won’t be able to help it.”

Katniss hesitated, but then nodded sadly. “I know.”

“Is that what you want?”

Katniss didn’t respond. Instead, after some quiet, she reached over to the nightstand for Johanna’s pine bundle, laying it on the bed. Her fingers lingered on it briefly before withdrawing.

“This was on the floor when I came in. Decided you didn’t like it after all?”

“Probably fell out while I was sleeping.” Johanna picked it up and took a sniff, then kept it at her nose to breathe the scent.

“Had you wanted to go back to Seven when this was all done?”

“I...” Johanna’s shoulders slowly sagged. “I don’t know,” she said simply, expression carefully neutral. “I don’t have anything there. Haven’t for a long time. And I haven’t even been able to picture a world that’s that normal enough to even try thinking about it.”

“Well, do. At this point, the three us of would rather go to Seven with you than back to Twelve.” Johanna narrowed her eyes, surprised. Perhaps suspicious. It didn’t phase Katniss. “Haymitch and Finnick have both agreed to help me make the argument to Coin for us.” And when Johanna only continued to study Katniss, without voicing an objection, Katniss hazarded some levity, "And anyway, you’re practically required to say yes: Prim insists she wants to adopt you into the family.”

“I’m not a fucking pet,” Johanna responded, eventually, but without real heat.

“Whatever you say, lumber-woman.” Katniss chuckled at the dirty face Johanna made at that, before standing to leave. “I think we both know Prim's pretty good at getting what she wants.”

“It should be illegal to be that fucking adorable.”

“Yeah,” Katniss agreed, to be polite. “Okay, well, I’m going to go talk to Haymitch. You aren’t laying a string of profanity down on me, so I’m going to run with it.”

Johanna pulled her knees to her chest, making herself small again.

“What is it?”

Johanna shook her head.

“Come on, Johanna.”

“I... don’t want to get dragged there and then dumped, if you guys don’t like it.” A tear raced down her cheek, then another, which Johanna cursed even as she wiped them away. “I... Fuck, I can’t believe I’m saying this. If you tell anyone, especially that stupid head doctor, that I'm saying this, I’ll rip your spine out.”  The tears were still coming. “But I don’t think I can handle having people and then losing them again.”

Again. The weight of that word settled on Katniss’ shoulders.

She struggled with how to respond, in the end climbing onto the bed and letting Johanna curl into her side.

[imababblekat]

Imagine The Tfa Bot’s Finding Out Their S/O Has A Spiderman Alter Ego

(A/N: My favorite dreams are always the one where I get to swing around like Spiderman and even have my own Spidersona!)

(s,n)=(spider name)

~

Tfa Ratchet:

he's seen on the news about this (s,n) and the plenty of heroic things they've done

the doc thinks it's plenty strange that a human has these spider like abilities, but the most he does is shake his helm, because honestly, his team has fought several weird humans so at least this one is a good guy

not once does he ever expect (s,n) to be his s/o; it just never clicked with him until him and his s/o got into an argument one day over the vigilantly

the way she keeps defending them and deflecting his negative comments about how they should do a better job protecting Detroit got Ratchet wondering why she’s so heated up about it

that's when everything just sorta falls into the place; the times he would lose his s/o if a battle broke out only to show up unharmed when it was finished, the strange reason (s,n) would always swing away before he or his team could approach them, etc

he questions his s/o if there's something she’s hiding, and when she says no, he gives her that look, and she can only give in and tell him

Ratchet feels so much about this new revelation; proud, curious, stressed, worried

while he won't ever admit it, he's proud of the selflessness of his s/o, but on the other he can't help but be extremely concerned for her well being

he's seen live feed, back before he even knew her, of the strong villains she would fight and how she’d go crashing through walls, etc, and it scares him to think that that's been his s/o, and still very much is

Ratchet never tells her to stop what she's doing, but it's apparent that's he's very worried in the ways he bombards her with questions if he hasn't seen her in a while, or rushes out to a fight to assist and fuss over any injuries she may have gotten

the doc bot finally calms down when she pulls him aside to say that she couldn't stop, even if she wanted to, especially knowing that she could help

after that statement, Ratchet knows there's nothing he can do keep his s/o from being a hero, but while he lets her continue her work and assist when needed, he's always got a first aid at the ready

Prowl:

Prowl is very intrigued by this masked hero known as (s,n), but most of that might be in part due to Sari always faning about them

he's very fascinated by the spider like abilities of this hero, and as much as he's tried to catch up with them to talk, he's always left with a sticky trail of webs

the ninja bot has his speculations of who could be (s,n), one of which includes his s/o; it might seem silly to others, but Prowl has his reasons

he never tried testing out his theories of who they could be, till one evening when he and his s/o were supposed to meet up for a date, and a battle occurred between (s,n) and a villain

during that whole battle, Prowl sat waiting for his s/o, but every time he tried to call her, she hadn't answered or even texted

he was worried that perhaps she had gotten stuck in that area, but once she did show up, apologizing about being re routed around the battle, Prowl's close attention had caught the slightest peek of a red and blue, spider web patterned suit under her button up shirt

Prowl doesn't act for a week, just watches and pays close attention to his s/o till he feels he's got enough evidence

finally, when he feels ready, Prowl suddenly through's a disc at his s/o who has her back turned

spidey senses going off, it's no surprise that she flips right at the last second and webs the weapon against the factory wall

Prowl's s/o is staring at him mortified, while he just stares back with a smug smirk and crossed arms

the two sit down some where private to discuss this new development in their relationship; how she got the powers, when she realized she had them, when she started being a hero, etc

Prowl ask her if she had ever thought about the risk of what she does; while he is concerned for her safety, the question was really just a simple one of curiosity

his s/o nods and tells him how she had waited for a while after discovering her powers before becoming a hero, and seeing all the bad stuff go down in Detroit, while knowing that she could do something about it, is was what ultimately got her into being a hero to begin with

Prowl is undoubtedly proud of what his s/o does, and while he leaves her to her own heroism, he's always there to assist if need be

Optimus:

we all know that Optimus has a history with spiders, so hearing and seeing that Detroit has a spider-human hero sends so so many shivers up his spinal strut

don't get him wrong, he thinks what they're doing is absolutely amazing, Optimus is all for hero stuff, but did they really have to be spider themed?!

while partly disappointed, he's also admittedly glad that every time his team tries to meet them after a battle they're swinging and gone in an instant

like anyone else, Optimus doesn't have the slightest clue as to who's under that mask, and while curious about it, he's  never been bothered to find out

till he walked in on his s/o crawling through one of the windows of his berth room, exhausted and maskless and ready for some sleep

the Prime is frozen in place, because a) a spider like human just spider walked into his berthroom, and b) that spider person is his s/o!!

Optimus stays stuck there for an eternity till he's snapped back by his s/o frantically waving their hands in front of his face, and before he can stop himself, he falls back and nearly swipes at them

seeing his gut reaction and the fear in his optics, his s/o feels absolutely horrible, but not nearly as horrible as him for almost hurting her

the rest of the night is spent sharing each others past and how they got to now; Optimus and the whole reason why he's got arachnophobia and his s/o explaining how she got the powers she currently has

Optimus get's used to the fact that his s/o is (s,n) and the spider abilities that come with her, but what he doesn't get used to is the heavy beatings they get from fighting; from being shot at to being throw half way through the city

he understands that his s/o isn't like other humans, and can take some heavy hits, but that still doesn't stop him from asking his s/o one night if she ever thought about not being a hero

she very calmly explains to him that she had tried to put it to rest once after a particular battle ended up with her being sent to the ER, but during those days of recovery and seeing the crimes going on through the news, and knowing that she could help, really made her feel guilty

he's still very concerned for her well being, but Optimus doesn't try to keep her from being a hero, and if anything, is always there to lend a swinging fist or two

~xXx~

[thezodiaczone]

August Forecast for Scorpio

You’re not here to make friends this month, Scorpio—not when you’re on a mission like this. The Sun is making its annual climb through Leo and your ambitious tenth house until August 23, putting you in full #boss mode. While others scamper off on carefree holidays, your steely gaze is trained on a rather specific set of goals, if not one singular target.

Your tunnel vision may be interrupted though because Mercury—the planet of communication, technology and travel—will be retrograde in Leo and this career-driven zone of your chart. Professional plans could get waylaid or delayed since Mercury retrograde can bring red tape and unanticipated curveballs that distract you from your well-crafted agenda. A client could go MIA, or a decision maker might not get you the needed materials in time for you to meet a deadline.

Relax, Scorpio, and go with the flow as best you can, even if you want to scream. Believe it or not, there’s a method to this madness. The crucial plot twist could be revealed around August 11, when a potent Leo solar (new moon) eclipse sweeps through your tenth house and brings an unexpected job offer, a leadership opportunity or a changing of the guard. The tenth house rules men and fathers, so an important guy in your life, possibly your dad, may play a role in this eclipse’s surprising events.

Solar and lunar eclipses occur four to six times a year and shake up business as usual. This is the second-to-last in a series that’s been striking the Leo/Aquarius axis since February 2017, bringing waves of change to your home and career. By now, your living situation, family structure or work life might look wildly different than they did a couple years ago. The grand finale, a total lunar (full moon) eclipse, will land in Leo and your career zone on January 21, 2019. Seeds planted today will reach their peak early next year, then you won’t experience eclipses here again until 2026. That means you might FINALLY settle into a steady career path or put down stable roots soon. Whew!

This year has certainly been one of transformation in all the major areas of your life. Expansive Jupiter has been in Scorpio all year (and will be until November 8), altering everything from your appearance to your self-esteem to your personal passions. And on May 15, changemaker Uranus began a wild eight-year ride through your opposite sign of Taurus, throwing curveballs at your closest relationships. Dynamics have changed with colleagues, romantic partners and your tightest friendships—sometimes without much notice!

On August 7, Uranus will begin its annual five-month retrograde, which could slow down some of the modifications in your partnerships. This may come as a relief, but it’s also possible that an old issue could flare up, creating unsettling energy. Counting on others for consistency will be challenging, and there may be some on-again-off-again activity with certain people.

Domestic drama may also have colored your summer, but that will start to ease off in the second half of the month. Stressful Mars has been retrograde in Aquarius since June 26, ratcheting up the tension in your domestic sector and intensifying your living situation. While Mars will remain retrograde until August 27, it will back out of Aquarius on August 12, lessening the pressure in your personal life. If you’ve been on pins and needles waiting to hear about a move, a home sale or a sticky family situation, you could finally get the answers you need. On August 12, Mars will reverse into Capricorn and your communication sector for the remainder of its pivot, so watch those caustic comments, especially since Mercury is also retrograde. You don’t need to spend the rest of your summer repairing a rift because of one snarky remark that was taken the wrong way!

Lightness prevails once again during the last week of the month, when the Sun starts a monthlong visit to Virgo on August 23 and heats up your eleventh house of group activity, teamwork and technology. Step away from all that work stress and let your hair down. A brilliant moment to do that arrives on August 25, when a rare and harmonizing grand trine forms between the Virgo Sun, structured Saturn in your communication house and unconventional Uranus in your relationship sector. This is a golden moment for collaborations and meeting kindred spirits.

Now that Mercury retrograde is in the rearview, you could move powerfully ahead with a partnership, whether business or romantic. And you’ll do it on YOUR terms, as trailblazer Uranus and the bold Sun prompt you to follow your own authentic script rather than copy someone else’s. Solidifying Saturn helps you make things official and ensures that anything you embark on has integrity and the potential for longevity. Since Saturn and Uranus are both retrograde and oriented toward the past, this grand trine goodness could involve someone you’ve known for a long time or a surprisingly rich reunion with an old friend, colleague or even an ex. Maybe the second (or third) time around will be the charm!

The month ends with some well-deserved pleasure as the year’s only Pisces full moon heats up your fifth house of romance, passion and play on August 26. A budding romance could consummate, or you might find the spotlight shining directly on you. A pregnancy, or news of one, is possible with la luna in your fertility sector. You might just be ripe with inspiration: If you’ve been hiding your talents or working behind the scenes on a creative project, this full moon could mark your big debut. Lights, camera, Scorpio!

Love & Romance

Dream lover or just an illusion? On August 6, idealistic Venus enters Libra and your fantasy-laced twelfth house for the first of two trips this year. You may not be dealing with hard-boiled reality with the amorous planet here—not that this is a bad thing. Sometimes, it’s nice to put someone on a pedestal, as long as you can promise not to demonize them if they veer to the other extreme or fail to live up to any idealized standards you’ve set.

For some Scorpios, if you do take an unblinking look at life, you might be forced to acknowledge that a certain relationship is not the fairy tale you’d like it to be, and that to move forward, you will need to deal with a few key issues. If things slow down—or stop altogether—take time to assess the situation clearly, bearing in mind that it might take a while for the truth to come out. While you might not enjoy cleaning the smudges off those rose-colored Ray-Bans, the longevity of a relationship depends on striking the right balance between magic and matter-of-factness.

A good day to hash things out is August 7, the date of a rare, harmonizing Venus-Mars trine in some of the most sensitive parts of your chart. Forget about trying to control things; just keep an open mind and receptive heart. Let your love interest do most of the talking while you practice the art of active listening. Or, just reconnect through touch and allow the loving feelings to flow before you dive into a diatribe. Compassion is the magic ingredient now.

Mars has been retrograde since June 26 in Aquarius and your sentimental fourth house, churning up some strong emotions. You may have experienced intense mood swings or family drama, whether from meddling relatives or a needy and demanding child. Settling into your skin or feeling at home under your own roof has been hard during this stressful phase. On August 1, the red planet will back into Capricorn and your communication corner for the duration of the retrograde (through August 27). While things may simmer down at home, you could still have a short fuse and be argument-prone.

If you’ve been biting your tongue, you won’t be able to hold back from speaking your truth—but stay mindful because you could be extra combative and not the most benevolent person now. Single Scorpios might reconnect with an old friend and feel sexy sparks, but don’t rush into anything. A night or two of passion isn’t worth destroying a longtime bond over.

Key Dates

August 2: Mars-Uranus Square The second of three squares between these volatile planets (the first was May 16; the next is September 18) could send your temper through the roof. Watch for knee-jerk emotional reactions because they can destabilize a relationship and send people running for the hills. If you’re angry or hurt, find a healthy way to express it. Is it time to get serious about commitment…or starting a family? Maybe—but you certainly won’t take well to being backed into any corners today.

Money & Career

It’s a big month for your career, Scorpio, so don’t drift into that summer haze just yet. Opportunity could come knocking, and you don’t want to be asleep in a hammock when it does! The Sun is in Leo and your ambitious tenth house until August 23, and August 11 brings a catalyzing Leo solar eclipse. You might receive an offer out of the blue or have an epiphany about a key area of your career that you want to change. Whether you embark on a new project, scout other options or completely change your line of work, August could recalibrate your professional path.

One thing’s for sure: “Business as usual” won’t cut it anymore. With expansive Jupiter in Scorpio from October 10, 2017, until November 8, 2018, the stars have sent you on a radical reinvention tour this year, and you’ve been discovering new passions and interests. You may find that you simply can’t force yourself to soldier through some part of your job anymore—you’re just D-O-N-E, and there’s no more faking it! But summoning the courage to let go and try something new isn’t easy for most Scorpios, who like a baseline amount of control. You’ve been learning to leap without a parachute or safety net.

All that practice could pay off now as the Leo eclipse delivers an exciting chance to flaunt your expertise or leave a lasting mark on your industry. Rumors are swirling that iconic Scorpio fashion editor Anna Wintour will leave her hallowed post at Vogue after the September issue. The mere suggestion of that possibility has Jupiter and the eclipses’ fingerprints all over it!

But take any big career moves slowly, Scorpio, since mindful Mercury is retrograde in Leo from July 26 to August 19, which could delay decisions and scramble signals, especially at work. Since Mercury retrograde is notorious for foiling technology, back up your data and hold off on any major electronics upgrades until after this cycle. Most astrologers caution against signing contracts during Mercury retrograde because key details can slip past your attention. Even your eagle eye can miss ’em now, Scorpio, so have any binding documents reviewed by an attorney instead of rushing to sign on the dotted line.

Key Dates

August 10: Mercury-Jupiter Square Flattery will get ’em…everywhere? Someone could butter you up today, but watch out! They may have an ulterior motive. With retrograde Mercury butting heads with overconfident Jupiter in your sign, you might be a little too quick on the draw. Ask people to present you with a plan to back up their lofty visions. Check references—and if you’re the one pitching or applying for a job, make sure your social profiles and testimonials reflect your best work!

Love Days: 26, 4 Money Days: 11, 19 Luck Days: 9, 17 Off Days: 1, 6, 15

[robbiejohnsonyr3ax3021]

AX2001 - University - One Second a Week Project - Foley + Cut/ Scrapped ideas through out the project

In this post, I will be discussing the process of gathering the Foley for my one second a week project, as well as some cut ideas from both the one second of animation a week project & the character Mash-up project. I will begin with the process of how the Foley was gathered and what I was looking for and then discuss why certain ideas were cut in the final product.

 Gathering the Foley

 At the beginning of the project, I wanted to try and implement as much Foley of my own as possible, as I was unsure at the time if we were allowed to use any sound effects from the of the internet. I began with recreating simple sounds such as light switches, rumbling noises, etc. I recorded the Foley twice both on my portable microphone and with a microphone connect to my laptop, this was due to some sounds being hard to record with the entire laptop set up, or the quality of the portable microphone being uncertain with how good the quality of the sound the microphone was receiving would be.  Sound sounds I struggled to create or even create entirely such as the clanging of a rollercoaster or the sound of an airplane passing by.

I then asked my tutor what the restrictions/ guidelines were regarding the Foley for this project, he explained to me that due to this work not being made public, I was OK with using sound effects from the internet. He did remind me that earlier in the first year of the course, he posted a link to a sound effects library for us to use, so I opened the sound effects library and got to work implementing the Foley. A lot of the sounds from this sound library were used for this project, some even replacing the Foley I had made myself previously, however I struggled to find some pieces that worked for me such as background radio music from somewhere like a market stall/ shop. So, a small amount of Foley was gathered from websites such as “YouTube” to fill in these empty spaces. In the end a mixture of my own, the sound effects library and other sources were all implemented into the final piece.

Overall, gathering Foley was interesting not just because a lot of it was gathered from other source, but coming up with and finding ways to make my own Foley to fit different descriptions was fun. For example, using a ruler, having it hang over edge of a table and flicking made the sound that was originally going to be use for the diving board in the swimming pool piece.

(Final look of my timeline with all animations and Foley). 

Cut ideas/ content – Character Mash-Up

 Chibi-Robo

Whilst coming up with which characters to use, there were a lot of ideas for what characters to use with different designs, when choosing the third character for my character mash-up I almost went with Chibi-Robo. Chibi-Robo is a Nintendo franchise starring a small robot with a plug attached to it, there were a few games in the series, and I thought his design seemed like it would be quite fun to create.

However, the reason Chibi-Robo was cut was due to the range of his design when mashing it with “Chowder”, as most characters in the show have clothing and within that clothing a drawn pattern/ design within. With Chibi-Robo being a Robot, I was unsure how to integrate his design with the Chowder look as he was near enough a completely silver character. Whilst trying to come up with how to achieve this look, I came across “Professor Layton” and felt his design would be a better fit, so I abandoned the idea of using Chibi-Robo.

 Kirby

Whilst coming up with my second character, I had the idea to try and incorporate video game characters into my work, thus came along the idea of using the character Kirby from the Nintendo franchise “Kirby”. Kirby is a circular character with two flat feet, two nubs for arms and two oval shaped eyes, this was one of Nintendo’s more known franchise in its catalogue of characters.

The reason Kirby was cut was due to his similarities in his character structure/ design as my previously character mashed character Mike Wazowski. Both characters feature round bodies with their facial features in the middle with their arms and legs coming out from their body’s/ heads. I felt doing Kirby, would have felt too similar to make the design for Mike, that it would give my work enough variety in character designs, I then came across the idea of mashing up “Darkwing Duck” instead and Kirby was scrapped for the mash-up.

 Dr Nefarious

Around the time of creating my third character for my character mash-up I almost considered trying to create the character DR Nefarious from the PlayStation franchise “Ratchet & Clank”. DR Nefarious is a re-occurring antagonist in the series who has a lot of goofy quirks to his character as well as an interesting design with quite a lot of details with his design such as gears and antennas in his glass head.

The story for not including him was the same as Chibi-Robo I was unsure how to implement a metal pattern into Nefarious’s design as he is a robot. Not only this, but he does feature quite a lot of mixed and blended colours so at first trying to figure out where the pattern would go would be difficult. I left the idea of using DR Nefarious and went to Chibi-Robo, who was then switched again for “Professor Layton.

  Cut ideas/ content – One Second a Week Animation

 Teeing Off (Opening golf piece) Alternate angle

At the start of the project, I created Teeing Off, but the final look is quite different to the original. The original piece had the camera placed to the side of the player, where we could see his entire body as well as how far away the hole was from his position. This version also had the player shimmy his legs back and forth, to show him warming up to take his shot whilst clouds moved in the background.

The reason this piece was cut was due to two reasons, the first being that I felt like I could not quite get the animation right with the players legs, as he appears to jitter in place than warm up, as well as his ankles morphing sizes as the legs moved. The second reason for its exclusion was because I felt that the shot seemed lacking without any major actions occurring, I felt that it would be more satisfying to watch the player hit the ball, I was going to try this at first with this angle, but I struggled to re-create the arm movement of a full swing. So, in the end this was cut and a close up of the golf ball being hit was created instead.

Teeing Off Ending

In the original version of my project, I had it begin with the golf ball being hit by the golf club, but that was not all, as the final second of the project would have had the ball roll into the hole. I liked the idea of this, as it felt like I had created two book ends of sorts, a beginning and an end representing the entire piece. This piece was also entirely animated with a mixture of in twos and using Pegs.

The reason for this piece’s exclusion from the final piece was after consulting my tutor about the piece. I was aware from the brief that each second had to be very different, but in the reference video we were provided with (Link to that clip on YouTube below), they had one or two occasions where one piece would continue a little bit later. After discussing this with my tutor he explained how it maybe best that I remove this piece due to each second needing to be different. Luckily, I still had enough pieces to reach the minimum time for the project (being at least 15 seconds), so not too much harm was done to the project from this decision.

 Shifty Snakes (Concept)

During the development and brainstorming phase of my project, I once seemed fixed on the idea of including an animated piece centred around snakes. The idea for this piece came from be seeing animal whilst watching the Dream Works animated film “Madagascar”, where in one scene the character Alex gets hit by a tranquiliser dart, the result of this causes him to have a brief hypnotic state. During this sequence, we see the other characters skins mesh and expand across the screen, and this reminded me of snake skinned products and thus the idea was born.

The reason this piece didn’t make it out of the brainstorming phase was due to me not feeling confident enough to have a continues snake themed pattern scrolling across the screen. I felt that if I were to attempt this the patterns would become clunky and overall, not too recognisable, and just a bunch of blobs on the screen. At the time I was also planning on creating the swimming pool piece and in the end that idea ended up in development over this idea and the snakes idea was abandoned.

Extra/ Unused Images for this post