Screaming Crying Throwing Up
Oct. 11th, 2025 06:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hat_writes_stuffTitle: Screaming Crying Throwing Up
Author: Almighty Hat
Fandom: Transformers Mystic Tales AU
Characters: Shockwave, Blurr, a little Jazz, a little Whirl, a little Cyclonus, a couple OCs, a lot of nonsense
Word Count: 1,761
Rating: G
Pairing(s): Shockwave/Blurr, Jazz/Prowl (implied)
Warnings: Standard Spellbound Suicidal Ideation Warning, also this is a hot ridiculous mess because Sentinel showed up and the plot rolled faster and I had a lot of feelings about it
Author's Notes: For Keferon, for Celaeno, and for everyone who has left me a comment similar to the title.
As with all my Spellbound fics, TW for suicide references (it doesn't happen but it's an underlying threat/plot), but Mimics and Monster Hunters are related stories in the same setting that might be safer, if suicide and assisted suicide aren't your bag today.
This is not a fic, exactly, more like a collection of sketches. It is current to this update, despite that there are two more updates that have me gnashing my teeth.
There are more notes coming at the end.
Summary: Six potential endings to Keferon's Spellbound AU that I probably won't write.
Unless I have to.
1. Whirl
Somewhere along the way, Shockwave and Blurr encounter Cyclonus, Tailgate, Whirl... and Whirl Junior. Something is off about that sparkling, but it's hard to tell what. And she's Whirl's. Adopted, he happily tells his fellow demon. Far as he knows, demons can't make offspring like beastformers do. (Hey. Hey. How did Drift grow. Why did he need to be taught to talk. Hey. Hey. I have questions. They're not important but I want that lore. Anyway.) Whirl is on a Quest, he's going back to the place he became a demon, where he was on trial for. Something he can't remember. He needs to know what it was, how to make amends for it, so he can pray and pray for Primus to reverse this so he doesn't have to rely on teaching his kid to summon him in order to keep her safe.
Blurr and Shockwave both feel some kind of way about this.
Later they overhear Cyclonus and Tailgate.
"We should really tell him."
"That it wasn't Primus? That it couldn't have been? He knows."
"... He knows? Then why--"
"Because he isn't wrong that he can't properly parent her as my summoning, and-- perhaps the mechs who did this to him can undo it. If so, he must seem completely sincere in his desire to redeem himself."
"I guess if it doesn't work out, we can just burn the whole place down."
"Junior and I had something a little more hands-on planned, but yes. Oh yes."
2. Jazz
"They took your mech, huh?" he asks, with Blurr's voice, but not Blurr's inflection, not Blurr's excitable speed. "They broke mine. But if you've got your memory, like you say, maybe you can help me with that. You help me fix what they did to my mech, I'll help you save yours."
3. Get Mad
Paraded in front of a captive Blurr as a combination carrot and stick, Shockwave is aghast that the council, or the one council member trying to question Blurr, implies that the wrath of Primus can be directed.
Shockwave has a magic juice bottle full of Predacon fire and another with distilled essence of infrasound, here to crack sparks like crystal wineglasses exposed to high notes.
"When life gives you lemons," said Cave Johnson, because the Portal AU is still a thing of beauty, "don't make lemonade. Get mad. Burn life's house down. With the lemons."
Heroic option, Shockwave gives up his Death Bringer Cocktail to save Blurr, himself, and the fucking Matrix from the Council; tragic option, with some sign of consent from Blurr, he uses them to absoltely wreck all of it, himself and Blurr and the Matrix and every spark in storage and all the records of everything included.
Rung gets his original full power back with the Matrix death bringer'd, in that case. And he fucking fixes Whirl at a bare minimum, whether that includes restoring him to his previous state or just emancipating him from slavery, he does that. Shockwave may want a downer ending for himself, but he's not the only demon who deserves his freedom in this AU.
4. The Last Temptation of Bearskin
Blurr spends money like water, and Shockwave finally asks if he isn't ever worried about his budget. They never go to Blurr's home to get more, after all.
"It's fine," Blurr says. "I always have money."
"Not with that attitude, you won't," Shockwave grouses.
But the money never seems to run out, although Blurr does occasionally make very odd decisions-- he'll overpay to let them sleep in an inn, sometimes, but only for one night. He's never told Shockwave where they're going, never asked to look at the map Shockwave has been annotating, but they're always on the move. And-- it isn't something Blurr does, but whenever anyone recognizes him, in a town or city, it's always with a comment on how very long it's been since they've seen him.
Eventually he asks.
"How much money do you have left for this trip? If you're going to insist on spending so much of it on me, I should at least help you budget."
"I have enough," Blurr promises. "You don't need to worry about money."
"... Blurr, you may be wealthier than I thought, but you can't possibly be carrying an infinite amount of money." Not unless the methods mortal mechs use to carry things has drastically changed since Shockwave's... trial.
"Would you believe I made a deal with a fallen Prime?" Blurr says, sly and grinning, and Shockwave feels his mood sour.
"Don't joke about things like that. I don't know how far is too far." Shockwave may have given up on Primus, but Blurr is alive, likely to stay alive, and to remain under Primus's power.
So, yeah, Blurr has made some sort of Bearskin/The Devil's Sooty Brother deal with Some Entity, possibly The Fallen, for Rewards, which are probably love and money. (Yes, yes he is Regretting.) For seven [units of Cybertronian time, possibly vorns], Blurr will always have as much money as he reaches for, but he can't recharge twice in the same structure. He can respond to anyone, and approach people for buy-something reasons, but he can't seek out another living mechanism for company. And he must never pray, not even silently, to Primus. If he succeeds, he'll know love like he's never known before, and always have as much money as he reaches for, and something something third thing? If he fails, whoever he made the deal with gets his spark, possibly to eat.
Happy option, Blurr makes it to the end of his deal and some Terrifying Being appears before him to praise him for his efforts, confirm Blurr's rewards, and leave Shockwave with the realization that Blurr cannot be left unsupervised because he makes the worst, riskiest, stupidest decisions, no wonder he's never worried that associating with Shockwave might taint him in Primus's optics.
Sad option, Shockwave takes his way out, and Blurr builds a little lean-to next to whatever remains of his body, and recharges there, twice in a row. The Thing he bargained with comes for him gently enough, and Blurr explains, "If he's not in the Allspark, I don't want to go there, either."
Adventure option, somewhere in the middle, Blurr is captured and has to order Shockwave to get him out by any means necessary before he can doze off again, and after that rescue, we get the 'why would you make that bargain, I clearly don't get to die ever, someone has to look out for you' thing.
5. Hot Swap
It's Shockwave who's captured, and although he can stand the pain of what's been done to him, it's.
Bad.
Someone wanted to learn how demons work, and stripped him apart, somehow, carved into him with strange tools, pared away the demonic shell to reveal the struggling crushed nearly-dying mech inside, rusted and rotting, wings mangled. Blurr plays Big Damn Hero, and manages to save the actually-important parts of Shockwave-- his spark goes in one of those lantern things, and Blurr grabs the backup drive Skids made for him, too.
After that?
All Blurr needs is an uninhabited body.
Ideally with wings.
6. In 2006, I Made An OC, And That Bitch Has Opinions
Blackmist made a noise of badly-strangled frustration, and thunked his head into his history datatrax.
"Are the people who died a thousand vorns ago being stupid again?" Farflight asked, without much sympathy.
"Argh," Blackmist said, emphatically.
"What is it this time? 'All flyers are witches, on account of having T-cogs and wings and being too darned sexy as compared to pitiful, pious grounders'?" Farflight waggled his eyebrows, and his brown seahawk's wings.
"I'm not that far back in history," Blackmist said, flicking his own gloss-black wings back at Farflight dismissively. "No, this is Senator Shockwave and Sir Blurr. They were both supposed to be so clever, so highly educated-- but neither of them seems to know a damned thing about reading signs and portents!"
"... Signs and-- hardly anybody in those days knew being a demon wasn't a particularly nasty show of Primus's disdain, go easy on them."
"Not that!" Blackmist said, waving a hand in a way that reminded Farflight of the time Blackmist had insisted one of the professors was having an affair with not just one but a minimum of three students, based on some really flimsy evidence and 'vibes.' "Not exactly that. But Shockwave-- Senator Shockwave, Academy Founder Shockwave, one of history's great reformers came through demonization with his memory intact--"
"Because Professor Skids made him a backup drive--"
"Because Professor Skids made him a backup drive. One that shouldn't have lasted so long, but Shockwave used it as a teaching tool. For all his slightly-more-than-baseline students." Blackmist looked at Farflight, expectantly.
"... I don't read signs and portents, either, Blackmist," he pointed out. "I use you for that."
"Others could carry on Shockwave's work with so-called monsters and witches, over the vorns," Blackmist said, "and they did. They changed the world, in Shockwave's name, in his image. But alone among demons, Shockwave remembered, and he remembered because he taught. I-- I just--" Blackmist stared down at the datapad. "Was he too close to it to see that destiny wanted him to do the same for demons? To teach them, to give them the skills and knowledge to be seen as people by those perceptive, empathetic enough to take a second look? Was Sir Blurr doing that very thing for Shockwave himself not another, bolder sign? Fate was calling, couldn't they hear?"
"They had other stuff going on. Trauma, for one thing," Farflight reminded. "The slag Sentinel and his crankshaft cronies put demons through sucked. Cut the guy some slack in not noticing his apparent mission from Primus."
"If I meant to invoke Primus, I would have invoked him," Blackmist said, primly.
"... oh boy, a little light blasphemy. All right, you tell me, if not Primus, who's handing out signs and portents and callings and whatever?" This would be good. Blackmist spent a lot of time doing things like 'soaking' various types of crystals in various kinds of light, arranging them in geometric patterns, and trying to engineer specific emotions like you could pick up from being inside another mech's EM field.
"Destiny. Fate. Primus is a creation deity. What does that have to do with destiny?"
"I will buy you drinks for a decacycle if you say that to a bunch of theology students."
ORIGINAL END NOTES: (I think I had to pare these down for AO3.) Okay let me first of all say that I am looking forward to Spellbound conclusions. Honest! I do not want a tragic ending, but as long as it's satisfying, I'm all good. And possibly writing 'but there are so many other narrative places--' because that's how my brain rolls, but if it's satisfying enough, that might not happen? Won't know until we get there.
But one of the things I, me, personally, feel I need from this narrative in order to be truly satisfied? Is for Shockwave to not die thinking Primus hates him.
If he finds out this was people and not gods and still wants to die for reasons, okay! Well, tragic, but understandable, he's been through a lot of shit. But not for the no-reason reason of 'Primus hates me and I want to break up with him and it's really hard to be an atheist when I believe I'm proof of God's Disdain.'
So. Why THESE scenarios?
1. Whirl: If I can find any way to shove Whirl Junior into an AU, I will do it. Also, Shockwave is not, in point of fact, the only demon who, uh. Doesn't deserve that. Because wasn't that the point of empurata in IDW (of branding, of maiming, of cutting the hands off of thieves, of hobbling slaves), that nobody deserves that? That no person deserves to be marked as Not Really A Whole Person Anymore? (Maybe a little bit that you need two hands to open a/the Matrix, but that's beside the point.) Whirl doesn't deserve it. Damus doesn't deserve it. Stepper was framed and certainly didn't deserve that. No one deserves to be judicially disfigured, and no one deserves to be fucking enslaved, and if anything happens to Cyclonus (who Whirl Junior also loves), Whirl will get un-summoned (passed on to the next summoner immediately somehow? I'm not sure how that works? Or is there rest in between for everybody but Shockwave, cos Sentinel is spamming his summoning spell just in case he picks up?), and Junior will be down two of the people she loves and trusts and this is how you get a scraplet collective grieving, and deciding to eat her feelings.
And an awful lot of people.
2. Jazz: SENTINEL IS STILL ALIVE BY THE TIME OF SPELLBOUND. This means however Spellbound ends? Mimics also necessarily has a goddamn downer ending. Jazz and Prowl do not successfully stop Sentinel. I am sure this is for a very valid narrative reason such as 'Shockwave deserves to tear him in half with his big meaty demon claws, for the catharsis and possibly to retrieve the Matrix from a deeply unworthy bearer' but I am so mad about it. I could chew nails and spit out staples. Orion Pax died for his beliefs sometime between Mimics and Spellbound and he didn't even manage to take Sentinel with him!
Feed him to the sharkticons! Bisect him lengthwise! Scraplets! Cosmic rust! Dump him into the Rescue Bots universe, where narrative causality and a younger audience set mean the worst he can do is run for mayor of Griffin Rock and lose, badly, to a plump human in a bad toupee!
3. Get Mad: Is Cave Johnson in any way a role model? No. No he is not. Asbestos keeps the rats away and moon rocks are pure poison. But Shockwave has two Molotov cocktails of guaranteed DECEASED on him, and honestly, a source for more bottles. Wouldn't it be nice to share with Sentinel, Shockwave?
Oh, and. Rung. Rung is technically in the Mimics AU by way of the Monster Hunter AU, but I find it is important to note that, while I get him, and the idea of a creator-deity who never asked for all this other veneration and just wants to get back to playing Sim Earth and Spore, and I see what Keferon is trying to do with him, including narrative parallels between Shockwave and Orion and Rung and Prima and Shockwave and Blurr, and it makes good sense but I just. He's so. PUT THE EXCUSES DOWN, RUNG. I'm so glad we got the lore drop, but all he needed to do was say, "I'm sorry, the Senate tried to turn me into a demon, and when that didn't work, they ripped my spark out and put it on a very high shelf and dumped my shell in a random field. I'm not getting anywhere near any of that. Oh, yeah, no, they're also using the Matrix to demonize people, sorry for making you conclude that on your own, Prowl. Good luck bringing down your government!" Whirl is right there, you dipstick. You don't have to join their quest, but all Jazz and Prowl actually came to you for was information they thought they could get out of a mortal mechanism.
(I watched G1 as a very young child, or so my mother tells me. I remember watching Beast Wars as a very young adult, a beautiful robot soap opera that filled the gap Gargoyles left in my TV viewing needs. Thus my first conscious exposure to the concepts of G1, and therefore all the canons that borrow parts of it, was Insecticomics. I may join Wayward, many years late, in the Church of Primus Is A Bastard. And that's where he isn't just a creator deity.)
4. Bearskin: "Blurr! It's been so long since I saw you!" exclaims Windblade. "Blur~ Long time, no see, mech," Swindle purrs. This thing right here. The money Blurr drops on drinks and healing potions and who knows what else. I hope we get some lore so I don't have to make up my own.
5. Hot Swap: So my desktop computer is sixteen years old, running Windows Vista, and to upgrade to Linux I need a spare hard drive because installing Linux involves a wipe/reformatting (reasonably), but it can't be over 2tb because Vista can't read that, so I have to both get a smaller hard drive AND wait until I upgrade to get the BIGGER hard drive I long for, and I may as well get the last two gigs of RAM my motherboard can support, since I've already had to replace the old monitor (backlight died, fixable if you know how to use a soldering iron, which I don't) and upgraded power supply (sister's husband couldn't figure out which fuse he blew and kept cycling through them), but no matter what changes I make, what parts I update (... you know, belatedly) and what new programs I have to learn, as long as I have my files and my bookmarks and my various chatlogs, it's still my computer. And if you've got the memory and the spark, it's not like that's anywhere near the first time 'let's just get you a whole new frame' has happened to a Transformer.
It's worth a shot! It would hide him from Sentinel, who deserves to step on many many Legos!
6. In 2006, I Made An OC, And That Bitch Has Opinions: Blackmist is mine; his name came from Koilungfish's Seeker Name Generator, and his personality was initially a spin on the then-current-joke of the Sensitive New Age Decepticon/Predacon, cos I said, "Well, what if I took New Age to mean not 'into respecting others and talking out problems' but 'thinks quartz crystals are magic and everything happens for a reason'? and I still have the little goth bastard. Farflight is Celaneo's-- name from the same generator, she felt the Decepticons needed a sniper due to the Autobots having Bluestreak. Farflight and Blackmist are batchmates who started off as G1 seekers (Blackmist black and deep blue, Farflight brown, white, and teal/turqoise) who reformatted, in the Beast Era, to a raven and an osprey, respectively. Here they are beastformers and some kind of college students, I guess. They will probably steal anyone's lunch.
Blackmist and Farflight get a special guest appearance because I read that update with Skids having made the forehead decoration thing and my goddamn nineteen year old RP character started going yelling at me. Like that red string conspiracy It's Always Sunny meme but with double-terminated quartz crystals and "WHERE ARE MY DIVINATION TOOLS let me do a card reading for him--" happening also.
Please feel free to scream and yell in the comments with me. I don't have a tumblr, which prevents me from being a terrible nuisance to Keferon directly.
Author: Almighty Hat
Fandom: Transformers Mystic Tales AU
Characters: Shockwave, Blurr, a little Jazz, a little Whirl, a little Cyclonus, a couple OCs, a lot of nonsense
Word Count: 1,761
Rating: G
Pairing(s): Shockwave/Blurr, Jazz/Prowl (implied)
Warnings: Standard Spellbound Suicidal Ideation Warning, also this is a hot ridiculous mess because Sentinel showed up and the plot rolled faster and I had a lot of feelings about it
Author's Notes: For Keferon, for Celaeno, and for everyone who has left me a comment similar to the title.
As with all my Spellbound fics, TW for suicide references (it doesn't happen but it's an underlying threat/plot), but Mimics and Monster Hunters are related stories in the same setting that might be safer, if suicide and assisted suicide aren't your bag today.
This is not a fic, exactly, more like a collection of sketches. It is current to this update, despite that there are two more updates that have me gnashing my teeth.
There are more notes coming at the end.
Summary: Six potential endings to Keferon's Spellbound AU that I probably won't write.
Unless I have to.
1. Whirl
Somewhere along the way, Shockwave and Blurr encounter Cyclonus, Tailgate, Whirl... and Whirl Junior. Something is off about that sparkling, but it's hard to tell what. And she's Whirl's. Adopted, he happily tells his fellow demon. Far as he knows, demons can't make offspring like beastformers do. (Hey. Hey. How did Drift grow. Why did he need to be taught to talk. Hey. Hey. I have questions. They're not important but I want that lore. Anyway.) Whirl is on a Quest, he's going back to the place he became a demon, where he was on trial for. Something he can't remember. He needs to know what it was, how to make amends for it, so he can pray and pray for Primus to reverse this so he doesn't have to rely on teaching his kid to summon him in order to keep her safe.
Blurr and Shockwave both feel some kind of way about this.
Later they overhear Cyclonus and Tailgate.
"We should really tell him."
"That it wasn't Primus? That it couldn't have been? He knows."
"... He knows? Then why--"
"Because he isn't wrong that he can't properly parent her as my summoning, and-- perhaps the mechs who did this to him can undo it. If so, he must seem completely sincere in his desire to redeem himself."
"I guess if it doesn't work out, we can just burn the whole place down."
"Junior and I had something a little more hands-on planned, but yes. Oh yes."
2. Jazz
"They took your mech, huh?" he asks, with Blurr's voice, but not Blurr's inflection, not Blurr's excitable speed. "They broke mine. But if you've got your memory, like you say, maybe you can help me with that. You help me fix what they did to my mech, I'll help you save yours."
3. Get Mad
Paraded in front of a captive Blurr as a combination carrot and stick, Shockwave is aghast that the council, or the one council member trying to question Blurr, implies that the wrath of Primus can be directed.
Shockwave has a magic juice bottle full of Predacon fire and another with distilled essence of infrasound, here to crack sparks like crystal wineglasses exposed to high notes.
"When life gives you lemons," said Cave Johnson, because the Portal AU is still a thing of beauty, "don't make lemonade. Get mad. Burn life's house down. With the lemons."
Heroic option, Shockwave gives up his Death Bringer Cocktail to save Blurr, himself, and the fucking Matrix from the Council; tragic option, with some sign of consent from Blurr, he uses them to absoltely wreck all of it, himself and Blurr and the Matrix and every spark in storage and all the records of everything included.
Rung gets his original full power back with the Matrix death bringer'd, in that case. And he fucking fixes Whirl at a bare minimum, whether that includes restoring him to his previous state or just emancipating him from slavery, he does that. Shockwave may want a downer ending for himself, but he's not the only demon who deserves his freedom in this AU.
4. The Last Temptation of Bearskin
Blurr spends money like water, and Shockwave finally asks if he isn't ever worried about his budget. They never go to Blurr's home to get more, after all.
"It's fine," Blurr says. "I always have money."
"Not with that attitude, you won't," Shockwave grouses.
But the money never seems to run out, although Blurr does occasionally make very odd decisions-- he'll overpay to let them sleep in an inn, sometimes, but only for one night. He's never told Shockwave where they're going, never asked to look at the map Shockwave has been annotating, but they're always on the move. And-- it isn't something Blurr does, but whenever anyone recognizes him, in a town or city, it's always with a comment on how very long it's been since they've seen him.
Eventually he asks.
"How much money do you have left for this trip? If you're going to insist on spending so much of it on me, I should at least help you budget."
"I have enough," Blurr promises. "You don't need to worry about money."
"... Blurr, you may be wealthier than I thought, but you can't possibly be carrying an infinite amount of money." Not unless the methods mortal mechs use to carry things has drastically changed since Shockwave's... trial.
"Would you believe I made a deal with a fallen Prime?" Blurr says, sly and grinning, and Shockwave feels his mood sour.
"Don't joke about things like that. I don't know how far is too far." Shockwave may have given up on Primus, but Blurr is alive, likely to stay alive, and to remain under Primus's power.
So, yeah, Blurr has made some sort of Bearskin/The Devil's Sooty Brother deal with Some Entity, possibly The Fallen, for Rewards, which are probably love and money. (Yes, yes he is Regretting.) For seven [units of Cybertronian time, possibly vorns], Blurr will always have as much money as he reaches for, but he can't recharge twice in the same structure. He can respond to anyone, and approach people for buy-something reasons, but he can't seek out another living mechanism for company. And he must never pray, not even silently, to Primus. If he succeeds, he'll know love like he's never known before, and always have as much money as he reaches for, and something something third thing? If he fails, whoever he made the deal with gets his spark, possibly to eat.
Happy option, Blurr makes it to the end of his deal and some Terrifying Being appears before him to praise him for his efforts, confirm Blurr's rewards, and leave Shockwave with the realization that Blurr cannot be left unsupervised because he makes the worst, riskiest, stupidest decisions, no wonder he's never worried that associating with Shockwave might taint him in Primus's optics.
Sad option, Shockwave takes his way out, and Blurr builds a little lean-to next to whatever remains of his body, and recharges there, twice in a row. The Thing he bargained with comes for him gently enough, and Blurr explains, "If he's not in the Allspark, I don't want to go there, either."
Adventure option, somewhere in the middle, Blurr is captured and has to order Shockwave to get him out by any means necessary before he can doze off again, and after that rescue, we get the 'why would you make that bargain, I clearly don't get to die ever, someone has to look out for you' thing.
5. Hot Swap
It's Shockwave who's captured, and although he can stand the pain of what's been done to him, it's.
Bad.
Someone wanted to learn how demons work, and stripped him apart, somehow, carved into him with strange tools, pared away the demonic shell to reveal the struggling crushed nearly-dying mech inside, rusted and rotting, wings mangled. Blurr plays Big Damn Hero, and manages to save the actually-important parts of Shockwave-- his spark goes in one of those lantern things, and Blurr grabs the backup drive Skids made for him, too.
After that?
All Blurr needs is an uninhabited body.
Ideally with wings.
6. In 2006, I Made An OC, And That Bitch Has Opinions
Blackmist made a noise of badly-strangled frustration, and thunked his head into his history datatrax.
"Are the people who died a thousand vorns ago being stupid again?" Farflight asked, without much sympathy.
"Argh," Blackmist said, emphatically.
"What is it this time? 'All flyers are witches, on account of having T-cogs and wings and being too darned sexy as compared to pitiful, pious grounders'?" Farflight waggled his eyebrows, and his brown seahawk's wings.
"I'm not that far back in history," Blackmist said, flicking his own gloss-black wings back at Farflight dismissively. "No, this is Senator Shockwave and Sir Blurr. They were both supposed to be so clever, so highly educated-- but neither of them seems to know a damned thing about reading signs and portents!"
"... Signs and-- hardly anybody in those days knew being a demon wasn't a particularly nasty show of Primus's disdain, go easy on them."
"Not that!" Blackmist said, waving a hand in a way that reminded Farflight of the time Blackmist had insisted one of the professors was having an affair with not just one but a minimum of three students, based on some really flimsy evidence and 'vibes.' "Not exactly that. But Shockwave-- Senator Shockwave, Academy Founder Shockwave, one of history's great reformers came through demonization with his memory intact--"
"Because Professor Skids made him a backup drive--"
"Because Professor Skids made him a backup drive. One that shouldn't have lasted so long, but Shockwave used it as a teaching tool. For all his slightly-more-than-baseline students." Blackmist looked at Farflight, expectantly.
"... I don't read signs and portents, either, Blackmist," he pointed out. "I use you for that."
"Others could carry on Shockwave's work with so-called monsters and witches, over the vorns," Blackmist said, "and they did. They changed the world, in Shockwave's name, in his image. But alone among demons, Shockwave remembered, and he remembered because he taught. I-- I just--" Blackmist stared down at the datapad. "Was he too close to it to see that destiny wanted him to do the same for demons? To teach them, to give them the skills and knowledge to be seen as people by those perceptive, empathetic enough to take a second look? Was Sir Blurr doing that very thing for Shockwave himself not another, bolder sign? Fate was calling, couldn't they hear?"
"They had other stuff going on. Trauma, for one thing," Farflight reminded. "The slag Sentinel and his crankshaft cronies put demons through sucked. Cut the guy some slack in not noticing his apparent mission from Primus."
"If I meant to invoke Primus, I would have invoked him," Blackmist said, primly.
"... oh boy, a little light blasphemy. All right, you tell me, if not Primus, who's handing out signs and portents and callings and whatever?" This would be good. Blackmist spent a lot of time doing things like 'soaking' various types of crystals in various kinds of light, arranging them in geometric patterns, and trying to engineer specific emotions like you could pick up from being inside another mech's EM field.
"Destiny. Fate. Primus is a creation deity. What does that have to do with destiny?"
"I will buy you drinks for a decacycle if you say that to a bunch of theology students."
ORIGINAL END NOTES: (I think I had to pare these down for AO3.) Okay let me first of all say that I am looking forward to Spellbound conclusions. Honest! I do not want a tragic ending, but as long as it's satisfying, I'm all good. And possibly writing 'but there are so many other narrative places--' because that's how my brain rolls, but if it's satisfying enough, that might not happen? Won't know until we get there.
But one of the things I, me, personally, feel I need from this narrative in order to be truly satisfied? Is for Shockwave to not die thinking Primus hates him.
If he finds out this was people and not gods and still wants to die for reasons, okay! Well, tragic, but understandable, he's been through a lot of shit. But not for the no-reason reason of 'Primus hates me and I want to break up with him and it's really hard to be an atheist when I believe I'm proof of God's Disdain.'
So. Why THESE scenarios?
1. Whirl: If I can find any way to shove Whirl Junior into an AU, I will do it. Also, Shockwave is not, in point of fact, the only demon who, uh. Doesn't deserve that. Because wasn't that the point of empurata in IDW (of branding, of maiming, of cutting the hands off of thieves, of hobbling slaves), that nobody deserves that? That no person deserves to be marked as Not Really A Whole Person Anymore? (Maybe a little bit that you need two hands to open a/the Matrix, but that's beside the point.) Whirl doesn't deserve it. Damus doesn't deserve it. Stepper was framed and certainly didn't deserve that. No one deserves to be judicially disfigured, and no one deserves to be fucking enslaved, and if anything happens to Cyclonus (who Whirl Junior also loves), Whirl will get un-summoned (passed on to the next summoner immediately somehow? I'm not sure how that works? Or is there rest in between for everybody but Shockwave, cos Sentinel is spamming his summoning spell just in case he picks up?), and Junior will be down two of the people she loves and trusts and this is how you get a scraplet collective grieving, and deciding to eat her feelings.
And an awful lot of people.
2. Jazz: SENTINEL IS STILL ALIVE BY THE TIME OF SPELLBOUND. This means however Spellbound ends? Mimics also necessarily has a goddamn downer ending. Jazz and Prowl do not successfully stop Sentinel. I am sure this is for a very valid narrative reason such as 'Shockwave deserves to tear him in half with his big meaty demon claws, for the catharsis and possibly to retrieve the Matrix from a deeply unworthy bearer' but I am so mad about it. I could chew nails and spit out staples. Orion Pax died for his beliefs sometime between Mimics and Spellbound and he didn't even manage to take Sentinel with him!
Feed him to the sharkticons! Bisect him lengthwise! Scraplets! Cosmic rust! Dump him into the Rescue Bots universe, where narrative causality and a younger audience set mean the worst he can do is run for mayor of Griffin Rock and lose, badly, to a plump human in a bad toupee!
3. Get Mad: Is Cave Johnson in any way a role model? No. No he is not. Asbestos keeps the rats away and moon rocks are pure poison. But Shockwave has two Molotov cocktails of guaranteed DECEASED on him, and honestly, a source for more bottles. Wouldn't it be nice to share with Sentinel, Shockwave?
Oh, and. Rung. Rung is technically in the Mimics AU by way of the Monster Hunter AU, but I find it is important to note that, while I get him, and the idea of a creator-deity who never asked for all this other veneration and just wants to get back to playing Sim Earth and Spore, and I see what Keferon is trying to do with him, including narrative parallels between Shockwave and Orion and Rung and Prima and Shockwave and Blurr, and it makes good sense but I just. He's so. PUT THE EXCUSES DOWN, RUNG. I'm so glad we got the lore drop, but all he needed to do was say, "I'm sorry, the Senate tried to turn me into a demon, and when that didn't work, they ripped my spark out and put it on a very high shelf and dumped my shell in a random field. I'm not getting anywhere near any of that. Oh, yeah, no, they're also using the Matrix to demonize people, sorry for making you conclude that on your own, Prowl. Good luck bringing down your government!" Whirl is right there, you dipstick. You don't have to join their quest, but all Jazz and Prowl actually came to you for was information they thought they could get out of a mortal mechanism.
(I watched G1 as a very young child, or so my mother tells me. I remember watching Beast Wars as a very young adult, a beautiful robot soap opera that filled the gap Gargoyles left in my TV viewing needs. Thus my first conscious exposure to the concepts of G1, and therefore all the canons that borrow parts of it, was Insecticomics. I may join Wayward, many years late, in the Church of Primus Is A Bastard. And that's where he isn't just a creator deity.)
4. Bearskin: "Blurr! It's been so long since I saw you!" exclaims Windblade. "Blur~ Long time, no see, mech," Swindle purrs. This thing right here. The money Blurr drops on drinks and healing potions and who knows what else. I hope we get some lore so I don't have to make up my own.
5. Hot Swap: So my desktop computer is sixteen years old, running Windows Vista, and to upgrade to Linux I need a spare hard drive because installing Linux involves a wipe/reformatting (reasonably), but it can't be over 2tb because Vista can't read that, so I have to both get a smaller hard drive AND wait until I upgrade to get the BIGGER hard drive I long for, and I may as well get the last two gigs of RAM my motherboard can support, since I've already had to replace the old monitor (backlight died, fixable if you know how to use a soldering iron, which I don't) and upgraded power supply (sister's husband couldn't figure out which fuse he blew and kept cycling through them), but no matter what changes I make, what parts I update (... you know, belatedly) and what new programs I have to learn, as long as I have my files and my bookmarks and my various chatlogs, it's still my computer. And if you've got the memory and the spark, it's not like that's anywhere near the first time 'let's just get you a whole new frame' has happened to a Transformer.
It's worth a shot! It would hide him from Sentinel, who deserves to step on many many Legos!
6. In 2006, I Made An OC, And That Bitch Has Opinions: Blackmist is mine; his name came from Koilungfish's Seeker Name Generator, and his personality was initially a spin on the then-current-joke of the Sensitive New Age Decepticon/Predacon, cos I said, "Well, what if I took New Age to mean not 'into respecting others and talking out problems' but 'thinks quartz crystals are magic and everything happens for a reason'? and I still have the little goth bastard. Farflight is Celaneo's-- name from the same generator, she felt the Decepticons needed a sniper due to the Autobots having Bluestreak. Farflight and Blackmist are batchmates who started off as G1 seekers (Blackmist black and deep blue, Farflight brown, white, and teal/turqoise) who reformatted, in the Beast Era, to a raven and an osprey, respectively. Here they are beastformers and some kind of college students, I guess. They will probably steal anyone's lunch.
Blackmist and Farflight get a special guest appearance because I read that update with Skids having made the forehead decoration thing and my goddamn nineteen year old RP character started going yelling at me. Like that red string conspiracy It's Always Sunny meme but with double-terminated quartz crystals and "WHERE ARE MY DIVINATION TOOLS let me do a card reading for him--" happening also.
Please feel free to scream and yell in the comments with me. I don't have a tumblr, which prevents me from being a terrible nuisance to Keferon directly.
