As he watched, more lights flicked on—floodlights and glittering fountains and flashing billboards, holograms and windows and most amazing of all, channels of energy that just seemed to pour in circles around and over and down the many levels of the well, from the far distant surface all the way down to the great glowing block of the Primal Basilica below.
from aerialbots timeloop fic
send me a 🌹 and i will post a random line from a random wip
(a) the AU to Fate's Cruelty in which M looks at OP too soon, and (a little of) what happens next
(b) Megatron/Skywarp, on the premise that they're not yet ticked off on your list: some kind of cross-cultural confusion
(c) Megatron/Jazz: arguing about technicalities for fun and - well, not exactly profit, but you know what I mean...
Sure, how about option B.
Title: A Trick
Continuity: IDW1
Rating: General
Relationship: Megatron/Skywarp
Characters: Megatron & Skywarp
Tags: Miscommunication, Mischief, Alien Cultural Differences, Surprise Kissing, Silly
Summary: “You… you don’t remember?” Skywarp began to wilt.
Crossposting: AO3 | Dreamwidth
The force of impacting the metal floor of the hallway headfirst knocked the wind out of Megatron for a moment. A weight was pinned against his back and fingers dug deep into the seams of his armor, a desperate hold, almost like an embrace as he lay prone.
If this was another one of Starscream’s attempts to seize power, it was a pathetic one. Usually he had more tact than that, more political finesse.
He pushed himself up with one arm, blindly reaching back behind himself with the other.
When his hand closed around a wing, he knew that his assumption had been correct.
“Starscream, what do you think you are do—“
“Starscream?” A familiar voice, offended. Seemingly at the very idea of being mistaken for Starscream.
Megatron’s anger immediately began to fade, replaced with swirling confusion. He let go of the wing. Skywarp did not generally need to be led with aggression. His loyalty to the Cause—and thus to Megatron—had never once been in doubt.
“Skywarp,” he sighed, “what’s gotten into you? Is this some kind of prank?”
The clinging hands, however, did not release him. Skywarp remained firmly attached to his back where Megatron couldn’t see him.
“No, why… why would this be a prank?”
“You don’t exactly make a habit of jumping on me.”
Thankfully, he thought, as he pushed himself up onto his feet. At least Skywarp wasn’t heavy. A nuisance, yes, but not heavy.
“Well, that was before….” The weight on his back shifted higher, like Skywarp was climbing. A face, upside down, and shoulder vents came into view in front of him while hands gripped his shoulders. “You know?”
Before? Megatron raised one of his optical ridges as he searched his memory banks for anything recently that might have stood out as unusual, especially regarding Skywarp. Unfortunately, the search turned up nothing, no results. A shame given the expectant look on Skywarp’s face.
“Before… what?” he asked, hoping for a clue, a thread to pull.
Skywarp leaned in and pressed their mouths together, desperate and cloying like he’d been waiting for this for a lifetime.
Megatron froze, taken off guard by the sudden affection.
“You know?”
As though Megatron had simply forgotten like some kind of buffoon.
As though he could forget if he had some sort of… intimate arrangement with Skywarp. This had to be a joke. Either a joke or he had stepped through a portal in the last twenty minutes into a very similar universe to his own where the only change was that he had recently become involved with one of his lieutenants.
“…No, I don’t know.”
And it was only his utter confusion and Skywarp’s sadly earnest stare that kept the idea of reprimanding the seeker for kissing his commanding officer at bay.
“You… you don’t remember?” Skywarp began to wilt, his weight collapsing against Megatron’s shoulders and helmet. “You gave me a weapon last week.”
What exactly was he supposed to extrapolate from this?
“Yes,” Megatron said, “to shoot one of your targets. It’s an improved version of the standard issue blaster. Have you forgotten there is a war on?”
“But you gave it to me personally.”
“Yes? I fail to see—“
Wings flopped down into view as Skywarp went completely limp, held in place solely by his precarious balance.
Megatron reached up and carefully peeled the limp seeker from his torso before holding him up in front of his chest. Better than letting him fall to the floor should one of them make a wrong move.
“It appears we’ve had a… miscommunication.” This wasn’t worth punishing such a loyal soldier for, no. Megatron could look the other way this time and save Skywarp’s dignity, especially since no one else had seen this. A boon for all of Skywarp’s years of stellar service.
Skywarp frowned at the floor, dangling pitifully from Megatron’s hands. He was less known for melodramatics than Starscream (or Thundercracker though he tended to focus those energies into a creative outlet), which meant that perhaps Megatron needed to take a second look at the situation.
“I suggest—“
“Starscream was right.” Megatron froze at those words. “He said you hadn’t meant it, that you didn’t know. He was right.”
Perhaps a grander reward was more appropriate to show appreciation for Skywarp’s obedience rather than merely sweeping a faux pas under the rug. Though while he was leery about this opening the door to other soldiers engaging in insubordinate behavior, a little indulgence oughtn’t do much harm.
Especially if it involved Starscream eating his words.
“Nonsense.” He pulled Skywarp to his chest, unaware of the new smirk on the seeker’s face.
🌀Post the fic summary for a fic you haven't written/published yet. It can be hypothetical or something you really plan on releasing…
Thank you for sending this in! This is an interesting one for me--I usually don't write a fic summary until I hit the AO3 New Works page and think "oh, fuck, what is this fic about...?" So this'll be fun!
🌀Post the fic summary for a fic you haven’t written/published yet. It can be hypothetical or something you really plan on releasing…
All told, it only takes one letter and ten years to carry them back to Belgium. It's going to be fine. They're only going for the holidays, and everyone is always well-behaved for the holidays.
This fic is in its outlining stage, but hasn't been started yet. I really hope I manage to write it!
Oooh - are you doing the backstory bit? Anything you like, for Sky Ballet - I think it is such a wonderful fic!
Thank you! 💕
I'm trying to focus on getting all the details to fit right for Crossed Sparks (and I'm very tentatively cooking something for Damocles, which would be a prequel of sorts about Sentinel and the lead-up to the betrayal, but I'm holding that plan in reserve until after I see the reactions to the Big Reveal), so as much as I love Sky Ballet (it's the fic I'm most proud of currently), I'm not sure I could tell you much.
Hmmm. Maybe not really interesting in the grand scheme of things, but the reason why I decided to scrap Megatron's point of view was because he was already so desensitized to the Horrors that his side of the story (at least for the early parts) would have been too much like a wacky sitcom. Everybody giving him shit and laughing at him for his increasingly desperate attempts at flirting with Orion that go completely unnoticed by the object of his affections, him turning the table on Soundwave when he gets a stupid crush on Starscream and can't communicate it like a normal person, Knock Out showing up one day out of the blue, all confidence and bluster like "Hi, I'm your new medic, you can send my pay to this account." "We didn't hire a new medic." "Tough luck, because I have already moved in." that sort of thing. Like, sure, there are Horrors happening, but that's like saying that the sun is going to rise in the morning, it's so normal and inconsequential to their immediate lives.
Just like how Orion slowly arrived at the stance that someone needs to change things from within the system and that someone has to be him because he can't trust others to do it right, Megatron's radicalization was also just a slow, gradual side effect of trying to live his life and make things better for the people around him.
Oh, also also. Not directly related to the Sky Ballet bots, but I have written up a thing about that universe's Primus for someone that I think is kinda interesting?
So, I like my gods to be a bit incomprehensible, even the good ones - and it goes both ways. So inhabitants of the material world can't comprehend Primus in his entirety, because bits of him are spread apart into subspace pockets and different timestreams and poking into other universes and god knows what else is going on there that they can't even imagine, but from the other side, Primus really has to twist himself into pretzels and maybe get the divine equivalent of a microscope to perceive anything from the material world with any clarity.
There are ways he is connected - Cybertron is part of his body and it contains (part of?) his spark and at least one brain module and it's theorized that it can assume robot-mode because they have historical records of it happening in the earliest recorded eras of history - but there is such a massive difference of scale between mortals (even the transformers that live so long its already incomprehensible to us) and the divine that mortals can't think big enough and Primus can't think small enough for them to ever directly communicate. One of the gimmicks of Optimus' Matrix is that it can connect the Matrix Bearer to one of Primus' spare brain modules - essentially a near infinite, ancient supercomputer filling out an entire pocket dimension - to borrow a fraction of a fraction of its processing power, which is somewhat like trying to do your 3rd grade math homework on NASA's most advanced supercomputer, but hey, as long as Primus allows it...
It is possible to perceive what mood Primus is in, technically - Rung can do it at the top of the hat (but he is the mortal incarnation of Primus, the biggest fraction of the god that can exist in a mortal form and retain some of Primus' personality, so he doesn't really count), Prowl could probably do it if you got him an external power source and let him run his tacnet uninterrupted at full capacity for about a week, Soundwave can get the general vibe in a few hours (those extra brain modules have to be good for something) - but considering that he's not exactly quick on the uptake by mortal standards, the current forecast is "mourning the death of Unicron" for the next couple billion years, so it's not exactly useful information.
Optimus and Megatron have both been Seen and Acknowledged by Primus at least once in their lives when they fired the shot that killed Unicron, which was a profoundly terrifying and uncomfortable experience for both of them. It's like the entire universe blinked and looked directly at you for just a moment.
trick or treat; Megatron/Jazz (I'm nothing if not predictable)
Okie dokie! Here you go! A tiny treat for you!
Warning for light bondage and PNP.
In his line of work, Jazz could only rely on himself to get out of sticky situations. Even this situation--his arms bound behind his back and large mech on his lap--would be no different.
Interfacing cables hung between them. Some dangled free, some plugged into corresponding chest ports, and one of Jazz's still waited in Megatron's hand.
Mmmmm, trying to think of a betrayal that actually made me sad and what comes to mind is Optimus leaving Jazz on his own to deal with the repercussions of his bad PR. Is far from being the worst or most damning, but again, it's the one that actually feels sad.
💬- Favorite Obscure TF fact!
I have a hard time knowing what is actually obscure knowledge and what it isn't but I'll say, in Revolutionaries we learn that Centurion likes to watch a show called Mastermind. John Barber later said that it's a show based on Mastermind the board game, how does that work? I don't know, but I love it. I like to imagine is some sports anime sort of deal with extremely intense Mastermind matches full of internal narration.
