#his t cog is probably rusting from lack of use

[mechncheese]

[Science AU] Redesigned Brainstorm’s jet alt mode, now it looks a little more imposing

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #5- Delphi Has a Two-Star Rating On Yelp

Issue #4 left off with some pretty raw dialogue from Fortress Maximus.

Now, that’s a lot of hot talk from a guy who looks like he’s wearing fairy wings. Hope you got some walk to back it up, Fort Max.

FUCK YEAH YOU DO HOLY SHIT THAT’S AWESOME.

And would you look at that! Got some familiar posing going on here.

Considering Fort Max just woke up from a years-long coma, and before that had spent three years under Overlord’s sadistic thumb, this sort of parallel might be cause for concern, but I’m sure it’s fine.

It’s fine!

After Fort Max comes down from his adrenaline high and stops cutting folks’ heads off with his titty flaps, Ratchet can finally address the downturn in Drift’s health, as he lays on the floor rusting to death. Turns out the two of them have a bit of a past, but we won’t be getting anything of substance out of that little detail, because Pharma’s decided to pull a gun on Ambulon.

He claims that Ambulon is the one who released the Decepticons from their cells, and that he’s most likely also the cause of the virus. Why? Because Ambulon used to be a Decepticon himself! Gasp!

Ambulon cops to having defected 10 years prior, which is that a long time for Transformers or not? It’s vague. Their sense of time dilation as a species is never actually addressed in canon.

Then First Aid pulls a gun on Pharma, saying that Pharma’s full of shit, because while Ambulon was busy being threatened, he rooted around in the Decepticons’ corpses and found something that shouldn’t have been there: their transformation cogs.

Then Ratchet reaches for his gun, demanding that Pharma switch to his alt-mode. When he refuses, that seals the deal on Ratchet’s theory- the virus doesn’t become active until after the infected changes their shape. That’s why Pipes and Drift are currently not-bleeding out on the floor after having been at Delphi for twenty minutes at most, but First Aid and Ambulon are perfectly fine.

I mean, fine outside of what’s probably equivalent to a major kidney infection being left untreated and turning into a leg.

C’mon, Ratchet, that’s the thing he’s sensitive about!

And then Rung comes out of nowhere and pulls out HIS gun-

No, that doesn’t happen.

What does happen is that Pharma shoots the life support machines and bolts, leaving the other doctors with twenty machine-dependent patients who will die without intervention.

Ambulon, on what fucking planet is First Aid not taking initiative? This guy’s done more in the last two days than you’ve probably done in the last year. Look at Ratchet back there, he knows how to properly appreciate a go-getter.

Fort Max runs after Pharma as Ratchet finally peels Drift off the floor and gets him into a bed. Drift, who’s pretty convinced that he’s going to die today one way or another, goes full sad cat and begs Ratchet to mercy-kill him, seeing as this is the planet the DJD base a majority of their operations out of, and the likelihood of Pharma being involved with them is looking real good right about now. The sprinklers have gone off, people are flat-lining, Ratchet disregards his own health and safety for that of a patient, transforming to give him a reboot, Fort Max comes back empty-handed because he’s too got-danged big to fit down the trapdoor Pharma went through, and the whole situation is really just the hugest mess.

Let’s check in on the Lost Light, shall we?

The boots are still real, y’all. Those goddamn fucking hooves come off, I’m telling you.

So, Tailgate’s come to a decision. Again. He wants to be an Autobot this go around, though, which sits a whole lot better with Ultra Magnus.

But why bother joining a faction now? The war’s over. Turns out, Tailgate’s feeling a little lonely, because no matter how successful you are, it just won’t fill the hole in your heart quite like being a part of a found family narrative does.

Magnus, moved by Tailgate’s openness and equally impressed by his positively ridiculous resume, agrees to help him prepare for the rite of Autobrand.

Of course, Magnus being Magnus, isn’t going to do this in any sort of half-measure; he’s going to go through the entire 10,000 pages of the Autobot Code, line by line, word by word, punctuation mark by punctuation mark, breaking it all down through multiple schools of thought to garner the deepest possible understanding of what it means to be an Autobot. Tailgate, though horrified by the prospect of so much studying, agrees, and a glorious two-man act is established.

Meanwhile, over in Rung’s office, the good doctor is ruminating on his history with one of his most prolific patients, Red Alert.

Red Alert’s been under Rung’s care since before the war even started, which seems to contradict issue #1’s claim that Rung was his psychiatrist for six centuries, but perhaps the case file got bounced around as Red Alert’s stationings changed.

Which doesn’t bode terribly well, considering Rung is, again, pretty much the only mental health specialist for the entirety of Cybertron.

Red Alert’s been diagnosed with Paranoid Personality Disorder, and it seems like it’s a pretty intense case, or at least it was before Rung got ahold of him. Red Alert had been doing better, and his military career had flourished as a result.

And then the war friggin’ ended, and it looks like the lack of routine- violence-based or otherwise- might be causing a bit of a backslide.

Red Alert’s been hearing noises, ones only he seems to be able to perceive.

Then again, he seems to have some pretty banging ears, so maybe he’s on to something.

The only problem is that where he’s hearing these noises doesn’t make any sense, because he’s hearing them under the basement, where there should be nothing other than the cold silence of space, according to the schematics of the Lost Light. It’s crazy. Purely crazy.

Good thing Red Alert recorded what he heard. Dude probably has a ton of experience not being believed, and knows the value of having evidence to back up your claims. He plays Rung the audio file, and after a bit of playback speed manipulation, they figure out just what that noise is.

Great, even the basement’s got major depression.

Back with Tailgate, it looks like Ultra Magnus has gotten a head-start on the study session, having knocked the little guy clean out with a precision strike verbal barrage of pure boredom. Tailgate nodded off during Magnus’ covering of section 19 of the Tyrest Accord, subsection 80, paragraph 5. This reminds Tailgate of when he met Skids and that giant yellow robot got all exploded.

Jesus, would you look at that shading. Ultra Magnus takes his literary references very, very seriously.

Back with the plague plot, Ratchet’s finally caught up with Pharma, who proceeds to tell him all about how he pulled off his big bad plan, in true villain fashion. Ratchet just sort of stands there and takes it as his eyeballs start melting out of his head.

Pharma is pretty much the only reason that Delphi hasn’t been wiped off the map by the Decepticon Justice Division, because he and the leader of that gang of murderous assholes have a deal- the DJD leave the outpost alone, in exchange for all the transformation cogs their greedy little hearts desire. The problem with this sort of deal is that in order to keep up his end of the bargain, Pharma had to start offing patients.

Of course, that sort of thing isn’t sustainable in the long-term, so Pharma had to orchestrate a way out, while still keeping himself out of prison for some of the most intense malpractice this side of Cybertron, so he called in a little help from some Decepticon nobodies and waved a little cash in their faces. He made a bomb, gave it to them, and they did what they were paid to do, spreading a illness that laid dormant in the liquidy stuff surrounding the t-cog until properly stirred by transformation. As Pharma tells his story, his face does the anime thing.

That’s how you know he’s SNAPPED!

Ratchet really just isn’t a fan of this new character arc Pharma’s got going on, but there isn’t a whole hell of a lot he can do about it now other than stand there and rust as his line art breaks down.

Though that actually works out in his favor, as the corrosion juices puddled under him during that whole spiel, enough so that they reached Pharma’s feet. Once Ratchet points that little detail out, Pharma panics, trying to jump out of the juice and getting clocked in the face.

Pharma said, whilst holding said vaccine in clear view of the man threatening him with a gun.

Ratchet doesn’t fire, because his hands are acting up- talk about poor timing- but Pharma doesn’t have that problem, onlining his built-in guns and shooting Ratchet, seemingly killing him.

Or not. It’s the return of the smiler, Ratchet’s vaguely creepy solid light avatar, best known for telling teenagers to get inside him and making mechanics uncomfortable.

The sight of this creepy little man throws Pharma off enough to allow Ratchet to tackle him, the vaccine flying out of his hands and rolling towards the edge of the incredibly tall portion of the outpost they’re currently on top of.

As the vaccine glowstick falls over the edge, Pharma, understandably, becomes furious, attacking Ratchet, though it doesn’t really work out for him too well. Guess that’s just what happens when your shut-in ass tries to tangle with a dude who’s been on the front lines for years now.

Ratchet, please make a fucking appointment with Rung, I’m begging you. This isn’t a healthy attitude to have towards yourself.

Because he got his arm stomped on real good earlier, Pharma’s on a timer for how much longer he’ll be able to hang onto the edge of the building, before he has to decide whether or not to risk transforming to save himself from impact with the ground, or just chancing being a neigh-indestructible space robot. Ratchet gives him a raw-ass one-liner, turning his back on the dude who has gun turrets built into his shoulder blades.

Luckily Drift hasn’t completely melted yet and managed to get up the ladder to the roof access just in time.

And thus the power of violence saves the day!

Ratchet’s avatar caught the vaccine as it was falling, because he’s just that good at multitasking, so it wasn’t lost at all, and they were able to save everyone from rusting to death. Even Pipes is okay, and you know how much Roberts likes killing that guy. Things are looking up!

Because Delphi’s been revealed to be pretty much the worst place ever, everyone is evacuated to the Lost Light, where First Aid will finally get the credit he’s due.

Suck it, Ambulon!

Ratchet figured out that First Aid sent the datalog that alerted him to the situation on Delphi, because he too is a giant nerd, and like recognizes like. The two lament the loss of the person Pharma had been, wishing they could have saved him.

Yeah, Ratchet, that sentiment goes a hell of a lot further when you don’t steal the man’s hands.

Like, I know he wasn’t using them anymore, but Jesus.

And thus the “Ratchet can’t do shit because his hands suck” arc draws to a close.

[spockandawe]

Anonymous said:

in light of recent Pharma info from the con and F!Cybertron ending up in the original timeline permanently, what do you became of your Pharma/Ratchet from your Functionist oneshots? survived to the present day? killed by the people in power? joined up with Megatron's resistance?

OH MAN. OKAY. Pharma time. First I forgot to answer this, and then I was putting this off while I frantically archived tumblr content, and THEN I was putting off answering this until I published yesterday’s Pharma fic, so this is SUPER LATE, apologies. This is also almost definitely going to detour into main universe Pharma content too, because picking apart the pieces of why things went sour for him was already fascinating even before we got extra information, and the new info that we got really solidifies my characterization choices for me.

(for anyone who missed it, JRO said at tfcon that delphi and tarn definitely changed pharma and played a major role in where he was at mentally/emotionally when ratchet came to see him)

(behind a cut, because I have talked forever, as per usual. part general pharma meta, part noodling about what might happen in my story universe, 3.2k words.)

So, awright. I hadn’t gone into specifics at all, but I definitely split my personal characterization for main universe Pharma and functionist universe Pharma at a point where like... in my head, he’s a doctor, busy and well-respected, at the top of his field, but working/stationed in a central location, and probably working in close proximity with Ratchet. Then they diverge when one Pharma is pulled away to Delphi, and one Pharma is sucked in by government work for the functionist council (that’s not a perfect divide, but I’m leaving out any ways the war would have impacted his well-being)

The way I characterize main universe Pharma, he is CHOCK-FULL of maladaptive coping mechanisms. Some of that is down to his personality, some of it is down to circumstances. Just by the fact that he’s still ALIVE despite having been in close contact with Tarn, he’s learned to adapt in ways to survive the DJD. He’s learned to adapt in ways that let him preserve his whole facility, even if I personally place self-preservation ahead of plain altruism in his priority queue.

And this is really interesting, because the ways he’s adapted to survive the functionist council aren’t all THAT different. Both these survival tactics are about... performance, more than anything. Everything with Tarn falls apart if Pharma stops looking like the perfect autobot medic, and I’m sure that Tarn is ready to take advantage of any sign of weakness or fear on Pharma’s part. He’s walking a very delicate line there. In some ways, he has more breathing room on functionist Cybertron, because he’s a part of a valued profession, near the top of his field. But he’s also having to toe an evolving party line in an environment where lack of conformation risks death, and there are many, many more eyes on him, and since he’s got no choice but to be involved in politics, there are people who would potentially stand to benefit from his fall.

But ahhhh, my favorite part. On Delphi, Pharma... is very alone. He has colleagues, he seems to have gotten on decently with First Aid and Ambulon. Everything that happens as things deteriorate later comes as a surprise to them. His last experience with the person he loved was Ratchet bailing without saying goodbye in a conversation where Pharma was trying to ask him his opinion about taking the Delphi position in the first place. And then he was stuck having to go toe to toe with Tarn and the DJD. In my functionist setting, I still don’t see him as like... a person with that many friends. But he has Ratchet, and he’s had time to get secure with Ratchet.

Okay, my characterization for Pharma shares some things with the way I characterize Prowl and Starscream/Loki. I write him as a person who prioritizes himself above a lot of other things. He works as a doctor, sure, but the way Ratchet transformed to save one person’s life even though it meant the rust plague starting to work on him? That is not a very Pharma move. I don’t write him as a person who puts the well-being of other people ahead of his own well-being. But that’s not an absolute! The characters who are like that, what I find the most, MOST rewarding is finding the ways that they’ll open up those walls and redefine the boundaries of their central world that they will not sacrifice.

So, with Starscream, I write a lot of shippy content. Finding ways for new people to keep trust with him and work their way into his life until he has no choice but to love them. I write Prowl more as someone who has... had those people who are His. And (in his eyes) that trust was betrayed, he’s been hurt by letting them inside, and he still cares a lot, but he wishes he didn’t, and he’s angry at them/himself for the way he cares in the first place.

Now. Pharma.

God, even before we got confirmation about ‘my beloved ratchet’ and tarn helping to break him, this is really nicely in line with how I felt about things. In the main universe, Pharma hasn’t been positively-definitely betrayed by Ratchet. He’s been hurt, he’s definitely hurt by the way Ratchet left so casually when Pharma was trying to lean on him. But that wasn’t a forever injury. It’s something that stings, but something that can be repaired.

The trouble is when he lands on Delphi right as he’s still hurting from that. The danger from Tarn and the DJD, that is significant. Even for mechs in a large group, it’s... hard to even survive the DJD. They absolutely butchered the alternate Lost Light, and that wasn’t a mining/hospital facility. I don’t know if I’m phrasing this right, but it’s an atmosphere where priorities narrow from winning down to surviving, and the question of protecting other people along with yourself is so implausible it’s almost funny. If the DJD moves against them, they’re all going to die. It’s an atmosphere where it’s very plausible that Pharma would not just give Tarn the t-cogs from corpses, but where he could be pressured into killing his patients himself to meet that quota. If some people are surviving, that’s better than none of them surviving.

And then, afterwards? I write a lot of where he goes from there as stemming from anger over the way people seem to ignore the pressures he was operating under that took him to that point. In the main universe, I write him as someone who’s made awful decisions and is aware of that, but is also bitterly furious that nobody is looking beyond those decisions, at everything else. I write him as... not casually seeking out people just to hurt them, but wanting to hurt people back. Going after the sore spots for people who hurt him first, or who failed to recognize that he was hurting at all. At any point after Delphi, I’m pretty much writing him as someone who’s willing to go down in flames as long as he can take other people out with him.

Functionist universe! None of that is a factor. In the functionist universe, at a bare, bare minimum, he has Ratchet. And Ratchet still may not be good at recognizing the softer emotions in other people, but he’s a rock-solid, steady force in Pharma’s life. The functionist council doesn’t want to send either of them anywhere else, they need to stay right here, right at hand for the government to use them. It’s possible that Ratchet would have taken a station away from Pharma, if it was asked of him, but just by virtue of being there and not making a move to leave, Pharma’s definition of my-central-world has had lots and lots of time to centralize as ‘Ratchet and I’ instead of ‘just me’.

And here’s what I find so fascinating about his character in that universe, no matter what angle I take in thinking about him, he will go to all kinds of lengths to preserve that central world. Some of that echoes what I see from him in the main universe, but the main universe, it’s only Pharma, just himself, just self-preservation. Having Ratchet as something he’s completely unwilling to sacrifice shifts his priorities dramatically, and the longer he has to fall in love, him deciding to protect Ratchet’s happiness shifts them a lot more. Ratchet being more about the... ideals of doctor-hood than Pharma is means that Ratchet values things Pharma doesn’t have much patience with/interest in (like the charity clinic), but the fact that Ratchet does value it so much, and the fact that it’s not very in line with functionist philosophy does DELICIOUS things to how Pharma tackles self-preservation under this particular stressful scenario.

This is already crazy long, so I don’t want to ramble too-too bad, but a lot of it comes down to functionist Pharma being much more practiced at putting himself into other people’s shoes. Not just in a practical way, but specifically he’s made a point of tackling it from an empathy perspective. If he wants to keep Ratchet happy, he needs to really, really understand what it is that makes Ratchet happy. Which isn’t that innovative as far as relationships go, but I do tend to characterize him as one of my lower-empathy characters, who’s attracted more on the basis of you-are-like-me than on the basis of, say, how Drift is drawn to Ratchet when they’re very different personalities. So that’s one.

And then the other is that the threat posed by the functionist council is... much more decentralized and loosely defined than the threat from Tarn. With Tarn, Pharma had a laser focus on what he needed to do to stay alive. Give Tarn all the t-cogs he wants. Bam. In the functionist council, he’s needing to make himself valuable and toe the party line and play politics and avoid drawing any powerful player’s displeasure. AND needing to stretch himself even further to cover the ways ratchet doesn’t play the perfect little functionist doctor. AND. Stretching himself far enough to cover the things that make ratchet happy, even though the charity clinic is specifically something that this government is going to be very opposed to.

Functionist Pharma is much, much more flexible than regular universe Pharma. He’s had to be. The game he’s playing is drawn out much longer than the business with Tarn, and the rules are a lot more complicated and mutable, plus this is a Pharma who has something outside himself that he isn’t willing to sacrifice. They’re both forced into high-stress survival games where if they die, it won’t be easy or pretty, and in my mind, those games do the bulk of shaping the people they become.

Main universe Pharma is a lone operator, he wears a mask that hides what’s underneath, his priorities are a mystery because now that he’s free from Delphi and Tarn, what is LEFT for priorities? He leans into the worst people think of him because he’s bitter and angry and his world has already fallen apart, so let’s go ahead and burn everything down. Functionist universe Pharma is a highly-social manipulator, who has to control people to control the playing field. His mask is there so that people can’t see what he’s doing or control him in return, because the majority of what he does is to protect his one glaring weak spot, Ratchet. Everything for him is still about the long game, and making careless moves could destroy everything he cares about.

Which is so many words to take me back around to your original question, oh my gosh XD

What happens to functionist universe ratchet and pharma? It’s a fascinating thing to think about, partly because I’ve tried to come to a decision before and didn’t get anywhere with it!

Okay, now. The most likely way their story goes is that as the planet gets increasingly dysfunctional, Ratchet and Pharma are increasingly at risk. Even if Pharma is trying to be as cooperative as possible, it’s difficult to stay that close to the center of power without being killed for some reason or another. As the functionist council escalates, with things like the implanted eyes or the brain chips, they’re making mass-murdery medical-flavored moves, and it’s increasingly likely that Ratchet will hit a point where they tell him to do something and he says no, which will not go well.

But that’s depressing. I wouldn’t want to write that ending for them unless there was absolutely no other choice.

Joining up with Megatron... that is an interesting one. First of all, I don’t think Pharma will be a fan of the idea, at least not until it looks like Megatron’s eventual takeover of the planet is inevitable. Pharma has done a lot of work to get them into a position even as dubiously secure as where they are now, and he’s not going to be happy at the prospect of abandoning that to join up with a rebel group that the council is determined to destroy. If Ratchet went, Pharma would probably go with him, but Ratchet... he’s more likely to go for it, but it would still take something BIG to push him out of his groove. He was an autobot from the start, with the line of thought of ‘the government is broken, but we should repair it from the inside’. Going to join up with a military force and escalate the conflict and fighting is going to run counter to his ideals. Not to say he wouldn’t do it, but it would be... tough.

I can see a few interesting story ideas in here, though they’d all be pretty hefty things to tackle. One is that the council does make that move where they order Ratchet to do something he’s unwilling to do. That could be the splodey brain chips, could be something else. Pharma begs him to just go along with it, they can’t do any good if they’re dead, but this is clearly not a tenable situation. Something something, Pharma finally agrees to go with Ratchet to find Megatron because it’s the only way he sees forward where he can keep Ratchet alive without also losing him, but it’s a decision he’s very unhappy about.

Potentially going along with that one, it would be AMAZING to see a setting where as things escalated, Pharma and Ratchet both disarmed the chips in each other’s heads, which is a very dangerous move if anyone checks up on those, but given the ways the council has been behaving, it feels... even more dangerous to leave them intact. Things get set in motion when the council does try to execute one or both of them, and they have no choice but to run.

(maybe they’re ordered to convert rung/rung’s body into a crystal-making factory or something? developing chips to let them remotely control any given mech? it’s gotta be something suitably horrifying that pharma can justify in the name of survival, but ratchet can’t)

Oooooh, on the note of them running. MEGATRON’S INTEREST IN MEDICINE. Okay, yeah, no matter what else happens, that universe has gotta have them meeting Megatron. I.... hmmm. Ratchet was one of Megatron’s favorite mechs on the LL back before things got crazy. I don’t usually go for jealousy fics, but I could really go for Pharma being jealous over how much he’s sacrificed to keep Ratchet safe, but now Ratchet is letting Megatron monopolize all his free time. Being able to justify legit heartache for a character as cold as Pharma is a WONDERFULLY fun time XD Megatron teaching himself medicine is awesome and I love it, but Megatron searching for memories of his old friends on this different world is also gr8.

Also I would really, really like Pharma loathing Terminus on first sight because they are very similar in a lot of ways and it makes him uncomfortable :3c

Oh my god, and if Megatron shares the truth about knowing Ratchet before, it’s a PERFECT setup for a parallel to him telling rewind that him and chromedome are inseparable. It would be hard to justify lying that they were that intimate, but a gentler lie, maybe. Something something same side in the war, respected colleagues, affection. Something about them not being together but still valuing each other highly that’s bittersweet to hear, not as painful as the truth about what Pharma went through and did, and how badly that poisoned everything. I could see Pharma recognizing that Megatron is holding something back, and being unwilling to push harder because he’s afraid of what he’ll learn.

Hm. A fic like that... Bringing Pharma and Ratchet back into the main universe. That probably wouldn’t be workable. Just because of all the baggage, plus other Ratchet in his relationship with Drift. It would take a whole nother novel just to sort that mess out.

But I could see them staying behind in some capacity. The way the LL2 got back to the main universe... I know there’s no indication that it was anything outside the ship/planet that opened a portal for everything, but it would be plausible if there was. And if I was being super duper self-indulgent, I would totally want to pull functionist universe Killmaster into this hypothetical scenario. Now, Cybertron comes through the portal. But Cybertron was a planet in contact with the rest of the universe, even if the functionist council gradually choked that off. Citizens exist who are spaceworthy themselves, never mind that plain nonsentient ships are a thing. In the main series, we get the return of scattered Cybertronians from all corners of the galaxy after the war ends.

This sounds cheesy writing it out like this, but I’d totally be down for a fic where someone has to stay behind, and Ratchet volunteers and Pharma stays with him. If the council’s gone, well-- The planet might be gone too, but still, there’s potential to rebuild again, and now they have the ability to at least try (adsfdsa wow this really would need an extra novel of material, but bringing in functionist universe unicron at that point and building a NEW cybertron, i kind of really really really want to see that happen)

So. That’s not at all plotted out coherently, I’m not sure if it’s what I would ultimately settle on, but there are bits and pieces of that which I like a lot! It would be easiest by far for them to die along the way, just given the setting, but I really like characters managing to survive. And the differences between this Pharma and the main universe Pharma mean that he has the skills to make that survival at least possible.

And now I have talked for ten million years, so I’ll leave it there :PPP I just have so many feelings about this disaster robot and the ways external factors broke him down and the bad decisions he made to make it all worse, and the way he just commits to a complete nosedive because he can’t see any way to pull up, and I love him as he is, but am also obsessed with imagining the circumstances under which he could have been better

[shenaniganeryfromtheabyss]

MnC,,

MnC, what does that last bit mean?

what does it mean-

[Science AU] Redesigned Brainstorm’s jet alt mode, now it looks a little more imposing