#tf sparklight

[coffeedocratch]

Sleepy boy is waiting for his medic wife in bed

[altraviolet]

hey violet! what's been floating your way lately, creatively speaking? i've been leaning towards sci-fi :)

hey anon!

heck yeah, sci fic =D my favorite!

cut for a long reply with a little TEG at the end :)

creative expression wise, not too much. I wrote about 2600 words of a Day in the Life of TEG Nautica short story, but I didn't finish it in time for the anniversary, so I guess I'll set it aside for now. I'm really hoping to think of something for this year's Big Bang project. the last sign up day for writers is March 2. if I think of something before then I'll be signing up :)

creative well-filling wise (aka when you feel really stuck sometimes you have to absorb media - watch movies, read books, etc), I made my goal of reading 1 book/month last month! I read two books:

Genefather by Guy Haley

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Genefather is a Warhammer 40k book. I know absolutely nothing about warhammer, but I have a friend/coworker who loves it. I asked him what the novels are like as I was curious what the quality was for that IP (the TF novels being pretty bad as far as I've ever heard). He loaned me Genefather to check it out. The writing quality is surprisingly good! I was impressed. I was also ABSOLUTELY LOST for most of the book, until my friend finally wrote me a little guide (dammit, I had asked for it months ago lol). Then my understanding went a bit better. It was funny and had some very good descriptions. I did notice a strange drop in quality at the end of the book: I am guessing the author ran out of time before a deadline. If you like warhammer (or don't mind being TOTALLY lost and reading something meant to appeal to Men Who Like to Paint Figures (I specify Men because the emphasis is on male characters in the way that "this book was written by a man" happens)), I would recommend it.

A Memory Called Empire is a book that's often on "if you like The Locked Tomb series, read this" lists. I freaking love TLT series so I was happy to finally get to read it. It's very well constructed and interesting. I wrote a post about it a bit ago if you'd like to hear more about it. I do recommend this to fans of sci fi.

My friend has loaned me another warhammer book and I've started it. It's not as funny as the first one and work has left me so tired, I've been falling asleep reading it at night, lol. But I will get through it. And next week Emily Wilde 3 comes out!! I pre-ordered it so the hardcover will be mailed to me. Can't wait! (I also highly recommend the Emily Wilde series for a fantasy with some romance on the side)

Aaaaaaannnnnnnd I think it would be fun to share a little bit of the Nautica fic. This is a rough draft, so please read with gentleness, haha.

---

Wake up, beloved Like a jewel in the sky Wake up, beloved The sparklight of my life

Nautica stirred. Blaster's dulcet recording – her morning alarm – swept gently through her processor. Wake up protocols commenced. Her frame's proprioception feedback came in little waves: root mode, lying down; Blaster's warmth; their mingling, low power fields. Nautica onlined and gently wiggled out of Blaster's arms.

“Good morrrrrnnninggggggg,” whispered Nautica.

Blaster made some sleepy noises but didn't wake. She kissed the top of his audial, where the lightning shaped finial connected. He smiled in his sleep.

Nautica quietly grabbed her wrench and headed to the cafeteria. Their chore cycles were currently on opposite ends- she had first shift, Blaster had third. She was looking forward to the cycle swap. Only 22 more days. She missed spending more waking time with him.

On the way to the cafeteria, she hopped onto the ship's net and flipped through her messages.

There was the usual daily bulletin, stating the date (the current dimension they were in plus the number of days and hours they'd been in it) and a copy of the day's chore cycle schedule. Nautica's chores appeared to her in solid black glyphs: the rest of the crew's schedule appeared faint gray. Nautica focused on Blaster's name. Her chore glyphs faded as his came in sharp. This was a programming trick Minimus was quite proud of. It combined “sensory information from the internal viewer” (semi-legal software from Brainstorm (who told Minimus it was entirely legal)) and the eye-tracking software of a medical evaluation mod. Ship/club activities were scattered throughout the schedule in green.

Blaster's chore cycle glyphs swirled and changed.

“Huh?”

Half his chore cycle had been delegated to Siren. An alert popped up at the same time a “Special Meeting” was inserted into both her and Blaster's schedules:

Double Date Swerve's, 33:00 Captain's table (that's any table I sit down at) Signed, Your favorite co-captain

As Nautica puzzled over this, an edit alert went through and the invitation was amended:

Double Date Swerve's tonight, 33:00 Captain's table (that's any table I sit down at) Starring Rodimus and Soundwave. And you two. Signed, Your favorite co-captain and Soundwave no of course I didn't forget you hey stop checking the schedule that's hacking you can't hack a captain hhhhhhhhehhhhhhhh oh look what you did to the invi

Nautica stifled her laugh. I wish I could see the look on Blaster's face when he wakes up! I wonder if this has something to do with Project Mindspread? No, Blaster's not on the team. Rodimus is just... being social. She accepted the invitation.

Moving on, there were three messages in her inbox. The first wasn't signed, but by the total lack of punctuation and signifiers, she deduced it was from Skywarp: “maintenance vines moved harp survived,” which was slightly worrying. She would definitely be asking him about that during their morning shift.

The second message was a long paragraph from Ambulon. She skimmed it and caught, various integration techniques, quantum mechanics, unfamiliar, ??? the nerve of this guy and set it aside. She'd read it after she'd eaten.

The last message was the most intriguing:

We request to see you today, at your earliest convenience, between 11:00 and 15:00. Your expertise is needed for an urgent matter. Bring your wrench.

The signatures, Megatron and Ultra Magnus, were complete with status signifiers and a read confirmation signal.

“My expertise, huh?” said Nautica. This was a puzzle. As far as she knew, neither mech required quantum mechanics for their daily workloads. “A new mystery for a new day!”

Nautica replied with a cheerful greeting and confirmed a 13:45 time slot in Megatron's office.

---

there we are =)

thanks for the message, anon! have a good one =)

[thenamesblurrito]

you. you understand me

that’s exactly what i was thinking, with Unicron and Primus being a duo of sorta Shards or a paired set of full "gods", perhaps split from Primacron?? Quintessa as a root source, etc etc. i'd think they're both much, much older than Adonalsium, considering the millions to BILLIONS of years timeline in many TF canons. also willing to bet they were individually "larger" than Adonalsium entirely, if you can measure such things, considering Unicron was powerful enough to eat holes in the multiverse and cause collapses of dozens of timelines in a singularity

the Elantrians comparison makes absolute sense oogh... oh man i would LOVE to see the effects of a soulstamp on a Cybertronian. like magical shadowplay almost

Sparklight is such a pretty term i love that. innermost energon is probably something special consequently. maybe you could say this is "burning justice" or the whole Masterforce soul power stuff, so it isn't as if magic/investiture equivalents aren't present in canon

now that i think about it, a comparison could be made between Armada minicons and spren, or even seons. they certainly fill a similar niche

Kelsier may not punch Optimus but i think he'd punch Magnus those two would NOT get along

genuinely concerned at the idea of Starscream as a Cognitive Shadow pulling strings like Kelsier manages to. then again that's better than him possessing people or revived as some Dark Energon/Unicronian Herald. i'm convinced he would NEVER realize he can't be hurt as a ghost and just be vulnerable for eternity

NIGHTBEAT AS A GHOSTBLOOD I AM SO CONCERNED you're so right though. i feel like an IDW styled Prowl is another good contender except for the fact that he and Mraize strike me as too similar and would get along horrifically badly

Soundwave also out among chasmfiends and chulls... animal buddies like elephants 🥺

i feel like Transformers in general would have a lot more respect for the singers as a species than the Rosharan humans seem to? like yeah you switch forms and bodies as necessary. it's a transformation. same hat!! also puts an interesting paradigm where, honestly if it weren't for Odium, i think the Decepticons would be aligned with the history of the humans on Roshar and the Autobots (freedom is the right of all sentient beings!) would sympathize with the singers. i can see it going either way but there's no clear one-to-one partnership here which makes it interesting

that said i highly doubt Megatron would stoop to working with Odium, unless this is like a roofied TFP style Megs already off his rocker on Dark Energon and happy to accept whatever new evil god drugs he's offered. oh god Megatron and Vyre would not get along... the Decepticons do not have amicable history with evil gods, whatever alliance is formed wouldn't last long

whatever poor interplanetary spy group tries sending an agent to Cybertron or even one of the colonies would be SO overwhelmed. they'd get run over in traffic instantly

oh my god Windblade is a cityspeaker the Sibling is the Knights' little Titan! the mecha wouldn't even be surprised by the idea of a living city!! afdhghdjflsg i'm picturing Windblade and Kaladin just chilling and she nonchalantly starts talking about how they really should try doing something nice for their Titan i mean there's gotta be a reason the poor thing is hiding their consciousness, and Kaladin just. whuh???

LIFT. Lift and. anyone oh my god there's so many good options. Lift and Ultra Magnus? Lift and Thundercracker? Lift and Bumblebee?? Szeth and Deadlock. hard agree on Hot Rod and Renarin that would be a sweet friendship. Bulkhead would get along with Shallan i think, fellow artist

oooo TFA style Elita-1 science buddies!!!! Navani playing patron to scholars for so long would make her such a good supervisor for Autobot shenanigans like. grab any given scientist like Wheeljack or Perceptor and then put them under her watch. none of them, especially Elita, would let her lie to herself about not being a scholar herself. they'd probably invent a black hole generator within a month for funzies

screw it have the cosmere/transformers thoughts that plague me

spoilers ahoy

i’m willing to bet that whatever Adonalsium was, Primus and Unicron may be vaguely similar entities depending on interpretation. obviously the cosmere belongs exclusively to the Shards, but if it’s a dwarf galaxy, then perhaps, just perhaps, Cybertron’s galaxy could be its neighbor

(please picture Adonalsium and Primus studiously ignoring each other across lightyears of empty space bc they have their own problems thank you very much that other god over there is minding their own business)

Unicron may not have been strong enough to eat Adonalsium straight up, given that we know he can be defeated by Primus/various forces vaguely allied with Primus. but the scattered, weakened Shards warring with one another… hmmm the cosmere might look like a nice snack now

IF we go with the understanding that they are similar but alien entities to one another, then would there not be an entire system of “investiture” equivalence for Cybertron? you’ve got outliers and point-one percenters, you’ve got the Primal artifacts of great magic power, you’ve got everything about the Allspark, the Spiritual Realm Well of Sparks, the various properties of energon and sentio metallico and transwarp energy, etc. i’m willing to bet that there’s an entire Cybertronian paradigm to realmatic theory that could be explored by perhaps a very very lost member of the Seventeenth Shard that has a similar setup but different power source to the cosmere

and if that’s the case, could Transformers even intersect at all with the cosmere’s magic systems, when they run on their own system? could they absorb or be affected by investiture if they’re full of energon and powered by a spark? would they be immune to any invested influence, but likewise be unable to use their own outlier abilities on an invested object, or a Shard-influenced or Adonalsium-created thing?

i’m not going to touch on Era 3 or 4, there’s already so much to explore with “low tech” cosmere lore that i feel like bringing in computers and spaceships would just blow my mind and provide so many cool alt modes for Cybertronians to scan…. (that said i really need to read TotES)

spren manifest as metal in the Physical Realm. is a Transformer spark simply a powerful spren manifesting/forging a metal body in the Physical Realm?

is a Transformer’s frame simply really fancy Shardplate?? (and didn’t Brandon say that it would be extremely hard but possible for Radiants in Shardplate to combine?? helloooo gestalts)

could a Cybertronian bond a spren? would it function like a Headmaster/Targetmaster binary bond or like a proper Nahel bond??

would the Magnus Hammer be able to influence the Stormfather?

also coppermind Matrix. it’s orange and everything

yknow that TFP episode where Optimus was dying (as usual) and then the hammer remade him bigger better faster stronger? something something he’s a Returned (even moreso if you consider he’s canonically one of the reincarnated original Thirteen)

actually i think i could argue that anyone upgraded to a Prime by the Matrix is a form of Returned

would LOVE to see a shade from Hell react to a Transformer. likewise would love to see anyone in the cosmere deal with an undead mech, be it ghost, Terrorcon, or Allspark-fueled

i think kandra wouldn’t be any more gross to the average Cybertronian than any other organic, they’re all made of meat and bones and recycled organic matter anyway. they’d probably think of kandra as organic Mutacons?

they’d probably find the color draining effects of Breath very morbid. after all, their own corpses go grey. it seems fitting

would cold constructed mecha be reforged into their spark-determined true form given enough investiture?

could a Shardblade cut through Cybertronian armor? assuming a mech is forged from cybermatter/sentio metallico, the metal flesh of a living planetary god, i’d like to think that may register… a little bit special, in realmatic theory

even if their armor was just normal metal, how much aluminum is in their makeup?

and if a Shardblade can slice through, would it deaden the limb or just cut it in half?

relatedly, could an Allomancer burn shavings from a mech’s armor? if they’re made of cybermatter instead of regular metal, what kind of effects would that have?

could an Allomancer steelpush off a mech?? would this mess with their internals? how precise could an Allomancer get with what particular body part/how deep into the frame they’re targeting? a human weighs nothing next to a mech, but could they take one down by steelpushing the circuitry of the processor?

could energon store stormlight? or does it already have its own “investiture” equivalent as crystal blood of gods

photonic crystals can store sparks, so could they capture a spren?

Lockdown would collect Hemalurgic spikes

Sebarial and Swindle would be instant besties

Nightblood and Starscream. picture it

KELSIER and Starscream. oh god

would Kelsier punch Rung

for that matter would non-Cybertronians or people not native to the Unicron/Primus section of the universe operating on that power paradigm be able to perceive and remember Rung?

the Ghostbloods would try to take advantage of sudden giant alien metal warriors showing up out of nowhere. i’d like to think it would be a comedy of errors in miscommunication and accidentally thwarted plans until Kelsier throws up his hands and decides to call it quits on these guys

Soundwave would visit Roshar and have the same “it’s the most beautiful music in the wooooooorld *sob*” breakdown as that one G1 episode upon hearing the rhythms and tones, i think he’d absolutely be able to hear them naturally

HEARTS OF STEEL STYLE TRANSFORMERS BUT COSMERE THEMED INSTEAD OF EARTH STEAMPUNK

Bondsmith Optimus. because yes

Lightweaver Jazz. spymaster? sound and light show? it’s perfect

flying contest: Windrunners, Skybreakers, and Heavenly Ones vs Seekers. who wins? (personally i think nobody would “win” bc the two groups are functionally doing Very Different Things)

for a more applicable contest of power, anyone with the Surge of Gravitation vs Victorion

Ultra Magnus/Minimus Ambus would be right at home in Azir, please let him have fun with other rule-happy bureaucrats

and if you read this far, the real final reason i’ve thought so much about this…

i literally just want to see Hoid have to deal with any Cybertronian. i seriously cannot pick a favorite individual or scenario. Hoid ending up on the Lost Light? Hoid plopped on Cybertron and anointing himself Prime’s Wit of the functionist regime bc by god they need someone to knock them down a peg? Hoid discovering a frozen Skyfire or Megatron on some cosmere planet? Hoid collecting minicons? Hoid adding another esoteric power to his list and getting possessed by the Cube ala RotF?

[coffeedocratch]

Need some coffee after a long shift..

[coffeedocratch]

it'll be okay..

[coffeedocratch]

An enraged truck in low resolution