#Primax 1020.27 Iota

[cleverthylacine]

Watching My Daughter Climb Trees In The Oxygen Farm (Ravage's Poetry)

I am watching Viridian climbing a tree In the oxygen farm. Soon she will be too big For the stems of these great terrestrial trees (terrestrial trees in a space-bound terrarium where the climate won’t get any better but at least won’t get worse;  this is not sanctuary only for us and our own) And I will still be glad she survived.

When I was the age she is now There were stronger trees living on Cybertron But I didn’t dare run in those forests Or climb on those trees. There were hunters out there And they made a sport out of murdering people like us.

You can ask me again and again why she is alive And I am alive And billions of people whose worlds I once trod on are not. I will not have an answer that satisfies you. Not now, not once, not ever. I will not have an answer that satisfies me.

I did not climb trees in a world that invented atrocities Long before these trees we keep alive out here in space evolved. In the hope of undoing atrocities We invented a whole lot of new ones. Do I deserve to live?

How can I answer that? Life is not a prize for the deserving. It appears wherever it will Sometimes completely unwanted and scorned And it only wants to survive.

I can say that I regret the deaths of others And mean that I regret my part in them The world has never been fair or just And justice is something we usually find accidentally Too often we’re angry and focused on punishing those who oppressed us And somehow forget to restore the oppressed Or to recognise the oppressed in the faces of people who evolved somewhere else.

I don’t regret my own survival I can’t tell you I’m sorry I lived because someone else died.

I can only lie on my spark-mate’s chest as he frets about elephants Even when nobody’s shooting them The people who run their planet are killing it slowly. They're not so different from us after all.

I can only sit here and watch my daughter climb trees At an age when I couldn’t have dreamed of it And be glad that I, and she, and the trees are alive.

--Ravage Stanixa Sanctuary Station 2024

[dontpetmeibite]

...I am not really going to argue with this.

I am very well-behaved these days and I've never been one to harm sparklings or children, or use people's dependents against them.

But I was #2 in the Decepticon Army's Communications, Logistics and Dirty Dirty Tricks division, second only to my conjunx, and for much of that time I was doing all the work my conjunx couldn't do because Megatron was making him clean up everyone else's mess.

So yeah. Good thing I don't believe in hell, huh?

Besides according to everyone from Caminus (except Nautica, who knows me way too well, and Velocity, who does actually know me), I'm the consort and protector of one of three minor deities to exist simultaneously, which hasn't happened since the days of the thirteen. So there.

I wonder what they'd say if I told them that Getaway was once a matrix-bearer. He only had it for about an astrosecond, but Fugitivus Prime was, in fact, a thing that happened. I could never tell whether it rejected him violently, or the thing he was about to do was just that stupid. I was actually there. It was right before Kytherion Prime happened.

Note: if anyone has a video clip of Prowl's face during that incident I will pay well for it. He was present on screen but for understandable reasons he wasn't one of the people I was watching. Starscream??? By the way, Starscream, how are you innocent and pure when I got that?

[cleverthylacine]

Happy Birthday, @camp-mithril-lake!

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types, The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers: Victory Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ravage & Esmeral (Transformers) Characters: Ravage (Transformers), Esmeral (Transformers), Miko Nakadai, Megaempress (Transformers) Additional Tags: Decepticon Culture (Transformers), Decepticon Politics, Female Friendship, Revolutionaries After The Revolution, Megaempress is a Title, Primax 1020.27 Iota, Absolutely Crushing The Bechdel Test Series: Part 13 of All Hail Ravage Summary:  Ravage and Esmeral have been friends online for vorns. They didn't expect their first meetings in person to be so awkward. But Megatron's rule casts a shadow over Ravage's assumption of the title Vox Destron, and Esmeral doesn't want to be exacly the same Megaempress her mother was.

[cleverthylacine]

Chapters: 31/31 Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types, The Transformers (IDW Generation One) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Ravage/Soundwave (Transformers), Marissa Faireborn/Thundercracker, Howlback/Grimlock (Transformers), Rosanna & Glit (Transformers), Miko Nakadai/Rumble (Transformers), Jazz/Soundwave (Transformers), Optimus Prime/Starscream, Ravage/Soundwave/Jazz (Transformers), Buzzsaw & Vortex (Transformers), Cosmos & Soundwave (Transformers) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Behavior, Substance Abuse, Transformer Sparklings, Human/Transformer Relationships (Transformers), Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing (Transformers), Sticky Sexual Interfacing (Transformers), Spark Sexual Interfacing (Transformers), Energy Field Sexual Interfacing (Transformers), Mood Whiplash, Colonialism, Fix-It, Transformers Spark Bonds, Functionalism (Transformers), Genderfluid Ravage, Hate Crimes, In-Character Poetry, In-Character Political Essays, Primax 1020.27 Iota, Past Sexual Assault, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Neuroatypical Characters, Starscream being Starscream, Decepticon cuddle piles, Ridiculous Robot Pig Latin Series: Part 4 of The Voice of Stanix (Primax 1020.27 Iota), Part 12 of All Hail Ravage Summary: Operation: Sanctuary--if you can't go home again, make a better one.

Chapter Summary:  Howlback and Grimlock register their conjuncture. Starscream tells Optimus a secret he’s been keeping from everyone else. Ravage has a nightmare. And where are all these temporally and logically impossible videos people keep finding coming from?

This is the last chapter of Designs and Persuasions.

Soundtrack on YouTube

Notes to my readers:  I can’t believe I finished the 4th VOS fic before the 3rd one.  I’m considering reordering them, but...the 3rd one starts slightly before the 2nd one ends! Anyhow, this is your gentle reminder that Designs and Persuasions and Every Day Is A Winding Road are two halves of a story arc. There are only 2, maybe even 1, chapters left in Winding Road.

The story that follows both Every Day is a Winding Road and Designs and Persuasions will be called Recovered Light.

[cleverthylacine]

Chapters: 31/32 Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types, The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers: Victory, Transformers: Unite Warriors Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Megatron/Minimus Ambus (Transformers), Deathsaurus/Esmeral (Transformers), Drift | Deadlock/Ratchet, Lyzack/Nickel (Transformers), Deathsaurus/Tarn (Transformers), Drift | Deadlock & Ravage, Leozack/Vos, Megatron/Terminus (Transformers) Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Mood Whiplash, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, Mutiny, Betrayal, Rodimus is the True Prime (Fite Me), Primax 1020.27 Iota, Sexual Manipulation, idiots to lovers, Mech Preg (Transformers), Unhealthy Polyamory, Transformer Sparklings, Tarn's Gross Orientalist Fetish, Energon Siphoning (Transformers), Ridiculous Robot Pig Latin, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Corpse Desecration, Attempted Cannibalism, Mind Control, Body Horror, Parasitic Plants, cloning, Unethical Sapient Experimentation, War Crimes, Implied/Referenced Reproductive Abuse, Attempted Sparkling Theft, Camp Grindcore

Series: Part 4 of The Voice of Stanix (Primax 1020.27 Iota),  Part 11 of All Hail Ravage

Summary: Ravage has left the Lost Light--leaving Megatron without his amica. He's grown closer to Minimus Ambus, but the former Ultra Magnus is losing his sense of moral certainty. Ratchet and Drift are reunited, but Drift is finished with the Autobots and the Lost Light. And just as Deathsaurus and Esmeral are finally about to be married, Tarn shows up to make Deathsaurus an offer he dare not refuse.

Content Advisory: The site warning "Rape/Non-con" was applied because of a nonconsensual spark-merge interface scene in Chapter 24. There is a synopsis of Chapter 24 in the comments of Chapter 25 for those who elect not to read it. There is also frank discussion of war crimes and atrocities (including experimentation on prisoners of war and on newsparks) which took place during the four-million-year war between the Autobots and the Decepticons.

Chapter Summary: Terminus is back on his bullshit, Liokaiser enjoys being a (demi) girl, Overlord undergoes a transmutation, foxes can open doors, and Drift, Vos and Leozack uncover Tarn’s deepest secret.

Chapter Notes: This really is the next to last chapter. It and the following chapter were meant to be a single one, but while I intended Terminus to Cause Problems On Purpose (it’s what he does), I did not think they were going to need to talk about it for the better part of fifteen single-spaced pages and I can’t make you read a thirty-page chapter.  There is not enough plot left for this to happen a third time, though (knock particleboard).  This fic was supposed to be done before Chinese New Year, hahaha.

Also the sparkling character was created by and used with permission from @bitegore.

[cleverthylacine]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types, The Transformers (IDW Generation One) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Howlback & Soundwave (Transformers), Howlback/Soundwave (Transformers) take your pick; she’s aro and they both have other partners, but they did fuck Characters: Howlback (Transformers), Soundwave (Transformers) Additional Tags: Primax 1020.27 Iota, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Coital Cuddling, Aromantic Character, Non-Romantic Sexuality Series: Part 6 of All Hail Ravage

Summary: If you can't be with the person you most want to be with, there's comfort in being with someone who cares for you both.

(This story takes place on Sanctuary Station, after Megatron's defection and before the beginning of Diamonds & Rust.)

[cleverthylacine]

I just saw your post, and I also just watched Episode One and was absolutely furious about it. I've been looking forward to this season!

I was so into the thought of new baby Terrans! I was thrilled at the idea of Breakdown having a kid! That sounded awesome! Even with Aftermath giving me immediate Motormaster vibes, I was initially hopeful being like, Okay, maybe the Emberstone Theory about who last touched it affecting the creations is true.

Maybe Breakdown being in Menasor is going to be brought up.

Maybe we get to see Breakdown dealing with raising a baby Stubticon a la their G1 more wild personalities, and he gets to give them the parenting he didn't get.

Maybe it's going to be continuing the family and breaking abuse cycle themes. That could be cool. Let Aftermath have a rougher personality, but be a good kid. Let other Cons get babies, too.

But I got immediate ick with the descriptions of the "Chaos Terrans," by Alex. It makes no sense. And how they are "corrupted". What?! Hated that.

Me and my Roomie spent the entire time going "BUT WHY???" with the opening! I wanted to see the Cons and Bots working together! The relationships built last Season were fun! THAT WAS ALL THE FUN STUFF!

I loved Hashtag & Starscream and Tarantulas & Nightshade! So much was unpacking different trauma from the war on both sides.

Everyone has issues! Explore them! Continue the theme of not passing on your trauma to your kids and healing and a new generation without war! Getting the future, they all wanted just not how they wanted it!

And the Quintessons would have been a great villain! Especially with all the mucking about Quintus did and their call out with the Sharkticons! AND IN EPISODE TWO THE EVEN PLAY WITH IT BY DIRECTLY CONNECTING THE FACT THAT A QUINTESSON EXECUTIONER WAS ON THE HUNT FOR QUINTUS! WHY WOULD THEY NOT JUST USE IT!

THE DECEPTICONS COULD HAVE GONE FULL SANCTUARY STATION! IT WAS RIGHT THERE!

Sorry to rant, but your criticism was similar to my own! And now I am on the edge of pulling a full V.O.S. of my own on Earthspark. I am just gnashing my teeth at this. I have to write an Alt-Season Two or I'll scream. Worst part is this was supposed to be a treat for a stressful day. 😭

ACK how do I spoiler cut the ask itself?

Welp, I'll put a spoiler tag on it, hopefully people are filtering those.

*hugs*

Man I get it, you just got mad, didn't you? I watched it and I just got madder and madder and madder.

I guess I'm gonna have to steal some characters. Go write your alt-season-2. Make it RavWave and I'll love you forever.

I wanted Hashtag to bond with Star so fucking much. And Tara and Nightshade. I love Nightshade and Hashtag, tbh I'm not that interested in Twitch and Thrash.

I don't understand why they did any of this. A lot of people in places like TFW2005 were complaining about how "woke" they thought it was, maybe they decided to go back to G1, but holy fucking crap it just sucks. I'm not going to watch the rest of it. I might watch the episodes that Ravi and Wave are in, maybe, just to like, SEE them. But maybe not. I don't want this.

The thing about "pulling a VoS" is that it will grow. I thought I was going to write a story where Ravage left the Lost Light, went home to Soundwave, and everything was, well, not 100% fine, but as fine as it ever is in IDW. @sharkteethies and I were joking about how Ravage would get to be Prom Queen and Starscream would maybe mope a little (the Prom Queen jokes come from there, but I gave them to Swerve because Swerve.)

But then as things happen they snowball. Maybe you don't have to be like me and shove every character you ever loved from the rest of the franchise into one AU (they are all there because they fill a need though). But whether you do that or not, you eventually have to go into the past to figure out why things worked out different this time.

(I got to cheat some because briefcase.)

VoS gets very dark and "Every Day Is A Winding Road" is particularly bleak in places, but it has to get dark so the sun can rise.

[cleverthylacine]

It's WIP Wednesday

from a fic with a working title of "child soldiers win stupid prizes":

“I just got kicked off Twitter.”

Jack stared at Raf. “Then why are you laughing so hard?”

“Because it’s funny. And misplaced revenge. Edison Muskrat got kicked off the Big Conversation and he thinks that I doxxed him because we have beef.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“Are you kidding? My grandchildren will be senior citizens before the end of an Esmeral ban. I know who did it, though, and it’s funny as fuck.”

“Why?”

“Because his last act was to thoroughly antagonise Eucryphtid.” Raf giggled, which made them sound twelve again, because Raf would never risk their account by actually saying so, but they both knew Eucryphtid was Tarn.

“Anyhow, today he was making dumb noises about how sad it was that one of Earth’s greatest heroes had succumbed to the woke virus—which, by the way, some of his alt-right circle jerk buddies think is an actual virus and coded by Soundwave—and he told me he used to think I was cool.”

“And?”

“I told him I never thought he was cool, but I used to think he was useful.”

(Context: I'm pretty sure SpaceX--I used to know someone who worked there--would have been involved in the Resistance during the Occupation of Earth. I'm also sure they'd have taken very few 'unnecessary' risks....unless EM thought they were really really cool or something)

from Recovered Light, which I should have known would have more than one chapter:

I hadn’t spoken to Rodimus since I left his ship, of course—but a lot more had changed than the colours of his paint.

“I like the purple,” I said. “Does it mean something?”

Rodimus laughed, but there was a nervousness in it that I hadn’t expected. “I hadn’t considered that,” he said. “That makes this weird.”

“Rodimus,” I said, “what about any of our lives isn’t weird?”

He looked down at the ground and shifted his weight from one pede to the other, and I could see him doing it even though all I could see on the screen was his bust.

“Ravage. I said something silly to Minimus and Esmeral, and they told me it wasn’t silly. I’m not sure I want to do it, especially not with this paint, but…I’m also not sure I don’t have to.”

I cocked my head and looked at him from a couple of different angles, thinking.  “Okay, this has got to be good. Tell me more.”

Rodimus frowned. “You know Optimus commandeered my ship and made Megatron my co-captain…”

“I am, surprisingly, very aware of that fact.” I smiled. Hopefully in an encouraging way, and not just with all of my dentae.

“And then Getaway stole it.”

I nodded.

“I’m still an Autobot—”

“You’re from Nyon. Why the Pit are you an Autobot?” I clapped my hand across my muzzle, mortified that I’d said it out loud.

Roddy just sighed. “Sometimes I wonder these days.”

I nodded.

“I told people—and I was joking—that when we got to Sanctuary, I was gonna register this ship with the Station so that Autobots would stop stealing it from me. It was a present. From Drift. I didn’t even buy it myself. It was a gift to me from my amica.”

I nodded again. I knew that.

He looked up at me. “But then Esmeral said I should do it, and Minimus said it would work, and I wouldn’t have to change my badge, it could just be a flag of convenience.”

I frowned. “Sanctuary doesn’t grant flags to people who aren’t willing to help us defend ourselves if we are attacked,” I said. “As much as I’d like to help you—” I shrugged. “I mean. If you became a citizen you wouldn’t have to swear to Destron either, and while we take a portion of your wealth to buy in, we could classify your ship a personal transport because we don’t count them against your initial buy-in cost. But. Whether or not you joined Sanctuary, formally, if you carry our flag you have to defend us.”

Rodimus chewed his lower lip plate.

“I could,” he said. “I would, as long as you weren’t being gratuitously violent colonialist jackrods. Which uh, I know you’re not. But you know. I might enjoy helping you kick Galvatron’s skidplate, because he sure is.”

[cleverthylacine]

another one for the megarav list

[cleverthylacine]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types, The Transformers (IDW Generation One) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Chromedome/Rewind (Transformers), Megatron/Minimus Ambus (Transformers), Dominus Ambus/Rewind (Transformers), Minimus Ambus & Dominus Ambus (Transformers) Characters: Minimus Ambus (Transformers), Rewind (Transformers), Chromedome (Transformers), Ten (Transformers) Additional Tags: Primax 1020.27 Iota, Hurt No Comfort, Unsuccessful Attempt at Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Adultery Series: Part 13 of All Hail Ravage Summary:

You don't know what you got till it's gone.

Takes place the morning after the end of Every Day Is A Winding Road.

Content Advisory: Reminiscences from the "Golden" Age.

[cleverthylacine]

from the cutting room floor

Warning: Spoilers for Every Day Is A Winding Road and Recovered Light

So, the other day I was talking with @jariktig and we talked about the death of Terminus at the end of Winding Road.

I'd misunderstood her--she'd said she was trying to reconcile the needs of the story with her own emotions and I was like, okay, welp, the interpretation of Terminus as a Good Person is slightly less weird to me than the interpretation of Dominus Ambus as a Good Person, but at least you're not arguing and then she said, "oh no! I just don't think Terminus suffered enough!"

And I laughed, although on the other side of multiple ponds and continents she couldn't hear me. Uproariously.

In the original outline for these fics, though, Terminus did survive the ending. One of the reasons he was supposed to be in Recovered Light (and possibly Year of the Cat and even Quintessential, where he would have been a valued knowledge resource) was that he was supposed to bring Ravage and Minimus together.

(By being someone they disliked even more than they disliked one another...but I digress!)

I was unable to keep Terminus alive because he tried to take over my story, much like he did Megatron's early life, and Ravage's also. He is a blowhard who can't shut the fuck up and he's not even funny most of the time.

He has almost as much to do with the reason it took a year to write the ending to Winding Road as my brother's cancer did. (He's in remission.) The cancer was definitely more life-altering and emotionally terrifying. Terminus, however, was deeply and truly annoying at a time when I didn't need any more annoyances.

Anyhow, some of the scenes I'd written for later fics in the series did have Terminus in them and will obviously have to be cut, but I'd like to share this half-chapter or so, because it is actually funny. It is a draft, and the POV isn't clearly nailed down, and some bits of it may end up in the actual fic, but they will be very different, because Terminus won't be in them.

Fic starts below here:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron was surprised when he realised—a half second before he did something he would have regretted—namely, giving Howlback a big hug—that Ravage had not come to meet him.

“That is my wife, Megatronus,” said Grimlock. “And I don’t think she wants a hug.”

“Not from you,” said Howlback to Megatron, looking him up and down. “Megatron, I’m Chair of the Station Security Committee, and you’re a security risk. You have the right to ask for sanctuary, if that’s what you’re going to do, but right now I’m going to need your word and bond that you and your boyfriend both understand that we can’t guarantee your safety unless you stay in your assigned quarters. A number of citizens have Filed Intent on you, and I don’t want to have to explain it to Ravage if something happens to you.”

Megatron shuttered his optics for a moment, and nodded. “Of course. I should have expected that.”

“You can’t speak for me,” said Minimus, bristling beside him.

“Of course he can’t,” said Howlback, growling at the interruption. “I’ll deal with you momentarily, Gluteus Magnus.”

She ex-vented. “If you elect to ask for Sanctuary, Megatron, you will have to be willing to cooperate with the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. That is the only way you can get those people to withdraw their claims on your life. Otherwise, you can’t stay here for more than three days and I can’t guarantee your safety if you go anywhere by yourself without a good bodyguard.”

“Of course I’m willing to cooperate,” said Megatron. “But I would like to point out that Ravage is the one who’s insisting on this.”

“I thought Ravage said we’d be safe here—” Minimus snapped, bristling.

“Shut up, Commander Fox!” said Howlback. “I’m not finished talking to Megatron. You’re not the Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord anymore and even if we did ‘diplomatic immunity’ here, you are certainly not a diplomat. Unless you’re asking for sanctuary and forswearing all ties to the ruling Prime on Cybertron, you’re a tourist. Also, you sent my conjunx to Garrus-9! And I don’t think anyone actually likes you here, except possibly Cosmos.”

Megatron sighed heavily. “Minimus, please do not expect these people to handle things the way Autobots do. We are in Destron now.”

“Yes. You are.” Howlback looked back up at Megatron, crossing her arms over her chest. She’d had her bipedal root mode restored, but unlike Ravage, she still had a root mode face. At least she wasn’t wearing her second head on her chest.

“You both have other options,” she continued. “There are settlements in the Belt that are affiliated with Sanctuary, but they’re independent communes or syndicates. We don’t govern them and I can’t tell you whether or not they’ll protect you from people with claims, but there aren’t any claims or charges against you there. You can go back to the Warworld that brought you here, if Esmeral and Deathsaurus are willing to have you. Or you can go down to Earth—but I don’t recommend that. They haven’t forgotten your reign of terror down there.”

“Now, wait a moment—” Minimus sputtered.

Howlback growled at him again. “You are a traitor to our kind. I have exactly one fuck to give about you, and you’ve just used up three. Ravage probably said that we don’t execute people here. And we don’t. And we don’t extradite people to places that do. But she didn’t say there’d be no recompense expected for the things that he has done, or that nobody here wanted revenge on him. We’ll keep you both as safe as we can, but you’re not exactly popular here, either, Minimus Ambus. There aren’t any Filings on you, but only because those have to be personal injuries.”

Howlback shrugged. “Ravage wants you to stay here. I think it would be best for you to stay here, too, but I’m not going to beg you to. Especially not if you’re going to make my life more difficult.”

“No,” said Megatron. “No, we don’t want to make your life more difficult, Howlback. Congratulations on your conjuncture, by the way. Where is Ravage? She’s my amica, and I want to see her.”

“I’m sure she’ll see you when she’s ready to, Megatron,” said Howlback. “Right now, she is introducing Nautica to Soundwave and Jazz, and after that she’ll probably want to see Stalker if Buzzsaw and Vortex are ready to let go of him. But the two of you are a security risk, so nobody gets to see you before I do.”

“And me after that,” said Grimlock, over her head.

Howlback rolled her optics, but her smile was altogether affectionate. “That’s enough, Grim.”

Terminus looked down at her in complete disbelief. “Do you know who he is?”

Ten caught him easily by the shoulder. “Ten,” he said softly, but Terminus ignored him..

“Yeah,” said Howlback. “I’m Howlback of Stanix, Chair of the Station Security Committee. I was the chief of his military police force for way too damn long. So I think I know him better than you, whoever you are.”

“I’m Terminus of Messatine—”

“Really,” said Howlback, with a double roll of her optics. “He wrote you out of the book, but I was alive back then, and even if I was a kitten, nobody treated me like one. I have one piece of advice for you, and here it is. Take care how you speak to my sister. Things have reversed from the way they once were. Ravage is now incredibly patient…but Soundwave is not.”

Megatron was all too well aware of this. “So who’s the chair of the Reconciliation Committee?” he asked, trying to sound even a little bit casual about it.

“Doctor Glitterbomb,” said Grimlock, and bared all his dentae.

“We’re in trouble,” said Minimus, scowling, and Megatron couldn’t argue with that.

“Well,” said Howlback, “if you’re lucky he’ll decide to recuse himself. He does have claims of his own. The problem with that is there’s nobody else that wants the job who everyone trusts, and Ravage and Soundwave don’t want it, in case someone raises a claim against them. It hasn’t happened yet, but everyone who could conceivably raise a claim against Glit is either already dead or very aware that he didn’t want to be there at Grindcore either.”

~*~*~*~

“What was all that about?” Minimus was pacing. They’d been assigned a secure suite, with a berthroom for the two of them, and another for Ten and Terminus. Sanctuary didn’t have prison cells but he suspected it could pass for one if they needed it to. “And why is he in here with us?”

Terminus glared back at him. “This place is overcrowded, can’t you tell? Didn’t you see the new habitats they’re still building? And they can’t put us in one of those—not if they want to monitor us. Someone should tell Captain Howlback that a prison doesn’t have to look like one.”

“She knows,” said Megatron. “This is not a prison; if you want to go out, they’ll let you. They’d probably even let me, though they’d tell her. But if someone who had an established claim on me shot me dead, the only charges they’d be up on would be for discharging a weapon in communal space, or something like that. I know how this place is set up. I’ve read every word she’s written about it. And I didn’t ask you to read them just because I thought you were bored, Terminus. This place is what Soundwave and Ravage meant Destron to be, not you. And they don’t outsource revenge to the state, but they don’t treat it as murder when the suspect has cause.”

“And we want to live here why?” Minimus grumbled.

“I don’t, but I faced the judgement of the Autobots on Cybertron, and now I have to face the judgement of the Decepticons.” Megatron lifted one heavy brow ridge. “Anyroad…they don’t execute people here. I’ve made my peace with the fact that it’s what I deserve, but I’m not going to let it happen on Earth.”

Minimus scowled. ���You don’t think they have the right?”

“I think that the number of humans I’ve killed is both mathematically smaller than the number of Cybertronians I’ve killed, and that I’ve certainly killed a smaller proportion of humans than of some of the other species we’ve dealt with, because there are more than a few of them left,” Megatron said, with an uneasy sigh. “There are even some here. I’m certain I saw that pink-haired girl who told me to fuck the hell off that one time.”

Ugh, thought Minimus: Miko. Verity liked her, though.

“Are you saying you’ve committed a genocide?” Terminus frowned.

“How many times do I have to say that before you can actually hear it? Not all by myself, but certainly not just one,” said Megatron, scowling.

Terminus shuddered. Good, Minimus thought. Let him chew on that one a while. But he didn’t: “You’re telling me Howlback’s never killed anyone since she came here—?”

“No,” said Megatron. “I’m saying that if she has, it was in defence of the Station, or in personal self-defence. I’m very aware that Strika and Howlback are both responsible for killing people who attacked the Station. But Soundwave—Ravage wasn’t here, then—wouldn’t let them kill anyone who surrendered. I don’t doubt Howlback wanted to. And I don’t doubt that if Overlord came to the door she would shoot him right in the face, but she’d be shooting him as Howlback, not as the Chair of Security.”

“So why are they being so unpleasant? I thought Ravage wanted to make peace with me—”

“A lot of things,” Megatron said wearily. “You know very well why Ravage doesn’t like you. I love you anyway, but I can’t forgive you on her behalf. And she’s not going to do it until you admit to her that you have collaborated in the oppression of your own people. I strongly recommend reminding her that it was your brother who wrote the Ambus Test, but you did enforce the law—”

“Coward,” muttered Terminus.

“Dead,” said Minimus, and stared right back at him. “Or not, but only by the grace of Censere.”

Minimus did not like Terminus, who was always harassing Megatron about decisions he hadn’t been there for and seemed to be not the least bit concerned about Megatron’s conscience, Megatron’s body count, or Megatron’s actual best interests.

But he did wonder why Howlback hated Terminus. Terminus had disappeared before the war, when Ravage had still been working on the Senate floor and Howlback had still been working for Prowl. 

Megatron had continued: “Are you really surprised that Howlback and Grimlock dislike you as much as Ravage does? Grimlock isn’t just a Predacon; he’s a saurian. If he hadn’t been forged in urban Liaconia he’d probably have been hunted, and even so he did still end up in the Pits. Besides, I think there’s other business you’ve left unfinished with him.”

Minimus stood there for a moment and winced. “Not by my choice. I offered him a deal and he wouldn’t take it. I’m also not responsible for anything that Overlord did. Why is he conjunct with her?”

“He’s been her paramour since he and I were both in the Pits of Kaon,” said Megatron, laughing a little. “They’ve been off and on, because of the war, but the war’s over, so now I suppose they’re back on. She got mad at him for working with…us.”

It took Minimus a moment to realise that Megatron was referring to the Autobots.

“You weren’t one of us then.” Minimus scowled. “Perhaps someone should tell her how terrible Grimlock actually was at being an Autobot.”

“I think she knows,” said Megatron, smiling wryly. “He’d not be back in her berth if she didn’t. She went a million years once without speaking to him.”

“Does she actually love him—?”

“In some kind of way,” Megatron said, “but probably not in the way you love me.” Although it might have been similar, given that Minimus knew all of his faults and still stayed.

“Don’t these people realise that you were their liberator?” Terminus fussed. “Do they really think they could have got where they are without you?”

Minimus glared at him. “They’re here because of Soundwave, Terminus. They were in ghettos on Cybertron before they came here, and that was because of him.”

“I’m not sure I don’t think Soundwave and Ravage wouldn’t have got where they are even faster without me,” Megatron grumbled. “Scorponok, Starscream and Onslaught all failed but if Soundwave and Strika had ever got tired enough of my pitslag, I’m sure they would have done just fine. I may have been necessary in the very beginning, but they’d have had Drift, and they’d have had Maitri, and Deathsaurus, and plenty of others, longer than I could hold onto them.”

Terminus frowned. “You don’t mean that—”

“Oh yes he does,” said Minimus.

“TEN,” said Ten, stepping between them.

“Thank you,” said Megatron under his vents. “I have a long list of charges and claims to review. You are both giving me processor strain. I’m not at all sure that being expected to stay cooped up in here with both of you at once is not a part of my punishment, and I know it’s part of yours.”

“What’s Howlback got against him?” Minimus said, very quietly.

“Nothing valid,” said Terminus.

Megatron ex-vented, slowly. “You know what you said to Ravage, back on the noisechans.”

Terminus rolled his optics. “I was trying to make her feel better about the situation.”

“And I told her to run, if she could,” said Megatron. “Maybe if she’d run when I told her to, she and Soundwave would have done better.”

“Megatron?” Minimus frowned. “What’s this about?”

“It’s Ravage’s business,” said Megatron. “But I’m sure you can figure it out from the poetry.”

Minimus’ jaw dropped, and he stared for a moment. “She bought herself back with her knives—”

“A few million years later than she should’ve done,” said Megatron, “and that was my fault, too. For starting to think like he did.”

“I wish I’d met you before,” said Minimus, fresh shock and anguish all over his face.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” said Terminus. “You’d probably have married him and he’d never have done anything but write! Somebody else would have led the revolution—”

“And it would have been better!” Megatron bellowed.

“It would have failed,” said Terminus. “Soundwave was worse than you were back then—”

“Soundwave was always better than me. Ravage knew it,” said Megatron, “and that’s why she left me aboard the Lost Light. They had Strika. They had Grimlock, who left because he and I had a fight. They had Drift. They didn’t need me to take up arms, or to whore myself out in the Pits.”

Minimus wasn’t sure about that, in the moment, and being unsure of it hurt him more than anything else that anyone there had said. “I need a moment,” he said, and went back to their berthroom to lay himself down.

Megatron, who’d finally begun to learn understand the difference between repression and boundaries, didn’t follow him. “Not one more word,” he told Terminus. “Not now. I can’t take it. I was always weak. You were right about that. And now I need to think my own thoughts. Not yours.”

Megatron curled up on a sofa, uncomfortably, to read through the mountain of paperwork that Howlback had just dumped in his lap.

“I’m telling our guards to summon our precious Parvilla,” Terminus muttered.

“You’ll regret that,” said Megatron softly, before he remembered he didn’t want to keep talking to Terminus. “Nobody summons Ravage.”

Terminus ignored him. He was already yelling at Lugnut, who had been standing guard in the hall, Lugnut being one of the few old soldiers still willing to protect him.

Some of the claims were exaggerated, or false, or insufficiently personal; but only some of them. There were a fair number of people on Sanctuary who had a legitimate claim on his life. And Soundwave had filed one, which hurt more than it ought to have done, given the way he had treated their relationship and their family. The order to Ravage had been cruel, and he’d rescinded it, even though Ravage had been freed of cassette coding. That didn’t mean Soundwave did not want him dead.

Terminus and Lugnut were still yelling, and finally there was a softer voice in the hallway. It wasn’t Ravage’s, though.

“Why don’t you two calm down and chill? Ravage and her girlfriend are having a little reunion, okay? Soundwave’s making our dinner, I came down here to see what the fuss was about—wait, who are you?”

Great, thought Megatron, and went to the door. “Terminus. Shut the fuck up. Immediately.” He looked down at Jazz. “They really did adjunx you, didn’t they?”

“Ain’t official yet.”

“How is she?”

“Pissed off,” said Jazz. “Spent a good bit of time talking her down, back when it all got started, tellin’ her that I didn’t want to come between ‘em like you did. But she loves you. Mind you, I don’t know why.”

“If she weren’t mad at me, she wouldn’t have sent you,” said Megatron.

“Reckon not, but I came on my own accord. Anyhow I’ll give you one thing you don’t deserve. She made Sounders promise not to kill you on the grounds that it would hurt her, which is not what he wants to do, ever again. But he’s going to see you and make his demands before he lets you see her. So you better figure out what you’re gonna say to him, because you’re not getting any closer to her than you are right now unless he trusts you not to do or say anything stupid.”

“So, sometime next vorn, I presume.” Megatron sighed.

“What’s Parvilla still got to be mad about—”

“You say your name was Terminus?” Jazz looked up at him thoughtfully.

“What of it?”

“I was reading those boards back then,” said Jazz, almost cheerfully. “I think you should keep that name and all of the rest of her names the fuck out your mouth.”

Terminus looked up at Megatron, as if he expected…something.

Megatron shrugged. “I think you should actually try to accept the fact that it has been over four million years since you ‘died’ and that neither I nor anyone else here is what you think we should be, because as much as we loved you—as I did, anyway—many of us tried that, and it failed spectacularly.”

[cleverthylacine]

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

I'm very bad at identifying the themes of my stories before I finish them; I don't always consciously know how my unconscious process is structuring things until I've made them.

One thing I do know about Voice of Stanix (and other Primax 1020.27 Iota stories) is that it's about how oppression replicates itself, and that's why I am writing so much that is set on Sanctuary Station--Designs and Persuasions, and the side stories, are not just about Ravage and Soundwave and Jazz negotiating relationship boundaries, they're also about how Soundwave and Ravage and Howlback are working hard not to replicate systems they hated that don't work, and about how Marissa and TC are trying to keep Earth politics from getting out of hand, and about how Earth really doesn't have a choice about dealing with Cybertronians.

The Quintessons colonised Cybertron. The Resistance that drove them out was led by the people of Iacon and Greater Liaconia (Iacon is connected to Rodion and Rodion is connected to Polyhex).

Iaconian militarised theocracy speread throughout the rest of Cybertron via Primalist intellectual colonisation and the use of force, culminating in the oppression and degradation of other Cybertronian cultures--Uraya and Kaon being the last to fall, and never falling completely.

The Autobots wanted to preserve but reform the social structure, and the Decepticons wanted to destroy and replace it. Both of them became colonialist powers as a result of this. Autobot and Decepticon colonialism don't look the same, but neither one of them is good. The Decepticons wouldn't be on Earth if the Autobots hadn't come there.

And the Galactic Council is composed of many organic worlds that had to throw off Quintesson rule.

One of the things that's always stuck with me is that Functionism had to have originally come from the Quints, because the people whose altmodes are useful only to themselves (the beastformers) are at the lowest rung of the social ladder and the social ladder is organised not by how much use you can get out of your own body, but rather by how much use someone else can get out of your body when used as a tool. A car can drive on its own but what can a microscope do on its own? You are valued by how rare and useful a tool you are, and people who are mutable and capable in form, but not usable by others as tools, are considered the Useless Ones.

So Iacon threw out the Quints, but the Quints were still in their heads, only now they were all tools of Primus, not tools of the Quints.

The Autobots wanted to preserve and reform Iaconian culture; the Decepticons, people from Vos and Uraya and Kaon and other places that hated Iacon's yoke, wanted to destroy and replace it.

(I also have a lot of thoughts about how, after Megatron's abdication, Ravage and Soundwave are Beit Hillel and Tarn is Beit Shammai, but I don't have time to explain that today.)

I also have fun sometimes with settings. I had great fun having Ravage and Megatron part--no longer lovers, but still friends--not knowing if they'd ever see one another again--at the same time that Swerve and Misfire meet and are instantly romantically attracted--in a storm of purple petals released by flowering trees on that planet.

For some reason, I'm also really fond of people having conversation s in space, or on planets with unfriendly atmospheres. Soundwave and Buzzsaw trudging through the yellow snow of Io (sulfur, not piss), Charlie and Cosmos chatting outside at Utopia Planitia while Charlie draws something in the red sand and tries to figure out what it is, Miko and Rumble going on a date to the surface of the Station and Clobber coming up after them. And if I can't put people in space I put them on the observation decks a lot.

[cleverthylacine]

Favourite thing you’ve ever created for a ship?

Wanted to put both these in one but mobile problems.

An entire AU. Voice of Stanix / All Hail Ravage / Primax 1020.27 Iota.

It was originally just "thou shalt not refrigerate the catte" but it very quickly turned into Ravage/Soundwave OTP.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 Spoilers for the shipping part of the fic series under the cut. And it's okay if you wait to read them till you're at least partway through Designs & Persuasions. I don't know what your name is on AO3 so I have no idea how far you are in.

I did not originally know their endgame was a polycule...

but they are spark-bound and their spark-bond is at the centre of the entire thing.

Jazz is apparently more than content to be loved by them both without ever having to be as open to anyone as they are to each other 100% of the time (being spark-bound to a telepath is not the kind of choice that is for most people). He gets to be loved, they get to love him, he gets to bask in all that warmth and it's lovely.

And Nautica has seven amicae, dating conjunxes without getting conjunxed herself is 100% on her brand.

I don't know if anyone else will ever be in the polycule on a long term basis, but I think those two are as involved in the relationship as Megatron was before he completed his "fuck over everyone in my life tour" by joining the Autobots and leaving the two of them to have to deal with Galvatron. At least in my universe they have Strika backing them up!

[dontpetmeibite]

Is anyone out there missing a Terminus?

He definitely isn't ours; ours is a jackrod.

He says he's Megatron's father--not his mentor, his father--and that Galvatron is his son's mother.

Our local Galvatron is a) male and b) dead.

We've told him we'll help him to find his way home, although he's perfectly lovely and he's welcome to stay at the Station as long as he likes.

You know how to reach us!

Ravage Parvilla of Stanix Lord High Protector of Destron Primax 1020.27 Iota