#Proteus Class

[lonestarbattleship]

USS TACOMA (C-18), USS PROTEUS (AC-9) coaling USS NEW JERSEY (BB-16) with French Conde on left at Veracruz, Mexico.

Photographed in 1914

Maritime Museum of San Diego: N-22726, N-22725

[goddessofwisdom18]

Emerie Şafak, Lady of the Hills, the Cloaked, the Shimmering, the Carynthian

[headfullof-ideas]

I am slowly but surely finding myself writing Nereus appreciation/explanation/character study into three of the fics I’m currently working on, and it’s probably because this fandom is a teensy bit more critical of him than we should be and I think that needs fixed. He is not the man that needs bashing

[weirdowithaquill]

The Destruction of Engine Culture:

Ok, so this is going to be another long, and rambling post. So be warned. And as usual, this is a RWS theory post, so there will be talk of scrap.

That said, let's dive into the destruction of engine culture.

So, I think the first thing to ask is what would be 'engine culture' and how would it affect the railways of Britian (and globally) - and the answer is quite simple: it's the same as human culture. Humans have developed cultures for millennia, and they are often quite similar, and this is hypothesized to be because these cultures had similar things to warn about. Warning about the dangers of flooding, of wild animals, of droughts and fires. Many of the oldest stories are tales told to teach practical lessons. Little Red Riding Hood is as much about stranger danger and the threat wild animals pose as it is a story about a crossdressing wolf. Some scientists believe games like tag and catch were developed by our hunter-gatherer ancestors to teach hand-eye coordination and improve stamina. This is of course very early culture: stories, games and songs passed down from one generation to the next - but that's what we're talking about here. Railways are 220 years old at the oldest possible (and there are surviving engines from this era), so it's an early era of culture for them.

Furthermore, engines would inherit much of their railways' culture, depending on where they are. An engine working in Tsarist Russia would grow up with that culture, whereas an engine in Argentina, or France, or Kenya would grow up with the local cultures. This includes language, music, belief systems and otherwise. So that's the basis of engine culture itself: human culture. Engines learn human language, they sing human songs and they might even take on human beliefs.

They do, however, have their own beliefs. Lady, for one, with her gold dust and magic, has been used by fanfic authors as an 'engine deity', while Thomas and Friends alluded to Proteus being a deity of some sort, with a magic lamp. These engine 'deities' exist, it seems, as a focal point for engines. Proteus represents the ability to make wishes - something engines really don't have, while Lady represents freedom. She's able to travel great distances on her own, between continents, without needing to pull trains. Does that not sound like the railway version of attaining freedom?

So the engines have 'deities'. I won't call them gods, because that's very likely not what they are, but they are legends told by older engines to younger ones.

The other kind of legends that would really dominate engine culture would be practical moral tales - in the same vein as Little Red Riding Hood being about stranger danger and the threat of wild animals, stories told between engines would be warnings about the trucks, or bad stretches of line, or dangerous weather. But unlike fairy tales, these stories would come from experience. Engine culture is very new, and it's being developed continuously during the Victorian era. Incidents like the Tay Bridge Disaster, or William Huskisson's death, or the Abbots Ripton rail disaster all are quickly turned into stories told by the older engines to teach the new arrivals (of which there are hundreds by the year) about how to run the railway as safely as possible.

The engines also develop games which help them to watch signals, or counter miles, or figure out their location in adverse conditions. These games started as training exercises, but became more fun as young engines made them competitions. They also develop songs of their own, which can tell messages:

"Once an engine when fixed to a train Was alarmed at a few drops of rain, So went "puff" from its funnel Then fled to a tunnel, And would not come out again."

The message: don't stop in a tunnel.

But the thing is, this post is about the destruction of engine culture, and now that I've explained it, I'm going to explore how it was decimated.

And for that, we start with the Second World War, which saw a complete upheaval of the railways of Britain. The war was especially hard on the railways, and engines were often used around the clock with no rest. This meant that a lot of the newer engines never got to hear these stories before being sent out for weeks at a time, as they never spent any time at a single shed. And even if they were parked up at a shed, everyone was so exhausted they didn't have time to tell tales. And at the end of the war, a lot of the oldest engines were withdrawn, completely worn out. The oldest engines were the ones who told many of the tales, and their loss was the start of a decline.

The Railway Series, however, would pick up a lot of the slack from this loss, as many of its earliest stories were in that same moral vein as traditional 'engine culture' stories, focusing on listening to elders, not stopping in tunnels, being patient, gentle with coaches, careful with trucks - it's all there. And I can see that being due to Edward teaching the Reverend many of these stories, in a bid to keep them from vanishing. And he would continue on, joined by other older engines like Skarloey, Rheneas and Toby, as the book series went on. Things like listening to advice and not acting recklessly pop up constantly - especially with Duncan, who Skarloey had to deal with.

It all gets worse when British Railways forms though. And this is where the 'railway rulebook', the attitudes of diesels and the doctrine of BR all come in to play. As the doctrine and official rulebook of British Railways portrays steam engines as inferior, weaker engines, the diesels are indoctrinated into believing it - and thus, they refuse to listen. Take Diesel for example, who believes that diesels can just arrive at a yard and 'improve it'. He is immediately foiled by some jammed breaks - something he may have learnt about from a story or a tale from a steam engine. But he never stopped to listen. And it's the same across the country, across the world in fact. As the successful diesel classes prove themselves to their managers, they are rolled out and steam engines are withdrawn - and with that, so is the culture they were the keepers of.

But this isn't quite the end of this 'engine culture' yet, because one group willing to listen to the steam engines are the 'failures'. Engines like BoCo and Derek would be very willing to listen to the engines that have tales that may just help them. Stories like how to best use sand in a storm, or how to conserve energy over the Settle-Carlisle route. And so even as steam dies, these 'failures' hold their culture, and try their best to preserve it, alongside the preserved engines. The Railway Series does too, such as in 'Stepney the Bluebell Engine', where sanding is explicitly mentioned. Another group that take in this engine culture is the GWR diesel-hydraulics, who grew up with GWR ideology, and thus would have been more willing to listen to their steam ancestors.

But these 'non-standard' engines were also quickly wiped out. And this leaves only a few pockets of engines who remember the old stories: the preserved engines, and the few Gen-1 diesels who did listen. By the end of the working lives of the Class 40s, the Deltics and the 'Peaks', they are the last engines who remember the old stories from the steam era working on British Railways, and when they are scrapped, the next generation grows up relearning everything.

Because the fact is that these stories held a major purpose, and the destruction of that culture means that every mistake every warned against is suddenly being made again, and again, and again. We notice this in the Railway Series, where Diesel, and Class 40, and D199 and even Bear all make very elementary mistakes that would have been warned against in these cultural stories - like taking care around trucks or looking out for the wind. And it only gets worse as this first generation are scrapped. Engines scramble to a standstill on leaves again, engines get trapped in floods, or lost in storms, or run through signals - and it's because the games, the songs, the stories, everything that would have prevented these accidents is lost.

It's not until these diesels reach preservation that they hear the stories remembered by the steam engines, and that's when they realise that... hey, maybe the ancestors were right after all.

The saddest part is that it's not only a global thing, but that it's still very much a problem on modern railways. The loss of 'engine culture' between the 1950s and the 1980s would have a domino effect that would still impact modern railways, as the even newer electric engines and multiple units face the same issues but with no prior knowledge.

The pictures in this post are not mine.

[professionalunprofessional]

A Long-Tailed Skipper on some delicious looking flowers!

[11queensupreme11]

Hey girlieeeee, I was inspired by this TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT2ndj56M/

I am completely curious about what would happen if this happened to Percy.

Like one of the yanderes let her go and pick her wedding dress at a fancy goddess shop and when she comes back home empty handed. They’re confused and when they ask about it she tells them what happened..

What would happen??? How would her kids react to that if she told them about it future wise!???

THATD BE SO FUCKING INSANE 😭😭😭

cuz percy's faceclaim is ADRIANA LIMA who is a VICTORIA'S SECRET SUPER MODEL and back in chapter 15 beelie stated her to be 132 lbs 😭😭😭😭😭

not only that, but the store owner/employee would have to be STUPIDLY suicidal to say that to her bfjhasjhdv 💀

poseidon would be FURIOUS. some low-life, hideous, second-class creature dared to call HIS PERFECT DAUGHTER "fat"????????? he'd snatch that bitch up, pierce her with a fishing hook, and let his people feast on her. then he orders proteus to fetch the best designer in the atlantean empire because he knows none of his own citizens would DARE to insult their empress/princess

hades' first action is to comfort her!!!! he knew how much she'd been looking forward to getting that wedding dress and feels devastated for her because she was so happy when she left!!!!! and then some rude employee dared to ruin her joy and make her sad! not to worry, hades will have the best designers he knows on the job to make her an even PRETTIER dress 💖 as for the designer, he'll have a little "talk" with how she handles her business. depending on how remorseful she is, he MAY leave her to rot in tartarus. if not... well, cerberus needs a new chew toy!

for the first second, beelzebub would be genuinely surprised that someone was stupid enough to insult the DEVIL'S betrothed. after that, he consoles her and, similarly to hades, finds designers to make a dress that fits her desires (and this time, this designer would know better than to do anything foolish). then, he kidnaps the designer, tortures her, and then forces her to apologize to a very confused percy. once that's done, they'll be dragged back to the lab!

"THAT BITCH CALLED YOU WHAT?!" cú chulainn is more emotional about this than percy is LMAO 😂 he is pacing up and down the floor, screaming and waving his arms like a maniac. he's like a teenage girl desperate to hear the tea because he's just THAT pissed off by it. "and what'd you say after that?! you just left?! BECAUSE SHE MADE YOU CRY?! I'LL FUCKING KILL HER" anyway, he gets so angry that someone dared to make the love of his life cry that he gets into ríastrad mode and starts rampaging the place trying to hunt the designer down 💀

apollo is immediately seething and fuming. he's not dumb. this shop was in the gods' side of valhalla where EVERYONE has powers. if the dress truly was too small, the employee could've easily fixed it with the snap of her fingers. he KNOWS that this bully did this on purpose to hurt percy's feelings and he's PISSED. he consoles percy first, obviously, and when that's done he hunts that designer down. apollo is scarily good with punishments and he's cooking up the worst one yet

loki's ready to make that bitch regret it. "the woman there 👹 made 👹 you 👹 cry??????????👹👹👹👹👹 dw honey, i'll deal with her 💖" he carefully takes a sad percy over to frigg who immediately calls in another designer. he doesn't actually leave to hunt down the perpetrator right away! at least, not until percy's got a new dress and she's happy again 💖 once that's settled with, THEN he gets tormenting the woman that dared to make HIS lover cry

the second percy returns home with no dress and reeking with sadness, anubis is on her in an instant, worried and angrily demanding what happened and who DARED to make her cry. when percy tells him what happened, he plops kebi onto her lap (cuz he knows kebi makes her happy 💖), and heads straight to the shop to tear that bitchy designer apart 💖💖

and the kids would be FURIOUS and/or upset to know that they're mother was treated so horribly. they just don't get it. their mother's the most beloved by all the realms! it's hard for them to imagine anyone being so blatantly rude and disrespectful to her 💔

[artsy-hobbitses]

Do you perhaps have any headcanons on the miscreant Starscream??

DO I EVER.

I'm gonna assume you're new here or at least have not seen all headcanons, so I'll collated into one document. RIP you're getting sandblasted with a horrible sky gremlin who has hidden heart of a hero (DON'T LET THEM HEAR YOU SAY THAT, HE HAS STREET CRED TO MAINTAIN).

Starscream/Stefan Scavarro got his codename from the shriek that his suit's engines made when he would divebomb opponents from the heavens. Combined with them seeing literal stars when he blindsided them and how much of a 'sky devil' he was with his red armor, a terrified senate guard described him as the rebellion's "(Azrael) Morningstar, screaming bloody vengeance as he swoops down from the heavens to hunt the wicked". Hence, 'Starscream' was born.

He wears his hair long to cover the Cold Construct barcode on the nape of his neck. Touch him there without his permission, and he will break your fingers.

He's the best cook on the team, and he'll say it's because he's rather eat barb wire (the taste of his blood would at least add some flavour) than be subjected to the military slop he lived with for twenty years. It's never too late to learn how to how to cook and eat well, though if you substitute fresh garlic for powdered garlic in something you're serving him, he's going to fight you across the dining room table after he's done eating it. Food should be respected, even if they were the product of a culinary crime.

He learned to tailor his own clothes during his college days, and has since become very proficient at it. He make most of his formal garments, and is considered the most fashion-centric member of the team.

He was very close to Senator Shockwave/Sharifuddin Waseem as a young politician, to the point of having an unrequited crush. Sharif accepted him as a part of the senate despite his status as a (freed) Cold Construct driving others away from him, and both spent most of their time together in the senate researching and drafting bills pushing for more rights and protections for the Manual Class and Cold Constructs

He has a personal dislike of Optimus Prime/Omar Parvez, and blames Omar for what happened to Sharif, as Sharif surrendered to Proteus on Omar's watch. He had earlier requested that Omar not leave Sharif's side before their mission began and he was assigned to another post, because he had a bad feeling about Proteus' plans for Sharif, and accused Omar of being too spineless to stop it. That Omar had to choose between saving Sharif or the men Sharif told him to keep safe was something he refused to consider. However, in time they do come to an understanding when he accepts that Omar was given a impossible choice and made the one that respected Sharif's last request and sacrifice.

While he can't bring himself to keep pets (he doesn't want to get attached amid a war), he does have a fondness for cats! He admires their beauty, grace, independence and low tolerance for bullshit. He eventually adopts an old and ornery female cat named Graymalkin post-war to keep him company while Windblade/Wariko Baisho is out at work

Stefan has a ridiculously high pain tolerance due to the abuse he was put through from childhood at the air base he grew up in. His eardrums have ruptured more times than he can recall from flight test chambers and high altitude barotrauma, and if he didn't stop crying, his handlers would give him something to really cry about before they dragged him off to the medics. He has an accelerated healing factor, they saw no issue with letting out their frustrations on him, as he was simply an asset in their eyes, even as a seven-year-old.

As such, he has very warped idea of what constitutes a 'major' injury on him---he can be running around cradling his disemboweled intestines in one arm without breaking a sweat. He offhandedly tells people that an injury doesn't register as 'major' to him unless it's a skull fracture where he can feel a section of his head caved in, or a direct shot to the heart.

Because of this, he also has a very skewed idea of what 'hurt' means to him personally and how he's meant to react to it. He's internalised his handlers' assertion that because he can heal, his pain does not matter. So what if people hurt him? It's what he was built to withstand. There is a weird sense of pride he has about this, he sees it as a mark of strength, and it's partly why he's as defiantly blasé as he is about Megatron's abuse when they get in each other's faces. At the same time, it's also deeply lonely for him and he oscillates wildly between shying away from physical contact and being starved for 'good' touch at the same time.

To add to this, while he grows to harbour unspoken attraction towards Wariko which he attempted to throttle multiple times in their early says interacting with each other, he stops icing her out when she becomes the first person to acknowledge his pain, and that him being able to heal and bearing no scars from his abuse doesn't make that pain any less real. She's also his first experience with 'good' touch, which he quickly finds he cannot get enough of.

He adores musicals. In particular are The Greatest Showman, Moulin Rouge and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

When he and Morgan are in one of their more civil moods, they play chess together in a weirdly companionable silence, as despite their mutual disdain, they understand each other the most. They're equally matched, and it's the only time where Morgan will sincerely compliment him about something, and he'd accept it without sneering or boasting. (He used to play with Sharif, who doesn't do so now as Shockwave, while Morgan used to play with Omar, so it also feels like a moment of bonding over shared loss)

He's an excellent dancer! Mostly ballroom-based which he picked up during his days as a young politician for big senate events, but he enjoys mixing things up a bit with tango or freestyle.

Has mastered walking in high heels.

He alternates between having a soft spot for Thundercracker/Teo Cortez, who he sometimes sees as a younger brother, and calling Teo out as being the 'weak link' of the Trine. He can one day be planning a heartfelt birthday party and baking a cake for Teo since Teo can no longer celebrate it with family, and the next day be screaming at Teo for messing up at target practice. He justifies this hot and cold by saying that someone like Teo isn't made for war, but since Teo insists on being here, he would rather have Teo sad or angry at him for being harsh over the work they have to do, than to have Teo dead from softness and carelessness. He was genuinely relieved when Teo finally left the Decepticons, and they do reconcile post-war.

Openly calls Tarn out for being a fanboy simp in bad Decepticon cosplay.

He never really takes Bumblebee/Benjamin Bane seriously as a fellow combatant and is constantly breaking into Omar's comm signal on the field to yell at Omar to send "your son" back home, this is NO PLACE for a child playing DRESS-UP. (Ben's "I'M 18 YOU POMPOUS PRAT" is immediately met with Stefan's "DON'T YOU TALK TO ME LIKE THAT, STOP KICKING ME IS PRIME RAISING YOU IN A BARN")

That said, despite being on opposite sides of the fence, when Ben becomes a discorporated soul, he is drawn to Stefan, who can hear him because it is Stefan, rather than Omar or even Memo and Charlie, who unknowingly first truly heard him. This goes back to when Ben was nine, and had a chance to visit the Quintesson War Museum on his birthday; his father and mother however, had no interest in exploring the exhibits with him and left him to do so on alone. On a whim, he asked a passing man, a young politician Stefan who was visiting before a conference, to help him take a picture. Stefan wanted this to be a one and done, but after asking Ben about his parents and finding out they left him to celebrate his birthday alone, he decided to chaperone Ben through the entire time that Ben was there and listened to this boy talk about everything under the sun. He didn't put much thought into this after he left, it was just a few hours of making a child happy/feel less lonely on on their birthday (he's never celebrated one! what a novelty that is), he didn't even have the presence of mind to ask for the boy's name since he himself was not given one until he was 18, but Ben never forgot.

As vain as he is, Stefan hates seeing old pictures of himself, especially those taken of him during his old senate days. He hates the boyish way he used to smile, he hates the hopeful light in his eyes, he hates coming to terms with the part of himself he felt he had sacrificed to hate over humanity on the day they razed the Senate… and how he barely recognizes the man he used to be. Wariko eventually makes him see the truth; that the man he was is the man he still is deep down.

He loves collecting plane models. He does not love putting them together, however, and it's a task he often bribes Skywarp into with offerings of muttabaq fresh off the gridle.

Sharif's old nickname for him is "Pretty Bird", Wariko calls him "Uguisu" (Japanese Bush Warbler).

Extremely protective of his armored flight suit. It was a prototype made by Sharif years ago for him--it was his first taste of flying without a helmet or within a cockpit, and he's never been able to forget that feeling. He also sees it as the last gift Sharif ever gave him before becoming 'Shockwave'. He refuses to let Morgan touch it, and the one time he did approach Shockwave to make some amendments, Shockwave told him to rubbish it for a better upgrade. He declined, and has since learned how to fix and programme the suit on his own. He won't admit it, but it feels like keeping the last physical bit of Sharif's memory alive.

Deeply in love with sky and flying in general; he embraces it as the most free he ever feels. He's up early for morning flights to catch the sunrise, and when he feels like he needs to get away from it all, he flies up high enough that ice gnaws at his face and he can't breath before freefalling through the clouds. It helps him gain a sense of perspective.

Stefan and Wariko do eventually get married, and he settles into a Way Of The Househusband role to her Lady First Delegate. They end up adopting two Cold Construct kids, Suzume and Gabriele.

If you'd like more Winblade/Starscream headcanons (because they are my power couple!), you can find them here and here!

[mwolf0epsilon]

Having been created to serve a purpose given to them by someone who was always supposed to be their superior, mimics (despite their naturally mischievous and deceitful nature) are not without their honor to duty.

Whatever that duty may be, however, is up to how they interpret their "contract".

Take Hiro for example, one of the first mimics to be "tamed" in Japan. His original owners only ever needed him to pull long trains and they expected little else from him. But, in due time, Hiro began to roam the railway grounds and even the lines to keep an eye on the perimeter.

He took on "guard duty" to ensure wild unfriendly mimics didn't encroach on his territory and potentially harm either the other railway mimics or railway staff that he now perceived as being under his care. This is what earned him the title of 'Master of the Railway'.

In another life he would have likely guarded the Lady's palace, as he's naturally inclined to protect others and locations and views it as a part of his duties. An unspoken rule of sorts.

Another example is Duncan, a rather cantankerous and somewhat unapproachable mimic. As a narrow gauge engine mimic, he's a rather peculiar sort, having none of the typical goat-like attributes that are standard to this particular class (something that's usually only shared with narrow gauge mimics who are trained for steamworks and dieselworks jobs). He's a mishmash of traits, as he used to work exclusively in industrial settings rather than up on the mountains.

He's fussy, often rude, and you'd assume he'd be caught dead before he took on extra "unpaid" work. But Duncan seems to have a morbid fascination for locating, recovering and studying historical artifacts. Particularly of the fae variety. Something about the olden days calls to him, although he'd never voice such thoughts. To date he's only mentioned his "hobby" to Rusty, but Mr. Percival seems aware of (and rather endeared by) what he gets up to when hes not on the clock.

In another life, Duncan might have had the capacity to become something more than a mere mimic, but it's doubtful whether or not he would have allowed the Lady to reconstruct him into a higher fae just to tend to her archives (and Proteus would have likely fought her if she tried).

The final example is Ryan who, among his branchline duties, seems to have been appointed as a messenger. No matter how busy he is or whether or not he's left Sodor, he always knows what's going on in the Mainland.

Unlike Percy who's more aware of human affairs dueto his mail runs, Ryan's insight pertains exclusively on mimic matters. The two often trade information as if it were a type currency, which is typical of the fae.

In another life, Ryan would have been the Lady's ideal spy. His loyalty is easily won and his eagerness to please is one he's naturally inclined to satisfy no matter how bothersome the task.

[tiesthatbind-tf]

Really wanted you to imagine the brawl those senators gonna have in the meeting room 😂

Everyone is fighting everyone and there's shockwave throwing stuff, Proteus and Zeta choking each other, idk man maybe some even hide under a table and it's on live that's why nothing is ever done

These are just silly thoughts, you don't have to say yes to it but still funny for me and I just wanna share them

Listen, at this point it's practically fanon that Senate debates more often than not end up like the Taiwanese Parliament. And by that I mean

(Senator Shockwave can drop a surprisingly hard elbow when Proteus opens his mouth on the debate about maintaining the class system)

[official212th]

ok so i just finished this book the eighth arrow and god knows nobody reads any of my posts so im just gonna put some thoughts here.

first of all: this book is so so so good yet such a fucking trip to read because it is written by a priest. and 90% of the time its a great take on greek legends and mythos and also has some truly ridiculous homoerotic subtext. but then every couple chapters you get a remind that wow. this was written by a priest. spoiler warning but odysseus legit converts to christianity at the end which is actually hilarious. and ok, the priest who wrote it works at a catholic school that is actually in the same city as i am and i will say i appreciated how he very clearly planned to use this book in either theology or english classes, because it was absolutely 100% a metaphor for redemption in catholicism and the idea of mercy and forgiveness. guys i know what im talking about i also go to catholic school. but the way he frames it as a story that's ostensibly not about christianity, but he sneaks in a few metaphors and buzzwords (the disclaimer at the beginning, in which odysseus says he actually made the whole story up, talks about how he was "judged worthy" and "redeemed" and talks about God's grace and providence. which is pretty standard fare for your average high school theology class.) specific to christianity and even catholicism (some of the beliefs regarding redemption in here are pretty unique to catholicism and i don't think some protestants would like this book very much)

second of all did i mention the homoerotic subtext? because wow. honestly it wasn't even subtext it was just text. the whole book is about odysseus and diomedes and their journey through dante's inferno. but it starts off talking about how the two of them are "imprisoned in a single flame" for 3,000 years (ok buddy not sounding too straight to me) and they kind of have a friends to enemies to friends thing happen but like the whole reason they become enemies is odysseus doesn't realize or acknowledge diomedes' love for him??? (GAY)

im going to back myself up with sources. proteus (weird old guy that's there like half the time) says to odysseus "that man really loves you. He loves you more than he loves his own father. More than he's ever loved anyone, I suspect. And that is a sacred thing, a love like that" and does the priest writing it maybe mean it in the way that God loves us? maybe but thats not how i'm interpreting it! anyways i really liked how (spoiler warning again although if you're avoiding spoilers for this book idk how you got this far) odysseus and diomedes are bffs but also fight. like really bad. like almost-killed-each-other bad. and then they have a really nice moment in which diomedes almost dies and odysseus is like "wait i love u youre my family pls dont die" and then they team up and save the day. its so sick. i love gay people.

[silkling]

The Last Race

Y’all ever have a sudden thought about the robots in the middle of a class about imperialism? Cause I did. Specifically in relation to Functionism. So I made a little drabble. Have fun with it. :)

———————————————————————————————————

He lost.

He lost.

He lost.

The biggest race of the deca-vorn, and Blurr had lost.

There was chaos around him as the victor cheered. Media drones buzzed around.

One of them paused to snap a picture of his frozen frame. 

His processor was lagging, dragging along with the speed of broken down transport. He felt distant. Not present in his own frame. Like he was observing the proceedings from outside of himself.

A frame bumped into him, sending him stumbling.

He dragged his processor back to himself, optics overbright with shock and stress, disbelief making his spark tight in his chest. The other racers were gathered around the vicor, cheering and congratulating him.

He couldn’t bring himself to join them.

Dread made his spark spasm with pain, and suddenly he couldn’t vent. 

He wheezed, and then he was turning, stumbling, running out of the arena and away, away, away.

He hadn’t even placed on the podium.

It had been the most important race of his life.

And Blurr and lost.

(And he was lost. Lost in his own processor, swept up in the panic and disbelief. So lost that he didn’t notice when the stranger on the rooftop lined up a rifle and took the shot. He just felt the sting of impact, and then he was lost to the darkness)

-----------------

When he came to, he ached. 

His helm was in agony, as were his servos and legs. 

He shifted, and the movement caused a clattering of metal around and under him,. He onlined his optics when something hit him on the helm. Except…

Something was wrong with his vision. It was…different. 

Why was his periphery smaller?

He lifted a servo, to rub away the lingering static, unsure what was going on. Last he remembered, he’d been running. Had he crashed from the stress? It would explain why he felt strange.

And then his servo entered his field of vision.

It wasn't a servo anymore. 

It was a claw.

His energon turned to ice in his lines, spark starting to pulse a turborabbit’s pace.

He lifted his other servo, hope aching in his chest, unsure what he was hoping for. 

He was met with another claw. 

He jolted upright, and something fell from his chest to his lap. He looked down, vision fritzing with shock and panic.

A datapad.

What?

He tried to pick it up, but he couldn’t get a grip.

After several minutes of struggle, his ventilations coming in faster gasps with every failure, he finally just nudged it face up in his lap and tapped a claw on the power button to turn it on.

A letter greeted him.

Blurr,

I am disappointed. I invested a lot in your victory today. You were supposed to succeed. You cost me with your loss. I do not abide by failures, and I have no need for a washout of a racer. Let your current state be a lesson as to what becomes of those who cost me.

Senator Proteus

He stared at the words, uncomprehending

This didn’t make sense.

He didn’t understand. 

Blurr shifted, shoving the datapad aside. It had to be a joke.

(He ignored how his current state said that this was very much real.)

This was wrong. All wrong. He had to find help. He could fix this.

Finally, he looked around. If he could figure out where he was, he could figure out where he needed to go.

Mountains of metal met his gaze. In the distance, he saw the tell-tale glow of a smelter. 

Oh.

This was a junkyard.

He shook, shaking his helm in denial. 

“No.” he croaked.

He flinched.

(Even his voice was different. Not as smooth as it had been. Raspier. How much had they taken from him?)

“No.” he repeated the denial, shifting and trying to stand. 

His legs weren’t  bending right. When he looked down, he didn’t recognize what he was looking at. His legs looked wrong. His knee bent the right way, but there was another joint now. Or was it that they’d made his shins shorter?

Primus. 

They’d taken his legs.

He gasped painfully, and finally he forced himself up. His pedes were different too. Thinner. Maybe segmented? 

He tried to get his balance but he wavered, then tipped forwards as the metal scraps under his pedes shifted. He caught himself on his knees and servos (not claws, they couldn’t be claws).

He wheezed, shaking, and finally forced himself up again, going slower. 

He took everything slower, even as his spark screamed for speed.

Finally, he made it out of the junkyard, and collapsed again at the edge of the sea of scrap metal. 

This couldn’t be happening. It had to be some sick, twisted recharge flux.

A glint caught his periphery. He looked over, spotting a cracked, dull mirror, its gleaming finish long since worn away but its surface still reflective enough to give him a look at himself.

It made him shake.

It should have been obvious, given what had been done to his servos and legs and voice, and yet, it still made him sick. 

Somehow, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to think, to dwell, on the possibility.

He stared into the mirror, every vain hope fizzling out as his spark thrummed agonizingly in his chest.

A single, bright blue optic stared back at him.

[princess-polls]

1C

Sanji (One Piece) VS Turnip Head/Prince Justin (Howl's Moving Castle)

Prince Edward (Enchanted) VS Shrek (Shrek)

Prince Friedrich (Bridgerton) VS Lone Starr (Spaceballs)

The Nutcracker (Barbie in the Nutcracker) VS Merlin (Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs)

Sky (Winx Club) VS Prince Eadric (Tales of the Frog Princess)

Shining Armor (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) VS Prince Phobos Escanor (W.I.T.C.H.)

Dexterous "Dexter" Charming (Ever After High) VS Prince Bo (Hamtaro Rainbow Rescue)

Shade (Fushigiboshi no Futagohime) VS Prince Sorara (Onegai My Melody: Kirara)

2C

Royce (Love Nikki) VS Rhys (Phantasy Star III)

Pierre (THE iDOLM@STER: SideM) VS Damien LaVey (Monster Prom)

Joshua (Fire Emblem Sacred Stones) VS Luminary (Dragon Quest XI)

Zenos yae Galvus (Final Fantasy XIV) VS Freyjadour Falenas (Suikoden V)

Dimitri (Anastasia) VS Chrom (Fire Emblem Awakening)

Naveen (The Princess and the Frog) VS Prince Achmed (Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizir)

Prince Wilhelm (Young Royals) VS Prince Li Che (Fake Princess)

Lee Chang (Kingdom) VS Sho (Ultraman Ginga S)

1D

Aladdin (Aladdin) VS Prince Proteus (Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas)

Prince Stefan (Barbie as Rapunzel) VS Ling Yao (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Prince James (Sofia the First) VS Ezran (The Dragon Prince)

Prince Charming/David Nolan (Once Upon A Time) VS Claude von Riegan (Fire Emblem Three Houses)

Simba (The Lion King) VS Winter (Wings of Fire)

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd (Fire Emblem Three Houses) VS The Prince of All Cosmos (Katamari Damacy)

Alucard/Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes (Castlevania) VS Noctis Lucis Caelum (Final Fantasy XV)

Fukaboshi (One Piece) VS Alan Stuart (My Next Life as a Villainess)

2D

Karma/Klaude Aidric Renaldi Mattheus Almonte (Cinderella Phenomenon) VS Victor (Romancing SaGa 2)

Amiti (Golden Sun Dark Dawn) VS Garr Kelvin (Tales of Destiny)

Jamie (Cursed Princess Club) VS Kai von Granzreich (Oushitsu Kyoushi Heine)

Karurusu de Yutari Honyalala (Cute High Earth Defense Club Happy Kiss!) VS Hikari Ku (Octopath Traveler II)

August (High Class Homos) VS Sebastian (The Prince and the Dressmaker)

Rei (Kilala Princess) VS Prince Arrow (Petite Princess Yucie)

Frederick (Cursed Princess Club) VS Eolio Ezrest (Witch Hat Atelier)

Leif Faris Claus (Fire Emblem Thracia 776) VS Lune (The Cat Returns)

[cyanogen-miasma]

Nereid (they/them, she/her)

this is a fun little creature, I think

it turns out we know even less about Nereid than we do about Proteus, because where Proteus has nice, well-defined pictures on par with Uranus' moons, the best picture we have of Nereid is a blurry speck. Apparently it has one of the most eccentric orbits of any moon. We don't know if this is because it was captured or it just had its orbit perturbed by Triton. Interestingly, it appears that Nereid is similar to Titan in that it is named after a class of beings rather than one individual.

Nereid is an energetic character, in contrast to Proteus, and is rather a handful for Neptune to keep track of. They act cute in order to get out of trouble.

I've got to figure out the deal with Neptune and Triton a bit more, because I haven't really considered Triton's theoretical effects on Neptune's other moons as a factor in the equation yet. Something for another time.

After this, we'll, I've started on the Sun already, so that should be coming soon. Then, I'm going to move onto some more KBO moons, starting with the rest of the Plutosquad. I may do Arrokoth somewhere within there because I'd like things to be easy once in a while and Arrokoth is my special little guy(s, we'll figure out what I mean by the s when I get to it) :)

[mondchevike]

Model Sheet del rostro de Proteo y Chel

Model Sheet of Proteus and Chel's face

Hola

En mis clases de dibujo, mi profesor nos había pedido que dibujáramos la cabeza de frente y el perfil de cinco personajes masculinos y femeninos usando las hojas de modelos oficiales, pero en caso de que no las tuvieran, dibujarlos por nosotros mismos. Y elegí a Proteo y a Chel.

También porque he visto que a algunas personas en el fandom de Simbad les cuesta dibujar a Proteo, porque no hay hojas de modelos de él (Dreamworks, ¡¿por qué?!) así que he hecho estos modelos de su rostro, por si les ayuda un poco.

(Me he tenido que guiar por imágenes y frames de la película donde aparecía su cara en primer plano y por los modelos de la cara de Tulio del Dorado, ya que es obvia la inspiración en él, para crear a Proteo).

También hice uno de Chel (espero haberlo hecho bien 😅).

In my drawing classes, my teacher had asked us to draw the front head and profile of five male and female characters using the official model sheets, but in case they didn't have them, to draw them by ourselves. And I chose Proteus and Chel.

Also because I've seen that some people in the Sinbad fandom have a hard time drawing Proteus, because there are no model sheets of him (Dreamworks, why?!) so I've made these models of his face, in case it helps them a bit. 😅

(I had to be guided by images and frames of the film where his face appeared in the foreground and by the models of Tulio del Dorado's face, since it is obvious that he was the inspiration to create Proteus).

I also made one of Chel (hope I got it right) 😅

[mutantpowerlist]

Moira X - Dr. Moira MacTaggert 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

• Limited reality warping reincarnation powers • Timeline restarts when a Moira dies

Teams: Muir Island X-Men, Orchris Relatives: Proteus (son), Wolfsbane (foster daughter) TV / Movies: X-Men: The Animated Series (1992), X-Men: The Last Stand (cameo) (2006), X-Men (anime) (2011), X-Men: First Class (2011), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), X-Men '97 (2024) First Appearance: X-Men #96 (Sep 1975)

[11queensupreme11]

If this was a competition to see who was winning in the advancement of their relationship with Percy let's just say:

1st place: Anubis

married

sleeps in the same bed

have a palace together

have a kid

Successfully co-parent

Semi-stable relationship (only because one doesn't know their actually in a relationship🤪)

2nd place: Hades

Married

Rule together (sorta I mean their King and Queen of Helheim now so c'est la vie)

Took her first kiss

Has had some HEAVY petting sessions

3rd Place: Poseidon (I just know he would hate that his relationship is ranked lower than Anubis AND Hades but u snooze, u lose; my man)

Closer bond and easier access to Percy and what she can and can't do (cause he's, u know...her dad😭)

Have couple-themed thrones

Has the backing of Proteus and the other seven kingdoms (plus mommy!rhea)

Had some HEAVY petting sessions😏

Will throw hands for his daughter (no words, his hands are rated E for everyone (even Percy but only during certain...situations😏👏🍑))

4th Place: Beelzebub (has been bumped down to 4 since he's been avoiding her lately and the other yans have taken this time to STEP UP their mf game!)

Percy has an unacknowledged growing crush on him that was confirmed by Aphrodite

They have gone on MULTIPLE dates (strawberry picking, trips to the city, Ferris wheel💙, outings to Valhalla, sightseeing via taxi cab(with a little side of assisted homicide for flair 💅🏾) slow dancing, etc.)

Knows about her friends and family

Knows most of her secrets

Shared backstories

Similar suicidal tendencies (we love shared trauma🥺)

Slow burn couple

Compliment each other personalities (very black cat and golden retriever vibes)

BONDAGE

Also very How to Train Your Own Percy coded (rewards via blue food and walks help✅)

5th Place: Loki (lost a lot of points with the recent murder attempt but gained some aura points for saving his girl from being 🍇ed by her uncle so be lucky u made it to 5th)

Been on MULTIPLE dates (dinner in Valhalla, sleepover in Asgard, braiding each other's hair, trip to Scandinavia (even tho it was brief lol), etc.)

Knows most of her more important secrets

Personally crafted a life sized doll in her image (even when she's not around he's thinking about her🥺)

6th Place: Apollo

Been on ONE date

Is an honest and genuine guy

Can't and won't lie to her (we all need a partner like this)

Things she's beautiful no matter what state he sees her in (it's mostly angry or irritated)

7th Place: Cu Chulainn (TBD)

Not much known yet but I predict he will be an ass at first but his shittiness grows on u (like a situationship that was only supposed to last months but lasted years instead 😭)

Little enemies to lovers (they have fun bantering w each other)

I LOVE THE LITTLE SUMMARIES OF EACH SHIP 😭😭😭

especially the beelzebub one!!! let me just add that they used to go on WEEKLY dates together!!!

so the ones i wrote about are just a few of them, there are actually many more that happen off-screen (cuz you know, i gotta focus on the plot) so yeah, since beel used to be her caretaker for months now and they go to "dates" on midgard once a week (unless percy misbehaves during class or scores low on exams lol; the midgard dates are her rewards for being "good" so yeah), they've been on at least more than ten dates

(they're actually really not dates to percy, she just thinks it's two besties hanging out, but to beel??? oh yes they are DEFINITELY dates)