#for some reason my brain just didnt get into gear when I fought them

[rox-and-prose]

So, I know the Arena in AC6 isn't really that hard but it still felt really good to sweep through it. Like, I'm not that good at the game, I'm playing without a table or desk or really any hard flat surface to put my mouse on (using it directly on my mattress), and I'm sure a lot of my victories were flukes, but it still felt nice to beat V.I Freud in 23 seconds on my first try lol.

[libermachinae]

Drops in a Bucket, Splashes on the Ground

Also available on AO3! Tags: Mature, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Gen, Whirl (Transformers), Implied/Referenced Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Whirl is Primus AU, Angst, would you believe me if i said i didnt set out to write another angst fic, whirl's just like that Wordcount: 4202 Notes: I would highly recommend you read "Bullets" or at least be familiar with Whirl's abuse of Rotorstorm before reading this fic. The scene containing graphic violence begins with "Tacticians always struggle..." and the scene referencing abuse begins "He shoves his way..." Please feel free to reach out if you need any further information.

~*~

“And I guess old Primus makes five.”

“Hah! No, no, no. That’s not Primus… you’re Primus.”

~*~

 Whirl has never been intimidated before. Not so intentionally, not by bots whose forged bodies have been piled on with armor and weaponry, no expenses spared by the ganglords. The Heavies rolled up on treads that left gouges in the streets, painful marks that tomorrow’s taxes will go to fixing, and their transformations took a full five seconds as excess plating moved out of the way while their protoforms tried to bend per their original configurations. They wear identical red visors and dark gray masks: faces, certainly, but only in the barest sense of the word, enough to separate them from lowlifes without affording them identity. It is impossible to tell one from the other and Whirl knows, intrinsically, that it will not matter.

 ~*~

 Rung is the only one who doesn’t flinch. Whirl stands over Adaptus’ body, freshly relieved of what they can all agree was a spectacularly ugly head, and puts away his gun.

“Right,” he says, with a meaningful glance out the window. “Want to agree none of us heard that?”

“Whirl!” Rodimus shouts. “You can’t just kill a god!”

The body explodes into a pile of dust.

“Sure I can,” Whirl says, shaking it off his foot even as he leans down to inspect the scrapple. “Hey Ratch, can you rig me to explode next time I get shot?”

“Is it true?” Nautica asks, doing her intellect a massive disservice by stepping in front of the unhinged bot with a blaster.

“Obviously not,” Ratchet says. “He was lying.”

Whirl nods.

“Yeah. You think I would keep it a secret from any of you if I was a god? You think Cyclonus would ever hear the end of it? Nah.” He stands, kicking pile and sending a spray of metallic dust into the air. “Awesome way to go, though, can’t say I’m not jealous.”

“That doesn’t mean you had to kill him for it.”

“So, you’re not Primus?” Nautica asks. She hasn’t moved, her arms crossed in front of her. If Whirl had been her creator (and he isn’t, he already has his claws full with a nest of scraplets), he would have been pretty proud of her right now.

“Nope!” he says. “I’ve never vouched for the universe before, but that kind of joke would take on an extra level of cruel, don’t you think?”

“Got to agree with Whirl, here,” Rodimus says, a hand on Nautica’s shoulder drawing her back. “I could buy pretty much anyone else. Maybe not Rung, but, say, Velocity? She could be Primus. Or Roller. I guess not Megatron, since we saw him come online, but—”

“The point, Rodimus,” Ratchet deadpans.

“The point is, not Whirl,” Rodimus said, sweeping his hands up to gesture at him. “I get Primus is disappointed in us. We are a textbook example of why a race of sentient war machines should never be left to their own devices, combined with a case study on how to avoid learning from every mistake you’ve ever made. But I really don’t think that disappointment would translate to actively hunting us for sport. Isn’t Primus supposed to be all about forgiveness and loving your cellmate?”

“Right,” Whirl says, clacking his pincers together in his approximation of a snap. “An angry god is so cliché.”

“I don’t think anyone knows what Primus believed,” Rung says. Oh no. He’s taken off his glasses. “I don’t see any reason he couldn’t be Whirl.”

“How about we start where the part where gods don’t exist, and Whirl does?” Ratchet suggests.

“I… I am Solomus, though.”

The whole group turns to the offending voice. Whirl goes for his gun and Rodimus knocks it out of his hand, a stern finger silently telling him not to kill any more gods. As if being an ex-Matrix bearer gives him some sort of say.

Tyrest has not stopped touching his gaudy mantelpiece, poking at the holes. It wouldn’t be so disturbing, except he’s staring at Whirl while he does it.

“Primus, don’t you remember?” he asks.

“Hey, let’s watch the fragging language.”

“Adaptus wanted to send our creations to pointless war,” Tyrest goes on. “Violence for the sake of violence, conquests built on the backs of others. We fought him.” He steps forward and reaches for Whirl. “Together, we—”

Whirl jerks back with his claws extended out.

“I will cut your hand off, I swear to—I swear.”

He is saved from any more interrogation by the ground violently rumbling underneath them.

“Okay, so regardless of whatever’s Whirl’s deal is, we do still have at least one Primus to worry about,” Rodimus says, looking out the window at the approximation of what Whirl, personally, had always assumed god would look like. “Solomus, you still got your teleporting rigged up?”

 ~*~

 No one ever considered giving The Institute a waiting room, so Whirl stands to one side of the hallway while the butchers discuss his case. He knows his proposal intrigues them: they have never had an opportunity to shadowplay a willing subject before. What is there to learn from a brain that does not fight them every step of the way? What backdoors exist that every other victim kept hidden? Whirl does not care about the potential scientific advancements his offer provides. He just wants to stop dreaming of gears, lose the phantom aches of his fingers. He wants to look in a mirror and see nothing: not himself, not a monster. Just an object, fulfilling its purpose.

The scientists who walk by him in the halls stare. Everyone stares, but the look they give him is different. They do not find him exceptional, nor do they feel for him pity or contempt. He is no marvel. He is a creation, perfectly engineered to suit its purpose, every detail minded with care to ensure it all works together as an ideal mechanism. He wishes he could see himself through their eyes.

The door beside him slides open and a bot he has never seen before steps out. His helm comes up no higher than Whirl’s waist and his large yellow optics do not look up from his datapad.

“Whirl of Polyhex, the panel has elected to reject your petition,” he says. “I am to remind—”

“What?” Whirl startles; his new head shoots upward, forcing him into an angle that is both unnatural and instinctual. “Why? Ice Pick said he could—”

“I am to remind you that you have signed a nondisclosure agreement; failure to comply will result in penalty of death.” The little bot flares his plating, the click of a motor lock setting it in place. “You will now submit to full stasis and be escorted back to your home.”

The jack comes from behind.

 ~*~

 “This is my hab suite.”

Whirl knows the tonal difference between a bullet hitting living metal and a wall. He scowls and gives up, waving Cyclonus inside.

“My room’s a mess,” he says. “Think I’m gonna crash here for a while.”

Cyclonus comes in and sits beside Whirl on the berth. When the door slides shut, they are visible only by their biolights: Whirl closed the shutters when he came in, the stars too much like blinking numbers. Cyclonus is a surprisingly quiet machine. His presence comes with none of the usual hisses and clicks one would normally get with their kind, like each component was designed specifically to work with those around it. Compared to Whirl, whose body is a wreck of pieces that almost fit together, clinking and scraping through their standard functions, he practically doesn’t exist.

“This is slagged, huh?” Whirl asks.

Cyclonus thinks on it a moment, then there is a shift of plating as he nods. Is it an admission, a confession? Pri—frag, Whirl doesn’t want to have to start thinking about that.

“Sorry,” he says.

“You don’t need to—”

“Scrap, you’re right. What am I doing?” Whirl laughs. “I’m infallible now, right? It’s all been part of my grand plan for Cybertron. I should be saying you’re welcome; you should be thanking me.”

Cyclonus sighs, a rush of air out his vents.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asks.

Whirl pokes and pinches at his own plating, trying to make sense of it.

“Yeah,” he says. “Start praying, and keep Megatron far away from me.”

 ~*~

 He’s spent two days in the holding cell before he realizes no one else is coming for him.

That Orion Pax… he’s good, and Whirl’s not sure whether it’s the kind that gets people hired or gets people killed. Not that it matters, not that he cares. The Senate’s going to crush all of them one by one, like little cans of oil under a rolling tank. He thought being a tread would come with some measure of relief; instead, it just landed him in a hole.

He digs a claw tip into the wall, another score among a small collection. He has been trying to reconstruct the miner’s face, what it looked like in the split second between recognizing he had been struck and realizing there was more to come. He can’t relish a memory if he can’t keep it, and he’s already struggling well enough to accomplish the former. This assignment was supposed to be a release. Look down at the big thinker and imagine in his place Senator Proteus, Sentinel Prime, the faceless Functionist Council. Tell himself that this is what it would feel like to rip their plating open until their priceless energon spilled onto a dirty floor.

The face, though, it’s escaping him. How can he fell anything about a person with no face? What relief is there to be found in beating the slag out of a nobody? He is trying so hard to adapt, but it’s like his processor is working against him, reminding him how far he got before he was reeled back in. The silhouette of his sketch is familiar.

His claws hurt where he has worn the tip blunt, and the portrait is still incomplete.

 ~*~

 “I don’t make Matrixes,” he insists. The group was polite enough to knock once they found him, but they’re failing to pick up the hint that he wants all of them to go away, right now, and leave him alone forever.

“Well, Epistemus says you can,” Rodimus says, dentae blocked together. “Why do all the other gods have their memories back, but not you?”

“I dunno, maybe Needles can stick me and figure it out.”

It’s almost cute, the way Rewind steps protectively in front of Chromedome.

“Rodimus,” Rung says, trying to get between them, “this isn’t helping.”

“Thank you,” Whirl says. “Now can we get to the part where we storm the planet, guns a-blazin’?”

“That won’t help either.” Rung turns to look at him. “Your memories haven’t been deleted, Whirl. Somehow, there should still be some part of you that remembers creating the Matrix.”

“The Functionists probably took it out,” Whirl says.

“That’s not how mnemosurgery works.”

“Says the dropout.”

“You told me once about your earliest memory,” Rung says. Whirl should be furious that he’s doing this here, in front of people who have no business knowing what’s in his head, but he’s more interested in the way Rung has taken off his glasses and is squinting up at him. “What happened just before it?”

They did not bring Ratchet, a testament to the fact that they will not leave before he gives them answers. He could start lying again, or find another way to forgo the question, but something about Cyclonus’ presence at his back helps him settle down the compulsion. Everybody lies about their forging. Everybody wants to say it was overseen by the Prime, or that they settled into their form like resin poured into a mold, instant and perfect. Whirl has a set of seven stories he deploys on rotation, ranging from heroic to beautifully tragic, and he spends a moment picking through them, trying to remember which was the real one.

“I showed up at the Functionsts’ place to get my docs in order,” he says. “I was… I was trying to get Polyhexian citizenship.” Awful city, but he had always sworn the energon tasted better there than anywhere else.

“But you said you were forged in Polyhex,” Rung says.

“Yeah. It was easier that way.” Whirl puts a claw to his head. “I… augh, nope. No, this is stupid.”

“Whirl—”

“No, I’m done,” he says, pushing Rung away. “Fully done, Rung. That’s right. You were god’s therapist, and he fired you. I’m gonna go take out a planet.”

 ~*~

 Tacticians always struggle with where to put Whirl on a battlefield. On the one hand, he’s an attack helicopter, equipped with long-range cannons and advanced aiming modules. Keeping him in the sky is the perfect way to set up a terrible surprise for Cons on the ground. On the other, he’s Whirl, and facing him head-on can be just as chilling and or fatal.

In the end it rarely matters which call they make because, as stated before, he’s Whirl. He will do whatever he damn well feels like. Right now, that means skimming over the top of the battlefield, sights trained on the odd dot who tries to disgorge themselves from the fighting mass. He is supposed to be providing support to the ground troops, peppering the Decepticon line so they can break through, but no one is going to complain about a few more dead soldiers.

A truck breaks free and he pitches down, giving chase, machine guns firing before he’s got a lock on. The ground explodes in shrapnel as they try to serpentine out of the way, but he keeps firing and soon enough their paths cross.

He riddles them. Their roof is already a puckered, punctured mass of warped metal before their back tires blow and they go skidding and flip onto their side. Their plating shuffles, uncoordinated, as they try to transform, and Whirl goes for the underbelly, shattering the exposed protoform in a burst of pink energon. They slump with their legs disengaged. There is a buzzing, crunching noise as the dying t-cog tries to settle into either mode, then a jet of smoke erupts from the body. The engine has seized, locking it in a permanent limbo.

Whirl spins around to track down his next prey. He loves his job. The Autobots have a need, and he fills it with a gusto that only occasionally gets him in trouble. He’s no hitmech: he lacks the finesse, the style. But he can rain irreverent murder down from the sky, send Cons fleeing just long enough to make them think they had a chance, and he can do it without questioning an order. The war needs people like him.

Two soldiers are trying to escape together, one with their arm over the other’s shoulder, a sparkling stump of a leg between them. Whirl gets low, following them until the roar of his rotors is unmistakable, until they cannot help but turn and he sees their optics. Then he fires.

The wounded one falls first, knocked onto their front and grasping uselessly until their hand is blown off and they go still. The other gets their legs knocked off and goes spinning, landing on their head with a crunch. Whirl keeps advancing, keeps firing, tearing open their plating and reducing their inner working to molten slag, spattering the ground with used energon. They flop, over and over, until Whirl gets bored of the show and hauls off, leaving them almost indistinguishable from the carnage of the land itself.

Whirl hovers over the fighting and looks down while he scans for a target. This high up, visuals are useless for determining Bots from Cons. Little Cybertronians run around, whacking and shooting at each other, falling down, down, down. The metal under their pedes is slippery pink with energon. It splashes against their plating, over their insignias, until they are all just little wandering targets.

Whirl has his job, and he loves it, and he does it well.

 ~*~

 He should feel something, but his spark is a void as he tosses the rest of the guns into the shuttle, all the stuff he held off using because he wasn’t ready to get kicked off the ship. He is not coming back from this. He knows it, so better to take it all.

He’s just fastened the locker when he hears the footsteps on the hatch and looks up. It’s Tailgate, of course. Tailgate, who has a pack hanging from one shoulder and a gun holstered at his side. It’s a shrimpy thing, something Cyclonus taught him to shoot in case they ever got separated, more useful for making noise than taking down an aggressor. It has room for one round of ammo and Whirl doubts he brought a bullet more.

He comes aboard without saying anything and stops beside world, continuing to say nothing. The hand on his pack is clenching: he’s being brave. He’s also waiting for some grand speech, some sacred insight to the nature of their quest and their places in the universe. Well, tough. He should know Whirl better than Primus.

He lifts a claw to shove Tailgate backward and down the hatch, but it stops an inch before Tailgate’s plating. What does it matter? Cyclonus can’t kill him where he’s going and Tailgate himself is just a drop in the bucket. Standing there with his chest puffed out, optic band steely and focused, he looks like any other Cybertronian, never mind a few years left behind.

Whirl retracts his claw. Tailgate nods at him.

Another drop in the bucket.

 ~*~

 He shoves his way to the front row, slamming himself into his chosen seat just ahead of a little spy plane who had been angling for the same spot.

“Buzz off,” he says. Never mind the spy plane outranks him. This is his big day! He got here early so he could get this seat, right in front, though he can barely hold it as the audience fills in around him, so many Bots he does not know and who do not matter. The only one he cares about it up on the stage, smiling with an air of detached cooperation, off in his own head again like he always was. Whirl thought they had made progress on that, but some habits were just too hard to break.

The opening speech is long and predictably boring, lots of talk about this base he has never been on before. Whirl’s engine clicks in agitation. When bots give him dirty looks, he sneers.

“Chronic fanbelt lockup, ever heard of it?” he hisses at them, adding in a few extra ticks for good measure. They go back to minding their own business, but Whirl still catches the optics glancing at him, and his engine goes from annoyed click to angry hum. He knows what they see.

Luckily, the speaker eventually gets over himself and moves on.

“Rotorstorm, will you please step forward?”

Whirl is on his feet before the other copter has a chance to rise, his cheering rising well above the swell of the crowd. He shouts, he stomps his feet, and he bangs his claws together until the bots on either side of him wince, and he gets even louder when he knows Rotorstorm has noticed him.

“Go on, get up there!” he shouts. “You earned this, didn’t you?” The rest of the crowd has calmed down, but he stays standing, arms dropped to his sides. He stares at Rotorstorm as he crosses the stage, shoulders pressed back, each step placed so precisely in front of the last that it must be calculated. He waits until Rotorstorm has reached the edge to sit back down, and then still his optic is pointed, refusing to let Rotorstorm look anywhere else. Rotorstorm’s own optics are wide, though the rest of his expression is slack. His biolights are steady, his ventilations manual and even. He’s perfect.

“Rotorstorm,” the presenter says, “I hope you will forgive us; this is an honor that is long overdue. During the Simanzi Massacre, you singlehandedly scouted a pass through Mount Helix that allowed for the rapid evacuation of the 9th Battalion. Your commanding officers estimate that your decisive actions saved upwards of one thousand Autobot lives.” Whirl’s engine is silent. He’s drinking in every word. “Today, we present you with the Novic Medal for Outstanding Honor. ‘Til all are one.” Rotorstorm ducks his helm as the award is magnetized to the right of his cockpit, finally breaking his optic contact with Whirl.

“’Til all are one,” he repeats, though most of the crowd does not hear him over Whirl’s cheers.

Rotorstorm turns without looking up and returns to his seat. The next recipient is called forward and Whirl walks out.

 ~*~

 He can’t do it. He’ll blame it on the way Tailgate’s plating quietly rattles or Cyclonus’ entire personality as he starts to board, but he shuts off the shuttle’s engine and disembarks with them trailing behind. He retreats to his hab suite, and though he does not invite them he’s glad when they make it inside before the door closes.

“Nobody in the mutiny is allowed to have any of my stuff. I don’t care if Thunderclash is dying again and my innermost energon is the only compatible fuel in the galactic sector, he can’t have it.”

Tailgate nods along, his fingers in a death grip around Whirl’s pincer.

“And when you guys are talking about me later, no one call me anything but Whirl. I’m serious. I don’t know about anything I did before that, so what could it matter?” He looks up at the ceiling. “In fact, don’t tell anyone about the Primus thing. No point.”

Cyclonus is a solid, immobile presence on his other side.

“Am I forgetting anything? Oh, tell Roadbuster I’ll be waiting for him in the pit.”

“Do gods go to the Afterspark?” It’s not clear who Tailgate is asking.

“I definitely don’t plan to stick around and watch over you or whatever. Think I’ve had enough of this universe.” He chuckles, a strained sound. “Yeah. So, that’s it. Better get this show on the road, huh?”

“We’ll be with you the entire time,” Tailgate promises.

“For as long as you want us,” Cyclonus amends.

“Yeah, I know.” He shrugs, laughs again. “I’m not even really scared of the whole dying thing. I’d made peace with that. Whenever there was something I needed to do, I took care of it, so I wouldn’t have to worry about it if the right bullet finally found its mark.” He glances between them. “Now, though… you two better behave, I swear. I’m making it your Primus-sworn duty to take care of and listen to each other, okay?”

Cyclonus nods, and the way he takes it so seriously makes Whirl almost glad he’s on his way out. He couldn’t handle being looked at like that all the time, and especially it’s the way they reach across his lap and entwine their hands that really does him in. He hates them dearly.

“Okay,” he says, winding up his t-cog for the big spin. “Okay, twelve Matrixes. No problem.”

 ~*~

 Whirl times the blinking numbers to the rotations of his spark. 1,600 exactly. He’s done it.

He leans back in his chair but cannot stop staring at the little device in his hands. It is perfect. After years of researching, studying, trying, and failing, the pieces have come together to allow him to create this one perfect thing. He loves it, and a dangerous feeling of pride fills his spark, the kind that has so long been missing from his work in the Aerial Corps. If there is a Primus (and he’s still not sure, whatever the Functionists insist), this is what he built Whirl to do.

He gets up from his desk and walks across his small living space to a shelf. Nearing capacity, it has just enough room for him to push a few previous attempts aside to make room for the latest version. Surrounded by its brethren, it becomes lost almost immediately amid the sea of blinking lights, indistinguishable even from those he considers lesser. Some defects are more obvious than others: one has sat at the same time since the moment he brought it online, while another counts one klik backward for every two forward. But most are just slightly imperfect, necessary steps to get to this point, and he loves them all dearly.

He stands back. It feels like the work of a lifetime, these clocks, though he knows he took up the pursuit relatively recently. It’s just hard to remember how he filled his time before he had this project to work on, and he is again grateful he discovered it at all.

It is a gift to be able to create, he thinks, to cast a broad eye over his creations. The numbers blink at him, all out of tune, and he lets himself imagine being content doing just this for the rest of his life.

[cerastes]

mind-blaze: An amusing story and some sage advice.

To give some more detail, keep in mind we ain’t raunchy in our sessions, I mean, if things happen, they happen, but we don’t go explicitly looking for the H scenes, if you will.

Now, if they find us, that’s another story. Everyone’s pretty virile in the party, Rasmus being no exception.

Now, we usually mess around in a city where we have a lot of influence by now, but for Plot Reasons and to expand our horizons with some well paying jobs and knowledge we wouldn’t learn here, we went to an Elf kingdom reasonably close. In there, we took a mission the NPC made it clear would be hard and dangerous, but man MAN the rewards are really worth it, so hell, we’ve done the impossible a couple of times already, why would this time be any different.

So we go into this corrupted swamp and Oh Boy the things here are tough, the terrain pretty inhospitable to us, and yeah no this is fucking us up. We thankfully played it safe and bought a damn load of provisions and supplies, but it’s still Hard Fights, we gotta try and avoid fighting as much as possible. After a while, we meet another party involved in this request, of which one is an Elven Priestess. We talk it out, determine we would benefit far more from working together even if it means less of the still very considerable reward for each party, and so it’s eight of us now. Yay. During one particularly difficult midboss, Elven Priestess and Rasmus do some real good teamwork, and they’ve been more or less friendly since the start, so they start interacting more, y’see, and she shows some Very Real Interest in our strapping Rogue, which is naturally followed by powerful flirting. One fucked up boss and relic recovery later, we complete this bulldozer of a request, we get our fat reward, and we even form a useful connection with this other adventurer party. Elven Priestess and Rasmus in particular stay in contact, and well, he sneaks out of the inn where the party’s staying at one night to go hang out with her. It just so happens that that very night, a unit of hired thugs of an enemy of ours found our party (which explained a couple of mysterious rolls our DM was making here and there in a particular street in the city: it was their stealth checks and they nailed all of them the FUCKERS) and they planned to carry out the hit in the night. So, while Rasmus was dating a cute Elven Priestess which in turn became a Sexy Night at her place, the party was fighting for their lives against these hooligans, and they even thought Rasmus had been killed and his body taken for a second, but the complete lack of struggle signs in his room spoke otherwise.

So the next morning after doing the nasty with Elven Priestess, he’s having some Elf Scrambled Eggs with Tolkien Bacon or whatever when, uh, the Elf Magnate that impulsed Rasmus’ backstory in the first place finds himself face to face with our favorite Rogue, they both kinda “uh”, the synapses finishes, and they both “UH”, Rasmus shoves him and breaks into a sprint upstairs (a shove that, by the way, knocked the Magnate on his ass and sent the cake he had brought flying), grabbed his pants and gear, gave the Priestess a kiss and a fast “HEY, THINGS CAME UP RATHER SUDDENLY, I’LL MEET YOU LATER IF YOU DON’T WANT MY HEAD ON A PIKE AFTER YOU GET SOME CONTEXT IN LIKE 5 MINUTES”, jumped out of the fucking window into a veranda, and then Parkour’d out of there in just his undies and a wifebeater through the historied rooftops of the Elven capital’s rich people residential area.

When Rasmus got back to the inn, he got greeted by his VERY CONCERNED party, with the Orc Barbarian asking “HEY DUDE ARE YOU OK? THEY DIDN’T GET YOU, RIGHT?”, and just judging by the signs of battle around the inn, Rasmus’ quick brain immediately screamed “oh no, I was pounding a cute Elf while they got fucking attacked, oh god, they are going to pulverize me if I tell the truth”, so he was like “OH, MAN, IT WAS TERRIBLE, THESE FUCKERS ATTACKED ME AND TOOK MY CLOTHES, LOOK AT ME, I JUST GOT ‘EM BACK JUST NOW AFTER TAILING THEM ALL NIGHT”, to which our Wizard, Claudia, who happens to be Rasmus’ friend since they were kids, calls a big fat BULLSHIT, Insight rolls against me, wins, and makes it clear I was lying.

Now the party wasn’t too happy.

Rasmus came clean, and was promptly punched in the gut as Claudia yelled “WHILE WE FOUGHT FOR OUR DAMN LIVES, YOU WERE FUCKING AN ELF?” (”¿MIENTRAS NOSOTROS LUCHABAMOS POR NUESTRAS PUTAS VIDAS, TU ESTABAS CULEANDOTE A UNA ELFA?”) and Rasmus got grounded grounded grounded for day. 

And that’s the story of how Rasmus sprinkled kerosene on a fire and made it ten times worse.

[commentairesnegligeables]

On Kamen Rider Faiz: Between Being the Most Perfect Series and Mere Chaos

When i started watching kamen rider faiz series, i initially thought it was potentially better than my all time favourite kamen rider kabuto. I was like, where have i been? Why all this time i only watched kabuto, which besides the overall good story, isnt as complex or realistic as faiz? So i got excited in both watching it and finishing it. But as i got to the end of the series and i finished it, my stagnant reaction was like: no😐 this is nothing better than kabuto. It is even worse than common childish unlikeable rider series. Which is very questionnable, cause it started off as superb!

To understand why faiz is perfect and disappointing at the same time it has to start with the contents itself.

Takumi Inui

Before i watched faiz every time i came accross it and saw this person i always thought he was a nice guy with justice heart or something, like a hero, but after i started watching everyone knows how my perception surely changed. The word gangster suits his outter personality more. Hes rude and doesnt care about most things. On top of that, we dont see his thoughts much, or life, which makes it as if hes.. well.. mysterious?—besides the fact hes the main figure?

Anyhow i still liked this character portrayed cause its fitting to the story and the plot, his character is enjoyable to watch cause it adds dimension and his flow is realistic. And this doesnt just happen in the start of him being unheroic hearted person, it continues throughout the series until the end, that he is nothing but dimensional character.

Sonoda Mari

I like this girls personality since first time she appeared. I truly dont like woman character that is just there just to be protected and become romance partner of the hero (typical western superheroes) and at same time i dont like woman character that is too much strong as if shes not in need of any help (typical feministic western superheroes). The thing about this girl is that shes just there—shes neither a standout nor is she a complementary. Shes just another character to make the story flows, her character is made so sincerely and realistically. I mean, shes just a girl. Shes not magical girl who is stronger than men or happens to be hero’s romance. With that kind of realistic character, shes truly likable. Her personality and portrayal is consistent throughout the series.

Yuji Kiba

Hes my favorite character in the series. I wont say if im him i will be like him, but surely he is what most humans are. He represents humans. It might not seem like that for other people, but throughout the series hes the sanest one with cold head, no dilemma, no contemplation, only determined turns. I feel like while watching i sometimes thought like “why is this character doing this? Why is that character doing that?” And yuji kiba was the only characted i never criticized—any decision he has is unquestionnable cause its always sane decision. Even to the end. Hes the only character i stanced whatever decision.

Except when in the end he fought with faiz and then what—he stanced human? Unacceptable.

Kusaka Masato

I can write thousand words essays on this guy on why i hate him so much (as a character :) ). I really liked the Kaixa form but because of this guy i cant again. Its not even just about his annoying, hateful personality (he needs mental help), its also about how the maker of the series actually decided to just put him NOT as secondary character—but in position of almost as same as main character. Sonoda Mari and Yuji Kiba? Just forget them, his position is same as Faiz in the series from the starting of his appearance. He started off as someone we think oh wow. I mean he goes to college (none other of them go to college), he is presidents of clubs, and moreover hes the chosen Kaixa? Wow. He must be something. Yes, he is something, the story starts to collapse by the time he appeared.

It raises question why he is placed almost as main character, but the simple answer would be that the story plot makes it like that. The maker somehow has to place him there, cause he is the maker’s inner dilemma.

Orphenocs

Orphenocs are the monsters, the ones that are not humans. They are said to be result of unknown rapid evolution of human being, but they dont look like human being. They look like monsters and they have powers that humans dont have, but they can turn into human forms.

The Story

To start it off, Faiz series is weird in ways that are.. well.. unique. We expect Rider gear to choose one person and just stick to that one person, instead of being able to be used by many people. That is the concept of rider gear we want to see, cause we want to see someone being the chosen one and admire them, or hate them in the case theyre the villain. Rider gears on faiz series are not like that, theyre mere killer tools instead of tool that determines “chosen one”. Anyone—humans or orphenocs—can just take the belt and wear them, become kamen rider, and thats it. Then whos the hero?

That is a very good question, cause faiz series contemplates about that throughout the series. Thats why we see characters that have very complex changes revealed time by time. So let me start.

The story started off with Takumi coming accross Sonoda Mari and they then met orphenocs, and Takumi happened to be able to transform to Faiz, and with that they just came back to each other again and again. This is a very good start, both have strong leads of the story that it makes you think probably they will dominate the whole story and they will eventually become together. This is what the story more or less indicated, and so we keep that in mind. Other figures started appearing and this far it was nice, Keitarou is the type that has justice and kind heart, Yuji Kiba as a sane person, Yuka as someone we would have empathy for, Kadoya which is unlikable both in personality and necessity of character in general; but hes there as a flawed complementary and the maker feels he must be “important” in the end of the series, the powerful Smart Brain. As long as it circles around the trio figures (Takumi, Mari, Keitarou) of orphenocs killer solving what is going on and discovering Smart Brain’s doings, it is all enjoyable and good.

The most uninteresting part about the story is Mari’s kindergarten past life. It must be because it was not introduced since start so we get excited upon whats happening now instead of minding Mari’s kindergarten people. I mean, in agito series the Akatsuki Gou was always something that makes us curious and when it was revealed, we finally feel fulfilled (i rate agito 6.5/10), but in this series even when it was revealed about her kindergarten people, theyre very uninteresting people with some of them having psycopathic tendency towards their own “kindergarten friends”. More than they are characters that are fresh and we can consider to stance and look forward to, theyre all dull, boring, and naturally have no good aura. And when i say it, i mean ALL of them. It was nice that many of them just vanished fast. The one that lasted was i think Delta, which is really really disappointing. It would be better if they dont starre Delta at all. I like Gatack as “strongest rider but not main figure” but Delta is just a pure no. No one wants to see lifeless Mari’s kindergarten people.

But instead of just get over them, we got imposed all the time by this kindergarten stuff by having Kusaka suddenly becoming someone that is starred the whole time. He is a very hateful, twisted character, and also smart. He standsout from Takumi in the way that Kusaka is trying to solve the problem from the very root, he is just smart. Takumi doesnt care about these stuffs. With that, started the era of the series having two main figures.

Nothing is wrong with two main figures, but Kusaka has very bad personality that it honestly is frustrating to watch him. He gets in the way of Takumi and Mari, he gets in the way of Takumi in general, he is just.. a main figure with bad personality. Who likes that? But that is not just it. Its not that Kusaka appeared and then Takumi looks neglected. Takumi was, in fact, neglected, because Kusaka would stand out everytime doing the whole stuff (in his annoying way) while Takumi most of the time just stayed silent. He didnt talk back when Kusaka said anything, he didnt do anything to support himself, he is just being there. He was no longer someone with thoughts, he hid his thoughts from the audience to extent we dont even know again what he thinks. He becomes so soft like a cat.

Why is this two main figures importat? Because Takumi turned out to be orphenoch.

I have suspicion that the maker is in fact, confused himself. I mean for me myself i dont mind about orphenocs. I dont think humans are any better than orphenocs, nor that orphenocs are any better than human. Its not about coexisting, its about if orphenocs win then orphenocs win, if humans win then humans win. This is the main reason i like yuji kiba. Will tell more later.

Kamen rider stories always center around fight of humans and monsters, and they always have to give reason as to why we should stance humans. On kabuto, humans are portrayed as nice, and so it happens on agito, and monsters are portaryed as inevitable evil. But on faiz, orphenocs are evoluted humans, they think like humans, they are in fact humans. With this kind of plot to begin with, there is really no solution to the story, and that is why the story is just a bunch of realistic events being put, about figures that change from this to that, about emotion of the figures being told. I really like this part of the story. I dont like how Takumi is silent, but I really like how he is actually an orphenoch, no, its not just a plot twist. Its just a story!

With the annoying changes happening from interesting story to dull kindergarten people appearance, from the fierce Takumi with harsh mouth to quiet Takumi which all the time gives the look of “it will really be better if i just vanish from this world”, from interesting adventure of the Trio with dynamic characteristics to story circling around disturbing Kusaka, the only consistent figure is Yuji Kiba. He had always stanced humans since he became orphenocs, he always believed that orphenocs and humans can coexist. Of course this is what common humans will think once they become orphenocs, unless you have unexplainable grudge towards humans like Yuka or Kadoya. But in general Yuji Kiba is what a sane human usually will be. But the part i like the most isnt him being sane despite of whats happening, it is the fact that the story has to somehow show him being hurt by humans, to prove humans are not as nice as he thought they are. Coexisting? What a joke. And in that instance, he changed. The whole time stancing the humans immediately turned into him leading the orphenocs. I just love that, hes not hopeless like Takumi nor he is disturbingly and unreasonably hateful like Kusaka. He keeps in mind what is fact and acts accordingly. Very plausable. I cant even blame him for hating on humans.

But besides the Yuji Kiba consistency, nothing left is to be liked out of the rest of the plot. It couldve ended goodly by portraying Takumi more and we could follow him to the end, but no, its just Kusaka and Kusaka until Yuji Kiba killed him. Such useless character no one wants to see, but in the same time he justifies the makers dilemma cause if Kusaka character didnt exist, it would seem like the maker was stancing for orphenocs. No, you dont do that in kamen rider series. But until the end i dont understand the makers true intention. I feel like for this level of series it requires a very smart person to write it, so is he trying to say that even humans can be annoying and orphenocs can be nice, or does he somehow have to make character that no matter what always stances human for no reason?

Kamen rider faiz is very realistic and complex and full of emotions and events, its not boring at all, but its inability to make the story continuously intriguing by serving what people will want to see (professionally! Not marketly or like this) it instead just serves what they want to serve, even if it means frustrating the audience and twisting the story as they want as such is switching the main figure.

Kamen rider faiz is, for its professionality (that beats other Kamen Rider series including Kabuto), 10/10. But for the rest of the thing. 5/10!

[atiellefilletmignon]

Hard to Explain

Mann Idk what it is but honestly the past few nights I’ve been feeling like I need to let things out. I’m not sure what it is, it has to be something. Don’t get me wrong, I am not sad or depressed or whatsoever. I just feel I need to write. So it’s almost 2am right now and I’m about to write a recap of my life so far.

1996: I was born in the Manila, Philippines. Tondo to be exact. June 4, my mom gave birth to me. Never met my dad, but my mama raised me well. Pretty damn great. 2000: My mom moved to California. The cliche filipinos moving to America to make better money and provide for their family back home. Hey I’m not hating, she had to do what she had to do. 2003: Hmm not sure but I’m guessing this was the year I started 1st grade at Manila Cathedral School. But yes if it was, man I met a lot of people through this school. The system is designed for us to be close to our classmates because we stay with the same 30+ people the whole year. And along with that, there are other batches with the same amount of students. I stayed in this school till 4th grade. In that four years I went through a few good memories. I made friends, and a few of them I considered bestfriends. I can still name a few that I remember, only because I have them as friends on facebook. But hey there’s always this one person from that school that I’ll never forget. My “puppy crush”, thats what they call it I guess. She was my first crush, her name is Abby. I remember getting teased about it almost everyday but I was an innocent little kid so nothing really happened. One reason why I’ll never forget about her is because my mom has our picture framed and its chillin in my living room. Im guessing she shipped us. But thinking about it now maybe catching up with her would be a pretty cool idea. Well we’ll see since I’m going back to the PI this June. So for now, that story is to be continued. 2006: Growing up in the Philippines was fun, no doubt. Since my mom left for LA, I was mainly raised by my lola. I called her mama too. I’ll be honest I was closer to my lola than I was to my own mother but I’m pretty sure everyone understood why. She raised me, protected me, disciplined me, showed me God, and taught me to be respectful. Everyone, pretty much took care of me. I was the favorite nephew, not to be cocky. Until December 2nd of 2006, when My lolo, my lola, and I flew to LA to reunite and live with my mom. A lot of things changed, and it changed really quick. It was almost shocking. 2007: I moved to the US for good, which meant new school, new friends, new culture, and well new everything. My mom sent me to go to St. Martha’s to continue my 4th grade year. She didn’t want to send me to a public school because she didn’t think I was ready. But knowing what I know now, I’m thankful she sent me to go to St. Martha’s because I had some of the best memories there. This is where I met my closest friends specially my best friend. I’m so thankful because they were patient with me, being fob and all they didn’t abandon me. They took me in and treated me as one of them. 2008-2010: School was tough, but I slowly adopted to it. 4th grade, I was very quiet. Didn’t know a lot of english yet. 5th grade, I was still quiet and just went school and home. But came 6th grade I became more comfortable. I started being active, joining sports and other school activities. I was mainly focused on flag football and basketball. But hey it was something. I started talking a lot and making more friends. 2010: This year impacted my life in such a huge and different way. This was the year full of challenges to my family. In the middle of the year my Lola was diagnosed with brain cancer. At that age, I didn’t know what it was or how bad it was until I saw the struggle and the emotions my mom and my other family are showing. My lola fought, and I’m proud of her. But November 3, 2010 my family and I gained an angel. An angel that I’m sure is watching every step of the way. Still supporting us, caring for us, and loving us like she’s always done. Mama I miss you, and I will always always love you. Thank you for everything. 2011: Losing my lola wasn’t easy for me, but we had to keep living. This was my 8th grade year. My prime. I joined almost every school events, activities. I was close with my teacher and I was well known. I was pretty much the clown of the class. This was the beginning of the Atielle you all know now. Hypey. June 4th, I graduated from St. Martha’s. I know, same day as my bday but oh well, wait till you find out what day my HS graduation was. Anyway, this was also the year that I started high school. Freshman year. Man oh man, crazy. I went to Bishop Amat, it was way different than St. Martha’s. I went from being the alpha dog to starting all over at the bottom again. New people, new culture, and new environment. But hey I did the best I could. I joined a club, made friends that I’m still good friends with till this day, and I did well in my classes. 2012: But that all comes to an end because I moved school just cause it got too expensive. So this is when my whole Nogales High School life begins. Same thing. New school, new people, new environment, and new culture. But I did have my bestfriend here, Ethan. Even though I had him at the same school it was still different. I was shocked, coming from Bishop it was hella different. Well to be exact, it was ghetto. The place was dirty, there were cholos, fights everywhere, and too many stereotypes. It took me the whole first semester to get used to it. But for 4 months all I did was school and then home. 2013: I started being more active at school. I met a new group of friends. I got lucky. I met some real good ones. This year I also got my license. And sophomore year just happened too fast. 2014: Junior year was the turning point of my HS days. This was when I became more social. I had a very close group, we called ourselves BcFam. I still do till this day, but of course it’s not the same as it was back when we were just in high school. Hmm I learned a few things this year. Tried a lot for the first time. I started to smoke hookah, I tried weed once this year, I probably had my first alcohol, I attempted to talk to a girl (i’ll tell you later what happened here), I guess you can say that this was the year my whole living in a perfect world, protected by a bubble ended. My bubble popped. I was exposed to real life. 2014: I have to tell you about that girl cause this was really the first time I tried getting at a girl and honestly I don’t know how it started. To keep it short, she and I were close friends, even called each other best friends until everyone noticed that we could be more than that so they shipped us. They started teasing us and I guess thats when I developed feelings for her. So spring break 2014, known to me as Waded. Cause this was the first time I got faded and it was at the beach. So beach day was when our friendship moved up to a different gear. You know, the talking gear. So it was established that I was trying, but after 2 weeks she told me she can’t do it. I was alright, I thought I was heart broken but later on in my life I find out the real definition of being heart broken. Anyway, a week later she decided she was wrong and we tried again. Same thing happened, she was confused. So I stopped trying and since then things got awkward between us. Keep in mind she was part of my close group of friends so it was really awkward and plus it was hs so we were all immature still. But yea! Junior year ended pretty dope. 2014 (summer): This has got to be the most interesting summer I’ve ever had. Around July, I joined the basketball team. New coach so he didnt have a favoritism, thats why I made the team. But yea varsity, I didn’t play much but i still did it. I lost a lot of weight in 3 months. I went from 210 to probably 170. I mean I was skinny. We were dying. I love my team, we went through hell and back together. 2014 (senior year): So 1st semester of my senior year. I’m back! Back to being an alpha dog, I never liked admitting it but I was popular around school. I was one of those asian dudes. I was in basketball, I joined renaissance to dance for my class, and I was in choir. Oh and keep in my i was about 170lbs, I was fire. Around September, I was nominated to be part of the homecoming court and to run as homecoming king. Honestly I still dont know how or why I was nominated but oh well. I was pretty much shipped with the only other asian of the court. Keep in mind, I’ve had a crush on this girl since junior year. Never really planned ok doing something about it until that whole homecoming event happened. I ended up asking her to be my date for homecoming, and things led to more things between us. She became my girlfriend. My first girlfriend. Man I turned into a simp ass dude. So it was pretty much, basketball, her, and my friends all senior year. Wasn’t all perfect mixing all of those together but somehow it happened. 2015: Class of 2015 woohoo! So basketball took over my senior year, and when season ended in February is when I actually started enjoying my senior year. I got to hang out more, with my friends and ofcourse my girlfriend at the time. It was cool! Dramas here and there but it was cool. I think 1st week of May was when my ex broke up with me. I didnt know what to feel about it. First time having a “heart break”. But nah I was alright, mainly because not a lot of things happened between us anyways. Not even a kiss. I was sad but it was alright. I spent the last month of senior year, having fun with my friends. Fixed all the drama that happened and just made sure we went out with a bang. Shit, well like I said June 4th, I graduated again. There goes my high school memories. 2015 (summer): The day after graduation I went to the beach with my group of friends. It was dope! Emotional. Just what we all needed. Around those times I also rekindled with my ex. Lets just say I wasnt the one to reach out. But yes one thing led to another. We got back together. This time it was different. We matured. Our relationship got deeper. First everything. Kiss and ALL that. Okay that’s it, I’m not gonna elaborate on that anymore. 2015 (college): I started an LVN program, 15 month program. This was the time where I mainly focused on school and my gf at the time. I distant myself from my other friends well maybe except for my best friend. But knowing what I know now, I wish I didn’t distant myself as much. I wish I knew how to balance already, but hey I was still learning. Oh First week of August, I moved in a new house too! Same house as I am in right now. 2016: School was going great, I learned to love nursing even more. I was exposed to the medical life. How it could be hard at times but worth it. Around April or May of this year however, we broke up again. But this time it was for good. It was her choice, I don’t know exactly why but I had to respect that. This is when the real heart break happened. I had my heart totally broken into pieces. Sounds dramatic but so was I around that time. It took me awhile to get over it, probably 6-7 months? I dont know, but awhile. I learned to let go and forgive. I went on with life, I finished my school on November. And I became close with my friends again. And this time, I know not to take them for granted. 2017: I went to Philippines for 2 weeks. A much needed vacation. It was short, but it’s alright because I’ll be back in a month. For my bday :) As of right now, I took a break from school and gonna wait till After I get back from philippines to take my NCLEX. So tumblr, for now thank you for listening. Brb, gonna continue life. Well gonna sleep first then continue life. Gnight its 3:20am.