#i admit i do not know impactor well yet

[transingthoseformers]

Pleeeeaaaaasssssseeeee tell me more about your impactor in earthspark stuff I’m begging on my hands and knees

Okay it's technically an appropriated tfp plotline but it makes more sense for earthspark so it's for earthspark now

But

Usually

Impactor and crew show up at some point

Conflict ensues as Impactor has a major grudge against Megatron Because A Lot Of The Shit In The Fucking War

But there's also angst about them having been friends in the past, and we also get angst on Megatron comparing his various snapshots in his life to the current one

I feel like there's a discussion to be had in an earthspark setting regarding post war life for the Wreckers (i vaguely feel like mtmte whirl and his story could be an indication?? Whirl's a specific recipe but i feel like he's not the only Wrecker who's fallen down that path. Seeing, perhaps, Whirl in an earthspark setting would have such massive implications of again how not everyone has taken the end of the war well)

General human & wreckers interactions

I see some moments regarding Megatron and Impactor technically being on the same side again

General precybertron angst??? This would be an interesting time to bring up the poetry (who all knows that originally Megatron was a writer?)

In my plotline it never goes well. Never. Not once even.

[thanksjro]

Zero Point, a Last Stand of the Wreckers prose story- I Sure Hope You Like Eye Imagery

Ooh, an artsy start to our prose this go around.

This story takes place after the events of Last Stand of the Wreckers, with our dear friend Springer well into his Overlord-induced coma.

Roadbuster is a gentle soul, when he’s not busy ripping people’s spines out.

Roadbuster’s been put in charge of the Debris station since Springer’s out of commission. It’s boring. He’s bored. He has a routine he follows, but there’s only so much grave-visiting/security-checking/weapon-building/eyeball-cleaning a guy can do within a 120 hour day before it becomes less of a routine and more of a compulsive habit.

Springer’s eyes are a specific shade of blue known as Matrix Blue- supposedly a marker for being Matrix Compatible. Considering that Senator Shockwave had to go and get multiple guys some nonconsensual plastic surgery to make sure they could actually fit the Matrix, I’m going to go ahead and say that that’s some bunk someone made up to hype up the mysticism of Primehood.

Springer’s obviously in a bad way, and it’s not looking like things are going to get any better. You can tell, because this is the point where his internal monologue kicks in, reflecting on just what it’s like to die, and his past. Sure hope they don’t have any vats filled with corrodia gravis on this space station.

Back before the war was The War, Springer was young and naive, but his boobs were just as awesome as they are now.

Springer became slightly disenchanted as his time on the front lines went on, thinking that he needed to do more to help the Autobot Cause. He decided he wanted to join the Wreckers, though he knew next to nothing about them at the time, and everything that he’d heard probably should have sent him running in the opposite direction. Decepticons caught by Impactor and friends would kill themselves in the middle of the street if they managed to escape.

But we’re dealing with a mind that’s been shaped by a civil war, now aren’t we? Impressions are warped for Autobots, because Decepticons are evil, and therefore they deserve that sort of thing, now don’t they? Nobody is immune to propaganda.

Springer first met Impactor at Sherma Bridge, where he saw him punch through a ship’s windshield, spear the driver’s head with his drill-hand, and then land the thing in front of a memorial statue. Gee, what a guy.

Springer, even though he’d seen all this and was feeling a little wary about this whole situation- which is a very valid reaction to witnessing a murder, no matter who’s been killed- decides to get put on the list of reservists for the Wreckers.

It’s amazing they even bother with Rung at all, isn’t it?

Springer’s interview is a violent one, because this is the Wreckers, and we don’t ever go half-mast on anything- Impactor falls out of the fucking sky in the middle of a huge battle and tells Springer that he’ll be coming with him. And that was that.

Oh hey, it’s the IDW2 eating chairs. And hello, Kaput, it’s nice to see you again.

Kaput’s diagnosis is as bleak as it is cryptic- Springer’s probably for sure going to die. Kaput seems to only exist to tell people they’re dying or dead, unless they’re the once and future Optimus Prime.

Kup’s pretty bummed out about this whole thing, pacing like a 1950’s father in the birth and delivery waiting room. Kaput doesn’t seem to notice, or is too lost the the medical sauce to realize that him going on about how they fixed that weird humming noise Springer’s legs used to make is making folks anxious.

Roadbuster asks just what exactly’s wrong, if they fixed everything from his ripped-off face to his weird humming legs. Kaput doesn’t like confrontation, so he blathers on for a bit before admitting that they haven’t found the zero point.

Roberts, how many times are you going to do this to Kup? First Rodimus, now Springer- did Kup bully you in primary school? I’m starting to get concerned.

That was six months ago, and while Roadbuster had been polite about it at the time, all the nothing that’s happened since has made him feel a little less kindly toward Kaput.

Okay, who’s ready to find out why doctors and mechanics aren’t the same thing on Cybertron? Because I sure am!

So they have to account for the soul, is what you’re saying. Is this about having some sort of bedside manner, because the mental aspect of healing has to be taken into account? Or is it more to do with the bizarre implications of the soul being physical as opposed to metaphysical, and therefore capable of being destroyed? The ethical conundrum that the spark presents is fascinating.

If a break happens between these two nerves, it can cause the energy of the spark to be redirected away from the points it’s meant to go, like a heart with a hole in it. Yes, the blood is still inside the body, but it’s not inside the veins and is therefore useless, and in fact is directly harming the body.

Roadbuster, after reflecting on the grim reality Springer is currently living, breaks out Wreckers: Declassified. This isn’t reading for personal enjoyment or ego-stroking however- Roadbuster actually greatly dislikes reading about himself in Fisitron’s datalogs. No, this is more of a last-ditch effort to save Springer’s life.

Roadbuster learned to read to act on a theory brought up by Rung- he and Kup are friends, on account of both of them being very old- that the spark is psychosomatic in nature. It can be influenced by intense emotional responses to potentially heal the physical self. They’re willing to try this, because nobody really knows how exactly a spark works, so Rung’s guess is as good as any.

Story time for the evening picks up on a chapter in a story called “The Wreckers’ Air Attack”, getting right into where Megatron’s about to shoot Impactor in the back of the head. But not without pontificating first.

This is so over the top, so romantic- and I’m talking Romantic as in the literary style. I don’t even know what to say here. Luckily Impactor does.

Fisitron may not know what this whole scene is about, but we as the reader do. The hardcover trade edition of Last Stand was published roughly a six months after “Chaos Theory”, where we got THIS exchange:

If this is what Megatron’s poetry is like, it’s no wonder Impactor isn’t a fan. Purple prose out the wazoo, incredibly flowery imagery- I’m sure there’s an audience for all that, but I doubt Impactor’s a part of that crowd.

Megatron is distracted just long enough for Springer to descend upon him on the sky sled, like a murderous Santa Claus, jumping off so the sled can slam into Megatron and send him careening down the side of the mountain.

That’s taken care of. What next?

It’s at this point that Roadbuster checks what chapter they’re on, because he’s really not the biggest fan of Fisitron’s writing style. Guess he isn’t one for fanfiction, or adverbs. Turns out, each of these datalogs are less blog posts and more fully-fledged books. Every single one of them.

Roadbuster’s feeling kind of hopeless at this point, and it’s not hard to understand why; there hasn’t been any sort of response from Springer at all in all the months he’s been reading to him.

He considers the contents of the only datalog he hasn’t cracked open yet, outright skipping over it every time- #113, the one about Pova. He doesn’t ever read it because it’s full of false information, as was made very clear in Last Stand #5.

Springer joined the 17th iteration of the Wreckers, after a hazing ritual so brutal, it required the addition of an amendment to the Misuse of Weapons Act. Horrifying. None of the original members of the Wreckers had survived the war by the point Springer had been brought on- except for Valve, who does not count because he left the Autobots to go be a Decepticon, a fact which will never be expanded upon, much like Eugenesis Skywarp having been an Autobot for some friggin’ reason.

Springer, once on the inside, realizes that maybe the Wreckers are a little too dark a shade of gray for him to be able to sit comfortably with- the battering of POWs just a little too enthusiastically, the bending of the rules a little too sharply, the blatant disregard for the Tyrest Accord being smoothed over with an “oopsie doodle!” It’s looking like the Wreckers aren’t completely on the straight and narrow; shocking, I know.

Still, he doesn’t really see the point in arguing with it, instead just trying to make sure that he’s not the one doing the maiming and such. Complicity is not the answer to this sort of behavior, Springer.

When Squadron X came onto the scene, Impactor was so upset at the perceived slight- because obviously if Squadron X was the Decepticons answer to the Wreckers, and they were a bunch of murderous assholes, what did that make the Wreckers?- that he made it everyone else’s problem. The Wreckers WOULD destroy Squadron X. It was his new goal in life.

This went exactly where you’d expect such a singleminded hate-boner to go.

After the execution of eight POWs who should have been let go due to being on sovereign territory, Springer decided that enough was enough and called the cops on Impactor. High Command had been itching to get this guy back under control, so things moved pretty quickly after that.

Springer resigned from the group afterwords, but then everyone started coming out of the woodwork, pestering him to come back and LEAD them, because they were worried about being shut down. The likes of Roadbuster and Whirl don’t exactly make for good executives. After thinking about it, and after the trial, of course, he agrees to come back on as the leader of the Wreckers. So began a new era.

Back in the real world, Roadbuster’s trying to read the falsified account of Pova, but just can’t go through with it. He decides to tell Springer the truth, if only so he won’t die with a bunch of bullshit bouncing around in his brain.

Springer did so many drugs in Eugenesis, he BECAME drugs in Last Stand.

So Springer is apparently the greatest hype man to ever live, as he pumped everyone up so much about getting Squadron X, they just went completely feral the moment they saw their ship. Squadron X wasn’t even doing anything, and the Wreckers were frothing at the mouth.

When this lead to the inevitable, and Springer was trying to break down the door to prevent Impactor from racking up eight war crimes in under two minutes, Roadbuster and Whirl had a little moment. They knew what had happened, they knew that they couldn’t stop it, they knew that Springer couldn’t stop it, and they were pleased as punch about it.

Once Impactor had been arrested, the other Wreckers were worried that they’d be the next to get ratted out. To try and prevent this, they created a false narrative to lure Springer back into the group, placing him in a position of leadership to soothe his worries about the others having been complacent in the murder of Squadron X.

Roadbuster finishes off this horrifying admission with a non-apology, complimenting Springer on being a good leader. Then he notices that Springer’s got a tear in his eye.

That’s a [ tair ] , not a [ teer ]. It took me a second, too. English is a nightmare of a language.

He tries to buff the tear out, manually peeling back Springer’s eyelid to do it, only to find that maybe Rung wasn’t completely full of shit after all.

[desdemonafictional]

2020 Fanfic Year End Summary

Hey ho let’s go

Nev does these every year and I think they’re interesting, so for the first time I’m gonna give it a go too. I feel like this has been the longest fucking year--the Zine feels like it was two years ago and last January feels like it was ten years ago.

I’m gonna answer some questions and do a little reflection on the year 

This year I technically finished Icarus with 2k words of a 36k story, and after that I went on to produce 197k words not even COUNTING the stuff from GPAU which I do not know how to divide up for 2020. 

That’s 23 fics in one year, 8 of which were cowriting projects. This year has been, objectively, insane. By comparison, in 2019 I produced 17 fics and at the time I thought THAT was doing pretty impressive work. Now it’s not my best year by sheer number of titles--2018 was an oil boom while I was into JTHM and I actually put out 25 fics that year, some of which were short oneshots and some of which were two- or three-shots. But in terms of words? 2020 knocked them all out of the park. Which is absolutely something I owe to my amazing friends who let me ride around in their brains like the parasite I am.

In 2018 I started cowriting with Chokopopo, in 2019 I started cowriting with Neveralarch, and in 2020 I just did a fucking ton more of that with no looking back. It’s so incredibly motivating to have someone to show your progress to! And to have someone to hand the project over to when you’re stuck. If I hadn’t had Nev to bounce off of, most of this fic wouldn’t have been thought up at all, let alone finished. And don’t even get me started on GPAU! Choko and Zephyr and me have done such amazing things with “Welcome! Everything is fine”, and I can’t wait to be able to wrap that up and leave it for posterity.

I switched job positions around July of this year, and it’s changed the way I produce fic. Not sure if it’s good yet or not. I was never actually under a stay at home order this year because I work for a state agency, so to a degree I’ve missed out on the ways that quarantine affected other writers. I think I was fortunate?

Best Title 

Ahhh this is tough, I put a lot of effort into my titles this year--I promised myself in 2019 I was going to stop using song lyrics for fic titles because they make songs loop in my brain and it’s self inflicted torment, which is a promise I... mostly kept. “Dress Your Idol in Gold and Ashes” is the one I put most effort into probably, because I kept toying around with it trying to find something that was evocative of the right pagan imagery, and also the idea that got me started on the fic was a passage in a text book about the daily dressing of an idol statue in ancient Egypt.

“Broke My Last Glass Jaw” gets special mention because I named it after an essay that I wrote in undergrad for my African American Lit course, in which I broke down themes of the spoiled american dream via the lens of 90′s rap.

Worst Title

“Take one for the Team” is definitely my laziest title. It’s just super self indulgent kink fic, no character arc or anything, so I couldn’t find a good image or phrase to bring in for the title. Also I remember I really wanted to post it quickly, since it was a response to some art I was looking at, and I wanted the artist to see. I’m sure I could have done better with the title.

I did end up titling “Fear and Delight” after a song but I forgive myself because I literally only wrote the fic because the song existed first.

Best Summary

Some of these summaries I wrote and a some I did not, but of the ones that I wrote I think.... “ I'm All Full Up on Yesterdays, Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is the best one. It launches you directly into the action, while preserving the surprise reveal at the end of chapter 1. I actually wrote chapter one with this summary in mind, so it was baked in there from the start.

Jazz turned in his seat, cube at his lips, just in time to spot the white pursuit vehicle steaming and panting in the doorway. “Jazz of Staniz,” the enforcer shouted, “surrender the matrix and come quietly!”

Jazz knocked back his drink. “Well!” he said to the open-mouthed bartender, “time to split!”

Worst Summary

I mean, summaries are hard for everyone, right? That’s the thing we all universally struggle with, I think? I usually end up liking mine, and this year I was less afraid to just let a section of the story speak for itself. Anyway the worst one is “ Broke My Last Glass Jaw” by virtue of the fact that I had to come back months later and add another line because I wasn’t satisfied with how it was reaching audiences.

After the war, Impactor is at loose ends.

(They were friends once, weren't they? After all this time, Impactor wonders if Megatron hasn't managed to forget.)

I really wanted that one line to say it all, but honestly it requires a lot of trust in me as the author and most of the people who pass by the fic in the archive aren’t gonna know me from adam. The second line clarifies what kind of story it’s going to be in terms of tone and theme.

Best First Line

I’m pretty ambivalent about most of my first lines. Since Nev already pointed out the first line in “ Apotheosis”, I have to admit, it is pretty good. It gets off to a real jaunty start.

“Excuse me,” Starscream said, striding down the steps of the senate chambers with his cape flaring out behind him, “get your cowcatcher out of his face, you tin-plated amateur despot, he’s with me.”

I also like the audacity of a run on sentence that is the opening to “ Desecrate You”

Ratchet clicks the video because it was auto-recommended, and because First Aid is always dropping hopeful hints that he wants her to watch his show when he’s supposed to be grading papers, and because something about the title (“This is Definitely a Hoax! None of this is Real! Short Cut Footage Episode”) makes her wonder why the hell someone who runs a Ghost Hunting youtube channel would bill their own hard work as a hoax right out of the bag.

Worst First Line

Definitely the least interesting is from “Tantric Sex, and Other Mysteries of the Divine”. I guess it’s another fic where I was really eager to get to the meat of the fic, and so I just went back after I was done with the fic and wrote a paragraph of bare bones setting context so we could move on already.

It’s game night at Swerve’s, and Nightbeat is out in the thick of the crew for once, getting the lay of the land.

I have the same problem in a few fics, which probably arises from the fact that when I read a fic, I often skim the first paragraph or so to see if I really want to commit to the read. So I sometimes write like I’m expecting the audience to do that too. I probably need to work on that. Man, I even did it in Sexy Staycation.

Best Last Line

I like endings! I usually have a good gut instinct for where stories should end, and how to pace that, and what image I want to close the fic on. Often times I’ll be writing a story and feeling really lukewarm about it, and then the ending will come to me, and I’ll feel totally won over by it. That happened with my Suicide Squad fic years ago. So this is for the most part me picking the best of the things I already like. “Broke My Last Glass Jaw” has a good pithy one; I like how it isolates this moment as a moment of choice, and how it’s also ambiguous whether he will change because of this or whether he’s doomed to go back to his predetermined pattern.

And despite the unguarded door and the empty inviting streets beyond, where no one wants or expects anything of him but his feterless bitter trog onward into the next waiting prison cell, Impactor lays down, and Impactor does.

Special mention goes to “ The Sky Dark in its Eclipse : Orange Light Remix”, because the ending section is one of the big changes I brought to the remix, and I’m really happy with how it alters the shape of the narrative and also how it changes the focus of Rung’s arc. Most of the actual words in this fic were written by Choko in 2018, so this is like a collab in slow motion--I changed loadstone moments mostly, some of the framing, all of the backstory, and updated the setting for Cybertron. But the ending is all me.

On the morning of Intro to Psych finals, while Hot Rod hums and taps and scrolls back and forth through his test on the front row of the testing hall, Rung will sit behind his desk and brush the dust from the rotors of his fateful archetype, and start the long process of putting the pieces together once and for all.

Worst Last Line

Again, I like my endings, so this is really the worst of the best. The original ending line I wrote for “ All Our Urgent Restless Sighing” was:

Deadlock’s finials twitched. “...I am a reasonable amount of interested,” he said, “in this topic.”

And in the beta process, Nev came back in and added the line about Ratchet and cuddling, which was a big hit with the readers it seems like. So clearly I benefitted from some help there haha!

Looking back, did you write more or less than you thought you would this year?

you know what, I definitely wrote more than I thought I would. I didn’t see “Don’t Sing Me No More Blues” coming at all, and that was once a month for most of the year. I was hoping that I would be able to write a few things outside of Transformers, because I always worry that my long spans of hyperfixation are driving away my longtime readers... and I did manage to get one hxh thing written that was good, and one hxh thing started that is mediocre so far. So I guess I’ll call that good enough.

 What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, just your favorite.

hmm I’m really proud of the Pharma chapter me and Choko put together for GPAU--the body horror, the tragedy, the lotus eater machine plot. But even though that felt like a whole ass story of its own, I guess it’s only a chapter at the end of the day. So my favorite story would be “Apotheosis”. It’s just SO much, and we had SO many things we wanted to do, and somehow we managed to do them ALL. Corpses! Children! God! It’s got everything! The only thing it doesn’t have is the idea that literally started us plotting out the fic. And that was “ritual public sex with Starscream and Rung”. Oh well. Maybe someday. Probably not.

Okay, Now your most popular story

Ha! I tend to view the success of a fic more based on its bookmark ratio than its hit count, but by the numbers, unsurprisingly, “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is my most popular fic of the year at a whopping 3k hits and 113 bookmarks. Well, it is jazz/prowl which means it has a built in audience of considerable size, and it also updated seven times this year which increases its net range, so no surprise. But I think people also just really vibed with it--it’s very much a product of the times we are living in, and I don’t think it could have been written in any year except for 2020. 

“Dress Your Idol” has 58 bookmarks, by the way. I’m extremely proud of that fic for having such a high bookmark to view ratio. I guess the people who did read it liked it a lot.

Story most underappreciated in its Time.

Okay nothing is as under-exposed as the stuff I produced in JTHM, so I’m definitely not complaining. It’s hard to think about leaving TF because TF is such an enthusiastic community. That said, “ Neggnog Cozy” did not get eyeballs. I’m not surprised, it’s short and it’s gen, and Thundercracker doesn’t have the built in audience of say Starscream. Still, I thought it was really funny and cute and I would have liked it if more people would have given it a chance.

Story that could have been better

Oh, “ Melusine Among the Tombs” for sure. I went into that with only the first chapter planned and immediately after realized that I had no idea where the fic was going and also I had lost my grip on canon characterization after a couple years going rusty in other fandoms. I plan to finish it eventually, but I need a better plan than “wing it???” first.

Sexiest Story

I wrote SO much weird kink this year. Like. Shout out to past me for writing some pretty spicy JTHM fic, but this year I really leaned into how weird you can plausibly get with an all robot all alien cast. 

“ The Sensual Machine” is the most unabashedly horny because it was written specifically for a weird kink themed zine that I was an editor on. “Desecrate You” is also quite horny but I almost exclusively wrote the frame device for that, so I don’t get sexy credit lmao. “Fear and Delight” was a big hit with all the hxh readers and I think it has an element of sexiness more so than pure horniness--its has a kind of glamour and style to it.

Most fun story

“Starscream's Sexy Staycation” is by far the most unabashedly comic and sexy and silly and low stakes. It has one of my favorite kinks, a beautiful stupid moment of Ratchet suffering, and Rung calling safeword which is something new and fresh and I want a lot more of it in the world.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

“ Lacunae” was given to me as a yule gift prompt with the express intention of explaining who the fuck Carmilla’s mother was, and what the deal is with Carmilla as well. This would have forced me to reevaluate my understanding of the novel except for the TEENSY insignificant fact that I realized I had never finished reading Carmilla, somehow, and ended up reading it for the first time in December in preparation for yule. So uh. Hmm.

I think “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” made me think about Prowl in a different way. I wasn’t really expecting him to be this hard-edged idealist when I started out on the fic. He was originally going to be much more like the autistic coded Prowl of “The Cop and the Cryptid,” one of my favorite fics ever. Also, I started writing the fic about a month before the riots and police protest kicked off in America this year, and it really caused me to zero in on how Prowl being part of a system like that affects his relationship to the world and other characters.

Hardest Story to Write

“ Elegy for Actaeon of the Hounds” took me a total of six months to write from start to finish. I don’t know why. Well, It’s partly because there are three involved sex scenes and sex scenes are actually very difficult and time consuming for me to write. It’s also partly because I kept wanting it to have a character arc, and I kept getting stumped on how to handle that. Beauty and the Beast plot lift? Have Rodimus be a rabbit? Eventually I settled on the version that kept the cast tightly cinched down around Megatron and Rung, and I’m happy with the result.

Easiest Story to Write

When we were writing “Apotheosis” it felt like we were on FIRE, we were so productive and we started three other projects between us while it was in motion. But “Take One For the Team” was absolutely the most fun to write, it basically wrote itself

Most Overdue Story

“Champagne in the Final Days of Rome” was based off a conversation I had with Nev pretty early on in our friendship--Discord says it was June 2019, so that’s uhhh ten months between discussion to actual writing? And it still didn’t turn out to be the fic we were originally outlining, haha.

Oh god you know what was really the most overdue? The last chapter of “Icarus; or, Look Who's Digging His Own Grave”. It was literally a year, January to January, between chapter 12 and 13. For a while I thought maybe I was just going to have to leave it there, without resolving the time loop problem at all.

Did you take writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Writing for the zine was a big risk. I remember Nev had to reassure me at least twice that what I was writing wasn’t too weird or off-topic or embarrassing to be part of the project. Now, of course, I’m very happy with it. But my god I was nervous to post something that was like.... straight up actually bimboification applied to one of the most popular toy characters of all time.

What I learned from this is that people love horny shit, are READY to take a chance on a weird fic when its in the right wrapping paper, and when in doubt you CAN sell people on a kink they’re not really into by making the kink actually a reflection of a character arc. Are you writing this down?

Do you have any goals for writing in the new year?

Finish GPAU!!!!!!

I’d like to FINALLY sit down and do some hard work on my original fiction. I’ve been kind of waiting for the tf hyperfixation to wane so I could move forward, and I think that process is in motion now. But who knows. If Rung shows up in the new comics I might get nerfed again.

Other than that I’d like to write at least one fanfic that isn’t TF, and I would like to get this really crunchy Rung/Pharma fic off the ground so I can make some people CRY

[seaquestions]

daisy bell

wip of a very fluffy megatron/soundwave fic, in a pre-war au. i want to finish it but idk if i will (cause its shaping up to be Much longer than i thought it’d be), so i’ll post the first part of it that reads as finished! heads up though, it’s unedited, in lowercase, and soundwave’s not even in it (yet!)

"what'cha got there, chief?"

frenzy's curious voice jolted megatron out of his thoughts. though he was used to the minibot's tendency to barge into their quarters without even knocking, he had been deeply concentrating on his work.

"ooh, shiny!" frenzy said, scampering into the room.

megatron fumbled with the object, optics checking to make sure the door was closed. it was, thankfully. "please lower your voice," he said.

"oh!" the light in frenzy's optical band also flickered towards the door. "sorry, chief," he whispered, apologetically.

the minibot sat down on the hard metal berth he shared with his twin on the left side of the cramped, underground room, across from megatron. his legs swung back and forth from the edge, and he asked, "so what is it? somethin' important? somethin'... illegal?"

megatron fixed his charge with an unimpressed stare. "frenzy."

"what? you were lookin' all secretive 'n slag, i'm bound ta get curious!"

megatron sighed. "yes, it \is/ important, and no, i \don't/ want people to know about it. \and/ it's fragile."

frenzy leaned in. "yeesh, talk about a triple threat. but hey, you can trust me, can't ya? i only wanna look! and i won't even tell rumble!"

megatron found that extremely doubtful. even though he knew rumble was currently on shift with impactor (and primus, he really should try to get that changed at some point. the mech was a \terrible/ influence on the little ones. not that he ever could. impactor would never admit it, but megatron knew that he was quite fond of the two.), he also knew that the twins were \always/ gossiping over their link no matter how far apart they might be.

"i will show you. but!" he exclaimed, before frenzy got too excited, "when rumble finds out," when and not if, "he has to promise not to talk about it either."

frenzy's visor flared, and he nodded firmly. "we promise!"

internally, megatron smiled. he never really wanted to keep things from the twins, especially not something like this. he was far too fond of them both, ever since they were placed under his care all those stellar cycles ago. not only that, but the item was something for their \other/ caretaker.

"it's a gift," he said, holding his hand out, "for soundwave."

in his hand was a tiny blue metal box, painstakingly polished by hand. the cover had faded silver detailing, too delicate and ornate for megatron to even attempt to patch up. on the front was a latch, also in silver.

megatron smiled at frenzy. "go on then. you can open it. gently."

the minibot looked up at him, as if asking if he was \really/ allowed, then carefully pulled the latch open.

as the cover flipped up and revealed the interior, frenzy gasped. inside the box were two minuscule figurines entwined in a dance. their delicate armour must have been made by hand, from this close, he could see all the tiny imperfections, not that they made the sculptures any less beautiful. the inside of the cover itself was lined with a light blue crystal material, giving it a sort of glow. in the corner of the surface that the two figurines were placed, there was a button. frenzy hovered a servo over it, looking up at megatron, who nodded at him.

when he pressed it, the dancing figurines started to spin. then, music started to play, soft and twinkling. it was faint, but frenzy eventually recognised it as some sort of... lullaby? Some old song that he remembers soundwave singing when he and rumble first arrived at the mine under Nova Point, tiny and scared. it comforted them enough to lull them to recharge, something that they both had trouble with. in fact, wasn't that how soundwave unofficially became their second caretaker?

when the twins were sent to the mine shortly after their creation, they met with d-16, later nicknamed megatron, to learn the ropes. megatron himself was still young, and grieving from the loss of his own mentor, terminus. the old mech had fallen victim to a cave-in not too long ago. but it was because of that loss that megatron decided that he would be a mentor to the two minibots. the other miners were too brash, too uncaring. megatron was lucky to have met terminus, and so he was determined to be just as good to the twins. one aspect that he could never succeed at was getting them to recharge soundly. even when he managed to get the two to shut off their optics and go to recharge, he could tell that they were having nightmares. he didn't know what to do.

it continued that way until he met soundwave.

the mech was transferred to Nova Point Mine to work in one of the administrative roles. judging by his frame, it was most likely not his original function, but truly, so long as it was all classed under "servitude", the functionist council wasn't all \that/ fussed about where low-caste mecha were employed. soundwave was just happy that he no longer had to interact with as many mecha as he did in his old job. he was content to file paperwork in his dingy little office, with only the company of his three beastformer cassettes.

as a cassette player, however, it was only natural that he still preferred to have some noise in the background. and so soundwave brought something to the mines that he probably wasn't allowed to have: music.

frenzy remembered the day he heard music, \pre-recorded/ music, for the first time in his life. so far, all he'd ever had were Tarnish mining songs and other north-hemisphere folk songs that the miners whistled from time to time. he and rumble were walking towards the dining area when they heard it, and when the two of them paused to listen to it better, a bunch of other mecha walking behind the two nearly tripped on them! but the miners didn't get mad, they noticed the music too, and then they all followed it. it came from soundwave's office.

the following day, there was music playing on the intercom system. it was risky, because they weren't technically allowed to get any entertainment, but soundwave made sure to cut it whenever any of the higher-ups dropped in. frenzy and rumble lived in silent admiration of the mysterious, reclusive mech for cycles. well. as silent as the two could be. which wasn't a lot. ravage noticed them following him pretty quickly.

through those series of events, megatron met soundwave, and began enlisting his help to sing the twins to sleep. and it worked! though soundwave was somewhat embarrassed at first, he had a really beautiful voice, even with the synthesizer. soundwave then started spending more time outside his office, making friends with some of the other miners, but more than that, he became closer and closer to megatron. the two established a sort of rapport, a comfortable intimacy. soundwave's quarters were a ways away from theirs. there had been a couple of times where frenzy would wake up and see megatron sprawled on the floor while soundwave was sleeping stiffly on the mech's berth. and there had been a couple of times after that where he woke up and saw them tangled up together. it made him wish that they had one really big berth, where he and rumble could squish themselves in the middle and they would be one big cuddly... family? was that the word? yeah... family.

blinking the fluid coming from under his optical band away, frenzy looked at the music box in megatron's hand and said, "thas' a really nice gift to give to the boss, chief. where'd ya find it?"

"actually, \impactor/ found it. you remember when they tried to transfer him to another mine a few cycles back?" megatron paused at frenzy's nod. "when he came back, he gave this to me. well, threw it at me is more accurate, i suppose. he told me that he spotted it in a pile of junk, and that it seemed like something my, and i quote, nerdy aft would enjoy working on."

frenzy tilted his head. "that was a while ago... how long did it take ya to fix it?"

"hmm.." megatron thought for a klik. "it took a long time. i can't say for sure. i had to fix the internal mechanisms too, you see. if you think the sound is faint now, well, it was a lot worse when i got it. and the only mech i could think of who'd most likely have the knowledge to help was the mech i was planning on giving it to!" megatron chuckled. "it took a lot of doing."

frenzy hummed. "so what's the occasion? is it..." he gasped. "is it the boss' creation day or something?! 'Cause if it is, me & rumble need to get somethin' too!"

megatron's engine rumbled in a laugh. "no, it isn't that. actually, i don't think even soundwave knows when his creation day is. this gift is... well..." He bit his lip.

"frenzy, what do you know of the conjunx ritus?"

the minibot's optical band flashed the brightest it has ever been. "you're gonna get hitched?!"

"i-well--" megatron fumbled over his words. "hopefully? if all goes well, that is--"

but there was no stopping frenzy from letting out a high-pitched squeal and running around the room, his plating rattling in excitement.

"Oh-my-primus-it's-happening-i'm-so-excited-i-can't-believe-this!"

Laughing, megatron reached out and grabbed frenzy by the scruff bar and set the bot down back on the berth. "Sweet Solus, child. I did not expect you to be as enthusiastic about this as you are."

"why wouldn't i be?" frenzy asked.

megatron hesitated. "it wouldn't be... weird?"

"well, the two a' you have been preeetty much conjunxed for a long time anyway."

"i--have we?" megatron seemed genuinely caught off guard.

frenzy looked at him as if he was an idiot. "yeah, duh. everyone can see it. pit, thas' probably why impactor gave you the box in the first place."

"...ah."

"anyway, i can't wait for the ceremony! oh, it's gonna be so good, there's gonna be so much oil cake--"

megatron squinted his optics and huffed a laugh. "did someone sneak in romantic comedies from Iacon or something?"

frenzy's faceplates flushed. "ehh, maybe? who's to say?"

"anyway," megatron said, shaking his head, "i doubt that we'll have as grand a reception as you're imagining. i mean..."

he looked back down at the music box. "my Act of Profference is just a piece of junk that i cleaned up somewhat. and i don't think either of us can afford more than one oil cake."

"ah. yes. things cost money." frenzy said, flopping down on the berth in defeat. "well, that doesn't mean that you can't do something! maybe if everyone pitches in--"

"perhaps. but frenzy, remember, soundwave is a very private mech. while it might be nice to celebrate and have a big party, we should consider how he feels about it first."

frenzy blinked. "oh. right, he's not good with crowds, is he? well..." the minibot trailed off, drawing patterns on the berth with a finger.

"maybe it can just be the seven of us, then. you, the boss, me n' rumble, rav and the condors. i think that'd be nice."

megatron smiled, and pulled frenzy up and onto his lap. "i think that would be nice too."

[levelrazearts]

This year's top 10 figures

Another year, another top 10 to be done. This is gonna be a rather tough list honestly as I got so many figures this year that were all great and picking my favorites out of them was hard, do let's get started.

10. WFC Seige Deluxe Impactor. He's a great figure overall, and both very detailed and highly articulated, but other than that there really isn't much going for him. Still a good figure, and a very fun one, and that's great for anyone really.

9. Studio Series 38 Optimus Prime (Bumblebee). This guy is a terrific figure, he really is honestly, and probably would've scored higher on this list if it weren't for the inaccuracies throughout both modes and my general distaste for the design. It is a good design, but one that lacks creativity as I've said before for the film as a whole. It's just G1 and that's it. Another problem is with the legs in how they tab in or rather don't, the sides of them are rather lose and not that great. Definitely go pick this guy up though, you will enjoy him.

8.

SS 36 Deluxe Drift with Baby Dinobots. I really only bought this guy for the baby Dino's, but he's not half bad. A nice retool and redeco of TLK figure with a nice new sword, and you got yourself a decent Drift. Unfortunately I just don't think the mold is all that great and rather shell-formery. And with no storage for that big sword it definitely feels like it was meant to tab into something but was left unmentioned. Definite grab if you want, maybe at a discount if you can.

7. SS 34 Leader Megatron with Igor. A figure I was excited for, and while wasn't disappointed by, I also wasn't blown away by it. As an update to a figure that needed it, it does it's job well and has a nice aesthetic. The paint job is decent and the accessories are decent too, with the cloak being my favorite part honestly. If you want a good Megatron, this could be him.

6. SS 42 Voyager Long Haul. Similar with Meg's above, Long Haul was a great update to an older figure with the added bonus of turning into the leg of Devastator. He's also stubby. That matters a lot.

5. SS 46 Deluxe Dropkick (car). Another great update to a figure that had been recently released.....huh. Yeah, the heli-Dropkick was not that great and this was a much appreciated update on Hasbro's part. He looks better, transforms better, moves better, everything about him is better. Definitely pick this guy up if not for a collection then simply for the fun he offers.

4. SS 52 Deluxe Arcee, Chromia, and Elita-1. A bit of a late edition but still acquired before the years end, these three are super small but pack a lot of punch, and while I have yet to upload the review for them, I can tell you right now that they are well worth buying. The transformation is surprisingly easy to remember despite the designs, the articulation is also surprisingly robust despite the size, and the detail is also surprisingly good, all in all, these are great figures and I highly recommend picking these up.

3. WfcS Commander class Jetfire. What a beast of a figure, he's simply amazing. His size, his features, his detail, his articulation, he has everything a Classics Jetfire should have and more even. The transformation is par for the course with this kind of Jetfire but does it's job exceedingly well in having no faux parts and almost feels like a Masterpiece figure due to everything. Definitely pick this guy up as he's the first of hopefully a long line of great Commander classes.

2. SS 44 Leader class Optimus Prime with trailer. I'll admit, when this mold of Prime was first revealed, I was not a fan. I thought it looked very inaccurate and lacked some needed paint apps. The revised version was a bit better with the transformation, but still lacked one some of the paint apps such as the orange gradient on the nose of the truck, and that's where this release finally gets it right. From the paint to all of the added accessories including the trailer, this is the best version of the mold overall. As for the trailer, it's a great addition in both looks and playability with a sword, axe, shield, gun, and jetpack with cannons, makes this a playset. And for $50, it's a great deal. But as a personal best, it was beat out by someone else.

1. SS 14 Voyager Ironhide. Ok so I know this guy was released last year so technically shouldn't count but considering he was hardly ever released anywhere last year and had only been found this year (by me at least), I feel he should get this spot, because he really his a great figure, loads of fun with a great transformation that should've been used for the MPM figure I feel. He also has a great range of articulation which is even better than that of the MPM's and is a hell of a lot sturdier as well. And due to his rarity of a main retail figure, he goes for a bit more than what he really should. If you can, get him at retail such as Target or BBTS instead of from eBay, but definitely get him as he really is a fun figure.

Honourable mentions.

Oversized Scorn, a really big figure and super imposing. The added LED's are cool too.

Dishonourable mentions.

SS 40 Deluxe Shatter. She just couldn't hold up together all that well with the shoulders and articulation lacks just a little to much, and the inaccurate headsculpt is just sad.

So yeah, those are my top 10 from this year. Where there some others that should've been on this list instead of others? Perhaps, but I feel this is what was the best for me and yours will obviously vary. Not a lot of Generations figures mainly cause I didn't buy any other than the two that were on this list aside from Trypticon but since he's a figure from last year...er...2018, I'm not counting him. If he was included, he would've made 4th or 5th probably. All in all, a great year for Transformers, and hope this year will be even better.