#it needs to FLOW RIGHT

[hareofhrair]

Continually frustrated by my attempts to make a cohesive playlist for Shafan because I can’t settle on a single sound for them. You can’t just put Tom Petty, Glen Campbell, Modest Mouse, and Gotye on the same fuckin playlist it doesn’t WORK.

[vriskan8or]

let her go

[batshaped]

trick(xie) question

[thedustyleaves]

Getting to know my new character 👀

[aroaceleovaldez]

i think the thing i'm most disappointed about with riordanverse fandom now versus like 2014 is not only has the fandom not gotten any less racist or queerphobic or ableist (in fact in some regards its gotten worse!) but now it's just boring too. like there's no fandom infrastructure anymore - the community these days is almost entirely source material-driven - and you deviate from canon even slightly people get weird about it. whatever happened to the post-HoO fanon boom. the fandom needs to get weirder again. and self-sufficient. and less offensive.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At rest, your lungs wish to deflate, and your ribcage expands outwards.

[fisheito]

everyone gets a turn in the ridiculous skintight edmondsuit. or at least, .everyone SHOULD

[fight-for-what-you-love]

♪ Worldwide - Big Time Rush

I'm gonna be honest- these episodes kind of fell apart while I was making this. The more I re-wrote the story for it's second draft the less this version made sense and the less interested I was to work on it. I have not much else to say except sorry this part is kinda iffy and sorry it took so long. I promise you I'll make up for this in the next episode I PROMISE

Notes on both episodes under the cut!

Sweden Sour

* (I think it’d be really funny if Cody just doesn’t talk at all this episode. Not a word. Just nods and head shakes and depressed faces.)

* Cody’s incredibly depressed after Noah’s elimination. Sierra’s over the moon, though. She sees Cody depressed and gives him a tight side hug, petting his head. She tries consoling him with “I know you’re sad, but it’s ok! At least I’m still here~.” Cody starts sobbing, head in hands. Heather is sick of this already.

* The teams get their “ibuilda” pieces and the Amazons argue on what it’s supposed to be. Cody stares at the pieces for a few seconds before the light briefly re enters his eyes. He starts building. Courtney tells him to stop but Heather tells her he’s obviously got it, so let him work. They start helping him build… something.

* Once the Amazons are done, Heather, Sierra and Courtney take a step back to see what they’ve built. It’s a giant wooden Noah head. Their faces drop. Heather is filled with murderous rage.

* We built Noah’s face (We’re gonna take first place) Cause we built Noah’s faaaace

* Tyler’s jumper would be white.

* Cody doesn’t sing in this number. Chris notices and stares at him threateningly. He reluctantly hums the chorus and Chris takes what he can get.

* (Alejandro takes off his shirt to pull the boat like a freak. Duncan is unfazed and Tyler will deny it if you ask him if he blushed.)

* Sierra hits Noah’s Head hard enough it falls over on its side and suggests sawing off the side to ride in him like a boat. Heather and Courtney agree to this. Cody has no comment.

* Duncan and Alejandro don't bother bending over backwards to please Tyler. Duncan makes himself captain and no one argues.

* When the Amazons go to pick a captain, Courtney grabs the hat and declares herself captain without input. Heather tries to argue but Courtney argues back- Cody is in no condition, no one trusts Sierra and Heather took control the last challenge so this time she’s in charge. Heather reluctantly backs down.

* Amazons catch up to team Chris in the water. Alejandro sees them approach and makes note of Cody’s face, making fun of him for being so upset about “the Noah thing”. Cody furrows his eyebrows and points furiously at Chris’s boat. Courtney agrees that yes, they should shoot their boat.

* It doesn’t matter who wins the challenge since it’s a non elimination round, but I want to say the Amazons persevere. The massage helps Cody enough that he’s not stone faced next episode at least.

Aftermath III (Aftermath Aftermayhem)

* Gwen, Owen and Noah are introduced together. Gwen walks out first and Owen, hugging Noah to the point of lifting him off the ground, walks behind her.

* Geoff asks what all that’s about and Gwen responds that Owen refused to let him go until Noah “understood just how sorry he was”. Noah insists he forgives him, but Owen still won’t let him go.

* The Owen square is replaced by the Tyler square. The prompt is survive. (The hosts throw a bunch of debris at the contestant for thirty seconds and if they dodge everything they move on.)

* (For brevity’s sake, assume all of the contestants that participated in the board game in the original episode participated here [with the exception of Tyler, who is replaced with Owen]. They all get eliminated the same way as well, Noah getting got by aliens, Owen falling down the booby trap square and Beth making it to the final question.)

* When Beth gets stumped on the last question (What was Duncan's band called) Noah yells at her, frustrated: “Oh my- It’s Der Schnitzel Kickers, Beth!!” Confetti and balloons fall from the ceiling.

* (He knows this because Cody had mentioned it in a conversation after the London challenge.)

* Noah initially complains about winning the game, but Owen reminds him that he gets to see Cody again and he shuts up immediately.

* “Noah wins!” “Wasn’t he disquali-” “NOAH WINS!! Let’s wrap it up. We’re done here.”

[wiggly-round-worm]

I’ll be honest i HATE the way the QSMP fanbase is treating Gegg and Tallulah. Like Gegg literally just appears, bro hasn’t done a single thing and people start talking about how they want him to die 😭 ?? And Tallulah starts feeling insecure trough no fault of Gegg and the Gegg tag just EXPLODES with hate. I’m a big petty baby and i don’t like seeing /neg in the tags bro. It just kinda feels like tallulahs the golden child who can do no wrong and Geggs the scapegoat who’s blamed for everything, and i feel like people are already taking it too far

[qkmlh]

Still ducking hilarious to me that Zoro & Sanji began their beef because they thought the other was misogynistic and it came to a head of no return when Zoro felt his title of ‘Luffy’s specialest boi’ threatened by Sanji’s comment

[inaflashimagine]

i truly am excited for the numerous miguel o'hara fics flooding my feed, but as someone whose first language is spanish i have one plea:

please do not use google translate for writing sentences in spanish bc 90% of the time they will sound quite off

some recommended resources:

spanishdict

linguee

deepL

word reference is also handy for understanding the context behind certain phrases or words

or maybe a friend you know who speaks and writes spanish!!

if anyone else has suggestions please feel free to rb!

-

Edit jun 7: shameless plug to read my Miguel O‘Hara x reader fic (latine reader) if you’re interested!

[slowcatsworld]

I can’t decide if Noel Noa would have cold hands or warm hands.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I wanna lean towards cold but imagine his hands were always warm, even from childhood. All those nights spent without the proper protection from the elements, his best source of warmth sometimes became his own two palms.

Pressing them against his face and his neck, trying to focus on their warmth and not the cold biting at his feet. He would cover his ears for long periods of time until they felt warm enough for him. Imagine if this became a comfort gesture to him- you could spot him warming up on the field with one of his hands rubbing and resting on his neck. What if he does it so often that it becomes normal for his teammates to see but they don’t question it.

•but if they were cold?

You would always rub his hands together, bathing them in the warmth that your palms provided. Its late spring, the weather so far has been the warmest it has this year. Still, his hands remain he same. Cold as ever. You press kisses to them while taking note of the cracks along his knuckles. He hasn’t moisturized yet today.

Normally Noel is devoted to taking care of his body. If he let himself succumb to the trap that is ‘rotting’ he would never be able to perform as perfect as he needs to.

You like to intertwine your hand in his and shove it into your coat pocket. He might gaze at you with a slight questionable expression, but he generally doesn’t try to fight you on it. It’s warm with you.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

[tswwwit]

One of the worst things about making a story is when you're at, say, 80% done, and you know what happens at 90% done, but the stuff in that 10% gap is refusing to come together into something solid.

[wuntrum]

me sowing (taking on tight deadlines): haha yeah this is awesome, they're gonna appreciate me sooo much

me reaping (not having a lot of time to complete the task): dude what the hell, this sucks

[aintgonnatakethis]

shoes: the bane of every smut writer's existence

[lets-try-some-writing]

Artificial Prime

Part 2 of the Artificial Prime AU, previous post here.

Recap: Optimus is a machine made by Ratchet to replace the deceased Orion Pax and serve as the Prime the Autobots desperately need. He didn't know he was a machine, he wasn't supposed to know that the Matrix within him was fake or that he was sparkless. But then Smokescreen arrived on earth with the real Matrix and now the truth has no choice but to come out lest the Autobots fall.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙

The real Matrix shone in the container it had come in and Optimus lay sprawled out on the ground unconscious, his processors overwhelmed by the sudden surge of data. The team remained silent for a long moment while Ratchet panicked. Then before any of them could do anything about it, he slammed the lid back on the crate and shoved the Matrix in its box under his medical berth.

His processors whirled, desperate to come up with a convincing lie to get both Optimus and the team convinced that Optimus was indeed a Prime. He briefly considered trying to claim that the new Matrix was fake, but none could deny its aura. It was real, it had to be. The very sparks of all the natural born Cybertronians sang at the sight of the relic, they all knew what it was.

In the end Ratchet gathered up Optimus while the team were still reeling and dropped him on the medical berth while struggling to come up with a solution. However after a moment, the team began to understand what happened and in mere moments, there were questions barraging him.

Smokescreen: That was the Matrix! The fragging Matrix! How is it here and not... in Optimus's chest?!?

Arcee: Ratchet, you seem to know what's going on. Care to explain?

Ratchet: ...

Bulkhead: Ratch? Is it fake or something?

Bumblebee: Is Optimus going to be alright?

Ratchet: ... Forget you ever saw this. If you want things to stay the way they should, forget you ever saw the relic and pretend it didn't happen.

Smokescreen: What?!

Ratchet: I can't tell you the truth. It would ruin everything. Just listen to me this once and don't say a word. When Optimus wakes pretend this didn't happen and never speak of it again.

Arcee: You can't be serious!

Ratchet: I am more serious than ever before. Optimus can't know about this. He needs to keep believing. He isn't allowed to know.

Bulkhead: Ratchet, you aren't making any sense-

Ratchet: Do you want a Prime?! Do you want a leader!? Then shut up and follow orders like a good soldier while I fix this!

Ratchet's sharp response caught the entire team off guard, so much so that they didn't stop him and merely watched on in growing fear and concern as he put the box with the Matrix in a storage room and locked the door before demolishing the access point. Not a spark had any idea why he had given them the orders he had or why he was trying to get rid of the actual Matrix of leadership. However as Optimus stirred, they had a choice to make.

As soon as Optimus's waking reached Ratchet's audio receptors he hurried forward and eliminated any evidence of the Matrix's existence before slamming down a random datapad that he intended to claim was the item within the box Smokescreen carried. Then as Optimus shot up, horrified and clawing at his chassis and looking around for where he last saw the Matrix, Ratchet smoothed his expression with such skill that even the team were frightened. Then without any hesitation he told Optimus it was all a dream, that it wasn't real. As he did so he uttered a soft command one which inspired submissiveness and trust. It was one of his failsafes, and while Optimus seemed confused, the command worked and he got up rubbing his helm.

The moment the Prime looked away, Ratchet shot the team the most deadly glare he could, almost daring them to go against his orders. They all looked away and said nothing, earning a hint of relaxation and hope in the medic. Optimus couldn't know the truth. If the team remained silent he could explain himself and come up with a reasonable lie. But until then, he needed them to keep what they had seen to themselves.

Thankfully with a few more near silent commands from Ratchet to make Optimus unfocused, the Prime didn't notice anything and wandered off to his quarters on Ratchet's orders to recharge. At which point Ratchet was once again met with questions, all of which he brushed off as best as he could. He murmured something about answering them later and then reminded the team to keep their mouths shut with yet another glare before heading off to his own quarters to think.

Optimus couldn't know. But now it was too late to keep the full truth hidden. That left Ratchet with only one real option... he had to choose the lesser of two evils and offer up a fraction of the truth, that being that the Matrix in Optimus's chassis was not the real one.

Ratchet mulled over his response for nearly a whole day, unwilling to leave his quarters and he agonized over it. By that point the team had already begun to question aloud and Ratchet's commands to Optimus had worn off. The Prime was suspicious and quickly came to realize that what he was told was not at all true as the team broke and told him what they had seen and experienced.

In the end Optimus was left fearful, confused, and anxious for answers. As such he and the team ended up waiting for Ratchet impatiently as he finally dragged himself out of his quarters to face the inevitable. One truth needed to be revealed, and in his mind, it was better that the falsity of the Matrix come to light rather than Optimus's nature. At least that way he could keep likely keep the team together and shoulder the blame, effectively ensuring the Autobots wouldn't crumble.

He should have known better than to expect things to go that easily.

Optimus: You lied to me Ratchet.

Ratchet: ...

Optimus: I want to know why. Tell me old friend, what's going on?

Ratchet: ... Optimus, you must promise to listen to me before doing anything drastic first.

Optimus: I cannot guarantee that.

Ratchet: ... Very well.

Smokescreen: Is it fake!? The Matrix, is it?

Ratchet: The Matrix that you brought with you is real Smokescreen. There is no denying that.

Arcee: Then Optimus-?!

Ratchet: His Matrix is fake. I made it and implanted it after minor memory alteration and frame upgrades.

Optimus: ... why?

Ratchet: We needed a Prime. Primus would not give us one, so I did what was required.

Optimus looked like his entire world was crashing down around him, his face the embodiment of pain, shock, and confusion. He didn't pass out again, but he wobbled and held onto the nearest surface like it was his lifeline as he opened his chassis to look at the faux Matrix. He raised a shaky servo to it and touched the faux Matrix as if the thing itself had betrayed him.

The team were in mixed states of shock. Arcee looked conflicted, Bulkhead appeared to want to vanish into thin air, Smokescreen just seemed confused more than anything, and Bumblebee was torn between going to Optimus and asking further questions. Ratchet watched it all while silently wishing Smokescreen had never arrived. The rookie was ruining everything, and all Ratchet could do was try to patch up the complex lie he had built up for the entirety of the Autobots and for Optimus.

After the reveal Optimus retreated to his quarters for over three days, not coming out for anything while he processed a whole part of his worldview shattering. Ratchet slid a datapad under his door containing all the details of the faux Matrix minus anything that would hint at Optimus's true nature. He hoped it would bring his creation some sense of understanding, but he could only wish. All the while the team did their best to function on their own. Thankfully for Ratchet, while they avoided him like the plague and treated him with mixed hatred and grim understanding, the team remained loyal. They didn't show any signs of abandoning the Autobots because of the lie Ratchet had built, and in fact they seemed more loyal now that they knew Optimus was as much as a victim of the lie as they were.

It was a cold comfort, but one Ratchet accepted. He had already made himself a heretic and a sinner by creating Optimus at all. He knew what fate awaited him and he accepted the cold disregard for his presence stoically. He deserved it after all.

When Optimus emerged again he was received with more understanding and care from the team than anything else. They respected him still and gave him their sympathies. He was in far more pain than they were and they knew it. He had led armies, fought in a pointless war, and suffered through every conceivable form of pain because he believed it to be his duty as Prime. To find out that he was not a Prime was a harsh reality check, one that had Optimus similarly avoiding Ratchet as if he were a stranger.

Ratchet accepted it all. He didn't show any emotion during the day and only told the children to refer to Optimus by his first name and not his title. He patched wounds as quickly as he could, opened ground bridges without a word, and kept out of everyone's way. What did his loneliness matter after all he had done? He deserved to be treated as an outcast.

As such time passed and battles were fought. Optimus opted to not reveal the truth of his lack of a Matrix to the Decepticons for obvious reasons. But around base he dropped the name of Optimus and instead asked to be called Orion, a fact that left Ratchet wanting to purge every single time the name was called. Still he endured and did not utter a word of objection, instead focusing on keeping the children from noticing the growing gulf between himself and the team.

They hunted relics, fought Megatron for them, and continued their war. It was a sad existence for Ratchet, but an acceptable one... right up until Optimus came to him for the first time in months since the reveal and asked him for one simple thing.

Optimus wanted the faux Matrix removed, claiming that he wanted to leave behind anything that set him apart from the others. Ratchet only half heard Optimus explanation before stress and panic emerged and he slammed his fist down onto his workstation with a resounding cry of "No". The team who were listening in all paused in shock again and Optimus looked more frustrated than anything. The artificial Prime had evidently had enough and began to question, asking why and getting in Ratchet's face. Ratchet pushed his creation away and refused to answer. The faux Matrix couldn't be removed, doing so would reveal Optimus's lack of a spark. Perhaps on Cybertron he could have whipped up something fake to go there instead, but on earth? He had no such ability.

Soon enough Optimus got frustrated and opened up his chassis with the intent to tear out the faux Matrix if Ratchet wouldn't. Desperate and fueled by panic and fear, Ratchet made a mistake. He grabbed Optimus's arm, tore him away from his attempts and uttered the shut down phrase he had installed in terror. Before he could realize his mistake, Optimus dropped to the ground, aware but paralyzed.

The team rushed to his aid while Ratchet shook, knowing that now there would be more questions. How could he tell them? Optimus already didn't trust him. And now that Ratchet's failsafe code had been revealed there was no way in the pits that Optimus wouldn't get curious and dig on his own if Ratchet failed to explain.

He was fragged, totally and completely fragged.

Arcee: What did you do to him!?

Bumblebee: Fix this! He needs help!

Bulkhead: We need an explanation now!

Ratchet: It was a failsafe code.

Smokescreen: What does that even mean?!

Ratchet: I... I couldn't risk him going rogue... If he ever found out or his AI went out of control I needed a way to shut him down until I could fix things.

Bumblebee: ... AI?

Ratchet: ... He wasn't supposed to be like this. He... it was supposed to be a tool, a machine to serve as a placeholder until the war was over... it wasn't meant to adapt as it has. I never intended for it to really feel anything.

Arcee: Ratchet, are you saying-?!

Ratchet: Orion Pax died. We needed a leader. I made one for us, a perfect leader who would never fall to lesser emotions like greed and envy.

Ratchet: ...

Ratchet: I made a perfect artificial Prime all for your sakes. It was for our cause... for the Autobots...

Not a word was spoken amid the silence that followed. Optimus remained prone, his optics gazing up at Ratchet in increasing horror as his AI struggled to comprehend the reality. The team stood in growing horror, looking between the paralyzed Optimus and Ratchet in confliction.

Everything Ratchet built was coming crashing down and all he could do was weep.