#the delphi crew

[pharmasurgical]

I saw the post and this came to mind...

[multi-fandom-bi]

Yesterday I was scream-singing Epic: The Musical with my friend (as you do) and she pointed out something that I haven't seen anybody else point out:

In "Survive" Ody and co. sing "and when we kill him then our journey's over", and what does Ody end up doing? Not killing Polyphemus, but blinding him. Thus not ending their journey

His crew literally predicted that, unless they kill Polyphemus, their journey won't be over and they won't make it home.

[poiisson]

Remedy would first meet Tarn amongst the snow banks of Messatine. While the Tank would be attempting to decipher what had happened to the Delphi outpost, Kaon would alert him to a single remaining life signal, and upon further investigation, would find a familiar looking jet staring off into the endless white.

The melody of his spark would immediately alert him to Remedy’s identity, and although it would take Remedy a moment to properly focus and look at Tarn, his own outlier would similarly give him the same information. Although Remedy, in a state of distress and panic, would attempt to flee due to this new revelation being too overwhelming in the moment, he would be quickly forced unconscious by Tarn.

Small, and in no way a physical combatant, Remedy would be unable to resist the Tank, and would very quickly find himself aboard the Peaceful Tyranny, being introduced to its violent cast of occupants. Though Tarn would not detail exactly who Remedy was, Nickel would be the only of the crew to realize something was off, weird, feeling a touch of sympathy for the clearly upset jet.

—-

Anyways, love the peoples princess Nickel she is just the absolute cutest and deserves the world. Tarn is still a nightmare to draw. Of everyone on the ship, Remedy would definitely have the closest relationship with Nickel, though, he would remain closed off to some extent, and although she would try to pry to find out why Tarn suddenly brought a random new medic onto the ship, it's the one thing he’d remain incredibly tight-lipped about.

Don't ask me why but something about this song is what inspired the vibes.

[lunette-png]

Waves of Ithaca

Interlude 5: The Messenger and the Lightbearer

art by Neal Illustrator

High on Olympus, where the clouds clung to the marble pillars and the air shimmered with ambrosia’s haze, Hermes sat at the edge of a balcony. His fingers danced over a silver coin, spinning it between knuckles with the ease of a practiced thief, catching the divine light. The messenger god’s eyes were half-lidded, but there was no mistaking the spark of mischief beneath.

“You’re still thinking about her.”

The voice was sunlight itself, warm and gilded. Apollo emerged from the temple’s shade, scrolls tucked under his arm, the faint smell of ink and cedar lingering around him. His golden hair seemed to catch every ray, and the stones under his feet appeared brighter in his wake. The scrolls, tightly wound and bound with golden threads tapped gently against his side with each step.

“She’s close now,” Hermes remarked, his voice a ribbon winding through the quiet.

Apollo moved past him, each step deliberate. He set the scrolls down at the temple's edge, the golden thread glinting in the soft light, before positioning himself behind his brother. His arms crossed over his chest, as he leaned against a marble pillar. “To Ithaca? Or to trouble?”

Hermes grinned, sharp and sly. “Is there a difference?”

Apollo’s lips pressed into a thin line, but he did not rise to the bait. Instead, his gaze remained fixed on the winding trail of a ship cutting through the Aegean. The vessel’s sail was a pale wing against the deep blue, and even from Olympus, the sea’s breath seemed to touch them.

“She sails like she was born to it,” Apollo murmured. “Poseidon’s mark.”

“And yet,” Hermes flicked the coin into the air, watching it spin, “she is not of the sea. Not entirely. She is flesh, blood, and stubbornness. Just like her father.”

A shadow passed over Apollo’s face. “You sound almost fond.”

“Maybe I am.” Hermes caught the coin, held it tight. “I spoke to her, you know. In Pylos. She has the eyes of a sailor—always searching, always knowing where the horizon lies.”

“You saw her too. I could feel it. You lit up Delphi more than usual.”

Apollo arched a brow, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “She passed through my temple, nothing more.”

“Oh, nothing more, he says!” Hermes grinned, stepping into Apollo’s path. “You didn’t speak to her, but you watched her, bright and silent. Meanwhile, I held a conversation—and her coin.” He tossed the silver into the air, and it vanished before it fell. “You can learn a lot from what a person carries.”

Apollo’s posture stiffened, silence draping over him like a shroud. The sunlight that danced around him seemed to dim, edges of light curling inward as if wary of the space between them. The quiet stretched, an irony settling over the scene—the god of music and poetry, a master of words, choosing none.

“Oh, is that envy I hear?” Hermes spun to face his brother, his expression a mask of mock innocence. “Because I spoke to her, while you only stared?”

Apollo’s eyes narrowed, molten gold beneath a cool exterior. “She didn’t need words from me. She felt my gaze. I saw the way her brow furrowed, the questions in her eyes. Mortals often don’t know why they feel drawn to the light.”

Hermes clapped, slow and deliberate. “Beautiful. Shall I fetch my lyre, or would you like to provide your own accompaniment?”

A sigh escaped Apollo, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward. “You play the jester well, Hermes. But this is not a game.”

“Everything is a game. Especially with mortals.” Hermes leaned back, balancing precariously on the edge. “You see a heroine. I see a story. And what a story it could be.”

Apollo did not reply immediately. His gaze fell to the ship again, now carving its way toward Ithaca’s shores. “She stands on the precipice. Her father’s homecoming will cast a shadow.”

“Or a light.”

“Even light can burn.”

Silence stretched between them, a taut string ready to snap. Below, the ship skimmed the waves, the crew pulling at oars, the captain—(Y/N)—at the helm. She moved with the wind, every shift of her body in harmony with the sea’s rhythm.

“She won’t be welcomed as he will,” Apollo said quietly. “She has brought victories, but not stories.”

“Not yet.” Hermes’s eyes gleamed. “But perhaps she needs a nudge. A twist of fate.”

Apollo shot him a warning look. “Stay your hand, trickster.”

“Oh, come now. You must admit it would be interesting.”

“No.” Apollo’s voice held a finality, a weight that turned the air cold. “Let her find her path. The Fates have already spun their thread.”

Hermes pouted, though there was a glimmer of something more dangerous beneath. “Fine. I’ll watch. For now.”

As the sun began its descent, casting the world in hues of orange and rose, the two gods remained. One, a beacon of light and truth; the other, a shadow with wings and a silver tongue. And below, the daughter of Odysseus sailed homeward, unaware of the divine eyes upon her, or the threads of destiny stretched taut beneath her feet.

AN: i know i have been doing alot of interludes, but i just wanted to insert the events tha happened before each chapter. i promise the next update will be a chapter though! anyways, have some hermes and apollo interactions- i hope i was able to capture their characters well. lowkey not proud of this, i might edit it later-

[ckret2]

✨⚠️ Wasting Away Again in the Goldilocks Zone ⚠️✨

If you're new here, this is one of those "human Bill in the Mystery Shack" redemption fics: Bill illegally escapes death via reincarnation; the Shack crew imprisons him til they can figure out how to kill him; but they won't, because Bill's gonna make friends with them and literally everybody else in town. Whether they like it or not.

Featuring!! The slowest redemption arc you've ever read; "human" Bill that ISN'T fine with being trapped in an alien body; show-style episodic plot structure; individual plot arcs for characters you've never even cared about; so canon compatible we even include the dang coloring book; and so TBOB-compatible over a year before TBOB came out that I'm considering taking up a position as the Oracle of Delphi just so Apollo stops barraging me with dodgeballs.

New chapters every other Friday, 5pm CST! Old chapters edited, updated, and posted to AO3 on the alternating Fridays! Yes that's a chapter either on here or on AO3 every week! Yes that includes this week!

For art, doodles, upcoming scene excerpts, and posts about characterization & plot plans, see my #bill goldilocks cipher tag. For the fic itself, you can read it on AO3 or here on tumblr.

If you started reading this fic on AO3, go back and keep reading it there. It's the more up-to-date/accurate version of the fic.

⛓️ 1 Part 1. Bill returns, in a bedsheet toga.

⛓️ 1 Part 2. Bill tries to murder the Stans & Soos (with time travel).

⛓️ 2. Dipper and Mabel save the day (with time travel).

⛓️ 3. A tense evening as the Pines prepare to get rid of Bill.

⛓️ 4. Plot twist: the Pines physically can't get rid of Bill.

⛓️ 5. The gang goes to a diner at 3 a.m. for hostage negotiations.

⛓️ 6. Bill escapes from Theraprism. [NEW!!!]

⛓️ 7. "How'd Bill get here" flashback; plus, entering his new prison.

💇‍♀️ 8. Bill gives himself a haircut and depression.

💇‍♀️ 9. Bill & Ford grudgingly have a sincere conversation; regret it.

💇‍♀️ 10. The kids decide Bill won't ruin their summer. Also: Pacifica!

🧚 11. Mabel gives Bill the most beautiful makeover ever. (It's not.)

🧚 12. Pacifica advertises Harry's Hairy Fairy Formula. Bill wants it.

🧚 13. Pacifica refuses to share; the twins discover its side effects.

🧚 14. Mabel wins Bill's eternal friendship with arts & crafts.

💭 15. Bill, Ford, and Dipper have nightmares that are Bill's fault.

💎 16. Ford has a fun day with Mabel but everything goes wrong.

📓🔺📓 TBOB BOUNDARY: Everything above this line has been edited for 100% compatibility with The Book Of Bill and posted to AO3! Everything after this line has not been edited... so it's only 98% TBOB compatible. 📓🔺📓

💎 17. The day goes right again thanks to healthy communication.

🎥 18. Mabel's Guide To Local Animals, co-starring Bill Cipher.

🧊 19. Wendy snoops into the weird things happening in the shack.

🧊 20. Wendy meets the weird thing (it's Bill).

🎂 21. Stan & Ford's birthday party! Bill gives evil gifts.

💭 22. Bill "helps" Dipper's nightmares; no one knows his motive.

👁️ 23. Bill's ex is back in town and nobody's happy about it.

👁️ 24. Everyone's even less happy to learn Bill has a sex life.

🧿 25. Mabel and Bill make friendship bracelets! :)

🧿 26. The Pines take Bill to the mall. He wears terrible things.

🧿 27. Bill breaks Mabel's heart (and panics to fix it).

🏳️‍🌈 28. Bill talks his way into going with Wendy to Rainbow Club.

🎃 29. Bill contacts the Henchmaniacs on Summerween morning.

🎃 30. Costume making. Mabel pries into Bill's past, with crayons.

🎃 31. The Trickster's pals trick-or-treat; and Bill terrifies Dipper.

🪮 32. Dipper & Mabel make a poppet to control Bill.

🦷 33. Stan takes Bill to the dentist. In handcuffs.

🦷 34. Dentist & tooth fairy attack. Stan & Bill are still handcuffed.

🦷 35. Bill & Stan reach a painful understanding and stop the fairy.

🛁 36. Anime night; and Mabel makes Bill do community service.

🛁 37. Bill plots escape and runs into Wendy. Dipper panics.

🛁 38. Bill has the worst and stupidest day of his afterlife.

🌅 39. A cultist finds Bill; Bill tries to re-recruit Ford.

🚙 40. Gideon broadcasts car commercials; invokes Bill's wrath.

🚙 41. Bill apologizes for bullying Gideon. lol no he blackmails him.

🌕 42. Bill tells Dipper secrets of the universe; predicts an eclipse.

🌖 43. Gravity is disappearing; Ford and Fiddleford investigate.

🌗 44. Ford & Dipper drag Bill hiking; Bill faces his death.

🌘 45. Ford demands answers Bill can't give as totality looms.

🌑 46. Totality. Bill decides whether Ford lives or dies.

🌒 47. Bill feels rotten but finally explains the eclipse.

🌓 48. Bill has a complete mental breakdown.

🌔 49. The gang limps home. (Plus: a second dimensional eclipse.)

💿 50. Bill finally processes that mental breakdown.

💿 51. Dipper and Mabel try to remember the Axolotl's poem.

📖 52. The gang reads Flatworld. Bill isn't thrilled.

📖 53. Mabel tries to get Bill to talk about his home world.

⚛️ 54. Dipper, Ford, and Fiddleford do paradox physics.

📖 55. Mabel learns college-level geometry.

📖 56. Mabel & Bill have fun; Dipper & Ford prepare for murder.

💀 57. The execution of Bill Cipher.

💀 58. Everything you wondered about how Bill escaped.

💀 59. Everything you didn't wonder about how Bill escaped.

💀 60. Everything you never imagined about how Bill escaped.

✨✨ THE APOXOLOTLYPSE ✨✨

🪐 61. The Axolotl finds the second dimension's corpse. ✨

🪐 62. The 2D massacre is so much worse than the Ax thought.

🪐 63. A building inspection in the Nightmare Realm.

🪐 64. Even when Bill fixes things he breaks them.

🪐 65. A shape meets Bill as the world burns.

🪐 66. The gods & Bill negotiate him leaving Dimension Zero.

🪐 67. The gods deal with Bill not leaving Dimension Zero.

🪐 68. Bill is so much worse than the Ax thought.

🪐 69. THE END: the gods and Bill settle into a new status quo.

📙 70. Soos vacuums the attic (wow exciting)

📙 71. Soos decides how he feels about Bill's treatment.

📙 72. Fixin it with Soos: home redecorating!

🎥 73. The gang makes plans for the night.

��� 74. Dipper's Guide to the Fremont Nightwigglers

🎥 75. Mabel's Guide to Secret Sleepovers

🎥 76. The aftermath of everybody pulling all-nighters.

🏖️ 77. Beach episode! The Pines fish! Bill tans!

🏖️ 78. Bigfoot, Agent Powers, and the cool teen gang.

Hey!! I posted chapters 61-69 AFTER this chapter, so if you've been reading along and HAVEN'T seen those yet, go back and make sure you've read them!

🏖️ 79. A post-fishing trip evening. The calm before the feds.

🕴️ 80. The government investigates the Mystery Shack... again.

🕴️ 81. What are they gonna do about the feds??

🕴️ 82. They're gonna seduce the feds. Bill learns human flirting.

💅 83. Pacifica gives Bill a makeover; decides he's a creep.

💅 84. Pacifica gives Bill a makeover; decides he's cool.

💅 85. Final prep. Hope nothing goes wrong at the last second!

🕴️ 86. Bill does his best to flirt with the world's most boring agent.

🕴️ 87. A dinner date with (and scheming against) Agent Powers.

🕴️ 88. Bill tells the gang how they'll con the hell outta the agents.

🕴️ 89. Bill & Ford go to the museum; get oddly chatty.

🕴️ 90. Powers suspects something's up with "Goldie."

🕴️ 91. Powers has "discovered" who "Goldie" "really" is.

🕴️ 92. The government recovers their flash drive.

🕴️ 93. This is how cult recruitment works. (& the gang celebrates!)

⛓️‍💥 94. Bill and the Stans renegotiate his imprisonment.

⛓️‍💥 95. Sleepover! Bloody Mary! And: Anime Night!

COMING SOON:

⛓️‍💥 96. The gals get into Bill's love life; & a cryptid visits the shack.

The chapters have been renumbered! Chapter 61 about the destruction of Bill's dimension was scheduled to post the week TBOB came out, so I skipped it and posted chapter 62 with Soos. By the time I rewrote chapter 61... it was 9 chapters long. I've now renumbered all the chapters to squeeze in ch 61-69.

This post was last updated June 13, 2025! If you're seeing this post as a reblog and it's been a while since then, check back on the original post to see if more's been added!

[lord-squiggletits]

Bc like if I look at it from a meta perspective it's as boring as "Pharma was just meant to be a minor antagonist and any depth he has was added retroactively by JRO when he realized there was maybe something there"

But then if you look at it from an in universe perspective the Pharma Torment Nexus is so much more prominent bc you really have every single Autobot ignoring Pharma being blackmailed by the DJD (including ones like Ambulon who really shouldn't be so dismissive), Ratchet throwing every insecurity in Pharma's face and then leaving him to die without even looking for his body, otherwise chill mechs like Skids saying that Pharma had better hope they don't decide to beat him in prison after they finish the Tyrest business, Pharma having millions of years of exemplary medical service only to have every mention of his name come with "before he started murdering patients" as if that'sthe sum of his entire life's worth.

The entire "the Lost Light is where people go to have second chances uwu" crew not even thinking about or remembering him and no one even mentioning Pharma or going "damn now I know how he felt" during Dying of the Light when oh whoops we're being stalked down by the DJD and it's so terrifying how we're all going to sie horribly. Amd how no one had problems with Drift but everyone hated Pharma. But that's a reach honestly.

Honestly it just makes you wonder what the hell Pharma did that made every Autobot ignore the extenuating circumstances and immediately hate his guts, say he was always a horrible Autobot, focus only on his crimes and never his service, and even say he deserves to be beaten in jail. Like goddamn did everyone just already hate Pharma and him going insane under duress at Delphi was the excuse for everyone to go "I always fucking hated that guy" bc like wow. Even Ratchet patted Drift's head and went 'oh aren't you afraid of the DJD you poor guy' and then went 'YOU FUCKING ORGAN HARVESTER' to Pharma who literally WAS blackmailed under threat of his death and everyone unser his care's death too.

Again the more simple explanation is just "it's not that deep" but spinning an in universe explanation or headcanon is good for whump bc it really rubs in how much everyone just fucking hates Pharma and doesn't give a shit about helping him or paying homage to the fact that he was an Autobot once and he literally fucking dies/is presumed dead twice and maybe one person has anything to say about it at all

Angst is great and the good thing about Pharma is that his whole life (well, mostly his time on-screen but still) is literally just one unending torment nexus of pain, isolation, exploitation, lack of bodily autonomy, torture, mutilation, and dying (more than once, even) and canon has basically nothing to say about this fact, leaving plenty of room for me to come in and write fic going "hey isn't it fucked up that..."

[shockstarcels]

tf one where everything is the same except we get to see the delphi crew before the war, and it's basically just House M.D. style medical drama, where pharma about to start a revolution within the doctor's union circle because of the mistreatment that was enacted by Sentinel Prime over the cogless mech, but didn't get the chance to do it, because megatron did it first before he could.

[talonabraxas]

Servant of Delphian Apollo! Go to the Castalian spring; Wash in its silvery eddies, And return cleansed to the temple. Guard your lips from offence. To those who ask for oracles Let the god's answer come Pure from all private fault. -Euripides

Apollo - God of Prophesy, Medicine & the Arts Talon Abraxas

From his holy seat on the slopes of Parnassus, radiant Apollo gazed far out over the wine-dark sea. His long golden locks rippled round his noble head like tongues of a fiery corona, illuminating the mountain crags nearby, casting a glow that streamed down to Corinthian waters below. Far-reaching was the light that shone from that godly form and more far-reaching still the penetrating gaze that followed the distant progress of a small Cretan ship that set sail from Knossos on the Mediterranean Sea. To the ends of the earth those eyes could see and into the secret hearts of men. Looking thus on the small ship's crew, Apollo saw in them the priests he would need for his Delphic shrine. He suddenly transformed himself into the shape of a dolphin and, leaping aboard the vessel, he marshalled the south wind to blow them off course. Seized by forces they could not combat, the startled sailors found themselves swept along past the yawning cliffs of Taenaron where the entrance to Hades gaped. Past Messenia and up along the western Peloponnese they were driven until, at the bidding of the god, the west wind scuttled them into the Corinthian gulf and onto the bay near grape-laden Krissa. At this gentle shore Apollo leapt out of the ship as a shining god and bid the crew to mount up to Pytho and become his priests. Dazzled by his power and beauty, they willingly agreed and marched to the melody of his lyre as he took them up the rocky slopes to Delphi.

Six hundred years before the Christian era, the temple of Apollo at Delphi stood in pristine solitude on those rocky slopes. The stadium, theatre, club and round chamber and all the treasuries dedicated by city-states did not yet exist. Even earlier, before the coming of the great god to that place, there were Pythian rituals presided over by seeresses called Pythia who derived their power from the chthonic forces within the earth. There was said to have been a remoteness and dignity possessed by these early Pythia which was enriched during the early centuries that witnessed the flowering of Apollonian religion but was lost by Plutarch's time. After the coming of Christianity the oracle became silent, and Julian the Apostate, in a last effort to restore the finest pagan beliefs, sent a famous doctor, Oribasius, to see if he could revive the spirit of Delphi. For the last time the Pythia spoke, in poignant words to the world outside:

Tell the King the fair-wrought house has fallen. No shelter has Apollo, nor sacred laurel leaves; The fountains now are silent; the voice is stilled.

The last temple of Apollo was plundered and torn down about thirty-six years later, in A.D. 398, by the Christian emperor Arcadius, not to come to light again for over fifteen hundred years. It was fitting that Apollo should have come to Delphi, whose ancient name, Pytho, referred to the sacred function of the seeresses there. The Greeks and others before them considered him to be the personification of seership, appearing to his seers without being visible to other persons present. Cassandra of Troy was one on whom the spirit of Apollo descended, not without violence to her nature. Cursed with a gift of prophecy which none would believe, the poor girl saw the details of her own imminent murder and cried out as her last request to those who could credit her dire vision of death: "Remember me, and say I told the truth!" With this last effort to convey an essential statement about the meaning of her life, Cassandra asserted the primacy of true perception to a priestess of Apollo. Coming from Ilium, she was an example of those who had dedicated themselves to the god's worship along the eastern shores of the Aegean and in inner Anatolia as well. Temples dedicated to Apollo are older and more numerous in these regions, prompting many to assume that he came to the Greeks from Asia Minor. For this reason, they argue, Homer made him the champion of the Trojans, whose persecution of the Greeks is dramatically pictured in the Iliad.

Some scholars claim an Asian, some a northern (Hyperborean), origin for Apollo. Gilbert Murray suggested a compromise which might include both locales through an Asian mother and a Hyperborean father. Of course, in later Hellenic mythology, Apollo is depicted as a son of Zeus, though this may seem to be a somewhat contrived grafting of a foreign god onto an essentially Greek cosmogonical tree. All sources agree that he was a son of Leto, who seems to have had her origin in Lycia, where inscriptions concerning the Titaness are to be found. There is, however, an occult tradition that links up Leto (or Latona) with Hyperborea and with a period of gods much earlier than even the Titanic precursors of Zeus. But in the popular belief of classical times, Leto was associated with Apollo's birth on Delos, whose island inhabitants she promised would host the building of her newborn son's first temple. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo describes how, when his birth was nigh, "she gripped with both hands the palm trees that grew there, and with both feet she kneaded the soft meadowland. The soil laughed beneath her, the god sprang forth and the goddess cried aloud." Forthwith Apollo announced: "Dear to me shall be lyre and bow, and in my oracles I shall reveal to men the inexorable will of Zeus." It is said that swans circled seven times singing around the island at his birth, a mythical detail which marks the importance of the number 7 to the god but also suggests an origin further to the north. Singing swans and the amber associated with Apollo are elements of the northern climes, of that sacred Isle of the Blessed called not Delos, but Hyperborea.

Of this mysterious place the ancients said, "No ship and no traveller can reach that land." In spite of the importance of Delos as a centre of traditional Apollonian ritual, it was commonly asserted by many drawn to the Mysteries that only those whom Apollo chose could see that fabulous Hyperborea. There, it was said, "Phoebus' ancient garden" was located and thither he vanished with his swans every year. Occult tradition reveals an intimate relationship between the name Latona (Leto) and the long (six-month) night of the Hyperborean region which, it is suggested, is the place of her origin wherein all the inhabitants were priests of her son. This polar Hyperborea is said to be the Second Continent, associated with the Second Race, which enjoyed an ethereal state of development long before newer land masses arose to become the seats of more materially evolved Races. Some say Hyperborea was a garden-island that became lost beneath the ice-cap of a changing earth. Others assert that it never physically existed but floated, nay, still floats, in a more ethereal realm where the gods dwell.

There are many mysterious and seemingly scattered elements surrounding the birth of Apollo. The swans connected with it are symbolic of both fire and water, before the separation of the elements. Artemis, Apollo's twin sister, is always present at the time of his birth, as though she were simply a female aspect of himself. It has been asserted that the name Apollo means 'from the depths of the lion' and expresses the relationship of the sun with the fifth sign of the zodiac, Leo. Though this meaning is by no means universally endorsed, it is extremely provocative and reminds one of the passage of Leo 'into the pit', which takes place every sidereal cycle. This suggestively links up with the periodic renovation of the earth, involving the polar shifts associated with the rise and obscuration of land masses on this globe. It explains the tilt of the earth in relation to the zodiacal belt, at which point first Leo and then Astraea (Virgo) disappear below the earth's equator and descend, seemingly, towards its South Pole. It requires little imagination to envision Leto in the place of Virgo and to see her providing the birth channel through which the god of light (the Sun in Leo) can manifest into the grosser, more material world. This is made more intriguing when one recalls that in classical myth Tartarus was said to be a distance below the earth equal to nine days' fall of an anvil from its edge. Pondering the nine days of intense labour Leto underwent in order to bear forth her son, several intriguing connections present themselves and also intimate the difficulty of channelling the pure light of a high solar being into the world.

Equally suggestive is the fact that Leto was the daughter of Koios (Sphairos or 'Ball of Heaven') and would seem to have provided a link between an egg-shaped substance-ancestor and an androgynous deity. This line of generation is tangentially reminiscent of the description by Aristophanes of an earlier race of men whose "bodies were round, and the manner of their running was circular. They were terrible in force and strength and had prodigious ambition. Hence Zeus divided each of them into two, making them weaker; Apollo, under his direction, closed up the skin." H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine invites the reader to compare this with Ezekiel's vision of the four divine beings who "had the likeness of a man" and yet the appearance of a wheel, "for the support of the living creature was in the wheel". All this points to an immense evolution from etheric spheres of evolving intelligence to more fragmented and specialized forms involving the work of the lunar Pitris. The article on "Aquarian Civilization" (Hermes, December 1983) sketches in a few glowing lines a lofty overview of this process. It states that many of the gods of old belonged to the First Race of humanity, the demigods to the Second, until, in the Third Race, humanity emerged and passed through several stages from the androgynous to the dual-sexed condition of historic times.

Apollo expresses in his ancestry and nature many of the characteristics found at different levels of this evolution. He is, first and foremost, a high god who is 'Ever-Distant' and who stuns the other Olympian gods with his aloof and stern ways. In the Iliad he is called "the Greater God", said to have appeared in his own form four times in connection with the divine dynasties of the earlier unseparated Lemurians. In his role of solar deity he had thus spawned, as it were, races and lineages within races which themselves were known in the ancient world as solar dynasties. Just prior to Apollo's birth, Leto was pursued by jealous Hera, who sent Python to devour the babe. This 'dragon' represents the Naga of the North Pole who drives out the early Lemurians from a land which is withdrawing from the gradually concretizing world. Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden who precipitates Eve's fall, Python forces the birth of serf-conscious godhood into the world. For the humans-to-be this will remain in potentia, whilst in the god it is full blown. In him is the Creative Fire of Life, acting through seven aspects (as with the Kabiri) upon matter. In myth, Apollo is made to seek revenge for his mother's abuse by going directly to Delphi, where the dragon Python has his lair.

This 'dragon' was sometimes called Delphyne and said to have been female and converted into an Apollonian serpent or Pythia, which was the name of the priestesses who acted as oracles for the god at Delphi. There is, in fact, much confusion about the various dragons and it seems apparent that an older and more profound teaching passed down through the ancient Mysteries had become diminished and popularized to suit a local set of circumstances. The egg of primordial substance – being identified with heaven – had become the omphalos guarded by the Delphian Python, and the wise dragon of the Sacred Isle had become identified with the chthonic powers of the earth and the delivery of her psychic prophecy. In the myths Apollo slew this Python with his arrows, which symbolize the rays of the sun, thus asserting the superiority of solar intelligence over the limited sensibilities of elemental powers. By this assertion Apollo proclaimed himself the archetypal god of the Mysteries. With the full sunlight of mind available through him, human beings could come to see clearly the inner nature of things. In this role Apollo appeared as a mason before Laomedon, Priam's father, and instructed him in the building of Ilium (which, in reality, involved the establishment of the Mysteries at that place and time).

As an archer, Apollo is called 'the Far-Darter'. He (like his sister, Artemis) shoots unerringly and unseen from afar. As he regularly withdraws to Hyperborean darkness, so Apollo ever withdraws from men and remains aloof. In this quality he has been called the most Greek of all gods. Though given to spasms of passionate intemperance, the Hellenes were inclined to subdue this tendency and embraced a measured mode more than the enthusiasm of Dionysiac expression. The Dionysiac temper connotes intoxication, suggesting proximity, whilst the Apollonian advocates clarity and form resultant from distance, an objectivity of cognition. Everything about Apollo rejects entangling things: the melting gaze, soulful mergings, mystical inebriation or ecstatic vision are all disdained. The Apollonian desires spirit rather than soul, purity rather than ardent worship. The upholding of purity is a manifest element in the cool aloofness of Apollo. Ever mindful of the proper order and balance of things, he is quick to punish those who break the sacred codes. Vivid passages in the Iliad portray his wrath as he strides into the path of Patroclus, shattering him in the midst of his charge. It is Apollo by whom Achilles will be vanquished, along with numberless other Greeks at Troy. Because Atrides of the Achaeans refused to return the captive Chryseis to her father Chryses, the god strode down in a fury from Olympus: "And the arrows clanged upon his shoulders in his wrath, as the god moved; and he descended like to night (quickly). Then he sate him aloof from the ships, and let the arrows fly; and there was heard a dread clanging of the silver bow."

So radiant and penetrating is the purity and sharp clarity of Apollo that his fire is too intense for the impure natures of this world. Any amalgamation of partial truths and delusions was doomed before the laser beam of his penetrating glance. Mortals, nymphs and demigods with whom he felt enamoured were in danger of losing their lives in the face of its too concentrated attention. The problem of how a high solar force might manifest in the world was resolved only in stages. Leto had to leave the ethereal purity of Hyperborea to bear him into the world, and,in giving him his lordly vesture, she had to struggle through the realm of Tartarus and back again to a worldly place. The darkness into which he was born was not that of the Blessed Isle but of the world, and yet, even clothed in these limiting vestures in which he manifested from time to time, he remained utterly pure and superior to all conditioned existence. Something of this is captured in the sculptured Apollo at the temple of Zeus at Olympia. One who sees it can never forget it. Outstretched arms enjoin calm. Loftiness shines out of his countenance, whose serenity combines the most delicate curve of jaw and chin with a powerfully regal brow and nose. About the strong and noble mouth there is a delicate, almost melancholy expression of superior knowledge. Virile strength and clarity are combined with the splendour of the sublime. He displays youth in its freshest bloom and purity. He embodies the compelling manifestation of the divine. Amidst the desolation, confusion and impurity of the world, he startles the earth-bound imagination and sends it soaring heavenward.

Such fiery brilliance and purity require a mediator through which it may flow in more moderated ways into the world. And so in the myths Apollo is given a seven-stringed lyre from Hermes, who accepts from the god in return his caduceus. Before this exchange, Apollo possessed but a three-stringed lyre capable of being heard in heaven alone. With the seven-stringed instrument he symbolically acquired the means of playing upon a scale which extended from the realm of the gods all the way to earth. In addition, Hermes became his envoy to the world, the rod upon which the fiery spirit wound downwards and upwards. The intense spiritual light of the solar god presiding atop the serpent-transmitters of its electric power shone from afar, sending its darts here and there but remaining in measured aloofness.

Apollo loves music but suffers no passion from its hearing. It is in the measure of the refrain that he delights, for he is the god of measured things. During the Battle of the Gods described in the Iliad, Apollo replies to Poseidon's polemical challenge: "You would have me be without measure and without prudence, if I am to fight for insignificant mortals, who now flourish like leaves of the trees and then fade away and are dead." This is the god depicted by Pindar, who calls him the promulgator of insight, self-knowledge, measure and intelligent order. "What are we?" he asks. "The shadow of a dream is man, no more. But when brightness comes, and God gives it, there is a shining light on men, and their life is sweet." This brightness which Pindar extols is that of clarity and moderation: the solar fire channelled perfectly and in proper proportion into the changing circumstances of conditioned existence. In music as in the establishment of cities and the sacred Mysteries themselves, Apollo demonstrates an unerring knowledge of the inner and essential order of things. At the god's approach the voices of the forests and grottoes were awakened and, as with singers and dancers, he caused them all to obey his measure. The moderation and sheer beauty of his music restrain all that is wild . . . even beasts are charmed . . . "even stones follow the sound of the lyre and take their place in the masonry walls". Playing his seven-stringed harp, Apollo sits like the solar orb surrounded by the music of the seven planetary spheres. Little wonder all Nature inclines to his rhythm.

Do not give out the great Truths that are the inheritance of future Races, to our present generation. Do not attempt to unveil the secret of being and non-being to those unable to see the hidden meaning of Apollo's heptachord – the lyre of the radiant god, in each of the seven strings of which dwelleth the Spirit, Soul and Astral body of the Kosmos, whose shell only has now fallen into the hands of Modern Science.

The Secret Doctrine, i 167

Spanning the whole nature of Kosmos with his adopted instrument, Apollo embodies the audible key, the tonic note running through all the Pythagorean melodies of manifestation. Emblematic of this are both his lyre and his bow, for are not the two strung with the same sinew? It may be argued that only the lyre is strung with silver strings, but in spanning the Kosmos both must be strung with silver and with animal parts, for their vibrating chords are heard on earth as well as in heaven. The verb ψαλλο (psallo) is used to convey both striking the lyre and snapping the bow-string. Both give off a sound. When Pandarus, under Apollo's guidance, discharged his arrow at Menelaus, "the bow twanged and the string sang aloud". Greeks as well as other peoples have been familiar with the musical bow and some, like Pindar, saw the true singer as a marksman, his song an arrow that never missed. In addition to this, the Greeks habitually pictured the recognition of what is right with the image of an accurate bow shot. Thus, the arrows of Apollo striking the Achaeans sang each their melodic note as they sprang from his bow, but they also signified a precisely accurate measure which, because of the disharmonious action of the Greeks, sang forth in notes of karmic retribution. "The song of the most alert of all gods does not arise dreamlike out of an intoxicated soul but flies directly towards a clearly seen goal" – the Truth. Disharmony and chaotic disturbance are ordered with measure. The wrong is put right. It was, after all, on the day of Apollo's festival that Odysseus returned home and slew the suitors who had desecrated his hospitality.

Measure is best. It is the highest manifest Truth, corresponding with the 'Spiritual Cast' of the Delphian god. Emanating light, order and reason, the arrows he carries are like the midday sun. Like shafts of clear, omnidirectional thinking, they shatter illusion and destroy the self-satisfied complacency of men and women. In his care for purification and retribution, Apollo stands as champion of the rules of occultism, which, as William Q. Judge wrote, "are of the most stringent character, the breaking of which is never wiped out save by expiation". As he did in the case of Orestes, Apollo advises those in distress of what is to be done and what left undone, where atonement and submission might be necessary, always involving an inward clarification of being. He is the exemplar of what the Greeks called σοφροσυνε (sophrosyne), self-control and self-knowledge. His injunction to visitors at his Delphic temple was "Know thyself, and through his oracle he pointed to Socrates as the wisest of all men (who rightly interpreted this to mean that he must devote his life to the pursuit of wisdom through examination of himself and his fellow men). Owing to the primacy of this measured sense of proportionality and self-control, Apollo acts to block the sacrilege of other gods or demigods. In the last book of the Iliad he rises with the pathos of restraining reason and magnanimity in order to put to an end the horrible twelve-day abuse of Hector's corpse. He charges Achilles with ruthlessness and hardness of heart, saying he lacks respect for the eternal laws of Nature and the self-restraint which is seemly for the noble in their bereavement. He admonishes the other gods who have tolerated this abuse:

Yet now you will not even go so far as to save his corpse for his wife and mother and his child to see, and for his father, Priam, and his people, who would burn it instantly and give him funeral honours. Know, it is the brutal Achilles whom you choose to support, Achilles, who has no decent feeling in him and never listens to the voice of mercy, but goes through life in his own savage way, like a lion who, when he wants his supper, lets his own strength and daring run away with him and pounces on the shepherd's flocks. Achilles like the lion has killed pity. And he cares not a jot for public opinion, to which most people bend the knee for better or for worse. He had better beware of our wrath, great man though he is. What is he doing in his fury but insulting senseless clay?

Iliad

Apollo rejects such passion and fury. They distort the measure of Truth. His view is from afar, a broad and extended perspective which causes him to seem oblivious to the worth of an individual as a separate soul. He constantly directs attention away from the state of the individual soul to a contemplation of eternal forms. The Christian may humble himself before God in order to become worthy of nearness, but Apollo, almost harshly, reminds man of his limitations and his finiteness. Only man's truly spiritual virtues (the essence of his perfections and creations) can prevail after death and persist from life to life, "for only the form belongs to the realm of the imperishable". This notion of form is Platonic. It refers to essential archetypal forms which are based on the highest and most abstract mathematics, embodying the noumenal levels of the manifesting Kosmos. Apollo, in accepting the seven-stringed lyre of Hermes, did not abandon his three-stringed instrument. Together they form the Pythagorean decad, but the original three expresses the unchanging, periodically manifest Eternal. The highest element of the classical Greek spirit was associated with Apollo and required a clear-eyed cognition, capable of looking upon all existence as form, "with a glance free alike of greed and of yearning for redemption". The elemental, momentary and individual aspects of the world are thus negated, whilst the essence is acknowledged and affirmed.

A serious consideration of the nature of Apollo should include an examination of the story of Orestes. Written by Aeschylus, who was an Initiate of the Mysteries at Eleusis and who was celebrated by Cicero as a Pythagorean and poet, the saga presents in dramatic form difficult questions concerning levels of right action. For killing his mother, Clytemnestra (to avenge her murder of his father, Agamemnon), Orestes is hounded by the Erinyes (the Eumenides, Furies and Moirai), the guardians of the holy ordinances of Nature. The shedding of his mother's blood is regarded as a violent crime against Nature. The spirits of the spilt blood cry out to heaven and pursue the perpetrator as though he were a wild beast. Madness comes over him. At every step they are near and stare at him with gruesome eyes. Apollo, who has ordered Orestes to avenge his father's murder, stands by him at his trial, where he is to be condemned or acquitted under the presidency of Athene, The prosecutors are the Erinyes, who represent the old feminine gods of the earth confronting the new order of the Olympian spirit. Apollo is repelled by the ghastly earth-spirits, whom he sees as brute and blind in their purpose and procedure. They are knowers of deeds only (not motives) and respond with mechanical inflexibility. They ask: "Have you slain your mother?" Orestes' admission decides the issue for them.

Apollo, as defender, asserts that the issue is not that blood has been shed. The worth of the victim and the indignity visited upon him determine the gravity of the deed. When one remembers the sacrifice of Iphigenia and his obtuse resumption of his kingly estate in Mycenae, it is difficult to see the worthiness in Agamemnon. But he was a noble warrior. His name means 'resolute', referring to his years of hard-fought battle. Apollo recognizes a deeper worth than the deeds that appear on the surface. He condemns the motives behind the seeming piety of Clytemnestra and recoils from the low cunning that guided her in the murder of her husband. He is equally unimpressed by the arguments of the Furies, who reflect the same maniacal passion as Clytemnestra herself. To the jury Apollo proclaims, "The mother is not progenitor of what is called her progeny, but nurse of the new-sown seed. He procreates it who impregnates her." Athene, retaining a vote for herself, also sides with the claims of the father over the mother. She gives her motherless birth as an explanation for defending the masculine spirit of reason against the earth's appeal for revenge.

In one sense, the Aeschylean tragedy celebrates the institution of reasonable authority supplanting the bloody expiation of the old order. The old magic of the seeresses, whose patron is Gaia herself, is put in its place very much like the Pythia of Delphi were incorporated as servants of the new god. But it would be an oversimplification to see Apollo as merely masculine. In his representation of order and clarity he defends his mother and finds his feminine counterpart in his twin. In his pursuit of Daphne he is driven by his love of feminine beauty and purity. When she is taken in by her mother (Earth) and becomes a laurel tree, the tree flourishes at the heart of Delphian religion and remains ever sacred to the god. The love Apollo showers on young boys who have not yet crossed the threshold leading to manhood is of the same essence. He rejoices in the delicate balance of their purity, when their hearts and minds are still clear and unsullied by gross desires. As a great solar deity, Apollo loves such purity not as something outside himself but as reflections of the truth he himself personifies. As it flickers and shines in others, he is quick to recognize it and become its ally. It is not a question of the masculine over the feminine but rather an unswerving embrace of a higher unconditional truth in whatever form it takes. The rights and wrongs of the world produce an endless tangle of accusation and retribution. The deeper measure of morality lies hidden within the mathematics of cosmic form. Always cleaving to this hidden measure, Apollo remains the ever-distant god, but his voice can yet be heard by one who listens intently with inner perception. Did he not promise Orestes, "I shall not fail thee. I shall be thy guide and guardian to the end"?

Apollo's voice speaks in the melodious twang of his unerring arrow, in the penetrating clarity of vision which he represents. His is the cool unsullied beam of Spirit which streams from the earliest Races, wherein the highest intelligence shrouded itself in the most ethereal levels of substance and became gods. From the 'Ball of Heaven', the ancestral substance of his mother, Apollo gained a further footing in the world. Appearing with each increasingly materialized Race, he would then withdraw into solitude where he watched from afar. If his mother is of Asia in origin, it is the East of Sacrifice which provides the means of his periodic manifestation, and he embraces his Hyperborean ancestry with each withdrawal into his Father-Spirit. Thus, as champion of solar intelligence, Apollo ever asserts its penetrating illumination over the limiting sensibilities of elemental powers. The victorious splendour of his clarity conquers all and startles the imagination, which, freed from its subjectivity, soars up to those Parnassian heights where the great god dwells. There, from the ruins of his worldly shrine, will it conquer Python and meet the Mysteries face to face.

Apollo, thy golden-framed beauty Floats along that rocky hill Floats along that rocky hill No Corinthian curve of soil Or hopeful wall of Ilium Could enclose thy brilliant symmetry. For thine is the pure Light of Truth Born at the cosmic dawn And sent like arrows, radiantly.

[1000cavalry]

Odysseus is actually really smart

I think a lot of people know that Odysseus is meant to be intelligent but actually view him as merely the smartest out of a group of idiots. To defend his reputation I am going to list every brilliant thing I can remember him doing in the Odyssey in chronological order.

(Warning: this is a really long post)

He comes up with the plan to drug Polyphemus and directs his crew to gouge out his eye with a sharpened branch.

He uses the alias ‘nobody’ to confuse the other Cyclopses when Polyphemus cries for help.

He has his men hide under sheep to escape the cave so that Polyphemus can’t catch them. He ties the sheep together in threes, so that if Polyphemus tries to check the undersides of the sheep, he will only feel the outer two sheep, while a soldier hides under the middle one.

On Circe’s island he hunts a massively large deer single handedly to feed his grieving crew and boost morale. At the same time he also notices smoke rising (from Circe’s palace) and later sends a scout party led by Eurylochus. This shows good leadership and delegation skills.

When trying to listen to the sirens he personally ensures all the crew members have blocked their ears with wax. He is also the one who softens the wax for everyone using his fingers (if you’ve ever tried to do this you will know it’s fairly hard work).

He tries to avoid Thrinacia (Helios’ island) as he has been warned away from it. When they end up getting trapped there he makes his crew swear oaths not to touch the cattle. He falls asleep while praying to the gods for guidance. He is cautious and pious.

When Calypso offers to release him he makes her swear an oath not to cause mischief. (He is cautious)

He builds a boat single-handedly. This is particularly notable as a skill that you would not expect a king to have. He is a good craftsman.

When supplicating Nausicaa (the Phaeacian princess) he subtly reveals details that will make her want to help him without revealing his identity. He mentions that he was a general, implying high status. He references visiting the temple of Delphi, suggesting he is a well travelled and pious man. He compares her to Artemis, a virgin goddess, potentially to reassure her that he will not harm her.

When he returns to Ithaca he is able to come up with multiple detailed lies about his identity on the spot. He pulls pages and pages of made up backstory out of nowhere. Truly the king of improv.

While disguised he tests the loyalty of some of his slaves. He ends up revealing his identity to Eumeus and Phileotius, who stand with him and Telemachus in the battle against the suitors..

He has Telemachus lock away all the weapons in advance so the suitors can’t access them. When the suitors question this, they use the excuse that the weapons were becoming damaged by smoke and that they were worried the suitors might get drunk and start fighting each other. He also has the palace gates locked so they can’t escape/ raise a cry for help in the town.

After the massacre, he has the slaves play music and dance so that passers by will think a wedding is happening. This buys them more time before the suitors’ families discover their deaths.

The next morning he immediately recruits more people (Dolon and his family) in preparation for a confrontation with the families of the suitors. Athena prevents the battle but this does show that Odysseus will not become complacent, even after returning home.

This is everything I can think of right now but I am certain there are things I have missed.

In conclusion, Odysseus is a smart dude.

[reader-from-nowhere]

Yeah from how I view it the most you could get for shipping pharma and ratchet is the one time pharma says “my beloved ratchet” but at the same time that’s also after everything at Delphi and a near death experience. So I don’t think he’s doing well at all, and considering what he does with ratchet first aid and ambulon it’s just. Huh.

I've always read the line as a bitter mock to Ratchet tbh, like they are both very dedicated to their job but in Pharma's eyes, he's the one being condemned/punished for it, while Ratchet is beloved to everyone else.

What he did to Ambulon and the rest of the medic crew I read as a 'Fuck it, I have nothing else to lose/I'm either gonna be free or die today, I don't care anymore.' moment - which is when I think Pharma stops being a medic and starts being the crazy chainsaw-wielding jet.

[crestncredence]

half of the Delphi crew <3

[zeroseuniverse]

Fate Rewritten

Word Count:699 Summary:So, for the first time in your life, you defied fate. You ran. Pairing: Fem Reader X Hongjoong Requested by: @wingledinglesstuff

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The gods had never been kind to those who tried to outrun fate.

You knew this better than most.

As the Oracle of Delphi, you were bound to the will of Apollo, a vessel through which the divine whispered secrets of the past, present, and future. People traveled from all corners of the world to kneel before you, their voices trembling as they begged for glimpses of destiny. Some sought glory. Others, love. And some, salvation.

But no one had ever asked what you wanted.

At least, not until him.

Hongjoong arrived in the dead of night, slipping past the temple guards as easily as a shadow. He smelled of the sea, of salt and freedom, of places you had only ever seen in dreams. His hair was sun-touched, his golden eyes sharp with mischief, a smirk playing at his lips even as he knelt before you—not in reverence, but in amusement.

"I hear you tell fortunes," he said, his voice smooth as the tide.

You straightened, gripping the sacred bowl of laurel leaves in your lap. "I speak only what Apollo wills me to."

"Then tell me this, Oracle," he mused, tilting his head. "How does a man escape his fate?"

You hesitated. It was a dangerous question, one that the gods did not answer kindly. Fate was not a thing to be undone—it was a thread woven into existence itself, unbreakable and unyielding.

"You don’t," you murmured. "You can only run for so long before the gods catch up."

Something flickered in his gaze—something knowing. "Then let’s see who’s faster: me, or the gods."

You should have dismissed him. Should have sent him away like all the others. But there was something about him, something unwritten, as if fate had yet to carve his story in stone.

And gods help you, you wanted to know how it would end.

—

Hongjoong returned again and again, always when the temple was cloaked in darkness, always with that same teasing glint in his eyes. He brought you stories of the world beyond Delphi—of islands kissed by the sun, of monsters that lurked beneath the waves, of stolen treasures and near-death escapes.

"You would love it," he told you one night, lying on the temple steps as you sat beside him, the moonlight painting his features in silver.

You scoffed. "I am bound to the temple. I am no sailor."

"And yet you gaze at the horizon like a woman trapped." He turned his head, watching you carefully. "What would you do, if the gods did not hold your chains?"

You opened your mouth—then closed it. You had never let yourself think about it before. The gods did not take kindly to oracles with desires of their own.

But Hongjoong was not a man who feared gods.

"You could come with me," he said, voice softer now, as if the words were something fragile. "No temple walls. No fate written in stone. Just the sea, the wind, and whatever path we carve for ourselves."

You should have said no.

You did say no.

But when he left that night, something inside you ached.

And when Apollo sent you a vision—a vision of Hongjoong at sea, his ship wrecked, his body sinking beneath the waves, swallowed by the will of the gods—something inside you broke.

So, for the first time in your life, you defied fate.

You ran.

You ran from the temple, from the gods, from the life that had never truly belonged to you. You ran to the docks, where Hongjoong’s ship was preparing to set sail, his crew startled by your arrival.

He met your gaze from the deck, surprise flickering across his face—before it softened into something warmer, something real.

"You came," he murmured.

"I saw your fate," you whispered back. "And I refuse to let it be written."

He grinned then, a slow, wicked thing. "Then let’s rewrite it together."

And so you did.

With the gods watching, with the winds carrying your laughter across the waves, you and Hongjoong became the first to outrun destiny.

[lunette-png]

Waves of Ithaca

Interlude 4: Where the Light Lingered

art by Neal Illustrator

It had been a simple detour- a need for something warm to fill the ship's storerooms, and the crew's longing for rest. Delphi shimmered in th eafternoon light, having a way of keeping even the most restless souls still. With the ship anchored far below where the sea kissed the cliffs, the stones warm beneath her sandals. She led them inland up the winding paths where Oracles whispered prophecies, where the sun clung to the marble columns, bathing them in molten gold.

Delphi hummed. Not with the chaos of a port or the clamor of a battlefield, but with a melody beneath the surface—a music that lived in the stone and echoed from the mountaintops. She felt it in her bones, a warmth that trickled through her veins, and with each step, the world seemed to glow a shade brighter.  She had always had a soft spot for the town, the way the light seemed to linger, the way the breeze carried secrets between the olive trees.

Her men scattered into the town, eager for wine and soft beds, some moving through the market- (Y/N) letting her crew scatter with laughter and silver coins. She slipped into the crowd, her hood low, her hands brushing over clay jars and woven baskets. The air was thick with incense, curling sweetly around the murmurs of traders and pilgrims. She had meant only to buy what was needed and return to the ship before the winds grew jealous of her absence, but something in the sunlight pulled her deeper into the city. 

She found herself drawn higher, to the temple’s edge where the world felt thinner, where the air hummed with something ancient. She walked with purpose, but her steps slowed as if the earth itself pulled her back. 

Her wandering brought her to a small courtyard, tucked away behind the grand temple. The sun spilled over a pool of still water, turning its surface to gold. The world fell away, and for a moment, she let herself breathe. The air was warm, scented with laurel and ash, and the quiet felt like a blanket drawn over a weary mind. 

Her gaze drifted to the statues that lined the courtyard—marble figures, their eyes carved with the soft focus of eternity. One, in particular, drew her near. A young man, his face turned slightly upward, as if listening to a song only he could hear. His lips were curved, a secret smile, and the artist had captured a lightness to him—a readiness to move, to dance, to run.

She did not need the inscription to know him. The lyre at his feet, the laurel crown—this was Apollo, the bright one, the archer whose arrows found both truth and ruin.

She sat at the edge of the pool, her reflection wavering beside his. She did not pray—her voice had always been too rough for the gods, too tangled in salt and sail—but she let herself linger. The sun poured over the courtyard, golden and unhurried, and she closed her eyes, letting it warm her skin.

From the shadow of the columns, a figure watched. Cloaked in the simple garb of a pilgrim, he bore no signs of divinity. His hair was sunlit gold, his eyes a quiet warmth, and his presence seemed woven into the light itself. A bundle of scrolls rested on his lap, and he sat with the stillness of one who belonged to the gentle hum of Delphi.

He did not approach her. He did not speak. His gaze rested on her as if he were studying a painting, a moment caught in amber. The sun shifted, and he moved with it, always a part of the scene but never its focus.

Her thoughts drifted as she sat there, not to oracles or prophecies, but to Ithaca. To her father, Odysseus- a name more often heard than held, a ghost of a man in the echoes of her life. The question that had knotted itself into her bones: was he still alive? Was he making his way home even now, weaving through strange lands and dangers to return to the shores of his kingdom? She wondered if he would recognize her after so many years, if the girl he had left behind had grown into someone he could still call daughter.

Her mother had been a pillar through the years, who held their home with weary hands. Telemachus had grown without his father’s shadow to guide him, and she had watched him wrestle with the weight of a name he barely remembered. What would life have been if Odysseus had never sailed to Troy? If their home had never become a battlefield of whispers and waiting? She could not picture it, but the ache of wanting to lingered all the same.

Footsteps brushed against stone, light and unassuming. She did not startle—Delphi did not hold danger the way other places did—but she opened her eyes to find a young man standing near the edge of the courtyard. His robes were pale, his arms cradling a bundle of scrolls. His hair caught the sun, his skin bore the gentle kiss of light, and his eyes- when they met hers- held a warmth that made her pulse slow, then quicken.

He did not speak. He only offered a small smile, a dip of his head, and moved to sit under the shade of a fig tree. She watched him from beneath her lashes, a subtle curiosity blooming in her chest. He unfurled a scroll, his fingers deft, and his lips moved as he read—soft, like the echo of a hymn.

There was nothing strange about him. Nothing divine or dangerous. He was only a boy with words in his hands and sunlight in his hair. And yet, the courtyard felt fuller for his presence, the air humming with a resonance she could not name.

When she rose to leave, the young man stood still. But as she slipped through the columns, she felt the sun linger on her shoulders, a heat that clung to her long after she had stepped into the shade.

Back on her ship, as Delphi faded into the distance, she found herself glancing at the horizon, at the sun as it melted into the waves. She did not know why she expected to see someone there, a silhouette against the sky, watching her go.

But when the breeze curled around her, warm and sweet, she found herself smiling—just a little—at the thought.

And in the quiet of the empty courtyard, the figure finally stood. His disguise slipped like the fading of shadows at dawn, and the world around him seemed to catch its breath. For a moment, all of Delphi lay bathed in golden light, the stones and statues aglow.

Apollo watched the sea, his expression a blend of longing and restraint. He did not call to her, did not mark her path with omens or prophecy. He only stood where the light lingered, letting her slip beyond his reach, knowing some shadows were meant to drift with the tide.

AN: surprise part 2, double update. i decided to not include any dialogue in this part, because to me- hermes is the type to be direct and thrive in communication. his charm is in his ability to bridge words and his quick wit. while apollo to me would be more of an observer rather than direct interference. he is someone more subtle, like a quiet guidance, and i wanted it to be reflected here. an unseen yet deeply felt presence

[bnsni]

you want pharma and prowl? I’ll give you pharma and prowl!! Them both as romantic rivals trying(and failing) to woo reader (gn, can be whatever species) cause they are both losers (affectionate) they keep trying to flirt with reader, but are so jealous and possessive they keep getting in each others way, which is not helping their image in front of readers eyes. Maybe reader is a secretary and has worked under both, and their personality(and bod) attracted them in the first place . Here’s your pharma and prowl <3

author’s note : YESSSS YESSSSS THIS IS THE CONFLICT I NEED. ILL GIVE YOU A SMOOCH FOR THAT IDEA ALONE ANON. I’m a sucker for these tropes on goddd. Also don’t mind me as I change it to a medic, since it’s more flexible for me to work with <3 possible three some later ;;)) also, whoo! This is a lot longer than I expected.

ONLY ONE WAY UP THE HIGH WAY

summary : prowl and pharma finds themselves as rivals when they pine for the same darling pet and thus the inevitable egos clash.

You hate rom-coms.

Now, you might be a hopeless romantic; delving and losing yourself in romantic stories, tugging even the most deepest heartstrings which gets you all giggly and kicking your feet. What you hate, however, are bland characters. A random, mix and mash kind of chemistry, forced with no substance, set up as a love triangle.

Which is, quite literally, what's occuring right now.

You see, you’re a medic up in Delphi for some time before being paired up as Prowl’s buddy-buddy partner, because Chromedome insists someone needs to look after that unruly cop who’s always destined get himself killed.

And so you do. Upon Ratchet’s introduction to the Autobot SIC he’s not exactly someone friendly. He's, ah, rigid and prickly, the know it all by the book, kind of prickly. His unresolved anger issues takes quite the toll wheb you tend his wounds or even so much as to touch his arm. Though, demure as you are, you know when to stand up for yourself when the situation gets out of hand. And this kind of resistance managed to ease down his sharp edges. Now, he’s still a prick, a tolerable prick more accurately, but you’re both good pals!

Or so, that’s what you thought.

One unassuming day, you were lounging off as usual in the main area, gathering your bearings after another tough match with the hoards of patients when your communicator buzzes with a ping. It's a message from Pharma.

An Autobot base will be set up here in Messatine at due time. Will be expecting your arrival promptly.

Ah, Delphi. How long has it been, seven years? Meeting your mentor again was something of a, well, it wasn't far from a dream. Wasn't really a need, either. But it's definitely something, at least. Besides, Prowl said he had to monitor the new crew in case they messed up the communication systems, again. So, you decided, with a hopeful heart, to follow along with the Coppa to Delphi.

Yeah, bad decision. Whomp, whomp.

That hospital might have it's up and downs, and while saving patients might not be it's strongest suits, it's decor are definitely a catch to mind. Goodness, since when did they have the funds to do that? The stark white of the tiled floor ( since when did they had marble designed pillars? ) embellished with grey, engraved carvings stumped your prior, blatant distaste of the facility.

It's safe to say you're surprised.

You're sauntering across the halls of the hospital, admiring the added features of new wards, machinery and nurses, when you bump into a wall that is, apparently, Pharma. Your, uh, very, very nice superior who you squint at your notes is definitely obsessively clingy BUT very smart , but also crazy. Like, mad crazy. Haha....

Why do you attract people like this.

"And, who ..? is this?" Condescension spools from his tone as he sizes up the Autobot SIC with a careless wave of his hand like he's some newly discovered specimen.

"Their partner." He makes sure to emphasize the 'partner' like it's a bullet. "The 'who', here is a Prowl."

"Oh, is it now. I didn't expect you to move on that quickly, dear."

"You're in a relationship?" You feel his glare on you; it's not a question.

"No, he's just—"

"Kidding! I'm only kidding." Pharma gives a hearty laugh. "My, my, officer. You know, tight muscles are a sore to deal with if you're not going to loosen them anytime soon."

"No thanks. I'll stick with a stroke."

"Ah, the ever so pessimistic. Pleasure to meet you then, officer. I've heard lots about you."

The doctor gracefully extends a hand to which Prowl ignores and then replies without much a look to him.

"If that's so, then I'm not very pleased."

The hand falls sharply, so does the smile.

"Oh, good,"

You swore you heard a joint breaking when he snaps his neck to your direction, and while you look away, you knew the chesire grin-like smile on his face is nothing but a threat.

"Very, very good." He straightens up. "How about a tour?"

Honestly, you expected the two would be more civil since they’re both so heads over heels about their reputations in front of another superiorly defined character. What you didn’t expect, however, is intruding in a tug of war that materialized from, seemingly, out of nowhere.

Right, the doctor insisted on an individual tour of your own. He suggested Ambulon show Prowl around, while he would take the pleasure of doing the same to you.

Obviously, Prowl isn't having any of that. So, you're currently between them, one arm in Pharma’s grip and the other in Prowl’s unrelenting grasp. You wince as their digits dig into your skin. If they're not careful, that's gonna leave a mark for sure.

“They already know their place around the medical facility, Jet-fuel. I’m sure they’re able to handle themself just fine without your guidance,”

“Oh, yes indeed,” Pharma, despite Prowl’s 100 degree glare, grits through his forced grin and yanks you back by the scruff of your collar, right into his chest, “I invited them here, I might as well show them around. If I didn’t know any better you’re trying to hog my staff.”

You know better than to voice your opinions. Their inner brain workings, all the cogs and mannerisms were already familiar; operating under their influence is like treading around a field of broken hards bound to prick you at any moment lest you misstep.

"Your staff?” The Autobot SIC scoffs. “Im not hogging them. It's long gone. They're not working for you, anymore. But I'm sure you're not aware of that since you've got a stick up your ass."

“Not quite, actually. Before they became your little pet—“

“They're. Not. My. Pet. I’d prefer it if you didn’t reduce them to some mindless animal—"

“Doesn’t matter. they’ll be fine. I know you haven’t you heard about this since you’re new here but Delphi has its new additions around the facility. I’m merely trying to greet back an old prodigy of mine back. In fact, they’ll be fine without you.”

"Oh, really." Prowl's up in his face now, grinding his dentas.

"How about you push my buttons and let's see where this leads?" Pharma taunts with an obvious tick on his under-optics.

That’s last week and you’re surprised when Prowl is frequenting your work station more often, always nagging you about your reports and how you ‘incorrectly’ structure them. That's strange, he never does that. Why is it only now he's bothering you about it?

When you asked him to take a look, however, he merely tosses it elsewhere and hands you his own datapad for you to look through. Of course, Pharma pops up round the corner and chastises the strategist for hogging his medic’s working hours. He says it's 'unethical' use of Power-play and authoritism and that Prowl should be locked up in jail.

Even worse, they’ve had this tug of war battle where they would try to ‘woo’ you when they can. You weren’t surpised; Pharma’s quite full of himself, so obviously he’s got territorial problems, even though you're not sure why he's so possessive over you. But later you realized he IS the entire problem. Not singular, not plural, he’s a walking embodiment of a complicated problem.

It gets worse when you're trying to do your work and here they are barging into your cubicle with another problem. At this point, you’re convinced it’s just a fight Pharma puts up because he hates sharing his pets. Now? He’s gotten too far down the rabbit hole to get up. For sentient robots who’s been through a war and back, they’re so damn petty.

Pharma’s idea way of flirting is more up and personal, he doesn’t care about your personal space and he never will. Brother in Christ, this mech does NOT leave you alone. AT ALL. He touches you whenever the time allows him to and you knew he's doing that to get under the lesser affectionate Cop-bot's skin, who finds physical touch repulsive.

Sometimes, you feel his hands up on your waist, your back against his chest as he leans over to regard your report, chin on your shoulder. If he’s feeling more bold, he often puts in his two cents of insinuating a quick session in the office which you, uh, politely decline because you’ve got a meeting with the new interns.

There's always another time, he'd jest. Yeah, well, not so funny. He’s clingy, obsessive and despite the charming suave-esque front of a Bond Villain he puts up, he’s easily the best person you can turn into a pile of seething venom.

“My little pet, I think it’s high time Prowl has his duties transferred off elsewhere, don’t you think?” His optics are twitching, and his unusually sharp talons pierce the metal desk. “ Not that I mind, that rancid Cop-bot has been getting in my nerves, recently. Wrong, this, regulations that. Can you believe it, he terminated half of my crew for, as per his words, carrying out unsanitary operations! Thats defamation! A false accusation. It takes a whole restraint not to shove him down the grinds of the accelerator.”

Please, don’t.

“He’s just monitoring the district, sir.” You maintained a neutral tone. He’s at your desk again. And, instead of trying to woo you into his bed he’s complaining. Oh, my god. I’ve got a report due tommorow. And you’re complaining. Someone, help me.

“Well, he’s not monitoring anything anytime soon with how much blood he’s leeching from your body. I should've known better than to agree with his demands to stay in your office as well. He’s stuck to you like a damn mosquito.”

Like, you're any better. You deadpan.

Prowl, on the other hand is aware and accepted the fact that he’s definitely not the most likable or the best lover kind of material out there. And, to take someone like YOU to like him, someone playful and fun, not ripping out his head every two seconds, is a blessing in and of itself.

He can't even stay a second around someone without pissing off their early descendants. So, with his glock locked and loaded he takes 'counteractive measures' to ensure that nobody is going to take that moment of happiness away from him. Even if in unethical terms he’ll have to ensure it.

“You’re been forty five meters off from your office.”

You let out a startled yelp, swivelling around to meet Prowl, oh thank god prowl, who's expression is pinched, lips pressed in a thin line and his hands are intertwined behind his back, military-like.

“I’m buying drinks,” You clutch the myriad of snacks and drinks in your arms, blinking away your pounding heart. “ H-how’d you find me?”

Prowl merely glances at the contraption on his wrist where, when you crane your neck to look over, is a circular radar with a blinking red dot.

“You’re to notify your disappearance when necessary.” He grunts out and turns on his heel. “Let me know when Jet-fuel decides to harass you again,”

Weird. Still, you brush off his disdain for the medic as nothing when instead his, ah, paranoia (?) goes on for months. That one instance youre in the bathroom? Yeah. Hello, there. I'm just walking. Totally not peeking. Totally not—

Is that a new sock?

"Prowl!"

"I'm checking if there are cameras here."

"It's a bathroom?!"

"All the more reason why I should ensure there isn't."

What's more strange is the fact that there's a blatant evidence of someone meddling with your schedule. And, you had an inkling their tug of war session travelled even to technological seams.

This rivalry continued on (despite, literally, the entire hospital's annoyance) until you eventually lost it.

It was a Friday night.

A party was held in the lounge. The younger mechs had set the celebration up to mark the lethargic end of July. Of course, since you’re invited to the party, the two came along despite not being known as party-dwellers themselve. So, it was quite a sight for the young mechs to see.

You thought they’d tone down the hostility a little and even warm up with how much time they spnd trying to one up the other. That's enough months to start a relationship, God damnit. Unfortunately, you’re not able to drink freely without the two mechs pushing against your personal space. Prodding, blabbering away about how skimpy your outfit looked. You're wearing your uniform.

At some point you drink in defeat, squished between their two frames as either tries to stop you from drinking your misery out while the other eggs you on with another bottle.

After the party they insisted dragging you back to their quarters. You’re not even halfway into your room when they start bickering again.

“Don’t you have anything better to do, Prowl?” His name is a venomous jab in the guise of a forced, seething smile. “Your presence in the hospital is unnecessary as the security guard up front. A mandatory monitor check doesn’t require you here all the time. If i didn’t know any better, you’re deliberately trying to distract them so they’ll end up in your berth.”

You hold back a vomit as Pharma nabs you into his hold, the alcohol seething your veins aren’t doing much for your psyche and you stare dumbly at the floor, wanting to retch over it.

”I’m checking up on my partner.” Prowl stands his ground then tugs you into his chest again, “Doesn’t have anything to do with you, Jet-fuel.”

“Oh, it does, actually.” Another tug back, “ It’s called harassment and I'm going to report to your superiors for pestering one of my medics.’’

“Your medic?” He scoffs. “You’re a sad sorry bunch who’s got no chicks up his ass. If I didn’t know any better you’re manipulating them into caving into a newly registered scheme. A play toy, plaything, exhausted for pleasure. Don’t think I know you used to work with the D.J.D, Jet-fuel.”

“Call me that one more time and I’ll ensure your processor isn’t he only thing I’m dislodging from that helm."

“Illegal malpractice of surgery is an offense. Is that a threat, Jet-fuel?”

“Oh, you’ll see, Officer. You’ll see just how skilled I am with my Servos.”

They’re both at already each other’s throat, servos clenched, door wings, jet-wings flaring and blasters at the ready. The Engex they’ve ingested earlier only prompted the hostile ambience and as they were about to—

“Why won’t you both fuck me already!?”

In a fit of annoyance, inebriation and stupidity, the three horsemen of your misery, the words left your lips before you even think. They stop bickering and it felt like forever as they did a 180 , full, joints creaking swivel of a ‘What did you just say???’ baffled expression thrown at your direction.

But you’re still seething and only then you’ve realized your slip-up, you’re a crumpled mess on the floor, palms wide and open, clutching your face that’s unrelentingly burning. Pharma looks like he's been kicked in the crotch and Prowl looks like he's seen God.

Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.

“Both of us, hm?” You hear Pharma muse and whether or not Prowl is considering the prospect, all you want to do as of now, is to rot in this hole you dug for yourself.

[karinadele]

Polaris

Pharma x Reader

ooc as usual...

Warnings: Angst, destructive behavior, suicidal ideation (on pharma's part), open ending

"How did it ever come to this?"

He told himself. Feeling his vocal processors lock up and he chokes on his own feelings. Gritting his denta until he knows it'll bend. Lubricant welling up in his optics as he trembles in his berth. The only comfort is the blanket that you arm knitted for him. A red and white fluffy yarn, laced with blue, with his red cross embroidered along the corners.

He misses you so much. Desperately searching for the solace of your comfort. Long has the stupidity of your behaviors left his processors. Now replaced with completely obsessive thoughts of longing for you. It hurts. It's eating him alive, a pain worse than a million scraplets jumping on him. He's a medic yet doesn't know what to do.

He would brush it off as usual if he could, but now it's no longer possible. As if his hardlines have been rewired with nothing but data of you. You've somehow crawled into his motherboard and replaced every component with nothing but pieces labeled with you. Hard drive, memory, even his audials. He thinks, feels, hears you.

With what sanity he has left he throws a fist at the wall, denting the metal wall of the clinic.

Hearing your stupid chirps, your ridiculously lovely voice, how you're always making stupid poses to cheer everyone up.

How you told him it's okay to be tired, to want to give up, and that it's acceptable to just throw it away and be done. He never even allowed himself to entertain the thought of giving up. Only always pushing forward to continue in his suffering a guilt ridden lifestyle to maintain Delphi. Every cog he harvested for Tarn was a reminder that he's an absolute terrible bot.

Overtime, those thoughts have left him, and procedures became of second nature to him. Just another day on the job. Another job to be done so him and Delphi can continue to survive.

That one evening in the blizzard of Messatine, he was dusting off his servos of his remorse as he strolled out the front doors. Almost missing you at first, until he saw a cloud of smoke wafting over his way. A human. Crouched and leaning by the wall of the facility as you puff on your cigarette, lazily drawing nothings in the snow.

When you come to notice him, you hitched a breath and choked on your drag, falling on your ass into the snow. You're used to the bots, being part of the crew on the Lost Light and accustomed to their shenanigans. What you didn't expect was for them to forget about you after pit stopping on Messatine. Now you're faced with a glaringly intimidating seeker.

Originally Pharma wanted nothing to do with you. Toss you out into the cold and let you freeze. Yet your snarkiness and quick thinking won out in the end. You read him like an open book. He always thought he was a complex character, but perceived simple by others. Yet within cycles you've found all his weakness. His need to control, his desperate attempts to hold himself together because he has no choice. Long gone was the smirk on his faceplate, only to be replaced with vulnerability and an unexplainable rage.

Unable to throw you out as you would be a liability if any information of his personality and actions make it out, he begrudgingly kept you. Merely as a pet at first. It wasn't until Ambulon came back freezing from the cold that you spent nights arm knitting bot sized blankets for everyone. The Lost Light might have been warm, but not Messatine. Individually tailored to the 3 medics residing in Delphi, Pharma had no use for such things. Tossing it on the edge of his berth to be forgotten. Little did he know how it would have been his only connection to you.

"It's okay to give up you know. To want death, to want everything to end." You chirped up in your usual cheery voice, although with a tinge of emotion.

Was it from personal experience?

Spending all his time saving lives, and killing them, yet wishing for escape for himself. This caught him off-guard.

"I'm not condoning it, and I will miss you if you do, but I'm here to validate your feelings. You're struggling and no one has told you that you're allowed to. So I will." You tell him as you rock back and forth on your feet, arms held together in the back.

Pharma didn't know how much these words would have affected him. Now, with you gone, he wretchedly clung onto that memory. Replaying it over and over, until that's the only thing in his processor. First Aid and Ambulon noticed too, watching him fall into despair clutching onto the knitted blanket that they too, each have. A lingering parting gift from you.

-----

A/N: there's no happy ending for him, he suffers dying with transformation rust or dies ripping out his own spark ig. I wish him the best. Perhaps reader will come back... hold on strong Pharma..

Ig tell me if u want more.... i personally hate leaving angst open ended...

[lord-squiggletits]

Actually Pharma couldn't have set off the Red Rust on the DJD base himself because

1. He's a doctor, not a trained and seasoned aerial combatant. Whether he tried to drop it off like a payload or just kamikaze straight into them, he literally does not have the flying skills to pull off that kind of maneuver unless he's like, flying in heavy snow for cover (and how would he be guaranteed to survive that) or literally just zooms in a straight line hoping for the best

2. The DJD are some of the best killers the Decepticons have to offer so if he somehow gets into a confrontation with them without being able to set off the bomb yet, he's cooked

3. Wouldn't the DJD have some sort of surveillance or defense to see Pharma coming? They're seasoned killers that literally can hunt down and kill phase sixers, it's not like Pharma would be able to approach without them finding out and being there waiting for him to show up

4. Pharma would be not only killing himself, but also betting the lives of everyone in Delphi on the assumption that he can get to the DJD and set off the bomb and kill them with the rust. Because if he just flies up and they shoot him down either while he's trying to dive bomb OR when Pharma is trying to talk his way through them, Tarn would take that as betrayal of the deal, so after Pharma is dead he and his crew would proceed to destroy Delphi.

5. Would Pharma even know where the DJD are??? Presumably Sonic and Boom might be able to tell him, but they also might not out of fear of them telling Pharma, Pharma tries to kill the DJD and fails, the DJD extract from him how he got their location, the DJD come and murder Sonic and Boom. So they probably wouldn't tell Pharma, which means Pharma has no way of finding the DJD short of just... trying to scout himself? Do intel on his own? And again, as a doctor who has zero training in combat flying, spying, or espionage, how exactly is he supposed to get that?

~

I don't even care any more man, Pharma literally could not have done any better than setting off the virus inside of Delphi. Sure, it would've been better with fewer Autobot casualties if Pharma had tried to set it off near the DJD, but the odds of Pharma actually pulling that off IN REALITY are slim to none. Setting off the virus in Delphi and hoping for an evac order was the best option Pharma had to stop Autobot deaths by escaping the deal that he could actually, feasibly pull off successfully.

A shitty plan that leads to some deaths on the Autobot side, but ultimately is likely to result in an evacuation order that takes them off Messatine and thus free of Tarn's/the DJD's grip (meaning Pharma no longer has to kill people and thus lives are spared in the future) is better than a plan that would only kill the DJD (and Pharma), but has like a <1% chance of being executed correctly.

And Pharma is the kind of analytical, controlling person where he would never choose a plan with so many variables unknown/outside of his control in enemy territory where he'd likely perish before finishing his mission. He would pick the plan on his own territory (Delphi) where he can spare at least some people (First Aid and Ambulon, who can't/don't transform), and where he can pull off the plan without being found out.

Because his own comrades' reaction to finding out was to call him a piece of shit person, leave him for dead, harvest his organs, and then leave without even checking he was dead. So yeah Pharma was 10000000% justified in not wanting anyone to know what he did if it meant that he'd escape a living hell only for the Autobots to turn on him for 'not doing better' alkdsfjlsdkfsl.