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mrsgiovanna · 3 years

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The Escape Route (Yan! Don Giorno x Fem!Reader)

A request from a lovely nonnie mouse asking how the Don would handle his darling attempting to escape from his home. A bit of a drawn out scenario... I really hope you enjoy the read.

TW: Manipulative relationship dynamics, possessive behaviour, yandere behaviour

Word Count: 2.7k

Your brisk walk was slowly turning into a run as you worked your way through the busy streets of Naples. With your breathing ragged and eyes darting around to make sure nobody was on your tail, you tried to think about how best to put your escape plan back on track.

You knew that Giorno’s influence extended further than most, but you hadn’t expected him to have the power to derail every single option you had thought of to escape from his overpowering grip. You had been running around for hours now, from station to station, none would book you a ticket to anywhere, every cab ride was hastily halted after a dubious phone call… resulting in you being unwillingly ejected from the vehicle each time. So there you were, running into the more dangerous parts of Naples, frantically looking for some kind of shelter to house you while you thought of what you would do next.

Thankfully, you found a tiny inn, sparse amenities, small and far removed enough you thought, to not be on Giorno’s radar. The kindly old lady didn’t ask many questions, and you paid with the cash you had been slowly hiding away for such an event.

You couldn’t pinpoint when your relationship with Giorno had descended to this but you knew that if you stayed any longer his charming brand of captivity would best your common sense and you would be trapped forever. With Giorno, you had access to anything, no request was too demanding… in exchange though he required you to be within his confines at all times, listen to and obey his honeyed instructions with minimal fuss, and to not run off in the occasions when he did take you out of the mansion. I’m just keeping you safe he said… little did you know that the most dangerous one of all was the Don himself with his hypnotic gaze.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, it could have been much worse, he never harmed you physically, never pushed the intimacy boundaries further than you allowed… in your moments of weakness, it was you who had sought out his embrace. The absurdity of it all- vacillating between love and hate for this man, and so to protect the fraying thread that held your sanity together, you decided to make a run for it. It was not an impulsive idea, you had spent the better part of the year planning your grand escape, trying to imagine every way in which your plan could go awry and possible solutions to the problems. Ironically, this was a habit that you had picked up from Giorno himself, and should your plan actually work, it would be quiet poetic- escaping using the traits of your captor against him. You had gathered small amounts of cash here and there, not enough to rouse anyone’s suspicion, and made sure that any and all evidence of you memorizing the layout of the surrounding areas was completely erased. Perhaps the most difficult task of them all, was to lure Giorno into false sense of security regarding your disposition towards your situation. In the weeks leading up to your escape, you had flawlessly played the part of the dutiful ‘wife’, listening attentively, spoiling him with gentle touches and loving gazes, making sure to build up your affections gradually, as if they had been blooming naturally so as not to trigger any suspicion.

Finally, you saw your opportunity to make your move that morning. Giorno had to leave early to meet with a few associates from Japan, so you rose with him, and watched as he got ready, helping him with his hair and doing up his tie. Looking up to meet his crystalline eyes, you noticed he considered you with an expression you haven’t seen on him before.

“What is it tesoro? Why are you looking at me like that?” you asked in a gentle tone.

“You’re… just so beautiful… would you like to come with me today? I’m sure they would love to meet you… I call them associates but in actual fact one of them is a relative of mine. You’ll only be bored for a little while; after that we can do whatever you would like to,” he asked with a gentle smile. You thought about how you were going to answer, ultimately you knew you didn’t want to go, favoring your grand escape instead, but denying him that quickly would definitely set off alarm bells in his mind.

“Ah! Perhaps next time my love, I’m not going to be good company today, I woke up with a bit of a headache… I’ll probably go back to bed and sleep it off after you leave,”

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to make you feel any better bella, I hate the fact that you’re hurting,” Giorno cupped your face in his hands and gently stroked your cheeks with his thumbs, “get some rest bella mio, I’ll be back to check on you as soon as I can,” kissing you on the forehead he left without another word. Waiting for him to be completely out of the villa, you watched as his car exited the driveway before quietly packing what you could, mentally going over your checklist more times than you cared to count. Since your change in attitude, the staff at the villa were more accepting of your whims, partly to do with the fact that Giorno had instructed them to do so - within reason, but also, because you had won over their trust and if you had to be honest with yourself, there was nothing you could fault them for. The dynamic Giorno had with them was not ruled by fear, but rather by admiration… all of them being drawn in by his charisma. Managing to maneuver your way through the mansion and out an exit that saw you climbing over a hidden portion of the eastern wall surrounding the villa, you had finally been outside the confines of the villa on your own for the first time in well over a year.

In the car on the way to meet with his guests Giorno was preoccupied. He had noticed the gradual change in your behavior and as much as he would have loved to give you the benefit of the doubt, a nagging inclination that you might be lying always clouded his thoughts. He loved you- entirely- even though there were days in which you rejected his affections, he was patient with you… eventually you’d understand, the dangers that lurked in every corner made your captivity, as you so unceremoniously called it, a necessity. He had grown so accustomed to making decisions with little to no advice, he had adopted that stance in his personal life as well. He rationalized that once you had accepted the fact that his actions were all borne from his desire to protect you, your lives would be peaceful, until then, he would be patient, enduring your tantrums and snide remarks with the grace of an aristocrat… which only upset you further. To Giorno, you were to be looked after, protected- treasured, and so no matter how much you had tested his patience in the beginning, not once were you ever hurt or taken advantage of. Violence and shackles were much too unrefined for a gem like you, so to correct your behavior, the young don resorted to other, less threatening means of discipline.

“Don Giovanna? We have arrived,” shaken out of his musings by his consigliere, his attention was drawn to the fact that they had arrived at their destination ready to discuss the matters at hand.

“Thank you Lorenzo, would you check if the staff has everything ready while I greet our guests?”

“Of course, excuse me,” with that, Lorenzo had left, hastily attending to a call as he walked.

“Ah, welcome to Italy, I take it you and your associates have settled in well?” said Giorno with a polite bow, being mindful of the cultural conventions of his esteemed guests. Drinks were ordered and everyone present had settled down in the private lounge, except for Lorenzo who had been animatedly conversing on the phone for enough time to make his absence felt. Frustrated by what he was tasked to do, he abruptly ended his conversation and sought out Giorno to give him the news, finally, the staff at villa Giovanna had realized you were gone.

“Don…”

“The expression on your face can only mean one thing… when did they notice?”

“A few minutes ago, she couldn’t have gotten too gar given the timeframe… what would you like me to do?”

“You stay here and keep our guests company, I’ll handle this…” not even bothering to alert the driver, Giorno collected the keys from the valet and zoomed off. Making a short drive even shorter, he arrived home in foul mood, although he did assign some of the blame to himself, recognizing his fatal error when he ignored his gut feeling, he was disappointed at how easily you had managed to slip from his grasp and wondered if his staff had been plotting with you all along. He would have to address that later on though, his primary concern now was to locate you and bring you back home.

“Mista, I have a special request to make, please come to the villa, bring Fugo with you,” said Giorno in a quick call, there were few who he trusted more than his underbosses, and this task was something that required only the most competent people. After a short explanation of the situation at hand, both men had already started making calls to the relevant people in an attempt to thwart your plans.

You would think the most frightening thing about Giorno would be his god-like requiem ability. But over and above the raw power he possessed was his reach, the world seemed so small, as if it had rested comfortably in his elegant hands- and you had been getting reminders of this inescapable fate over and over again. By the time you had given up on the idea of escaping through any traditional means of transportation, you must have tried fifty different avenues, each attempt failing more spectacularly than the last. Having had enough, you resigned yourself to the fact that you would not be leaving Naples immediately, and found refuge in the outskirts of the city. You climbed the rickety staircase behind the lady as she prattled on about her day.

“Shall I get you something to eat dolcezza? You look like you could use something warm and comforting in your system. In fact, let me do just that, you get settled in so long,” said the innkeeper before you had a chance to interject. Deciding to take a shower to wash off the day, you took comfort in the fact that this place was so remote, you were almost certain you were safe for the meantime. The tiny bathroom was a far cry from the palatial one you had grown accustomed to while being in Giorno’s villa, but it served the same purpose, only this time, you had your freedom. The place was peaceful though aside from the sound of what must have been a car backfiring and the small creaks from the natural expansion and contraction of the dwelling, it was quiet enough for you to calm down and organize your thoughts. Now that you were comparatively more at ease than before, you felt the strain of the day in your body, aching muscles, sore feet and cuts and scrapes that began to smart affixed a slight grimace to your face as you rummaged through your belongings to find some sort of pain relief.

A sharp knock on the door disrupted your search. You stayed silent for a moment, contemplating if you should ignore it or answer.

“Dolcezza, I’ve brought you a small snack, you’re going to enjoy it,” you just wanted to crawl into bed and forget the day you had, but you also didn’t want to snub her kindness, you reached out to unlock and open the door.

“Buongiorno tesoro… enjoying your little excursion? Marina here was kind enough to show me to your room so I could surprise you… seems like it worked, look at this charming expression,” turning to the smiling woman, Giorno nodded for her to leave. Your heartbeat thundered in your ears, you wanted to cry, to run, to jump right out through the hazy window but your feet were rooted to the ground.

“Well (y/n) … you’ve been running around Naples for the entire day, have you found what you’re looking for?” his usual honeyed tone was laced with derision as he critically eyed your surroundings. “is this what you were so desperate to escape to? Look at this place… look at the condition you’re in… how is any of this better than everything I’ve given you?”

“I have my freedom here…” was all you could muster as your mind raced thinking of how he had still managed to find you despite all the precautions you had taken. “Giorno, how…”

“How did I find you? I always have my ways…” he said, sauntering over to the window, opening it just enough to make eye contact with whoever was outside, dismissing them with a nonchalant wave of his gloved hand. Pulling out his cellphone, he showed you the opened application, explaining that he had been using it to track your location, following the signal from the diamond earrings he gifted you on your birthday, carelessly left on when you had made your hasty escape. In all fairness, you hadn’t considered that the dainty gems were anything more than that. Feeling your legs starting to give out under you at the revelation that you were the cause of your own undoing, you sat on the bed hanging your head in defeat.

“Freedom, you say? Tell me how has that worked for you?”

“That’s not fair! You’ve basically controlled every single encounter I’ve had, and even when I thought I had escaped you by coming here, you still somehow managed to manipulate the situation…” you shouted, tears of frustration running feely down your face.

“Stop being dramatic, the world is full of horrible people, everyone is looking out for themselves, I wish you would realize that… tell me tesoro, how many people turned you away? Threw you out of their cars, made up excuses to deny your requests? Not one of those people looked into those pleading eyes and thought you were worth helping. Why? Because people are selfish…”

“You… you threatened them all, you…”

“You give me too much credit, it’s not like I was going to kill them, I hate violence, despite your disappointingly low opinion of me, even you have to admit that I’ve never done anything to physically harm you… all I want is to protect you, you don’t understand how things work out there,”

“It’s not like you’ve ever given me the opportunity to find out how things are… I”

“Some people are just meant to be loved and protected tesoro, isn’t that enough? Why would you want to risk being hurt to get a taste of something that’s actually not even worth it… you’re not cut out for this life… I’ve been here so I know this isn’t what you deserve. You’re coming back home with me,”

“But, I- “ you attempted to interject but his intense glare halted you.

“(y/n), I’m very patient under most circumstances, but please don’t test me now, I won’t say it twice…” said Giorno with a slight bite to his voice, it was clear he was growing tired of this conversation, and you were losing your will to fight back. With a quivering lip and misty eyes, you moved to gather your belongings but was stopped by the young don, arguing that he can replace whatever is there, wanting no other reminders of this transgression to follow you both back. Resigning yourself to this fate, realizing there was nowhere beyond his reach, you grasped his outstretched arm and followed him to the car to return to your life of opulent captivity. Months and months of planning all resulting in nothing, it became glaringly obvious to you that escaping was futile…

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the-insomniac-emporium · 3 years

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Serenade (Daniela Dimitrescu/Reader) Pt. 8

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for language? Warnings: None? I think? Please let me know if I missed something Notes: Bit of fluff with some anxiety/update on primary conflict. Next chapter will be a cute date with Dani, the one after that will be maximum h*rny, and then what will likely be the finale. Music for this chapter here. PS this one is a bit on the shorter side, but I hope y'all still enjoy it. Past Chapters: Pt. 1: Nocturne, Pt. 2: Overture, Pt. 3: Accelerando, Pt. 4: Toccata, Pt. 5: Poco a Poco, Pt. 6: Elegy, Pt. 7: Harmony

Chapter 8: Obbligato

(Obbligato: An instrumental part which is essential in a piece of music)

“Okay, okay, serious this time, please? I’ll give you a kiss if you try hard enough,” you promised, grinning up at Daniela as you did. A week had passed since your talk in the library, with the two of you spending most days together, and you were progressing nicely with the musical lessons. Still, your girlfriend (you would never get tired of saying that word) was prone to getting a tad ‘distracted’. By you, usually. Not that it was intentional by any means. There was only so much you could do to keep her focused when the two of you were this close together.

“I could just kiss you anyway,” Daniela teased, leaning in with familiar intent. Right before your lips touch, however, she pulls back and smirks. “But if you insist, I can handle the challenge.” Then she’s turning back towards the piano, carefully finding the starting position. Even with her prior experience, you were impressed with how much she had already learned, and couldn’t help but be immensely proud of her. If anyone could meet Lady Dimitrescu’s expectations within a three month timeframe, it was the two of you. Except, of course, you still had to double-check just what her expectations were.

In the meantime, you were excited to hear your girlfriend play through the sheet music you had written up. Most of what you were working with had come from the family’s storage room, but you had also found some blank sheets, and figured it couldn’t hurt to create songs of your own. This particular one was relatively simple. It had been based on a song from a game you had played years ago, and only posed a moderate challenge due to its interesting rhythm. Daniela had seemed to enjoy playing it, with you even hearing her practice the song outside of your lessons, but had so far today refused to play it seriously.

Finally that was going to change. Once she found the starting notes, she nodded to herself, then started playing. For the first time today her expression is stern, focused. Seeing her like this was nice. She was always cute, you just thought that she was extra cute like this. But you tried not to let yourself get too distracted, knowing that you couldn’t give her feedback if you didn’t pay attention. In your head you “play along”, fingers miming the movements, knowing that it would help you catch any possible mistakes. Throughout the piece there are only a couple that you catch, none of them being severe enough to ruin the experience. Finishing with a little flourish, Daniela returns her gaze to you, grinning expectantly.

“Well? I seem to recall you promising me a reward,” she said, perking a brow. Laughing a little, you roll your eyes, before moving in to give her exactly what she wanted. Both of you are smiling into the kiss, enjoying every moment of it. Soon enough Daniela is running a hand through your hair, and pressing against you more, tilting her head just enough to deepen the kiss. You’re blushing hard now, thoughts going everywhere other than music. It’s not until you pull back for air that you remember what you’re supposed to be doing right now.

“As wonderful as this is… we still have a few more songs to go over,” you murmured, despite how much you wanted to keep kissing Daniela. By the way she groaned in frustration, you figured she felt the same way, more or less. “Hey, don’t fret too much. Think of this as an opportunity to earn a few more rewards,” you teased, gently patting her on the shoulder. For a moment she simply pouts, but eventually she sighs and gets ready to play another song…

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Rushing up the steps, practically two at a time, you desperately hoped that you wouldn’t be late. This was your third “update meeting” with Lady Dimitrescu, which by itself was enough to make you a nervous wreck. Add in the fact that this was the first time you’d be meeting alone? And in her personal study, no less? Well, it was safe to say that you were terrified. You hadn’t even been told why things were different this time. No, you were about as clueless as could be, given the circumstances.

By the time you make it your Lady’s study, you cannot tell whether your heart is racing due to stress or physical exertion. Regardless, you make it there in short time, arriving precisely at the scheduled hour. After taking a moment to settle your nerves, you briefly knock on the chamber door. There’s the sound of movement from inside before the way opens. Lady Dimitrescu has to bend a little to see out, but quickly smiles when she meets your gaze. Which was rather unexpected. The last time you had met with her she had been distanced, although still polite. Then again, Daniela had also been with you, and the focus was, as always, on her.

“Lady Dimitrescu,” you greeted, giving a short bow per customs. Then you were being waved in, brought over to a small sitting area, where you waited for permission to sit down. Once it was given, you relaxed a little. Maybe I don’t have as much reason to be nervous as I thought, you muse.

“Please, make yourself comfortable. There are no reasons for you to be unsettled, as far as I am aware,” Lady Dimitrescu said, smile disappearing for a moment at the end. But it’s back as quickly as it had vanished. Did she suspect something? Perhaps she had seen the way Daniela looked at you, or even overheard the whisperings of your roommates. Both thoughts do little other than renew your anxiety. Noticing this, Alcina frowns and shakes her head. “I was merely joking. Now, let us get to the reason for our meeting: How are Daniela’s lessons fairing? There is only so much I can glean from listening.” Glad to have something to think about other than your secret relationship with your boss’ daughter, you nodded and began explaining.

“Lady Daniela is making outstanding progress, in my opinion. Even with her occasional… lapses in attention, once she puts her mind to something, she’s quick to master it. At this point she can sight read nearly as fast and accurately as myself. However, we’re still going over vocabulary, as well as keys and their corresponding chords,” you answered, barely able to maintain eye contact with your employer. Thankfully, she seems to have accepted the inevitability of your nervousness. You were especially thankful now that you prepared to ask her a question. “My Lady, may I inquire about what specifically you expect from my teachings? If there are certain genres you wish for Daniela to be familiar with, or techniques-... I must admit I am unsure as to how to best meet your requirements.”

Slowly reclining in her chair, Alcina appears to ponder your question. In the meantime she sips at her beverage, holding the cup as if it were a fragile heirloom (which it could very well be), eyes looking into the middle distance. Then she gives a soft hum, setting her cup down and returning her attention to you.

“I suppose I can understand your concern. In some ways you have already exceeded my expectations,” she said, expression oddly plain in comparison to her positive phrasing. “My daughter has rarely invested herself in anything as much as she has in your lessons. For this, I am left wondering what she finds so captivating- the music, or the one who pulls the strings?... But that is not the answer to your inquiry, is it?” In that moment, you are incredibly still, willing yourself to keep a straight face, despite the racing of your heart. At your silence, Alcina perks a brow, expecting you to respond. You can’t, your mouth suddenly dry. “What I expect is a passion to educate, a drive to see my daughter flourish. I expect you to teach her exactly as much as she wants you to, focusing on whatever brings her the most joy. But I expect professionalism. Your duties come first, above your health, happiness, and all other desires. Am I understood?”

“Yes, my Lady. Of course, my Lady,” you replied, stuttering, eyes wide. Did she know? Or merely suspect?... There’s another thought, one you try desperately not to voice, only to hear the words fill the room before you can stop yourself. “May I ask where Lady Daniela’s desires fit into this?” Silence hangs heavy over the room for several seconds. Your employer has narrowed her eyes, lips curled downwards into a sharp scowl, watching you with thinly-veiled anger. All you can do is gulp and wait for her response. When it comes, you are surprised by the stability of her tone. It was almost as if she respected your gall.

“She is young still, with the mind of a lovesick maiden. Daniela does not know what she wants, not really, nor does she understand what she needs. If her… flirtatious nature begins to interrupt your instruction, then your response must be swift, and uninterested. Regardless of how unkindly she takes your rejection, I will ensure that she does not harm you,” Lady Dimitrescu said, giving a stern nod at the end. Though her tone was reassuring, you hardly felt better, considering you were far past the point of turning Daniela down (if anything, you had only turned her on). “Now, with that settled, I believe I should let you return to your duties. Oh, and do tell Cynthia that the tea she brewed was perfect, should you happen to see her.”

Then she looked away, practically ignoring your continued existence. So you rose to your feet, gave another bow, and left before your panic could devolve into a breakdown. Daniela is not going to be happy about this.

#daniela dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu x reader #resident evil: village #re8 village #serenade #my brain got stuck on this for some reason #sorry it took so long #very excited for the date chapter tho!#gonna be hecking cute

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eldritch-araneae · 4 years

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Windblade, Bumblebee, and Sari from my Sparkpulse AU :3

Below is quick AU explanation ( it’s 13,4k works, I’m sorry I tired to keep it short I SWEAR XD) Also I’m such dumbass, I forgot their Autobot sigils! XDDD

Core ideas of the AU:

It’s basically G1+TFA+Cyberverse mix;

This AU revolves around Bumblebee as the main protagonist;

Autobots crash-landed on Earth in 1985, they landed in Detroit, specifically on Belle Isle;

Earth became their home and Autobots pretty much-integrated into human society over 33 years. They influenced human society a lot, that helped to avert climate and energy crisis( as not wanting humans going the same road as cybertronians by depriving their planet of resources);

Ark has fusion reactors that are used in Energon production. Autobots encouraged humans to use their own fusion reactors, which allowed human civilization to completely get rid of fossil fuel as the main power source;

Setting: Solarpunk (when the story happens);

Sparks exist and give a lifeforce to all forms of life, not just to cybertronians;

Cybertron is gone, nothing can fix it;

Decepticons only arrive in 2018.

Bumblebee’s Background.

Bumblebee is the youngest among Autobots, who was found on the road unconscious back on Cybertron by Jazz.

After examining him, Ratchet shares his concerns with Optimus - not only Bumblebee is abnormally small but his plating is soft and flexible, yet fragile, it would be easy to cut and melt through. He also lacks physical strength.

All of this implies that Cybertron has no more resources to forge any new bots and Bumblebee is the last.

This means there is no way Optimus should send the minibot to fight ( tho Bee has a lot of courage and will pull some crazy stunts here and there), so instead he assigns Bee for scouting and spying missions under Jazz’s supervision ( Special Operations).

Introductions went pretty well, though Optimus admitted that Bumblebee’s face seemed familiar.

Soon, after the first few scouting missions, it’s revealed that Bee has a bit more problems. His spark is strange, it’s producing way too much energy that his small frame can handle, resulting in the erratic sparkpulse that overwhelms his entire system and shut him down for 5 minutes.

Thankfully it was discovered after Bee finished his duty, but still, it raised a lot of concerns. Ratchet tried his best to examine his spark chamber, only to find that the minibot’s spark was sealed shut in some sort of protective shell. This shell cannot be opened. Cutting through it would be bad, so Ratchet opted to work with what he has.

He first suggests Bee burn down this excessive energy, which works pretty well, as training with Windblade, or doing short races where it’s relatively safe with Hot Rod and such. Still, despite his efforts, the spark eventually will send a huge energy surge that would force-reboot Bumblebee. It didn’t stop Bee from taking on his missions and one of the reboots happened in the middle of the duty. That scared the shit out of everyone as they lost contact with him while he was on Decepticons territory. Thankfully, like clockwork, he was back in 5 minutes. After he completed the mission of securing intel, he had to convince Optimus that he would be okay even if he shut down because Deceptions would never catch him. Bee reveals that he has one interesting ability - he can sense sparks of others( both signature and the pulse).

For some reason, he thought everyone could do this, that's why he never mentioned it before.

That allows him to plan ahead, as he pays attention to hiding places and Deception’s nearby and how they move, easily avoiding his enemies.

Soon he’s pretty much known as the elusive Autobot who will break onto your base, steal all your shit and get away without being caught. Megatron even places a big bounty for catching Bumblebee that is yet to be fulfilled. Then he gets known for being someone who Deceptions, who wants to join Autobots can go to and arrange the meeting with Optimus Prime. Windblade always helps him with this: Bee can sense what is spark feeling, while she can use psychic abilities to catch a sense of their intent. Together they never made a mistake, though there were a couple of close calls.

So this keeps going for a short period of time until Bee catches some terrible wave of spark signatures, emitting from below. Something tells me that they are in grave danger and Autobots must leave Cybertron for good. Such a claim isn’t taken lightly, asking what proof Bee has.

Sadly, he cannot prove anything aside from “terrible screams of mass death coming from Cybertron's core”. He feels like he knows, but he cannot recall any memories from his data banks. All he knew was that they were screwed and it’s all because of Shockwave ( who Bee hates the most, not even Megatron sparks so much anger within him as seeing Shockwave does.). Windblade also caught this as well with her different sensors so she sided with Bumblebee. Then she decided to look into Bee’s mind and see if she can help Bee to recover those memories.

It quickly proves that it’s not that simple - all his memories that come before he was found by Jazz are sealed away. And not by some hard-coding shenanigans, but by Vector Sigma - a device that was used to program the AllSpark ( the thing that gives life to cybertronians) so it will create a desired form of life.

And not just him, but Windblade also discovered this seal, though it only seals specific cluster to memories, which timeframe aligns with Bee’s seal.

So they had a picture: Shockwave did something that messed up Cybertron’s core and, presumably, Bee and Windlade witnessed this( and apparently have met before)? The only way to find out, a break-in to The Spire of Forging ( a place where cybertronians were born), and use Vector Sigma to break the seals.

That caused a huge fight as the spire was currently controlled by Decepticons, while Megatron suddenly got an idea to use the AllSpark to reprogram Autobots into Decepticons. So it becomes a race. Windbalde, Bumblebee, and Optimus have reached the Chamber of Creation first...only to find out that Vector Sigma is destroyed - the device was cut apart and crucial components were missing. But it wasn’t all - the AllSpark was gone as well!

Understanding that there is nothing they can do, they retreat, followed by angry Megatron’s shooting.

After the battle Optimus informed anyone of their grim situation: AllSpark is missing( they searched for it, this artifact that very strong and unique signature but it’s literally nowhere on Cybertron), Vector Sigma is destroyed and there is still a threat that gets closed to the surface that will destroy them all ( Bee was very insistent of leaving).

So he makes it a vote between all Autobots: shall they leave or keep fighting. To Bee’s surprise, the majority decided on leaving. Relieved, he begins helping others to prepare Ark ( their spaceship) for a long journey.

When Ark was ready to launch, some complications happened ( as the ship wasn’t in perfect condition for interstellar travels) but they managed to leave Cybertron and begin their journey to their new home.

In general, Bee is in a good relationship with almost every Autobot. Optimus values him as both an amazing scout and a good friend who isn’t afraid to speak his mind and question everything.

Bumblebee befriends Windblade - the cityspeaker from Caminus ( which was of one the first colonies that were destroyed during the war). She absolutely adores Bee’s carefree and optimistic attitude, never being tired of his silly antics ( which he often does on purpose to lighten her mood).

They become pretty close, and Bee has no problem opening up to her, like sharing his fears ( he is really brave but isn’t fearless).

Some bots like Sunstreaker don't really like Bumblebee much. He thinks that Bee is a defective bot that will doom their entire cause and this animosity intensified when Bee starts bringing in former Decepticons and insisting on leaving their planet behind. (Sunstreaker’s twin, Sideswipe, admits it’s probably because his brother used to be like Bumblebee, kind and hopeful, but the war has changed him and he hates it.)

Bumblebee tried his best to ignore Sunstreaker, but it is difficult as he compares himself to bigger and stronger bots, feeling like what he’s doing isn’t enough. That being fast, athletic and cunning isn’t enough - he must be more, he must become strong. Which causes him to take some crazy decisions that will put Bee in danger and probably get hurt.

He desperately craves recognition and respect from others while not realizing that he already has it.

The arrival of Autobots on Earth in 1985.

After one warp jump, they ended up in the Solar System. The Ark wasn’t doing well ( esp engine) and needed repairs if they wanna continue their journey. Teletraan-1 scanned the solar system, informed Autobots about the planet they are currently orbiting (Earth) has a sentient lifeform along with a diverse ecosystem. This surprised everyone because of the odds of them jumping tens thousand light-years away from Cybertron and ending up near other sentient beings.

Optimus didn’t wish to disturb other sentient beings, he decided that they should move to another planet, fix their ship, and move out.

For that Teletraan-1 suggested staying on the fifth planet’s orbit which is a gas giant (Jupiter). Gas Giants are known for having a lot of hydrogen and helium and additionally, some chemical compounds like ammonia which can be used in producing deuterium and tritium ( isotopes of hydrogen) which are used as fuel for fusion reactors.

The only issue was how to get there, as their ship is fragile at the moment. Wheeljack suggested using gravity assist still should be okay.

Teletraan-1 calculated the positions of the planets and it’s been decided they were gonna use Earth’s gravity to propel forward, then circle around and do another flyby near Earth - that would give them another speed to reach Jupiter.

Suddenly Teletraan-1 informs the crew about a big asteroid that is headed in their direction and the collision is imminent. It happened fast, before Autobots could maneuver Ark off of the way. After the asteroid successfully vibe checked Autobots, the Ark got seriously damaged and was flung towards the planet. They couldn't break from gravitational pull so Autobots had to prepare for impacts, which would be easier if the ship weren’t breaking apart at that moment, Teletraan-1 did it’s best to stir the ship away from the cities.

Meanwhile, in chaos, Bumblebee fell into a hole in the ship’s walls and he landed in the water of Lake Erie. The impact was terrible as it almost tore his arm from his body. He screamed in pain and was forced into reboot.

Then he woke up next time, he was still in the water, completely disoriented - mostly to the fact he could sense so many sparks around him. He brushed it off as it wasn't important at the moment.

While still being in pain, he managed to swim up to the surface to look around. Bee saw a big smoke rising in the distance, assuming this is where Ark landed, he tried to make his way there.

Then Bee sensed something nearby, another spark with clear distress radiating from it. He looked around but saw nothing, then he submerged under the water. He saw a small figure who was struggling to swim.

Bee dive deeper ( while doing his best to ignore the pain of his damaged arm), gently caught the figure and went back to the surface. The figure took a big inhale and coughed a lot. Bee was concerned, but he could only observe for now.

He first noticed how this being kinda reminded him of his own kin: they have 4 limbs- 2 legs and 2 arms with 5 fingers, the face structure is similar as well, they also warm and look like they vent as well ( aka breathing. Cybertronian’s breathing is part of the air cooling system.see more in Trivia). While there was a lot of difference as well( being organic lifeform and such), that amazed Bumblebee that he almost forgot about his hand.

After being calmed down, the figure finally looked at their savior only to meet face to face with a giant alien robot. He yelled as a surprise, while Bee yelled back because the former's yell startled him pretty much.

After the shock faded and understanding that Bee wasn't doing anything bad ( they were just chilling in the lake) they sighed in relief and smiled, thanked him for saving them. Bee cannot understand what the figure says, but he assumes right he can sense relief emitting from the figure’s spark and replies, which of course the other didn’t understand as well.

The figure then gestures towards the mainland that isn’t far away, while making a paddling motion which Bee understood as “take me to the land”. He nodded ( to his relief on it means the same thing for humans) and he began swimming towards the land. Which pretty much drained him as they both arrived and his hand got worse.

Bumblebee curled on the ground, trying to endure, but once again his system shut him down. The last thing he hears as the figure calls to him is a worry.

The next time he awoke, he wasn’t by the lake anymore, but inside of some sort of garage. He was lying on the floor and he tried to get up, but again his arm hurt, though he noticed that this time the pain is tolerable somehow.

He looks to the side and sees that his entire arm was wrapped into some weird stuff, kinda looking like duct tape? Sure it was flimsy, it kept his arm from falling apart.

Two figures entered the room: one he’s already familiar with, which is this person he saved from the lake, and others. They look similar to each other, the other person looking older, for some reason they reminded him of Ratchet. Bee tried to sit up again, but the pain wasn't letting him. Two people instantly got worried, saying something to him which he imagined was something like “please don’t move”. The older one went close to examine the arm closely, Bumblebee knew this look: a look of someone who is checking on the work they did...really reminded of Ratchet again.

Bee sighs and gives a small smile and thanks to them, though he knows they won’t understand the hopes that the tone of his voice suggested the meaning. The older person nods in acknowledgment, then they exchanged a few words with the younger one and left the room.

The younger one sat by Bee. Autobot looked at them, observing them once more, taking more onto more features and he could tell that they did the same with him. Suddenly their expression lighted up as if they had an idea. Bee tilted his head slightly in question.

Making sure that Bee’s attention is on them, the figure points at themself says “I”. At first, Bee was confused, so they repeated it again. The only thing he could think of is to repeat the same. The exclamation followed by a nod means he did it right. Then they pointed at him and said “you”. Bee did the same...and suddenly it’s clicked. The language, they were teaching him their language! He smiled and they continued.

Somewhere in the middle of this, they finally introduced each other. The person’s name is Spike Witwicky, a 15yo boy who is living with his father and helping him with the car repairs business. When Bumblebee introduced himself, Spike giggled, saying that Bee’s name sounded exactly how they call a specific insect. The Autobot snorts, funding this coincidence amusing.

What a strange planet, and he began liking it already.

Spike asks if Bee came from that huge ship that was falling. He nods, explaining ( in his broken English I imagine) that an asteroid took them down, and then he fell through the hole into the water at high speed that almost tore his arm off. Spike winced sympathetically, assuring that now Bee is gonna be alright. Then he thanks the yellow Autobot for saving him, Bee smiled in response, saying he did what he was right. Though he gets curious how Spike ended up in the water in the first place and Spike blushes in embarrassment because he was looking at the descending Ark and he wasn’t paying attention that he was hanging on slippery ground. He fell and since he wasn’t a good swimmer, the current took him away from the land until Bumblebee found him later.

Soon Spike’s father returns with more supplies and he was pleasantly surprised that their guest can communicate with them. Bee thanks him for patching his arm, tho the old guy says he can do some more, while they try to find out where the Ark landed so they can return Bee back to his people.

A bit later in the evening, Spike decided to show Bee various VHS tapes documentaries about Earth( he almost moved tv and VHS player to the garage), he could have a picture of what their planet was like. The Autobot happily agrees, being both curious and see it as an opportunity to learn more English words.

After a few days, Spike’s dad found out where the Ark landed, on Belle Isle. He offered Bumblebee a lift ( he has a truck which also was used to transport the Autobot from the lake’s shore). Bee gladly agrees, being happy they were helping him even though they didn't have to. To which Spike replied that Bee didn't have to save him either, but he did it anyway.

Spike with dad helped him to get onto the thing where to connect the thing ( lol I forgot), they both sat into the car and began their ride.

The trip went okay, Bee even relaxed and looked around the city, being amazed because everything was new, the sensations were new. Though sure he could see people staring at him, understanding that they know about Autobots...after all, there is no way you could miss something like this as their crash landing. There was probably a lot of news going on about this.

Thankfully, Spike informed him that the ship didn’t kill anyone during the crash, which was a great relief on his spark.

Soon they arrived at their destination, Bee peeks over the truck to see the damage around ( a lot of broken trees), and the Ark wasn’t looking so good. He hoped at least everyone was okay!

Suddenly Windblade quickly walked out of Art’s entrance, expecting these humans to be more reporters or whatever and before she could draw any conclusions, Bee called her name and waved with his good arm which instantly grabbed her attention.

She ran over to her best friends, that he’s alive ( she was looking everywhere and was worried sick) and really wanted to bear hug him, but she saw the arm, so she hugged him gently. Then Bee explained to her that those humans helped him ( gesturing to his broken arm). Windblade thanked the theme, as Bee translated to them.

After that Windblade announced to everyone over comms that Bee is alive and found, but required medical attention. Meanwhile, Spike looked a bit sad and asked if he’ll see Bumblebee again. The bot smiled and told him that he memorized the path from Spike’s home to Ark, so he will find it again. For that Spike jumped into a hug ( Windblade quietly ‘awww’ed at the scene).

Windblade helped Bee to stand up and get off the truck, both humans wished Bumblebee speedy recovery before they headed home. She was asking Bee about his new friends ( and also commenting how it was only their couple of days on this planet and he already befriended aliens amazing), Bee ofc told her everything.

On Art, the crew was overjoyed with Scout's return, though Ratchet quickly led him into the med bay as it was clear how much damage he sustained. Meanwhile, Bee sends to Teletraan-1 anything he learned in English, to share with other Autobots, which Optimus was delighted with such a turn of events as it meant he can finally properly contact humans.

After Autobots got a bit established ( like making connections with humans and stuff), Bee finally paid a visit to Spike, the boy was so happy to see him again.

After that Bumblebee and Spike spend a lot of time together and become friends. Spike also befriended Windblade, while we weren’t as close with her as with Bee, they enjoyed each other's company. Spike’s dad also made friends among Autobots. Together they learned more about the world they were stranded in, with all its beauties and problems, discovering new things like sparks actually being in every living being, Bee has to train himself to probably filter signals, he mostly focused on sensing his fellow Autobots and humans.

Bee quickly grew attached to Earth, not really missing Cybertron anymore. Sure there are a lot of processes and it’s different for everyone but Autobots felt that they can actually live again ( or begin living for younger bots who were forged during the war), the future seemed bright.

When Spike got older ( around 18 yo) he informed Bumblebee that he will leave Detroit for a university opportunity. The news saddened the scout, not wanting to part with his human friend, but he understands that he shouldn’t be in the way of Spike’s hopes and dreams. Out of curiosity, he asks Spike what he’s gonna study ( he had multiple guesses because Spike liked a lot of things).To that Spike replied with the biggest smiles that he will become an astrophysicist! Spike never could choose one thing, but that fateful day when Autobots arrived has sealed the deal. He hoped that he would work at NASA one day. They both laugh.

The day when Spike was leaving, along with his father, they said goodbye. Spike promised to stay in contact with Bee, and the bot promised the same. Kilometers apart won’t matter, they will always remain best friends forever.

Bumblebee missed Spike greatly after this and he needed time to accept this, but thankfully they both were true to their promise and stayed in contact for all years to come.

Fast forward to 2018.

This is when the story would begin, as all previous events described in this document to this point would be revealed through flashbacks and such.

Autobots have been living in peace for 33 years now. They helped humans to progress, technologically, and socially ( Solarpunk setting). They are integrated into society and have jobs( Bee for example is a courier, though sometimes he acts as a diplomat at important meetings that he attends with Prime as humans tend to like him), some bots scattered across the globe to do their thing (though they ofc course pay visits to Ark).

The Ark is part of a big overgrown forest on Belle Isle. It is because Wheeljack and Perceptor wanted to fix the damage they did to the environment during their crush. And after some experimentation, trial, and error they made some sort of serum that stimulates trees to grow fast. Too fast even as plants got out of hand at one point, so they had to fix this as well.

Bumblebee took a liking of plants, so he started his own collection. This private chamber was damaged and has a missing wall after the crash, later it was fixed, it expanded a bit and has a lot of light coming in through windows so it’s perfect for plants keeping.

6 years ago he and Windblade befriended human Sari Sumdac, who is now 30 years old head engineer, working at Sumdac Systems along with her father. She's an absolute gremlin and always up to shenanigans, which awakes the gremlin side of Bee. Windblade tags along as well, maybe to keep an eye on them. All three are close friends :3

Sari builds an exosuit that improves her strength and grats a lot of cool abilities ( aka Iron Man but cooler) in case Decepticons show up.

He’s also in contact (which thanks to the internet became much easier) and friends with Spike, who is 48 years old astrophysicist at NASA, married to Carly, and has adopted son Daniel. Spike with his family visits Detroit each year to hang out with Autobots.

There is a lot of shenanigans happening on Ark, especially in group chat ( aka Discord server? with Sari and Spike invited.) The higher command are mods, but sure, Jazz loves changing channels names into something stupid :D

There are always twins ( Sideswipe and Suntreaker) with pranks, Jazz blasting music, Wheeljack blowing himself up again while Ratchet complains, fixing him again and again. They would do a lot of activities when free, (imagine them playing Among Us, Bumblebee being such a good imposter >:3) adopting human customs, they even get invited sometimes to entertainment shows ( you know, like those with two teams they have to do various impressions, etc).

The Bee loves music and got into drumming ( he had a habit of focusing on someones’ sparkpulse, using it as a base beat and used his hands to drum on various surfaces as entertainment back on Cybertron), he always does collabs with Windblade ( electro guitar), Sari ( keyboard + other electronic stuff, like a theremin) and sometimes Spike ( saxophone) to do video game music covers, they have a channel ( editing video and maintaining are on Jazz).

Fun fact: Bee’s drumkit and Blade’s guitar are one of few things of cultural value that actually survived the war, though they required repairment and some adjustments ( because the kit was too big for Bumblebee), they are in good condition now. There is writing on Cybertronian, showing the name of the company that used to produce instruments all those million years ago.

Autobots are living their best life, even though they are prepared in case Decepticons will show up at their doorway.

The arrival of Decepticons.

Decepticons left Cybertron soon after Autobot’s, as Megatron believed that Optimus stole the AllSpark and was determined to take it back and use it to fix their broken homeworlds. Unlike Ark, their spaceship, Nemesis, was in [perfect condition. so they traveled from star to star in order to find a signal from AllSpark.

The problem was that no matter how Shockwave updated the scanning system, they just couldn't find any traces. It was frustrating to Megatron, he could feel how much energy this object radiated every time he walked into the Chamber of Creation, but there was literally nothing. It couldn't just vanish into thin air, can it?

So they just kept guessing, checking every nearby star system. It took a lot of time and was fruitless and the Decepticons grew tired. Starscream especially, always dreamed about taking Megatron’s place and rule Decepticons. So one day, after another failure to locate the AllSpark, Megatron and Starscream broke into a fight, resulting in the warlord throwing his second in command at the control panel by accident.

Starscream face planted random coordinations and the Nemesis warp jumped to the Solar System, placing them on Earth’s orbit. Sunday scanners activated as they found Autobots’ signatures on this planet. Megatron laughs, he finally found Optimus so the AllSpark must be with them.

Soon they landed somewhere outside of Detroit, which didn't go unnoticed. Teletraan-1 alerts Autobots immediately. Bumblebee volunteers to investigate, followed by Windblade as a backup. Optimus approves the mission and the trio goes to Nemesis location.

Bee gets close to Nemesis, while Blade stays in the air just in case her friend needs a quick escape. He knows the plans of the ship well ( he infiltrated it a number of times), so he easily slips through the guards inside, into the vents. Soon he locates Megatron and carefully listens. He finds out about Megatron's intention to seize the AllSpark from Autobots. Looks like it's the only reason why they even came here and he will turn the city apart to get it.

Thankfully Wheeljack made a force field that won't let Decepticons in as a precaution for years ago. Still, that is a grim sign and they have to deal with Deceptions regardless.

Bumblebee hacks into their system and quickly downloads important intel.

Then he sees Shockwave, it takes a lot of self-control to not hiss, Megatron just gives him simple orders to oversee something. He takes orders and leaves, but Bumblebee notices that he went in a completely different direction ( as Bee knows the ship well) and didn't like it. Bee wants to follow and see what this mad scientist is planning, but he senses Ravage nearby. The cat is also moving quickly through vents, probably because Soundwave ejected him here in case Bumblebee will show up.

The scout quickly gets out beforeRavage discovers him and leaves. On the way back he shares his findings with Windblade, and later back on Ark with the high command of Autobots. They don't have the AllSpark (and even if they had they wouldn't give it to Megatron anyway), and they must drive Decepticons off the planet, or convince Megatron to stop.

So after this, I imagine a few instances when Decepticons tried to attack the city ( but couldn't get it), Autobots would usually lure them away from the city and fight them there. Here examples of shenanigans that happened:

Sudden dance off, the seeker trio( Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp) was really confused about this shit;

Sari ( in her suit) is legit disassembling Decepticons in the mid-fight. Imagine, Starscream wants to shoot, but his null rays fall off, awkward;

She also stole t-cog ( the detail responsible for transformation) from Blitzwing, much later it was returned;

Devastator caught Bumblebee and was going to quash the scout. Bee on the other hand focused on Devastator’s sparks ( he’s a combiner, made out of 6 Decepticons known as Constructicons) by accident and could hear that chaos that is happening in Devastator’s mine ( since all 6 don't merge into one, they still present chatter, telling Devastator what to do which is pure chaos). That overwhelms him and he yells “QUIET”, silencing 6 six constructions which seriously freaks Devastator out and he falls apart. Much later he did the same trick again when tried to throw Devastator at Autobots again;

Optimus is trying to convince Megatron that they don't have the AllSpark which isn't working. Not letting his frustration get ahead of him, Prime starts throwing memes( which he carefully chose for a specific situation) at Megatron. Megatron is not amused ahah).

Megatron wants to move forward and maybe to take on other cities to force Prime to surrender, but Autobots are one step ahead( as they planned), surrounding Nemesis from various positions ( as Optimus called all other Autobots that live in different locations) to harass Deceptions from time to time, trapping their enemies effectively.

Conspiring with cassettes.

Later Autobots find out that despite the force field being up, and effectively repelling Deceptions, Soundwave’s cassettes are actually able to squeeze through. Wheeljack is hypothesizing it’s probably because of their size ( they are smaller than Bumblebee as intended) and looking for a solution to solve this.

Interestingly enough, cassettes ( 5 of them: Ravage, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, and twins: Frenzy and Rumble) are not causing chaos while being out in the city. Bumblebee is keeping an eye on them, he can easily track them down, though they move fast which turns into some sort of game. At some point, he actually exchanges words with Ravage. Bee is trying to understand cassette's motives, but Ravage keeps it to himself ( though Bee senses some sort of enjoyment instead of malice).

Later Bumblebee gets a message from Rumble: they have a bomb and will blow up something ( I haven't decided sorry) if Bumblebee won't come to them alone. Knowing this is turned into a fight, he goes anyway without telling anybody as he wants to get to the bottom of this.

This indeed turns into a fight, as cassettes demand Bee to tell them where the AllSpark is. Bee tells them he has no idea like anyone else. Ravage asks why Bumblebee doesn't want to restore Cybertron, to which Bee replies that there is literally nothing left to restore. The AllSpark isn't some sort of magical object that can fix all their problems. Besides, Decepticons had it in control, why didn't they use it then? The situation gets really awkward after this, Frenzy admits that Megatron saw devastation only after Autobots left as his focus shifted to other things after his enemies were gone.

The fight stops, Bumblebee seizes the moment and asks where is the bomb they threatened him with earlier. Laserbeak just casually shows it, and in fact, it wasn't even activated. Rumble tells him when Megatron found out that cassettes and slip through the barrier, he ordered Soundwave to use the bomb to cause chaos. This isn't really what cassettes want to do, because finally in a million years they can actually roam free and explore new locations and things safe from Megaton.

Cassettes admit that they aren't really loyal to their leader, only participating in war because their caretaker, Soundwave, was loyal to Megaton...though his loyal shifted and now his loyalty revolves around keeping his cassettes safe because Megatron won't be nice if he finds out. So he keeps up his appearances, while he lets his cassettes roam free.

Bumblebee understands that situation is complicated, but he sees this as an opportunity to end this stupid war. After all, Soundwave is highly regarded by Megatron, so maybe he can work with this.

Buzzsaw thought asks what they are gonna do now as they failed the task, which is quickly decided to shift all blame onto Bumblebee, even for future situations like this as Bee revealed that he can sense from far away from anyone. Ravage realized it’s the reason why he and others were never able to catch him! So after this being decided they went back and Bee returned to Ark, sharing this only with Sari, Windblade, and Optimus Prime for security reasons, he doesn't want to blow cassettes cover by accident.

Infiltrating Nemesis again.

Bumblebee isn't having a good time. He gets forced into reboot more frequently than it used to, especially during battles with Decepticons. Autobots had to save him multiple times, which was a blow to his self-esteem. Not to mention Sunstreaker was at him again, insulting the scout. Bumblebee yelled at him in return ( something that never happened before), he gets angrier and more frustrated. His best friends are doing their best to help, but there is little they can do.

Ratchet examined him and scanners show that the spark shell is losing its integrity, as it wears off over time. That explained why so many reboots happened recently. He says that Bumblebee shouldn't go on the missions at all, and Optimus agrees with this. Bee doesn't take it well, believing they think he’s now being useless to them, and storms off.

Then he sneaks out at night, planning to infiltrate the Nemesis again with two purposes: to prove that he is still useful to Autobots and to find out what Shockwave is up to ( it still bothers him a lot).

He sneaks in like usual and at first, it was okay, but then the vent under him broke ( yeah those vents are worn off over so many years too) and he fell right before the Seeker Trio. So the chase begins, Bee still can get away and he knows the ship but suddenly an unfortunate thing happens - his spark malfunction again and sends him into forced reboot.

Next time he awakens, he’s being restrained on some sort of medical table, which Bee quickly recognizes where he is - in Shockwave quarters. That sends terror to his spark, not only he’s been caught and Autobots don't know where he is, but he’s at mercy of the mad scientist.

He tried to break free, but it’s useless, he never had much strength anyway. He looks around, and among his various projects, he sees something like a spire blueprint projected on the screen. It seems like it’s part of Nemesis. He doesn't like this at all.

Shockwave enters the rooms, carrying various tools with him. Bee asks what he’s gonna do with him. The scientist doesn't reply first as he runs the scanner over Bee’s entire body ( while he’s changing the project on his scene meanwhile), it detects something in Bee’s spark chamber.

Bee asks why Shockwaves keeps doing this,( like his sick experiments that even Megatron did not approve of). To this, the scientist replies that this war is going way too long and it will never end. So he decided to have a little fun while he can, he wants to relish in chaos and see the world burn.

He says that Bumblebee is carrying something interesting inside and he wants to find it. Shockwave activates his cutting tool and gets closer, intending to cut Bumblebee open.

Thankfully, salvation comes in an unusual form, Soundwave enters the room and demands to hand Bumblebee to him. Shockwave is not amused and refuses, so both argue until Shockwave gets an order directly from Megatron because the warlord wants Soundwave to dig intel out of elusive Autobot scout. After that, Shockwave can do whatever he wants with the prisoner.

Bee sighs with relief as he is escorted to Soundwave quarters. He doesn't make an attempt to escape, he can't really run away with a stasis cuff one + hr wants to get more insight on the Communication Officer. Maybe Soundwave knows what Shockwave is planning.

When they arrive, Bumblebee gets fully restrained again, and he’s mind gets connected to Soundwave’s systems ( via a cord) to start digging thought Bee’s mind ( if I remember correctly, Soundwave can read minds and emotions bc he can sense electric impulses in the processor or brain, he using cord here bc he wants to do deeper).

Bee is pretty calm about this, he doesn't carry any useful intel ( he usually drops it at Teletraan-1 when he completes the duty). So Soundwave is stuck with casual memories while looking for any indication of the AllSpark, though he comments on Bee's good drumming skills.

Meanwhile, Ravage self-ejects from Soundwave’s chest and be like “dude seriously how the fuck did you get caught?? what are you doing even?”. Bee asks if they know anything about Shockwave’s plans. Such a question surprises both Decepticons, Bee understands that they don't know anything. Ravage doesn't like the sound of this and asks Bee to elaborate, but before he can answer, the scout looks to the side, sensing Megatron is coming in this direction.

Ravage quickly transforms and tucks himself back into Soundwave’s cassette deck. In a minute, the warlord himself entered the room. He is pleased to see Soundwave already working on the task, while he turns to Bumblebee to take a good look at him as he never has seen the scout, who ruined a lot of his plans, up close - Bee would always be in the distance or lingering on the corners of Megatron’s optics before vanishing out of sight.

Megatron is acting pretty smug as a big nuisance in his grasp, though he admits he feels like he saw Bee’s face somewhere ( same reaction as Prime). He starts monologuing about how it would be great if Bumblebee would join him, they would win this war quickly. Maybe the little scout would convince Optimus Prime to join them, to which Bee asked if Megatron is still salty about Optimus breaking up with him.

That quickly pisses Megatron off, he grabs scout's neck and pins him heavily on the table, saying that he should watch his mouth. Bee isn't having this, replying ( as much as he can with his throat squeezed) that Megatron is an insolent fool who only focuses to keep Starscream on a leash, while Shockwave is plotting under his nose.

Megatron would probably hurt Bumblebee after this, but Sundewave reminded his leader that he’s still working and needs the scout in pieces. Megatron gives the order to continue, while he leaves. Both Bee and Soundwave sigh in relief, the latter commenting that the scout should keep it down in Megatron’s presence, to which Bee replies that someone had to say this.

Soundwave soon stumbles upon the Vector Sigma seal, locking the rest of Bumblebee’s memories. Soundwave asks Bee about this, to which the scout gives him the honest answer - he doesn't know how it got there and it’s been there already when he “first” woke up. Bumblebee asks if Soundwave can break it. The communication officer makes a few attempts, but it doesn't affect the seal at all. They need Victory Sigma, but it’s gone.

Bee expressed his frustration because he felt like the answer lies beneath it, but he said that he will find a way to stop Megatron. Soundwave replies that it’s impossible, but Bee doesn't buy this, he noticed the other reaction and it was hopeful.

Bumblebee also notices multiple sparkpulses inside Soundwave, his cassettes, but only 5 of them are active, while there are many more of them, and those cassettes are being stasis. Bee asks Soundwave how long they’ve been asleep. Soundwave pauses, not expecting that question, and they reply that they have been in stasis since the beginning of the war.

Bee now understands, Soundwave has been working hard for Megatron, wanting to end the war as quickly as possible ( that was a motivation for a lot of Decepticons as Bee found out when they reached out for him), while sparing most of his cassette the trauma.

They sat in silence for a minute before Megatron contacted Soundwave, demanding his presence somewhere while ordering to leave a cassette to guard the prisoner. Soundwave sits for another minute, communicating with these cassettes, then ejects Ravage and leaves the room.

Ravage stands still, listening to the environment and making sure the coast is clear, then tells Bumblebee “you broke out using shock bombs, understood?” and releases the scout. Bee quickly gets up, thanking the cat. To that Ravage says “Go left now, I’ll give you ten seconds”. Bee nods and runs out of the room.

After ten seconds the alarms burst on, informing that the prisoner had escaped. For convenience, Bee uses a few shock bombs he has with him as Decepticons try to stop him.

He gets out, though he’s also pretty beaten up and it takes hours for him to get back to Ark ( he couldn't transform). He collapses then he crosses the entrance.

When Bee awakens, he’s on a medical table. His body is fixed, though Ratchet gave the minibot an earful of lecture for defying his recommendations and now Bee’s spark shell is even more strained. Prime also talks to Bee, reassuring the scout that no, Optimus and other Autobots don’t see him as burned and he doesn't have to go to such lengths to prove himself ( those conversations happened often back on Cybertron).

Bee doesn't reply, yet the give into he gathered when he was stuck on Nemesis.

Soon after this, Bee actually gets to talk with Sunstreaker to resolve their issue. The taller Autobot admits that he’s been projecting a lot because he used to be like Bumblebee when he was younger. Then he was envious because, despite everything, Bee remains kinds and hopeful. The scout tells him it takes a lot of work to keep being him after all those tragedies he had witnessed. Sunstreaker nods, though he still doesn't understand who Bee can easily move on after leaving Cybertron, it was their home after all.

Bumblebee simply said that Cyberton didn’t feel like home, but prison.

And then the shit gets real!

Optimus decided to take another chance to negotiate peace with Megatron. They gathered near Nemesis, both Autobots and Decepticons just chilling (some interacting, like cassettes hanging out with Bee-Blade-Sari trio) while their leaders were negotiating.

At first there heated arguments between the two leaders, Megatron acting like Optimus is the one being unreasonable and trying to blame him, while Optimus being like “listen you started this shit, you have no one to blame but yourself” (more politely of course). Soon, they both calmed down and actually made progress, as Megatron noticed that a lot of Decepticons are being distracted by various Earthian things because it’s all new in a million years.

Before they could proclaim anything, Shockwave appeared. Bee tenses instantly, this can't be good. I haven't decided if Shockwave would monologue or not, but the end is the same - he shoots Bumblebee in the chest.

Before anyone can react, Shockwave snatches the minibot and lifts him to his level, taking a closer look at the wound. The shoot wasn't direct, but tangential - it made a hole in the chest and partly chipped away the protective shell, leaving Bee’s spark partly exposed.

The energy is pulsing through the hole now( while Bee’s pulse gets completely haywire as he tries to free himself), the signature, and the effect is unmistakable - this is the AllSpark. The amount of shock is impossible to describe, after all, Bee was carrying the AllSpark within himself and no one had an idea. Even Shockwave did not expect THAT!

Megatron is being evil smug again, now the AllSpark within his grasp! Except Shockwave has other plans. Instead, he activates his device, which was built into Nemesis. This spire was designed to fuck over all lifeforms on this planet ( including cybertronians), and with AllSpark his plan to cause massive chaos gets perfect as the AllSpark not only creates but also destroys.

As he was about to rip the AllSpark out of Bee’s body, this system got overwhelmed, but instead of rebooting, his body discharged the energy, creating a big wave that threw everyone away.

Bumblebee meanwhile is screaming in pain ( the AllSpark is slowly breaking him apart) and a surge of painful memories ( the wave broke the seal). Not to mention he’s surrounded and pretty sure he might die, if he wants to get through this - he must become stronger to protect himself.

That thought activates the interface, the Vector Sigma interface. It already had something set up there. Bee can’t really see what it is, something about protective armor(?), he confirms it, the interface turned into a small cell that absorbed a portion of AllSpark energy. Then, as if he knows what to do, he slams the cell into the ground.

For a moment nothing happened, then suddenly a huge amount of plant-like-black vine material burst from the ground. Everyone instantly got into their sense after that blast, now witnessing those vines connecting to Bee’s chest and the AllSpark, lifting him off the ground and begin forming something BIG.

Decepticons are trying to shoot those vines, but hey, they re heat resistant quickly grow back :) Autobots are trying to contact the scout, but his comm is dead, Windblade cannot get into him minds as it’s filled with so many negative emotions like rage, grief, desperation, depression. Said emotions also floored Soundwave, making him unable to move.

Soon Bumblebee ( or more like the huge shell that was growing around him) formed into a big, dragon-like creature, who leats out of deafening roar at AllSpark energy shoots everywhere. An he’s so angry that everyone around him can feel it in their sparks.

This is how he looks, he’s strong enough to throw big cybertronians around like chew toys. Bumblebee’s body is cocooned in the chest area, the light from the AllSpark shines through crevasses.

Despite being angry, he doesn’t attack first and Optimus could have reasoned with him, but Megatron decided it was a good idea to attack the bigger monster and this is when the shit gets loose.

Bumblebee trashes around, causing chaos around him, sometimes targeting someone and going after them for a few moments. All this is followed by energy discharges, so he successfully beats the shit out of everyone.

Shockwave is the only one who is pleased with surprise results, as he tried to collect data.

Soon Windblade manages to get a hold of her best friend’s mind and he tries to calm Bee down. He slows down a bit, which opens an opportunity for Sari to get inside thought crevasses and try to locate him.

She follows the opposite direction from energy flow, and soon she finds him. His face is a mix of anger and fear, Sari starts talking, trying to draw his attention to her. Soon enough he notices her ( the beast stops moving).

Bee tells her that he’s scared and he’s in pain. His body cracks more because even this large shall not contain all the power of the AllSpark. She hugs his head, telling that they will figure this out, but first hee need to stop thrashing around, he’s hurting everyone.

Meanwhile, Windblade does the same, using telepathy to talk to him. It worked and they always convinced him to just fly towards the Ark, but Shockwave wasn’t having that, and started shooting at Bumblebee, trying to provoke him. Bee is sort of back to his senses, seeing Shockwave again, angers him to the point that this anger throws Windblade out of his mind. Sari is alright, but the expressions on Bee’s face terrified her.

Bees run and pines Shockwave to the ground. Suddenly he speaks ( his voice sounds very distorted when it comes from the beast) telling him in space that Shockwave is the one who destroyed Cybertron and left them homeless. the mad scientist chuckles, commenting that this means his “pet project” had worked and he regrets nothing.

Bumblebee executes Shockwave without mercy.

After Bumblebee flies up heads towards the Ark, Windblade flies after him, while Optimus uses this moment to gather Autobots and get the hell out of there. Sari tells him over comms that Bee is breaking, so he asks Ratchet to drive ahead and help Bumblebee.

Bee meanwhile is almost there, but his body cannot take this anymore. The chest opens up and Bumblebee with Sari falls out of the monster( then the husk falls down and lands right by the entrance of Ark). They both fall for a few seconds before the AllSpark shatters into small pieces and they fly in different directions. Windblade caught them both, both saw what happened and got really scared that Bee might be dead.

There is small light coming from his exposed spark chamber, so Blade rushes to the medical bay, while frantically explaining to Ratchet ( who is on the way) what just happened. He instructs them to stabilize Bumblebee, enforcing he gets in and takes over.

Ratchet barely managed to save Bee’s life. After that, it took a lot of time to put the minibot together ( between all other urgent repairs of other Autobots that got fucked up by Bee’s outrage). Now, when the danger has passed, Ratchet can get a better look at scout’s sparks chamber that was hidden under the shell. Said shell was crumbled, he had to remove it. Then tells others what he’s discovered:

First, his spark still hosts a few AllSpark shards. He tried to remove it but it turned out that Bee’s spark IS merged with the AllSpark. His system even pings errors about missing components. This is ironic because it made sense that the AllSpark was causing erratic sparkpulses, but yet they cant separated it from him;

Second, he discovered that Bee also has Vector Sigma installed in his spark chamber, this is exactly those missing components from the broken device;

Third, now there is a plant ( it looks exactly like that vine from earlier) parasite residing in Bee’s body, it appears to be feeding on AllSpark energy. Ratchet tried to remove it, it slapped him on the face. It resists and refuses to come off.

It raises so many questions, of how and why Bee got both AllSpark AND Vector Sigma. There was a suggestion that Bee could steal, or maybe all of this was some sick experiment that Shockwave did, though now they won’t know with the mad scientist dead. Windblade feels that she was involved in this, but still has no idea how.

She still cannot stop thinking about what she saw in Bee’s mindspace during the rampage. He was overwhelmed by grief, sadness, pain, guilt and all of this he merged into anger. And that he carried this angger for a really long time, longer that any of them can imagine. Ratchet is sure that Bee cannot be older, but who knows. Perhaps Bumblebee had a different body in the past that was destroyed.

After a week Bee wakes up. Of course, he’s being hugged by Blade and Sari, everyone sighed with relief. Optimus asks if Bee remembers anything from the meeting. The scout thinks for a moment. He remembers being shot, he remembers paint and panic and anger, he definitely remembers killing Shockwave. He doesn’t know who to feel about it.

He also informed him about a plant parasite. Bee is surprised, but he feels fine for far.

He’s upset when he learns that he beat everyone up and proceeds to apologize before every Autobot that was involved in this. He also sees his discarded husk outside of the Ark, which is examined by Wheeljack and Perceptor ( and wondering if human culture influenced Bee to make this creature look like one of the monsters from his video games).

He doesn’t have any recollection of making it, though this form seems familiar...probably he saw that dragon in a video game...probably.

Bee walks around the island to clear his head, being joined by Sari and Windblade. He admits that he is partly scared that he killed Shockwave like this...but on hand, he’s relieved that this guy is gone and Earth is safe for now.

The scout also tells them that he remembered something during that fight that he could remember before. He tried again, but now it feels like his memories are scattered - they are there, but out of reach.

To see what’s going on, Windblade uses her abilities to get into Bee’s mind. She sees that the Vector Sigma seal is gone ( tho her own is still active), but now all those memories that were locked are either missing or corrupted. Even those that weren’t locked are broken. She hypothesized that the AllSpark shattering damaged his data banks, taking the portion of memories with shards.

That is just another reason why they must collect the shards.

Good thing that Bee can sense the shards, most of them landed in the city, but some landed outside, even near Nemesis which isn’t good. Later they come back and inform Prime about this and the high command starts formulating the plans of retrieving shards.

Meanwhile Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Sari brainstorm ideas of how to prevent the AllSpark from harming Bumblebee. The plant is absorbing the portion of energy, but it’s clear he still needs a shell. Sari tells them that Sumdac Systems will provide resources for the project.

Collecting the shards.

In general, the collecting of shards will go smoothly for most of the time, since most shards landed in the city. Some they found just laying in the bushes or roofs, some were handled by humans, some were even sent by mail. As new shards rejoin Bumblebee, Windblade helps him to restore his recent memories, while they still need to complete AllSpark to get access to previously locked memories.

Ratchet also keeps in check Bee’s health as new shards are added, and gradually builds a shell around the spark chamber, minding the plant.

So, few thing that happened during this time frame in no particular order:

Starscream got his hands onto one of the shards and caused chaos to both Decepticons and Autobots, he can even use it to get through the force field around the city;

Bumblebee created Grimlock, using an awesome t-rex animatronic as a base;

Thundercracker leaving Decepticons, thought he didn't go to Autobots either. He talks with Windbladem admitting that it was terrifying to see someone like Bumblebee so hurt ( he’s referring to that dragon accident) because of the war;

Discovering that the plant, living inside Bee is actually a symbiont - it protects its host when Bee is in danger, even helping him to lift a weight that Bee couldn't before ( though his body hurts a lot after this). Sari names it Clover ( in fact she did it with all Bee’s plants);

When the last shard is gathered, Ratchet doesnt final touches to the shell. He doesn't completely seal it away, letting it’s potions flow through Bumblebee’s body. This should reduce chances of forced reboot, thought they still might happen.

After this, Bumblebee secludes himself in his room, wanting to sort through all his memories, as those old one now finally accessible. After a few days he asks Windblade to come, He removes her Vector Sigma seal, and they talk through all those events.

Soon Bumblebee requests Autobots together ( who can come, if someone can't, then they will be sent the recorded version of this) in front of Ark ( where the husk is) because there is something that everyone must know. He also asks Soundwave to send Laserbeak to the meeting, so she can record this conversation and present it to other Decepticons, Megatron included. Soundwave obliges, sending Bee his regards.

The truth behind the AllSpark.

Now with all his memories intact, Bumblebee reveals that he’s not the guardian or an weird experiment involving the AllSpark, but he IS the AllSpark.

That one thing was enough to shock everyone( accepts Windblade). At first they thought that technically yes, bc Bee’s spark fused the AllSpark, but Bee elaborates that he was created by Primus billions years ago. Windblade confirmed it, as she knows the truth already.

To clear the confusion, Bumblebee starts from the beginning.

Primus was wandering around the Universe. Like any giant with planet alt-form, he had one desire - to create and host a life. While he could easily transform, create a new life, and then fall into eternal slumber, Primus wanted to leave someone in charge. Thus he created the AllSpark - a powerful transformer who can create, destroy and maintain life on the planet.

This person is Bumblebee, with a dragon-like altform, that looked almost exactly like that husk that now is resting in front of Ark.

Before Bee proceeded to his duties, he and Primus traveled around the Universe. Primus was teaching Bumblebee about life, about conditions required for life to exist, about material and what kind of life he can make. They visited planets, filled with various life forms: organic, silicone, energoinds and even other mechanical lifeforms.

Bee was observing living beings, learning about how they build, how they function, how they interact.

When the training was finished and Bee was ready, they traveled to a lone orange dwarf star(class K). Primus transformed and placed himself onto orbit. After this Bumblebee created the first cybertronian life.

In thousands of years he filled the planets with divine ecosystems, with various biomes and huge species diversities and even first sentient beings. For most of the time he left anything for natural selection, while keeping a close eye on it in case something appears that will threaten life on the planet. In this case, by his protocols, he must kill that being in order to preserve balance.

He admits, while he loved his job and enjoyed creating, he was lonely. Primus advised against forming a relationship with his creations because he thought that Bumblebee’s powers could be misused in this case, for example getting involved in conflict where he could be persuaded to insta-kill someone.

So he stayed out, but it hurt and he longed for companionship more than anything, which led to frustration and even anger at his creator for leaving alone for eternity.

Still, Bumblebee endured this and continued his work.

Peace lasted for a long time ( if you don't think of the wars that were waged between clans from time to time), until Quintessons began their invasion on Cybertron. At first they couldn't set their tentacles there as Bee was such a fierce protector, but much later they figured out to send drones to fight instead. That posed a problem for Bumblebee because yes, he can easily kill a living being, but cannot kill what isn't alive in the first place.

Bumblebee held endless hordes of drones for a long time, but eventually he was overwhelmed by numbers ( he was fighting alone, as cybertronians back there were no match to Quinesson’s forces) and killed.

Cybertron fell to Quintessons and everyone was enslaved.

Then Quintessons salvaged his spark( The AllSpark) and few more components to use the power of creation to create even more slaves. At first they couldn't use AllSpark, because it has quantuum properties. It creates endless possibilities, but none of their devices has enough strong sensors to set those possibilities, making them real.

Lucky for them, the components they got from Bumblebee’s dead body were connected to the AllSpark, with them Quintessons created Vector Sigma, a device that allows manipulation of the AllSpark.

They kept creating slayes, while completely ignoring anything else and soon all those diverse ecosystems that Bee made collapsed. The rain turned into acid, rust was crawling everywhere as Quintessons kept draining resources of the planet, while they tried to erase everything about Primus and AllSpark from cybetronian’s culture. While cybertronians still remembered Primus, the AllSpark was forgotten.

Hearing this was disturbing, considering the fact that after cybertronians liberated themselves from Quinesson’s tyranny - they kept using Vector Sigma for forging new bots.

Bumblebee wasn't too angry about this, they simply didn't know. Then he gets asked if he was killed, how Bumblebee is still here?

Short answer is they only destroyed his body. To explain this, Bumblebee reminds everyone how sparks work. Sparks are the lifeforce of every living being, but for sentient beings it also serves like a second brain/processor to process the emotion response.

But in Bumblebee’s case it’s the other way around: his spark is the main processor, while the head processor is for emotional response and processing the info from sensors. Primus made him like this in case Bumblebee's gonna get killed at some point so he could rebuild himself.

Sadly, because they quickly salvaged him, removing both his spark and components that we connected to it and separating them - that made rebuilding impossible.

And because of his spark’s quantuum nature, Bumblebee’s consciousness was locked in a quantum state, making him both existing and not existing at the same time.

He could only watch what’s happening. He was grieving over his work being destroyed, his creations being enslaved and potentially being forever stuck in quantuum sea, not able to interact with the real world again.

The time went by, and eventually, cybertronians livetred themself from Quintessons and it marked the beginning of the Golden Age. Bumblebee was lingering, watching this happen. He was a bit happier after this, despite the fact that society was locked in functionalism( when both's place in society is defined by their alt form. Like a jet could only serve in the army) - a leftover from Quintesson tyraty. Still, it was better than Quintessons!

Bumblebee continues lingering, sometimes he floats in the form of a random bot and asks if they can see him. Usually it never works, but one day, one bot was able to hear him. Bee was ecstatic about this, finally he could talk to someone ( even though his talking was mere whisper as he forgot how his own voice used to sound). He introduced himself as Bumblebee ( it was one of many names that was given to him by his creations during ancient times that he liked a lot).

Bee thought maybe he could tell someone the truth about AllSpark origin and maybe that would help him to get back to the real world, but sadly none of his attempts were successful. Some don't believe him, some did but were punished by strict government. Additionally as Bee realised that only those who can psychic abilities can hear him. And those bots are extremely rare.

Still, Bumblebee wasn't losing hope, and kept trying ( though he was being more thoughtful about getting his friend in trouble).

At some point, another big event happened - a gladiator named Megatron, with his partner, archivist Orion Pax ( who will later be known as Optimus Prime) created a revolution that liberated cybertronians from cages of functionalism. Now every cybertronian could be whoever they wanted, that pleased Bumblebee so much.

Not to mention now he has more chances to escape his quantuum prison, especially when a group of archaeologists has found a hidden temple that was dedicated to AllSpark - the only one that wasn't destroyed by Quintessons.

Even Megatron with Optimus came to see these fins. The most noticeable thing was the statue which archaeologists believed was the personification of AllSpark, which was an image of Bumblebee.

(That made Optimus realise why Bumblebee’s face was so familiar when he first met him. Sure the form is different, but the face remains the same( and same goes to Megatron).)

At the same time a group of scientists noticed some quantum fluctuation comic from the AllSpark and they were going to research this.

During this timeframe, Bee was really close to being found. He was really close to escaping.

But as if fate decided to fuck everyone over, things changed from best to worst.

It all started when everyone realised that Cybertron will be completely drained of resources in a few millions years. That caused the frantic search of planets where they could get them. One planet that was relatively close was found. It was rich and solved this problem...but it also hosted life.

Heated arguments began, Megatron believed that they can just go and take it, because they really needed it and they are superior to this primitive form of life on that planet. Optimus on other hand refused to harm those lifeforms, even if they are primitive, that they can look elsewhere.

Bumblebee sided with Optimus, he knew the fact that there is another system near that one, that is rich with resources they need AND also unsuitable for life. He knew it in case if he ever needed those resources he could go and get them back in the day when he was in charge here.

Bee frantically searched for someone who could hear him, so he could pass this information...but he had no luck. Soon the civil war began and it was the beginning of the end.

As war was going on, Bumblebee lost all hope. He saw destruction he hadn't seen since Quintessons invasion and Cybertron’s reasons were thinning. Soon there were no resources to make new bots.

Bumblebee tight there is nothing he can do and was saddened about upcoming doom.

Until and stumbled upon Windblade.

She was able to hear him. So they talked a lot and became close. Bee told her everything about himself, and when Blade was going to tell Optimus about Bee, he stopped her. Bumblebee was scared he's gonna be punished somehow ( it happened before in the past) but instead he has a plan, but he needs her help. She agrees, and waits until Bee is done with preparation.

Soon Bumblebee tells her about it, even a bit more urgently because he just saw Shockwave unleashing something that will kill everything and they need to get off the planet.

But first, Bumblebee needs a body. Now, when the Chamber of Creation isn't occupied anymore, Windblade sneaked inside ( Bee was carefully guiding her) the Spire, then got into the Chamber.

He instructed her to activate Vector Sigma, then managed to upload a blueprint to her data banks that she was able to upload to Vector Sigma.

Then he told her to set specific parameters, allowing the systems that were used for assembling bodies to scrap for resources. It was barely enough, still it gathered resources for a small body, compromising something like strength and armor.

Then he told her to cut open Vector Sigma and get important components - the very same components that belonged to him long ago and install them to the body's spark chamber.

The last step was taking the AllSpark, placing it in a spark chamber and sealing it in a protective shell that will suppress the AllSpark frequency.

When Windblade did all this, she waited. It was silent for a few minutes and she was anxious that the plant might not get worse...before the body powered up and for the first time in seemingly forever, Bumblebee opened his optics.

This was probably the happiest day of his life since he lost his body. He hugged Windblade, thanking her for getting him out. After adjusting and remembering how to walk to transformers, they left the Spire.

But now they had to figure out what to do. When Megatron finds out that AllSpark is gone, hell will break loose and they cannot have the AllSpark being taken again.

Bee cannot really protect himself. His body is fragile and will fall apart if he to unshesh his powers. And Decepticons like Soundwave can dig into one's mind to find out their secret. So it leads to a drastic solution - to seal any memories of him away. Blade doesn't want this, but understands it’s their only shotm so she agrees.

First they position themself near Autobot base.

Then Bumblebee activates his Vector Sigma interface, programming the seal in a specific way, so while memories are locked away, some feelings will linger. This will allow Bumblebee and Windblade to become friends again, and will also carry on the missing to make cybertronians leave the planet.

First he places the seal into Windblade’s data banks, which will activate in a few minutes and reboot her system. So it gives her time to arrive to base and be safe when memories are going to be locked away. She hugs him again before he leaves sayin “see you on the other side”.

Then he gets close to the road where Jazz soon appears, then he seales all his memories completely. The reboot happens and he falls on the ground, where next moment he’s being found by Jazz.

The rest of the story everyone knows.

Bumblebee gives free minutes for everyone to process the whole thing. It explained a lot of things: his reboots, his ability to sense sparks, that husk’s creation, pretty much everything.

So he’s being bombarded with questions, one of them was about what Shockwave did. Interestingly enough Bee never told Blade what exactly the mad scientist did. Bee tried to answer, but turned out he just cannot say this out of loud, that’s how terrible it was. Seeing the pained expression on Bumblebee’s face, everyone quickly moved on to different questions.

Another question was about Primus, because Bee made it sound like Primus was just one of many beings like him. Bumblebee reveals that in fact, Earth is also giant like Primus, and unlike his creator, she can communicate with Bee during the recharge.

So she’s asleep, but can talk to Bee when he’s asleep too. In fact he made a lot of attempts to connect, but because the AllSpark was sealed under shell, Bee could not hear her clearly. Until now.

She was asking if he can resurrect her two companions, who turned out to be Venus and Mars - two other giants that came to this system with her. Something went wrong when both transformed to planets that caused their deaths, rendering planets unsuitable to life.

Sadly, Bumblebee can only create or kill, he cannot bring the dead back. Once spark crosses the dimension and appears in the Well of All Sparks, it gets cleaned. It's a point of no return and the only direction for spark to go is forward - to it's new life.

After the meeting is over, Bee turns to Laserbeak, making sure that all this information was received by Soundwave, which she confirms. Now they can only hope for better, that this is gonna be enough to stop Megaton from his fruitless conquest.

Then he goes on another walk around the forest, thinking about his past, present and future. Despite everything, he’s glad he lived to this point. He has what he always wanted( aka companionship) and now there is a chance for everyone to thrive once again, along with humans.

The final stretch.

Of course, nothing can be that easy.

Soon after the big reveal, the entire Soundwave cassette horde( aka even those who were in stasis since the beginning of the war) arrives at the Ark’s entrance. They look terrified and begging for help. When asked what happened, Ravage told Bee that Megatron didn't take the news well when Soundwave presented that entire conversation to Decepticons.

Soundwave tried to reason with his leader, but Megatron got mad and hurt Soundwave, then he was going to hurt the cassettes as punishment, which resulted in fight and Soundwave ejecting every single one and telling them to run.

So they ran and came here, begging to save Soundwave.

This makes Bumblebee energon boil in his tubes, he’s almost jumped into his husk body to just run and tear Megatron apart, but he managed to calm himself. Optimus decided to go and deal with Megatron himself, and Bee tags along.

When they meet again with Megatron near Nemesis again, first Optimus demands to release Soundwave. Somehow they convince him to do so, and Autobots take him to Ark for repair and reunite him with cassettes.

Meanwhile Megatron demands Bumblebee to fix Cynertron, which turns into a heated argument, because there is literally nothing to fix. Bee cannot just magically undo all the damage.

In the end Bumblebee snaps, and just decides to do what he really, really didn't want to do - he wants to open the space bridge and show Megatron what is happening on Cybertron. If this won't help, he doesn't know what can.

Bumblebee warns that they might not get out alive, but Megatron agrees anyway, believing that minibot still can fix their home planet. Optimus Prime also joins, refusing to leave Bumblebee alone with Megatron.

They arrive at the Chamber of Creation and look outside ( as they are on top floor). The Spire is the only building that is still sanding, meanwhile anything else lay in ruins. Megatron is confused, he doesn't remember leaving Cynertron in such a terrible state.

Bumblebee asks them if they can see those drones. They cannot, asking what drones. He sighs, understanding they have to go to ground level and that's actually scary. Still, he activated the elevator and they went down.

At entrance they stop and now they see - countless tiny drones consuming metal, then multiplying. And their hunger knows no bounds.

Bumblebee reveals that those “Scraplets” were created by Shockwave in order to cause chaos among Autobots. But they didn't work as he intended he just threw them away. They landed near Cyberton’s core, which activated them...and they began to consume everything in sight. When Scaplets got to Cybertron lavras ( it’s like the immune system of the planet) and Bee felt their deaths, he knew the time was up and they needed to run.

Now it made sense why Bumblebee killed this mad scientist in the first place.

Megatron asks if Bumblebee can kill them, but Bee says he can only kill living beings,while those things are just sparkless drones and they will devour him quickly.

After a minute, Megatron sighs in defeat, telling Bumblebee he can take them back to Earth.

He nods and about to open a portal...then suddenly his spark is acting up again, sending a huge power surge around him. Once again he is forced into rebooting before he can open a portal.

This caught the attention of scraplets and they charged at bost. Optimus grabs Bee, and both he and Megatron start running. First they tried to make it to the elevator, but it was already being chewed.

So they were forced to take stairs. So Optimus carrying Bee, and dragging Megatron with him, Megatron is shooting from his fusion cannot, breaking shit to slow down scraplets.

When they reach the top floor, they have nowhere to run. Megatrons asks how soon Bee will be back online, which according to Optimus’s chronometers is 3 more minutes. Megatron feels that they don't have it and suddenly the entire building is rumbling.

Because it’s being eaten, it starts falling, while scraplets are seeping inside the chamber. Two bots look at each other, and do the leap of faith ( while holding onto each other and Bumblebee of course). Just before they hit infested ground, Bee suddenly wakes up and he opens a portal. All three fall into it and are transported back to Earth.

Panicked they look around for scraplets that could be transported with them, but thankfully there was none. They are safe.

Optimus is surprised that Bee woke up earlier, and the minibot himself is surprised as well. Though he quickly realised it’s because of his plants symbiont + new shell combinations - his system still gets overwhelmed, but not as drastically as before, allowing his system to recover quicker.

After this, Megatron allows Autobots to leave in peace, while he still needs to process everything he saw.

Later ( with Optimus help) he declares that war is over and that Earth is their new home, which was surprisingly received well by other Decepticons ( he told them what he saw).

Finally Bumblebee can sigh in relief, finally they can have a bright future ahead of them and he’s looking forward to it.

Trivia( aka random stuff I didn't know where to fit).

Cybertronians can breathe and it’s part of their air cooling system, as such a process allows them to quickly inhale cooler air and exhale hot air. When calm they don't actually breathe, but as soon they are scared/excited/in a fight - they start doing this;

They can also cry, and it’s also part of the cooling system. Processors and spark chambers tend to be heated more than anything and require cooling by liquid nitrogen. When strong emotional responses happen, heating goes off the charts, and because optics are so close to the head processor - there is a risk of melting them. So the liquid nitrogen gets pumped to optics as well, and because this liquid has a low boiling point - those tears take a form of gas, seeping through the space between optic and face. Older bots don't cry much because they kinda get used to horrors of the war, while younger like Bee are actually more emotional and showing it often. Even after restoring his memories fully, he’s still emotion as hell;

Bumblebee is sleepwalking sometimes, and if he sees another person he starts whispering “Can you see me?” over and over until he gets the “right” reasons which is “Yes, I can see you, Bumblebee”. After this he falls back to recharge. That scared a lot of Autobots first, they discovered the right answer when Optimus replied, thanks to his tendency to give full and polite answers. This happens because of trauma when Bee lost his body and became “non-existent” to anyone;

He used to terrify Decepticons when he infiltrated their bases to the point they thought that Bee was some sort of Autobot vengeful spirit that came to hunt them. Bumblebee used his abilities to avoid his enemies, while toying with them, like lingering at the corners of their optics before disappearing and even whispering”Can you see me?” right into their audio sensors.);

When Decepticosn arrived on Earth, Bumblebee was an anxious mess, he was afraid that Earth might die just like Cybertron did. To give himself hope and a way of coping, he remembered the legend that if you fold 1000 origami cranes, your wish will come true. He made the first crane soon after Decepticon’s arrival, and the last right before he received his last AllSpark shard. Now those cranes are everywhere on the Ark;

Spike visits Detroit at some point, but I haven't decided when. Probably when the AllSpark shattered, so he helped to restore it too;

Bumblebee has two strong phobias:

Athazagoraphobia. The fear of being forgotten, ignored, or abandoned;

Monophobia. The fear of being alone for a long time;

In future, humans figured out the way to transport their mind into their spark and then transport that spark into techno-organic bodies which ultimately extends their lifespan.

Sari was one of first humans doing this, not wanting to leave Bumblebee and Windblade;

Spike, on the other hand, decided to die of old age because he felt like he did everything he wanted and his journey reached his end. Bee was really upset about this, but let Spike go. Spike spent his last moments with Bee.

Also in the future, Bumblebee’s body gets an upgrade, restoring his original form alt-form (6 legged dragon), though it’s smaller than before, Bee used to be small and finally comfortable with this. He will also be in charge of creating new cybertronians and terraforming new planets;

This is how Bumblebee used to look like;

Here’s the statue that was discovered, that Optimus and Megatron saw before.

#my art #transformers #sparkpulse au #maccadam #bumblebee #windblade #sari sumdac #sparkpulse spoilers

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eviesmyspiritanimal · 3 years

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Say what y’all wanna say about Mal, but I like her.💜

Furthermore, I actually have a plausible defense for most of her actions in all three movies.

First Movie

In the first movie, she was under the expectations of her mother, and she wanted to meet and perhaps even exceed them. Not only did she aspire to be as wicked as her mother (even if it was only because that was literally the only role model she had in her life at that moment), she also was obviously and visibly afraid of her mother in some cases--- note the scene in “Evil Like Me” when Maleficent slams down her scepter next to Mal and Mal actually flinches and jumps out of her skin.

Therefore, this leads me to her next supposed offense: when she spelled or “drugged” Ben. She spelled Ben because she has been raised to be ruthless and hateful, and quite honestly, after a life full of belittlement from her mother, Mal likely believed that she was not desirable enough to even try the normal way of getting a guy to fall in love with her. Therefore, “drugging” was the only option to her because of her own feelings of inferiority.

Second Movie

This carries us to the second movie. Mal’s self-esteem in concern to her new path of good was exceedingly low. She had only been there in Auradon for around six months, and people all around her were pressuring her to be something that she was not. (Interesting factoid, people don’t change their entire personalities and don’t get over past trauma and lifelong raising within the course of six months). So it is no wonder that she turned to spells. She felt that she couldn’t do all of the good stuff or meet this entirely new and foreign set of expectations without some help--- which, btw, is extremely sad and understandable 💔.

Even Evie understands this, and does not overly push the issue. True, she does not want Mal using the spell book, but this is because she believes that Mal can follow the path of good easier than Mal actually can (this is likely because Evie loves and believes in Mal wholeheartedly, and believes that she can do anything she sets her mind to 💙💜). Also, Evie--- as much as it pains me to say--- did not notice Mal’s struggle because she wanted to believe that they were living in a perfect world. It wasn’t that she purposefully neglected Mal. It was more that her subconscious did not choose to focus on it and she kept so busy with things that she did not have time to really dwell on the subject.

Also, the reason that Mal was even about to spell Ben during the picnic scene was because she was scared to death that he would find out about her incompetency and not want her anymore. This, once again, is stemming from her own insecurities. So when Ben the Bad Beast starts blowing up at her about using spells to exceed, it’s no wonder that she feels hopeless, scared, hurt, and misunderstood. Therefore, she runs away because she honestly thinks that she is doing the best thing. She doesn’t deserve this new life, Evie, Jay, Carlos, or Ben because she obviously can’t keep up with it and do what she needs to do in the proper timeframe (which was way rushed and totally unfair to Mal).

And when the VKs come back and she’s seemingly aggravated at them, she is more aggravated with the situation and worried about them. She did not want her little family and Ben to follow her to this evil place. In Mal’s mind, it is a place where bad people like Mal deserve and should have to live. She doesn’t want her Jay or Carlos to be back or her sweet Evie to be there because she wholeheartedly believes that they belong in the best place they can be in. Mal’s people deserve the best. And then she was also irritated that Ben came because she is already hurt about the fight and is also upset that the VKs did not watch over him well enough (which is understandable).

Third Movie

Now for the third movie. In the third movie, there’s a lot of screwy stuff going on (bad writers, y’all, bad writers 🙄😑), but here is what I can and will defend as well as explain. Mal wanted to close the barrier because she honestly thought that it was the safest thing to do for Auradon and also because Ben’s parents and Fairy Godmother were pressuring her to do it.

She had no reason to lie to Evie, I will admit (after all, Evie is the person that is closest to her, and yes, I do mean that Evie is closer with Mal than Ben and will always be). The only reason that Mal could have to lie to Evie would be because she did not want Evie to be upset with her while Mal was already having an absolutely horrible conflict within herself. She lied to Uma and her crew because it was the only way to save Auradon and get Uma to give Mal the only piece of power that could defeat Audrey.

Everything that Mal did as far as lying in D3 was because she loved her people and wanted to keep them safe. Wouldn’t lying and losing trust be a relatively small price to pay if you were able to keep people you love safe?

Plus, Mal apologized for what she did in D3. She apologized to Audrey, too, about stealing Audrey’s boyfriend and ruining her entire life (truly, that one should have been Ben apologizing since he actually had a history with Audrey and an obligation to apologize as a result of that said history). In the other movies, she did not really owe anyone an apology. So she apologized appropriately, and therefore we can’t keep blaming her for these things.

So that was my TedTalk for today. I just had to get it off my chest because I’m passionate about my characters, lol. Mal deserves better than what some people are giving her. But if y’all read this, and still aren’t convinced, that’s okay. We all have different opinions, and this was me presenting mine. So don’t go hating on me. 💖

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eirikrjs · 3 years

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In defense of Soejima's feet

So I do kind of empathize with the idea that it’s a lot fun to mock the feet of Soejima’s Personas, but honestly, I absolutely believe that a lot of Soejima’s design decisions are informed by the technological constraints of the project he is working on. P4 was created within a relatively short timeframe on an aging console, so it makes sense for him to come up with designs that reflect that: Evolved Personas that are basically palette swaps and modeling those feet would take significantly more polygons that simply using the infamous hooves. I won’t deny that a certain aesthetic preference of Soejima’s might also factor in, but I do would like to point out that Soejima’s Persona designs in P5, P5R (Cendrillon+Vanadis, the rest were most likely done by someone else on the art team going by the handwriting on the concept art) and P5S are almost all far more detailed than the Personas from P3 and P4 - I’m sure that it’s no coincendence that the games that regularly feature Personas with lots of flowing elements like capes or dresses with intricate textures are the one on PS3, PS4 and the Switch. A large portion of these designs even has actual feet (Kidd, Goemon, Carmen, Zorro, Robin Hood, etc. …)!

I mean the fact that the lead character artist probably takes the actual modeling into consideration is most likely something that is true for Kaneko and Doi as well. Kaneko’s demon art for example got significantly more angular once the demons were primarily rendered in 3D since that is easier to replicate with fewer polygons.

I’m sorry if i’m overreacting to a silly joke, but sometimes the stuff people are bashing Soejima for feels pretty unfair. This isn’t even going into the Soejima neck joke that is mostly a P3 era thing that can also be found in some of Kaneko’s art from the early 2000s as well. Soejima’s work is certainly not above criticism, but if you want to critique him, then take his newer art into consideration as well.

________________________________________________

I’ll be honest, the Soejima Stubs are a thing I barely paid any attention to until I made the comparison to Doi’s Satan’s own peg legs (far right):

It’s why the feet collage exists in the first place. I’d forgotten how terrible Satan’s are, and, honestly, they’re much worse than the personas because demons are literal and thus more suited to follow naturalistic base forms (so, feet). However, the actual motive wasn’t to make fun but to point out how persona design trends have bled over into demons, and how similar Satan and others like Doi’s Odin are to personas; personas tending be visual metaphors for their host characters devoid of the cultural context that lends significance to the best of demon design.

I have to disagree that P3/4 personas don’t have feet because of technical limitations. Even the chibi PS1 FF7 models had feet. A good example of technical limitations affecting a design is Atavaka (thanks @b-reis):

The PS2 model lacks the elephant head knee decor, various sashes, the spear tassel, and it’s hard to see but the rope carried by the downward pointing right first is also absent. But what did make it through is the distilled essence of Atavaka: his body. The basic anthropomorphic form is the most important element, followed by the symbolic armaments (minus the rope, hence being secondary); the rest is mere adornment.

But unlike Atavaka (who still has feet!), Soejima’s personas were originally designed for the PS2. The team had a lot of experience with PS2 limitations by then and surely, if Soejima wanted to, the personas could have been designed with feet. But that was neither the intent nor the priority. As the original quote from him says… wait, I didn’t actually translate the whole quote, which is really why I was joking about it. So here it is, roughly translated:

コノハナサクヤにかかととつま先がないからのは、常時空中に浮いているからです。宙に浮いているキャラクターは、完全な脚があるよりも、かかととつま先がないほどがビジュアル的に映えるとの理由からです。そしてもうひとつは、この造形が自分の好みだからでもあります。

Konohana Sakuya has no heels or toes because she’s always floating. Simply, floating characters, visually speaking, don’t require them. Another reason is that this modeling is to my liking!

It just seems to be Soejima’s stylistic preference. And sure, I do get that many personas do float (esp. in P4, the context of this quote) and the absence of feet does make them otherworldly. It fits. But apparently Soejima didn’t come to that conclusion until P4 since plenty of P3 personas still have feet (and float!), yes, even comically tiny, vestigial feet:

And yes, as some others have chimed in to say but to whom I have yet neglected to reply, P5 personas have feet! But many aren’t just floating, they are either on the ground or their feet are anchored to something, in the case of Kidd or Wukong.

Being fully aware of the context always helps, but here I don’t think you need to know the new designs before you can comment on his old, as the different games follow different design motifs and presentations:

Persona 3: Lots of feet, lots of stubs/skewers

Persona 4: Mostly stubs/skewers

Persona 5: Mostly feet

Despite all of this, I still think the P4 personas’ lack of feet is kinda funny. It feels like Soejima was grasping for a unifying theme for the personas but shot wide of the mark. Like, Chie’s Tomoe has big ol’ laced-up boots and still floats.

Really, the worst for me is seeing SMT demons like Satan replicating these ideas that usually don’t belong as part of the visual language that separates them from personas. Plus, from my perspective, making fun of Persona counts as “punching up.” It’s fun/cathartic and Persona/Soejima/Meguro/Hashino will come out of it completely unscathed! Total win-win.

#shigenori soejima #persona #feet #submission

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amplesalty · 3 years

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Halloween 2021 - Day 5 - The Invisible Ray (1936)

Doesn’t that just sound like a bad magician? “Ladies and gentlemen, introducing...The Invisible Ray!”

Ah, this takes me back. Back in year 0 of this horror marathon business, before this blog was a thing, it was kinda heavily skewed towards the ‘classic’ period; Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy..all that Universal 1930’s type stuff. Amongst that first run were a pair of films starring both KARLOFF and Bela Lugosi; The Black Cat and The Raven. I remember them both being quite good, both having this sort of rivalry between their two characters. The Black Cat moreso with a young couple caught in the middle of a heated feud between KARLOFF and Lugosi’s characters. Whereas The Raven has KARLOFF as more of a de-facto good guy as he plays a reluctant henchman to Lugosi’s character. Not that that level of power translated off screen, with Lugosi’s star beginning to fade but I remember reading something about KARLOFF insisting on some parity in pay between the two in one of their movies when the studio tried to lowball Lugosi so good on you, KARLOFF.

Neither have much to do with the Edgar Allan Poe stories they take their names from, outside of Lugosi’s character in The Raven having an obsession with Poe and adapting various means of torture from Poe stories. There have been plenty of Poe adaptations throughout the years but the other big uptick in them was in the 1960’s with a series of films directed by Roger Corman, often starring Vincent Price but with other big names sprinkled in like KARLOFF, Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. Plus a relatively early Jack Nicholson appearance in The Raven, which was shot at the same time as The Terror. That bloody bird!

So, yeah, it’s good to see one of these KARLOFF/Lugosi films again. Apparently there are eight films that featured both of them so I’ll be halfway there now on them. This also has Carl Laemmle Jr’s name attached, albeit in a minor way as he’s listed as ‘presenting’ the movie. I’m not sure if that ever means anything. It’s like when Tarantino ‘presents’ something, did he have any actual input on the film or was he just shining a light on something he personally liked because he has so much power and influence?

The movie’s foreword is an early indicator of the more science-fiction leaning nature of the movie which catches you off guard a little with the people involved and the timeframe we’re working in. Feels like the 50’s was more when the whole sci-fi thing took off. Also, since when was science a verb?

Certainly has the feel of that classic ‘old, dark house’ horror thing early on as we start with the Rukh household awaiting the arrival of some of Dr Janos Rukh’s (KARLOFF) peers who are to bear witness to his new discovery.

KARLOFF has clearly been eating his crusts to get curls like that, normally he’s a slicked back kind of guy. And it’s kinda weird seeing both of them with facial hair. Oddly though this is one of the rare times that Lugosi plays a good guy, this is a clear violation of the parallel universe protocol:

Normal universe – clean shaven – good guy Parallel universe – goatee – evil

This early version of Dr. Doom is a bit naff. Are you making a great scientific discovery here or doing a spot of welding?

Apparently Dr Rukh’s invention is a telescope that is able to see into the deepest reaches of space, but can also pick up on vibrations left by the events that have taken place and he can then project that as a moving image that shows an asteroid crashing to Earth millions of years ago that can help him pinpoint the crash site and allow him to discover new elements inside the asteroid...wait, what?! Is this like that time on CSI when they solved a murder by getting sound out of something someone made in pottery class because the grooves could be played like a vinyl?

We then pivot sharply into the great plains of Africa where our team have set off in search of what will become known as ‘Radium X’. Oh yes, I think that’s on the periodic table next to Hardtoobtainium. And I’m specifically trying to avoid animal cruelty by not watching Cannibal Holocaust, don’t come around here with your dead leopards and talk of how many rhinos you’ve shot. I must say I’m a little wary of this sudden introduction of all these natives carrying spears and wearing bone necklaces, I just don’t feel like I can trust a movie made in the 1930’s to be sensitive on it’s portrayal of other cultures.

Thought it does present us with the best actor in this picture, look at those bug eyes! He’s like Africa’s answer to Marty Feldman.

And that’s just his reaction to a piece of scanning equipment going off, him and his mates are definitely going to be worried when this white devil makes a demonstration of his new found Radium X and it’s ability to melt pure stone. Looks like a portajohn backing up...

He then promptly turns his cosmic ray gun on all the locals when they tell him they want to go home. Sure, you can leave, you’re not going to get very far though. Dude, there’s like 12 of you and he’s given some of you rifles. Just jump him when he’s asleep.

Dr. Rukh finds that evening that he’s suddenly turned an interesting shade of neon yellow and can be seen by anyone in a three mile radius so either this Radium X is highly poisonous or Rukh has been running in opposition to Vladimir Putin. This poisoning leaves him so irradiated that merely touching another living thing is enough to kill it. Dr. Benet (Lugosi) is able to make a serum for him but can never truly cure him, he must regularly take this serum or otherwise he will revert to this killing machine type state.

But, in his eagerness to not spread this poison to his wife, and his general upholding of the man code to never air ones medical problems, he generally acts a bit surly and tells her to piss off which see views as him not loving her anymore so he promptly shacks up with the young explorer type who came with them to Africa. Worse yet, Benet and crew have taken a sample of Radium X to show at a scientific conference in Paris. Between losing his missus and thinking that other people are taking all the credit for his work, Rukh is just slightly annoyed.

It’s not all bad though, he is able to use this new element to cure his mother’s blindness. I like how his first reaction upon learning that Radium X has irrecoverably changed his life, leaving him one missed injection away from imminent death, is to shoot it directly into his mother’s face.

“Patients won’t like being shot in the face.” “They’ll like what I tell them to like.”

Whilst sulking outside of the church that his ex is getting re-married in, he spots a series of statues of saintly figures and imagines them representing each of the 6 people on the African expedition, vowing to destroy each of them until only he is left. Marvelous invention this Radium X, it can melt statues and cure blindness. Do you have to put special filters on that ray gun of yours depending on the situation? That’s a malpractice suit waiting to happen if you mix those up.

Dr. Benet is a little suspicious when one of their party dies suddenly for no explainable reason so takes a few ultraviolet photos of the victims eyes in order to study. And wouldn’t you know what he finds?

Bullshit! Nevermind the ultraviolet camera, this is more like the dues ex machine camera. I know this is science fiction and all but what is this, 1936 or 2036? Or maybe they’re just able to make the most detailed contact lenses known to man.

Eventually, when Rukh finds himself unable bring himself to kill his former love, he is confronted by his mother who smashes the serum and condemns him to death as, going unchecked, the Radium X within him will destroy his body. Sensing the end coming, Dr. Rukh dives out of the nearest window and promptly erupts bursts into flames, now left as little but a pile of ash on a damp Paris street. It’s a shame really, dozens of people spontaneously combust every year, it’s just not widely reported.”

This one was okay, definitely a different vibe compared to other Universal stuff at the time with all the science fiction and Africa based stuff but it does still travel down that ‘descent into madness’ thing that they often fall back on and it’s always fun to see KARLOFF and Lugosi, especially when they’re together. But, if we’re strictly talking about the KARLOFF/Lugosi pairing, I’m definitely leaning towards one of their other outings like Black Cat, Raven or Son of Frankenstein. There’s just something not right about Lugosi playing some normal, if he’s not being unhinged then you’re not really getting what you came here for.

#Halloween 2021 #The invisible Ray #KARLOFF #Bela Lugosi

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spookyshake · 4 years

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*proceeds to do exactly everything but work on my pets* H-have some faeries and lore dump I had rotting in the cabinet

[Light Faerie - Justine] A stern light faerie who manages Faerieland's treasury. Rules and regulations are her creed, and she will not allow any misdeed under her watch.

Despite her uptight demeanor, she has a peculiar fondness for games of chance. She seems to have an unwavering confidence in the certainty of numbers- and the dice, once cast, are fair and absolute arbitrators in her eyes. Of course, it could just be that she's addicted to gambling. When there's no clear protocol for a situation, she opts to flip coins and leave it to luck and happenstance.

-Fwaku's life was saved by Justine, who had happened to be passing by the area. She decided to flip a coin to determine his fate- and as luck would have it, he would survive. -The townspeople that had found Fwaku suggested that Justine should give the draik a name. The exchange probably went something like this: Townspeople: Thank you great faerie!! Would you give the honor of naming this child you just saved????? Justine: (uh shit) Give me a moment. *furious dice rolling* Justine: I grant this child the name...F..W...Q...Fwaku. Townspeople: WOW!! WHAT AN HONOR!!

(What kind of name is Fwaku......)

-While Fwaku is generally irreverent and unlikable to most parties he comes across, he displays a great deal of respect towards Faeries because of his background. Justine, in her act of saving and naming Fwaku, also unwittingly left him with a strange blessing: he has extremely good luck to the point of absurdity, which has saved his skin from karmic retribution countless times in the past.

---

[Fire Faerie - Heliae] A go-getter fire faerie with a particularly strong affinity to her element. Still young for a faerie, she has trouble controlling her excessive energy and often bursts into flames when she's excited.

Fun-loving but a bit careless, she loves to attend concerts, festivals, and other events where crowds gather...a serious fire hazard waiting to happen. She doesn't seem to fully grasp the danger she poses to those around her, and was originally sequestered away in Faerieland before she decided to run away- as you do, when you're a young faerie whose had your freedom denied.

Very explosive. very explosive. very explosive.................................

---

[Earth Faerie - Lottie] A lax but cryptic earth faerie who appreciates tranquility. She wandered into Kiko Lake some long time ago, and has since stuck around trying to achieve what she calls 'perfect bliss.' Generally found quietly meditating and contemplating her surroundings- usually with sweets and a cup of borovan as accompaniment. Her perception of time seems to be a little out of sync with the world around her.

Though usually impassive and calm, she hates above else having her peace and quiet disturbed. She will, with a quiet but tremendous fury, catapult raucous intruders out the window. Her longest recorded throw was over a mile! So impressive is her throwing skill, that kiko children often dare one another to see who can get flung the farthest.

-Because the architecture around Kiko Lake are built with kikos in mind, it's not uncommon to see the faerie bump her head on the door frames and ceilings. Fortunately, there's also never a shortage of bandages in the vicinity.

[Dover] Brown Kiko. Ever since Lottie began living on their family land generations back, their crops have prospered- especially asparagus. Now, the family is in the Borovan business, exporting premium blends of chocolate and asparagus for which Kiko Lake is now famed.

Dover isn't the kiko's real name- that was the name of his great great grandfather, but Lottie doesn't seem to make a distinction. All of her little helper kikos are 'Dover' to her. His job is to run around fulfilling Lottie's errands, whether that be procuring snacks or chasing pesky kids out of her yard.

---

[Dark Faerie - Alluce] A vain dark faerie living near Neovia, known to kidnap Neopets to force into servitude. She periodically terrorizes the citizens of Neovia to spread her influence. She wants, above all, to be feared and revered! ...but her actual ambitions tend to be quite small and petty. Knowledgeable about mirrors and magic involving them.

Though she revels in garnering fear, she's rather full of fears and cares herself- the thought of the true horrors lurking within the depths of the Haunted Woods makes her quiver. All smoke and mirrors, no bite.

-Doesn't get along well with Clariote. Alluce can't maintain her high-and-mighty mistress of evil theatrics against Clari's general irreverence. ABSOLUTELY D I S R E S P E C T F U L

---

[Air Faerie - Nephele] A fickle air faerie scout with a light-hearted but arrogant demeanor. One of the faeries tasked by Justine to recover Faerieland's lost artifacts, which were scattered across the lands in the aftermath of the Faerie's Ruin. Holds a strong belief that Neopets are lesser beings, considering them to be incompetent without Faeries.

Rand (Faerie Tonu) and Bell's (Faerie Tuskaninny) supervisor. She usually leaves the Neopets to do all the dirty work and takes credit for their efforts, usually under the justification that Neopets 'owe' the Faeries anyways.

---

[Social Media Faerie - Papilla] A young faerie, rare in her time (Einse’s Future). Big-time celebrity and social media influencer, she loves travelling Neopia and blogging about her adventures (and promoting sponsored products.) Has a great love towards Neopets and lives life at her fullest interacting with them, but holds feelings of isolation due to being perhaps the last known faerie in Neopia. She’s invested in discovering why Faeries have all but disappeared in her time, and spends some of her time flitting across Neopia looking into the matter. She has a terrible sense of humor, and she sometimes has strange fits where she floods her social media with incomprehensible jokes and memes- terrorizing her followers’ feeds. She does all this in earnest, thinking her jokes are hilarious, but her fans generally think she’s just trolling and get a kick out of it. This creates a strange cycle of positive reinforcement as Papilla continues to get many reactions from her bad jokes, reinforcing her confidence in her humor. SOMEONE STOP THIS FAERIE

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

[The dynamic between Faeries and Neopets] Neopets aid Faeries, Faeries grant blessings. The dynamic between Neopets and Faeries is mutually beneficial, for the most part.

-Power of belief is essential to grant power to a Faerie's magic. Neopets, by helping Faeries on the premise that they will receive a reward or be granted a blessing, creates a transaction of belief. This is the premise of Faerie quests, which plays a vital role in powering the barrier that protects Neopia from wraiths (among other things.)

-Faeries are perhaps better defined as 'memetic' as opposed to 'elemental'- their magic is framed on a concept or idea, which relies on the belief/understanding/recognition of the themes surrounding the idea in question. The more wide-spread and strongly understood the idea, the greater the manifestation of a faerie's magic. (Motes, though simpler entities, also work on the same logic)

The basic elements, for example, are widely and easily understood as a concept- which may be why the majority of the faerie population falls in this category. (Something like a singular 'Fire' Faerie, for example, would probably be TOO POWERFUL AN IDEA to contain as a single being, so instead there's just a lot of them.)

-Names are very important, because they give shape to a concept or idea. -When they're cut-off from belief, they lose strength (Bottled Faeries) -They can shrink! Probably to conserve magic. -A Faerie without wings is essentially unheard of (with the special exception of Water Faeries). Taking away their wings is one of the most heinous things you can do to a Faerie. -Faeries are born spontaneously? Most of them just appear one day out of the ether or whatever. -They're ageless and nigh immortal

they're......the OG gijinkas <-- hold on this is actually somewhat relevant but that's a story for another time

[Shenkuu - A curious case study of Kaia, the Shenkuu Faerie] Kaia the Shenkuu Faerie appeared spontaneously in a relatively recent timeframe- probably within an average Neopian lifetime. She's a young faerie, younger than most of her kind. She's in the same category as Jhuidah and Taelia- faeries with a strong conceptual connection to the land they watch over.

There are no other (known) faeries in Shenkuu, which implies that the faerie population in Shenkuu is very low or...non-existent? At the very least, it can be said that Faeries are novel in Shenkuu, given that Kaia mentions how everyone stares at her. If we go a step further, we could postulate that Faeries, as a concept, isn't a part of common knowledge in Shenkuu as a whole.

Almost as if the concept of 'Faeries' have never existed here...?

-Shenkuu was a land that had barred itself from the outside world for an undetermined amount of time. The land only recently opened their doors to the rest of Neopia (Cyodrake's Gaze) (*in my lore I'm pinning that down to like 10~15 yrs ago for character reasons but passage of time in Neopia is not very well defined so.... shrugs) -It can be assumed that there was still some exchange occurring with the outside at a smaller scale (Airship merchants, travellers who ended up in or out of Shenkuu by happenstance, Neopians living in areas close to but not quite in Shenkuu proper, etc) -Assumably, Shenkuu has a history perhaps dating back to the heyday of Altador and other 'ancient' civilizations (1000+ years) -This creates a situation where: a. There never were faeries to begin with in Shenkuu or b. There used to be faeries, but they disappeared from Shenkuu AND from common knowledge

-Kaia's manifestation may have been the direct result of the opening of Shenkuu to Neopia- with the arrival of outside trade and ideas, so too did the knowledge of Faeries. Once the faerie 'meme' took hold in Shenkuu, where there was a void of Faeries, it took form as the Shenkuu Faerie: Kaia. This is why she's so young as a faerie- she probably spawned sometime between Cyodrake's Gaze and the present day. (Alternatively, she might have existed in Shenkuu before the events of Cyodrake's Gaze but I think it still holds that she popped up in a pretty recent timeframe.) Kaia herself only seems to know Faeries through the knowledge she received from travelers.

#◆Concepts #★NPC #◎Faeries #▶ Future #i am alive and definitely not posting from beyond the grave

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radishreader · 3 years

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In the last decades of the twentieth century, as the justice system was adopting a set of abrasive policies that would swell police from and fuel the prison boom, it was also leaving more and more policing responsibilities to citizens without a badge and a gun. What about the pawnshop owner who sold the gun? Isn't he partially responsible for the homicide? Or the absentee landlord who failed to screen his tenants? Didn't he play a role in creating the drug house? The police and courts increasingly answered yes. It was in this context that the nuisance property ordinance was born, allowing police departments to penalize landlords for the behavior of their tenants. Most properties were designated 'nuisances' because an excessive number of 911 calls were made within a certain timeframe. In Milwaukee, the threshold was three or more calls within a thirty-day period. The ordinances pushed property owners to 'abate the nuisance' or face fines, license revocation, property forfeiture, or even incarceration. Proponents argued that these new laws would save money and conserve valuable resources by enabling police departments to direct manpower to high-priority crimes.

In 2008 and 2009, the Milwaukee PD issued a nuisance property citation to residential property owners every thirty-three hours. The most popular nuisance activity was 'Trouble with Subjects,' a catchall designation applied to a wide variety of incidents, including people refusing to leave a residence and loud arguments. Noise complaints came second. The third most common nuisance activity was domestic violence. The number of domestic violence incidents--most of which involved physical abuse or a weapon--exceeded the total number of all other kinds of assaults, disorderly conduct charges, and drug-related crimes combined. One incident involved a woman having bleach thrown in her face. In another, a woman was "hit [on the] head with a can of food." Two involved the battering of pregnant women. Box cutters, knives, and guns were used. In one incident, "the caller stated that [her boyfriend] just sprayed her with lighter fluid and also set a piece of paper on fire."

Most nuisance citations were addressed to properties on the North Side. In white neighborhoods, only 1 in 41 properties that could have received a nuisance citation actually did receive one. In black neighborhoods, 1 in 16 eligible properties received a citation. A woman reporting domestic violence was far more likely to land her landlord a nuisance citation if she lived in the inner city.

In the vast majority of cases (83 percent), landlords who received a nuisance citation for domestic violence responded by either evicting the tenants or by threatening to evict them for future police calls. Sometimes, this meant evicting a couple, but most of the time landlords evicted women abused by men who did not live with them.

One landlord wrote to the Milwaukee PD: "This is one girl in one apartment who is having trouble with her boyfriend. She was a good tenant for a long time--until her boyfriend came around. Probably things are not going to change, so enclosed please find a copy of a notice terminating her tenancy served today." Another wrote: "I discussed the report with [my tenant]. . . . Her boyfriend had threatened her with bodily harm and was the reason for the [911] call. We agreed that he would not be allowed in the building, and she would be responsible for any damage to the building property and evicted if he returned to the property." Another wrote: "First, we are evicting Sheila M, the caller for help from police. She had been beaten by her 'man' who kicks in doors and goes to jail for 1 or 2 days. (Catch and release does not work.) We suggested she obtain a gun and kill him in self defense, but evidently she hasn't. Therefore we are evicting her."

Each of these landlords received the same form letter from the Milwaukee PD: "This notice serves to inform you that your written course of action is accepted."

The year the police called Sherrena, Wisconsin saw more than one victim per week murdered by a current or former romantic partner or relative. After the numbers were released, Milwaukee's chief of police appeared on the local news and puzzled over the fact that many victims had never contacted the police for help. A nightly news reporter summed up the chief's views: "He believes that if police were contacted more often, that victims would have the tools to prevent fatal situations from occurring in the future." What the chief failed to realize, or failed to reveal, was that his department's own rules presented battered women with a devil's bargain: keep quiet and face abuse or call the police and face eviction.

--Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016)

#matthew desmond #quotes #evicted #abuse #housing #police

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justanotherexpatinkorea · 3 years

Text

Racism is relative

4.13.21

STOP ASIAN HATE 아시안 혐오 멈춰라

It’s weird, being a white American in Asia. At a time when people of Asian descent are increasingly the targets of hate crimes in my home country of America.

I’m going on my third year living in South Korea. I’m a 외국인, a “foreigner.” I refer to myself as such in conversation, both in English and Korean. In an ethnically homogeneous country, my tall caucasian presence sticks out like a sore thumb. If anyone’s getting a sideways glance it’s me, the weird white person out of place in a sea of Koreans. And I’m fine with that. I made the decision to live here, and I enjoy doing so. Once I learned the rhythms of Korean life, I also learned that at the end of the day people are just people. No matter where you go.

The background of my daily life consists of Asian food, buildings, culture, language -- and Asian people. They’re the bus driver, grocery store cashier, bank teller, crossing guard, police officer, cook, convenience store clerk. And the list goes on. They’re just people. White, Asian, anything. We’re all just human beings trying to live in this world. Should be common sense. Common humanity. But apparently it’s not.

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

Korean Friend: I’ve actually never left Korea, but once COVID is over I want to travel abroad.

Me: Where would you go?

Korean Friend: Australia, New Zealand, the U.S…

Me: Um, please wait on that third one.

Korean Friend: Why?

Me: *sends links to news reports about the Atlanta spa shooting, increased reports of hate crimes against Asians in the U.S.*

Korean Friend: Oh…

That’s scary…

Me: I know...

Korean Friend: I’ll just stick to travelling around here.

In all seriousness, I could not tell him he would be safe travelling to the U.S. And that is shameful and embarrassing to admit. Sadly I’ve grown accustomed to that twinge in my gut, when certain topics arise in conversation with non-Americans.

In the U.S., Koreans and other people of Asian descent are being murdered and assaulted on the basis of their skin color. Fortunately Korea has rigorous gun control laws, so mass shootings aren’t an issue here. But just because people aren’t being killed by racists doesn’t mean racism doesn’t exist. As a culturally and ethnically homogenous country, Koreans take immense pride in their heritage. Often at the expense of others.

Foreigners who don’t know better often lump Asian countries together. They assume everyone in Asia eats sushi, bows when they greet you, etc. Korea, Japan, and China are probably lumped together the most often. I used to do it too. I didn’t know enough about any one place to differentiate them in any meaningful way. But I do now.

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

For starters, there’s quite a bit of tension between the countries. Korea’s biggest beef is with Japan. A lot of Koreans have animosity towards Japan for their refusal to fully admit and apologize over the comfort women issue. (“Comfort women” were Korean women and girls forced into sex slavery by the Japanese army during WWII.) And I can’t blame them; there’s a lot of dark, horrible history there. A couple years ago, Korea enacted a boycott on Japan (for alleged economic and trade reasons I won’t get into here). There were stickers emblazoned with “No Japan!” slapped on just about everything. When I taught the “Where are you from?” chapter in my English class, students were blurting it out -- “No Japan!” As if anyone from Japan should simply be shouted down with a “No!” That’s where I started to get uncomfortable.

As for China, Koreans also have some problems there. For starters, air pollution. China does produce a lot of air pollution that gets blown over the Korean peninsula. But on an average day, it’s only about 50%. Yet many Koreans will mumble and complain about the dirty Chinese factories clogging up the skies, forgetting to mention the other half that’s made by Korea itself. Another factor is tourism (in pre-COVID, days anyways). Some Koreans complain about the loud, noisy, dirty Chinese tourists. Add the coronavirus to an equation already based on stereotypes of uncleanliness and -- I’m getting uncomfortable again.

Yeah, Japan committed war crimes. Yeah, the coronavirus started in China. I’m not going to deny the facts. But I do have a problem with the attitudes of discrimination that it breeds.

Which brings me to another point that makes me uncomfortable. This time in a laughable and darkly ironic sort of way.

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

Last month, three of the eight provinces in Korea issued administrative orders stating that foreign workers must get tested for COVID within a two week timeframe. This was in response to a handful of outbreaks of factories that employ largely migrant workers. The order targeted foreign laborers from China, Thailand, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, and other similar countries. However, it did not require Koreans working at the exact same facilities to get tested. We all know too well that the coronavirus does not discriminate, and will infect anyone.

The government faced a lot of backlash, and the policy was downgraded to a “recommendation.” But one thing was made clear. Foreigners were being singled out as the “carriers'' of coronavirus. We were the threat.

I say “we” here, but I mean it in an oblique way. In terms of my legal status in Korea, I have more in common with a Southeast Asian migrant worker than my Korean colleagues. I speak pretty good Korean, but not a lick of Thai or Vietnamese. But cultural competence doesn’t matter here. Our “foreign-ness” is the factor at play.

I would like to add that overall, my foreign-ness is different. I’m white. And unfortunately that’s still a point in my favor. Whiteness and lightness is still seen as preferable. (One of my 6th grade students: “Teacher! Your skin is so white. So beautiful. Not me. I’m too dark. I want to be more light.” My heart shattered into a million pieces, as I tried to tell her she was already beautiful the way she was.)

One of the ways it has affected me is the questions I get asked at work. Take this one from last May, directed exclusively at foreign English teachers: “Where did you go last weekend? Were you or anyone you know in Itaewon?” (Itaewon is the foreigner district in Seoul, where a large coronavirus outbreak occurred. Funny enough patient zero was not a foreigner - they were Korean.) This may seem like a harmless line of questioning. My phsyical saftey and well-being were in no way in danger. But again the underlying assumption is that foreign = dangerous.

Ironically, Asians are being targeted in the U.S. while foreigners are being targeted in Asia. But I suppose it’s not really that ironic after all. This is nothing new. History shows again and again, that it’s often our nature to blame and shun that which is different and foreign. This is not unique to the U.S. It’s an issue unique to the human condition.

Racism exists. It exists everywhere. Especially in the era of COVID. No one is immune. I mean, look at me. I grew up in a church that taught me to maintain the purity of the races, and that interracial marriage was a sin. I’m sure glad I’ve gotten rid of that one. But that was a learned belief. Racism is learned. We must commit to actively un-learning it too.

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ancientechos · 4 years

Text

The Island Adventure [P1?]

For @meepsthemiqo ‘s Castaway WoL AU!

Mentions of @windup-dragoon

Brigid & Lyra ♡ 1016 words ♡ no spoilers/indeterminate timeframe

“Mama! Mama?! Mama!”

Alarm causes the viera’s blood to seize into ice as she bolts up. The small hands shaking at her shoulder vanish as the girl peering above her scoots back to avoid collision. Brigid tastes sand when she opens her mouth to speak; turning to the side, she coughs violently, spitting out grit. Grimacing, she turns back to stare at the pale-haired girl sitting in the sand next to her. Sand...?

Brigid can’t remember anything past the pounding in her head. But she’s certain that this isn’t where they’re supposed to be...or what they’re supposed to be doing. Her daughter’s face has a sizable, dark bruise on her cheek, and her clothes are dark from water, but, strangely, relatively dry. Just how long have they been like this?

“Lyra.” She lifts a sand-blotted hand to touch against the girl’s face. Lyra’s reddish, almost pink-hued eyes, well up with tears.

“Mama,” she sobs, throwing herself into the woman’s arms. “I was afraid you weren’t gonna wake up...”

Brigid’s arms close tightly around the girl, pulling her into her lap. A pang of guilt stabs deeply at her chest, though the expression doesn’t manage to surface on her face. Instead, she presses her mouth to the top of the girl’s flaxen hair in a gentle kiss.

“I’m sorry. I’m all right. You don’t...you don’t need to worry about me.” For some reason, it’s difficult to get the words out. Too difficult. Her tongue feels too large for her mouth. It’s -- it’s hot. She must be thirsty. And while there is certainly plenty of water within reach now...she is all too aware that it isn’t drinkable. If she just had her pack...but right now she needs to focus on Lyra. The girl is still sobbing, rubbing her tearful eyes against Brigid’s torn shirt.

“A-at first I was o-okay,” she mumbles, wrapping her arms tight around Brigid’s middle. “I-I even made a f-friend!” The woman’s jaw clenches with this new revelation, though for the moment she refrains from asking. It appears, however, that there was never any need -- Lyra lifts her head and twists slightly in her arms to point somewhere to the left.

Looking up, her heart sinking into her stomach, Brigid squints against the beaming sun to look where she had been bade. Sitting upon a rock in the sand is...some sort of...small bird? It peers at her with large black eyes, ruffling its multicoloured feathers with a squeak. Though mostly green, it also sports black, red, and blue plumage -- most notably its red neck and blue crown.

She has to resist the urge to sigh in relief. At least it isn’t some sort of godsforsaken creature. -- Or so it appears.

“But then...then a long time passed...and I couldn’t find anyone...and then I got scared of leaving you, b-because you didn’t wake up...” The girl breaks off into sobs again as she presses her face against her. Brigid rubs a hand soothingly up and down her back, smoothing her rumpled shirt as she does so.

“But I’m all right now,” Brigid rasps gently. “We’re both okay. Right?” The viera girl looks up at her with large eyes and nods. “Do you know how long we’ve been here?”

“No...but it feels like hours and hours.”

Of course. With a final groan, Brigid heaves to her feet, lifting Lyra with her, before settling her down once more. To her vague amazement, the bird flutters up from its rock to perch upon her shoulder. Well then.

“You said you couldn’t find others...there were...others?” Brigid asks, as she inconspicuously pats herself down, squinting across the sand for...anything. Her pack, her tools, her weapon -- anything she might be able to use.

“You don’t remember?” Lyra asks, stumbling back a little as she watches her. “We were on the ship...we were supposed to be having fun. And then...then something happened...and Kirishimi told us all to jump off...it was scary...”

She can’t remember -- any of this. Brigid feels as if a large chunk of her mind had simply been scooped out and done away with. The sensation is -- disconcerting. She suspects the pounding in her head has something to do with it.

Frowning severely, the woman gives nothing more than a nod as she continues surveying her surroundings. Suddenly, among the wreckage of wooden crates and waves, she sees something glinting.

There’s fruits, she notes, as she approaches. Seawater-soaked, but perhaps better than nothing. She hopes. But more importantly...there’s an axe. While it is most certainly not her axe, it is an axe, and for her purposes, it will be enough. Picking it up with a grunt, she swings it up to heft it onto her shoulder. She grips Lyra’s hand with her free one.

Things would be different if...she weren’t here. The girl is a liability, no matter how much she adores her. And --

“Lyra.” Her name grinds out between her teeth as she looks down at the young viera. One of her ankles is swollen -- rather nastily. “Your ankle -- “

“Oh, this? It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt too bad. I was walking around just fine.” The smile her daughter gives her is far too bright for the circumstances. Brigid wants to curse herself for not noticing sooner.

“No,” she snaps, dropping both her hand and tossing the axe into the sand. She scoops the girl up bringing her onto dry land, and sets her down. Kneeling, she gently touches the injured limb with her fingers. Though Lyra doesn’t make a sound, Brigid doesn’t miss the way her lips scrunch. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it doesn’t hurt!” The girl is now absolutely glaring at her. “I was walking around just fine earlier! It doesn’t hurt at all!”

The older viera closes her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose as she exhales loudly. She has no idea where she is...or where anyone else is. And, as her luck would have it, Lyra is injured.

-- They’d need to find help.

But first thing’s first.

“Did you eat anything while I was...out?”

“Yeah! The birdie showed me some pretty berries.”

“Of course...”

#final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #wol #viera #castaway warriors #brigid nystrom #brigid #lyra nystrom #lyra #w: the oathkeeper #fanfic #my writing #other verses #castaway au #mine #is this a part 1? probably #the bird is a rednecked tanager

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mandowh0re · 5 years

Text

Baby For a Week

Day 2 Part 2

Fandom: Avengers MCU

Summary: Loki decides it would be funny to turn Peter into a two year old, thrusting Tony into the life of an actual parent for a week. Is he ready?

Word Count: 1383

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, angst

A/N: I’m,,, updating??? HI GUYS! Also, I made Stucky a thing in this. Sorry not sorry.

Happy Reading!

Part 1.1/ Part 1.2/ Part 2.1/ Part 2.2

It was a relatively quiet evening after May left. Peter went down for a nap on his own and Tony took him and placed him in the crib along with the Iron Man plushie and puppy.

Deciding takeout would be a good idea after everyone tired themselves out playing with Peter, Tony ordered Chinese food to the Compound.

“So, how’s dad life treating you?” Natasha asked, before popping a piece of orange chicken in her mouth.

Tony shot her a glare, “I’m not-”

“Oh for the love of God!” Bucky slammed his flesh hand down on the table, “If I hear you say you’re not the kid’s dad one more time I’ll slap Steve,” he jerked his thumb to the man next to him.

“Um excuse me, don’t bring me into this!” Steve’s hands flew up.

Bucky ignored his boyfriend’s protest, “You literally walk, talk, and act like Pete’s dad twenty-four-seven. I’m pretty fucking sure the only person who doesn’t realize that is you.”

Steve quickly slapped Bucky upside the head at the same time Natasha kicked him under the table and Sam scream whispered, “Dude!”

Tony blinked a few times before his brain caught up with him.

“What did you just say?”

Bucky’s eyes got wide and they shot around the table.

“I no longer feel safe in this environment.” he said as he slumped in his seat.

“Oh now you’re intuition works.” Natasha hissed.

“Barnes,” Tony said, “What did you mean by that?”

It was silent for a few seconds before Bucky rolled his eyes and sat back up, “Well there’s no point in hiding it now!”

“It’s not your secret to tell, Buck.”

“I’ll get murdered either way. I’d rather get murdered by the spider.”

“You’re gonna make the kid cry.”

“He made us promise, Barnes.”

“Hey!” Tony yelled, getting everyone’s attention, “I’d like to know what secret my supposed spider child is keeping from me. So if you be so kind as to enlighten me,” he raised a brow.

Before anyone could stop him, Bucky blurted, “Petercallsyoudadwhenyouarentaroundto-.”

Tony choked on his spit at the same time Steve tackled Bucky to the ground..

“That’s a bold faced lie,” He said, but with such uncertainty that is came out painfully wavered.

His eyes flickered to Bruce, who just shrugged.

“FRIDAY?”

“Sergeant Barnes is telling the truth. I could not tell you because Peter convinced me not to.”

There were so many things swirling in Tony’s head right now.

How long had this been going on? Was it an accident at first? He really hasn’t fucked up with Peter? How had the kid manipulated Tony’s own AI to withhold information?

So he just avoided it altogether.

Turning to Barnes he said, “Can I at least say it one more time for the satisfaction of seeing Rogers get slapped?”

The look on Bucky’s face was pure evil.

***

That night, Tony was woken up by Peter screaming his lungs out.

Pepper had left on a business trip earlier in the evening to China, so he was left to his own devices.

Looking over the paper May had given him, she listed a few reasons as to why Peter may throw a tantrum.

Ear infection

Sick

Overly tired

Frustrated

Peter had an enhanced healing factor that made it damn near impossible for him to get sick, and he was sleeping. So all of those possibilities flew right out the window.

Tony had been bouncing the boy and cooing at him for the last ten minutes but nothing even caused Peter to let up on the screaming. And because he was screaming, he couldn’t communicate to Tony what was wrong.

“FRIDAY, can you scan him to see if there’s anything wrong that I’m missing?”

“I have already done so three times, boss. I cannot find anything physically wrong with him. Perhaps you should call Bruce up to look at him.”

“Right, right, okay. Can you have Bruce meet me in the med bay?”

“Will do.”

Tony grabbed puppy and the iron man plushie that the kid now called “kitty”, which the others made fun of Tony endlessly for.

“I don’t see him clutching to a stuffed version of any of you shit heads.”

When he got to the med bay, Bruce was already there in his pajamas with a white lab coat on.

The screaming child in Tony’s arms made him wince, “Mam, FRIDAY wasn’t messing around.”

“Does she ever?” Tony asked as he walked over to the bed.

“Yeah, if you ask her to.”

“One time. That was one time and you all basically grounded me.”

Just as Tony went to set Peter on the bed, the screaming got impossibly louder and Peter latched onto Tony with his spider powers.

“Well shit.”

“Just sit on the bed and put him on your lap. He should be fine there.”

After an extensive check, Bruce finally concluded that there really was nothing wrong with Peter. Luckily, by the time he was finished, Peter had calmed down to the point of hiccups and sniffles.

“Peter,” Bruce spoke quietly, “Can you tell us what’s wrong?”

Peter clutched the stuffed toys tighter and looked up at Tony, his chubby cheeks red and stained with tear tracks.

Tony ran a hand through the boy’s curls and carefully wiped a stray tear away, “It’s okay buddy. You can tell us.”

Peter looked between tony and Bruce a few more times before settling into Tony’s lap.

“Bird.”

Wait what?

“What do you mean, bud?”

“Mean bird. Big a-and gween eyes. Hurt.”

“Peter, there aren’t any birds in the building,” Bruce tried to explain, but Peter shook his head violently.

“Drop me in water! Th-then big house fell down n I not move and nobody help!” Peter was beginning to hyperventilate.

“He’s talking about Vulture. Toomes. I think. I’m not sure what he means about the house though.” Tony told Bruce.

“So a nightmare.” Bruce stated.

“I thought he only remembered us and his powers. No events.”

Bruce shrugged, “Maybe he has memories of things in his sleep. It’s Loki. And it’s magic. Honestly, we have no way to control or predict anything from here. We just gotta play it by ear.”

“Wonderful,” Tony groaned, “Hey Pete. The big mean bird is gone, he isn’t gonna hurt you. It was just a dream. I promise you’re safe.”

Peter only whimpered in response, but Tony took that as an okay to take him back up to the penthouse.

“Sorry for waking you, Brucie.”

“Never a problem for Peter.”

“I see where I stand.”

“Against the world’s cutest kid? Yeah, you do.”

Tony chuckled but headed back to the elevator.

When he finally got Peter to fall back to sleep, Tony snuck out to the living room of his penthouse.

“FRIDAY, I wanna know what Peter meant by what he said earlier. Look for any collapsed buildings in New York City in the timeframe from when he first told Happy about Toomes to the night Toomes was arrested.”

“I have found five collapsed buildings reported within those constrictions.”

“How many are still open cases or listed as suspicious or unsolved?”

“Two.”

“How did each one fall?”

“One building was an old abandoned apartment that burned to the ground. No arrest has been made in the case, but it appears to be arson. The other was an abandoned parking garage, collapsed from possible structural integrity. No arrest has been made, but it happened the night of the plane crash. The call to emergency operators came in about twenty minutes before your plane crashed.”

Tony physically felt his heart drop into his stomach.

“Were there any security cameras around that night?”

A shop across the street had a camera with the garage partially in its frame. I’m pulling it up now.”

A video feed came over the tv screen that had a partial shot of the street, including the parking garage.

A few seconds played before a red streak flew through the frame.

“Stop. Rewind. Play that frame by frame and enhance the video.”

FRIDAY did as requested, and there on the screen was Peter, in his old homemade spiderman suit, swinging towards the garage.

Tony felt his heart beginning to beat faster. Faster than it should.

He watched patiently for another three minutes, before the structure collapsed.

***

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Strikethru means I cant tag you

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hnd1bphoto-geraldmcmillan · 4 years

Text

Personal Project - An Overview (of sorts)

While I had finally decided to dedicate my project to a theme of “Still Life: Historical Perspectives”, as detailed in my approach essay, this decision had not been arrived at easily. My essay also discussed another theme that had interested me, “Suburban Eerie”, as I had described it, as it alluded to the narrative-driven and somewhat surreal images of Gregory Crewdson, mainly.

When the coronavirus restrictions and lockdown put paid to any meaningful progress for my Still Life theme, I was left wondering, but not too much, about alternative possibilities. There was some confusion about what would and what would not be needed to continue to engage with the curriculum and indeed the course content. I was grateful for the efforts of Laura Liebnitz and then Iain Campbell for the regular Zoom meetings they co-ordinated that inspired, educated and entertained when no regular classes could be held. I discussed with Iain a possible fall-back option for my graded unit that meant I could attempt some kind of “Suburban Eerie” as an alternative to my original planned theme.

Gregory Crewdson’s images are really easy to find on the web using Google or Bing search engines. One from his “Twilight” series I tentatively thought I would be able to reasonably easily emulate is shown below

I had no doubts that it would be more complicated than it initially appeared, but I really liked the tension and mystery of this photograph. The twilight setting and the dramatic lighting lend a really strong cinematic effect overall. Plus it could be shot in the garden - lockdown restrictions?- what lockdown restrictions?

Basically I had 3 weeks to complete my Personal Project - from nailing-down nebulous thoughts and ideas I had toyed with previously, deciding about what subjects and themes I would like photograph, and how, and what resources that I would need. The “where” was not a problem – chez moi, house, garden and garage, plus I already had in mind a quite photogenic patio area and driveway of my downstairs neighbour.

I recognised that I most probably had a lot more scope than the majority of my fellow students given the lockdown restrictions, plus I wasn’t starting from scratch as far as an idea of theme was concerned. What I didn’t have was much equipment. I had ordered a Neo II light from Wex UK online shop – if the online shop option hadn’t been available, then I don’t believe I could have continued with the graded unit. However the Neo II light was out of stock. I “lost” almost a week waiting for this to become available. The time was not actually lost – OK, I wasn’t shooting, but I carried out more research and a few recce shots of emulated Crewdson-type set-ups.

I also planned what other type of shots and where I wanted to shoot, from what direction and what poses I wanted from my models (my wife and step-daughter – to whom I’m currently about a million points in deficit brownie-points). I quickly realised that one single Neo II light was not going to be sufficient (unsurprisingly, with hindsight) for my lighting needs for the shots I wanted. The researched photo study shown below for a “relatively simple” indoor shot of Crewdson was a bit of a blow to my new-found optimism.

(photo courtsey of https://alecsothblog.wordpress.com/category/ aesthetics/ )

After carrying out further research of WEX website, I decided to hire 2 sets of Rotolights (Neo 3-light and Aeos 2-light kits) from WEX Rental. I considered that the two lighting kits would cover all eventualities. I hadn’t used either the Neo II or the Aeos lights previously, but I watched Youtube videos of photographers using Rotolights, and I felt that the hired kits would allow me to create the atmospheric light conditions I wanted to achieve. I also felt I would be able to combine some of the disciplines I learned from earlier studio lighting work, and also the location work I undertook earlier this year as part of my Artisan video shoot where I used College resource LED lighting and colour gels to achieve what I felt was a well-lit set-up.

A fellow student (Julie Balfour Ferguson) had suggested that WEX might offer a “try-before-you-buy” scheme, so I was very grateful to have been given that “heads-up” which allowed me to resolve my resources issue.

The time frame became very compressed. I could only hire the two Rotolight kit sets for a limited time – 5 nights from 15th-19th May inclusive. This would leave left me 8 days to complete post-production editing and optimisation of selected images, plus write-ups of my Workbook and Evaluation for submission.

Images I wanted to “emulate” included those below:

I had to experiment quite a bit with my hired Rotolights to try to re-create the effect I wanted. However I didn’t want just to emulate Crewdson’s work, I wanted to develop some compositions of my own as well. This again took quite a bit of experimentation with my lights.

The actual shooting went quite well; above all I was really lucky with dry and temperate weather for my outdoor shots. My models were patient for the most part, well sometimes, anyway, but the most important thing is that nobody got hurt. I ended up having to shoot quite late in some evenings, so that wasn’t ideal. Also when shooting in the downstairs neighbour’s driveway, the illumination of the 5 Rotolights being used attracted the attention of a police helicopter and we got circled at close quarters 3 times.

Results are shown below, maybe starting with some of the patio shots using the above lighting set-up:

I also got another couple of extra shots of different set-ups for submission in case I needed more diversity:

I definitely think I would not choose to work under quite so much time pressure again. It’s good to be efficient, of course, but I was on a learning curve for example with the hired Rotolights and I can’t be 100% certain I got the very best out of their capabilities. That said I can’t say I am unhappy with the shots I did finally achieved and selected.

The positives I’m taking out of this Project are:-

· personal satisfaction at being able to tackle a project that really interests me

· buckling down and working hard to deliver said projects within a tight timeframe

· solving problems of resources and equipment

· being able to call on skills I’d previously learned in the course, e.g. use of LED lighting when shooting my Artisan video, also post-production optimisation of deliberately under-exposed shots such as for my Recycle submission

· networking with fellow students for advice and suggestions (especially JBF for me personally – but there was a good internal support network for HND 1B among the majority of students)

· that the money I spent on PHLEARN.com subscription finally yielded some payback

My Photoshop skills still leave a lot to be desired, so I need to work more on that, but I feel I have come a good way forward in recent weeks in this respect.

I am still a bit breathless from the shoot and post production and write-ups. When my pulse and blood pressure drop down a bit to near humanly acceptable levels, I’ll revisit my images again and re-consider what I might have done better, I’m sure.

It was actually a quite intense period, but with a bit of planning, drive and determination, I think I’ve delivered a not-too-shabby effort under the circumstances.

#personalproject

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gloomverse-theories · 4 years

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Who killed the lawn?

Ah, strolling through the presidential lawn!!!!

It’s a beautiful day outside. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming... on days like these, lawns like you...

Seem to have been burning in hell.

(All page references: Locks chapter unless otherwise specified.)

Now, now, I hear you say, “but mod Xela!! It’s pretty obvious that CQ just forgot to recolor the lawn for autumn on the first page!”

And you would be right.

Now introducing Doylist vs Watsonian perspectives. (For a more in-depth explanation, you can check out our #references tag, or the TV Tropes article called Watsonian vs Doylist.)

To keep it short.

Doylist: The real-life, author’s reason explanation. Watsonian: The in-story reason.

They are both valuable and useful for different things! And for our purpose we are going to focus on finding a watsonian explanation, so in-story. Also, it’s going to be a silly one, so don’t take me too seriously.

Why? Fun, that’s why. Scroll all the way down for the tldr, it’s bolded.

So what do we have here? A pristine, flowering lawn. And then... disaster. It’s all yellowed and dried up. Even the trees have started to brown!

First we will start to look for three things: the timeframe of the murder, the murder weapon, and the murderer.

So. First off. Did Fall happen in the time between Ylil waking up and Yma sitting on the lawn? How much time are we working with here?

Ylil states that talking to Gloomversians is “orders for the day”, so it’s got to be the same day we started with.

Ylil takes a little bit of time to wake up. Let’s say a couple minutes. Then she talks with Yma— hard to say for how long exactly, but we can reasonably round it to ten minutes. Then, Yma leaves, and walks around the building until she meets with Indigo— she was still thinking about her sister, so maybe another three minutes. Her conversation with Indigo is pretty short, let’s give another five minutes for Red and Blue to interrupt.

Of course, this is all arbitrary— all we need is a general scale.

So we get: 2 + 10 + 3 + 5 = 20 minutes... then we have a blank between Red’s murder attempt and the girls calmly sitting under a tree. We know it can’t have been TOO long, since it’s not evening yet.

The time is around noon, since there’s a vertical-looking shadow. (That could also imply Prisma’s relatively close to the planet’s equator..? Hard to say.)

We also know Blue had time to buy a Red Drink before sitting down. There’s a distributor in the building— in the rec room actually! And Cocos did the same for Virga, and they sat under what appears to be the same tree afterwards, too. This must be a popular, close-by spot.

We don’t know how long Red took to calm down or if there were other shenanigans, but introducing each other properly, buying the drink and sitting under the tree would probably take at least 10 minutes. So we have a 30 + x minutes timeframe. Hm. It gives us a minimum, but the blank makes it not very useful.

Considering the last time the victim was seen alive and well was when the Judge of Inverse woke up— and considering not only Yma, but also Blue and Red, two regular people, probably woke up around or even before then— it was probably mid to late morning. 8 am at the earliest, and about 11 at the latest. When the victim was found dead, it was around 12 pm—let’s say 11 am to 1pm.

That makes the maximum amount of time to kill the victim (yes, yes, it’s still the lawn), five hours. Averaging the events’ time we get 9:30 to 12— a more likely two and a half hours. So we have the timeframe:

The murder was committed between 8 and 11 (average: 9:30 am), and discovered between 11 and 1pm (average: 12pm).

Now, the murder weapon. How do you destroy a lawn in a handful of hours? The sun can’t have done that on its own!

Let’s see... the most obvious answer is that weedkiller was used— they notably cause yellowing of plants, and fast. It would need to be spread over the whole lawn, but we will see such details later. Would it work in a matter of hours?

In our world, the answer is yes, some weed killers (”Roundup 5107300 Extended Control Grass & Weed Killer”, “Spectracide Grass & Weed Killer Concentrate 2″ if you want names) advertise giving results within about 3 hours. That’s within our maximum timeframe! A likely murder weapon. Furthermore, strong sunlight makes weedkiller act faster.

Also Gloomverse is a magic country where a sole magician can make huge bitey plants in a matter of seconds, so we can reasonably assume that they would have potent magic-made weedkiller available, perhaps even capable of acting in minutes.

The murder weapon was most likely fast acting weed killer.

So, we have a timeframe, and we have a weapon. Now... we need a murderer and their mobile. Who are our suspects? Who was on the scene???

We see nobody but Ylil, Yma, Indigo, Red and Blue in this chapter, so they will be our primary suspects.

- Ylil is MIA after the first twenty minutes, and if I was her I would just go back to bed, but she could technically go out and kill the lawn while no one’s looking. We lack a mobile, though— in fact we have a negative mobile for her: through precise on-the-spot knowledge, she showed interest in plants in the Date. It’s not proof she likes plants, but considering she shares the flower name theme with Petunia, we can reasonably assume she doesn’t hate them. So let’s assume she is innocent for now.

- Red and Blue are MIA during those first twenty minutes, but considering Red made a beeline for Indigo, it is unlikely they randomly committed an additional murder before attempting that one. So... this could only have been done by them during the missing time shenanigans.

- Indigo is a known chaotic factor, but he was sleeping and accounted for up until Red’s murder attempt, and still with them at noon looking like a sad puppy, so we can assume he did not leave Red, Blue and Yma’s sight to commit this murder. Which means they are either accomplices, or he is innocent.

- Yma couldn’t have done anything for the first twenty minutes either, but she is free during the x timeframe and assumed to have been witness to the other suspects’ shenanigans, which could be as long as a couple hours, depending on what Blue means by the “all that” she is sorry for.

Wait. All that? So... many things happened that we didn’t see... suspicious.

After examining suspect alibis, it appears the specific timeframe during which the murder could have been committed could only be the blank time after Blue separated Red and Indigo, so after 8:20 at the earliest, and 9:50 on our averaged time.

We can therefore place Indigo, Red, Blue and Yma on the scene...

We know very little about this mystery timeframe, beyond that it was likely at least 10 minutes long. However, Blue bought a drink! She would only do so once the crisis was behind them, and we saw a distributor in the same room Red attacked Indigo in! Which means...

Indigo, Red, Blue and Yma stayed in the rec room up until they came out of the building to sit under the tree.

So then... did they kill the lawn before sitting down? Why would they spray weedkiller before sitting down in the same grass? No... the truth can only be much more insidious...

If Indigo, Yma, Red and Blue have been innocented... we only have one primary suspect left...

Ylil.

But why? Why would she commit such a heinous crime??? We already went over her lack of motive for it. What factors have we not considered? Who else is here?

While the building looks empty, and it seems that this is still the weekend (considering the date was Friday evening and Ylil apparently slept in, though since Indigo went to work the previous night this could be Sunday rather than Saturday). Shaman Cocos and the Ecoversians she brought here should be here...

But they wouldn’t spread weedkiller, that could damage their hair! In fact, weedkiller could probably make them sick, if not kill them—

Wait

Could it be... all along the lawn was not the intended victim?

Could it be....... attempted human murder?

GASP... Ylil did mention concerns of assassination during the Date... and we HAVE seen Shaman Cocos hanging out and even sitting in this grass.

So we now have a motive for the culprit... Murdering Shaman Cocos. But we still don’t have a murderer, because Ylil needs Cocos for information right now. She would have no reason to try and kill her now. Yma, Indigo, Blue and Red have no reason to kill her, either...

So there is someone else, someone unseen, who had to have acted between Ylil waking up and this little color gang leaving the building— otherwise they would have been seen. The timeframe for this is likely about half an hour... Who could have spread fast acting weedkiller over the whole lawn (and perhaps even the trees) in half an hour? Who is confirmed to be around?

Cirrus and Purple’s book do both show Stratoversians don’t like Ecoversians. That could cover the motive. A Stratoversian could also use weather magic to spread weedkiller— the wind could even explain why event he trees yellowed!

But... Virga, Nim and Cirrus all left the premises... Who—

(The New Job)

“Weather Gods”. Gloomversians at large seem aware that Some People has the ability to control weather, though they don’t usually know their nature. We also know there are squads of Stratoversians hanging out in or around Gloomverse, out of sight— because Virga heard about the magic show through her troops.

(Yes, I am implying Rylie flipped off random Stratoversians here. I’m not the first one saying it.)

So there we have it.

We have largely innocented Yma, Ylil, Indigo, Blue, and Red. The murderer of the lawn is a Stratoversian who spread weed killer with weather magic between Ylil waking up and the four stepping outside on the lawn. The grass and the trees have both decayed because they used wind to spread it faster and overshot a little. The intended victim of the crime would be the Ecoversian delegation, as they have plant hair that could be affected negatively by weed killer.

#gloomversetheories #gloomverse #theories #mod xela #sillizone

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will242424 · 4 years

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Baseball Analytics Savant Is “Wired to Look at the Numbers”

Nicholas Fichtner is an Endicott senior whose goal is to work in an MLB front office. Fichtner grew up as a huge sports fan who was instantly fascinated with the numerical and statistical aspects of games. He developed an interest in analytics as he’s reached young adulthood.

Given that sports analytics is a relatively new field, there are very few ways to formally study it as a major. That hasn’t stopped Fichtner, however, who has embraced blazing a unique path for himself on the way to fulfilling his dreams. In this vein, he has designed several independent studies for himself to supplement the Endicott curriculum with skills he has identified as important.

Fichtner stands out as a free-thinker, and he is proud of it. He knows what is best for him and doesn’t care that his approach is uncommon. Fichtner has strong opinions on everything from a pitcher’s arm slot on a curveball to coding in advanced programming languages. His blend of old-school scouting knowledge coupled with a hunger for new-school sabermetrics is a strong foundation for a promising future.

Fichtner owns his own blog, Launch Angle, and is very active on Twitter, commenting on all things baseball. He has recently blogged about historical Hall-of Fame snubs, using copious statistics to make his case. His determination is evident by the steps he has taken to advocate for himself, and the significant thought he puts into what it will take to have a prosperous and enjoyable career.

What is your academic background?

I’m a finance major, minoring in economics. I switched my major twice. I was sports management my first semester freshman year, and it wasn’t for me. I went to accounting the second semester of my freshman year into the start of my sophomore year. It was good, but I wanted something a bit more challenging quantitatively, so I decided to switch into finance with a minor in applied math. I realized I wouldn’t be able to finish those minor requirements in time to graduate. I really wanted to graduate with a minor, so I switched my minor to economics because I had already taken some economics courses, so I’d have enough time to complete it. I’ve done five independent studies around coding, economics, data analytics…

What about sports management attracted you in the first place? What developments led you to conclude that it wasn’t for you?

I’m big on data analytics in sports, I love sports in general. When I first applied to Endicott, I said to myself, “I want to work in sports one day.” When they put me in the “bucket” of sports management. It wasn’t for me because I didn’t feel like it was challenging enough. I needed to expand my quantitative skills if I want to get to where I want to be in my professional career. I took financial accounting my freshman year, it was one of my core classes for sport management. I did really well in that class, and the professor was great. I told Dean Page I wanted to switch to accounting, and that was the end of that. Accounting is great, but it’s designed for preparation for the CPA Exam and to work for a “Big 4” accounting firm, which isn’t my career aspiration. It’s a great career aspiration, but it wasn’t mine. I thought about something that would challenge me even more quantitatively. Refinement, right? That’s why I switched into finance mid-sophomore year.

When did you first realize you had a passion for sports and wanted to pursue it as a career?

When I was a kid around my teens I loved football, loved looking at the numbers associated with football. Growing up in New England, you gravitate towards the Patriots. I just like looking at the numbers, I don’t know why. Looking at them, playing around with them. That’s just how I’m wired, have always loved to look at numbers. This is what got the ball rolling in terms of my interest in analytics with sports. At that same timeframe, I got into hockey analytics, too. Spent a lot of time researching that. Baseball of course, Moneyball was already well established. Basketball was on its way. Hockey had kind of taken in the analytics movement as to how teams evaluate players. It was mid-2010s, they started doing that. By the time I got to college, I was directed into baseball because I had emailed the sports information director here, Sean Medeiros, about being an analyst for the baseball team here. He said that if you’re looking to do advanced analytics for the team, no problem. I’ve been doing that for the last 3-4 years. I was an analyst for the first 3 years of my collegiate career, now I’m the student director of analytics for the team. That’s where my path now lies, in baseball, I’ve done a few internships in baseball analytics.

When did baseball take over as your chief interest? When I got to Endicott. The reason why I reached out to Sean my freshman year is because I wanted to get involved with campus. I thought that becoming a baseball analyst would be a good way to do it, especially given how light my resume was in that regard. Baseball, to me, seemed like the more logical choice [of sports to pick]. What evolved from there was meeting the coaching staff, Bryan Haley, met Coach Oringer a little bit later on. Working with them has been a great experience.

On his internship search

I was looking for an internship where it was geared towards what I wanted to do, not so much what was traditional within my school of study. I wanted to look more towards baseball. Coach Haley told me about the Cape Cod baseball league. I emailed every single GM and coach you could possibly imagine in that league. The GM for the Hyannis Harbor Hawks called me and said, ‘hey, you want an interview?’ I said, ‘yeah of course’. I got that interview and then got the internship.

What was the internship experience like?

It was great. That’s the number one developmental league in the country for Division I collegiate ballplayers. Of course, when you have all that talent, teams are gonna flock to see it. Scouts, player evaluators, executives, they’re all there. Meeting them, talking with them, interacting with that coaching staff was all part of it. I actually used analytics to build some lineups for them, which were pretty successful.

There were two assistant GM positions, me and another assistant GM intern, she was from Chicago. And another MLB scout liaison, he was from Maryland. We formed our own player development analytics department, just the three of us. We learned how to scout players, how to evaluate players with numbers. The coaching staff was very open with that, so we were successful and it was a great internship. It was a growth experience, personally and professionally.

What specifics did you learn about scouting?

When we were looking at hitters, we look at their approach. Whether they take a two-strike approach, whether they had the bat position on their shoulder. What are they looking for, their pitch recognition, can they identify a changeup from a slider? A curveball from a changeup? A two-seam vs. a cutter? All those things are important. From a pitcher’s standpoint, how are they gripping the ball? Do they have good command and control with their changeup, their curveball? Can they locate the zone and not be wild with it? Their release, their wrist flick is important, especially with the curveball. Is it down here, is it up here, how’s their kinetic chain? Is their kinetic chain perfect in the sense that their follow-through is good, clean and crisp? If it’s not, how are they going along with their process to resolve that? How is their foot landing when they deliver the pitch? All those little things to look at, watching, and talking to scouts. They provided little insights, interacting with the interns. Gave tips and tricks for how to evaluate players from an eye test standpoint?

Have you used software throughout your time with baseball analytics?

Yeah. This was before my junior year, the summer of 2018. I used a lot of Excel. As I mentioned before, the independent studies. They were centered around learning how to use the R programming language, how to use SQL, database management systems. Tableau. Key foundational database management software that I can use for baseball-oriented projects and data. I’m using SQL right now to manage the Endicott baseball team data right now. Microsoft is the bridge to that, but I’m learning those things right now and have mastered some of those skills, R in particular. After the [Cape Cod internship], I needed to learn data platforms more, beyond Excel. That’s where the IS’s came in.

How did the independent studies come into play? Identifying skills that you wanted to achieve that weren’t part of the Endicott curriculum?

Yeah, no doubt. SQL and Tableau, specifically, everyone should learn, whether you’re going into baseball or not. SQL for any data-related career is a Pre-Req for a lot of those internships and positions. You need to learn how to build databases and SQL is a foundational tool for that. It was a matter of: ‘how am I going to market myself in the world of baseball, in the industry? But also, how can I better my understanding of data analysis technology?’ That’s where the IS’s came I, but they had a baseball flavor to them, of course?

Knowing what you know now about your passion for sports analytics, if you were an incoming freshman, would you still choose to come to Endicott?

I think that there are a lot of people who major in something but then go into a career that doesn’t reflect their major directly. Being a well-rounded person in academia is something that I value a lot and I’ve learned that over my four years here. With all the major switching and minor flipping that I’ve done, and the cultivating my own creativity into my own degree, I wanted to feel like it was my own degree. I don’t think I would go anywhere else outside of Endicott because of all the great professors I’ve had here. I don’t know if I would’ve gotten the same type of support at a bigger school. I would run the risk of getting lost in the shuffle of students, in a big lecture hall. The direct relationships with professors that I’ve made has been instrumental here; they’ve given me a lot of support and advice on how to carry myself, how to be a professional, how to think differently, how to grow personally and professionally. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.

Where do you envision yourself in five years?

Hopefully working for a MLB organization, in some capacity as an analyst. Right now, I’m a writer. I was actually brought on to write for EVT News. They’re an outlet based out in San Diego, they cover the Padres, they’re credentialed in baseball and minor league baseball. They get a lot of viewership, a lot of exposure to those pieces. Two pieces that I’ve written for them so far have been picked up by Bleacher Report, which is pretty exciting. And I’ve started my own baseball analytics blog called the Launch Angle. That’s where I publish a lot of my stuff and the shell website where I can analyze players using advanced analytics and player development data a little bit more. I’ve built a little bit of a following on social media, which is fun. That’s where I’m at right now.

You’d rather work with a team than keep going with this media career?

I like the media piece of it only because it gets my work out there. I self-published my thesis on the Launch Angle. Having the exposure for EVT News was huge. I had published an article on my own site about the Padres, and a guy on Twitter reached out to me from EVT. That’s how I got that connection rolling. I enjoy writing about baseball from an analytics, economics, player development perspective. For the sake of exposure, getting my name out there organically. Working for a team is the endgoal.

Do you have any fear given that sports is a competitive industry to break into?

I think every industry is hard to break into. Baseball, yes, it’s competitive. Sports in general are competitive because so many people enjoy them, they want to work in something they enjoy. It’s one thing to work in something you enjoy, it’s another thing entirely if you think that you can but you don’t have the experience to back it up. I’ve learned this the hard way, you need to have several experiences, internships, projects surrounding the industry you want to work in. Beyond sports, at a 50,000-foot view, no matter what industry you go into you need to have projects and experiences tailored around that. If you’re going into accounting, you need to have projected and internships centered around what’s going on in accounting in the modern day. In marketing, same thing. Like most industries it’s about network building in general. Network building is huge. I’ve done a good to great job of building my network within MLB in terms of coaches. Those are people that I can lean on and talk to. The support I’ve gotten has been huge. If you don’t have a strong network, coupled with everything I’ve talked about, your chances of being successful are going to be slim. Even if you enter into an industry after you graduate with your undergraduate degree, you may not like it after two or three years. You just burn out, and you’re not passionate about it. The reason why I’m so dedicated to the sports industry and baseball in particular is because I’m passionate about it. I want to be happy in what I’m doing, and not just think of it as a 9-5 job where you just get a paycheck every two weeks and call it a day. That’s not my DNA, that’s not what I’m about. I like to do things with a purpose.

You mentioned you learned the “hard way” that you need to have strong experience. Was there a time where you didn’t have the necessary experience and met a dead end?

From the start of my junior year until present day has been about cultivating and creating experiences where I can be impactful in baseball. I realized that Cape Cod shouldn’t be the centerpiece; it should be a huge component to show experience. For example, my semester-long internship took place at Northeastern as a senior. They weren’t necessarily looking for my position as a quantitative analyst. I cold-emailed all the major Division I teams in the state of MA and Northeastern got back to me. I sat down with that coaching staff January of my junior year, and the head coach was very open to integrating analytics into the program for that year. Sometimes you will hear the word no in internship searches. Other times, if you get that internship and you struggle, and you fall flat on your face, that’s part of learning. You’re gonna fail. I’ve experienced these first-hand. At Northeastern, there were some times where my strategies or player evaluation techniques from a strict data perspective didn’t match what the coach was seeing. We talked about it, it was a nice conversation because he learned from me and I learned from him. I email him every two weeks or so, still. As an intern who wants to work in baseball, it needs to be challenge by fire. You’re gonna get burned, it’s gonna happen, you’re gonna fail. It is what it is. But at the same time, you’re gonna learn from it. I think a lot of people forget that. They look for that perfect internship where they can stretch their creativity and say ‘this is gonna work no matter what.’ It’s not always gonna work, and I learned that at both my internships. It’s all about trial by fire, learning from your mistakes and your failures, and rising above that.

Have you completed specific studies related to baseball?

I build a model that can predict baseball player salaries based on their statistics and it’s rather accurate. For example, Stephen Strasburg, my model predicted that he would make 32M with the Nationals this season, he will make 35M. That is pretty close, the residual on his 2020 estimated salary is 3M. For a highly-priced free agent, that’s pretty good. The model can predict players really low, or really high, excessively. Models can always be refined and developed to become more accurate. Taking that model and having an answer for behavior in the marketplace in the context of free agency in baseball. Of course, there’s no salary cap in baseball, except a luxury tax. That gives teams a license to spend a lot of team, depending on who the team is. Sometimes teams spend a lot of money on a player that they shouldn’t. I’ve noticed that a lot in baseball, where the money is like Monopoly money.

How did you build this model?

A lot of statistics and economic variables associated with that, looking at trends of free agency from the past. I did a separate study on the starting pitcher’s market, that there was a bubble in 2015. From 2011-2015, there’s a steady increase in total value of SP contracts handed out in free agency. The bubble popped after 2015. When people think of a bubble in economic terms, they think of the housing market and how that popped when housing was so overvalued that people couldn’t afford it, which caused the demise of the housing market. With starting pitchers, they have been such a valued commodity over time. We’re now seeing a trend where that 2015 bubble may be surpassed with the Gerrit Cole contract, the Strasburg contract, the Wheeler contract. Even supplementary contracts for SP that are not the nine-figure range, but are still a lot of money. I look at each of these and say, were these rational uses of capital? It can depend on team situation.

Where does the field of baseball analytics go from here? Has it been saturated?

I read a book over the summer called MVP Machine. That book has been a huge key stable in where data is heading next in the sport. In the beginning of that book, it talks about how teams use analytics departments ever since 2002 with the Moneyball Oakland A’s. Player development now has evolved to: what data can we gather from a player’s swing, from a pitcher’s curveball, to make them better? MVP Machine talks about Driveline baseball. Kyle Boddy founded that company, and they look at biomechanics. They use edgertronic cameras, rapsodo to gather data to make players better with sensor technology. It’s all about the launch angle revolution in baseball, which is if you can drive your bat up, you can create more fly balls. Obviously the more fly balls you hit, you increase your probability of a home run. Using video and data there can help a player hit more home runs. Of course, we’ve seen a huge spike in home runs over the last 4 years in pro ball. With pitcher’s it’s about developing a pitch arsenal. In MVP Machine, they talk about Trevor Bauer heavily. He credits edgertronic cameras and Driveline baseball with becoming a Cy Young candidate with the Indians at one point in his career. That’s where the game is heading to next, and player development departments are heading in that way to integrate data to make players better. Not so much in terms of evaluating players and saying, ‘oh this player’s BABIP is this, why are we paying him x dollars?’ That conversation is still relevant of course, but it’s now shifted to less evaluation and more development. They go hand in hand. If you’re a hitter at Driveline and they see your kinetic chain of hitting, they’ll look at the video and the data associated with that, and they’ll say if you just change your leg kick from this to that, the landing point for your foot, and you change your bat motion a little bit, your launch angle will improve. If you do this, you’ll hit more fly balls and you’ll drive the ball farther. Given that HR hitting is hyper valued in the current market, you’ll get paid more as a free agent. Player development to improve players, whether they’re in the minors or a current roster. Coaches are a big variable to that equation, but that’s where the game is going right now, and that’s exciting.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of working with baseball analytics?

I’m wired to look at numbers and be fascinated by them. Using analytics to cut through irrational thinking using rational logic is something that means a lot to me. I’m a big proponent of using rational, logical thought processes instead of irrational clichés. There’s this field of behavioral economics which is something that I read a lot about, which goes back and forth between the economics of rational vs. irrational thinking for a consumer in the marketplace. Data brings a lot of black and white answers. Using that skillset to generate conclusions, to support hypotheses. Using analytics in general practice brings me a lot of joy, because it’s actually something conclusive that I can use in support.

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