I need to hop back into my transformers bullshit for just a moment because I don't think they've had much interaction in canon, but I think it'd be really really funny if Tarn was actually terrified of Starscream.
Like, I dunno if MTMTE/IDW canon has confirmed Starscream's immortal spark for that particular series, but I'm going to assume it carries over. If so, it'd make Tarn's power basically useless against him.
In my ideal headcanon, Tarn got sick of Starscream's shit at some point and went against Megatron to try to murder him. He tried to do this subtly using his voice only for it to 100% not work even a little bit. He would've had this whole build up where he got Starscream alone and was attempting to be a dramatic bitch about the whole thing and build up to the murder and then-
And then it just doesn't work and there's a really awkward pause where Starscream is looking around kind of expecting something to happen when literally nothing does. Tarn is trying to keep a normal conversation going now while also attempting the murder again and again just for it to literally do nothing. Eventually Starscream gets sick of him being weird and walks out judging the guy.
It'd be so fucking funny particularly because Starscream having an immortal spark is generally totally unknown, so Tarn would have to assume that Starscream had found some way to render his ability useless, which is terrifying. Tarn is now extremely worried that Starscream somehow had a spy and found out what he was planning to do ahead of time. He might've even been able to get something into Tarn's head somehow to know his plan this well. Clearly that level of genius must be part of why Megatron keeps him around. Tarn was a fool for having attempted to disobey, and Starscream was clearly not a problem he could solve like this. What if Starscream reports this clear disobedience to Megatron? Tarn just tried and failed to kill the second in command! Starscream would have every right to demand his execution if he so desired, or save this as blackmail!
Tarn is just out of his mind spinning conspiracy theories and getting super high levels of paranoia about Starscream. Just doing whatever he can to not have to be in the same place as the guy. He runs under the assumption he's being blackmailed by Starscream for his attempt and does what he can to not cross the seeker.
Meanwhile from Starscream's perspective, Tarn showed up and had a very weird conversation where he kept raising his voice at random times and then nothing happened. Then the guy freaked out and got even more weird about it. He has no idea why this happened. He has no idea that Tarn is hiding from him. He thought it was weird and stopped thinking about it after a few days. Starscream's minding his own business and mostly forgot about this entire thing after two weeks meanwhile Tarn is having a mental breakdown about it for years.
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okay so. hear me out. but. au concept--
joel is one of many people affected by a Vanishing. its a phenomenon sweeping the country--people simply not showing up for work, school, life one day, as though they've vanished from the face of the earth. it's almost possible to mistake for normal missing persons cases, if it weren't for the way a few of the higher-profile Vanishings have happened to people who shouldn't have been able to vanish at all, let alone in a way that wouldn't be noticed until too late. look at joel's hometown. the people monitoring the dam were supposed to be redundant, and yet--
anyway. not like he cares or anything, except for the fact this stupid disaster or whatever has left him without anywhere to live or anyone to live with, and he still has a year of high school left, so he can't just do whatever he wants. luckily there's this school in a town called new hermiton that agreed to give him a scholarship to finish his education in the name of recovery and solidarity or whatever, and it's kind of a shwankier school than he'd normally go for, but it's free and, more importantly, they're willing to pay for his lodging, and he can't really turn that down. and it's not like he has a choice but to upend his entire life now. so packing what few of his belongings survived into a bag and getting on a train and moving across the country to a new school it is, he guesses.
(he's been having nightmares that inexplicably feature swarms of blue butterflies. last time he checked, lakes don't have butterflies in them. although maybe it's a metaphor or something, on account of the butterflies saying stupid stuff about how people who are remembered can't disappear, and even a false world cannot be erased if it's watched over, and how fate depends on him holding people in his heart. thanks for saying the same stupid shitty platitudes his social worker told him, just more cryptically, butterflies. real cool.)
new hermiton, it turns out, is a small city. while new hermiton academy is a newer school, much of the city is older. he's moved into a nice enough flat in an older apartment building. he has another cryptic butterfly dream. he thinks he remembers someone trying to urgently warn him of something, but it's all... shaky. that morning, he goes to the school for the first time. he's greeted by a fellow transfer student, skizzleman, although apparently he already knows some of the other folks in town, and transferred here so he could stay with them. but it's at least someone else in a similar enough situation to joel, especially since joel can just tell by the way people are looking at him that skizz didn't have much of a choice but to be here, either, and best friends with impulse or not, he's on his own too.
so. a friend. maybe this school won't be that bad, even if joel keeps having nightmares, and even if the weather here is weirdly cold for july, and even if his new homeroom professor keeps on looking at him really weirdly. (aren't professors supposed to be better about stupid rumors anyway? what's that mr. hills's deal?)
and then, two days later, he waves skizz off at the end of the school day, and gets skizz's friend, impulse, at his door, desperate to hear that skizz had just come to stay the night in joel's shitty lonely apartment, because otherwise it looks like--come on man. joel's already having a shit time. the universe deciding to go after his one existing friend too? he promises impulse to help investigate that night, in the vain hope that Skizz isn't one of the Vanished. joel gets a splitting migraine trying to follow their path back, though, and they have to stop for the night.
skizz is reported missing the next morning. joel resigns himself to cutting himself off from the people around him, as per usual. then, strangely, mr. hills corners him as he goes home.
"you'll need this," he says, and shoves what feels like a cheap butterfly knife into joel's hands. "uh, remember, trust your heart! you'll know how to use it."
"what," joel says. "hold on. you're supposed to be a teacher. why are you giving me this. i know for a fact my file says i have like, ptsd or whatever, which is stupid, but you definitely aren't supposed to be giving me a knife, you weirdo?"
"you'll know how to use it," joe hills says again. "goodbye! believe in yourself!"
mr. hills sprints behind a building before he has to explain anything else. joel is left standing on the sidewalk holding a knife, staring after him.
so. that's weird as hell. joel shivers in the cold and continues on his way home. the butterfly knife feels heavy in his pockets. he should probably report that guy to his social worker or something, but actually talking to his social worker feels like conceding defeat. joel can take care of himself. he can prove he can take care of himself. just watch him. step one: go out to get ramen because he forgot to buy any food for his apartment.
he sees impulse putting up signs as he eats. impulse looks miserable. joel thinks about how skizz, just in the short time he'd known him, had sort of unintentionally given away that he felt isolated after his mother Vanished. that impulse was a great friend, but impulse didn't understand what it was like. he never really SAID as much, but--
it's not fair to impulse, for that to be the last thing impulse remembered of what was apparently a friend since childhood. and joel doesn't care about any of these guys, but he can still pay his check and go out and help impulse go looking. he's no good at comforting people and doesn't know this guy, but joel had been alone too, sitting on the roof and crying, when the helicopters came.
except when they go back to the path by the school, joel's head starts to hurt again.
he looks up and there's a butterfly.
"hey, impulse, are butterflies common here?" he asks, a little desperately.
"i mean, not really, why?" impulse says.
"uh," joel says, and gestures. the two of them stare as the strange yellow butterfly circles in place.
"okay, so that is kind of weird," impulse admits.
"right?" joel says. "the only way it would be weirder is if it were blue." impulse gives him a look. joel does not explain.
it starts to fly away.
"we should follow it," impulse says, his voice getting a little dull. "yeah. we should follow it."
"what? no! no we should not follow the haunted butterfly, are you nuts?" joel says, but it's a bit too late. (maybe this is what the knife is for: stabbing impulse. it would be an effective method of stopping him!) he chases impulse down, down to the river, where yellow butterflies are swarming. impulse, as though possessed, simply steps into the swarm and falls through them to the water.
joel's, uh, freaking out more than a little bit? he'll admit he's freaking out. he dives forward to try to grab him, only to realize that he doesn't see impulse anywhere.
a single blue butterfly lands on joel's shoulder. "do you hold his heart next to yours?"
"i'm going insane," joel says.
"no heart is meant to be completely alone. do you hold his next to yours?"
"this isn't happening," joel says. "this is like a stupid manga or something. it's not happening."
"there is still time to save them; you must hold your heart strong, or the consequences will be dire. i believe in you."
the butterfly vanishes.
"fuck it," joel says. "if i drown then it's nothing people haven't expected of me anyway."
he steps through the swarm of butterflies.
that night, he drags both impulse and skizz out of the river. they're all freezing cold. shadows and strange, yellowy liquid still cling to all of their skin. also, joel stabbed himself, which like, glad to know that's what the knife was for, apparently, and the scar is warm and comforting. he can feel his--persona, and don't ask him how he knows that--shifting under his skin, under the mark on his hand. it said its name is pygmalion; it says it is a piece of joel's soul.
this is all patently insane. but skizz and impulse are alive and NOT eaten by shadow monsters, so even if they're both a little unconscious, joel takes that as a win.
they lie on the ground outside the river. someone stumbles across them. "well give me some teeth and call me an alligator. you got out on your own," breathes a fellow student clutching a dagger. joel thinks he's in the class across the hall. also--
"what are you talking about," joel wheezes.
"you found it on your own. you can find them?" the student says. his eyes are wide. something in joel's soul recognizes something in the student's. something in joel's BRAIN puts two and two together and realizes why mr. hills gave him a knife.
"no. no, go away, i don't want to be involved in this," joel says.
"well, don't you think it's too late for that?" the student says, and joel passes out. he's pretty sure the butterflies have to be laughing at him. in fact, as though to mock him further, after passing out, he doesn't even get to avoid it forever, because he wakes up in a glowing blue boat. there is a man with white-blonde hair, blue eyes, and a blue outfit leaning over him, poking him.
joel takes no responsibility for punching him. he'd do it again, too, as the long-nosed man sitting next to the unmanned steering wheel welcomes him to the velvet room.
(this, joel realizes later, all rather sets the tone for what the next year of his life is about to become.)
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Prompt 232
Once more thinkin of These Series of AU/Prompts, where the Class pulls a Tiamat. Becomes Giant Hydra Dragon.
But with some inspiration from @radiance1's Blob King AUs. Specifically also the dragon ones.
Now, the nine of them are admittedly far older than they once were. Far older than most of the people outside the cage they were tricked into all those years before, exhaustion seeping into their bones as their ectoplasm was siphoned away.
Yet no matter how much the GIW drains away- if they're even called as such anymore- they never run out. If anything, at least from what they've noticed, unable to do much of anything else in this pit, this tank of green and red, they seem to be making more.
Their recollection of being separate, of having separate bodies have long since slipped away in exchange for keeping memories of their families and friends long gone now. Perhaps they're in the zone, as ghosts, but perhaps not.
Days feel like both seconds and years, words falling away as their Core hums as one. Sometimes a Blob ghost manages to find its way inside- the trap designed not to stop things from getting in, but to prevent them from leaving.
They always disappear whenever the ecto is taken away, not having enough to continue holding on to a physical form. But... the blobs don't stay gone. Their own ecto brings them back, tiny forms almost mimicking their own.
It's something to distract them, something to actually do besides growl at the figures beyond the barriers around them. The blobs don't speak, don't make more than squeaks, but it's something. Almost like dozens of toddlers floating around, becoming more and more draconic in shape with every siphon.
Do their captors realize, they wonder, how they've made them all stronger than they were even before? Do they realize what they've done, creating this loop of ever-growing power?
No, Star giggled, pink and gold scales shimmering as she bobbed her head in amusement, Paulina's darker purples following.
They don't know, Wes agreed, dark amusement echoed by both Sam and Dash, fangs flashing amidst the liquid. The trap would not be able to contain them for much longer, they all knew. They could feel it, how the siphon stuttered with every run.
It wouldn't be long now. They had waited three hundred years for the chance to escape- they could wait for a few days more.
...
Though they won't complain about an early prison break if those alarms are anything to go by.
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