EARTHSPARK MESSAGES AND SUBTEXT THATS NOT EVEN SUBTEXT

It's been a while since I have posted as I've been busy with finals, but I saw a post that absolutely made me spur a headache with just how utterly fatuous of a take I saw on Transformers Earthspark and the messages it sends.

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT USE THIS POST TO ATTACK OR HARASS ANYONE, THIS IS ONLINE DISCUSSION OF A WORK OF MEDIA.

THIS ALSO COVERS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1 OF EARTHSPARK, IF YOU WISH TO AVOID SUCH A TOPIC PLEASE REDIRECT YOURSELF.

@monocle-teacup Won't repost your post as the way tumblr reposts works would have everything funnel onto your account, but I'll be pinging you and I did screenshot your post for viewer's context:

I have ALOT to talk about here, while also being completely in shock and disbelief how you end up BELEIVING THE SIDE THAT IS A GENOCIDAL LUNATIC WHO SEES THE TRANSFORMERS AS SUBHUMAN AND A DISEASE ON THE EARTH??? AND IS WILLING TO FULL ASS MURDER AND MUTILATE PEOPLE? From here any * you may see is likely a footnote mark to check details I put at the end for clarity. If I miss something, let me know and I will clarify.

Before I get into the meat of dissecting your clearly ill-informed and definitely not thoroughly thought out post, I need to get something out of the way because I believe you'll use this as a means of shielding yourself from incoming critique: It's okay to like and enjoy characters who are clearly bad people. There is a CLEAR difference between enjoying a fictional character and agreeing with whatever they might do or say. I enjoy many bad and morally reprehensible characters, including Mandroid/Doctor Meridian, but that doesn't mean I agree with them or don't find their actions and ideas deplorable. If you find yourself agreeing with someone who sees another group of people* as being subhuman or a danger to society you need to reconsider your ideologies and thought processes. Like ASAP.

Okay onto the actual deconstruction of your statements, why they are blatantly lacking a thorough reading of the messages in Earthspark, or even lead into uncomfortably ignorant territories both with Transformers and very real-life, human related things.

As a first point, you state that you hope this show re-examines the fact that hatred towards another group of people (even if they are fictional) automatically makes them a terrible person, and bring up the statement that the show makes GHOST's detainment of transformers look "cartoonishly evil" but does absolutely nothing to address Dr.Meridian's statements of transformers being dangerous.

Yes. Yes it ABSOLUTELY DOES address that throughout the entire show. In fact, the whole season is literally about deconstructing the notion that BOTH Dr.Meridian's and GHOST's ideals and methods are harmful if not downright discriminatory towards transformers as a whole.

GHOST's method of control is a guise under the US government by detaining any transformer they deem as "a threat", this can even mean autobots or non-aligned transformers who don't want to join their organization or are just doing their own thing. They will willingly classify them all as "Decepticons" to justify their inhumane treatment of them. This is paralleling how humans will stereotype and conflate other groups of people, as being all associated with one singular event or organization of people that is seen as bad or a danger to society* and use that stereotyped ideal to weaponize it against them and justify harming them in multiple ways; which is what Dr.Meridian ALSO DOES THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE SHOW. Dr.Meridian is a scientist that literally works with and is a huge provider of technology to GHOST, he literally works with them and experiments on the detained transformers. You can't say "oh GHOST bad Dr.Mer not so bad" when he's LITERALLY PART OF GHOST AND YOU CANNOT SEPARATE THEM. HE IS EXTREME AND OUTSPOKEN ABOUT HIS HATRED THROUGHOUT THE SHOW AND ACTIVELY IS SHOWN TO BE ENTIRLEY IN THE WRONG BOTH IDEOLOGICALLY AND ACTION WISE. You clearly have not watched with a critical eye if you think they never address his points or somehow he is right about something. He never is and it shows just how harmful his mentality is. You don't even need words spoken out loud to know he's ALREADY HEINOUSLY WRONG AND BIGOTED.

Why should the show, one that shows transformers having to battle against racist and xenophobic hatred towards them from humans, re-examine that relationship? People are being discriminatory to people they don't like, and to them it doesn't matter if they are decepticon or not; they're all the same and dangerous in their eyes. Yes, there was a war brought onto earth's soil from pure happenstance of where the Ark and members of the two named groups had landed, and yes it was bloody and many lives were lost like any war is. Should the war, as well as atrocious acts of violence by a few and the circumstance that which the birth and type of being transformers are deem all transformers as dangerous? OBVIOUSLY FUCKING NOT. That's literally stereotyping. That's what Dr.Meridian is doing. He's literally grouped them all into one conglomerate in his head and sees them all as pests to be exterminated.

The transformers are both immigrants and refugees of war that had lasted thousands of millions of years and a desperate attempt to find any source of energon because they would STARVE TO DEATH IF THEY DIDN'T AND RESOURCES WERE DANGEROUSLY SCARCE ON CYBERTRON. They are thousands of lightyears away from home in a place that doesn't have the cultures they are familiar with and structures built for them which accommodates their needs. And to add onto it, most were never originally outfitted with guns and shit. They had to ARM THEMSELVES TO PROTECT AGAINST ATTACKS. JUST BECAUSE YOU SEE A GUN POP OUT OF THEIR BODY DOESN'T MEAN THEY ARE BUILT LIKE THAT NOR DOES IT MEAN THEY ARE AUTOMATICALLY ALL DANGEROUS. The only ones who are theoretically "built for war/violence" are war-frames like seekers, but they didn't even CHOOSE THAT LIFE OR WANT IT! THEY ARE COLD CONSTRUCTED* AND LITERALLY ENSLAVED INTO BEING CANON FODDER FOR WHATEVER SKERMISH THEY ARE DEEMED NEEDED FOR. Starscream wasn't even a warrior before this, he was just some nerd ass scientist. Cold constructed bots and War-frames are already deemed subhuman by other transformers. The entire war that you see is a continual millions of years struggle which the origins are in a fight against their own horrible systematic oppressions to try and bring freedom and put an end to the horrible reign back on Cybertron. How does them being robot organisms displaced by ongoing war, a continual brutal and bloody struggle for freedom back at home, and dangerous resource scarcity make them any more dangerous than your average person? And the "they are robots/walking death machines" argument doesn't count because you're only seeing them from a nonhuman lense in that case. Take off those nuts and bolts covered glasses and think of how this would be if they were all humans instead. The visuals of only seeing them for their robotics are blocking your ability to view this group as simply a mirroring of humans in nonhuman bodies. Humans are just as dangerous and ostracizing as them. Literally humans slaughter other humans frequently; bring upon hatred and obscene actions onto one another with or without robotic attachments and aid of machines. Just because the transformers are robotic extraterrestrials who are "different biologically/mechanically" makes it no different from the dehumanization and other forms of racism and xenophobia. Transformers are literally just... humans in a robot shell. You can't argue against this at all because most if not all have human forms, ALL of them have human minds, and just happen to come from a planet they need to be insanely large sized on, as well as already pre-armed due to conflict that they have escaped from.

The whole story of Earthspark is LITERALLY about the experiences of the Terrans; first generation descendants of immigrant refugees navigating the struggles that come with being just that. They make whole episodes surrounding their feelings of alienation and their struggle to have a place in the world, their culture and history and who they are. They want to feel they belong and feel they have a place in this world and be seen just as human and belonging as their human family. Their government and the world around them alienates them and treats them sub-humanly despite them being just as human, flaws and all, as us. Since I'm praddling on about this topic, did you even ABSORB ANY OF THE EPISODES HOME PART 1 AND 2???? IT'S ABOUT THIS TOPIC AND TEACHES HOW THIS MENTALITY OF TREATING THE TRANSFORMERS AS SUBHUMAN ALIENS THAT NEED TO GO AWAY OR NEED TO BE CLASSIFIED AS DANGEROUS/A INVASIVE "SPECIES" THAT NEEDS TO BE REMOVED IS BAD. IT SHOWS THE RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA THAT ESPECIALLY COMES WITH BEING CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS AND THE ISOLATION THEY FACE.

Please, I heavily implore you to go back and watch them. You somehow miss the entire point of the show and ESPECIALLY this episode. Many episodes cover different points of their existence as first gen children and the reality that the transformers have to face in general while being refugees on a planet with others being hostile and degrading to them but this particular episode is the one that tackles the points I make in this post the most. It may not go super deep into it due to forced time constraints and other executive nonsense that makes it harder to go into more detail but it still covers the topic very well.

Humans getting nipped at the heels for being bigoted towards transformers isn't some "ouugh you can't think the decepticons did bad things" type of nonsense and I absolutely hate the "oh because you can't be bigoted towards a group of people it means you suddenly can't criticize the actions of someone who happens to be someone of that group" mentality you seem to be concocting out of thin air. It's them associating the entire race of transformers as all bad, unbelonging or worthy of being seen as dangerous and to be wary around them or like they need to not be on earth and "go back where they came from". You go between "decepticons" and "transformers" interchangeably and seem to do exactly as the show heeds against heavily; conglomerating the actions of a FEW to encompass the overall worthiness of a WHOLE POPULATION OF PEOPLE.

Doctor Meridian is wrong and genuinely evil and disturbing with how he treats them and him seeing them as dangerous and a pest needing to be eradicated nor should any of his views be agreed upon, no matter how much you may try to defend him. There's more I could add but for simplicity's sake but that's what I mainly will state. The rest of clarity can be discussed in the comments.

I'm not sure whether your lack of understanding of the show and its messaging you are discussing or your love for one of the major villains is clouding your judgement, but please read EVERYTHING here to its fullest extent. Nothing here is intended as an attack on your character (if you're somehow seeing it that way) but as a heavy critique of your views on this show and how you are analyzing things. I might sound like I'm yapping to yap or "it's not that deep", but it literally is. The show and it's writing make it a big point and I will refuse to accept any iteration of "you're making a mountain out of a molehill" type statements. If you have any questions or comments you're free to bring them up.

-With confusion and annoyance, Wizard.

-Footnotes- *By group of people, I refer to sapient (human minded) beings who are grouped by either race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, etc. By this classification, Transformers are considered a group of people; even if they are "nonhuman" *If you are somehow seriously confused or appalled by me pointing out real world racism and xenophobia as parallels to what is being done by GHOST, Dr. Meridian, and your average run of the mill civilian, you need to reread absolutely everything. Racism and xenophobia are a huge talking point in the show and I refuse to retract this statement. *Cold Constructed means the transformer was made in a factory, more often than not to be a worker slave for whoever is demanding they be produced. Two characters off the top of my head who are cold constructed is Starscream and Megatron.

Godzilla and My Favorite Nemeses

There is no monster like the king, Godzilla. He is, to me, better than my fav cherry pie filling topped cheesecake. Ask me, “want to see a Godzilla movie or do you want a whole cheesecake?” Must you ask twice? Go ahead, wave that thing under my nose, go ahead. My response: “I’ll eat that cake after the movie.”

Some monsters are weapons used by aliens with dastardly plans to take over the world and in order to do that, they must destroy Godzilla. They come to earth disguised as humans and present themselves as peaceful beings wanting to cohabitate and naive politicians believe them and hold press conferences to display whatever it is they want all to see. Then, the ah-ha moment happens when the aliens’ true intention is unveiled. The people of Japan expose the aliens, the defense league gather their forces and ready themselves for retaliation. Monsters are unleashed, but earthly weapons aren’t effective against the monsters and all hope for mankind seems lost until… dun, dun, da! Godzilla appears and opens a can of whoop-ass on the enemy! Booyah! A great battle ensues to which the king of monsters always wins.

I’ve always imagined Godzilla saying, “Fool! Only I can wreak havoc on this planet! This is my territory!” You go, Godzilla! You show ‘em why you’re the king!

Here are my favorites:

King Kong

The mighty Kong was introduced to American cinema in 1933. An uncharted Skull Island is where this great ape dwells and he is considered a God that is feared and respected by the natives. This version of Kong was rebooted in 1976 with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange and in 2005 with Jack Black, Naomi Watts, and Adrian Brody.

Many Kong movies were adapted in feature films and weren’t as popular as the ones stated above. But the most popular and favored Kong was introduced to the world in 2017, Kong: Skull Island.

Kong. The mighty king of Skull Island is bigger and badder than other versions. I loved this movie. A giant gentle soul defending his home from intruders. We saw that a giant creature isn’t always bad and some humans can have bad intentions when they’re fueled by ignorance and fear. We also saw that some giant creatures are bad and some humans have good intentions. Great movie.

Kong first appeared with Godzilla was in the 1962 release of King Kong vs. Godzilla. This movie was funny to say the least. The actors were great as always, and the monsters were creative. It surprised me that Godzilla was defeated. I rewatched the movie twice to confirm my eyes weren’t tricking me.

The 2021 release of Godzilla vs. Kong displayed the great powerhouses fighting one another where Godzilla is the victor. Later, Kong and the king would team up against a powerful robot creation called Mechagodzilla.

Kong’s brute strength and intelligence makes him a worthy and respectable rival.

Mechagodzilla

This robot was introduced to us in 1974 Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Mecha was created by martians that wanted to take over the earth and to do that, they would use their creation to kill Godzilla. In 1975, Terror of Mechagodzilla reintroduced the robot by the same martians. You know Godzilla defeated it in both movies. In the 1993 and 2002, Mechagodzilla was made by a Godzilla task force to use in battle against the king.

His most recent appearance in the in the 2021 release, he was created by a greedy tech tycoon. This version was ultra cool and maybe the last time we see the mechanical giant in a live action production.

Mechagodzilla is controlled by its creators. However, in two movies, it was built around a Godzilla skeleton and the latest had Ghidorah’s essence, or DNA. These robots were manually controlled until the spirit of both monsters broke free to move and think independently. The Godzilla spirit fought to save Japan from Godzilla’s rage and the Ghidorah one just wanted to destroy the earth and anything that attempted to stop it.

King Ghidorah

Ghidorah is my favorite Godzilla nemesis of all. This amazing monster has three heads and shoots lightening with a force so powerful to knock Godzilla off his feet. Considered to be the greatest and strongest foe, every battle between the two is epic especially that Ghidorah flies.

We first met Ghidorah in 1964 in Ghidorah, the Three-headed Monster, where he emerged from a meteorite. He reappears as a challenging foe for Godzilla and his fighting technique never is boring. One head bites down on Godzilla’s neck, another bites his shoulder, and the one head bites wherever it gets a hold of, and then… ZAP! They shoot powerful jolts into his body. So awesome! It always seems Godzilla is getting his butt handed to him, but in the end he triumphs.

In 1992, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, people from the future created Ghidorah from three separate cute creatures called Dorats and use it to destroy Japan but unbeknownst to them, Godzilla emerges and destroys not only Ghidorah, but them, too. Androids, spaceships, and American actors brought this live action thriller to life. This Ghidorah is by far the biggest and strongest one until he appeared in the 2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters and he was bigger and badder. I’ll say it again, Ghidorah is the best nemesis and will always be my favorite one.

Space Godzilla

1994’s Space Godzilla proved to be a worthy opponent for Godzilla in the Toho releases Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla.

The terrifying monster didn’t have an origin and was explained to have come to life when Godzilla’s cells were released into space by either Mothra’s or Biollante’s spores. His cells would’ve been caught in a black hole, combine with crystalline organisms and was exposed to space radiation. From there, the cells were transformed into a replica of Godzilla. Instead of dorsal plates along its back, it had space crystals - two massive ones on its shoulders and a gold crystal on its head. The crystals is Spacegodzilla’s power source that shoots beams. It also had the ability to create crystal prisms from the earth that it used to imprison baby Godzilla.

M.O.G.U.E.R.A., Mobile Operations G-Force Universal Expert Robot: Aero-type, was made by the JSDF to defend Japan from Godzilla; it teamed up with him to fight and defeat Spacegodzilla.

Orga

Godzilla 2000 is my favorite Godzilla movie. Toho combined traditional suit acting in the monster fight, and CGI for the UFO. This was the first production that used CGI and it opened doors for future Godzilla movies to utilize this new tool.

Orga is an alien that crashed to earth at the bottom of the ocean millions of years ago where it remained until the 20th Century. During its dormancy, the UFO coral enveloped the entire vessel. A team of scientists discovered a power source underwater and traced it to the large object believed to be a meteorite. This was a treasure find for the team and nothing would be more gratifying than to raise it and examine it. During the raising attempt, the meteorite came to life when sunlight touched its surface; this startled the scientists as this was unexpected. The lead researcher determined it was an alien object that relies on sunlight for its mobility.

In the meantime, Godzilla has emerged and is destroying as many power source plants in the vicinity because he knew about the alien, but the humans did not. The JSDF utilizes all means to kill Godzilla until they realize the UFO’s intentions.

What made this movie great is it showed two sides of human behavior. One side wants to study Godzilla and learn to adapt to his existence, and one side wants to kill him. In the end, it’s realized that though Godzilla is destructive, he saves humanity from invasions meant to truly destroy them. Godzilla reminds the people that there is mutual respect between them and they must understand that, especially those determined to kill him.

Final word

All Godzilla movies are awesome, except for one: Tri-Star’s 1998 Godzilla starring Matthew Broderick - to be discussed later. These are my favorite nemesis, but there more great ones who’ve faced Godzilla in battle.

To truly enjoy these films, you must not watch them with criticism, but enjoy them for what they are - storyline and all. Keep in mind the timelines of release and that CGI wasn’t an option like it is today. I can only hope more Godzilla movies are made and they forever bring joy to all fans that love him as much as I.

Photo references: Getty Images

HEY SHARK!! thoughts on the Rottmnt trailer? :0

Hoo boy... okay I'm gonna put my thoughts under the cut cause there's ALOT

I screamed bascially the whole time watching the trailer, so there's that to start off

But I'm really, so INCREDIBLY EXCITED!!! I want to see my boys so bad I want them to be badass and kick some alien ass

I'm liking the future stuff, sorta has me thinking a but about what that would entail. It doesn't seem to me the turtles are super-duper close in Casey's future, Mikey seems to be a kinda... mage? Magic dude? Mystic hermit man, idk, but Leo's really gone ham with the leader thing, which I think is very interesting. Because of the whole... arm thing, I'm like... 80% sure Raph is dead... so um.... I have THOUGHTS.

Raph has always been the most self-sacrificing of the turtles, mostly cause he's bigger and stranger than his bros and can afford to take a hit before the can, but he's not INVINCIBLE. (We have all seen the Shredder Fight, we adore you Raph for protecting Donnie but also DONT FUCKING DIE IN THE PROCESS PLEASE) If anything, I think that's what would have caused his demise, which might of caused the other ninjas to drift apart, especially if he died protecting one of them.

And Donnie wasn't shown in the trailer, I think he probably went full-tech cyborg surrounded himself with robots type beat. He would defo close himself off after Raph died, cause that's just him.

Or maybe Raph doesn't die. That's the good end.

Anyway, more on the movie, I'm excited to see Leo as Leader, as much as I love my boy Raph. I have my own thoughts on why I think Splinter made Raph step down as leader (that I'll hopefully make a fic of soon) But I really want to go into how everyone interacts with him now that Leo is leader, especially how Leo and Raph interact togther.

Also, I do hope some of the less... alien and more mutant villans show up. Like Hypno and Warren from the trailer, but I want them all!!! Ghost Bear, Repo, Meatsweats, EVERYONE. I want them to help defend earth, only cause they live on earth and don't want to be killed by aliens.

Also Draxum. I want him to interact with the turtles and help defeat aliens SO BAD... also Draxum and Splinter interactions for the soul.

I am pretty interested in Casey Jones, especially in regards to Cass. This whole "Leo is my master from the future" has some real interest to me, especially if he's one of Cass's decendants or smth.

Anyway, I just hope no one dies. Those are my main hopes.

hi! i was wondering if you’d recommend other authors that you enjoy or even specific fanfics you like? i’ve only just started getting into the steve/tony fandom and want to follow more people! thank you!

Hi there!!! Welcome to the fandom!!!<3<3<3

I’m so glad you asked this question since I’ve always wanted to do a fic rec post!!!!

HERE WE GO:

10K+ WORDS (ONE CHAPTER) FICS:

Quit while you’re ahead by magicasen

“It began, as things tend to between them, as a bet.”

the reason you ruminate the shadowy past by Mizzy

“So, Captain America effectively manages to cockblock Tony for a year.

It's not Steve's fault. Well, actually, it is. But he was just proving a point - that if a superhero is gay, how can it be wrong? Steve just picked the wrong superhero to make the point with. Now America will think they're dating - and Tony's not going to be the guy to break Captain America's heart.

There's only one way out. To save face, Steve and Tony have to become fake boyfriends. Steve thinks the "boyfriends" bit will be the hardest to act... but maybe it's the "fake" part that will be the hardest act of all...”

made to make you blue by gottalovev

“Steve, drunk for the first time since the serum, hits on Tony. It's everything Tony's ever dreamt about, but he refuses to have sex with a drunk Steve who can't truly consent. They do kiss, though, and Tony stays the night. The morning after brings a misunderstanding of disastrous proportion, where both men wrongly assume the other is uninterested. Life gets extremely complicated when Enchantress, mad at Thor, casts a spell that links people who love each other together, letting them feel the other's pain.”

On the Turning Away by thegraytigress

“Tony's new relationship with Steve is going great. They're a few weeks into it, and it's utterly amazing. He's feeling better and more sure of himself than he ever has before. Honestly, he's flying high.

But then he asks Steve a simple, logical, and seemingly innocent question: "do you want to spend the night?" And everything comes crashing down.”

love the sin, love the sinner by silkspectred

“It keeps happening. Not often, just once or twice a month, but it keeps happening. Always in the same way: it’s unplanned, sudden, unexpected, Steve is surprised and eager, his dick goes from zero to one hundred in two seconds, Tony’s touch is electric, everything he does drives Steve crazy, but he never lets Steve kiss him, he very rarely looks Steve in the eye, he never talks, never makes a sound when he comes, never mentions it later.”

Of Beards and Best Defenders by nannersmelo

“Tony finds out about when Steve had a beard once upon a time, and outraged that he never got to see it, decides to find a way to witness it by himself.”

Tony Pretends To Date Steve (Until He Doesn't Have To) by HappyStony

“"You alright?"

Of course he was not alright! Tony had a blue eyed, blond haired, six foot too high, two hundred who knows what pound, too sexy for his own good ninety something, mentally twenty, year old man on top of him. Who even asks that question in a situation like that?

Or: Basically the title. Tony pretends he's dating Steve until...well, you know.”

i have found the one (whom my soul loves) by soniclipstick (veriscence)

“It's been months since the Avengers were pardoned. One by one, they'd all gone home, until Steve finds himself alone in the grand old building T'Challa had given them.

But everything changes when Steve answers the doorbell, and Tony Stark strides in with more grey on his temple and make-up on his face than Steve remembers.”

Hating Steve Rogers by nanasekei

“The thing about hating Steve Rogers is that it shouldn’t be easy - but it really, really is.”

we have become something different, beloved (tragic and lovely) by Areiton, venusiaries

“"What's the Accords?" he asks, and Tony's head tilts. "I don't think that concerns you," he says. "But you don't deny that it's something." "There's a lot of something's I'm involved in that you don't know about," Tony says.

~~~~

There's a story, years long and publicly known, about the way the Avengers ended and why. And then there is the truth, carefully hidden and protected.”

remedy by quidhitch

““I like the walls,” Steve shrugs, knocking his knuckles against the side as if to demonstrate. “Makes me feel covered.”

A soldier in a fortress, Tony thinks, which is a pretty ridiculous thought to have about Captain America and his enormous limbs stuffed into a too-small bathtub, but there it is.

Or: Tony Stark learns a thing or two about what it means to be In Recovery™.”

Binary System by Annie D (scaramouche) ( @no-gorms )

“Tony tends to be tactile with people he trusts. These days that list of people includes Steve, which is a good sign of the progression of their friendship. For his part, Steve seems to enjoy it as much as Tony does... until Tony goes a little too far.”

The Best Policy by starknjarvis

“Tony Stark breezes through life on bluster and bullshit. When he gets hit by a truth spell, he locks himself away in his workshop so he can find a way to reverse it without anyone finding out. So why can't he say no when Steve keeps asking to spend time with him?”

Slipping off the Page into Your Hands by Sineala ( @sineala )

“Soulmates have their first words to each other written on their wrists. This should make it easy. For Steve and Tony, it is anything but. Steve's problem is that the future he has awoken into is nothing he was ever expecting: he has a soulmate now. Who might be a robot. And if his soulmate is Iron Man, how can he be so attracted to Tony Stark? It should be impossible. Tony's problem is that he is Iron Man, his soulmate is a man whom he in no way deserves, and he is going to fight everything in his heart and do his best to make sure Steve never, ever finds out the whole truth.”

How to Win Affection Without Really Trying by Annie D (scaramouche)

“Tony almost dies saving Steve’s life, but that’s just part of being an Avenger. It’s no reason for Steve to get all weird and intense around him afterward.”

A Certain Affinity by miobambiino ( @miobambiino )

“"They were like that a lot nowadays, ever since they got back from their little kidnapping escapade. Sure, they’d been close before then - they all had - but now… it was different. They were close, close. Squishing up next to each other, whispering to one another, playing with each others hair, apparently.

Steve inwardly grimaced at himself. He was being bitter and petty, he knew that. But he couldn’t figure out why, though. His teammates were getting along, which is only a good thing. Especially considering how they started things off way back on the helicarrier. But since when were Tony and Nat this cosy?"

Aka Steve is jealous of Tony and Nat's friendship, gets the wrong idea, and requires a little help from Nat herself to get some well-needed perspective.”

Admiring the Scenery by Annie D (scaramouche)

“Steve’s used to people checking him out, but when Tony does it, it feels… different.”

Symmetry Breaking by Annie D (scaramouche)

“After the Battle of New York, Steve rode off on his motorbike. That's how it went the first time.

This time he rides back, all the way to Stark Tower, where he asks Tony for help.”

MULTICHAPTERS FICS:

almeno tu nell'universo by silkspectred

“Tony drives off.

Well, he wants to.

But he can’t.

Because.

Steve Rogers is in front of his car.

Steve fucking Rogers. Is in front of Tony’s fucking car.”

take my heart clean apart by mistymountainking

“He’s tired, so tired of waiting, tired of touches with no meaning, tired of holding his breath when Steve’s in the room, tired of keeping this love to himself.

“I can’t—I can’t, if you don’t mean it.”

***

Tony comes home exhausted after an SI event. Steve acts as welcoming committee. It's an old, careworn routine they've perfected over the years, but tonight ends up going in a very different direction.”

Thrust Issues by Sineala

“A battle gone wrong leads Tony to the unexpected and pleasant discovery that Steve is much more well-endowed than he could ever have imagined. But when Tony learns that Steve has never actually been able to sleep with anyone because of his size, Tony does what any good friend would do: he offers to relieve Steve of his virginity. Personally. Tony's determined, Tony's methodical, and Tony has a plan. He's going to get Steve laid. Tony just needs to make sure Steve never finds out that Tony's in love with him.”

Overhaul by Annie D (scaramouche)

“Steve knows that Tony has feelings for him and, since he doesn’t return those feelings, has been mildly dreading the day that Tony decides to do something about it. When that day finally arrives, Steve discovers that Tony’s wooing strategy isn’t anything at all like he’d expected.”

Whatever Makes You Happy by WilmaKins ( @wilmakins )

“Steve and his team never stopped Avenging. So when T'Challa tells them about strange events at the site of an ancient landmark, everything seems quite simple. Of course they'll help Shuri to investigate it - helping people is what they do, after all.

Until they discover that a race of alien empaths are harvesting human emotions as a source of power. Specifically, they're using the misery of one Tony Stark.

So, until they work out what's really going on, the fate of the world might depend on them keeping Tony happy.

Not simple. Not simple at all.

Set six months after CA:CW.”

a catalog of non-definitive acts by firebrands ( @firebrands )

“Tony's seen the way Steve watches him, trails after him just for a moment, then catches himself. Let it never be said that Tony Stark doesn’t pay attention. At least, when it matters.

*

Or, Steve, Tony, and the emotional fallout of keeping secrets. (Set in some nebulous time pre-AoU.)”

The Single Biggest Problem With Communication by BlossomsintheMist

“In the wake of Steve's return from the dead and the end of Norman Osborn's reign of terror, the superhero community is recovering--Steve has taken on a new role and Tony is trying to put his life back together. Things are still awkward between them, but they're determined to put things to rights. But when a discussion about their feelings leads to further misunderstandings, they discover that might be more difficult than either of them realized. Set in the early Heroic Age after the end of Dark Reign, this is a get-together story about crossed wires--and second chances.”

Broken by livink ( @anthonyed )

“After Siberia, Tony Stark faces depression, a giant purple alien and a forced reunion. Ironically, he feels as if he's the only one who is broken in this journey. Until he comes across Barnes. Then, Bruce, Natasha and Wanda. Later, he realises that the man who broke him is broken too and this is a story where they heal and find their footings back.”

wonderland by Areiton

“Six weeks after being abandoned in Siberia, Tony wakes in a Tower, next to the man who broke his heart and his trust. But the world--whatever Wonderland world they’ve landed in--isn’t like their own. The Avengers are happy here. Tony and Steve are married here. With a direct line to Steve’s emotions and the team that he’s always wanted--Tony is more than a little tempted to stay. Seeing how happy Tony is, how healthy Bucky is--Steve doesn’t disagree. But there are cracks in Wonderland and the shiny paint peeling might leave a nightmare behind--one that Tony and Steve will need each other more than ever, to escape.”

when i run out of road, you bring me home by quidhitch

““Oh, I won’t bother you.” The tone of Steve’s voice implies that he definitely will be bothering Tony, aggressively and frequently. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll keep to my farm, you keep to yours. Solitude together.”

Tony opens his mouth to argue that that’s not how this works, but he snaps it shut at the realization that Steven Grant Rogers is fucking with him. That twinkle in his eye has accelerated into a full-on glimmer, and the ends of his lips are twitching. Jesus, he hates this man. Or maybe he wishes he did. Tony can’t really tell the difference anymore.”

Down in Lonesome Town by resurrectedhippo

“Tony eyes him. “Why do I always find my way back to you?”

Maybe he didn’t necessarily return to Steve, but fate is a funny little thing, and after living a life of loss, Steve wants something that’s his to keep. Tony deserves a love that’s unrestrained; Steve thinks he’ll erupt with it.

Love is messy, not easy, and takes work.

Maybe love feels like rage.

But maybe love could just be jumping off a rocky mountain and smiling anyway.

After the universe is restored, Steve is lost without any direction. Retiring from the Avengers, he moves across the country and ends up building a house by a misty blue lake. Across the bridge is Tony Stark’s new workshop.”

In the Stillness of Remembering by elise_509

“Steve Rogers is a reminder of a past that Tony Stark would rather forget. But when Steve’s own ghosts suddenly become the present, Tony finds he and Steve need each other to face the future.”

Good For You by orbingarrow

“Steve doesn't understand why Tony dates people who abuse him. Tony doesn't understand why Steve cares.

The rest is bad choices, good choices, rehab, milkshakes, paintball, YouTube videos, couples therapy and learning to put the past in the past. Or: How Tony finds his happy ending.”

SERIES:

Pulse-Point by itsallAvengers

Guys and Bots by Annie D (scaramouche)

AUTHORS:

I love very deeply each author of the fics I’ve listed, but these are the main blogs I follow here on tumblr who regularly post 1K (more or less) words fic:

@omg-just-peachy

@no-gorms

@maguna-stxrk

@natasharxmanov

@s-horne

@firebrands

@iam93percentstardust

@anthonyed

@ad1thi

@littlemissstark

@chirriko

@tinytonysnark

(Plus self-spam: MrsWinterBreath , my own ao3 profile!)

Lastly, check @sabrecmcstonyficrecs blog by @sabrecmc who is not only an extremely talented writer themself, but also incredibly patient and kind enough to offer masterposts with fics about any Stony trope you could ever think of!!!

This is a non-exhaustive list because there are a LOT more authors out there that deserve their works to be read, so I suggest you giving it a chance even to fics and authors you’ve never heard of, you might find a masterpiece without even realising it!!!!

And most importantly: always leave a kudos and comment if you liked what you read, this way I guarantee you the authors will be more than happy to keep on providing you with amazing works!!!!

I’m gonna infodump about my favorite movie

Rise of the Guardians

It’ll be under the readmore, but TL;DR: Watch Rise of the Guardians and read the books

Rise of the Guardians is a 2012 animated film released by Dreamworks. The story is childhood figures (Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Sandman, and Jack Frost) trying to defend the children of earth against Pitch Black, (The Boogeyman) 

It’s based on a book series called Guardians of Childhood, written by William Joyce. Who, if you don’t know, writes children’s book. Guardians of Childhood is more of a “Young Adult” series compared to his other Guardians books (The Man in the Moon, Sandman: The Story of Sanderson Mansnoozie, and Jack Frost are all part of the series, but they are picture books.)

He’s also written other books you may be familiar with.

The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs and A Day with Wilbur Robinson 

Sound familiar?

Maybe you’d recognize them as their movie counterparts, Epic (animated by Blue Sky Studios) and Meet the Robinsons (animated of course by Disney)

Also Rolie Polie Olie, which was a favorite Disney Jr cartoon growing up for me, and was also a book series. 

I could honestly go on and on about William Joyce, his work was a part of my childhood a LOT (even credited for working on some of my favorite films like Buddy, Robots, Toy Story, and A Bug’s Life) and that’s probably why I love ROTG so much.

I read all of the Guardians books and own all of them save for Jack Frost and The Art of Rise of the Guardians and the books are not cheap, but what books are? I have HARD COVER BITCHES. Half of them were gifts and I also own the ROTG DVD.

The art in the books (all drawn by William Joyce himself) is really good (this is my favorite art from the books)

And the animation in the movie, as expected from Dreamworks, is beautiful. 

You get to see all their unique homes and they’re such varying types of environments. Of course, you have the North Pole, where it’s chaotic and wonderful. Just look at this concept art 

And then you have the Tooth Palace, where the Tooth Fairy does her work

It’s very obvious that there are some Indian inspirations in the design because Tooth herself is actually Middle-Eastern (in the books it’s explained in depth more and one of my complaints about the movie is that they whitewashed her even though her concept art in the ending credits shows her with brown skin)

The Warren, where the Easter Bunny paints his eggs

Which is something you never really think about because people only focus on the North pole so seeing so much thought put into it is really nice

We never see where Sandy works/lives (in the MOVIE. But the GAME on the other hand lets you explore EVERYONE’S homes and that’s a whole nother story)

We DO however see Pitch’s lair and

it’s rightfully spooky. When you actually see the scene play out in the lair, you get all confused and don’t know which way is which and it always unsettles me which is GOOD because that’s what it’s SUPPOSED to do

What’s really unique about ROTG is that there’s a source material (and as of now there are eight books (five novels, three picture books) and the series isn’t DONE yet) and instead of turning the books into a movie even though the plot is literally RIGHT THERE, they took the source material and turned it into a prologue. The movie takes place about 300 years after the books do and since the books are supposedly still ongoing, and William Joyce was CONTINUING to write the series while the movie was in production. (Three books have come out since the movie came out.)

I love how challenging that must have been for William to try to include stuff from his previous books in the movie AND to try and link the movie to his newer books despite some continuity errors (also worth noting that he has written a book about Santa and his wife, but Mrs. Claus is YET to be seen or even mentioned in the movie) but I appreciate the effort he put into it and I can’t wait to see what else he’ll come up with.

The characters look a BIT different from their book counterparts

Jack is voiced by Chris Pine and his voice is WAY TOO DEEP and the creators can’t agree on an age for him (book age is 14, but he can age himself up and down to a certain point and some producers said they imagined him 17 or 18) and (imo) I think Jack’s design was pretty lazy (a blue jacket with brown pants) compared to everyone else’s. I mean you have North, who is 

BIG

His design is based more on the worldly Father Christmas than the Saint Nick/Santa that we know. 

When he’s not in the Pole he’s wearing his big red fur coat and a cossack hat

Because he’s Russian

I’m pretty sure he canonically was raised by bears but that may have just been me imagining it. His book appearance is way different because when we meet him, he’s not Santa yet. So he’s still young

Of course, as the books go on, he looks like Santa

Bunny has the most drastic character change from his book design, as depicted by this fanart (which i couldn’t find a credit for that wasn’t pinterest so if anyone knows please tell me)

And there’s a CANONICAL reason why he looks so different (two actually)

Once they put Hugh Jackman in the role, they wanted a more dry Australian ranger-type design for him, and then the robes got in the way because of how he was moving, even when they changed him to just a lab coat, so they decided to forgo clothes altogether

Fun fact about Bunny. He’s a Pooka, a shapeshifting folklore creature that can turn into either a rabbit, goat, cat, dog, or horse. (or even a human with animal like features) Which actually gives a lot of people the headcanon that Pitch uses the souls of all Bunny’s dead people (yep he’s a sole survivor) as Nightmares

But he’s a different kind of Pooka. He’s an alien technically. And this breed of Pooka CANNOT eat chocolate because it does things to their body. Like giving him six arms. Or making his ears into helicopter propellers. 

This is relevant because he uses chocolate in battle multiple times. So the canonical explanation for why Bunny looks so different is that he ate too much chocolate and it permanently changed his body.

Which I love. I could go on about him but all the characters are interesting

Tooth has probably the second most confusing design

She’s based off a hummingbird with dragonfly wings, which aesthetically makes so much sense, but in the books she has regular feather wings. I also don’t like how weird her proportions are. Her feet are tiny nubs, her head is too big for her body (her body is actually pretty nicely designed it’s just every other part of it that bothers me) and I already mentioned the whitewashing

PITCH on the other hand had the biggest glow down compared to the books

He’s just wearing a black robe and, apparently, he doesn’t even have sleeves, which you can’t even really tell because it’s just all smudgy and shit

I mean I guess that’s the point, that he looks like he’s clothed in shadow, but it’s frustrating to look at especially compared to his book design where he’s wearing a FABULOUS coat

Meanwhile Sandy has the PERFECT character design

He’s just ROUND and wears a bathrobe made of sand. Like it’s not even that different from his book design (his hair has more frills than the book version) because it’s such a perfect design and I love how he’s animated. You can’t see it that well because the gif quality, but the sand also sparkles and it just makes it so fun to watch on screen 

The movie itself has its share of flaws. (the movie likes to pick and choose the rules it wants to follow about its universe, a huge plothole, and some cheaply constructed arguments between characters that really just make me annoyed because I don’t want to see the easter bunny making a child cry I want to see him get into a fist fight with Santa it’s like you don’t even KNOW your demographic) But I love it and there’s SO MUCH I could talk about. There are characters in the books that weren’t in the movie and there were characters in the movie that weren’t in the books (because they weren’t born yet but IRRELEVANT) 

It was a HUGE flop despite critics praising it. Like 8,000 people lost their jobs over it that’s how big a flop it was. But it’s such a dear movie to me and it’s clear that William Joyce holds this series close to his heart (dedicating it and the movie to his late daughter) which makes sense because it’s based on stories he told her when she was young and I’m so honored that he chose to share these stories with us. I just love the series and I should do a re-read at some point

im getting angry so heres my love, death and robots episode ranking list ( best to worst )

1) helping hand, holy shit this one gave me so much anxiety and i got attached to the character so fast, she gave up so much just to survive.

2) the witness, really huge horny people territory, nudity, gore all of that stuff but a great plot twist at the end. also an amazing art style

3) lucky 13. this one made me cry like a baby if im honest, the animation and plot and characters and everything are so amazing and great, really great all together

4) sonnies edge! another one with amazing characters and animation. cool story as well, and you all know im a sucker for some lesbians. the end was also so amazing, sad and happy and scary all at the same time.

5) three robots! an amazing break from the dark nature of the rest of the show. just a few happy go lucky robots wandering a post-apocalyptic world and discovering new things. also, love the cats.

6)suits! god the animation in this one is so awesome, also love the kinda “ farmers gotta defend against aliens “ trope that they have going on. made me sad and happy, really satisfying end. im also just biased because,,, cool ass mechs

7) good hunting. also amazing, love the whole steampunk thing thats going on, tragic and a happy ending at the same time art style reminds me so much of something, i just cant place it at all.

8) beyond the aquila rift, super fucking scary, the animation is on point, also really horny at times, but that slight plot twist was really good! scary spider lady is a no from me tho, like, ew,,

9) sucker of souls!, really awesome art, kinda dingy looking because well, theyre in a cave, also dark, both in plot and it lighting, awesome tho! im so in love with some of the characters tbh

10)blindspot, oooh man this one is so cool! im a sucker for robots and moving action scenes, also made some of the deaths seem sad, but also funny, also amazing art style! reminds me of some 90s cartoons, really loveable characters.

11) the secret war, i was half asleep thru this entire one so i cant really give a good thing to say about it, animation and shit looked super good tho, awesome looking characters and plot.

12) fish night, really awesome animation style, cool plot too, kinda boring tho?? like, the colors and everything are amazing in this one, but all together kinda bland.

13) the dump! really cool art style, love the trash dog, love th character design, did not enjoy seeing some homeless man dick. that all i gotta say.

14) ice age. not a fan, the live action threw me off tbh, cool concept of a huge society living in a fridge, i only laughed once at this comedy one, but it was also barely a giggle, just not very good, boring.

15) alternate histories. pretty cool, cheery art style, see Hitler die in many comedic ways. its cool tbh, i love the concept of a website that would do stupid shit like that, and seeing Hitler die over and over is always a plus.

16)when the yogurt took over, kinda wonky art style, almost like the concept of an artificial intelligence thats smarter than man itself, like the narration kinda style with it, also just kinda boring tho,,

17)shape shifters, kinda cool at times but i feel like werewolves are so overused at this point. do like the things that point to teh fact that they arent quite equal to humans tho. loving the werewolf gays as well, th realistic art style was getting old at this point as well,i just like the characters and environments.

18) zima blue, i dont have anything nice to say about this. ugly art, ugly story, ugly characters. just, no. made me very uncomfortable.

Ok but...I feel like VLD S7-8 would’ve been a bit more interesting (jeez what an understatement...) if they had framed it as a sort of redemption arc for Team Voltron themselves. They caused the invasion of Earth by leaving Lotor in the Rift and now they have to deal with the consequences. But nope, cause Heroes never make mistakes right?

I suppose focusing so tightly on Allura should have left some holes in my analysis, and you’re absolutely right! I wanted to focus on Allura exclusively since the Heroine’s Journey model is so new compared to the Hero’s Journey and it fits it just so friggin’ well. Honestly, it’s kinda mind-blowing to me that I never learned about it until this year but it’s such a fascinating story structure. Mostly I’ll be discussing s8 in this response because the edits made to 7 would have been done prior to production completion, and they primarily were focused on including the MFE pilots and removing Lotor’s sympathetic backstory and moving it to s8e2 “Shadows”.

I suppose my biggest hiccup with my meta is that I kinda sorta ignored the majority of the cast by focusing on Allura XD because you’re right, narratively it’s interesting to see the fallout but also it’s structurally necessary for the Paladins to face consequences of a situation they caused. That would be a part of not only Allura’s arc as a Heroine but the Paladins’ as heroes (regardless of whether they fit the Hero’s Journey monomyth), as well as contextually appropriate given how this is a Y-7 and generally kids’ shows are educational in some way. While we see Allura be conflicted about leaving Lotor in the Rift almost as soon as Keith gives the order to leave, the team and the rest of the Voltron Coalition continue to applaud it as a good decision, and then in the version of s8 on Netflix either tacks in Lotor as a “big bad guy we defeated” using cut-and-pasted dialogue or simply ignores him as a character. I imagine Team V’s redemption would have begun in earnest after Allura’s descent into the underworld and her returning with the knowledge that not only is Lotor alive but that he needs to be rescued.

Having the team be in the trenches of their mistake not only highlights Allura’s conflict within herself--after all, she effectively destroyed the part of herself that she was afraid to accept in the same stroke as seemingly-killing Lotor--but it also demonstrates how the team’s biggest mistake in this is that they didn’t stop and listen. Allura’s mental health is at stake here from the very start. She’s listless, she feels alone and isolated, and none of her friends seem to notice beyond telling her to take a night off work.

Lance, much as I love what he could’ve been, would have been critical to the turnaround necessary not only for Lotor to get his vindication/redemption, but also to trigger the necessary metamorphosis of Team V from heroes who failed a challenge into true Heroes who make things right and grow. Instead, in the s8 on Netflix, Lance fulfills the role of the ogre in Allura’s Heroine’s Journey, and seems to be more possessive of Allura in the latter half of the season, rather than being given the opportunity to become quite probably the first of the Paladins to actually back her up in the proposal to save Lotor. Tbh if anything I’d wager that when it’s time to step up to the plate in the original s8, Lance more than makes up for the nonsense of the first half of s8 and probably convinces Pidge next that it’s a good idea to save Lotor. And Pidge being crazy smart would pick up on all the strategic benefits that Allura might not have elaborated on, as well as the subtextual emotional motivation.

And the cool thing about this is that it would give Paladin Allura the opportunity to redeem herself to herself. Because she shut down emotionally when she left Lotor in the Rift. Lotor represented the side of her she feared, the emotional, the feminine tempering to his masculinity, and shutting him in the Rift meant she was also shutting herself away from her own emotions and ability to temper the path her father left for her. As an Animus, Lotor encourages balance to Allura internally, but if he’s gone then so is that balance, so taking the initiative to not only save Lotor but revive him would solve this problem twofold: she would be saving him and righting the wrong that Voltron committed, but she would also be taking that critical step and acknowledging, approaching, and bringing to light the things she might not have wanted to face before. By rescuing him and effectively asking his forgiveness, she’s also forgiving herself and able to take those steps forward to unify herself and the universe.

In turn, all these redemptions and salvations would culminate in the storming of the pyramid, which would be Allura’s Heroine’s Journey climax and the point where Team V as a whole really ascends back to herodom. I mean, one key thing to remember is that since Team V has all the protagonists and serve as our lens into this fantastical world of aliens and robots, so the redemption is pretty much inevitable, but that doesn’t change the fact that they would be righting a wrong and redeeming themselves. It’s just that we see it with heroes rather than antagonists. With “Shadows”, you’re really supposed to see Team V as bad at being good, at least where Lotor’s concerned, but by righting their own wrong it gives them the ability to then move forward and help Lotor and Allura have that final showdown with Honerva and fix the universe, but only after they’ve proven themselves worthy of the title of “heroes”.

And again: this is a Y-7. It’s geared towards kids as a general rule but like a lot of DreamWorks stuff, it’s generally considered a family show. Cool as literary sex metaphors and facing permanent consequences are, you can’t mentally scar kids for life. The heroes gotta do their thing, but the important thing is that they earn it. They’re not Prince Charming in a Disney film who happens to be in the right place at the right time, they’re Hiccup and Toothless, learning to work together and fighting for the right reasons even when the odds are stacked against them, and that the dragons aren’t bad by nature, but by circumstance, and that they’re just as much victims as the Berkians. It’s a show that handles big themes and big questions that little kids might not realize they’re asking yet, but it gives them the groundwork to understand things better as they grow older. To quote Peter Keefe, who worked on Defender of the Universe, "At the end of the day, it's not about who's the most powerful, who's the most brave or strong. It's more like, who has the biggest mind, and how open can your mind be, and how important a sense of humor is and how we shouldn't take ourselves very seriously. So if they walk away with a little bit of a lighter lilt to their step, that's what Voltron means. It means ‘have a heart, have a soul’ and of course it takes place in a wild and fanciful world, but that's what people take, I hope."

(same anon as dark souls, hope i can prompt twice) i also distinctly remember a post about altean!lance being alfor's brother. *puppy dog eyes* please?

> prompt rules: here

> prompt 1 / prompt 2

prompt 3: heavy the cosmos (pt. 1)

note: this grew to be too long anon so i’ve split it. that being said, i have no idea why it grew too long, and now i am greatly concerned. 

-

“You look… just like my younger brother did,” King Alfor murmured, his piercing blue eyes stuttering away from Lance’s face. “It is… rather disconcerting.”

“Oh,” Lance replied lamely, not sure how exactly to take that. “Sorry, I guess?”

The king – Allura’s dad, who’d died ten thousand years ago but had his memories saved as an AI – quickly said, “No, no! Nothing to be sorry for, young one. I was merely taken aback by it. Please, come closer.”

Hesitantly, not sure of his welcome despite the invitation, Lance crept into the room he’d seen Allura hole up in for hours on end, the curiousness that had brought him here fuelling him on. The tall man gestured him closer, as if he were a frightened cat, the kind smile he wore soothing whatever misgivings Lance might have had.

“I don’t think we’ve met before,” the king murmured, once Lance was standing almost in front of him. “I am Alfor. And you are?”

Lance stuffed his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunching as he realised he had no idea what to do now that he’d gotten to this point. Allura was going to be so angry with him for invading her privacy, holy crow. “Lance,” he introduced himself anyway, eyes drifting over to the field of flowers that surrounded them. “This is a pretty cool place.”

“Indeed,” Alfor smiled, looking around himself fondly. “I would bring Allura here whenever I could steal away some free time. Her mother used to love it here too.”

Allura’s mom? Lance wanted to ask, so bad, but he knew he’d already crossed a line coming in here, he couldn’t- “What was her mom like?” Quiznak.

Alfor laughed, a boisterous noise that brought a reluctant smile to Lance’s lips. “Oh by the stars,” the Altean gasped, wiping at an eye theatrically, “She was every bit the varka she was anointed as, loud and bright and so very brave. I-” he halted, mirth fading to a quiet melancholy, a quiet nostalgia that brought to light the wrinkles Lance hadn’t noticed before. “She was a remarkable woman, and I was a lucky man to call her my wife.”

Meaning she’d probably died. Sometime before Alfor had. Before Allura and Coran had been cryogenically frozen for ten thousand years.

God, Lance was an idiot.

“But none of that,” Alfor dismissed, waving a hand in the air to brush it off. “You are one of the new paladins, are you not, young Lance? May I ask which lion you pilot?”

Lance perked up at that, always willing to talk about his amazing blue lion, and proudly said, “The greatest lion of all, of course. The Blue Lion!”

(warmth fondness pride my paladin my paladin my paladi-)

Alfor let loose the same laugh as before, quickly defending himself at Lance’s offence with, “I’m not laughing at you, young one! No, it’s just- your predecessor had said the exact same thing before, many times! Ah, Blue truly knows how to choose her paladins!”

Blue rolled in fondness, pawing at Lance from her place at the back of his mind. He pawed back, or at least tried to, still unused to whatever bond it was they shared, still unused to having a sentient, robotic, space ship lion choose him, of all people.

A table materialised in front of them, a little round thing with fancy detailing like the kind his mama bought from antique stores. Two chairs accompanied it, fazing in like a cool glitch, equally detailed, and Alfor gestured at him to take a seat while he did so himself.

“I would be pleased to hear more of how you came to be here, Lance,” the king said warmly, eyes crinkling at the edges, “If you are free and have the time?”

He probably didn’t. Allura was probably calling for them all, demanding they train. Or maybe Coran was searching for him to help clean the cryopods. Or-

-the flowers swayed in the computer generated wind, Alfor’s hair glitched, ever so slightly, and blue trilled at him mournfully, at the remains of a king long dead revived by the press of a button.

“Sure,” Lance said carefully, sitting down on the offered chair and ignoring the happy look that crossed Alfor’s face. “But you gotta tell me about this other blue paladin guy, sounds like a genius to me.”

Alfor laughed, leaning in as Lance settled, and promised, “Oh, I will.”

#

“And then Shiro remembered this dude he fought in the arena with who had the exact same weapon and how he defeated him, and bam!” Lance narrated, miming Voltron’s counterstrike. “We won!”

Alfor dutifully clapped, expression clearly showing he was impressed. “This… robeast-” he stumbled over the word, “-sounds like a ferocious enemy. It is most impressive you were able to stay on equal ground with it, let alone defeat it. Your team is young, Lance, but gifted.”

Preening at the praise, Lance nodded, finally taking his seat again from where he’d been pacing, too caught up in bringing Alfor up to speed on what had happened since he’d last snuck in.

This had become something of a habit, stealing away from the group to have a few minutes with Alfor, making sure it was after Allura had come and gone to avoid running into her.

He felt bad about it, kinda, since this was her dad, and Lance absolutely knew he would’ve been jealous (and pissed) if someone had been doing the same with something that belonged to him.

But he also felt bad at the idea of… not coming here. At the idea of leaving Alfor behind in this huge field of pretty flowers with nobody but Allura for company. Sure, Alfor wasn’t actually a person, wasn’t actually the Alfor Allura and Coran knew. Sure, he was just memories and alien tech working to formulate what Alfor statistically would have said and in what tone and with what face, but…

… Still.

So Lance kept coming, time and time again. Kept an eye out for Allura and her long hair leaving the room, kept an eye out for just how much heartache she carried that day and her expressions; that little twist of her lips, the way her shoulders seemed lighter yet somehow heavier, the stronger voice she ordered them in – it all meant she’d visited Alfor.

And so Lance would visit after.

“You sure it’s okay for me to be here?” He asked anyway, fidgeting on the chair (and how exactly did the room materialise a chair?) as Alfor took a dainty sip of his fake tea.

“Of course,” Alfor replied with a smile, expression kind and welcoming. “I doubt I’m of much help, since you and your team seem to be outpacing myself and my own by lightyears, but I’m here anyway. And if nothing else…” The King paused, smile turning helpless, almost embarrassed. “I do enjoy your presence, Lance. I’ll be happy to have you for as long as it takes for you to get bored of this old man’s tales.”

Lance’s own lips pulled up into a grin, helpless in their joy, as he leaned forward and happily said, “No way, man! Your stories are great! Okay, so,” he threw himself back into his seat, determination furrowing his eyebrows. “I’ll keep coming. But if the others find out and they get pissed at me you gotta protect me, alright?”

Alfor’s snorted, amusement visible as he stroked his beard. “Hmmm… Let me think on it.”

Lance’s indignant squawk had him laughing.

#

The party had still been going strong when Lance had left it, struggling to keep himself in check and not bawl his eyes out like a little kid.

Coran sucked at comforting people, long arms struggling to eat up the distance the holomap spun through to reach the tiny planet known as Earth, showing the full breadth of distance between them.

So far away.

… But at least still there.

At least Earth was still there, Lance realised guiltily, taking in Coran’s heartbroken expression and misty eyes. At least he could still go there, right now even, if he wanted to leave the entire universe to the hands of the Galra. At least he knew his mom, his dad, his brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews were still all right.

Coran didn’t have that. Allura didn’t have that.

“But none of that, my boy.” Coran loudly said, slapping his hands against his thighs as he stood up. “We’ll get you home in a right tick! Just as soon as we defeat the Galra.”

Right.

He just had to stay strong till then.

He took Coran’s offered hand, squeaking a little as the Altean easily hoisted him up, and moved to follow. A tiny metallic whoosh whoosh noise hailed the arrival of Rover, the little triangle robot thing Pidge had suddenly popped up with one day, and Lance gave a distracted greeting to the thing as he followed Coran back to the festivities.

He wondered if Pidge would get him one of his own, if he asked nicely. Colour code the green light to blue and name it Estella, maybe. He glanced back at Rover, noticing again that it’s little beep boop’s were really cute, and-

Hang on.

He looked away, into the hallway, down the other end, Coran the only other soul present. He looked back, at Rover, the little machine floating genially towards the crystal, and-

“Wait, where’s-”

beep boop beep boop beep beep

beEP BEEEP-

“CORAN!”

#

“-y prince!” Steel in his hands, cold and metal- “Inhale, exhale,”

the stars were beautiful tonight, “-re you flirting with me, my lord?”

bayard in his hands, cold and metal- “ackshot, just like always”

umbasa, swirling up above, the constellation hidden in the cosmos, hidden in- 

“this isn’t right, alf-” but nobody listening. superstition, traditionalist, stuck on the words and lapels of his late mother, “don’t-”

quintessance. blue lion. other lions. “voltron.”

a woman’s face, red diafra’s under her eyes, red quintessance in her soul, and thirst drowning her whole-

umbasa. umbasa. umbasa.

a familiar voice, calling his name, “Lance?”

that wasn’t his name.

(that was his name.)

purple, alarms, a familiar, weary face with a scar across the bridge of his nose-

and bright yellow eyes belonging to a man that gripped his shoulder tight and said, “I’ll bring him back to you, every single time.”

ALaddoLrLance (who?) felt his lips pulling into a smile, trust and-

“what are you doing?”

“the quintessance-”

wrong, wroNG, WRONG- screaming, who was- Shiro? Shiro was screaming? W h y wouldn’t they listen to him he had to open his eyes and focus down the sight, align the target, pull back and inhale, and with the exhale, shoot.

bullseye.

“we do make a good team,” Lance murmured, the red armour holding him up squeezing him closer, holding him tight. “You guys make a good team!”

Red and blue, Alfor and Blaytz, pausing in their bickering to look at him, smiling.

HoNEggARvaR pleading with him, “my Prince no, we cannot stop, plEaSe-”

Lance woke up gasping.

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #121

Thur Jul 25 2019 [10:36 PM] Wack'd: Ben, you're Jewish. Wrestling angels is kinda our whole thing

[10:37 PM] maxwellelvis: Yeah, but the guy who did that had at least one blessing before doing that. And he still walked funny for the rest of his life afterwards. [10:38 PM] Wack'd: Ah, the age-old strategy of Chamberlain. What happened to him, again? [10:39 PM] maxwellelvis: He was able to buy time for Britain to better defend itself at the cost of his own reputation? [10:39 PM] Bocaj: He was obliterated by a storm of razor sharp crystal shards [10:39 PM] Wack'd: Y'know what? Fair

[10:39 PM] Wack'd: Okay if this had any chance of being the real deal, that's done now

[10:39 PM] Wack'd: I'm like 90% sure this is Loki, honestly [10:41 PM] Wack'd: So anyway all these folks decide yes, murder the Fantastic Four, that sounds reasonable [10:41 PM] Wack'd: They flee into the nearest TV station, as Reed has a plan [10:41 PM] Wack'd: This is Lee again so I'm sure it'll be both completely bonkers and entirely infallible [10:43 PM] Wack'd: It's weird that everybody thinks that's how we would react to the end times when, historically, faced with armageddon, we've just kinda kept truckin'

[10:44 PM] maxwellelvis: Probably because it's never gotten so bad that it hits us. [10:44 PM] Wack'd: I mean case in point, the planet is dying and fascism is making a comeback and I'm still doing the same shit I'd be doing anyway [10:44 PM] maxwellelvis: That or I think when we've been this close to the brink, the government tends to keep it hush-hush to prevent this sort of collapse. [10:45 PM] Wack'd: I'm like 90% sure that if this dude showed up for real we'd all just ignore him [10:45 PM] Wack'd: Anyway without a TV crew, Reed's plan to broadcast a message of hope is kaput [10:46 PM] Wack'd: So he goes back to the Baxter Building [10:47 PM] Wack'd: And gets a gun [10:47 PM] Wack'd: To shoot Gabriel [10:48 PM] Wack'd: Okay, when your deus ex machina is so absurd that even the person using it doesn't believe it should work, there's a problem

[10:48 PM] Bocaj: Bill [10:49 PM] Wack'd: Ha [10:49 PM] maxwellelvis: BILL BILL BILL BILL [10:49 PM] Wack'd: So, it turns out that it didn't work, and Gabriel sends a huge tidal wave into New York to try and kill them [10:50 PM] Wack'd: And then undoes it immediately [10:50 PM] Wack'd: Because he can, I guess [10:50 PM] Wack'd: Oooooooh he's a herald

[10:50 PM] Wack'd: Probably [10:51 PM] Bocaj: OH [10:51 PM] Bocaj: OH SNIZ [10:51 PM] maxwellelvis: I think Bocaj knows this guy [10:52 PM] Bocaj: I have approximate knowledge of many things [10:52 PM] Wack'd:

[10:53 PM] Wack'd: "Given the trajectory of my character development, no, I probably couldn't mean that. Still, sounded cool, didn't it?" [10:54 PM] Wack'd: So Surfer and Gabriel duke it out aaaaaaaand

[10:54 PM] Bocaj: I can’t believe Angels are actually robots made by god [10:55 PM] Wack'd:

[10:55 PM] Wack'd: I mean I'm pretty sure Gabriel did lie [10:55 PM] Wack'd: About being an angel [10:55 PM] Wack'd: But whatever. Semantics [10:55 PM] maxwellelvis: Now, I don't think he ever SAID "I am the Archangel Gabriel" [10:56 PM] maxwellelvis: He just said his name was Gabriel and he blew a trumpet and let mankind fill in the blanks [10:58 PM] Wack'd: Oh my god you're right [10:58 PM] Wack'd: At no point in either of the last two issues did he claim to be an angel [10:59 PM] Wack'd: I can't believe Galactus, a guy who literally eats planets, gets out of promises through stupid baby word games [10:59 PM] Bocaj: Hahah [10:59 PM] maxwellelvis: Galactus, eat a Snickers [10:59 PM] Bocaj: I just read Gabriel’s backstory on Wikipedia once I realized which Gabriel this was [10:59 PM] Bocaj: It sad [10:59 PM] Wack'd: Oh, he comes back I take it? [11:00 PM] Bocaj: Nothing dies [11:00 PM] Wack'd: Yeah fair [11:00 PM] Bocaj: Not as long as money can be made [11:00 PM] Wack'd: Lotta big Gabriel fans out there I guess [11:00 PM] maxwellelvis: Either that or someone remembered what a bizarre foe he was [11:01 PM] Wack'd: Probably, thinking about it, he comes back because he's the last ever Stan Lee Four baddie [11:01 PM] Wack'd: Unless he introduces new guys in the whopping two issues he pens after this run ends [11:01 PM] Bocaj:

Gabriel Lan is a member of the Xandarian Nova Corps and the captain of the diplomatic and exploratory spaceship Way-Opener. Returning from a mission in space, the Way-Opener was confronted by the vessel of the cosmic entity Galactus, who abducts Lan and offers to transform him into a herald, in a similar fashion to the Silver Surfer.

A willing Lan accepts and becomes the Air-Walker. Pyreus Kril, the Way-Opener's first officer and Lan's friend, becomes obsessed with finding Galactus after the abduction. Lan becomes devoted to Galactus, and the closest thing Galactus has had to a true friend. On one journey to seek a planet for sustenance for Galactus, he battles the alien race the Ovoids, who kill Lan, but not before Galactus retrieves and transfers the last spark of Lan's soul to an android body.

Dissatisfied with the android, which lacked Lan's personality, Galactus sends it to Earth to re-enlist the Silver Surfer as his Herald. The Air-Walker encounters the Fantastic Four, and is then defeated by the Surfer, who guesses at the android's true nature.

[11:02 PM] Bocaj: Tldr: Galactus’s only friend but then he died and became a robot and lost his personality so Galactus tried to rebound with Norrin [11:03 PM] Wack'd: All right, well, I don't want to make Galactus angry, so

Alien Isolation: Screams can definitely be heard from MY space

The sound of alarms fill your ears as you run down the spaceship’s steel hallway. The walls are lined with blood and synthetic fluid which shine from the lights of orange sirens hooked to the ceilings. The only objective on your mind is to stop this distressing sound from waking whatever horrors lay dormant in the hull. As you make your way to the security station, you hear the faint sound of scratching slowly gliding across metal. The air duct shakes violently as you press the halt button on the terminal. The orange lights of the alarm stop flashing, and the noise dies. Not a sound could be heard as you look around to make sure you’re safe...Only to be met with a sudden crash from the ventilation just above you. A scaly, black figure suddenly drops into the room, its hissing growing louder as it seeks for its prey.

It has found you. 

This is Alien Isolation, developed by Creative Assembly and released in 2014. Alien Isolation is a part of the Alien franchise created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. The game takes place 15 years after the original movie. You are Ellen Ripley’s daughter, Amanda Ripley. You have been told that a flight recorder from the Nostromo, your mother's ship, has been found and sent to a space station called Sevastopol which is where most of the game takes place. There is no inherent danger before you enter the ship, so you bring no form of self protection. The only things you have are the skills that earned you a place on the team. You’ll find weapons and items to use on your trek across the war zone that now is the Sevastopol. With your prowess in engineering and quick thinking, you’ll have to sneak around people hunting for food, synthetics (robots) glitching out, and an alien hunting for its next prey.

The setting of being in space was such an excellent decision. One already feels alone in the dark abyss that is space, having a horror game placed on a spaceship was perfect. The phrase that keeps playing in my mind is “In space, no one can hear you scream.” This isolation and lack of supplies only enhances the panic raging on the Sevastopol and its tragedy stricken environment. 

So many things are broken and smashed because of the panic the creature had caused. Wires are sparking, oil is leaking, and corpses lay on every corner. Every man is for themselves on this ship and that becomes very apparent once you read the data logs left around, (much like Amnesia and Outlast’s notes). This place that  was supposed to hold life and safety in a vast playground of death has become a hunting ground with no rules. A hopeless situation with no chance of survival, you’ll find the bodies of crew members and synthetics tossed around like toys...yet not a single alien corpse to be found, which makes the situation that much more confusing and horrifying.

The visuals are absolutely beautiful. The lights are radiant, the hallways are shiny, and the alien is horrifying. They definitely had to study up on the Alien franchise’s usage of visuals to completely nail this one down. Everything is polished and the controls feel very smooth. I was very impressed with how the visuals work as you look at your motion sensor. Basically, if you look down at your motion sensor, the background becomes blurry, so something could rush you without noticing it. You have to sacrifice your perception to gain a better look at what is around you.

I think it’s very difficult to distinguish the music from one game to another game because I look at the way in how it bends, moves, and the instruments. You have your typical panic induced crescendos in almost all horror games to keep the player’s heart thumping. You have your lighthearted fantasy guitars of RPG games to keep the character’s sense of adventure going...So how does Alien Isolation remain different and individual? Simple. It stays to its roots of sci-fi and uses elements of the same music used in the original movie Alien.

This isolation the player feels is not created by the atmosphere alone. The music is what really does it...because if you listen close enough...there is hardly any at all. Sure there is a faint drown of violin here and synthetically made music there to satisfy those sci-fi needs with a dull single noted hum, but the game does try to keep it pretty quiet. That is, until you find another person. It’s an excellent way to force the player to feel alone, which makes it all the more horrifying to come face to face with an alien that is nearly twice your size.

The enemy variety forces every area to have a possibility for death. People try to rummage for supplies to survive, synthetics roam the hallways in search of “helping’ people, and the alien scurries through the ventilation system. All of these variables means no area is safe. You may be walking across a hallway and suddenly you find yourself screaming, being dragged up into the shaft just above your head by sharp, black claws digging into your shoulders and a sword like tail being driven into your chest. It keeps the player on edge constantly. My favorite is when you approach a save station which begins to blink red when an enemy is nearby. Imagine turning around to see an angry giant rushing at you.

What’s different from other horror games like Outlast and Amnesia is the introduction of a crafting system and weapons which lets you defend yourself. This forces the player to go out of their way to have to look for supplies to create such things like flares, med kits, and distractions to keep the alien out of your way. It gives the developers an excuse to force the player into unsavory positions. Do you attempt to sneak around the enemies and not use up your supplies? Or do you try to kill fellow survivors and take their gear? Without the proper equipment, you may find yourself face to face with a situation you simply can’t handle...but do be careful. Loud noises draw the creature. You can also use this to your advantage to call the creature to groups of enemies and have them be taken out by claw rather than bullet. There are many places to hide like desks and lockers, but eventually it may just find you. 

You obtain a motion tracker that allows you to look in a direction and see a small “blip” every time the sensor scans the area just like in the original movies. It doesn’t tell you whether it’s a person, a machine, or even a rat which makes it worse when you have to try and confront the “blip”. It helps you see when you are not exactly isolated and something is just around the next corner, waiting for you to pop your head out. This was such a unique edition to a horror game because we’re so used to getting jump scares. How do you make a jump scare out of something that is already there? Which brings me to my next point.

The alien is the ultimate pursuer. It’s senses, quick movement, and hunting prowess makes it impossible to face in head to head combat and THAT’S SCARY! Facing this unstoppable force when you have weapons that are supposed to kill things is scary. It’s the illusion of choice that truly makes the situation bad. You’re given these weapons like a flamethrower or pistol and yet it doesn’t even affect the alien. It doesn’t even phase the damn thing and only halts the inevitable. The story isn’t half bad. It’s the typical escape story given to most, if not all horror games. Amnesia: Escape the castle. Outlast: Escape the hospital. Alien Isolation: escape the station. I’d rather not discuss most of the story since this is merely a review, but I can say that you won’t be playing the game for the story. I can hardly remember the objectives and story lines, but I can clearly remember the areas and enemies I had to face.

This is such a fantastic game for me. I am a huge sci-fi nerd and have been waiting for a good horror game that incorporates this idea for so long. Not only does it introduce a great conflict in the un-biased nature of an alien, it forces the player to use their instincts and try to get around situations in their own way. You have to be smart about your choices and understand the AI just as much as the AI develops to your choices. It was a wonderful adventure that I have tons of hours on even today.

My Experience:

 The game was absolutely horrifying. From the very moment I set foot upon the Sevastopol I could tell everything was amiss. Electronics were firing off randomly, scratches and bullet holes lined the walls, and not a soul was in sight to greet me upon arrival. The game truly makes you feel isolated as you make your way through the corridors to find the recorder from your mother’s ship. You have no comrades on this venture. You have no help. There is no one to talk to through this entire venture, and it’s a LONG adventure. It took me days to even finish this game and I love/hated every second of it. The game made me want to scream at times, and others I just wanted to stop because I was frustrated, but boy was I satisfied.

I’ve always been a big fan of sci-fi ever since I was in grade school. I was my old high school’s sci-fi captain. We met every week on Fridays to watch sci-fi films and eat snacks. We watched a bit of a play through of the game before I bought it myself to try. I was a fan of horror games at the time and had no idea what I was in for. I figured the story would be a typical escape story, but I was not expecting the level of detail in the environments and enemies. I’m glad I got to experience a bit of this game with someone who was special to me, my mother.

Now, Mom didn’t like scary things. In fact she made it a point to scream as loud as she could at the screen if something scary happened or yell at the television in dramas when she was angry which made it all the more horrifying to see an alien or synth...yet all the more comforting to know someone was by me. My parents didn’t really get my whole hobby in gaming, so it was a surprise when my mother wanted to watch a few hours of the game. Since gaming is more of a solo hobby when not talking to online friends, it felt awkward at first. I had to explain what buttons did what, what I was doing, or why we were trying to escape. One scene that stuck with me was when she told me to, “Kill the shit out of that thing,” as an alien charged at us. Of course I died and we both groaned in frustration, but that was some of the funniest moments I got to experience with my mom. She supported my hobby even if she didn’t understand it and I’ll always have a special place in my heart for her. Love you Mom~

The heart of Anthony

a carelessly worded, mildly Frostiron scribble, rated T for drinkin' and language ~2,500 words (ignores Endgame)

Thanos is dead. Many in the Universe have perished during the battle against him. T'Challa. Peter. The Guardians of the Galaxy. Pepper. Thor.

Loki hasn't, he tricked Hela into letting him go from Hel this once. He returned into a world mourning its many losses, and he joined in with his own. He hid from the remaining Asgardians who searched for the next-in-line to the throne. He said his prayers unseen. He raised some havoc at certain points of the universe experimentally, but it didn't bring fulfilment: it was too easy where no one knew him. He ended up on Earth.

Earth is an easy target for nations still recovering after the wars; disorganised alien attacks are more frequent than holidays. S.H.I.E.L.D. is doing a satisfactory job, the Avengers are partially disbanded, a few available members get in contact for occasional teamwork. Tony is a drunkard, a sullen prince in a sealed-off, ruinous Tower. Friends have been trying to barge into his privatised life for his very much essential contribution, to no avail. Some have given up, others spit scornful comments about him or his guts when Loki enters the battle scene for the first time; in chains, willing hostage to the current alien powers, pretending to be helpless against them until a favourable moment presents itself. During the scarcely nostalgic encounter, he's freed unasked, and his plans are nullified with the perish of the alien troops. He can deny his need for help as he wants, his debt is established; in return for letting him stay unharmed, he needs to prove his allegiance. His task: get through the barrier and bring the self-important prince out of his castle. No need to get into the man's dishevelled mind or broken soul, physical force is fully accepted. Point is, Stark should be whole in the end and the Avengers should get a chance to talk to him.

So Loki, for want of better, or in respect to his late brother, that Midgard-lover oaf, sneaks through a familiarly humane defence mechanism with the aid of sorcery. Treads watchfully along glassy corridors and crosses deadly silences, climbs stairs and unnecessarily recognises elements designed for specific Avengers he's encountered before. Meets no resistance from the moment of entering the building. Explores systematically, from the lowest underground floors lined with motionless or disinterested robotics. Heading upwards, he pockets a few peculiar items, none of those found in Midgard among natural circumstances. Stops on Floor +6, marked with the general symbolic 'A' on the elevator's number plate. He stands in a dim, window-lit hall with crystal-smooth floor, leather sofas and a bar at the other end. Abandons the last bits of aloofness based on former experience at a very similar place. His steps don't stir the prince awake. If he's dead, as the stench indicates, it can't have been for a long time because blood is still vivid under his skin on the cheeks, nose, closed eyes. He's lying spread on the floor, jeans and T-shirt sweated through, hair inches longer than last seen, coarse bristles on his cheeks. It seems like the only thing he still gave a damn about while conscious were the former content of the countless glass bottles and cans scattered on tables, plants, shelves.

Loki deems the tip of his boot enough to stain, so he uses it to turn the man's head to the side experimentally. Just as he thought, rigor mortis hasn't set in yet. He makes sure by turning it the other way with his heel.

Stark curses at the assault against his nose and mouth. Straightening his neck, he takes time before peeking out into the weak but killer light through a curtain of eyelashes.

"Care for a drink?" he inquires already, though he can't see his guest enough yet to identify him. He clambers up to an elbow, repeatedly.

"I'll pass, thank you," the sorcerer responds while pulling up the billionaire by the upper arm, intending to drag him to the open conveniently like this.

"I have great Burgundy back there, y'know," Stark notes, giving emphasis by an index finger held into the other's face. And when he stops squinting at that finger, he frowns in recognition. "Loki!" And then: "F.R.I.D.A.Y?”  

The sorcerer, still holding his grip, follows Stark's example of glancing around. But nothing happens, the needed saviour doesn't heed the call. Alcohol enhances the purity of the billionaire's dismay.

"Drinks," he remembers abruptly and attempts to stumble backwards from the captivity.

"None of your drinks are better than water to a god," Loki informs him while he tugs on the arm to keep the man on his feet.

"God, I'll have a few select words to, once I make it there," Tony says. "But before that, you'll have to give me a chance to prove you wrong. As man to man. You'll see how much you've got to learn about the drinks of Midgard."

Loki yields and follows him silently, watches the clumsy clinking of bottles that cover the entire mirror-wall behind the counter, and the fiddling with two laboriously snatched glasses. After Stark drenches both glasses and the table top in the chosen liquid, the sorcerer takes the bottle out of his hand and puts it to his mouth.

"Show-off," the billionaire observes before gulping down the fiery fluid from his glass, then from the other one. "Have you also tried drowning your sorrow in booze? Did you notice that bitch is a damn good swimmer? I heard you're also left behind by all your own kin."  

The drink really has no greater effect than water, Loki learns during the tactless comment. The half empty bottle hits the counter with a loud thud.

"I’m here to take you out of here. Let's go, time's ticking."

Tony's face darkens at that, but his slurred tone remains light.

"I've got plenty of time, exactly a lifetime more than I want. And you are no different, god," he responds, lifting the bottle to his lips.

Loki takes it out of his hand and throws it away; it smashes into the ground with a sharp, splintering noise.

"Time to go, babbler," he repeats and reaches for the other's arm over the counter.

The billionaire huffs while reeling away from the captivity, amused. He turns back to the mirror shelves and blindly lifts off another bottle.

"Take me, if you can."

"You're challenging me?" Loki's surprise is overwhelming, the notion is quite unconscious as he twists the bottle out of the disoriented fingers and sends it on a short flight. Tony grins with the bottle opener left in his hand.  

"Been in a while, if you haven't noticed. It's what drunkards do."

And he reaches for another drink. He loses it the same way. Next time he turns, the entire wall collapses into a pool of splinters and drinks on the floor. It goes with an ear-splitting noise but no harm is done to the billionaire, he merely blinks in surprise and wades ankle-high in the precious fluids as he backs away from the sorcerer suddenly next to him. He attacks or defends with the opener in his hand, his wrist is caught and twisted before he'd figure out which one it is. He yelps and backs up from the pain, but Loki steps after him, fingertips of his free hand lie over the glowing triangle on the billionaire's chest.

"And what in Heavens is this abomination anyway? Where's your heart?"

"There's none," Tony lies with an empty stare at him, but he finds it truer now than ever.

"Isn't there? What's in its place then?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Are you not human?"

"Maybe not."

"How about here?"

Tony holds his breath from the unnerving sensation as cool fingers slide onto his aching forehead and a foreign presence invades his mind. Memories gush forth, a coarsely edited film of his life. His freshest pains burn the deepest. Unable to think words, he roars inarticulately in a desire to get rid of them.

Loki's face shows confusion against the billionaire's torment.

"You're not artificial anywhere. You're all you."

He wants to ask why Stark denied that, but the shock took its toll on the alcohol-infused body. As blood rapidly drains from the man's face, Loki grabs hold of the shirt, catching up his fall. Held by that one clothing, he drags the semi-conscious corpse around the counter and towards the centre of the room. With a skilful switch of hands, he turns him onto his stomach, and holding him the same way by the back of the shirt, he leans the jaw to a large flower pot as considerately as he can.

Before his neck could twist back and break, Tony's hands hold his torso up, and while Loki releases him, he clambers higher over the edge of the pot and lets the burning bitter-sour fluid leave through his gutter. It doesn't have much thickness, he's forgotten the last time he ate something.

Minutes pass while the god walks aimlessly at a polite distance and Tony's arm embraces the thin crust of the mango tree, resting his forehead against it, relishing the terrible sensation of sobering out.

"Ready to leave?" Loki inquires then.

"I'm ready to die. Give me back my drinks, you stuck-up jerk,” Tony mumbles in a voice way too smooth for his words. "God, I miss F.R.I.D.A.Y."

"Who's that?"

"Man's best friend. Fits your moods, helps in need, only comes when called. No, the latter's not true, she can be an annoying whore at times. Must have turned her off at some point."

"Is she your spouse?"

Tony huffs quietly before answering.

"She should've been." He clambers up onto the nearest sofa, turning towards the backrest. "She should've been my spouse instead, then all would be fine now."

Loki frowns at the notion and walks back towards him.

"You’ll get to rest later. Don't make me drag you out by a leg."

"Get the fuck out, god of clowns, save the others from me spitting into their faces. They can't leave a man to mourn in peace."

It's getting longer than a quick favour, Loki's patience is running out. He stops for one last warning with his best intentions.

"Anthony, is it?"

"Your fat ass mother it is."

His eyebrows run up.

"In fact, she was a woman of much refined appearance."

That makes Anthony laugh, a semi-willed hiss that grows into a roar of laughter. When it’s over, he says:

"Don't tell me you're as ignorant as your brother. He was quite usable in a fight, but in terms of perception, he wasn't the brightest. He went after his own nose like the world was a single straight line. He's the saviour of the Universe and all that shit, and we loved him even before that, but he was still a dumbass. A Point Break. A big, sturdy ox with restraints way worse than the Hulk."

Loki smiles then, perhaps for the first time since his return without having control over it. Because Thor is always raised on a pedestal, admired as a flawless being, but here, he just realises, this wretched man sees him as he was in truth, as Loki sees him, as the brother he loves him. The Thor he knows exists for this man. And that makes Loki feel less alone, and grateful to him. A sensation long missed like air after a dive.

So he sits down on the other coach to listen, because he feels in debt.

And as Tony's disorganised, slurred, half-awake blabbers go on and retell the memories Loki has just witnessed as an outsider, he grows aware of how similar their pain is. How similar their helpless, senseless, still stubbornly scorching rage is against the unalterable. For this moment, he sees that a being this much measlier than a god harbours passion of the same magnitude as himself.

"You're very broken, Anthony," he concludes.

"Broken? I'm shattered. Haven't been in this many pieces since my first crack at high school."

"I've noticed that falling apart is a common habit of earthlings. But isn't it time to man up again already? I reckon it's been three years."

The human bursts out:

"I faced May!" he roars, a fist hitting the backrest while he sits up, feet landing on the floor. "I faced the kid's aunt! I did! I didn't back out! Isn't that enough?"

Loki knows no kid or aunt, but he sees the shiver run through the man's body, and he knows that the act he speaks about was something out of his boundaries.

"How is that not a shitload more than enough?" Tony weeps. And weeps. And Loki sits over to hold his miserable, stinking carcass, because the shards threaten to fall apart, and because this little human has lost an entire world like Loki did, and he sees Thor the way Loki does, and he used to wield skills enough to be a threat for him, and now nothing that's tangible about him is really him, he is nothing to this world, he has lost his ties and he belongs nowhere among the hands reaching for him blindly, he is nothing, nothing real to anyone, just like Loki. Only Loki has learnt how to be this nothing, and this man has yet to brave it. He still talks about the remaining humans like he matters.

"It is," Loki lets him know. "So the toil is over. The next step is to stand up."

The response is a snarl:

"What for, genius?"

The general denseness of humans keeps surprising the sorcerer. Fifteen hundred years, and he still can't see the qualities Thor used to praise in them. But he's very adaptive, so his tone doesn't reveal his honest curiosity.

"What else will you spend the rest of your life with? Or do you consider it an option to sit and mope? No chance of looking around for something more entertaining you could spend all these years with?"

The silence stretches long before Tony answers.

"God, you're appalling. I hate you."

Loki tells the lack of resistance in the answer, and he pats the back of the man's neck.

"Time to take on the world."

"No, stay a bit. I'm... off-balance. In my sitting, too. I'll fall off of here without a prop."

So they stay like that, motionless.

"How much longer?" Loki inquires after a minute.

"Little bit."

"I'll take you myself," he decides, but Tony's answer stops his movement.

"Nothing more to lose, so I'll be honest. I’m shitting bricks now. Don't think I'm ready to face anyone who knew me, which practically includes all of humanity."

"You never will be," Loki assures him from personal experience. And he watches the man's profile, until he inhales deeply and stirs into motion under the gaze.

He walks steadier than he claimed, his head bent. Loki holds his shoulders with an arm while they find the way out. Approaching the main entrance, a flick of his free wrist camouflages the smell and unkempt appearance of the billionaire.

"Sunglasses too," Tony mumbles. His wish is fulfilled.

Then the door slides aside, and they step out into the blinding sunlight.

Part 2

Time: Chapter 1

Summary: Soulmate!AU/Reincarnation!AU. Female!Reader lives in a world where alien invasions and hordes of death robots occur and past lives and soulmates are very real. Like most people, she gets brief glimpses of her past. although a person’s past lives and their current life may have little to nothing in common, soul mates tend to transfer between lives, the core of a person staying the same throughout the eons. Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader, Steve Rogers x Female!Reader Warnings: Language, violence, death, guns Word Count: 2,301 A/N: I’m back, friends. I hope you enjoy! Things I never thought I’d be doing at 5 am: looking up gun models and how to shoot them. Also, Steve’s middle name is Grant.

Masterlist // Next Chapter

2012, New York City

You’d thought about moving many times. New York was nice, but way expensive. You owned a small coffee shop in The Village. The property had been in your family for generations. It was stable enough now, after five years of hard work, that you weren’t worried about it falling apart if you weren’t physically there to look after it. You’d looked at some places a little farther north, and even a couple places on the west coast near Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. A change of scenery was something you needed after living in the Big City your whole life. Now, you’d wished you had.

Debris rained down around you as you ran away from Midtown Manhattan. To where, you weren’t entirely sure. Away from the murderous aliens on speeding hovercar contraptions was a good first step. It was the end of the world, you were sure. Unlike everyone else, who’d gawked dumbly at the sky when a giant beam of light shot up from Stark Tower and ripped a whole in reality, you had run. You’d seen enough horror and sci-fi films to know when shit was about to hit the fan. Some people might have once you thought silly for putting stock into the fantasy world of comic books and movies, but you argued that you practically did live in one with men like Tony Stark and Captain America around. Hell, the Captain even had trading cards.

You weren’t sure how much of a head start you got, but it didn’t feel like much of one. Within two minutes of the portal opening in the sky, the aliens had come pouring through the streets. People ducked behind cars and upturned patio tables in an attempt to survive the barrage of energy blasts coming from the aliens’ guns. Your lungs burned as you ran through the streets of Greenwich Village.

You ducked into your coffee shop, narrowly avoiding the blast of an alien’s gun. A few patrons were cowering under the tables, bags clutched in their hands in front of them like shields.

“May! Get everyone into the back,” you yelled, locking the door behind you. You were thankful you’d sprung for nice, stylish, sturdy metal doors. As much as you missed the beautiful old oak ones, these would hold much better against energy blasts... or so you’d hoped. May and Dean’s heads popped up from behind the marble counter, eyes wide with fear.

“Boss, what’s happen-” May began.

“Now, May! Dean, you start closing the shutters. It’ll be harder for them to get in if there’re metal bars in the way,” you barked. They didn’t move. “Now!” you growled. “Unless you don’t like living anymore!”

That seemed to return the feeling to their legs. May hopped up, urging the customers to follow her into the back room, which led to a sturdy cellar that might hold out if they started dropping heavier artillery. Thank god for World War Two architecture. Dean reluctantly left his spot behind the counter but ran speedily towards the front of the shop and began closing the metal shutters on the two large front windows.

“Turn the tables on their sides once you’re done- they’ll give us some cover and turn into obstacles for those ugly bastards,” you direct him. You pushed past petrified customers and ran into the back room. You silently thanked your Papi for being way too paranoid and a little bit of a hick as you opened the large safe hidden behind some of your store’s merchandise. You punched in the last number and wrenched the door open, eyes scanning the guns inside.

Before he’d died, he’d shown you how to load and shoot all five of the guns. He’d kept a small army’s worth of ammunition inside the safe with them, and as much anxiety as that had caused you once upon a time, you were grateful for it now. You loaded the Glock 26 Gen 3 and placed it on top of the safe as you loaded one of the shotguns- a Remington 870. A hand on your shoulder startled you and you swiveled, ready to fight for your life.

May flinched, arms coming up to defend herself. You breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Sorry, Boss,” she said, eyes wide, dark curly hair messier than usual, obscuring her pretty face.

“It’s alright, May. You know how to shoot a gun?” you asked, picking up the Glock.

“No, ma’am,” she asked, paling.

“Alright, it’s pretty simple. Hold it with both hands, keep your arms straight, aim, pull the trigger,” you said, handing her the gun carefully. “That Glock has no safety. Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot,” you said, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder as she stared at you, horrified.

“Dean, get in here!” you yelled through the doorway. He appeared a moment later, cheeks flushed from the exertion of turning the cafe on its head.

“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” you asked him, picking up the Remington.

“My dad took me shooting once when I was ten,” he asked, looking from you to the shotgun in confusion.

“Alright, do you remember what you used?”

“A handgun, I think?” he said, doubtful.

You sighed. “Alright. This isn’t anything like a handgun except in that it also succeeds at killing things with metal and gunpowder. You see this?“ You asked, pointing to the lower tube. He nodded. “This is the magazine. I have four shots loaded,” A terrifying, loud explosion rattled the floor beneath you. May and Dean’s eyes widened in fear, heads swiveling for the source of the noise. “Focus!” you barked. Their gazes snapped back to you. “Four shots loaded. There are eight more on the butt of the gun here,” you said, pointing to the shells strapped to the side. “Keep count of your shots. When you run out or get a minute, you can reload here,” you explained, flipping the gun over to show where one could load it. You popped another shell into the magazine, demonstrating for him so he would hopefully remember. “Five shots, now. Here.” you said, handing it to him. He stared at you blankly, not taking the gun, face pale. You groaned, shoulders sagging. 

“I know, Dean. Shit’s fucked six ways to Sunday, but you need to focus. I’m terrified, too. But if you think those alien bastards are going to take me down without a fight, you’re mistaken,” you said, shoving the gun to his chest. “Fight. For. Your. Life,” you said forcefully, staring him down. He gulped and nodded, taking the gun from you. “Good man. Brace the gun to your right shoulder. Stare down it to aim. Pull the pump back to load a shell into the chamber. Push it back forward into place to finish loading it. Pull the trigger to fire. Rinse and repeat,” you said, turning back to the safe to finish loading the last of the guns. You loaded the Colt Python revolver for yourself, jamming it in the back of your pant’s waistband, internally cringing at the breach of gun safety. You loaded the other Glock, placing it on top of the safe. At last, all that was left was the Ruger 10/22  Semi-automatic. You threw its strap over your head and onto your shoulder, gun on your back, and handed May and Dean boxes of ammunition.

“I pray to whoever might be listening that they don’t make it through those doors, but if they do, we have to be as ready as possible,” You said, grabbing ammunition for your three guns. May and Dean nodded. You could see it on their faces; They were determined but afraid. You internally cursed at the travesty of gun safety as your jammed the Glock into the front of your waistband. Desperate times and all that. You peeked into the store. Whatever had caused the explosion hadn’t seemed to affect your store. You took up a defensive position behind the counter. “May, you’re going to be shooting whatever comes through the windows or door, with me. If it gets closer, let Dean take care of it. The shotgun is better at close range- tiny death pellets’ll rain hell down upon ‘em from that thing. You just focus on trying to make sure they don’t make it that far. Keep your head down as much as possible. Try not to pop up in the same spot- they’ll expect it. Got that?” you said, glancing at the two of them next to you, sitting beside each other. They nodded, unconsciously reaching for each other’s hands. Huh. You wondered when that had happened. “Don’t get dead, guys,” you said, standing to rest your arms on the counter to help steady your aim. “If we survive this we’re going out to a fancy restaurant for dinner- I’m buying,” you said winking down at them. They both gave you a brave smile. You turned your attention back to the door, trying to ignore the fear in the back of your mind. You wondered if you had been a soldier in one of your past lives- it might explain why you were able to stay calm even though every nerve in your body was screaming at you to run. But you had a shop full of customers downstairs. People with friends, family. Who had no hope of defending themselves. You refused to stand by and let yourself and others be killed.

The aliens that had been clambering over their dead companions suddenly dropped, lifeless. You stared at them in disbelief, waiting for them to move again. You hadn’t shot them. After a minute, when they didn’t so much as twitch, you rose up from behind the counter slowly. You raised your revolver and fired a round straight into the chest of the one closest to you that had been alive a moment ago.

Not so much as an eyelid flutter or gasp of breath. No hiss of pain.

Next to you, Dean was sobbing, clutching May’s lifeless body to his chest, gun forgotten at his side. His hand grasped hers, his lips placing tender kisses to her umber knuckles and forehead, begging her to wake up. His fingers tangled into her messy mop of curly black hair. Her dark, glassy eyes stared up at the ceiling, seeing nothing.

You sunk down to the floor next to them, adrenaline leaving your body now that there wasn’t an immediate threat in front of you. “She’s gone, Dean,” you whispered, tears filling your eyes.

“No, no! She can’t be- She-” he broke off, sobbing as he rocked back and forth, clutching her to his chest. It was like he didn’t see that a sizeable chunk of her chest was missing, vaporized by a shot with one of the alien’s guns. “She was my soul mate,” he whispered in a choked voice.

“Oh hell, Dean... I had no idea. You never told me,” you said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

���We only just found out recently... asked to see each other’s soul brand... We both thought it might be each other, y’know?” He smiled faintly at the thought. It slid off his face as he returned the present. “Sure enough, our initials were on each other’s brand. When I saw D.A.H. there on her skin... I was the happiest man on earth. She saw her own initials and-” he sobbed and tears dripped down onto May’s face. “-I’ll never forget her smile. She-” he broke off, unable to stop the sobs as they wracked his body. You wrapped your arms around them both, ignoring the acrid scent of burning flesh coming from May’s body and rubbed circles into his back. There were no words of comfort you could give him. Losing one’s soulmate was nearly worse than dying. And he had watched it happen in front of him. He’d been unable to protect he and she’d died helping defend him. The only comfort they had was that they might meet again in their next lives. But that wouldn’t be very comforting to him. They were both young, fresh out of high school, working at your cafe to save money for college. He would have to go through the rest of his life without her.

You held him as he cried out everything he had, clutching his dead soul mate to his chest. Something in the corner caught your eye. The TV had turned back on, broadcasts returning to inform everyone of the situation. Apparently a group called The Avengers had closed the portal and stopped a nuke from destroying the city. Allegedly, as soon as the portal closed, all of the aliens had dropped dead. If you hadn’t seen it happen with your own two eyes, you wouldn’t have believed a word of it. Whatever The Avengers did stopped them, though. You felt your breathing stop as a choppy, grainy video of a man and woman fighting in the streets of New York came on. She wore a suit made entirely of black leather and was expertly killing aliens with one of their own weapons.

The man was who truly caught your attention, though. Even though the outfit had changed a bit, you recognized him immediately. You’d heard rumors he was back, found preserved like some sort of human popsicle in a huge iceberg near Greenland or something. You hadn’t dared to believe. But there he was, fighting aliens on New York streets. Your heart ached, one of your past lives recognizing him as the love of its life. You sighed, melancholy. You glanced down at your wrist. In your mind’s eye, you could see the initials S.G.R written there beneath the scrap of fabric you kept it hidden with.

Chapter 2

This series is finished, but if you want to be tagged in my other fics, check out  this post! Sorry, but responses to this post asking to be tagged will be ignored, so send me an ask or like one of the taglist posts!

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What is Consciousness?

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS?

Konstantin Korotkov, PhD, Prof.

St. Petersburg University of Informational Technologies, Mechanics and Optics St. Petersburg, Russia “I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell: And by and by my Soul return'd to me, And answer'd “I Myself am Heav'n and Hel” Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) First step in science is to give a definition. People often argue for hours about certain topics, defending different positions, but in reality, they are talking about different things: everyone keepS in mind his or her own understanding of the topic. So let us start with definitions of what we understand by the term “Consciousness”. The history of attempts to build a rigorous, not intuitive definition of consciousness is rooted in the distant past. Moreover, all these attempts are inevitably based on an a priori division of the whole of nature into conscious and unconscious: the definition should only formally draw this border exactly where expected. Depending on this, the authors of the concept make statements about the adequacy of the specific wording. Definitions based on this division, are subjective and, biased, most often in favor of Homo sapiens. With this approach, avoiding logical tautology is not possible in principle. Furthermore: being the foundation for experiments, such an approach to the definition of consciousness inevitably leads to incorrect results. Thus, in the well-known experiment the experimenter removes the bell from the entrance to the wasp nest, and the wasp completes a new one. Further, he makes a hole in the tube bend before the bell, and the wasp builds both the tube, and the bell. “Aha!” says the experimenter, “Now you see, the wasp has no reason!” But if aliens, as an experiment, make a hole in somebody’s shirt over and over again, the person will first try to patch them, then he will buy new shirt, but eventually he will throw them out of the window, swearing and pounding his feet. “Aha!” the alien will say, “Now you see, Man has no reason!” The reason here is that we assume a priori which behavior is reasonable and which is not. Experimenting not on ants and wasps, but on a man working on an assembly line, you would find just as strong evidence that he is no more than a biorobot. The Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet entertainment industry and a TV program guide can provide us with even more impressive indication of the total lack of human reason. In our studies we use the following definition: Consciousness is a property (ability) of natural objects to form abstract representations of the outside material world, suitable for use in purposeful activity through sensory perception.

In more simple form: Consciousness is the ability of a subject to react to environmental information and change its behavior in accordance with this information. From this point of view, every living organism possesses consciousness: all animals, large and small above ground and under, in the air and in water; plants; microorganisms and every cell of our body. At the same time, inanimate subjects do not possess consciousness: stone may be warmed by the sun, but it will not move or change its color to avoid overheating. But how about robots – in accordance with this definition some of them possess consciousness? From our point of view, robots replicate elements of the consciousness of their creators. Living beings are able to modify their features in case of rapid changes in circumstance even at the cost of death of part of the population. Of course, to some extent: out of millions of years during the kingdom of dinosaurs only crocodiles were able to survive. Robots may behave in accordance with a program, designed by engineers, and their ability to modify is quite limited. At least, within the limits of known technologies. All discussions above are related to the first, basic levels of consciousness. Next level of consciousness is the ability of a subject to predict future events, remember past events, plan and modify its behavior to meet future situations in accordance with their experiences. This level is characteristic of for higher animals and humans. All owners of cats and dogs know that their pets may be very smart when it comes to not only their favorite food, but often to their relationships with their masters. Interesting examples were presented in the book by Rupert Sheldrake “Dogs That Know Their Owners are Coming Home” (1999). Seven experiments demonstrated that dogs were able to predict their masters’ return and were waiting near by the door. We know many stories about conscious behavior of dolphins and elephants, not to mention monkeys and crows. All mentally healthy people have this level of consciousness, albeit to different extents. Children possess this level at the age of two-three years. Next level of consciousness is the ability to generate new ideas, exchange these ideas with others, transmit them to next generations and manifest them in objective reality. Only humans possess this ability. Ants build their huts in the same way for millennia, as do bees, birds and many other animals. We cannot explain how they achieved this ability, who taught them, but they never changed the structure of their constructions. Very rarely do they introduce new elements acquired by random trials. For humans, creativity is the basis of the development of civilization. Artists, poets, architects, scientists, and many other creative people have advanced our civilization, and the whole of today’s modern world is created only through the constant generation of new ideas. Some people generate new ideas, others turn them into reality. Many smart people reach this level of consciousness in their work, which allows them to take everyday decisions, based on knowledge, experience and intuition. All successful business people, politicians, teachers, engineers, builders and many other professionals have to generate and use new ideas in their everyday practice. It is so common, that people often do not pay attention to this process. Only in this way can humankind develop and create new steps in our civilization. A high level of consciousness is the ability to generate ideas, which are not based on the existing level of social development and knowledge and which transforms society, moving it to the next level of civilization. Presumably, they do it by connecting to the Universal Informational Field and receiving direct information from the Higher Planes of Consciousness. We can name particular people in known to us history, who was able to reach this level. First of all, these are Great Spiritual Teachers, like Moses, Zarathustra, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed. They were able to give people new understanding of their lives; formulate spiritual laws, which govern millions of people for thousands of years. In different words, in different languages they were speaking about the same things – about human life, human soul and the role of humans in the Universe. Now we understand, that all religions give the same message, they all have the same spiritual content, same deep meaning. Great Teachers were able to present people complicated spiritual ideas in simple, understandable words. In A short time their teachings have been accepted by millions of people, because they allowed every individual to reach new levels of spiritual development. Moreover, all these teachings have existed for thousands of years, they do not die and they transform in accordance with the development of society. We do not need to mix Spiritual Teachings with human institutions; Religious organizations are social structures, organized by particular people in specific socio- historical periods. They were initially designed to help people in their everyday needs, to help them survive harsh conditions, explain spiritual ideas in understandable words, but soon they were transformed into social institutions and have been used in the Power Games of Rulers. We know how many crimes have been conducted under the name of God, millions of people have been tortured and killed by religious fanatics, in religious wars, and this process is not over yet. All we discussed above is related to individual consciousness, but we, humans, also possess a Collective Consciousness. We are the only creatures on Earth, which have both individual and collective consciousness. This is our powerful tool for development, for the creation of Civilization. We join our individual minds as neurons in the brain, thousand times increasing group intellectual power. Formation of civilization became possible only when people started living in big groups, when they formed first cities, generating extra products, which allowed more and more people not to be involved in the everyday struggle for survival. Combining their brains, their abilities, people were able to make the next steps in civilizational development. We’ll discuss this topic in the following chapters. Of course, our definitions are only some of the possible way to discuss consciousness. You may find many different approaches in modern science. Our aim was to give definitions, which we may use in our research, developing experiments, which may help us to understand some enigmas of human existence.

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? The more we perceive the world around us, the more it startles us by its complexity. The boundaries of our knowledge are continuously moving aside, making the process of cognition in the ongoing race, beyond the horizon. On this way, many obvious and universally accepted theses periodically become paradoxical and ambiguous; many representations die or radically change. The true way of all science goes through crises and paradigm shifts to new crises. This path is endless, convoluted and tortuous, but there is no other way. A direct mechanical transfer of representations from the ant-hill to human society is impossible; however, the study of these “parallel worlds” can give the same long- anticipated push for a new round of scientific development predicted by many scientists of the planet. Consciousness is the ideal category, the basic imperative along with Matter and Information. In modern science we do not have – either in medicine or in biology - the notion of consciousness; we only take the first steps in understanding this concept. Obviously, even just a transition to micro or macro-world is accompanied by changes in ideas about what consciousness is, as it is difficult to talk about any expected behavior. From a bird's eye view, people’s behavior on the streets of a city, observed in time lapse is strangely reminiscent of an anthill or a beehive. A worker on an assembly line, at first glance, behaves in the same way as an ant. However, this is only a superficial similarity. The assembly line for a worker is only one of his numerous functions: he can also be the caring father of a family, an angler, a collector, a reader of novels, a spectator, or a member of a political party. When conditions change, the worker can respond irrespective OF to his work program, and even in spite of it. The worker can go on strike and demand change in his conditions. We know nothing about the strikes of ants. Therefore, it is beneficial to replace the worker with a robot, whose behavior is fully consistent with the ant psychology. It is noteworthy that the rigid structure of a collective, being surprisingly stable for ants and having ensured their survival for hundreds of millions of years with all the changes in the environment, turned to be totally unsustainable for the human society; even being forcibly established and guarded, it spontaneously disintegrates in an historically short term. We may see in history that any Empire exist about 1000 years, and then disintegrates, being replaced by a new Empire. We observe this pattern throughout all human history, regardless of nation or continent. Some social formations exist for much shorter periods, just seconds from an historical perspective. The socialist system existed for 70 years, and quietly broke up without any pressure from outside. It is obvious that with the suppression of the Individual Conscience in the name of the Collective in human society, the fundamental laws of life of the noosphere, the laws of the stability of a complexly organized system are violated. The Communist model of the structure of a society is perfect for protozoa and insects; however, all attempts to introduce it for people, - beings with a more complex organization,- are not viable. We did not mention such notions as “unconsciousness”, “subconscipusness” and “superconsciousness”, obligatory in modern psychology. You may find thousands of books discussing these topics. We presume that readers understand their meaning. The reason is these are descriptions of brain functioning, interrelations between different parts of the brain, in particular, left and right hemispheres, in the processing of received information. It is well known that we take in much more information, than we are aware of. The brain processes all the information and presents to our attention only a small part of it. This process depends on a person, the situation at the time and the importance of the information. Intuitive people may process much more information from the environment compared with less intuitive ones. In our definitions, this is related to activity at different levels of consciousness. I would say, they describe inner mechanisms of informational processing, while in our definitions we are focused on the outcome of this process. In addition, it makes us look differently at the definition of the concept of “consciousness”. This notion is a key in the area of sciences related to man. The basic concepts of any scientific theory are primary, i.e., are not defined in terms of other previously introduced concepts, but are introduced intuitively. They define the whole future course of possible arguments; a good example is to recall how different is the geometry of Euclid and Lobachevsky- Riemann, with different primary definitions. These arguments inevitably lead us to a contradiction: an intuitive introduction of a term suggests that its meaning is equally understood by all who use the relevant theory. The concept of consciousness is complex enough already to demand that it expresses itself (I cannot but recall the famous theorem of Gödel's incompleteness of formal systems, which establishes the impossibility of judging the properties of a system by means of the system). At the same time in everyday life, we define the concept clearly enough. We say: “a conscious man” about the individual who understands the nature of his actions and their possible consequences. From this perspective, neither a drunkard, nor a criminal can be called conscious people. Their behavior is contrary to the moral standards of society. Thus, we see that the term “conscious” has a moral and ethical connotation and refers to people who understand and control their behavior in society. At the same time: “an unconscious behavior” s the state when a person acts without controlling his actions and does not understand their consequences. A whole range of states can be between these two extreme situations. One popular option is when a person is aware of all that happened, but acts in a completely unexpected way, both to him and to others. For example, spouses during a family quarrel can say things to each other, for which they will be very embarrassed. In a crowd of fans a man can cry, fight and smash benches, although in real life he is quite a peaceful citizen. Another extreme is the phenomenon of “out of body experience” when a patient being on the operating table under general anesthesia, watches everything that is going on though detached from the event. Thus, to avoid all these difficulties, in modern science it is customary to speak of a “normal” awakened consciousness and various deviations from this state. Thus, the “normal” consciousness is the individual's ability to perceive events and respond in accordance with the level of socio-cultural environment. Hence, is consciousness associated with the level of social development? Yes, of course. For the man of XIII the appearance of a living dragon would be perceived as something natural, though with fear. We can assume that in those times dragons were common wild animals, like wolves or bears. These dragons crawled in those times, and now they preserved only on the island of Komodo. For a modern man the appearance of a dragon will be perceived as a hallucination, or as part of Disneyland. In this context, the above definitions of “consciousness” should not be viewed as an attempt to constructively identify this philosophical category, but as a way to agree on the meaning embedded in the concept. It can be understood as the coordination of intuitive ideas, a sort of “check of the clocks”. To introduce consciousness into scientific framework we need to develop a theory of its operation, which would be able to explain different levels of consciousness and predict some new phenomena, such as distant healing, mediums and out-of-body experiences. Now the most promising seems to be theories based on quantum electrodynamics. We need to accept consciousness as a system effect, depending not on the particular part of the body, even one as powerful as the brain, but on the system as a whole. We may attribute some level of consciousness to every cell of the body or to the particular organ, but to achieve high level of consciousness we need coordinated activity of all the cells, all the organs. Quantum electrodynamics operates with the notion of a system, consisting of many elements, that is why it may be applied to the construction of the theory of consciousness. You may find many papers, published on this topic, and, without being a mathematician, it is absolutely impossible to understand their importance and meaning. Interested readers may refer to the works of Mari Jibu, Kunio Yasue, Emilio Del Giudice, Giuseppe Vitiello and some other prominent theoreticians. Good luck and I praise you if you will be able to understand their content. We may only believe that at some stage they will be able to construct a self-consistent theory of consciousness. I will let you know when it will happen... PDF: WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? Read the full article

Beyond Logic, There is Fear

Game: SOMA Played On: PlayStation 4 Format: Digital Release Year: 2015 Developer: Frictional Games Publisher: Frictional Games

The mind is a funny thing. It helps us express our creativity, solve complex problems,  communicate with and relate information to one another. In many ways it defines who we are and how we perceive the world around us.

But our mind can also be our worst enemy. It can make us illogical or rash, see things that aren’t really there and with the right stimuli force us to act against our better judgment. Fear is a powerful force that controls many of our basic instincts and Frictional Games hopes to exploit this with their wonderfully crafted game SOMA.

Frictional Games is no slouch when it comes to making creepy games and with acclaimed series such as Penumbra and Amnesia under their belt they’ve made of name for themselves in the horror fandom. I’ve followed their releases since Amnesia: The Dark Descent and have been fascinated with the buzz that each of their games has generated.

As a fan of all things horror (video games, movies, comics, you name it!) I was eager to give one of their games a try, but until recently they have only been available on PC. I’m not going to lie, my PC is a bit of a potato and can barely run the word processor I’m using to write this! So that was unfortunately out of the question.

When I heard they were going to be releasing their latest horror-fest on the PS4 I was more than ecstatic! I would finally be able to experience first hand what Frictional Games had to offer.

Like most games though, I rarely buy them the moment they are released Then when I saw SOMA pop up in one of Sony’s Flash Sales a while back I jumped on it immediately. Now all I needed to do was mentally prepare myself and work up the nerve to play it!

It didn’t sit in the backlog nightmarescape for too long and in the spirit of the Halloween season here we are!!! So let’s plug in those headphones, turn up the volume and turn down the lights!

Fade to black… WHOOOSH…

Scary noises! Flashing lights!! Disturbing imagery!!!

Presentation

With one look, the cover art for SOMA makes you uneasy, there isn’t really anything particularly scary about it but it subtly unnerves you, hinting at some of the themes you will encounter when you play the game. The glitchy esthetic coupled with a distorted face that stares into the depths of your very soul do a wonderful job of making me want to play this game with all the lights on! I just can’t shake those eyes!!

The uneasy feeling the game gives you doesn’t stop there either. As the game loads it carries the  visual themes forward, but it’s not just the visuals that get you, it’s the sound design!  The atmosphere that Frictional constructed instantly entombs you with sounds that are haunting, pulsating, mechanical and electronic. There is something unnatural about it yet familiar and I think that’s what makes it so effective. And we haven’t even left the menu screen yet!!

To say Frictional knows what they are doing is an understatement. The fact that I momentarily hesitate before clicking New Game is a testament to their genius.

But would be a snooze-fest of a review though if I stopped there. So I tightened up my suspenders and pull up my socks and prepared myself to dive into the unknown.

The Game

If I could use one word to describe SOMA it would be uncertainty. The game never lets you feel too comfortable and just when you are starting to become familiar with what’s happening around you it’ll uproot everything, give you the runaround two or three times and then throw you back out to the wolves (or maybe it’s psychopathic sentient robots!).

The opening of the game is a great example of these transitional periods as well. Your character wakes in his apartment after having a dream about an accident he suffered in the past that resulted in him having severe brain trauma. He is scheduled to meet a man named Dr. Munshi who is studying a scanning technology that can hopefully help patients with brain injuries. From what I gathered the machine can scan your brain and allow them to unobtrusively study it and determine the best course of action to a full recovery.

You sit in the machine. The visor closes over your head. Everything goes black and you wake in what looks like a worn down space station from the Alien franchise. I ask myself, is this a result of our character’s brain injuries? Is he hallucinating or dreaming again? Or could this be real and the machine transported us to a different location or time?

And just when we get “comfortable” with our new surroundings, out of nowhere we discover we are actually deep under the Atlantic ocean!!!

All throughout the game the environments are thematically consistent (oppressive, claustrophobic) but this is especially true of the underwater portions. Where in space you may feel isolated and overwhelmed by the vast volumes of nothingness, deep within the ocean everything seems much more foreign. This all induces a sort of paranoia where you hesitate to turn each corner and move forward. You are constantly worrying if it’ll be the pressure that kills you, the lack of oxygen or the creatures that lurk in the watery darkness.

You can hear the air bubbles as they expel from your diving suit, the creaking structures as they fight against the massive pressure of the immense amount of water pushing at their foundations, and of course the sounds of the unknown that echo from all directions. This is all topped off with a ambient soundtrack that increases its intensity at exactly the right times.

The gameplay loop on the other hand consists of quietly exploring creepy environments, unraveling the mysteries of Pathos-II combined with “What the eff is that!” and “Run the eff away!!”, repeat. Since there are no weapons or any real way to defend yourself, running is usually your only option.

Honestly on the surface that gameplay doesn’t seem like much but luckily the mysteries you do uncover while you explore SOMA’s world are fascinating, and coupled with it’s atmosphere, the game as a whole makes you want to come back for more. It’s the contrast between the exploration sections and the frantic “I need to get out of here!” moments that make it all so compelling.

If I was to complain about one thing it would be how the story is delivered. As interesting and thought provoking as it can be, for the most part I am only interested in how this all affects our main character and the state of the present situation. The revelations you come to discover and their consequences are what I care about.

I do understand that we need some backstory to fully grasp our motivations for what we need to do, but most of it is locked behind computer terminals and audio logs. The game would only benefit by making these story beats reveal themselves more organically instead of having to break from the flow of the game to stop and read something.

SOMA is a stressful and thrilling ride from beginning to end that’s more than worth your time. As a psychological horror it artfully plays with your audio and visual senses and heralds themes that will make you sit back and think.

Truly a great game that I would suggest to any horror fan!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Social Media Stuff

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and now let’s finish season 4!

long post warning!

episode four:

i’m telling you i just don’t trust those nier-qiraji looking spire temple things. if they’re trying to spin this as the heartland of all good things it’s not working it just looks eerie. doesn’t help that there’s not a lot of aliens running around doing normal living stuff so it looks dead too.

god there sure is a lot of interesting action happening off-screen thanks for the info firo. sure is a lot of planets keith’s helping to liberate that y’all apparently aren’t because of ~parades~

i’m getting the feeling this episode won’t have anything actually mattering happening so there’s a non-zero chance i’ll end up skipping.

ok yeah jumping around there’s a dude bitching about them not being there on time and ice skating and then “~lover boy lance~!” and there’s no action scenes or cuts to the real zarkon or anything so i don’t think i’m going to miss much skipping this one lol

might watch it for real some other time i do like coran and his coranigans but his comic moments are best in small doses rather than like the entire episode imo.

episode five:

didn’t they already have a map before?

ok so i was under the apparent mistaken impression that the galra had conquered a shitload of the universe, not a couple of galaxies. noice i can use this for the warcraft au to explain how the galra never ran into sargeras, the legion or the draenei. (that will likely never be more than scattered hcs lol).

matt’s in the furry squad i see. i’m gonna say... fox, or perhaps squirrel.

lotor’s leggy looking ships made me laugh idk why.

snippy lotor.

oooh dissension in the ranks acxa.

SHAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!

i can’t believe allura’s got a :I face on talking to Best Girl.

is that it for shay aww...

lotor i feel like you not explaining shit to your generals, while understandable given what happened with narti, is probably going to bite you in the ass like do you not trust them enough to know what’s going on or what.

related did you explain narti bc if you did it didn’t sound like you explained it to ezor very well before.

uh maybe stay away from the death planet of death?????

who’s this secret team?

lotor if you know enough about honerva’s experiments re quintessence that that’s what happened then you know what quintessence does to people who fuck with it.

if he crosses this barrier he’s gonna hit the hell-dimension where the voltron materia came from but he’s also going to hit the shit that killed daibazaal AND his parents. lotor. lotor are you sure about this.

iF ZETHRID GETS EATEN BY THE HELL-DIMENSION I SWEAR TO GOD LOTOR.

i can’t tell if that thing drifting off-screen is his ship or a bit of debris, it’s the only other thing moving in the shot but its colours are off.

but like it’s annoying enough with firo around i don’t need to worry about notor and zethraint coming back to acxa and ezor tyvm.

hey it’s those two! uh, three.

SHAAAAAAAAY

FUCK YEAH HUNK GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO

ok maybe hunk would survive LFR after all.

is that our first lady galra in charge of one of these things? i love her.

holy shit that wasn’t the voice i expected to come out of the dog-person. i swear to god they sounded just like dub honey in ouran.

there goes furry squad i guess.

that knifework keith!!!

that was a very visceral death squish noise, ick.

dropping the charred remains of the enemy ship on the enemy is a+ psychological warfare.

oh god those poor three galra. a normal day and then voltron lands on theHE FUCKING HOPS AWAY... I LOVE HIM...

oh fuck you show you skip the transformation, make them defuse and then immediately make them transform again AND IT’S THE FULL SEQUENCE.

this music’s surprisingly melancholic, i guess lotor’s more sad then mad his plan failed again.

see lotor i told you this would bite you in the ass.

wow the fps dropped like crazy for her walking animation was that meant to be viewed from further away than it was?

FOR NARTI OOOOOOOOH YOU FUCKED UP LOTOR this is why you explain things like ‘why i sliced our friend in half and left her cat behind’.

i like the shot of his eyes it’s like ‘god dammit really?!’

oh nice they captured galra lady alive.

zethrid actually seems kinda sad about this and so does loTOWHAT THE FUCK LOTOR!!!!!!!!

YOU PUT ZETHRID SOMEWHERE SAFE RIGHT NOW I SWEAR!!!

oh thank god.

are they gonna join the rebellion??? or just try and harvest the super quintessence on their own?

did the druids always slide around like they’ve all got heelies under those robes?

uh oh haggar had a cunning plan. this whole ‘never explaining shit to your allies’ gene is from both sides of the family i see.

episode six:

‘a new defender’ so we’re probably getting a new semi-permanent character on the squad for the next season noice.

MACROSS LASERS

another lady galra!!! she reminds me of toriel for some reason i think it’s the ear growths. feels like there’s a lot more variation on the appearances of the galra and the aliens in general this season i approve.

i wonder what keith’s mother looks/looked like.

oh so no wonder haggar is confident, zarkon’s off doing something entirely unrelated.

lotor how are you even moving your arms right now i know a guy who dislocated his shoulder. that shit hurts and keeps on hurting.

damn that’s depressing he’s just entirely alone in space. he doesn’t even have the comfort that firo did of having people to search for and people who’d care enough to try and find him for good reasons. he’s just hounded like an animal.

what is that... mass on cyberkon’s back? like there’s got to be something underneath that plating it can’t just be his neck orb. it’s giving me vibes like the thing in Inside  i don’t like it.

ok as much as i laugh at his leggie space ship lotor does manage to make it look damn graceful.

holy shit the texture on the sun. you know you’ve got a good lava/very hot thing texture if it makes you wanna stick your hand in just like with real lava.

i wonder if haggar’s magic is corrupted altean magic or something she’s learned as a zombie. i wonder if lotor could pull off altean magic, or something close to it? magical boy lotor.

does naxzela have a world soul???

for a second there that sphere looked like one of the resurrection seeds from drakengard ending B. that would be the most fucked up AU.

is the planet actually a giant robot????

oh fuck so is it turning itself into a neutron star?

it’s a bomb oh ok.

ten solar systems from one planet jesus.

VICTORY OR DEATH SPACE ORCS CONFIRMED (again)

go keith!!

lotor are you going where i think you’re going...............

............... i don’t want to be hopeful i’m almost always wrong...............

aww lance!!! it seems like he’s real good at team stuff so long as he’s inside the lions. weird.

i really like the spacy dust background here.

aaaaa coran ;A;

keith what’s with that look.

keith what did you just say.

KEITH WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

NONONONONONONONONONOONONONONONONONONONONOONOONNOONONOON

LOTOR DID YOU JUST

LOTOR DID YOU JUST

ok so overall not the strongest season but it had its good moments even if i was salty for a while.

i’m more hype for season 5 than i was for this half of the season i will say.

(also keitor has been shuffled from ‘entirely crack’ to ‘they will probably meet face to face at some point’.)

(so naturally now it’s my Everything especially with my ot4 gone and zethura still being crack as all hell. maybe with this new season the content will be less old-school deathshipping and more millennial deathshipping)

♞ ┊ ( drabble. )

❛ The Shared Weight of Loss ❜

— Rating: PG-13 — Ships: Optimus/Cade

summary:

Grief is a powerful emotion that few truly understand until they have it take hold. Unlike anger that can grow cold or fear that is overcome, grief becomes like a tumor on the soul. Optimus has had to carry so much in his life. There was once a time when the weight of it was shared by the support of his Autobot team. But, the current ones (brave and valued they may be), have never know the sheer volume Prime has taken in with each new life lost in his name. With one more on the list it grows the same, it is Cade who bears the bad news. What news could be so terrible? What loss could be so terrible? The fate of Samuel Witwicky && Mikaela Banes.

          As it had come to pass the last of the Witwiccans had died but their legacy would not remain to rot. Sir Edmund Burton’s estate had quickly passed into Viviane’s possession. Though this encompassed the residents of Burton’s so-called Transformer retirement home, it also included enough worldly possessions to make the study of Viviane’s father look like a cupboard under the stairs.

         Only remotely familiar with the castle, Viviane and Cade had crept into it with steps cautious for boobytraps, though they knew there was none. Cogman, whose personal familiarity surpassed Edmund’s own, had led the charge of taking inventory. They were so obsessed with cataloging the Witwiccans, to track what Transformers had come and who had gone, who they had found and who they had lost, all to piece together anything pertinent to Unicron.

         What chaos their world had become; their moon cut into quarters and their skies now shared with an alien world. That world was not even less whole than they or their moon; Cybertron had fallen apart at the tectonic plates and held together by vines stringing them out of the core. Even what power Quintessa had managed to siphon from Earth was not enough to even start the process of re-generating the dead world; Optimus knew that would not be so easy.

         It had never been easy—not from the start, not since he stood at the epicentre of so many battles and barred the many tribes of Cybertron from converging on each other. What Optimus had done may have looked easy to others, but it was far from so. Even so, it had been the obvious choice, natural even; not all in nature was ever easy. But his words washed over the armed audience and one by one the tribes became a unified world.

         It had never been easy—through his confession to his people had so vividly etched in the minds of each attending soldiers a new world of peace and justice, none of it was easy. They fought for to reclaim the greater legacy of their empire.

         And then the famine came. Energon so rare that their immune systems began to fail. Rust had never been to prevalent in their people so, now a blight so aggressive it tore through like a plague. But it was merely a side effect of the hunger they all shared, though it was never equal parts shared. From the famine came the hunt and discovery of the AllSpark. Soon to follow was Megatron’s war.

         The white cliffs of Dover were particularly splendid. The tides had changed according to the alterations of the nearest heavenly bodies, and still the waves crashed over with a sound like the pulse of a sparkbeat. A moor of green so lush it collapsed deep imprints under Prime’s feet, and it was so sodden with sweet rain that not a single blade could catch fire under the blaze of his thrusters. Much like most of Earth, England was a beautiful land, with a history hardened with difficulty and enriched with accomplished grace. Now to know how deeply connected England’s ties were to Cybertron, it all made sense how the architecture looked familiar.

         It would appear to be that Iacon had been much like Camelot; had their fair world been the images of Avalon?

         Cade had not yet been told much of Optimus’ pas, such as his experience as an archeologist && anthropologist, or the tribal history of Cybertron. He did not know how Megatron and Optimus’ sparks were divided when once entwined; how Sentinel Prime stood as their father, and betrayed them both to one another. Few friends had been named of Optimus’ past, and those who had had only been passing. It took a sharp mind to catch one from another.

         ❝ Sam? Sam Witwicky? He was a friend of yours, right? ❞  Asked Cade, whose farmer tan looked ridiculous under England’s grey skies. He had to look upwards to meet Optimus’ face.

         Yet again, Optimus could not help but think on how Cade had helped him, defended him, and saved his life.

         Not even the English wind could entirely silence the cacophony of metal as the titan folded his frame, leaning towards his human friend, and brought his face so much closer so they were Knight to Knight.

         ❝ Where… did you hear that name? ❞ His question was so carefully timed that the pause felt not for his sake, but for Cade’s. Prime had that way on others, and he was aware of it do some degree. When weapons failed, words prevailed, and no one could match combat skill to linguistic skill as he could. After all, Prime was old by even Cybertronian standards, and he was arguably one of their most educated.

         The old Autobot leader had a habit of diminishing his natural qualities, even to himself.

         Cade did not seem to mind, as he never did, and continued on with is purpose. In his hands were a stack of papers, some mismatched off receipts and torn ledgers, while others were beautifully coordinated with the crest of Burton’s family.

         ❝ Well, to be honest big guy, I listened in on you and ❛Bee. I heard you mention to him, ❞ Cade was so true to human nature, looking both defiant and sheepish at his confession of invading their privacy.

         Hydraulics hissed with the movement of his head, bent lower to the ground and angled towards the wind. ❝ Very well. ❞ It seemed that with two words Cade was forgiven his indiscretion, though that may have been because he had had been intrigued else wise with their dialogue. ❝ Sam was our friend—my friend, the first I made when I came to Earth. Bumblebee was his guardian. Why do you ask about— ❞ [ The boy? ] ❝ —Sam Witwicky? ❞

         With just a wave of his filled hand, Cade indicated more to the contents than to papers he held onto. If Optimus had seen his friend’s face grim before, he saw it again now. A lurching noise came from the largest Autobot; the bitter taste of apprehension.

         ❝ I think this is the list of the Witwiccans and their allies for the last two centuries, like a roster. It goes back a long way. But… it was also pretty recent. ❞ When Optimus said nothing else, it prompted Yeager to explain himself further. ❝ It seems the Witwiccans had many different variations around the world. Some lost track of their involvement, but Burton’s family kept track of them all. ❞ Nervous now, he fingered the edge of the stack and glanced towards the jagged edges of a worn away corner.

         His consciousness, so vast in its enormity and antiquity, was beyond that of any human. Time dilation through the wormhole that bridged their two worlds dictated that their comparable ages were constantly in flux, changed with each passage through the vortex. The Knights of Iacon were ancient, even by Cybertronian standards. Optimus was ancient by human standards. His thoughts moved with an entirely different set of metaphysics and yet—

         This human, who possessed a true Heart of Purity, who saved his life more than once, who believed him anyone else would have traded him for a reward…

He deserved at least a little bit of Prime’s truth.

         Silence for now, and Optimus knew silence well. It may have been the absence of sound, but it was not without meaning. The timing and pretext gave context to what Cade was trying to tell him, and the old robot pieced it together.

         Only after he stalled his vents, tasted the steam across his dental grill, and pulled his frame back a fraction so small to him but immense for his human friend. Alas he spoke, with a voice like the edging shadow at the mouth of a cave, though not to ask but to state for the record, ❝ The Witwickys were once Witwiccans. ❞

         Unlike the Autobot, Cade would not hold on much longer to answer. Immediately he blurted out, ❝ Yes, and I did find a Samuel Witwicky. ❞

         ❝ Hmmm…. ❞ He adjusted to half turn towards the cliffs, hummed his muted thoughts, and looked so far away that the landscape disappeared to the far reaches of the water’s edge. Cade would know that look—not because they had spent so much time together for there was never that opportunity. Instead it was because for all their differences the Transformesr and humans were not so different; everyone looked that way when deep in thought. Deep he was, so deep that Optimus fell down the void where all thoughts and memories into a morass.

         Conjecture sometimes meant everything, and Optimus had to sometimes act on it. He turned towards Cade and eyed him as equals might, with one ready to comfort and the other apprehensive to confess even the need. It was Prime who had that needed after his support system had been widdled down too nothing. Nothing but this man.

         ❝ Sir Burton told you that he was the last of the Witwiccans. If this is true than it would mean— ❞

         Both knew the meaning. Years of Texas sun and unrelenting time in the badlands had scarred Cade’s face with etchings of worry and strain. His frown was doubly visible, filled with remorse that he had not earned.

         ❝ Yeah, sorry big guy, Burton marked his status as KOA—killed in action, along with who must be his parents, ❞ informed the inventor, again with that great remorse. His voice was strained with pity and sorrow, none of those things Optimus wanted from others.

         Not when he felt them so deeply.

         Never had Prime forgotten that on this world he was a titan, and among his people of similar titans he was another titan. In comparison to their capacity for greatness (in many forms, human diminutiveness had always marveled Prime so much. He cherished how they made themselves larger than their limited stature, how they surpassed the footprints of giants that came before them. When the measure of humans like Cade’s virtues were measured in the balance, their shadows were matched.

         Now he felt his spark once more into shadows. Under the weight of Cade’s news and the strength of the winds off the moor, Prime all but swayed in his crouched position; few would notice such a shift in the grandness of Optimus’ bulk.

         There were moments when thought surpassed the linear curve of time; when it defied all physics and did so within the ether of sentience. It was here that Prime had fallen into, where shadows dwell and light burned sparsely. Where the burning horizon of Cybertron’s last days filled him with the stench of spilt fuel, and to the visual recordings of Ratchet’s head so crudely melted down to parts.

         He could see it now, a refuse for assuage of happier memories now tainted with great loss. Many washed over at once, their digital edges pixellated into mismatched puzzle pieces. Still it ran congruent and not concurrent, with no linear sensibility to follow.

         It had been his first time on Earth. He had seen worlds with vegetation, but not as the green that crawled across the larger brown, whose edges reached outwards until the greater mass of blue was met. Occasionally there were caps of white, white so bright it blinded with the reflection of the sun. This was Earth from whence he had first seen it, and that faraway first sight was no marvel in comparison to when he breached the atmosphere—ignited in flames, stars that fell from heave—and landed on this world’s soil. No time was wasted and he had taken his first human-designed alt-mode. The roads were smooth in places and rough in others, and the winding paths led him towards Bumblebee’s location—

         Bumblebee! His friend had gone to Tyger Pax to buy him time—          The cube sent towards the stars—          ❛ Look to the stars and think of my soul— ❜

         An even fog had parted and flowed over the ridges of the Peterbilt’s grill, and with a hiss he came to a full top in front of a scrawny human male and his female companion. Unwilling to introduce himself with a holoform, Optimus revealed himself to share open truth with the boy in an attempt to building friendship with honesty. This was his first transformation since arrival, and the armor was cut with such difference compared to his form on Cybertron. Everything was sharper and more angled. So he relished the transformation, drawing it out like an adagio  movement slowed down to allegro. It was all to feel how it pieced together—how he pieced together. Alien though it had been it still felt good to not be in Entry Mode.

         With a great roll of his neck to stretch the taunt cables and wires, Optimus had felt out the newness of this world with great excitement and hopefulness.

         It had been Samuel Witwicky. A boy he needed more than any man would ever know.

         His open face showed little else but the flickering of his optics, that shuttered from dim to bright, dark again, before something more medial settled in. In his reverie he had turned to look to Cade, saw a man who was more his equal and less a young friend, he confessed, ❝ He was a friend to the Autobots; our first human friend. He helped us defeat Megatron many times… ❞ In his pause was the shutter of his optical wiper blades. ❝ He was so young. ❞

         Cade stepped forward with hand stretched out like anyone would to offer comfort and contact. But, they did not touch. To the point the man said, ❝ I’m sorry. ❞ What a weak attempt at comfort.

         Again a crown of thorns was perhaps best served to hang atop Prime’s head, that hung with great penance. With each new loss Prime felt older, weaker, worn away until all the grace Cybertron once bestowed on him had been dwindled into human-like smallness.

         He would not weep, not as man might. That had never been how Prime settled his emotions, not even in the most aberrant of grief. This was nothing new to the Autobot leader, not when he had seen Cybertron’s fall and known Megatron’s repeated treachery until the brotherhood was no more. He had lost the last of his team, the closest sparks to come near him since Megatron’s first betrayal. He had seen humanity turn their backs on him time after time, when fear beget anger worse of mankind.

         No, that wretched sense of loss was kept within to leave its mark. But Cade had begun to see the signs, and this was a display of no surprise. So it was Cade that took the first step to be there in Prime’s time of dolefulness.

         There was no one else.

It was with a small and gentle touch with a warmth unlike even living metal that Cade bega to break Optimus free of the attritious chains binding him in this great remorse. See, the size of a human’s hand was so tiny compared to the large plates of armor that built up the statuesque paladin.

         May this mortal man never forget that He was a knighted king without crown or country.

         The sound of hissing hydraulics finally broke the reverie, and Prime looked towards his friend in equality. Once more he was reminded of their sameness. For in Cade’s eyes was an understanding few could know so well; what a well of loss did to the soul, how it left it agape, and how nothing could ever meet that void.

         [ The man had know his own losses well. ]

         What would words could describe the bond he shared with Cade? He had ever told the Texan his worth in Prime’s eyes, not to its fullest extent, but in smaller belittled allocations.

         Now was a time for confessions, and Prime said, ❝ I loved that boy dearly, more than he ever knew. ❞

         Because Prime had never told him so plainly. But when he said them now Cade walked onto the big guy’s arm and crawled down the armor. He kept his balance with little grace as Optimus rotated his limb and exposed his open palm.

         Cade was then crouched in it on his own. Massive metal fingers curled inward, nearly cupping the human knight against the thoracic plates felt their hottest.

         Where Optimus Prime’s spark was kept shielded, Cade was loosely cupped against. Without words their shared the meaning of loss between one another. Without words they shared the meaning of love between one another.

         Their company was without words.

         When at least they broke their company of silence, Cade asked in curious sharpness, ❝ Hey, who is ‘ Banes, Mikaela ’ ? Because she’s the only one marked with a status of unknown. So, she could be alive! ❞

         May the stars above see once more how bright his spark could burn, now he felt joy at last with hope in little moments of enormity; Optimus smiled gently, more so in the twinkle of his optics than anything else.

         Mikaela Banes may be alive.

Writer’s note: I started to punch this out after my second time watching TLK and while I was talking to @untamedheart​ & @yeagerxrobotics / @robotxwrangler individually. I kind of tossed it to the side and then some discussions with @mechanicmikaela pumped me back up because it all ties into my headcanons that Mikaela is on the run, alive, and with the knowledge that Sam is dead Optimus would be overtaken with a more grateful sense of relief. Then there is the comparison to how Optimus feels paternal to Sam & Mikaela, there is how he feels equal to Cade.