SOBBING RN THIS IS NOT OKAY..
(@Melteeyo on Twitter)
[First] [Previous (pt 52)] [Here (pt 53)] [Next (p54)]
I am sorry this took so long to be posted. Not too much happens in this update aside from the twins arguing, and this was a dialogue I worked on a lot to get just right, but It isn't an action update.
This update was so much more work than expected. Thanks to a computer crash, I almost lost this, but I recovered most of the artwork with Clip Studio's automatic recovery files.
Personal Life Updates: One of my brothers got married. I'm applying to graduate schools. I did Inktober last month, and I am doing NaNoWriMo right now.
—
[This story on AO3] [My Ko-Fi] [Patreon]
I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the Transformers Fandom so I'm going to make it everyone's problem. Imagine humans have weird but casual interactions with the Transformers.
You're a garage owner going about your day when this giant fucking robot knocks on your roof and asks if you sell tires. Apparently, there was a top secret battle between the military/Autobots and the Decepticons a few miles away and this dude got one of his tires blown out. They have more back at base but having a ruined tire is really uncomfortable so he's wondering if you have a possible replacement. And like, you do and these guys have saved the planet a few times so sure, you fetch a tire and replace his broken one while sweating balls because you do not want to upset this thing. Once you're done he just nods and thanks you and fucks off. You're a little jaded that he didn't pay but 1. He definitely doesn't have human currency and 2. He's saved your planet a few times so you can probably eat the cost of a tire.
And then the fucker turns up a few weeks later with a chunk of gold that he found in a mountain like Hey! This is valuable to humans right? And he gives you that, which is waaaayyy more than the cost of one tire but you don't know how to break a chunk of gold and he's driving off before you can ask if he wants change. That's just life sometimes.
~~~
Or! Imagine some poor impound worker freaking the fuck out when one of their impounded cars just turns into a robot, breaks off the boot, and is really pissed off about how they wound up there. And that poor fucker has to be the one to explain no overnight parking to an alien robot that is VERY upset about being dragged here. They're stomping off before the worker can explain to them that they also have to pay a fine which is probably for the best because how the fuck are you supposed to explain that?
Meanwhile, the robot is stomping off down the street muttering about how you can't even recharge on this Primus forsaken planet without some human bothering you about it. And what's the point of all those parking lots of you can't park there?
~~~
The Transformers being Awkward about human interaction and taking a lot from what they see, even if it's wrong. Bumblebee, Mirage, Jazz, and Arcee are flipping civilians the bird pretty indiscriminately while in town, which is really confusing. So when one of the military guys walks by, it gets pointed out and they explain that when they're in their car mode driving to missions, they often get flipped off by other drivers who are annoyed that they're driving so recklessly. But! They don't realize it's an insult they just think it's a greeting so they have to have a debriefing about it later. They apologize for the insult.
~~~
Everyone thought Bumblebee was the family friendly robot because he usually kept a civil tongue. But that was exclusively because what he had access too on public radio was pretty clean. With the widespread use of podcasts and streaming services, he actually curses like a sailor and it's freaky.
~~~
Somebody has one of those lawn mowing Roombas that's out doing it's fucking job when Starscream sees it from above and comes down to try and talk to it, see if it's a Decepticon. Even when he figures out it's not, he takes it anyway because it has blades so that might be useful. Meanwhile, poor dude is just in their fucking house watching their lawnmower get kidnapped without being able to do anything about it. Except call the hotline which leads to a very weird conversation.
"hey uh, so this isn't an emergency but a Decepticon just stole my lawn mower. Not sure if you can do anything about that."
"ah yes. Sorry sir, they sometimes do that. We'll try and send a replacement, what's the model?"
And then a few weeks later Optimus Prime shows up with an exact model of the one that was stolen, apologies for the inconvenience, and drives away. However, the Autobots are also fascinated by your lawnmower and so occasionally your yard is invaded by an alien robot that watches enthralled as your lawn is mowed.
~~~
Living in a cold area prevents you from seeing either Autobots or Decepticons in the winter time because it doesn't snow on Cybertron and they really don't fucking like it. Their best way of dealing with snow is to hide out in their heated lairs and just ride it out, they aren't going out in that shit.
~~~
They also hate hail so sometimes they'll hide under overpasses with bikers. It's a weird sight, a group of bikers and Mirage just hanging out under an overpass, shooting the shit, waiting for the weather to clear up.
~~~
Living near an American military base means sometimes you see the Autobots out and about. They get leave too and they like to explore. Favourite places to frequent include drive in theaters, parks, especially if they have animals, sports arenas (they can climb up on the roof and look in), and scrap yards.
~~~
Cybertronians can eat metal (we saw the robot dinosaur try eating cars in one of the Bayverse movies so I like to think all of them can do it.) so it's a frequent snack for them. They've figured out not to eat things that belong to humans but they consider the scrap yards to be fair game. If you see a giant robot ripping apart old cars to take some parts just leave it be, they're getting snacks.
If you see Rachet yelling at that same robot later, it's because processed earth metal is basically junk food and eating too much of it makes them sick. That does not stop them.
~~~
After a battle the local carwashes are pretty well filled with Autobots trying to wash the mud and gunk off themselves because apparently they can't get into the transport ships that dirty. The locals aren't sure if that's a military rule or a rule Optimus Prime implemented but it's sure fun to speculate.
Those things are *ancient* to him
Avatar Deleted scenes pt. I lost count
Forgot to post this here.
I still can’t stop thinking about his outfit.
Fic idea: Ra’s al Ghul grows tired of waiting for Bruce Wayne to come back to his service in the League of Assassins after spurring his offer ten years ago at the end of his training. He can no longer function as the Demon’s Head due to repeated exposure to the Lazarus Pits, and Talia cannot take his place. Ra’s travels to Gotham with his closest shadows/guards, desperate to make a deal. He corners Bruce Wayne as his famed Bat on a rooftop and gives him an ultimatum: one year of service, one year as the Demon’s Head in his place, and Ra’s will spare his city and family.
Bruce, as Batman, prepares to fight the League shadows and Ra’s, defending his beloved Gotham, until Ra’s adds that amid the carnage and confusion of their resulting fight, he will take a son — any son — and force them to the Demon’s Head in Bruce’s stead. Even the Bat cannot run forever, not from the League. Their existence has always been in passive recognition of the other; fighting will draw heavy losses on both sides.
And so, recalling his own days of training under Ra’s and the horror that await, Bruce agrees. He swears to service for one year, and one year only; no more, no less. No killing. Ra’s tells him his moral code may outlast all of them.
Bruce returns with Ra’s and Talia, faking his death for his family to discover. He hides the traces of League activity and follows them back to Nanda Parbat, where he had trained ten years before. As he embraces his year as the Demon’s Head, certain strained seams begin to appear. Ra’s is dying, and will not return to service in a year. There is no clear successor after Bruce. Killing is “off the table” when he meets with his advisors, but everyone gives him an amused, indulgent look when he mentions it. Talia is not interested in him romantically or sexually, but he gets the impression the word soon is floating around somewhere in her mind.
Soon comes around quickly into his tenure and new life. Ra’s orders him bathed in the Lazarus Pits one night. It takes sixteen League shadows to wrestle him into the water. Once submerged, he sinks without knowing how, all the way down. In the waters, he realizes that the Pits remember everything. This cave system knew Ra’s, it held Jason, and it drowned and changed dozens of powerful men over the years. The waters know, and he knows. He sinks past the shallow cove of Jason’s trauma, so blotted out that he cannot remember the Pit at all; he sinks down into Ra’s life, at the very bottom, and it becomes him. He becomes it. There is no line between them down here, where knowledge simply is.
The man who emerges from the Pits is not Bruce Wayne, not entirely. But it is the man he would have been, had he agreed to LoA service all those years ago. He is sharp and uncompromising. He is the Bat without his code, without his guardrails or rules. He is everything the Demon Head had lost, in the last few centuries of existence. He glows with a dark fire so bright, it sucks away the light from every other source in the room. He is dressed in dark, simple armor and black robes that call back to his former life. His face is bare. His eyes are a bright, all-knowing green.
Our fic picks up after this Demon’s Head comes into his own destiny and power. Told from the perspective of the children Bruce Wayne left behind, who find themselves chasing a shadowy figure around the world with the help of the Justice League. The new Demon’s Head is causing problems for everyone, and things have changed at the global level under his mysterious hand — so why does it feel like the Batkids know him?
It all comes to a head (heh) when the Justice League arrest the Demon’s Head and bring him up to the Watchtower. Only for him to be unmasked as Bruce Wayne, a dead man walking, an unfulfilled legacy, the person who built the very satellite under their feet in another life. Batman himself, with glowing green eyes and a Father’s face. Gone, but remade again. All in service of something greater than one man.
...they're not even all that interested in the story tbh, they just think it's funny when she calls him skxawng ¯\_(ツ)_/¯