Red Riding Hood

Y'all

Imagine if Bilbo lost his lil acorn once Smaug was dead.

Throin sees Bilbo looking around all panicked, digging through some pile of gold or gems, and asks about it, and this is where he learns about the acorn.

So of course he offers to help look, while they're looking for the Arkenstone, and eventually they've got the whole company looking for both. Thorin's head seems a little more clear suddenly, so everyone's more looking for the acorn than the arkenstone, because yeah they're looking for the arkenstone, but they'll know it when they see it, they have to CONCENTRAIT to find a lil acorn, and it's important they find IT soon or it'll get crushed, or die or rot. The arkenstone has lasted this long. It'll last a little longer.

And because they've all got he mindset if "yeah thats a bit of gold, but it's not an acorn. Sure sure some pretty gems but it's not an acorn!" In there heads, they stave of the gold sickness.

When Fili shouts, "I found it!" They're all rather disappointing when they realise he means the Arkestone. Thorin pockets it, but they return to their search for the acorn right away.

Then, one day, Thranduil shows up demanding the white gems and Thorin's standing up on the barracks like "Sure, if we come across them."

And Thranduil's like "what do you mean if you come across them?"

"There was a dragon in the mountain for over a century! He wasn't exactly cleaning and we're a bit preoccupied with our own search at the moment! I'll send them your way once we find them! If takes a day or a year, you'll live!" And then he disappears from Thranduil's sight.

Only to reappear after a moment, looking slightly irritated. The hobbit is by his side looking, perhaps hopeful? With a roll of his eyes, Thorin says, bitting out the words like they physically hurt to say "If you would like, perhaps you could send a select few of your most trusted guard, and if they might help us in our search, they can also look for your gems as well?"

Thranduil has never been more caught of guard in his life. Did a dwarf, one whom he'd had imprissoned in his dungeon less than a month ago, just invite his people into his most recently reclaimed treasurey?

"I'm sorry. What?" He blinks up at the dwarf- most elegantly, he assures you.

"Elves have very keen eyes, do you not?" Asks the little hobbit. "We're looking for my acorn, you see, that I got from Beorn the skin changer, I seem to have lost it in the dragon's chase, and we fear it'll be crushed. Throin says your box would likely be in the front of the treasurey, and we haven't searched there yet, though Smaug did follow us through there, so it's a fine place for your people to start. It would be greetly appreciated."

And really. The argument could go on, Thranduil's really not sure he believes there IS an acorn, but if it gets him those damned white gems, fine. He sends Tauriel and her guard, and Legolas volunteers himself.

When Bard shows up asking for aid for the town Thorin throws his hands up. "Your just as bad as the elves! We just got our montain back! Fah! At least you asked for nothing so specific!" And practically chucks a chest full of randomly scooped up gold and gems over at the man. "But if there is an acorn in there, you are to return it immediately!"

There isn't an acorn.

"Why would there be an acorn?" He asks Thranduil that evening as he takes tea with the Elven king who's made camp outside the Lonely Mountain as a statement to the dwarven king he doesn't mean to leave without what's rightfully his, regardless of their compliance.

"His husband appears to be rather attached to it." Thranduil shrugs. "I don't pretent to understand the ways of haflings, but if the hobbit has half so strong a love for that which grows from the earth, as the dwarves do that which is mined from it, and I was a king who'd dragged my consort half way across Middle Earth to risk his life battling a dragon for its hoard, I'd think it wise to have the Mountain turned upside down for one measly acorn as well."

Dain shows up and is about ready to storm the peacefully-aiding-the-humans-at-this-point-because-we're-here-what-else-do-we-have-to-do elves on principle, but Thorin puts a stop to it quick.

It takes Dain a day and a half to realised that Thorin did infact say "they were all looking for an Acorn," yesterday, and several minutes to understand that he was saying "no, we found the Arkenstone days ago," today.

And of course, the orcs and goblins show up and are defeated by the forced of them all, united under Acorn Peace Treaty of 2942

Sadly, weeks go by, and they do not find the acorn. They do eventually find the Gems, and Legolas and the majority of the elves return to Mirkwood, Legolas having made good friends with the Company, especially Gloin (this is a suprise tool that will help him later) but Tauriel remains, and if Thorin wasn't smitten with the hobbit, he might comment on just how close Kili is growing to her. At least she's respectful. Might just teach that boy a think or two. The opposite is, of course, true, and Tauriel becomes just as much a menace as the princes.

As the weeks go by and proper cataloging of the treasury commences, every dwarf who comes to help is shows a picture of the acorn every single morning, and promised a just reward for its discovery.

Eventually, Bilbo has to concede they aren't going to find it, but, well, by then he's not exactly planning to return to the Shire for long enough to care for a sprouting tree.

He does return long enough to stop all his things being auctioned off, no he's not a ghost, thank you very much, and have Bag End transfered to his cousin Drogo and his wife, before setting back out for Erebor with the things he intends to keep.

It's years before anyone thinks of the poor lost little acorn again, decades, infact.

One day, in the early morning of the 21st Durin's day after the reclaiming of Erebor, a dwarf comes rushing from the treasurey to find the Royals preparing for the celebration.

"Is it one of these, your highne- uh, Bilbo, your lost acorn?" He asks, stuttering over the title he knows the hobbit dislikes. "I can't really.... tell them apart."

And Bilbo just blinks, because in the cupped palms of the dwarf's are perhaps 15 or 20 little acorns...

"Where did you find these?" He asks.

"They were in the back."

"The back?" Thorin repeats, then catches himself and shoos the dwarf back the way he came "Show us."

They all- Bilbo and Thorin, the princeses, and a handful of the company who'd been present- follow the dwarf down into the treasurey, and then through the treasurey, past all the neat piles of gold and the many chests of organized gems and stones and all manner of other treasures, until they're presented with a very familiar back door.

Or rather, a hidden passage, tucked away in an alcove, where another handful of acorns' the few the Dwarf who'd brought them the first had likely missed- are scattered about.

"You did... just have the one, right Uncle Bilbo?" Fili asks.

"Or course I just had the one!" Bilbo retorts. "I couldn't have possibly carried that many with me all the way from Beorn's!"

With a resigned sort of sigh, as he begins to piece together the answer to a decades old mystery, Thorin steps forward and follows the tunnel up, up, up, and out of Erebor, the others- save the dwarf who brought them, dismissed by Bilbo with a smile, a thanks, and an oh, no, you may keep those- right behind.

As they walk, the acorns start to increase. Though there's never so many as to begin piling up in the tunnel, by the time they reach the end, the majority of the ground is covered in a solid layer if the little things, and the crunch underfoot as they all emerge onto the ledge which they had all once stood, with batted breath in the moon light as they realised they were at last, truly home.

"Was that here last time?" Kili asked, studying the impressive Oaktree shading the entire ledge that sat in front of the secret entrance to Erebor.

The trunk of the tree was wide and solid, sitting right up against the mountain side, and rather winning the battle of wills against the carved stone architecture of the dwarves. Its limbs grow twisted and wild, up and out in all directions. It's easily 250 or 300 feet tall. There is all sorts of life flittering about in its florishing branches, all covered in brilliant green leaves, and fresh green little acorns.

The growned all around them is covered in acorns as well, so many more than the tunnel.

"No." Thorin says, watching a squirrel dash down from the trunk of the tree, shove several acorns into its cheeks, and dash back up the trunk. "No it was not." He turns to Bilbo, and raises an eyebrow. "Lost it after the dragons chase, you said?"

Beet red and look quite flustered, all Bilbo can manage out is a squicky little "oops."

"'Oops' indeed." Thorin returns, smiling fondly.

Have you ever...

Have you ever felt that you need fangs? Have you ever wished for claws?

I don't want to cause pain and sorrow, but I am afraid of my weakness.

How will I trust others when I cannot trust myself, my stregth, my thoughts and feeling?

I want to be big and scary. I want to be the monster in the closet, in the corner, under the bed and the stairs. I want to hide in the dark, so I will never be afraid when the ligths go out.

Have you ever felt that you need fangs?

What do you think would have happened if Sally Jackson had decided to stand her ground and Defend Percy instead of using Gabe’s “foul mortal stench” to hide him. Like, Sally’s clear sighted (and if she isn’t I am 100% Certain she Would teach herself through whatever means necessary), she’d see the monsters coming. I think she would buy any scrap of Celestial Bronze she could get her hands on, teach herself various forms of martial arts and self-defense. She would plant cat mint in every window, because cats are also naturally Clear Sighted and Also suspicious as hell of monsters; the second any of the Neighborhood strays puff up and start growling Sally knows something is poking around where it shouldn’t be. And she gets Good at it. Like, Really Good.

And let’s say, one day, she finds three young half-bloods and an exhausted Satyr hiding in a dumpster, trying to escape a nearsighted Cyclops digging through the dumpster right next to theirs. Sally MamaBear Jackson is Not going to take that lying down. So, she gouges out the Cyclops’ eye and sends it packing, and leads these three little babies and their guardian protector up to her apartment. She lets them shower all that Dumpster Stank off, and the weeks of rough-living as they try to make their way down the coast. The two girls (whom she later learns are named Annabeth and Thalia) sleep on the pullout bed couch in the living room, and the boy (his name his Luke, and he’s So Protective if his little family) sleeps in Percy’s room on an old air matress Sally digs out of the closet. The Satyr (his name is Grover and he is So Tired, and Sally is Righteously Pissed that this Child has been sent out to take care of yet more children) sleeps curled up in the recliner after assuring Sally multiple times that he’s perfectly comfortable. The next morning Sally has a whole smorgasbord of breakfast foods ready, and these exhausted-relieved-Finally Hopeful-runaways descend upon it like a plague of locusts. Slowly, achingly slowly, they tell their story; how Annabeth is ignored by her father and downright neglected by her stepmom, how Thalia’s baby brother was Stolen from her just because he wasn’t Greek like here, how Luke’s mom doesn’t even recognize him anymore, how they are Desperate to get to Camp Halfblood: the last known safe-haven for Demigods like them. And Sally will Not Stand For This. So, she promises, on the River Styx to see them safely to Camp. And she gets them there.

And while her son, and his new friends, are tucked safely away at Camp Sally takes a jaunty little stroll on up to Olympus and absolutely REAMS these Olympians for how they treat their own children. All of them. Zeus tries to roll for intimidation and Sally laughs in his face, and she describes how she has dispatched Every. Single. Monster. That Dared to show its face on her doorstep. And she will NOT let another Monster disguised as a god mistreat these poor children any longer. Things are going to Change on Mount Olympus, or Sally Jackson herself will rip the Home of The Gods apart with her own bare hands. Don’t test her.

After that, Sally’s home becomes a safe-haven in its own right. The last boon for Demigods headed to Camp Halfblood. Where they are greeted with a smile and a warm hug, a plate full of food, and a warm bed to sleep in before the final leg of their journey.

Thinking about alcohol and alcohol tolerance in my lotr headcanons.

Cause like, okay weakest drinkers? Dwarves. Such a low alcohol tolerance, their drinks are like 0.5 to 0.7. The real hard hitters to them is like 1.2, and then you’re getting bold with it. During their journey, one of the dwarves offered Bilbo a sip of dwarven mead, and it was like fucking water to him, like he somehow got less drunk than he was before.

Humans, we’re humans. Just, average tolerance

Elves? Mainly wine drinkers this lot, and they have fairly high tolerance. Their beverages are usually like, 60%. In reality elves have like, average tolerance, they just have had like thousands of years to build it up.

Now Hobbits? Insane little dudes. Their drinks are actually lethal to most other species. Just as big of drinkers as they are eaters, mainly cause if they drink anything that’s not tailor made for hobbits, they will have to drink a lot to feel like anything. They have livers of steel this lot.

And orcs? Orcs don’t drink. Kay they working that none to five, they got jobs, they busy. They’re huge stoner bros, but alcohol is not their thing.

Bilbo: Do you ever have one of those days when you're holding a stick

Bilbo: And e v e r y o n e looks like a piñata?

Psycho Delic: Oh please, you wouldn't hurt a fly

Megamind: You're right

Megamind: Because a fly is an innocent, unsuspecting creature that never knowingly did anything to anyone

Psycho Delic:

Megamind: You, however, I would maim

Hi, I may or may not delate this later, but I wanted to rant about the werewolf incident between Snape and the marauders and its honest sheer idiocy. And I mean Idiocy on everyone's part.

First, Sirius. What the fuck is wrong with you, man? What made you think that it would be a good idea?! Are you really going to say that you thought Snape would not get gravely hurt? That he could not end up dead or cursed like your friend? You know, the one you outed?!?

Now, Snape. What kind of rubbish crossed your mind when you decided that doing what one of your bullies said was a good idea? What made you think that going to a supposedly haunted house in the middle of a full moon nigth was ok? In Hogwarts, the castle next to a forest full of creatures and deadly plants. This boy suspected that something was happening, and I've read that he had already started to figure out Lupin's problem. So why did he go!?!?

And Dumbledore. Did you really think that detention was a good way to deal with near murder? I'm not talking about it being sufficient, though it wasn't. I'm saying that there were a bunch of very traumatised teenagers rigth in front of him and he didn't do anything, or at least, nothing that had been explicitly mentioned. I'm talking about some kind of counseling and a better eye on them. Things had clearly gone too far, but you take one and punish him in quite an inefficient manner and don't specifically tell him why; take the other and threaten him into silence, then tell him that he owes a life debt; praise the other for his heroic actions (which perhaps was right but, idk, just hope he didn't do it in front of Snape just when he was dragged out of the shack, that would hace been too soon. Also, I've seen people writing Lily using James' saving Snape's life as proof of the later being unfair and the former being good, which only points to Potter not knowing when to keep his mouth closed...); and lets not forget about the werewolf whose secret was reveled by one of his friends and was nearly pushed to kill someone, did Dumbledore do something for the boy not to mentally collapse?

Just, it was all handled so badly.

Sirius felt way more guilty about revealing Remus nature than nearly killing someone. He kept talking about how much of a pest Severus was and seemed to pretty much think he truly deserved what he got. I don't think Sirius was a bad person, he was screwed, the place he grew up ensured that, but he had other people, he had the chance to learn and was capable of emphaty. But I don't think it really hit home what he nearly did.

James must truly have felt like a hero and what he did was brave, but bragging about it was degrading for Snape and a remainder for Lupin, not to mention the fact that the question of what he had saved Snape from, was dangerous territory for Remus.

Snape was nearly killed and then left alone to deal with it with no kind of support or compensation. I understand the need to keep things secret, but the life debt thing was going too far.

It's just that I get they were kids, only 15, but they had or should have had enough awareness to think trough what they were doing.

Dumbledore had a lot on his plate, and again, I don't think he was bad, but he screwed up.

Honestly, is there a fic where Severus thinks something like 'nah, no way I'm going there, I don't care if they think I'm a coward, I'm not that stupid' and then goes to bed to wake up the next day with nothing happening?

Headcanon Time

Pitch is a dramatic bastard who knows how to bluff his way out of a bad situation. His 'defeat' in the end was totally faked

Hear me out

Onyx, earlier during the tooth palace scene, must've sensed the fear Pitch felt when the boomerang was thrown at him. What was he reaction? Turning on him? No. Getting him out of there. The nightmares also came to check on him after Jack blasted him out of the sky. They show no signs of being fickle enough to turn against him.

Also, the nightmares are not really threats (whole diff headcanon), and they dragged him to his,,,,, home. Like telling a teenager to go to their room. 'oh no, not the place I prefer to be anyway.' So man got dragged into his lair, by his own almost harmless minions who do care about him, conveniently right when the guardians have him truely defeated.

Here's what really happened.

Pitch, apon Jack saying "Looks like it's your fear they smell." Has a realization that he has no more cards up his sleeve. He's lost. He gets a strike of panic because oh shit he's lost. Considering Sandy's treatment of him earlier and Tooth punching him, the guardians would not treat his defeat kindly.

So he runs, his nightmares, as they do, pick up that he's genuinely afraid and are like "oh shit, daddy's in actual trouble, we gotta get him home." So that's what they do.

Pitch, being his clever self, feigns struggling and fear of his nightmares to convince the guardians that there's no need to continue to go after him or worry about him, because he's getting his due punishment. He closes the lair behind him, both as a way of reaffirming that assumption, and to obviously keep the guardians from coming after him.

I mean come on, he obviously controls the entrances to his lair, there's no way Jack wouldn't have found that entrance before in his 300 yesrs, so Pitch made it specifically to lure Jack in.

Obviously, the guardians are shoot first, ask questions later kind of people. They function based on first assumptions and haven't been known to think particularly critically. Pitch bets on this and makes a plan around it multiple times. He knows how to take advantage of it.

He's a dramatic little shit, and a kid who's very good at worming their way out of trouble.

I saw a propt on insta and now this happpened

Ok, so I was scrolling on insta the other day and found this prompt about an autor who got sick or hurt or something and was about to d¡e.

Thing is that the characters on their book try to save them and the one who is more eager to help is the villain.

Now, that's great, but then my fanfiction-addict arse started to think.

AU. Modern Era. Harry Potter. With Severus Snape as the autor and Tom M. Riddle as the villain and them completly ooc.

Then everything kinda went crazy.

I imagined a scene were Sev wakes up in his hospital room, maybe in the middle of the freaking night and sees this person there, but like, he cannot make them out until they get closer and when they do he recognises Riddle asap.

Then, they both start talking. You know, the old, what are you doing here? How are you here?

Then Tom explains that he was the only one who got to this world, the others were probably still trying, but...

Point is, if Sev faded, so would the word he was creating. That would be until he finished the story.

Then maybe Tom tries to convince/threatens Severus so he would give him a good ending.

Severus says no and Tom kinda blows up.

Sev dosn't really react to the outburst, he knows this time is more bark than bite.

Tom pretty much plummets in the chair next to the bed and Sev explains to him that even though the story still lacked an epiloge, the last chapter was already sent to the editor and was pretty much irreversibly part of the saga.

There is silence, of course. Sev really needs to process the madness that is all that. Tom needs to come to terms with the fact that he is basically doomed.

Tom is the first one to speak.

"Can I at least know what will happen?" He sort of demands-pleads.

Severus answers with a sigh.

"I can tell you that the chapter ends with your plans ruined and you being taken by the aurors."

"Typical" the villain scoffs.

Severus chuckles, unable to stop himself and quite unconcerned about it.

Tom sighs. Then thinks about something else that has been nagging his brain for the past couple of weeks he has been there.

"Who am I here?" He blurts out of the blue, for Severus, at least.

"What do you mean?"

"Every person that is related somehow to you in this word is nearly a copy of someone in my world," he explains. "Sans me, apparently."

"Oh, that," Severus smiles. "No, you won't find anyone like you here. All the main characters in your home are based on people I know except you. You are the only one I fully created."

Tom opens his mout to reply but finds himself nearly speechless, not so much for what he was told, but because of the apparent warmth he was being addresed with.

Severus then frowned and pursed his lips. A painful grimace takes over hia face as realisation hits him. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply before looking at the man in front of him.

"I'm so sorry, Riddle."

Tom blinks before getting back his wits and replying with the most nonchalance he could muster. "It's not your fault you cannot change the end now," he said shrugging as a bonnus.

"Is not that," said the autor. "All the things I put you through without knowing..."

"If it wasn't you, it would've been someone else," replied the other.

"How so?" Now Severus was curious.

"It's complicated..." sighed the villain while leaning on the chair, a hand slightly pulling at his hair in exhaustion.

Getting the hint, Severus just nodded and dorpped the topic.

"And who are you? In the story, I mean..." asked Tom then.

"Oh! I'm Tobias Snape."

"The potion profesor?" inquired Tom with a frown. Both eyebrows arched at the answering nod. "You don't look like him."

"I guess not," chuckled the other.

"You don't act like him either," stated the man sitting on a chair, watching as the autor downrigth laughed at his last comment.

Then the man smiled sadly as he explained. "I guess the way I wrote the people in the book are the way I percieve the people in here."

The pause after that was tense and Tom could not help himself.

"Shit! You need therapy!"

Tom actually cringed at what he said and the expression on the other man's face. That until Severus burst out in damn giggles.

"I knew you were blunt, but...!" he tried to say beetwen chuckles.

"And who's to blame, huh?" replied the other, failing in supressing a smile.

"Who else have you met?" asked Severus suddenly.

Upon looking at him, Tom reached the insane conclussion that Prince was not worried, he just wanted to know.

"I think I met pretty much everyone." Whatever face he made after speaking must have betrayed his thoughts, if Princes' wince was to be considered. He shrugged before replying, reminding himself in his head that this person definitly knew what an asshole he could be. "Honestly, Lily is way more pleasant in my world. James and Sirius though...," he didn't try to hide the disdain in his voice. "I have never met someone so unpleasent, and that is saying something! You went too easy on them!" By that point, Severus was chuckling again.

Like this they spent hours, comparing people and stories of their worlds.

It was a bit outputting meeting someone for the first time with that person already aware of every little detail of your life. Even more so when said person did not run away.

Eventually, they didn't have anything else to talk about, and Tom still had to go back to his world. Severus could read it in his eyes, the moment Tom was readying himself to go, to give him some parting words before leaving.

"What if...?" Asked Severus suddenly. He licked his lips, overly conscious of the attention Tom was giving him. "What if I could give you a way out?"

"But you said you can't change the story," replied Tom, confused.

"I also said that the epiloge is still unfinished." Severus started tangling his fingers on the blancket draped around him, nerviously trying to think of anything that could-. His face lit up with a smile. "I cannot make you win, but I can make you scape."

Tom clenched one fist, hope swelling in his chest while he tried to keep it down.

"There is nowhere for me to go, Prince."

"Call me, Severus," blurted out the other without thinking while reaching for the notebook and pen on the bedside table oposite where Tom was sitting. "And you are rigth, there's nowhere in your world you can go, that's why you will start anew in whatever world you choose."

Tom's mind was spinning. He had already accepted the fact that he was done. Now he may had a way out, but it felt surreal, too easy. Heck! He didn't even had that much hope before reaching the building they where in. Besides... "I could only make it here because you were about to pass!"

"I can make another way. You know I can," said Severus, frantically scribling with his pen. "A portal that will take you wherever you wish to go, where noone will ever be able to follow..."

Tom tried and failed in speaking a couple of times.

"Prin- Severus," amended, remembering the other's words a while ago. "Why are you doing this?"

Severus finally left his notes in favor of the man sitting next to him. The dejected and confused expression he found told him more than anyone could belive.

Riddle was not expecting to be helped. He probably never did.

Of course he never did! Severus was well aware of the reason- of the reasons Riddle had to not trust him or anyone else, really.

Severus smiled warmly at Tom. "Did you know you were always one of my favorites?"

Tom watched unable to reply, as Severus' hand tangled briefly in his hair (too briefly).

That's how, in the end of the story, Tom was able to open a portal to a world unknown to any other person in his. Noone knew how he did it and the reserch was lost forever, a last tiny victory for the nearly convict.

Severus stayed a week to be checked. His 'magical' recovery was on every news you'd find.

When the time to leave came, the nurse told him about his family in the lobby.

Lily must have gotten out of work early.

Walking to meet her, he was disconcerted by the lack of red hair in his view.

He looked around, willing the universe to free him of the posibility of Lupin being the person offering him a ride home.

"Ready to go?" asked a voice behind his back.

He turned so fast that the world lost focus for a second before he met the eyes of the man leaning agaist the wall, already carring a bag with severus' belongings.

"Riddle?" he whispered desbelieving.

"Call me Tom," answered the other with a half smile.

Severus huffed a laugh while aproaching him, leaning in to retrive his bag. The other swung it over his shoulder and out of his reach, walking towards the exit so the autor would follow.

"Don't think that I'm not happy to see you," started Severus. "But why are you in this world again?"

They made it to a car. Tom retrieved the car's key from his pocket and Severus chose to adress that later.

"You tell me," snarked the ex-villian while putting Severus bag on the back of the car.

"I wrote for you to go wherever you wanted to go," Severus tried to explain and understand himself.

Tom only hummed blandly and opened the door of the car for Severus to get in.

He then walked around the car and got in himself, settling in the driver's sit and igniting the engine.

"I wanted you to start again where you cuold enjoy your life... wher you could be-" he cut himself, feeling sad all of a sudden. Did he fail Tom?

"I know," Tom interrumped his depressing thoughts.

Severus looked at him, only to be met with a small, yet warm smile.

They got to a red ligth and the car stopped. Tom reached out and, hesitanly interlaced his fingers with Severus'.

Marveling at the sight that were their hands togethet, Severus was finally hit with realisation.

He looked at Tom and smiled openly at him.

The light changed to green and Tom let go of Severus while asking for directions. They had to get home.

Due to my ignorance regarding canon, I shouldn't be allowed to write this, but there's noone there to stop me.

So, I have this concept or idea that being an archivist in Cybertron meant that the people in charge extracted most of the information straight from the archivists' heads. Sure, there were pads, but what if simply writing was considered too unproductive and slow? And what about editing and crossreferencing? It was obviously better to leave all that to the mechs more experienced, and for that they needed direct access to the information recopilated. Naturally, the cleverest way to achive that was extracting the data right from the archivists' heads.

So they simply went and connected with the processors of their archivists. It wasn't bad, at first. But the poor archivists, those little bots didn't know anything about writing or editing, they didn't know what was important and what was supposed to be left out, so the mechs in charge decided that whatever was in their minds needed to be reviewed and then it would be up to them to decide what was relevant enough to be recorded.

With time, the archivists became little more than glorified cameras. It was their duty to record and give the information away, they had to give absolute access to their processors, they couldn't complain, least of all refuse.

One fine day in Cybertron, Orion Pax was sparked.

This system was already fully developed, Orion was born into it, it's how it had always been so it had to be good, right? It had worked so far and he'd never heard anyone complaining, he'd never had to complain.

But as he began to grow, as he learnt more, explored more of the world and himself, he realised that there were things he didn't want to share.

Things that were embarrassing or too personal. Things that were private, things that were inappropriate to share with people he didn't trust.

He tried to refuse one time. He was restrained and his superiors entered his mind against his will. He tried to keep them out, he tried, but he couldn't and it hurt.

He tried again, and again, and again. He no longer bothered with voicing his disagreement, his refusal, but he tried to stop them, to keep them away from the bits that were supposed to be his. It was painful, it was dangerous, this push and pull inside his own processor hurt him every time. Until it got nearly fried.

From then on, every time his superiors needed to extract information from him, they simply disconnected Orion temporarily.

The funny thing Orion realised afterwards was that his superiors could have done that since the beginning. Why hadn't they?

The answer was all over the Archives, in the side eyes of the other mechs, in the whispers, the looks thrown to the archivists whose secrets were all over the place, maybe all over Cybertron.

Not "important enough" to be recorded, never respected enough to be kept quite. But apparently, highly entertaining.

So Orion became careful. He became measured in his actions, feelings and speech. Hyperaware of his movements and thoughts.

The Academy was his chance. He did his best and failed, but he never had to go back to the Archives.

Now he was far away, another planet, another galaxy. Constant danger, constant fighting. But his thoughts, his feelings... Optimus Prime was the sole owner.

What's the point of this little idea aside from the additional angst?

Simply consider Megatronus, the gladiator who was made to fight in the arena in a kill or be killed spectacle for the masses.

Megatronus wasn't the owner of his own body.

Orion had no say over his own mind.

What a fun thing to bond over! 😊