Title: Excelsior: A Sequence (2/3)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Smokescreen, Optimus Prime,
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1100 (this installment; 2300 total)
Warnings: None.
A/N: This sequence was written for the 30 Days of Writing: A Drabble a Day challenge on Tumblr, and tells the story of Smokescreen from his enlistment in the Autobot cause before the series begins through his career in the far future after it ends. It will include a great deal of pre- and post-series headcanon that is not altogether compliant with the larger Aligned continuity. My artistic license remains current. The illustration to chapter four was commissioned from my colleague Amber Dawn. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with an opportunity for great responsibility.

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11. Prepared

      Finally, Smokescreen gets it. ( Read more...Collapse )

Title: Excelsior: A Sequence (1/3)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Smokescreen, Alpha Trion, Cybertronian OCs
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1200
Warnings: Implied/referenced character death.
A/N: This sequence was written for the 30 Days of Writing: A Drabble a Day challenge on Tumblr, and tells the story of Smokescreen from his enlistment in the Autobot cause before the series begins through his career in the far future after it ends. It will include a great deal of pre- and post-series headcanon that is not altogether compliant with the larger Aligned continuity. My artistic license remains current. The illustration to chapter four was commissioned from my colleague Amber Dawn. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with sno-cones.

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1. Beginning

      He chooses his objective carefully: a busy recruiting station in Iacon's industrial district, where one more bot with new paint and a fake ID shouldn't stand out. ( Read more...Collapse )

Title: The Secret
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Megatron, Soundwave
Pairing(s): None
Rating: G
Word Count: ~3300
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of season 3 (no spoilers for the series finale); also, spoilers for Foxbear's Trickster.
A/N: This story acts as an epilogue to Trickster, a crucial installment in Foxbear's "Blood and Energon" AU. Trickster's climax reveals a game-changing development about which, as one character tells another, "Megatron cannot know." In storytelling terms, of course, that means "Megatron must find out," and I could not help but imagine how he might react when he does. Many thanks to Foxbear for the beta-read, though this story should be considered metafanfiction and not in any way binding on this AU's "canon." (Foxbear also tried to tone down my Miltonian rhetoric, but what overheated bombast remains is wholly my doing.) Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with covert intelligence of the highest caliber.

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As, when a spark
Lights on a heap of nitrous powder, laid
Fit for the tun, some magazine to store
Against a rumoured war, the smutty grain
With sudden blaze diffused, inflames the air;
So started up, in his own shape, the Fiend.

— John Milton, Paradise Lost IV, 814-819

          Megatron stood on the bridge of the Nemesis, at the hub of all his devices and desires, and was pleased with what he saw.

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I never got into the whole Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons crossover thing. I like all those canons individually, but mixed together ... eh.

And then I saw that Tobu Ishi, one of my all-time favorite FMA writers (and probably my first fandom writing crush; dear heaven, s/he can drabble), had a new story up: Victorious Children, which is a Rise of the Braved Tangled Dragons 'fic ...

... set in the Hunger Games universe.

And it works.

This has everything to do with Tobu Ishi's fantastic grasp of characterization and narrative voice and the kind of fanficcer's inventiveness that sees exactly how to take a set of characters out of their established plot and set them down in a new one that's just as entertaining. Did I say entertaining? How about gripping, amusing, startling and plangent by turns? Each chapter is a more or less self-contained vignette that together add up to one heck of a story.

And not enough people are reading it. So here's my recommendation: give it a shot. The odds are in your favor ...

... it's cold.

The NOAA tells me it's 4F this morning. I wish I could run my heat normally, but I still have the downstairs smoking neighbor problem. So I'm warming the house up to Tropical Rainforest and then letting it cool to Arctic Tundra over the course of the day. Gah. I can't wait to get out of here.

I have managed over the past several months to get new floor and countertops laid down in my kitchen and am currently badgering Paint Contractor #3 for a written estimate so that I can get the room painted. Then I just have to clean the carpets and find a realtor. I've already boxed up all my paperbacks, but I fully expect to be asked to decrease the number of books/shelves for showing. I look forward to the expression I'll get when I explain that I've already taken down about half of them. :-)

Meanwhile, the job gave us a half-day yesterday during the snowstorm and told us all to stay home today, a bizarre mercy. I suspect alien involvement. Fortunately, I haven't packed the tinfoil hats yet ...

Title: At Odds With Morning
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Ratchet, Optimus Prime, Raf, Miko, Jack, Agent Fowler
Pairing(s): None
Rating: G
Word Count: ~4200
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of season 3 (no spoilers for the series finale).
A/N: When I watched "Deadlock," it was immediately clear to me why Ratchet, of all the Autobots, would choose to stay behind; then I realized his motivations would unpack nicely into a short story. Despite the epigraphs from Paul Simon, this is not a songfic per se. Originally it was headed by a quotation from Epictetus, but then LadyM turned me on to the possibility of using pop lyrics by her adept employment of same in Life in Glass Houses. This is for Foxbear, who expressed an interest in it (and has written a much more cheerful why-Ratchet-stayed story, "Where I Am Needed"). Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with bongos, brass and a bass guitar.

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A man walks down the street.
He says, “Why am I soft in the middle now?
Why am I soft in the middle?
The rest of my life is so hard.
I need a photo opportunity.
I want a shot at redemption.
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard:

Bone-digger, bone-digger.
Dogs in the moonlight —
Far away, my well-lit door."

— Paul Simon, "You Can Call Me Al"

          Optimus Prime's retreating form disappeared into the swirling green fire of the space bridge. The gate remained patent for a few moments afterward, marking his passage across the light years to Cybertron, then closed automatically. Decepticon engineering, Ratchet thought wryly. He would have to make do with less sophisticated devices for a while, but he was used to that. He also knew that it would be some time before the memory of his gilded cage on the Nemesis ceased to color his appreciation of Decepticon engineering. The Earth-based computers of hangar E, for all their faults, at least held no such unpleasant associations — and perhaps even a few fond memories.

          Not that he intended to admit it.

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... that seems to be passing around an advance copy of the DVD/Blu-Ray of the Transformers Prime series finale. It's the only way I can explain the sudden appearance of a complete and highly spoilerrific recap page on TVTropes.org and a number of fanfics based not on speculations about the finale, but what appears to be actual knowledge thereof. And, silly me, I managed to spoil myself slightly before backbuttoning madly away. On the other hand, I now have time to accustom myself to the idea that several of my desiderata for this story (a six-year timeskip, the [life event] of [character] and [character], and a glimpse into the future careers of [characters]) just aren't going to happen. Boo, hiss. I'm just going to have to write that one myself, I guess. I could have sworn that they were setting up those desiderata in the final episodes of season 3, but I guess not. Sigh.

... okay, maybe just a little bit.

It's been a lovely summer, really. We had that awful week and a half of torrid weather back in July and then the dewpoint dove down and stayed down all through August. Which was good, because due to the smoking downstairs neighbor, I can't run my central a/c without tobaccoing up my house. Argh. But it's September, now. We were down into the 50s a few days last week. I thought it was safe to take the fans out of the windows.

It wasn't. And I suspect that doing so attracted the attention of Mother Nature, so I now I feel responsible for all the other people suffering through 85+ degree weather with a 70+ degree dewpoint. I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! The fans are staying in until the World Series is completed and summer is officially over, I promise!

Title: The Roughest Day (Part 2/5)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Sierra, Smokescreen (this part; eventual Knock Out, Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Jack Darby)
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~5030 (this part; 9480 overall)
Warnings: Canon-typical violence.
A/N: I meant to cover the entirety of the action in this chapter, but realized in the writing of it that I had more action than I'd thought. So the three chapters, prologue and epilogue of my original plan have become four chapters, a prologue and an epilogue. The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley, as the poet says. This chapter is for Ron, who introduced me to Blind Guardian ("This won't make your head explode!") and his sister Karissa, who giggled at the vain attempt to make Sierra feel better. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with a jack and some Fix-A-Flat. (Part 1 can be found here.)

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          The bus jounced over a seam in the tarmac, dislodging Sierra's left earbud and waking her from an uncomfortable doze. ( Read more...Collapse )

Title: The Roughest Day (Part 1/4)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Sierra (this part; eventual Smokescreen, Knock Out, Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Jack Darby)
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4450
Warnings: Canon-typical violence.
A/N: This story was inspired by two dangling plot participles from season two of Transformers Prime: Sierra's reintroduction in the opener and the evacuation of Jasper in the finale. It was first conceived after the season 3 episode "Project Predacon" but before the full scope of that arc became clear. Though now completely AU, it remains, I hope, a plausible and enjoyable might-have-been. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with a ticket to ride.

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          She bears down on the strut with all her weight and will, but it's not enough. The boulder under which it's jammed merely teeters back and forth, taunting her with its stability. She lets up, gasping, then throws herself against the lever once more. Her hands smart where the fluorescent blue liquid oozing from its torn end has soaked through the jacket she wrapped around it and her ears ring with the din of battle rising out of the gorge below: reports as loud as cannon fire and the crash of metal into metal like a fifteen — no, five hundred car pile-up on the highway.

          She's running out of time to make this work.

          Panic chews at her nerves. Damn it, she has a fulcrum and a place to stand and it's not the world she needs to move, just this one huge, heavy, dirty, stupid rock! She heaves at it again, teeth gritted together, breath whistling in her nose, and feels the strut bow slightly under the strain.

          The boulder has to move. It has to.

          Because if it doesn't, she's dead.

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