the little shit

Angel Wings

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Plugging away on this little project, about 1/3rd the way done.

What solvem of yours could he proble👏?

LMAO

They are not a domesticated Kraken. They lost a few clutches and decided that the archipelago’s bays would be safe places to lay. That comes with a price, the Kraken that lay there have a funny relationship with the mer.

Vivace watched the Kraken help with hunts and share some of their own catches. They decide that sharing fuel is the key to this partnership. So they observe a mer without a Kraken who hunts and guards and decides, I will have this one.

YOU MUST HAVE MANY FUELS FOR HATCHLINGS.

The adults can starve for all Viv cares but the bitties must have a large variety and plentiful fuels.

Pretty much. Mesothulas won't get far. Him turning up at all would terrify Prowl and the mechlings but.

Squish. Squish.

Prowl’s mouth tasted like foam insulation and he made a face as he lifted his helm from his pillow. He needed a cube of pressed energon, or five. His helm was throbbing, worse than it normally did when he first woke up in the light-cycle. Though he still felt groggy and tired, Prowl pushed himself upright. There was a cube of coolant sitting on his table. Why? Wait. All at once his memories of the last dark-cycle replayed. The sudden surge of data hurt and he pressed the heels of his servos against his temples and hissed. When the disorientation faded with the surge, Prowl reached for the coolant and downed it in one gulp. It was a start, at least but what he really needed, to clear his helm and to actually think was pressed energon. Not for the first time Prowl thought he should just move the pressed to his berthside table. Sure, it would be socially unacceptable, but he lived alone, what did anyone else’s opinion matter anyways?

It took four cubes of the potent fuel before Prowl’s helmache faded. He had known he should not go out with those obnoxious fraggers but he was new to the station and his commander had encouraged him to go out, calling it a team bonding exercise. Was gang raping Prowl a team bonding exercise? Prowl doubted very much they had planned to just leave it at drugging him. Unfortunately, it would be impossible to prove his suspicious, apart from tweaking his doorwings, they had not done anything untowards and the semantics of doorwings was lost on Iaconians. Still, drugging Prowl was a criminal offence and he was not inclined to be passive. Passivity had never served him well.

When Prowl trusted himself, he went to a medicentre and had samples drawn of the fuel in his systems. Once he had the identity of the drug he had been spiked with, Prowl went straight to his commander to lodge a complaint. Flatfood was... dismissive, calling it a prank, calling it hazing. Seeing that he would get nowhere with him, Prowl confirmed the bar was actually in a different district than his precinct and filed a complaint with the precinct that had jurisdiction over the bar. It would still likely come to nothing, at most a slap on their wrists but it would be good for them all to know that Prowl did not play games and he did not have a sense of humour.

With the business of the matter taken care, Prowl moved on to the next task. Maybe his colleagues would not have raped him but Prowl ha no faith in their morality or their restraint. There was a nice little florist around the corner from his habsuite. He had no idea if Jazz, the bassist who had interrupted the scheme liked crystals but crystals were a traditional thank you in Praxus, a traditional apology as well. The composition mattered. Though the florist was not a Praxian the arranged was sunny and Prowl thought it conveyed the appropriate message. The bar held life music every Octav-tur and Prowl nurtured the crystals and waited for the orn to pass.

He was irritated to find himself transferred to the patrol until. Prowl brooded over it. It was loathsome that his colleagues, his would be rapists were still investigating burglaries while he had been reassigned. For the time being, Prowl fulfilled his duties and waited and hoped the precinct investigated his complaint. Perhaps when he went to deliver the crystals, Prowl could ask Jazz or Ricochet, the bartender, if the enforcers had ever asked for the security tapes. If the answer was no, Prowl would ask for them to be saved and then he would go back to the precinct and make a nuisance of himself. Prowl was very good at annoying other mechanisms. His brother had called it his particular talent and Barricade would have known best.

Finally, the ornend came and Prowl finished his shift, went home to collect the crystal and then walked over to the bar. He saw no reason to drive the short distance, and after doing nothing but ticket traffic violations for an orn, the last thing Prowl wanted to do was drive. It was another cool crisp dark-cycle. Calor had passed into Imber. Before long it would be Frigus and it would be too cold to walk without additional insulation. Prowl ruminated on the cost and the benefit of such garments for a Praxian as he opened the bar door. He had no lines rehearsed, just and thank you and...

“Prowl?”

Prowl’s optics brightened as he saw his brother standing with the bartender, Ricochet’s arm was around his waist holding him like a lover. Barricade held a little bundle in his arms, the newling chirped. Jazz turned towards him, away from the blissfully family scene. He was smiling. They were brothers, the bartender and the musician. Jazz was uncle to Barricade’s creation and Prowl... Prowl was the dirt beneath his peds.

“Jazz, a thank you,” Prowl said, forcing a false flatness to his voice as his helm throbbed. “For what you did.”

He turned and all but ran from the door. Prowl heard Barricade call his designation, to demand he never show his face, again? Through his doorwings, Prowl knew Jazz was following. To deliver Barricade’s message. Of course the family would close around the new originator. They would do whatever they could to make him happy, that was the way of things. The throbbing pain of Prowl’s helm turned into a harsh grind and he turned into the alley... by the nice florist’s shop. He did not exactly fall, neither did did he neatly sit, collapsed may have been the right glyph but language and semantic were lost on Prowl. There was nothing but a grinding, hissing, staticky pain and Prowl dug the heels of his servos into his temples, matching pain with pain. Someone snatched his wrists and pulled his servos from his helm and Prowl his and glared through his tears at Jazz.

“What’s wrong, Sweetspark?” Jazz asked.

“My helm hurts,” Prowl whined and he tried to get his servos free, to bring them back to his helm.

“Y’re okay,” Jazz crooned softly. He refused to let go of Prowl’s servos. In desperation, Prowl pushed his helm back against the cool tiles of the alley wall with all his strength. Jazz pulled him away from the wall and screeched unintelligibly. Prowl was pulled into Jazz’s lap and he tried to free his servos again. “Can ya get a cold pack? He’s burnin’ up?”

A klik, maybe, later something ice cold was pressed against Prowl’s feverish helm and he tried to bat it away but as he tried to tug and the unmovable wrist, the cold permeated his processor and it felt considerably better than the burn had. The pain and the static ebbed and Prowl’s helm lulled, lulled against Jazz’s chassis. Immediately, Prowl stiffened and Jazz clucked his glossa.

1) Primes Are Not Born: They Are Made (bbrookley)

2) The Harmony in Your Spark (mieayambawang)

3) Could Be Worse (Mimkana)

4) Burning Gray (Smatterbrained)

I highly suggest all of them but especially The Harmony in Your Spark! It was one of the first tf fics i got into and it also has a strong musical motif so i find it very fun

1) Primes Are Not Born: They Are Made (bbrookley)

2) The Harmony in Your Spark (mieayambawang)

3) Could Be Worse (Mimkana)

4) Burning Gray (Smatterbrained)

I highly suggest all of them but especially The Harmony in Your Spark! It was one of the first tf fics i got into and it also has a strong musical motif so i find it very fun

A couple sketches of what a preteen Jazz would've looked like in my fic (SheepSkin) during his time at Omelas.

(Which is basically my idea for government sanctioned MECH pilot breeding camps, and the idea that the human person could be reduced into a walking billboard ad.)

The idea is still developing in my fic, but to add to the dystopia of it all I thought it would be interesting if humanity—out of sheer desperation—started to MANUFACTURE human beings. I also feel like it adds another parallel between Jazz and Prowl, both artificial constructs in defiance of the natural order, made to serve something higher than themselves. So, they can be cuties and trauma bond once they meet in my fic eheheheh (istg I'll make this happen).

My original idea was pilot lineages, as in there were long lines of MECH pilots as if a new blue-blooded caste, however, I kind of shot myself in the proverbial nutsacks when I limited the time to only a century. So fuck me. Technology-wise this is easily justifiable, as I was already going for an alt-history setting, as in a modern-day-sci-fi fusion somewhat similar to the Electric State (which is a retro-futuristic illustrated novel set in 1997). Mostly because I wanted an uncanny vibe of familiar and unfamiliar—think of when Makima listed all the things Chainsawman erased from existence iykyk. Real-life architectural inspiration comes from Chongqing China and to a lesser extent Manila, that some some parts of the 5D cityscape feel as if a stunted time-capsule due to governmental neglect, and the rest are fluorescent neon megalo-structures built on its remains.

ANYWAYS back to MECHA lineages, chronologically, I knew this idea wouldn't work out, but something that captures that similar element (in my head at least) was corporate/government-sponsored pilot babies. As in there are corporations and institutions partnered with MECH (the company) to own the rights to certain pilot's DNA (dead or alive), or have some stake in it. This includes: the right to clone, etc. Though I imagine that full-on cloning didn't come out till later on, scientific pushback from people still trying to maintain their morality, essentially for ethical reasons (not dissimilar to real life as human cloning is actually quite feasible with today's technology, just not permitted—not advocating for human cloning btw).

So, instead MECH initially had these surrogate programs where they would compensate "volunteers". Positioning it as a win-win for humanity. Mostly targeting young, vulnerable women and girls who were unable to adjust to the new world order—and later on as the world "adjusted", women and girls born in similarly precarious situations due to said world order. Volunteers were promised not only financial compensation, but also complete duty of care in their assigned facilities for the duration of their 9 month pregnancies, which is most likely the longest period a lot of these women have ever stayed at one place at any given time. With Jazz's (and by extension Ricochet's) mother being one of said volunteers—her backstory is still in development—but regardless she signed up for the surrogacy program in hopes to have a stable "out" to her troubled home life.

This didn't work out. As it did for many. The marketing was essentially super manipulative, as MECH was heavily pushing for this Cinderella-esque propaganda story with them as the Prince Charming, when in reality their advertisements and promotional work primarily featured surrogates from already AFFLUENT families. People already wealthy before the fall of man, or those who rose to prominence during the initial attacks. Basically people who were already associated with MECH to begin with, with MECH purporting that all the success that these women have seen was theirs and theirs alone. Completely disregarding the social dynamics at play.

(They also heavily abused the failing educational system, as getting butt-fucked by aliens every month isn't really conducive to a productive learning environment. Basically preying on the uneducated and uninformed.)

Anyways, due to reasons. Jazz's mother ended up fleeing her designated surrogate facility to raise Jazz and Rico on her on. Jazz ended up a pilot regardless of her efforts.

OKAY SO back to the whole "THE GOVERNMENT (and big corp.) OWNS YOUR DNA" thing. This isn't actually applicable to all pilots or all the children living at Omelas—recruitment is still by far the most common method of indoctrination, especially because of the huge influx of orphans going around. The surrogacy—and later on cloning—thing is more or less a eugenics thing for "guaranteed" results, as opposed to trial and error. MECH of course still finds importance in recruitment, as again, everyone loves an underdog story, and the if every pilot was just a clone or pseudo-clone it would just reek of nepotism. But besides marketing, it also expands their gene-pool so that everyone doesn't end up inbred lmao. I imagine that MECH also manufactures underdog stories *cough* *cough* Jazz. Who's surrogacy isn't actually public knowledge (gasp spoilers?!). So, to everyone else, he's a rare unaffiliated pilot who rose to prominence out of sheer nothingness. Which is only half of the ugly truth.

And just to put it out here. Jazz does not know he is secretly a nepo-baby (what?! Even more spoilers?! How could you?!).

Anyways more general facts, before I basically shart out my entire fic lmao, as all of this information kind of makes it seem as if there should be thousands, if not millions of pilots, at any given time. Especially for such a large scale of what is essentially a breeding operation—not discounting all the unsupervised minors or even susceptible adults who can be so easily brainwashed by MECH—and if thats the case why is humanity still in so much hardship?

One is that manufacturing people is one thing, the MECHS themselves is another (for evil nefarious reasons—note all the blue stuff. Hope its not a weird alien energy source). There's basically a much larger ratio of people theoretically able to pilot a MECH, as opposed to the MECHS themselves.

Two, just because people are able, doesn't mean they're any good, MECH has a really strict criteria on what they're looking for, so even if you possess the biological ability to pilot a MECH, if you fall beneath a certain threshold. You're practically no different to someone without said biological ability. You're nothing. Like the screening process alone reduces the recruitment pool from the hundreds of millions to barely the thousands. And again even from said thousands, only a hundred or so get considered to be a pilot.

Three, these recruitments don't happen often, probably once a decade or so, given that any given recruitment gives them an excess amount of reserves. So, MECH makes a big event out of it. Which I think is humanity's sad excuse for a holiday. Also all the confirmed surrogate babies (and clones) celebrate their birthdays on this day!!! They do not get to have their own unique birthdays :( . That would give them too much individuality (and maybe start an uprising who knows).

I also have an ideas on clans, as in pilots "sponsored" by the same company or government institution. That even though that everyone is still under MECH, they still get some leeway with the pilots they own. These sponsors are especially crucial when it comes to funding the MECHS of said pilots themselves, particularly to fit a certain image, and while this extra funding helps unburden these pilots. It also means limited freedom and flexibility. Like if Rodimus is needed for a mission in Bangladesh, but he also has a super, SUPER important McDonald's photoshoot due in like an hour. He's essentially fucked.

(Not really as there are rules in regulations in place, especially when they impede a pilot's ability to function. But still. Also I think it'd be really funny if in my AU, Rodimus or Rodrick used to be a really outgoing goth—think of his purple and blue phase—who was then forced to Mclove it and sell his soul to Ronald McDonalds.)

MECH can also fully own their pilots btw, and can reject any potential offers from companies and/or governments looking to have a stake in any given pilot's life. This usually when they want to take complete control of the narrative they want to tell.

The sponsorships also give an in universe reason onto why theres such a colourful gallery of MECHS. They're literally just walking billboard advertisements, who just so happen to be the only thing stopping humanity from imminent extinction.

Also, because the timeline of the invasion is condensed into a century. Its entirely probable that Jazz's donor is actually still alive!!! YAYYYYY FATHERHOOD.