All the cameras have left - Sentinel Prime takes a short holiday at the urging of his lover, and comes to a realization
It's time to take a stand - Hot Rod and Deadlock switch sides
But the bird flew off instead - Cyclonus, rebuilt and brainwashed by Unicron, faces the Great War
Of quiet birds in circled flight - Cyclonus and Armada join Perceptor and Beachcomber in an archeological dig
Birds of a Feather - Impactor finds out that not all of the members of Prima's rebellion are as dead as they appeared to be
Today is always gone tomorrow - Episode re-write: S3E12 (Surprise Party): Hot Rod and Daniel decide Ultra Magnus could use a birthday party. Cyclonus meets Paragon
Can I play with madness? - Episode re-write: S3E13 (Madman's Paradise): Daniel and Flamewar end up running into a Quintesson
Now face the funk now blastin' out your speaker - Episode re-write: S3E17 (Carnage in C-Minor): Soundblaster ends up on the most wonderful of planets. If only Galvatron weren't there too.
Suddenly I've reached tomorrow - Cyclonus and Paragon, and the search for a hobby
A birdsong shatters the still - Heatwave takes the new recruit on a simple mission
Lost in time, returning to the light - Episode rewrite: S3E22 (Dweller in the Depths): Airachnid discovers the Dweller in the Depths. It is not to her liking.
The earthquake is a-comin' but you don't wanna hear - Galvatron tries to invade Tlalakan
Worldbuilding
History
History of Cybertron
History of specific groups: Dinobots and Predacons
History of specific groups: That Fucking Cursed Production Line
History of specific groups: Exarchon's Cult
History of specific groups: Jhaixus's Science Group
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did you really think a creature born in hell could ever reach heaven?
...
you know who you belong to, and to whom will return to in the end.
--
This idea had been sitting in my head for a couple of years, and I saw no better time than to try to execute it than now. I did not do it justice, but I can say now that I did it! I like to think about Scourge and the Matrix sometimes. The implications of his actions, the bid for power, the sidelining, the watching of his own clones treated as cannon fodder and shot and isn't he just one mistaken identity away from joining them?
what is it like to be a god? what's the view like from the top? I don't think he shall ever know.
The new Odyssey adaptation has inevitably gotten people talking about a Muppet version of it, and they’re frequently suggesting Kermit as Odysseus, Miss Piggy as Penelope.
I’m sorry but that’s thinking way too small, hear me out:
We need to have Miss Piggy as Odysseus, and Kermit as Penelope.
Think about it… who’s the more fickle, prideful, warlike one in that relationship? Who is absolutely ready to go ham, at a moment’s notice?
But who is the single human cast member in this tale? Who gets to put in an Oscar-worthy performance alongside the Muppets and what role are they to play?
There’s no single human, everyone is a Muppet except for one scene. Circe, played by Janice, turns Odysseus’s crew into humans who still behave animalistic and are all played by Academy Award winning actors.
You can ditch the Furman take on it, we can have MtF Arcee without the problematic background of her transition and make her a jolly aunt
For pre transition version look inspiration I talk about it here
For her post transition look:
I hate how Arcee almost always has that slender feminine look in her toys. There is nothing wrong with looking feminine ofc, but the toy designers are often way too scared to integrate her vehicle mode into the robot (Looking at you Earthrise, Masterpiece and ESPECIALLY FURAI, all of you suck). For general transformation I took inspo from Animated Arcee, but the engineering was inspired by her Authentics toy (that for once actually integrated the vehicle mode into her body) and a bit by Legacy Elita-1 (how her legs fold out).
I hope hasbro/takara will not chicken out and give us non-shellforming Arcee one day
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I'm just saying, if you're going to worldbuild magic being a "raw, primal force, akin to and interweaving with nature itself" you gotta explain to me why animals don't use it
I know the normal answer is "they just aren't smart enough for it" but idk I've seen enough media where a character uses a spell in a moment of brain-off panic ilI feel like animals could probably stumble into a spell or two like, accidentally
Fantasy setting where every species of animal has One Fucked Up Trick exactly like in medieval bestiaries (e.g., panthers hypnotising their prey with sweet breath, pelicans reviving the dead with their willingly shed blood, etc.), except these are actually learned magic spells passed down from parent to offspring, so different populations of the same animal in different regions might have a different spell.
(If a species is domesticated you can teach it any spell you want, as long as you start 'em young enough; every breed of dog has a different "standard" spell, and knowing the "wrong" one is considered both a grave departure from breed standards and a potential violation of animal husbandry ethics.)
how do you distinguish grey from other colours beyond black and wite?
Distinguishing features of moral beige:
The protagonist is constantly agonising over Hard Choices; however, circumstances always conspire to prevent them from actually having to make those choices, so in practice they're just angsting over stuff they might have done.
The text exhibits a recurring pattern whereby the protagonist seems to to have made a Hard Choice, but new information is reliably revealed shortly thereafter which retroactively establishes that whatever they did was the morally upright course after all.
The protagonist's moral impulses are straightforwardly heroic, except in one specific context which lacks any clear real-world analogue; for example, being prejudiced against telepaths.
The protagonist's actions are consistently reasonable based on the information available to them – they're merely operating on bad information basically all the time due to a bizarre conspiracy and/or a series of increasingly implausible misunderstandings.
The protagonist always ends up doing the right thing (for some fuzzy value of "right"), but, like, they're really grumpy about it.
I feel like by now we've all seen the medieval marginalia of nuns diligently picking phalluses from a tree. These illustrations were drawn by 14th century artist Jeanne de Montbaston who worked alongside her husband Richard. To the best of my knowledge, there is no clear reason for the inclusion of these illustrations, but perhaps there was some contextual evidence that was lost to time.
In any case, I decided to illustrate these industrious ladies in my own style amidst a flurry of medieval inspired phallic references and symbols of virility and fecundity. By my estimation, there are about 130 phalluses in this picture.
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I would LOVE to hear more gripes about accuracy of portrayal of historical monarchies!!!
I have been wanting to do this for a while, because there is a lot that irks me. And this ranges across board from big budget period dramas to how people write royalty AUs, which means this isn't one specific thing I'm pointing at. And if it is helpful on a writing tips level, I'll be happy with that.
Long post under the cut:
Disclaimers:
I research 19th century European history, which has a lot of questions about what a monarchy is and why they continue to exist. That's the perspective I am bringing to this.
I probably shouldn't have to say this, but: this is not about modern monarchism. This is about history. I don't want to debate whether you think certain countries should continue to have their monarchs be public figures who are only nominally head of state.
The short version:
Monarchies are institutions. They are part of how the government functions and that should have implications for how someone writes them. A monarch is a person with a built in job that they were born into.
Monarchies are not all absolute. They can exist in a multiple forms with very different structures, and often discontent within a monarchy wants to reform the system not replace it.
My biggest advice would be this: figure out how your fictional or historical monarchy is structured. You don't have to exposit about it, but you do need to know it.
The long version:
The King has a job and there is a right and wrong way to do it.
Fantasy monarchies that draw upon history seem to have Versailles in mind in terms of an aesthetic space and royalty with a lot of power over the people around them. This also includes a lot of lounging around and looking pretty and doing lavish things. However, the issue is that this is a mental image of the dysfunction in the French monarchy close to the revolutions. You can't "Après moi, le déluge" through several centuries of government.
A King (or Queen) has a job, a really important one. They are the head of state, the highest authority in the country, and the highest judge on legal matters. At least in the platonic ideal of absolute monarchy, those jobs being concentrated into one person means their responsibility and good judgement will give the state stability and consistently.
Enlightened absolutism was exactly that: monarchs staunchly holding onto the ideals of the Enlightenment and making reforms from the top down. People who read texts about ideal government and natural rights and put it into practice.
A lot of fiction takes that and goes: Oh, so they have unlimited power and can do whatever they want. Being king means you can do what you want without oversight? That's why someone would want to be king?
And yeah, sure, in theory. But the problem with having a job is that you can do it poorly and people will object to you doing it poorly. If someone is not fulfilling obligations, it is noticeable because the state functions poorly. The premise of Robin Hood is that the king is doing his job poorly. He's overtaxing, the officials are corrupt, there's disorder. The solution? Bring back the true king who is good and fair, and thus functional.
Ludwig II of Bavaria gets ousted from his throne for being more interested in opera and extravagant building projects than ruling. Again, it is a problem and people notice.
Historically, if you want to protect from someone being bad at the job you can support the idea that there should be more oversight and safeguards: Other bodies that control parts of the government alongside the king's ability to approve or disapprove. This tactic takes away the ability to be arbitrary since laws and such are not just coming from the crowned head of state. That would be a constitutional monarchy.
Not everyone needs to be Franz Joseph, waking up at the crack of dawn and working on governmental papers and meetings until bedtime. However, if a monarch is shown in fiction lounging around or talking to courtiers all day but never doing any actual governing, I'm going to assume they are very bad at their job.
2. You're probably understanding Courts and Ministers wrong.
I run into the issue quite a bit that courts are flattened to random servants, ladies-in-waiting, and people trying to be the king's sole advisor (for malicious power grabbing reasons).
The first problem: Being at court isn't an easily accessible thing. You're probably nobility or a scion of an important family. Your presence is built on family prestige and your own skill. Yes, even people in service to the monarch. There are no random people here, because proximity heightens the likelihood of greater promotion.
For example, I'm currently doing my research on a prince from an important dynasty in the 19th century. His secretary is a Baron.
It's not impossible for someone not of noble birth to get to be at court. They could have risen up the ranks of the army or be an exceptionally skilled civil servant promoted to the rank of minister. Though depending on the time period, expect these "new men" to get pushback from nobility by blood.
Ministers also matter.
Unless your fictional monarch is one of the few people who decides (to mixed results) to do all of the thinking about government on their own, there is a cabinet and ministers.
These are skilled people whose job is to think about aspects of government and be knowledgeable about them. A monarch might have many of them that argue and balance each other.
Or, you can write a particularly skilled statesman in a leading role that makes them just as prominent as the monarch if not more so. There are many historical examples of ministers who define their period:
If your monarch character isn't a strong person politically, but is intelligent, having them find a minister to take over most of the governing is a good idea. This person is promoted based on merit, even if the monarchy is hereditary.
I have rarely if ever seen fiction do a good job with a prominent minister as a character (except A Royal Affair, which everyone should watch).
Think of monarchies as whole institutions of government. They have people within them who do all the jobs of governing. But the structure of the government and the personality of the monarch can determine whether it is one person (Joseph II, Peter the Great, etc.), a prominent minister (like a Metternich or Bismarck) or a counsel or congress.
The structure can support a person not doing a lot as monarch, but you as a writer need to think what structures are around them allowing that.
3. Revolutions are scary.
There is a common trend in fiction to make your good guys pro-republic. They're revolutionaries who want to get rid of the king, so they must be good.
But here's the thing: Revolutions are a step into the unknown and have historically happened rather rarely and with very mixed results. That's because the system has to be really broken for something totally new to sound better than what you already have.
A monarchy can create a sense of stability: A fixed head of state who will be there until they die. Historically, people aren't seeking to change that. More often, the call is for a change within the existing structure. The Magna Carta or a written Constitution. Firing of Bad Ministers or the abdication of a bad king in favor of their heir. Creating elected bodies under the sovereign. These are all shifting the monarchical paradigm but keeping the monarchy intact.
And historically even the most liberal of people wanted to place restrictions of some sort on voting, especially property and gender restrictions.
There is a myriad of ways to change the system, the person at the top, or both while maintaining a monarchy. You can have a monarchy be elected as the best person among the nobility (though it didn't go that well for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth).
Completely throwing the whole thing out means risking all stability vanishing. That could be anarchy. That could mean a charismatic strongman who is also bad at governing in power. You could end up with a guillotine and rivers of blood in the streets. You could end up with a restoration eventually because Cromwell or Robespierre doesn't actually produce something people want to live under and they want the old certainty back.
People have a sense of inertia about changing government. What you have is better than what you don't know, especially if there can be internal reform. Making your character a Republican (in the Jacobin sense, not the US politics sense) means that they are a radical in most times and places and will likely be in the minority.
If there is one thing I would say is the point here is that monarchies are government systems, and thinking through how someone exists in that system in fiction is important. Being king isn't actually much of a fun job unless you're very good at delegating or very irresponsible. Unless you want to be celebrity, president, congress, and moral center of the state all in one, being king isn't a great deal.
