Stories for a winter's night

I though to try some six sentence Sunday. I'd like to get into the habit to help my creativity come back. So this is from a little something I'm working on. Pipermca had been looking for pairing suggestions for comment and I threw out Mirage/Smokescreen. They're characters who are generally presented as either being distant or outright hating each other. Pipermca suggested something complicated or maybe unrequited, and I've been working on something ever since. I'm also trying present tense for the first time.

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He has to admit, the mech has a way with his hands - hands that are too heavy, fingers that are too blunt. There is nothing that should be attractive about the Praxian. He is too short, too heavy, too blunt to be a proper Praxian if Prowl and Bluestreak are anything to go by. Mirage has to admit that he hadn’t had many dealings with Praxians before the City-State fell, but he has every reason to believe that the other two are far better examples of their kind than Smokescreen is. His colours are garish, his manners crass, and if scuttlebutt is to be believed, he is a degenerate who’s just as likely to help you as to sell you to the highest bidder to pay off his gambling debts.

And yet, through all of that, Mirage still finds himself staring.

So I didn't post last week because I was suffering from a total lack of sleep. This week was better so I've gotten some editing done. I still need to finish the last half, but I'm hoping that posting helps get the creative juices flowing.

So this is from Bleeding Daylight.

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So I've decided to try and get into the habit of posting some stuff. I don't have anything complete yet, but I do have some bits that I'm happy with.

For my TF/MCU fic, I've been working on some backstory / world-building. Cybertron is controlled by Sentinel Prime and a Functionist Council. There are those who oppose the current leadership, but they are small and don't necessarily agree on their best course of action. But things have now changed now that Orion Pax has found the Matrix and is being reformatted into a Prime.

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( Snippet under the cut )

So this is more of what I'm tinkering on. Maybe it'll turn into something real one day.

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So, it's been a while since I've updated. Thought I should probably rectify that. I've been having a lot of trouble staying motivated lately. Ever since the COVID lockdowns have started I've been struggling. And it's funny - I see all these other writers who have become so very prolific during this time. I mean, after all, it's not like there's anything else to do, right?

But I'm now working from home full time and living with my parents, who are both in high risk categories. There's the drama that comes with the loss of routine and the lack of contact - and the fact that thanks to me being home my father no longer knows what day it is (he had a stroke last year and routine is incredibly important for his mental health). All of this seems to have sucked all of my creative juices and the doubt demons have taken up residence in my head once again.

I've been trying to work on my humanized transformers fic but I keep flip flopping about the characters, the pairings, and the dynamics. And the Wings Universe fic (Smokey and Swindle end the war) is more than a little stuck. In fact, it's a mess. It was originally going to be for Big Bang so it was limited to four POV characters. But now that I have distance from Big Bang, I've realized that this story is far too big for something simple. I mean, I'm basically making my own AU since the Wings Universe was never properly defined and I'm going to need to introduce a lot more characters to tell the full story. ... Of course, it doesn't help that I've been reading a couple of epic, sweeping fics that really show just how good an extended, multi-chapter, cast of thousands fic can be. And they make me want to try the same. So I have so many other characters demanding attention and the reminder that it's going to take more then "tru love" to end a multi-billion year old war.

So I've been flip flopping on what to do and how to do it, and meanwhile I've started replaying Fallout 4 and that's just raised the fallout bunny from the dead. I have this idea for a start-to-finish kind of fic that involves two vault survivors and deals with a lot of those side stories and unexplored avenues that are in the game. Mainly I really want a political fic because there is so much politics that are just ignored for the sake of the game's flow. ... I suppose that a game about rebuilding the Commonwealth Provisional Government and turning all of Boston into a settlement with solar and wind farms and rooftop gardens wasn't going to sell. And it would have been too difficult to manage a three pronged Minuteman/Brotherhood/Railroad attack on the Institute or even peace with the Institute.

Yeah, so that's the rambling update. A lack of writing but no lack of ideas and a possible shift into a new fandom for awhile.

Three months of lockdown is almost over. I'm still in a bit of a creative block of sorts. I am writing - a little scene here, a scene there, but nothing that's an actual fic. Just pieces of something that might end up being something bigger. Dunno ....

Anyway, the things I've been picking at:

1. Out of an Orange Coloured Sky - a Fallout 4 walk-through type fic with a pair of sisters as the survivors of Vault 111. I always thought that the extensive side plots were just way too much for one person - especially when the Sole Survivor could end up as a member in good standing with the Minutemen, the Brotherhood, and the Railroad, and could end up as the leader of two of those groups (assuming the BOS cut content is considered). So a pair of sisters (twins) who are working to find Shaun, stop the Institute, rebuild the Commonwealth, and stop an inter-factional war. No big, right?

2. Bleeding Daylight - This is something that I had been working on for Robot Big Bang, and then had to drop because of a medical emergency in the family. I've been picking at it ever since. Had this still been for Big Bang I would be keeping this short with only a handful of viewpoint characters. There was going to be a lot of stuff going on in the background that I was going to cover in supplemental stories, but the main plot was going to be short and to the point. Problem is, with the lack of deadline and time limitations, the story has expanded and those background stories are pushing their way to the forefront. The core idea is still the same - the bond between Smokescreen and Swindle leads to the end of the war, but there's a lot more to it. Many Decepticons who aren't happy with Megatron's rule (stemming from the effective enslavement of his troops. And meanwhile The Autobots are living in an episode of "As the Kitchen Sinks" and there's a ton of anger, resentment, confusion, and such going on. I've been flipping back and forth on just how mustache twirly to make Megatron, I've been debating Vortex's personality and relationship with Swindle, and just ... It's honestly all over the place. I figure that there are some massive Transformers fics out there with a cast of thousands that people happily read. Of course, mine is almost all rare pairings and I'm not sure I can tackle either it or the subject matter appropriately. I keep talking myself out of things. Lack of sleep and COVID dreams are adding additional problems to the whole thing.

3. Untitled Smokescreen Backstory - I have this idea for a Smokescreen backstory for the Medical Psychology-verse. It starts with life with Praxis as I've been envisioning it - a sort of intellectual police state run by Functionists. Smokescreen leaves after it becomes clear that questioning the establishment while being an outlier isn't good for his health. I was going to deal with his flight from Praxus, his attempts to find work in order to pay for his education, and the consequences of that work. It'll end sort of leading into "Dinner, Music, and Dancing", and will enable me to get back into "You Remind Me of Someone I used to Know". Really, I need Smokey's back story to fill that one out, given that it's going to be all about Ratchet learning some uncomfortable truths about Smokescreen.

4. The Polyhex Candidate - I have been seriously considering rewriting and completing this one. I really with I had finished it years ago but a fiew really negative reviews and nasty PMs completely threw me off of wanting to keep writing it. I think I might be in a better mental state to finish it now, but since my writing style has changed since then, I really need to rework the first part so the last few chapters aren't jarring or feel like they were written by someone else.

Clearly I won't be doing all of this in June, but I'm hoping to get a scene or two written here and there.

March started out pretty well. I wrote a couple of little things that are going to become part of my CampNaNo fic when it's finalized (Smokescreen Backstory 1 and Smokescreen Backstory 2). And then Covid-19 happened and I found myself having to struggle through working from home without the proper infrastructure to allow for it. The change in routine is really throwing me off and I started finding it very difficult to find my motivation. Ontario has shut pretty much everything down and in general people are being really good, but my father is terrified of this thing (and at the same time almost desperate to get it, yay probable Munchhausen) so I'm trying to go out at little as possible. ... I never thought I would ever said this, but I really, really want to go back to my office!

So, my plan for April is to focus on CampNaNo with as small a word count the system will allow. My fic is a Smokescreen backstory set in my Medical Psychology-verse that will cover Smokescreen leaving Praxus, living in Iacon, and then jumping to after the Academy was destroyed. I've been hinting at his backstory in the various Medical Psychology fics and I want to expand on it. I'm not sure if it's going to be officially posted or just used in later stories. We'll see.

But, since I'm easily distracted, I'm also going to work on my humanized Transformers fic as well. Basically, my plan is to get words down on paper and try to keep occupied. Because as it is, I'm probably going to be stuck at home until at least May.

I hope that everyone out there is safe and healthy, both mentally and physically.

I now have a WordPress account. I'm not entirely sure what will come of it. But it's there and hopefully I will remember to routinely post about stuff.

I manages to write and complete something in February - Devil's Deal. It was in response to a rare pairings prompt (Ratchet/Megatron - oaths and promises) and was probably a little too niche. But at least it was writing, and I'm trying something new in my Author's Notes. I'm asking directly for feedback - what people liked, what people didn't. Nothing has come of it, but who knows; maybe eventually someone will tell me what's wrong with the damned thing.

My plans for March are pretty simple. I'm aiming to write and post one thing. Just one, even if it's only a drabble. I figure that the more I write the easier it'll be to do it. So I have several things in progress:

1. The eternal Transformers vs. the MCU. I'm getting somewhere with it. plotting is continuing and I'm getting some ideas for how to deal with the combat and the eventual meeting of both factions before I move on to the story proper.

2. Last month there was a prompt on the speedwriting group about your OTP trading bodies. I have a little bit written for that, though i admit that I'm not 100% sure of where I'm going with it. I'm going to try to keep it short; a couple of chapters max.

3. I've found myself re-reading some of the heat-fics and I went back to an attempt I wrote some time ago. Smokescreen and Mirage are trapped together during a lockdown and Mirage starts his heat cycle - probably because of some virus or something. I stopped writing it because it was seriously dub-con but I'm going to see if I can make it work.

4. I was going through my emails the other day and I found several emails between myself and a friend that were the basics for some works we were co-writing and never finished. They all have the potential to be good, but I'm really not sure about continuing them on my own. The friend in question left the fandom several years ago and fell off the face of the planet about nine months ago. They aren't responding to my emails so I really don't have permission to continue the works. But I may take the ideas and general concepts and rework them a little. And of course, give credit to the co-creator.

I'm also taking a look at some of the prompts on 31-days and the speedwriting group for anything that piques my interest. Hopefully something will jump out and I can get some more written and maybe resurrect some of my older rare pairings. Like Trailbreaker/Silverbolt.

So, yeah, the hope is that out of all of that I'll get one thing written and posted.

Challenge 13

In your own space, create a fanwork. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

It took me a long time to get this done because I've been suffering from some pretty bad writer's block and impostor syndrome and all those things. This story is set in the original Transformers G1 comic series (run by Marvel) and is an expansion on a scene in Warrior School!, issue 7 of the American run (the British had different numbers because it was considerably longer).

I will admit that I'm a little concerned that this is a little too in media res and will only make sense to people familiar with the issue in question. So, I'd be happy with any comments, thoughts, et cetera on this.

So here we go:

Devil's Deal
Fandom: Transformers: G1 (Marvel)
Rating: T
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply -- Later stories in this series get dark.
Relationships: Potential Ratchet/Megatron
Characters: Ratchet, Megatron
Additional Tags: Canon compliant, Expanded canon scene
Summary: When Ratchet returns to the Ark and finds all of his comrades captured, he’s forced to make an unholy deal to save them.