I just really like this icon

[lex]

I LIIIIIVE!

So yeah I think I'm on the tail end of a 24-hour bug. My immune system = awesome. I tend to let my fevers do their thing (they actually serve a purpose, you know) unless they get too bad, so I was pretty loopy last night and did things like
1. Talk to Pell
2. Finish typing and attempt to go back to whatever tab I was in
3. Can't remember which tab, frown at having so many, pick one at random
4. Start reading/watching whatever it is
5. Repeat with a different tab

I am still feverish enough that my spine continues to scream in horror at existing, and the first thing I did this morning was pry a bunch of junk off my tonsils, and my ears are STILL draining into my throat, but altogether it wasn't that bad. I might actually be able to do stuff later.

Hilarious excerpts from last night (aka why you should always chat with me if my status says I'm sick):
pellimusprime: sfdxgfhcvgjhkbjn
swordage: holy schnikes
Is that Jazz? no wait hands are wrong
pellimusprime: SOUNDWAVE
swordage: ...waht
pellimusprime: ON EARTH
swordage: WAHT
pellimusprime: VIDEOGAME
SDFGHK
swordage: *stares at it* ...I knew this day would come but I tried not to think about it.
pellimusprime: NO LONGER A SATELLITE ;S;
swordage: Soundwave, I am so sorr- OH MY GOD LOOK AT HIS GIANT ROBODICK
pellimusprime: LOL RIGHT
swordage: JEEESUS KEERIST
pellimusprime: CROTCHGUN
swordage: HOLY MOTHER OF JUJUBA BEANS
WHO THE FUCK APPROVED THAT DESIGN
pellimusprime: LOL
swordage: WAIT, WHO THE FUCK APPROVED THE RELEASE OF THAT SCREENSHOT
IT IS FUCKING FRAMING THE ROBODICK
GODDAMNIT MICHAEL BAY


swordage: did you know
that I steam in the winter
like, my skin gives off so much heat that I steam.
pellimusprime: .....
HAAAAAAAA D:
swordage: XD
I am well-adapted for this climate
AND YET my body temp is like 97.4
THE MORE YOU KNOW
pellimusprime: xD WTF LOL
swordage: It just means I efficiently transfer heat from interior to exterior.
pellimusprime: you would die quickly in outer space :c


[talking about Bay!Shockwave's design]
swordage: why does he have ribs
pellimusprime: tooooo make him evil and creepy >:v
swordage: I bet he doesn't have a robodick
pellimusprime: LOL
roboboobs
swordage: I wonder if the Fallen had a robodick
I never really looked
the question is
am I going to image search it
pellimusprime: PFFFFFFFFT
DO IT
swordage: hrm lemme make sure my antivirus is working
TF Google image searches: guaranteed to give you a cybervirus
man, that is like the one thing that DOESN'T sound ridiculous when you put "cyber" on the front
[LATER]
pellimusprime: ~DICK OF THE FALLEN~
~ONLY A PRIME CAN-- no
swordage: oh god
oh GOD
pellimusprime: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH
swordage: why did you do that
pellimusprime: I WIN

Comments

[darthneko]

I hope you feel better soon. [HUGS!] and duuuuude... I'm torn between "hot Daaaaamn!" and "noooOOOoooo!" x_x I *like* Soundwave's satellite design! I adore his ultra mobile little sensor plates and pseudo-wing panels! Sadness that they are gone!

.....do I even WANT to know the results of the Fallen search??

[swordage]

Actually I never did do that search because my antivirus needed to update. When I was doing the robodick post and searching for hi-res images, I got hit with a ridiculous number of attempted viruses, so I will not do an image search on a popular thing unless the antivirus is fully up to date. Also I'm trying to remember the usual promo shots of him, and I think in most he's leaning in such a way that the robodick wouldn't be visible even if it were there. I THINK TOO MUCH ABOUT THESE THINGS. XD

I am incredibly sad about Soundwave's new design. It's AWFUL, just aesthetically speaking, and his satellite alt was so gorgeous~ And heck, if he can turn into a car without shoving 2/3 of his mass into subspace, then Michael Bay has no clue how big a military spy satellite actually is. Oh, Soundwave, you were so gorgeous but the second you got near any Autobots you were doomed because Michael Bay hates Decepticons. *still mourning Scorponok* Also you know Barricade is gonna die. Bay has a grudge against him for accidentally surviving the first AND second movies. His death will be quick, uninteresting, and involve weird fluids that no one can account for. DAMNIT BAY WHY DO YOU SUCK AT ROBOTS SO MUCH AND WHY DO I KEEP WATCHING YOUR MOVIES

[darthneko]

The fact that in the interviews he freely admits he had NO IDEA what Transformers even WERE before being approached about the movies, and that his first reaction was "whut, movies based off of some ancient 80's kids toys? that's stupid!" just... yeah. Sums it all up right there. He's not a fanboy, he does not grok the fans. Thank god somebody beat him into doing right by Optimus and Peter Cullen, and a lot of the people working around him ARE fans, but yeah. Bay is sort of fail at it. =P

(LOL, viruses! Sorry. I'm a Mac girl, I forget other people get those things. ^___^ )

Also? Let me just say how much I will forgive IDW just about ANYTHING for reviving Ravage after that travesty of a horrific death Bay tried to give him. x____x Save the kitty!

[swordage]

Okay as much as I hate, there are some good things about the Bay movies. I like the design aesthetic. I like that their transformations are different every time - it makes it feel more like an ordinary movement similar to standing up for us. I love Scorponok. I like the spoken Cybertronian. I love Prime and Lord Protector as co-rulers of Cybertron, and brothers to boot. I love Mikaela. I hate the very fact that I have to make a list of the things I like because I get so overwhelmed by the things I hate! I will never forget a behind-the-scenes thing I saw where Bay is talking to someone and he's like, "And then he should look up and say, 'I am directly beneath its balls.' That's an easy laugh, right?" Or the sheer arrogance of the interview where he was talking about the scene on the Nemesis where Megatron talks to Starscream, and how he had to step in and do the camerawork because the rendering guys just didn't know how to direct but he's awesome at it blah blah blah and I'm like THE CAMERAWORK IN THAT SCENE SUCKED ASS. I BLAME YOU FOR ZOOMING IN ON THE RED HERRING HATCHLING WHILE MEGATRON SAYS AMAZING THINGS ABOUT EVEN IN DEATH THERE IS NO RULE BUT HIS.

ARGH.

Okay anyway yes Ravage got the most ugly, stupid death ever. Even Grindor's death was better than that. Also why did Grindor even die from getting his face ripped off, what the heck could be so vital in the what - two plates that make up his face. URGH NO TRYING TO APPLY LOGIC, MUST DESIST, PROCESSOR LOCK IMMINENT

I always have such high hopes for each new iteration I've been around to witness, and so far only TFA lived up to it and even then they didn't because they got canceled a season early. S-SOB. SHOCKWAVE I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER ;A;

[darthneko]

Yeah, the whole "dying from having your face ripped off" is beyond stupid. You'd have to convince me they bled dry from it without any assistance before I'd buy it. Yes, it'd probably be lethal to a human, but they're NOT HUMAN. v___v

I'm pleased that there will be Wreckers in the new movie, even if Bay likely has no idea WTF a Wrecker is. =P I'm happy that IDW thumbed their nose at Bay's senseless cat killing and totally revived Ravage. Like you, I love the whole Prime/Lord Protector bit, and brothers, and Ravage and Scorponok and Soundwave's satellite form, and Cybertronian and Mikaela (who will now go missing for no good reason, ARGH!) but... yeah. I have to turn off the logic and most of my brain and just watch the pretty (which I attribute entirely to the animators and renderers, NOT to Bay).

I've had problems getting into TFA - the mix of "things that should be heavy and complex and angsty" versus sudden interjection of "things scaled down to small child appeal humor" tends to make my eyes cross after awhile. I've got the first season, but have only made it a few episodes in (and then hunted down things like the Blurr episode on youtube to find out what everybody was talking about). My next gen of choice right now is TFP, which has made me totally love Arcee and Bulkhead. ^_^

[swordage]

THEY'RE NOT HUMAN. Most important thing to remember. But then you get into "how alien can I make it without alienating the audience" and I could ponder that forever. I have always loved creature design, and my gut-level reaction to most monsters is OH GOD SO CUTE. Like they're kittens. /babble

IDW does some good work. I wish they'd get their plots in order BEFORE starting to publish *coughAHMcough* but on the small scale they do some really sweet stuff. And yesss Wreckers - I'm not a huge fan of them, tbh, except for Kup. But there will probably also be Wheeljack (he's in the ongoing tie-ins) and this pleases me greatly even though he appears to have a silly English accent.

TFA season 1 is hard to watch. I will admit that freely. Even now I cringe and skip a bunch of episodes. It builds up, though. I can't even say "oh god just skip ____" because actually, it does tie in to things later! But I will say that for the first six episodes or so I just paused every time it got too much and when I wasn't pausing every three seconds anymore I realized I was enjoying it. So, my advice is - stick with it. It's worth it. If nothing else, get some good headphones and watch a Lockdown episode. THAT VOICE. HNNGH.

TFP's Bulkhead is AMAZING and I have a huge freaking crush on him like you would not believe. D: I coud just go on and on about him. I mean, sure, there's that surface level of "dude crackin' a beer with his buds" or whatever, but he's also a heck of a soldier. He was in the Wreckers! He has seen people eaten alive. And they may make fat jokes for some reason I have yet to understand but he's fully comfortable in his skin. Plating. Whatever. Bulkhead knows exactly who is he is and he's completely and utterly cool with it. "So who's the boyfriend?" ":D My old buddy Wheeljack!" heck yeah I love Bulkhead so muuuuuuuch

the rest of them are pretty cool too

let's not talk about my raging hardon for TFP Soundwave

[darthneko]

Okay, just because I'm THAT kind of friend... Look! I did research for you!

The Fallen does NOT have a dick.

He has freaking cerci, which are most often found on egg-laying insects. Given the kink meme thing I'm writing, I am DEEPLY AMUSED.

Also? For the record, it sure looks like Sideswipe has a valve instead of a dick:


(and Starscream, Ratchet and Ironhide are all decently wearing codpieces that cover this shit up, though Ironhide's is shaped sort of like Megatron's in that totally suggestive of a shape behind it sort of way.)

(and they're not going to let me deep link their images, dammit. FINE. Lemme upload...)

[swordage]

...At least it's not an ovipositor.

Okay so far: Megatron has a penis, Optimus has an arguable penis and two ports, Sideswipe has a port, the Fallen has cerci which is actually pretty cool and makes me snicker at Starscream tending to the hatchliOH MY GOD DRONES. Oh man I need to do more research into insect societies. Also, this is making me coo at the idea of canon-based multiple sexes, with only some being reproductive. It's like, okay, raising young is a tradeoff between parental energy input and number of young. You can either go for a bajillion young which you ignore and most of which die, or very few young which you put a lot of energy and time into raising. In some resource-deprived areas, family groups will form where some members never reproduce at all but assist with raising the young just as much as the actual parents do. And with ants, for example, the queen has nothing to do with raising her own young - the workers tend to the eggs, remove larvae from danger, feed them, etc.

/biologybabble ahahah

[darthneko]

Heeeeee! (oh god. I'm avoiding the word "ovipositor" like the plague. I keep trying to find some OTHER word for it and I haven't found it yet.)

Actually, now that I look at it (ahhh, google image search set to 6+ megapixels...) Ironhide has basically the same setup Prime has, two round concave ports on either side of an arguable penis cover (he's just actually covering up more than Prime does.)

...Aster and I have been dissecting the wear pattern on Sideswipe's tires, and I'm tracking everyone's glyph tattoo patterns. =P

And DUDE, your biology babble is what has been eating my head for the last two days as I work on the hive fic. I've been drawing up tables of who can actually reproduce or not (Ratchet is infertile but he's totally getting laid ANYWAYS) and who's job it is to do what in regards to offspring (Prime just lays the eggs, after which Bumlebee is all "hands off, *I'm* in charge of them now!"). I've been spending way too much time on Wikipedia researching ants and bees. x_X

[swordage]

OVIPOSITOOOOORRRRR ugh never trust anything with an ovipositor, I get nightmares

I was just looking at Starscream, and as far as I can tell he has NOTHING. idk about Ironhide... I see the round bits, but they look like convex structures to me, and moreover they're on his legs. In his RotF design there are some on his torso, but mostly I just see his big honkin' codpiece. Which, I notice, is kinda a cross between Prime's bulky thing and Megatron's jutting-down thing. HMMMMMM.

I totally see no reason why infertile must mean asexual, or vice versa. :D Ratchet can get laid as much as he wants~ I will see what I can dig up for social colony resources. Honestly though I can only imagine their colony being pretty damn strained - there's so few of them and so many jobs to do! Also the mental image of Bumblebee puttering around with the eggs is just brain-breakingly adorable. XD Man, I might have to play around with this too. So many ideas!

[darthneko]

Seriously - mostly because most things with ovipositors are using them to implant eggs into OTHER (living) things and just... EWWWWWWWWW.

Yeah, Starscream seems to have sort of a plate down there, but nothing suggestive of anything except an armor bit. (Ratchet is, I swear, wearing a perfectly modest little black bikini brief. AHEM.) Ironhide... huh, yeah, now that you mention it, those do seem to be convex, not concave, and sort of on the inside of his hips. The codpiece shape, though, is certainly suggestive. (Why's it need to go DOWN like that unless it's hiding something, hmmmmm?) (I also note that Prime has what MY brain certainly interprets as a possible port cover underneath the robodick. Nice removable looking plate in a fairly obvious spot.)

Heee! Yeah, infertile doesn't mean asexual, it just means he's shooting blanks. ^__^ (omg, says Ironhide, that's fine, I don't CARE, nobody CARES, you're still my designated backup because Prime's fragging engine is bigger than either of ours and he's going to WEAR ME OUT.) But yeah, the colony is itty bitty and strained to cover all the jobs. Bee's all "yay, eggs!" and "oh primus, I'm the ONLY ONE qualified to take care of them! O_o"

[swordage]

I was actually just thinking, why cover anything up? If we're supposing that these parts are semi-sexual... I mean, why have that taboo against having your junk hanging out at all? It's not like they wear clothes, and oh gosh do I hate the stories where they take off their armor wtf. So why not have it where sure, they have their junk hanging out in the open, but it's no more provocative than a fully-clothed human would be. They could serve as visual indicators of sex, much like how humans can generally distinguish between male and female at a glance and think nothing of it. IDK JUST AN IDEA. I figure if any given individual may or may not have any given set of bits, there's gotta be an easy way to indicate what they have.

Poor Bee. :< I can totally see them all trying to cover for everything, maybe even fill in for a job they simply don't have an appropriate individual for, and it's so hard I just want to hug them all D: (lol poor Ironhide! XD His life = the hardest.)

[darthneko]

I tend to think of it less as a taboo of any sort and more as just ARMOR. Sure, a knee to the groin might not hurt them the same way as a human male, but if the bits are just hanging out then they're that much more likely to be damaged (or, given the way they loose bits in battle, outright RIPPED OFF). So my brain translates covers as armor, not as clothes.

(and oh god, we won't discuss my inner Ratchet muse and his raving about Sentinel Prime's design and the wires that are just hanging out and WTF do you think you're doing going into combat like that, do you just WANT people to yank those things off of you?!)

Prime is totally leveraging this as the reason WHY he shouldn't get back into the whole egg laying schtick - they don't have enough people to take care of more than a few eggs at a time! (Ironhide just wants to know how Megatron DID this with an in-heat Prime, for pit's sake. Ratchet reminds him that Megatron was a) full of himself, b) arrogant, c) stubborn, d) even bigger than Prime, and e) promptly dropped into stasis lock for a few months immediately after Prime's last heat cycle. =P )

[swordage]

idk, if we assume most of them are non-reproductive then there's just no need to armor those bits more than any others. I mean, obvs. Prime and Megatron should be armored up, but by the very virtue of them NOT being armored up I find it hard to logic my way into other people being armored up in a colony-society. I'll be happy to read any version, though. :D I like new ideas! I think the absolute best part of TF fandom is how must potential there is.

I honestly haven't seen Sentinel's design but I will note that it's possible he's been on the moon since before the war started, in which case his bad design can be excused. Otherwise I will need to slap him upside the head. Starscream and Sideswipe can afford to have wires hanging out all over! They're fast frametypes, no one should be laying a hand on them to begin with. Sentinel, you are not a fast frametype. You are a truck.

I just want to know who did this with the Fallen. D: SO MANY EGGS. SUCH A CREEPY FUCKER.

[darthneko]

The "there are a million variations and no right way" thing is part of what I love SO HARD about this fandom! ^___^

Maybe it's a status/bragging thing with Prime and Megatron? Sort of, the warlord showing off what a damned stud they are, and how bad assed they are that they don't NEED to armor every square inch? (and everybody else sort of winces and goes yeah, that's nice, but I like not having to go to the medics and asking them to reattach those bits...)

Sentinel: http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/images/2011/04/Sentinel-Prime.jpg
And yeah, Sentinel's possibly a pre-war design, so we'll forgive him being not up to date on modern armor. =P (One could also posit that he's just seriously out of practice in subspacing as much mass as he'd need to in order to fit into that truck frame.) But yeah, there's some flexible pipes plugged in with nice grab-able loops under his ribcage, and two wires - one of which totally looks like it's a fluid circulator - which is just hanging there flopping about across his chest. Like, he spent all of his armor points on his legs and arms and totally neglected his chest. =P

Seriously.... CREEPY CREEPY FALLEN. ugh!

[swordage]

dshkjhds SENTINEL. HOW DID YOU POSSIBLY THINK THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA. SERIOUSLY WHAT THE HELL. D: Also I will never get over how hideous his face is.

ahaha yeah just - when introducing new ideas to the fandom, do it through the kinkmeme first, then get a BNF to play with it, and THEN it's safe to post openly. Seriously. Small fandom, big wank. If you ever need advice on who's a wank epicenter, I will be happy to give you tips.

[darthneko]

SERIOUSLY. WTF. BAD ARMOR DESIGN! And yes, he just has "grumpy old geezer" written all over his face.

Seriously? Pfft. I hadn't run into much wank yet (except for the "stupid tactless rude commenter" syndrome on the kink meme, who usually get promptly slapped down by a few other commentators before the mods step in). Not that I've publicly posted much of what I've been writing yet, but eh. Oh well. Wank happens. =P That's fandom for ya.

[swordage]

In most fandoms, wank happens and then everyone moves on with their lives. In TF fandom, wank brands you for life, as well as potentially all your ideas, favorite pairings, etc. Just be careful. :(

*rolls around in colony ideas* Hey I found this article on bees you might like. Ants have soldiers, though, I should poke at them. /is busy daydreaming about beekeeping despite being petrified of all flying insects

[darthneko]

*snerk!* Guess I'll just have to keep posting pseudo-anonymously on the kink meme, then. ^__^ Probably helps that I just hang out on ff.net and the kink meme, instead of any of the actual social interaction comms. =P

Neat article! (oh god, I'm horribly petrified and allergic to bees, even just closeup photos of them freak me out! [skips hastily to text part]) I'm skipping/handwaving over the whole "short lived drone" idea - sort of rolling up the drone and soldier ideas into a complete package. And I should totally be doing schoolwork, NOT writing Ironhide/Prime/Ratchet threesomes. ARGH.

[swordage]

NOT writing Ironhide/Prime/Ratchet threesomes

NO NO KEEP WRITING THE THREESOMES /is such a bad influence

The DW crowd is pretty sweet, it's just LJ and DevArt you need to look out for, although the DA crowd doesn't usually overlap with the LJ crowd.

I really like the drone/soldier idea. It makes me all nostalgic for Beast Wars. Awww Inferno you are so cute when you call Megatron your Queen and then set everything on fire while cackling and shrieking without any regard for your own safety. ♥

I think rolling the reproductive functions in with societal functions would be even more complex and mind-blowing, idk how much you've already thought about it - but I figure a build like, say, Sideswipe has a different function than a build like Ratchet. Thus subdivisions like construction, or speed, or what have you. Not sure how the development or overlap would work. HMMM TIME TO PONDER. :D My favorite part!

[darthneko]

...omg, I swear to god Ratchet just somehow inserted a (still vaguely hot) gynecology exam into the middle of sex. x___X Prime's not sure if he should be protesting like hell at being tricked, or just demand Ratchet get back to the GOOD part.

PFFFFT. Okay, I may catch holy hell on DA when I get around to drawing posting all my redesigns for my stupid eon spanning EPIC. =P OH WELL! Though really, given some of the OC junk that floats through the TF comms on DA, I don't think anybody should complain about redesigns for canon characters. =P Goodness knows TPTB of the franchise do it often enough.

Heeeeee! Yeah. I sort of went with looking at their respective movie-verse histories first and then their frame types. Sideswipe's a soldier model, like Ironhide, but he's a juvenile. Sort of late teen equivalent, not really mature yet. Ratchet's equivalent would be an attendant bee, one of the ones who mainly takes care of the queen. Jolt and Arcee are both generalized worker bees, they've just had to learn how to be soldiers during the war (that's totally not what their original functions were, though). The minor!twins are, god help everyone, nursery workers like Bee - or they WOULD be if they weren't, y'know, pre-teen juveniles and brain addled from being experimented on by mad Decepticon scientists. As it is, Bee ain't letting them anywhere NEAR the eggs. =P

[swordage]

Hey, medical fetish is a totally legitimate thing! :D The more kink, the merrier, I always say.

I honestly don't know too much about the DA fandom, but redesigns tend to get a mix of very positive and very negative comments. Be bold, I guess! XD

You have put so much thought into this and it makes me ridiculously happy ♥ I can't wait to see where the story goes. :3