Windchaser

“Half-dream”, 2024 11 04

Came to me in that space where the alarm clock has bumped you awake and you can’t get a certain thing out of your head but you’re not quite asleep or dreaming either? I suppose it’s sort of a half-dream. This is all you get, btw. I haven’t pinned down (and probably won’t) any of the rest like why they’re on Earth, why Zelda sent a giant sundew to the planet, WHERE it ended up, how it caught Mary, or anything.

Saw sundews on “Scotland: The New Wild” Sunday night which might have inspired it; I love carnivorous plants anyway (I have two growing on my kitchen windowsill) so it wasn’t a great leap to end up with this. Plus of course I wanted one where Hiro’s love of plants could be the bit that saves everyone! (Even in the episode where the plant was (essentially) the bad guy, AND it was all happening in their own home environment, these two idiots weren’t allowed to be the heroes without help. So. Yes I am biased.)

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( The plant looked like a giant sundew - easily taller than a human, the great spoon-shaped leaves covered in fleshy crimson spines, each tipped with a glistening globule of dew. Velvety, dusky-pink ribbons spiralled down from thickened, wrinkly bulbs like little brains at the top of the thickest stems. The skeletonised remains of small animals and birds drooped from the upper leaves, like small treasures held in open palms to tempt in the unwary. And at the top, wrapped in six or seven of the aggressive leaves, was Captain Falconer. )

Title (chapter): Kestrel Kestrel (1)
Series: Terrahawks
Notes: Where Kate recieves an unexpected (unwanted) gift, and gets food poisoning.

At least, that's what everyone ASSUMES it is...


( When Captain Kate Kestrel, international music icon and Terrahawks pilot, finally escaped the stage where she’d been performing and made it back to her dressing room, it was to find her helper zeroid number 55 perched next to the mirror, resplendent in one of her wigs, complete with a scattering of shimmery crystals and a big floppy silk daisy. )

Crossposted to AO3 and ff.net/.

Title (chapter): Meteoric (3)
Series: Terrahawks
Notes: In which we find out that the Martian androids have now also found out about the missing zeroid, and are plotting to try and recover him before the Terrahawks do. The flatmates argue a little over supper, and the amnesiac Polly / 101 discovers his memory isn't the only thing that's shot - his batteries aren't so hot either. Oh dear.


( Well well well. This was all getting VERY interesting... Yung-star pressed the outsized headphone tighter into his ear and concentrated. )

Title (chapter): Meteoric (1)
Series: Terrahawks
Notes: Oops. Gravity still works.

When Laine gets home to her university accomodation just in time to witness a small spherical robot punch a hole clean through their roof, she thinks she's having a bad day.

The robot, it turns out, is definitely having a worse one.

Memory inaccessible, no idea who he is or where he came from, it's hard to find your way home (without drawing too much attention) when you're so far above top secret you don't appear to even exist.

...and then there's always that one asshole who wants to sell you...


( Morning rush hour had just begun to pick up when Laine returned home from her night shift at the local supermarket, to the slightly ramshackle but well-loved student flat she shared with five others in east London. Home was empty; her friends had all already left for lectures. She was the only one with a free day, and planned to spend a significant part of it recovering from lugging boxes around all night. )

Title (chapter): Remember Me (11)
Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Where a dithery jetboy with questionable ethics and even more questionable loyalty sets out to cause problems for himself. And one of our heroes is definitely losing his marbles.

( Ramjet was pretty sure that consciences didn’t get much more annoying than his own, right now. It never had anything remotely useful to say, and now didn’t seem to want to shut up, either. It kinda felt like a thought had broken away on its own, and was waiting in a dark corner to jump on him with a GOTCHA! the instant he put a thruster wrong. )

Title (chapter): Remember Me (10)
Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU
Rating: PG-13
Notes: In which we find Warp is miraculously still functioning! And Slipstream figures out he has a plan, which... doesn't sound like a very good one, actually.

And poor Skyfire gets ready for a night spent standing up.

( Consciousness tiptoed back to Skywarp with the usual flurry of damage alerts. He couldn’t quite put a finger on the point at which just being online segued into becoming aware of his surroundings, but he DID immediately know that he didn’t actually hurt quite so much, any more. Small blessings. So long as no ''critical failure'' warnings blared in his helm, he was well practised at ignoring little spots of discomfort. )

So yes, you may have noticed a new chapter of something DIFFERENT posted very recently. (Although not THAT different in terms of it has some of my typical themes in it. Hmm. ¬_¬)

For a refresher, the story so far is available on a little Dreamwidth Community I set up to have somewhere to post it; start here at Chapter One.

A new chapter of Remember Me is on the way and hopefully will be in the next couple of weeks!

I've tended to stop posting spoilers apart from to people I 100% trust because there's nothing worse than having (what you think is a) good idea and having someone snipe you to using it (and not even give you any credit for it, augh). BUT! A little musical interlude wouldn't hurt I guess? These are some of the pieces I enjoy listening to while I'm writing - although often I'm accompanied by whatever random ASMR video YouTube queues up for me.*


Remember Me
Looking ahead, the tone of "Remember Me" has darkened a bit and gone from ~teehee, Megatron; what a knob, eh~ to ~slag, he's gonna try and kill us for genuine this time~

And interestingly, it was listening to this track from Mumford & Sons that inspired the change; it's very different from their normal music and not even that "dark", really, but it caught me totally off guard the first time I listened. I think it's the way it builds and builds up and -
suddenly stops. It's rather become the anthem of Starscream's nightmares, which are a lot more traumatic than the music would suggest - Exie will understand, haha. XD
"Darkness Visible"


But of course something lighter comes along and without asking, you absolutely KNOW who this tracks reminds me of. If I allow them a HEA. I may or may not. ¬_¬ HMM.
"Guiding Light"


Then of course there's this, this will ALWAYS make me think of a certain lead trine, and not just because of the official video. I love Caravan Palace - their new album only came out a few days ago.
Lone Digger



Runs from Silence (aka Pulse!Dragon)

Since my summer holiday, Fraemarr's planet (where all the lost dragons go when they're rescued) has basically turned into the Scottish Highlands, with an amazing glaciated landscape of moors and temperate forest, and lochs as far as the eye can see. So when I found a thing called "celtic metal" (which is essentially heavy metal with bagpipes) it was like fate. It's the soundtrack to the entire novel, I think. Ven (ok, expy!Skywarp) thinks it's amazing to fly to.

I'm listening to one group in particular at the moment; the SIDH. This track is pretty representative of what I particularly enjoy (but I love all of it, including "Shake that Bagpipe" XD )
Iridium



Then there's also this, which starts out quite gentle and lulling then changes quite distinctly at about halfway through - you'll probably spot the point I see Ven leading the cavalry over the mountains. XD (Not part of official canon, although I sorta want to put him and actual Warp in the same scene for Pulse to be able to facepalm at both of them.)
Two Steps From Hell - Emerald Princess

Seriously, though, I love this album.

OK - Back to writing!

((*Except when it queues up some horrendous "eating sounds" video. Even videos like "mouth sounds for people who can't deal with mouth sounds." Then my headphones get thrown. Misophonia is a thing - I don't get angry/emotional but I find the sounds extremely uncomfortable and absolutely have to turn them off.))

Title (chapter): Remember Me (08)
Series: Transformers, G1-based “Blue” AU
Rating: PG-13
Notes: In which we discover that Earth-bound Autobots are watching completely the wrong things, and if/when her family get her back, Skydash is going to have a very interesting vocabulary.

Yes, I am still working on this! Slowly slowly slowly. A combination of work and study is eating most of my writing-energy these days. *goes back to sleep*

( In Nemesis’ monitoring room, it had been quiet for a while. Ramjet wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. He wondered for an instant if the brat had actually died? Or vanished somehow – wouldn’t be the first sparkling with the annoying ability to walk through walls, after all. In the bottom of the bucket, Skydash was cuddled down into a ball, hugging her knees. Still alive, fortunately. )

( Le Fake cut to Chapter One )

"Runs from Silence" is a story I've been mulling around for a while, after reading something that partly inspired me and partly reminded me of other things I've wanted to put into a story for aaages.

I always enjoy the theme of people being turned into other creatures, even if it usually creeps me out, as well. (Okay, I admit it. I have something of a consistent theme of transformation / werewolves / etc in my fiction. It's probably why TFs had such a big impact?)

This one has dragons! Unwilling, grumpy, sore ones. Why WAS she in that crate, anyway?