Anon: Something For TFP StarWaveWave Conspiracy AU You Talked About On Tumblr?

anon: Something for TFP StarWaveWave conspiracy AU you talked about on tumblr?

I would like to personally thank this ko-fi commissioner for ensuring that I was incapable of thinking about anything else at all today; and secondarily thank @kurxo​ for accidentally indirectly inspiring this by drawing Starscream being friendly with Soundwave and Shockwave. Fic based on that fanart and some posts I made a few days ago about a potential Starscream + Soundwave + Shockwave conspiracy to overthrow Megatron; this fic is a setup for how such an alliance could come to be. The related posts are tagged #starwavewave conspiracy

If he’d stopped to think about it beforehand, Soundwave would have expected the hardest part of starting a mutinous conspiracy to be convincing himself that he wanted to help Starscream to overthrow Megatron. Certainly, that was the slowest part. Convincing Shockwave had been much easier. But no—it turned out that the trickiest bit of the whole thing was convincing Starscream that he wanted to overthrow Megatron.

###

“Thank You For Listening, Soundwave”

###

“Legend tells that it holds the power to revive the dead,” Starscream said.

Megatron replied, “We require only a cadaver to be certain. Are you willing to make the ultimate sacrifice?” and Starscream cringed away from him, laughing nervously, deflecting the question.

Soundwave recorded.

Soundwave hadn’t realized until that moment that so much of what he disliked about Starscream was how he shrank and shriveled and cowered in fear.

He hadn’t realized until that moment that—even faced by the most highly-trained Autobot guerrilla force in history, by energon shortages and hungry soldiers, by carving out secret strongholds for the Decepticons on an alien world—he hadn’t seen Starscream cringe once in the last three years.

Until now.

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I don't want to ask AI a question. I don't want AI to write my sentences for me, at all ever. I don't want AI search bars to be the default and I don't want them to be in such a way that I can't opt out. I don't want this kind of AI in my life and there is no such thing as AI art, there is only theft of art from human artists by AI scrappers. I don't want any of this, I hate it. Maybe in a world that isn't driven by tech bro capitalism we can see machines doing all the dangerous inane things so humans can be free to pursue life and creativity. But that's not what's happening right now and I hate it.

Feral McGee™

It starts with the Joker. 

His goons picked up Tim Drake. Not specifically because it was Tim Drake, he just so happened to be in the Joker’s neighborhood, and we'll, he can't pass up that opportunity now can he? 

Except Tim Drake is watching, along with the rest of Gotham, at the Batcomputer. He’s nursing a broken foot and has been put on monitor duty until he's cleared for field work again. 

The guy looks enough like him, though. Black hair, blue eyes, and bags under his eyes for days. He's also got the same lean sort of build like he does. 

It happens like this. 

The Joker is doing his monologue thing where he explains whatever twisted game he's come up with this time. He takes up the majority of the screen, so nobody can see Not-Tim behind him, not until the big reveal. Then he covers the screen again, getting up close and personal, before stepping back. In those quick few seconds, Not-Tim is no longer sitting there tied to the chair. 

Someone off camera lets the Joker know, and he whirls around, confused as the rest of Gotham. 

And then Not-Tim comes in with the steel chair. 

Or, well, a crowbar, but the reference holds up. 

He takes out one of Joker’s knees before punching him in the face. The Joker drops like a bag of stones, out cold. 

Then he looks towards the camera. 

“Hey there. I'm not really sure where I am, but also if he was after Tim Drake, he got the wrong guy. I'm not him, I'm just some dude. Anyway, I'll just-yep-” he carefully steps over the unconscious Joker, gives the camera a little wave, and then leaves. 

Batman and Nightwing enter shortly after, with the Joker and his goons out cold and tied up. The knots were complicated enough where, in the end, the police resorted to cutting the ties off of them so they could be properly cuffed and taken to Arkham. 

“A constrictor knot,” Batman tells Nightwing as they watch the villain be taken away. “Often used by sailors to temporarily tie things together to keep something in a bag, or to hold something to glue it back together.”

“Huh,” Nightwing says, scratching the back of his head. “Go figure.”

—

The next time it happens, it’s the Riddler. 

He’s laughing, giving his riddles to the Bats and recording himself to all of Gotham while his victim, one of the Wayne brats, hangs over a vat of something. From a distance, he looks like Tim Drake, or maybe a lankier Dick Grayson. And he’s not the only victim, they’re all scattered across the city, but he thought an important figure such as a Wayne should be under the Riddler’s direct supervision while he enacts his schemes. 

While the Riddler cackles and plots and waves his cane around, in the background all of Gotham can see the figure escape. Several Gothamites recognize him as the kid from before, who clocked the Joker. They all watch with bated breath as he sort of wiggles his way out of the ropes holding him up. Once he’s free, he climbs the rope and gets himself down safely. 

Gotham holds their breath as the kid casually walks up to the Riddler, who’s mid-rant. He politely taps him on the shoulder, and as the Riddler is turning around, the kid clocks him just as brutally as he had the Joker. He’s down with one punch. 

They think he’s going to say another sort of awkward goodbye, but instead he pats the Riddler down until he finds a piece of paper tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. 

“Right,” the kid says, looking at the list. There’s a lot more static overlay now, and several wonder if it’s damage to the cameras. “Uh, the Clocktower, the Docks, and-” he squints at the page for a moment-”Mama Nacaroni’s? What the fuck is that? Anyway, uh. See you later, I guess. Oh! And we’re at the Gotham Arena. Have fun with him, I guess.”

The kid tosses the paper off to the side before the camera cuts to black. 

Just like last time, everyone is out cold and tied up. The Riddler himself is sporting a pretty bad shiner, but well deserved nonetheless. 

“Stop it,” Red Hood tells him. Batman just looks at him, and though Hood can’t see the top half of his face, he can tell that his eyebrow is raised. “You know exactly what I mean, B. Put the adoption papers away.”

“Hn.”

—

After that, it sorta becomes a game. The rogues of Gotham are no longer after a Wayne, or after anybody who holds any kind of social status like usual. They’re all going after this one kid, all determined to be the one to hold him. And each one is televised. 

Mr. Freeze freezes him in a block of ice, but due to the cameras glitching out, nobody can really see how he got free. They do, however, see the kid suplex Mr. Freeze. It should seem impossible, given his lanky figure, but he evidently has more muscle than he’s originally let on. 

Two-Face gets a hold of him, using chains and some power-dampening cuffs just on the off-chance that he’s a meta. They all watch as the kid leans down, pulls a bobby pin out of his hair, and picks the locks on his cuffs. One punch, and Two-Face is down. 

Gothamites are going wild for the kid. They’ve dubbed him Feral McGee™ (an online poll, of course), because every time he goes in for the punch he gets this feral look in his eyes. Also, just the fact that he casually goes up to these rogues and takes them out with all the casualness of doing something incredibly mundane? Incredible. The Gothamites are eating it up. However, despite the video evidence, nobody has been able to properly identify the kid. They know he has black hair and bright eyes, but any time he gets near a camera, it’s like there’s this weird, sort of warped quality the camera takes on. It doesn’t usually calm down until the fight is done-as one sided as they usually are-before he awkwardly skedaddles away.  

He gets kidnapped by the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (though that was more just a friendly chat than anything), Mad Hatter, and the Riddler again. 

And then the Joker escapes. 

It’s no surprise as to who he’s going to go after. 

Due to one too many careless goons, they manage to find their way to the Joker’s hideout pretty quickly. This time, it’s all Bats on deck, and they all hide away in the rafters as Feral McGee™ is hung over a vat of acid. His whole body is tied up, hardly a single inch of exposed skin to be seen except for the neck up. 

They watch the goons, they watch the Joker, and they watch Feral McGee™. 

The Joker is monologuing, practically begging the bats to come find him before the timer runs out. When it does, the kid gets dumped into the vat of acid. 

Despite these stakes, the kid seems to be only mildly annoyed. 

“Fuck this, I have homework I still need to finish,” they hear him say. 

They all watch, amazed and confused, as the kid starts gnawing through the ropes. Human teeth shouldn’t be able to do that so easily, but one bit after the other, and soon enough the kid’s got himself freed enough to just climb up the rest of the rope. When he’s at the top of the crane holding him up, Batman lets down a rope and pulls the kid up and out of danger. 

“Oh, cool, you’re all here,” the kid says casually, as if meeting the entire Bat Clan is just a normal Tuesday. And then he pulls out a notepad and pen and hands it to Red Hood. 

“Can I get an autograph? You’re dope as fuck, dude.”

Red Hood has to look away and hide his face in his arms for a few moments to not give away their location with his laughter before signing. And then, one by one, the others do as well. They pass along the kid’s notebook with shit-eating grins and barely contained snickers despite the fact that the Joker is still right below them. Even Batman signs it, after his children don’t stop hounding him about it. 

In their distraction, they didn’t see the kid sneak away. He’s far away from them now, nearly right over the Joker. Danny waits, though, until the Joker has turned around as the timer almost runs out. They watch as he snickers at Joker’s flabbergasted look. The Joker comically looks back and forth and under objects the kid obviously isn’t under. However, before he can do or say anything else, the kid drops from the rafters and right on top of the Joker. He crumples to the ground, unconscious. The kid, however, just brushes the dust off of himself. Despite the fall he took, there isn’t a scratch on him. 

When the bats join him, they give his notepad back to him, barely able to contain their laughter at the absurdity of it all. The kid, too, joins in the camaraderie, laughing and joking along with them as Batman secures the Joker. 

“Okay, okay, but I gotta ask, dude,” Red Hood says at one point, looking at the kid. “How do you keep getting kidnapped?”

The kid just shrugs. “I get distracted easily. And I’m sleep deprived, so you know. Social awareness is kind of at an all time low right now.”

“Why are you sleep deprived?” Nightwing asks, barely hidden concern in his voice. 

 “Finals are kinda kicking my ass right now. Especially this dumb English homework I have. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Oh, lucky for you,” Red Hood says, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders as he walks them out of the warehouse, “I happen to know a lot about English. So, it is Shakespeare?”

“Yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

As they walk off, Batman calmly watches, though the rest of the bats can see his jaw twitching. Nightwing comes up behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. 

“If you don’t adopt him, I will.”

“Hn.”

I’m noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 who…uh…mayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip

Using a random fic of mine as example..

The left example: ✅✅✅

The right example: ❌❌❌

Idk how many times I’ve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear it…it’s insufferable!

If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. I’m not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer but…please…ty…

Where are my cat!Roksoo fics. That was not a question, it was a statement. I see ppl compare Rok Soo to a cat and really, I’m digging the idea but y’all giving the food but telling me to cook it myself?

…I’ll contribute seasoning—

He’s not a beast person, he’s a legit cat. No opposable thumbs for this kitty. No deus ex machina to make him do legit work later. Give him the slacker life he deserves. Let him live it easily even though he gets dropped off in Rain City’s slums.

Despite that, On and Hong immediately know that he’s intelligent—or they bother him enough to know it eventually.

As if his resourcefulness and caring nature didn’t make it obvious enough that he has high enough emotional intelligence to share his food with the siblings instead of hissing at them for approaching like other alley cats in the slums—

Does he scrounge for food in the trash? Yeah. But they’re almost never bad. No mold, no rot, no dirt. Of course when the food they manage to find is nothing but waste he does find other sources like hunting in the wild. Maybe eventually he urges the kids to turn human so they can cook it. He doesn’t do this often though bc while cats used to be wild and capable hunters he’s just a house cat now. Most he’ll catch are small birds and rodents.

He teaches the kids how to scam. With the magic of cat. Big eyes, cute meows—next thing you know Hans has brought them into the Henituse Estate. After that they endear themselves to the Henituse kids—Cale included.

Kim Rok Soo wants to stay away from the minor villain but honestly the absolute misery from the guy is bothering his afternoon nap so he makes it his daily mission to trip the redhead until he gets a pat.

One day Cale really does trip in the middle of a drunken act and Rok Soo just sits on him. Cale is resigned bc he is not a Cat, and therefore does not have the Divine Right to command anything, much less a cat off his throne.

Eventually Cale warms up to Kitty Rok Soo bc he gets to further his villain act by petting the cat in his lap with a deviously trashy smile—yes, Rok Soo followed him out to the bar. No, he couldn’t stop Rok Soo.

Cats have nine lives. Anybody trying to hurt KRS would be unlucky enough to suffer divine retribution bc black cats are “bad luck.” Heh.

Obviously Ron would know all three of the cats aren’t normal but seeing the growing affection between the Henituse family and the felines he kinda just accepts it like he does in canon and tries to teach the kiddos assassination techniques.

He tries to teach KRS too even after learning he’s a normal—if abnormally intelligent—cat, but KRS runs to Cale every time. After the first time that Ron almost caught KRS, KRS makes sure there’s always ten escape routes that take him to either Cale or Deruth in a minute or less at any moment in time.

Or you know what, KRS’s favorite Ron-deterrent is Violan bc she doesn’t fool around with him like Deruth. Favorite pastime is watching her sculpt bc the noises are hypnotic and it’s like watching discovery channel in live 4k HD. Deruth is only for when he’s in an emergency where neither Cale nor Violan are around. Or when he wants pats.

He stays away from Beacrox bc hello germaphobe torture expert?? No cats allowed in the kitchen?!?!? Little does he know that Beacrox does have a soft spot for the kittens and leaves snacks outside the kitchen for them and the first time KRS takes the offerings he’s so pleased that Ron pets KRS, who is scared shitless but that’s just how it is.