Subject: Propagation by fractalserpent, HopeofDawn (PG-13)
Title: Propagation
Fandom: Transformers (Generation One/ Bayverse Fusion)
Pairing: Soundwave/Ravage
Categories: Pre-canon
Length: Medium (22 950 words)
Warnings: Off-screen Violence, Age Difference
Author Website: fractalserpent on AO3 Hope of Dawn on Dreamwidth
Author’s Summary:
This is the First Memory.
Devoid of timestamps or identifiers, it is older than counting. Numbers did not exist when it came into being, the arrangement of sparkbeats into astroseconds, astroseconds into kliks, breems, joor … rotations into cycles, cycles into vorn, each one thing distinct and connected to the next. The memory exists before these things, is born nameless, when glyphs were simple, single things of *warmth* and *alarm* and *energon*.
The first memory begins with light.
Review:
On a world in a far-distant galaxy, alien intelligences painstakingly craft new intelligences and seek to remedy a recent tragedy. Ravage stalks unhappily through the shadows, watching artists make masterpieces, the newly-created learn about life and the business of everyday life continue. And there is something that might loosely be considered courtship.
I can’t easily describe the plot of Propagation. It is a careful dance of concepts, describing a culture and people that are both very sympathetic and deeply alien. The words used are often just to side of the way things are normally described, reflecting the inhuman perspective of the mechs involved. When the language doesn’t distract, there are frequently twists of logic from internalising the words as meaning something that is not quite a counterpart. Somehow, the dissonance highlights the story, rather than overwhelming.
It works very well as an exploration of what the pre-war Cybertron of Michael Bay’s movies might have been like (besides full of explosions, protagonist-centred morality and shiny spinning shape-shifting) and also what the pre-war Ravage and Soundwave might have been like (besides terrifyingly deadly); sweet in itself, but sad because we know what will happen.
Propagation
(There is a related story which crosses over with Iron Giant in the far future of Propagation’s sequels, if anyone is a fan of Iron Giant and curious.)
Fandom: Transformers (Generation One/ Bayverse Fusion)
Pairing: Soundwave/Ravage
Categories: Pre-canon
Length: Medium (22 950 words)
Warnings: Off-screen Violence, Age Difference
Author Website: fractalserpent on AO3 Hope of Dawn on Dreamwidth
Author’s Summary:
This is the First Memory.
Devoid of timestamps or identifiers, it is older than counting. Numbers did not exist when it came into being, the arrangement of sparkbeats into astroseconds, astroseconds into kliks, breems, joor … rotations into cycles, cycles into vorn, each one thing distinct and connected to the next. The memory exists before these things, is born nameless, when glyphs were simple, single things of *warmth* and *alarm* and *energon*.
The first memory begins with light.
Review:
On a world in a far-distant galaxy, alien intelligences painstakingly craft new intelligences and seek to remedy a recent tragedy. Ravage stalks unhappily through the shadows, watching artists make masterpieces, the newly-created learn about life and the business of everyday life continue. And there is something that might loosely be considered courtship.
I can’t easily describe the plot of Propagation. It is a careful dance of concepts, describing a culture and people that are both very sympathetic and deeply alien. The words used are often just to side of the way things are normally described, reflecting the inhuman perspective of the mechs involved. When the language doesn’t distract, there are frequently twists of logic from internalising the words as meaning something that is not quite a counterpart. Somehow, the dissonance highlights the story, rather than overwhelming.
It works very well as an exploration of what the pre-war Cybertron of Michael Bay’s movies might have been like (besides full of explosions, protagonist-centred morality and shiny spinning shape-shifting) and also what the pre-war Ravage and Soundwave might have been like (besides terrifyingly deadly); sweet in itself, but sad because we know what will happen.
Propagation
(There is a related story which crosses over with Iron Giant in the far future of Propagation’s sequels, if anyone is a fan of Iron Giant and curious.)