(R:) I’m fucking filthy with how much I look forward to Billywick & Selwyn on AO3 writing Tarn x Pharma together. It’s some of the most consistently toxic dynamics that I’ve ever read and there is a ton of it in a variety of different flavors (like, multiple stories with these two hooked up in various destructive ways under different situations), and I just squee my warped little fanthing entrails out every time one of those stories updates. God has forgotten this corner of creation.

I think that the huge appeal comes from my sense that their depiction of both characters seems the most actually IC of all the various Tarns and Pharmas that I’ve encountered (which is probably most or all of them that are openly available, as I keep checking AO3 for new fics and collect RP/IC blogs for them on the regular because I clearly have A Problem). It’s not that I enjoy this depiction the most - other writers do more appealing or fun or strange things with the characters - but when I read one of their Tarnma stories, I get this deep, soaked-in sense of yes, absolutely, if these two actually had an ongoing relationship, it would surely be something like this. And thus, the result is huge epics featuring monstrous, twisted people being mutually destructive and caught in each others’ orbit forever so that neither can ever get out to a healthier place and unrelenting waves of awful things happen until The End. Like…it’s pretty horrible all over, but if I try to think of how to “fix” the story, I can’t actually think of anything to change because it’s Right just as it is; it’s perfect and true because, in the case of these two, the perfect depiction is brutal and dark. Other depictions are more experimental and possibly more fun (I would probably not even write them this dark if I wrote them, partly because I don’t think I have a sufficient grasp on how such people operate), but their work has this strain of agonizing truth beneath it all.

…Darkfic is my anti-drug, I guess. Great work in general, though. :)

Rossum’s Trinity is based on the three most important parts of our frames: our spark, our transformation cog, and our brain module. With these three parts working in unity, we are able to function. Remove one part, and the other two are undeniably crippled. If our very frames function such, then does it not make sense that our societies operate similarly?

The biggest tool of the Functionist Council was separation of our brethren. They installed barriers in communication, values, and perspectives so that our society becomes compartmentalized and thus, easier to control. “ A multi-skilled population is an empowered population.” Caste to caste, function to function, they divide us up into singular parts and cogs working in a machine we cannot even see.

The Decepticon Cause seeks to abolish Functionism and install an imperial meritocracy that seeks to promote mechanical interests within the galaxy and rebuild Cybertronian influence. The signs are all there. The Cybertronian standard shanix is worth ten times lower than it has in the past millennium. More and more of our culture is being chipped away, replaced by organic schools of thought [see “The Gender Norm: Foreign Cultural Identity Values]. Luna-1 is missing, sold off by the Senate to repay debts we only found out after three million years during a raid on the Institute [Operation: Broker].

We were once broken apart. Now, we are together again. Within the new framework of our society, we must dedicate ourselves to the Cause. Loyalty begets loyalty. Loyalty is built upon sacrifice. To see the tomorrow we deserve, we must be prepared to sacrifice for it.

- Commandant Tarn, Warden of Grindcore [excerpt from A Study of Command: The Essence and Value of Loyalty]