For those of you who like Dead End ficlets, there's ONE claim left in my ancient 28 Dead Ends meme: On Vacation. Go for it!

Last night I watched a bunch of G1 season 3 episodes for the first time in quite a while, all the way through "Ghost in the Machine", and realized something.

( My attitudes toward the episodes and the characters have changed... )

Something I haven't posted in quite a while: another Dead End 28! Down to the last few, actually.

Excited Dead End
Action/Adventure
[G1 Transformers] Wildrider inflicts more "culture" on Dead End; this time, it's the Arena. Dead End is bored; Wildrider tries to make it more 'interesting'.

Also, for those of you who overlooked it, last week I slipped in Disheveled Dead End in my 28 Dead Ends.

Another Dead End 28:

Why We Don't Let Dead End Give Combat Briefings, aka Obedient Dead End

[G1] Dead End is ordered to give a combat briefing by Starscream. This was not a good idea.

Set just post-season 2, with an early S3 framing sequence.

A short character study for y'all:

[G1] What does Megatron see in Starscream?

View from the Top

Rejection of one's creative efforts hurts. Whether it's a story turned down with a form letter, artwork deemed not suitable, a character application declined, a software program you wrote canceled by management... it hurts. You put your effort and creative zeal into a project, it's yours, your baby--and "they" don't like your baby. It's not beautiful to them, and all the heart and soul you poured into your creation is so much trash. It feels like it's you that's being rejected.

That hurts. Sure, you may know intellectually that you'd better get used to rejections, you'll get a lot before and between acceptances, but it doesn't stop it from hurting. You can either give up from the hurt, or pick yourself up and try again... but it's still going to hurt every damn time. Climbing back into the saddle doesn't make the fall from the horse hurt any less.

You get over it, and move on--if you can. Sometimes your creation was tailored for one specific audience, and if that audience rejects it, there's no place for it to go. Your baby is dead, stillborn. That hurts even more.

Sometimes you're told "if you change this one thing..." you'll be accepted. Sometimes the one thing is something that will improve your creation, and that's well and good. But sometimes, to get acceptance, you'd have to change what makes your creation special and precious to you. What then? Do you lobotomize your baby to make him fit in, or suffer another stillborn creation? Either way, it hurts, and the decision itself is pure poison.

Creation is pure joy, but the price is pain. Sometimes it's a hard price to pay.

[G1, post-TFTM] Sequel to Friends No Longer with Me. Starscream's unexpected post-mortem reunion with Skyfire leads to conversation between old... friends?

Go to Lost and Found

Here's one of the other stories that came out of writing Autobot Angels. My thanks to ravenclaw_devi for some heavy-duty beta-reading and critiquing.

Decepticon Ghosts

[G1,TFTM] An offbeat tale of the death, afterlife, and life of Thundercracker and Skywarp. With flish. And Starscream gets his two cents in.

[G1,TF:TM] A novella of the Autobot dead who did not go gently into that good night, nor rested quietly while their friends fought so desperately for Autobot City.

Autobot Angels

Multi-chaptered fic (11 chapters), but complete, done, finished! You won't be left hanging waiting for the end of an incomplete story. Thank you to beckyh2112 and ravynfyre for beta-reading! May you enjoy it!

I started writing this story over six months ago and it was a beast to finish; it kept developing weird structural problems that I had to sort out and fix. I learned a lot about recognizing issues with a longer story while writing it, though. I posted about my travails with it back when I first started:
Progress Report - first mentioned 6/5/2006
The joys of editing.. - structural problems 6/5/2006
More joy of editing - more structural problems 6/8/2006
Another fic ready for Beta... - boy was I premature! 6/11/2006
A meme I like - dropped a snippet from it as a WIP. 8/30/2006

A Duskwing story.

[G1] Starscream tosses two human prisoners into an unused berthing compartment. Too bad no one told him just why that compartment is never used. Really too bad that Duskwing is a bit possessive about his old quarters.

Compartment C-134

Another one of my 28s that won't fit in a comment. You'd think by know that I'd know better than to even try...

This one takes place shortly after the events of On His Knees Dead End.

( Book-Reading Dead End )

Writing meme, ganked from beckyh2112

1. Pick one of my characters, any one (even if you're only familiar with a vague description instead of a name).
2. I will tell you the origin of his/her name.
3. I will tell you random facts surrounding his/her creation.
4. I will give you a random fact of his/her backstory.
5. I will give you a random fact of his/her forestory.
6. You may ask me up to ten questions about the character
7. I will give you one TMI fact. (And if you don't want that, please specify.)

Forestory, in this instance, is either measured from the latest chronological fanfic I've written them in, or, if they haven't appeared in a fanfic, from the starting point of the canon they come from.

( I have written both DBZ and TFs, and have lots of OCs... )

Another Halloween story.

Ghost Jets

[G1] There are stories Air Force and Navy pilots tell on Halloween (and many other dark nights) about the ghost jets that fly on moonlit nights, jets no plane can catch, no radar illuminate, no heatseeker track. Here's a few of those tales.

A Dead End artfic! This one's actually long enough that it's on my site as a separate story.

Art Depreciation, aka "Daring Dead End"

[G1] The Stunticons have been transferred to Cybertron; Dead End and Drag Strip take on a new challenge: they become art critics! There's a brand-new art gallery opening, and everyone's there--including our two reviewers, and some of Slog's artwork. Can they make the deadline? Will they survive it? Warning: this may be mildly humorous and/or make pretentious statements about Art.

Thank you to Wayward and Rebecca Hb. for abuse of their characters and checking them for nits. ;-)