maskormenacelogs | SEPTEMBER CATCH-ALL // PRE-EVENT // OPEN & CLOSED

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SEPTEMBER CATCH-ALL // PRE-EVENT // OPEN & CLOSED

WHO: Jane + Open and Closed Prompts
WHERE: All Over The Place
WHEN: September 1-7 (Before The Event)
WHAT: Various prompts, plots, etc.
WARNINGS: No warnings; will update as needed

NOTE: All of these prompts are going to be backdated before the major world event. Open prompts are in the log, closed prompts are going to be top-level comments. Backtagging throughout the month is wonderful and encouraged! No rush, no pressure; a lot is going on in this world and the real one!

A; DONUTS & CONVERSATIONS // OPEN

Due to being disorganized more often than not, Jane didn’t have much time for anything more than coffee for breakfast during the school week. But for once, for once, she had all of her ducks in a row and was ahead of the game. It was also a Saturday. That meant donuts.

Heading off in a random direction, Jane had no plans other than to enjoy the day. Papers were graded, nothing for work needed to be attended to immediately, and everything else important had been scheduled some other time during the upcoming week.

Feel free to run into her. She might be offended if you steal a donut, though.

B; RETURN OF THE ROBOT DOUBLE // OPEN

Jane was pissed. Anyone she passed could see that.

For you see, she was chasing after herself. The robot double, that is. It was easy to tell the difference between the two of them: one of them was cackling with evil glee and missing an arm. The real Jane was focused, had both arms, and wanted to end this robot.

But, as Jane’s state of disarray and some impressive bruises showed, this robot double was tougher than it looked. She might need some backup.

C; SCIENCE PROJECTS // OPEN

Sadly, Jane’s classroom was still a burnt mess, but her students did have easy access to a wide courtyard with plenty of room and open grass. It was a bit of an adjustment, but she did enjoy the fresh air, as did her students. It also allowed for more informal lessons, where students went off to work on their own projects and collaborated with one another. Jane of course kept an eye on everything, but could be found working on her own projects too.

Did you and Jane have a project you wanted to tackle? Feel free to pop on by!

D; FOLLOW THAT ROCK // OPEN

Well, what do you know? During some conversations during the meteor shower about a month ago, the possibility of a meteor surviving burning up in the atmosphere came up. It’s totally possible and a much more common occurrence than most people thought! However, what is really rare is a meteor crashing down and leaving a crater. Meteorites smaller than grains of sand? Yes. Around the size of large pebbles? Sure.

This one, though, would be about the size of a bowling ball by the time it hit.

Luckily, Jane was tracking its trajectory and … it landed in the middle of Heropa Park For some reason. She could have sworn it was going to end up in North Dakota! Want to join her?

E; WILD CARD // OPEN

Is there something I missed? A plot you wanted to do that I forgot? Feel free to write your own starter or ping me (stardating @ plurk) so I can add it to the log up here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jane hummed to herself in thought as she looked around. Everything was shut down, but she could have sworn they were going to meet up here. Was she mistaken? Did she get the time—

“Gah! Knock Out!” she yelped, jumping around in surprise. Only to stare flabbergasted at someone she had never met before. She frowned. Hold on a moment. “Wait. Oh my god. Is this your holoform?”

He's pleased that she guesses correctly right off the bat, and the grin stretches. "It is, I've been working on it again, on and off for the last few months. Smoothed out some coding bugs, figured out why I had light refraction problems between 1100 and 1600 lumens. Solving the buffer crash problems is going to be a longer term project, but it's good for at least two hours now."

He turns, side to side, showing the holoform off. Under the overhead lighting, shadows and highlights play correctly across the simulated fabric of the clothes, hair and skin.

"That is amazing!" she exclaimed, watching him turn around. Even if she looked closely, she couldn't tell that he was now in a hologram form. It all looked real. "What about if you touch something or someone bumps into you? Does that cause a buffering error?"

Cheekily, the holoform reached out and poked her arm. There was a peculiar soloidity to it... there was no give to the skin, and no temperature, but it imparted force like it was a physical limb.

"Kinetic buffers, yes," he agreed. "That's the two aspects of a holoform: hard light emitters and kinetic buffers. Visual and tactile, respectively; obviously anything kinetic requires a much higher energy expenditure, but since they only engage when physically interacting with something, they generate less errors. Meanwhile the algorithms which handle texture and lighting rendering have thousands of compilations every second. If you miss a few, visually you probably won't notice, but they stack up fast. And my buffers aren't that large, compared to many mechs. Racer frames never are."

"Whoa." She couldn't help but poke him right back, reaching up to his bicep to feel for herself in another way. She didn't feel any give or temperature this time either, but she bet he could overcome that if he wanted to. "That is amazing, regardless of the buffer capabilities. What did you do to count for the random light changes that might happen? What happens if you get wet?"

"Predictive radiometry algorithms," he explained, looking just right pleased with himself. "It's not perfect, but because it's easier for me to sense electromagnetic radiation than it is to measure where it crosses the visible light threshold on the spectrum, I can make longer term projections about where certain conditions will fall and adjust accordingly."

"The holoform can't 'get' wet," he said. "I can simulate it looking wet, though I haven't actually coded those parameters, but kinetic buffers only engage in reaction to applied force, and route through haptic sensors. So while I technically could set up something to detect 'feeling' raindrops, for example, that would crash my buffers in minutes."

His smile tames from vibrant pride to something more self-conscious. "And I thought you might enjoy the chance to engage in more conventional places, for a change. There's a café on Chapman Ave that's supposed to be very good."

Jane nodded, understanding. That was the best way to go about it. It would require too much processing to constantly be adjusting, switching, shifting. Not to mention he wouldn't have to keep track of who might be seeing what specifically. There were beings out there who saw beyond the visible light spectrum, but most of them were reptiles. Huh, she would have to ask Kang about that sometime.

"Okay. I was thinking rain might cause some damage, like it would to anything delicate left exposed to the elements. But it would be hard, raindrops are even less predictable than light particles."

Jane's own smile softened. "A chance of scenery is nice, every once in a while, but I hope you know I hang out with you to hang out with you."

He'd misunderstood the purpose of her concern; her clarification has him touched. "No danger of damage," he assured. "Holoforms are most often used for interacting with other species in their native habitats... they wouldn't be much good if they only worked in fair weather and ideal conditions."

(He did know, abstractly, but it's very nice to hear it said.)

Outside the hangar, Knock Out pulled around from where he'd been sunning himself like a vehicular reptile, offering an open door in invitation while the holoform dissolves into pixels and vanishes.

The trip through Jeopardy is quick and quiet. On a random weekday, the streets aren't crowded, just the regular daily shoppers going about their business. The café is a charming one, with pops of colour on the exterior and the name designed in funky font. Half a dozen covered tables adorn the patio. Knock Out pulls up to the curb and parks, and the holoform reassembles on the sidewalk next to her.

“True,” she replied with a relieved laugh. She knew in his original form, he could handle elements she would never be exposed to: radiation, extreme cold, possibly a vacuum. “They would have to be hardier than the holograms we’ve come up with thus far.”

(Hopefully, he would hear it more often.)

Jane slides into the passenger seat and watches with fascination as he transforms from his Aston Martin form to the holoform. It’s a completely different event to watch, but she is still as impressed as always. It is just fascinating to see someone have such control over their physical form and how it appeared and functioned. The café is charming and it helps she’s never been to it before. Besides to visit him, she doesn’t really come to Jeopardy—not after getting stuck in it last November.

"Quick question: can you eat in this form?" she asked, doubting he could.

Edited 2020-09-03 23:40 (UTC)

Knock Out remains in vehicle mode at the curb, rolling back into a new patch of sun and doing a very distinct comfortable settling on his tires, like someone snuggling into an old armchair with a pleased sigh.

On the sidewalk, the holoform shakes its head. "No," he replied to her question. "This thing is just bent light and code strings, it doesn't have anything 'inside'. Don't worry, I ate earlier." Even given his admittedly sporadic appetite lately, he did try to make sure he fueled regularly. Some days went better than others with that.

But he'll go with her up to the counter, and offer to pay for her order if she lets him, and defers to her preference for sitting inside or out.

Edited (fixed words) 2020-09-04 11:26 (UTC)

Sunlight probably did feel good on him and with the quiet atmosphere, this was a good as a spot as any to relax.

"Good. I've still been a little worried about that."

She just didn't want to nag him, even if she was thinking about asking the other mechs. Maybe Riptide knew, or possibly Ironhide. They might have some better insight of how to help.

It's a nice day, so she chooses to sit outside, but she waves off his offers to pay. It's appreciated, however.

"What have you been up to lately? Anything new?"

The holoform has the grace to look apologetic when she says she's been worried about his habits lately. He's called her up a handful of times at all sorts of odd hours, though he usually sends an inquiry text first, just to make sure he's not disturbing her from actually getting a good night's rest for once.

But between those conversations, some extensive driving, and a steadily manufactured supply of spark stabilizer, he was coping.

(He was also trying to avoid thinking of what might happen next month.)

Knock Out highlights the couple projects he has on the go for Aegis and one or two personal ones. "I've been drawing lately," he admits, sounding faintly embarrassed. "I found an old file on my datapad... do you remember I made a network post a while back, about giving up hobbies or old jobs? That's what spurred it."

She doesn’t mind answering his phone call and staying up with him, but whether or not something can be done before there’s irreversible damage is on her mind. But coping is good. It might be the only thing that he can do.

“Really?” she asked, interested. “What kind of things are you drawing? Any particular mediums you like better than others? I’ve always been cruddy at art.”

"Oh... just digitally."

The holoform hums thoughtfully, and Knock Out forwards a file to Jane's phone using the wifi connection. Even though it's harder to see on such a small screen — she may want to reopen the file later, on a proper monitor — it's a depiction of an unknown mech. Front and side view, and then a cutaway view with half the armor removed, displaying the complex nest of internal components.

The image is entirely done in linework, meticulously notated; it's not really what most people would think of as 'artistic'.

It looks like a schematic for building a mech... or dismantling one.

"Ones like this."

"Digital is still a medium."

And from what she has hard, is just as technical as any other kind of tool. It just had a different set of rules and applications, like paint verses pencil verses charcoal.

She opened the file and zoomed in on it multiple times, obviously awed at the detail. Yes, it was technical, but she appreciated that kind of art better than something abstract. This was a lot less subjective; it was easier to grasp its meaning.

"That is amazing! Is everything ... yup, everything is proportional! Is this someone you know?"

It was almost like a medical file.

"No, it's not a real mech," Knock Out assured. "Just a hypothetical blueprint. I started doing these when I was in the medical academy as a means of study. It sort of stuck, and then it became very useful when I opened my augmentation clinic. I stopped after we moved to Cybertron... no call for it. I was cleaning out my datapad of old, unneeded files and there was one of these still in there."

“Oh, that’s like when we make medical diagrams or even blueprints of something.” She continued to look at it a few moments more before she put her phone down once more. “It’s still impressive. I’m no art student, but that line work is impeccable! Do you intend to color or shade it?”

"Much like that," Knock Out agreed. "Thank you. I hadn't really thought about giving them colour, but I suppose I could. I think the technical detail aspect of the line work is what's nicely distracting, though."

"What have you been working on lately?"

"If you wanted to go in that direction. Color apparently is just as complex. But I do like the notes and the preciseness. You could make a print of it just as it is."

At his question, she catches him up on her various projects, which includes all of the collaborated information that she has gotten from so many different sources for creating her own porter, or something closer to her original idea that would be fundamentally different.

"If I had half of this research back in my home universe, I might have opened a portal here instead of suddenly getting pulled in. I'm sure the government would have liked that, though."

But, sadly, she kept hitting dead ends. The math was there ... it just wouldn't do what it was supposed to in application, even though she had gotten a miniature version of it built. It could only allow something small like a pencil to go through, but those pencils kept getting fried.

The holoform shrugged a little. "A print... if I did that, I'd take out the cutaway version and erase some of the notations and finer details. Removing those does slightly defeat the purpose, but I'm not sure I'd like that kind of precision about Cybertronian physiology floating around loose for public consumption."

He didn't mind sharing them with Jane, of course. Having seen that glimpse of M.E.C.H. through his memories, he knew she would understand his caution. A beat, then he added, "Also I'm reasonably certain my housemates would find this 'creepy'."

He did, as a general rule, get along with all the of them — considering they were all Autobots, Knock Out counted that as a major win. But as far as having anything more than superficially in common with them — besides lab work alongside Ironfist — Knock Out there came up short.

She winced, having forgotten that detail. "Probably a good idea. It's not so much a problem with human anatomy diagrams, since we're everywhere and books have been written about the subject." Other prints on the market already were more for aesthetic purposes than educational, many of them outdated for the antique or vintage vibes.

That pulled a laugh out of her. "Maybe? But they might understand it better if you go from the educational standpoint. You're a medic. Reviewing this information occasionally is good."

If anything, it might open up some more conversations? It was great that he got along with them, but actually being able to hang out and relate was a different beast.

Edited 2020-09-12 23:38 (UTC)

The holoform offered a noncommittal noise in response, if only because Jane's suggestion was a good compromise but Knock Out doubted the others would be interested in such a thing.

"They're all from the same universe," he commented after a moment's hesitation. "It's... very different, than mine. Moreso than I'd realized at first. I thought it was just a variance of how the war ended — I never did figure out the difference in energon colours — but it's a lot more than that. Big pieces of history are changed, or missing."

Looked like making any lasting connections would be a bit tougher than she thought, but she was glad he was seeking out others.

“Oh. Wow. That would be a bit of a road block.”

She wondered if the people they all knew were even similar, if any of them had known him from their original universe. What was that other Knock Out like? Was Megatron the same tyrant? How long had the war waged? Were he and Breakdown together in that universe too?

“Maybe you’d need to figure out a hobby you’d all enjoy?”

Knock Out has the holoform wiggle a hand in so-so motion when she guesses it's a road block. "It hasn't been a major issue yet. If they're also in my world, I don't know either Riptide or Ironfist... though I'm familiar with Ironfist's work, out of the Kimia facility. Our newest arrival, however..."

The holoform glances up the street for a moment, then back at Jane. "Ultra Magnus was the commander of the Wreckers for most of the war. In my world, he recently arrived to Earth and joined up with the other Autobots on Prime's team. This one's got... just about the same demeanor."

Knock Out was still working through the whole Minimus Ambus thing.

"Shared hobbies, hm? I couldn't even get all of them to drink some perfectly serviceable high grade when it was offered."

Jane recalled his stories about the Wreckers and could imagine that there would be some tension there due to their past histories. Or at least affiliations, if they hadn’t interacted too much. She had seen a post of his, she vaguely recalls, but had not been able to answer the question he posed. He did remind her a lot of the no-nonsense, stiff and formal military types she had occasionally met when she was a kid. They always made her want to kick their shins.

“Yeah. I don’t blame you for wanting to keep your distance.”

This Ultra Magnus probably wanted to do the same.

“Really? Yikes. I guess none of you would approve of the time-honored human tradition of an awkward mixer.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

SEPTEMBER CATCH-ALL // PRE-EVENT // OPEN & CLOSED

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