shitposting rave 5: discount rejects from every genre

Ford shakes his head. "Religions that forbid natural and instinctive connections between officiants and the laity mean to create separation between them, ultimately. If you want people to care about each other and feel connected, you encourage religious leaders to have families, but if you want them to rule over those they claim to serve, you break those ties. Theocracy? I am interested in how similar mech and organic societies can be. I wouldn't have expected it."

 

Y'know I'd be more inclined to talk about this with you if you didn't have such an air of superiority about it. Given how much went to slag before the war hit I'm kinda glad at least one damn temple had us stay celibate because atleast that was a kind of exploitation that would absolutely never have entered the temple no matter how much the false primes tried to meddle with temple business. The Headpriest would have melted the mech's plating off if he so much as tried that in sight of him.
[Nice try Ford, Beacon came through four million years of war disillusioned with exclusively primal doctrine, not with his temple or the institution of clergy as it was handled in Praxus. This is as good as it gets.]

 

-nods- You sounded like you think it´s two entirely different things. Confusing. I speak neocybex better in here but is not my language.

Is important to have someone! Having a swarm is better but still.

 

Ah. My apologies I'm afraid I don't speak much aside from it, unless you can provide m with a lang-map? I am not the fastest learner but i am willing to try.
It's not so much two entirely different things as... Hm.
[He pulls a crystal from thin air and turns it a little until it appears green to Sprocket.]
See this crystal? it's a certain color to you right now, right? Now see what happens when I turn it so it faces you like it just now faced me.
[He does so. It appears to be entirely purple now.]
It's still the same crystal. But had I never turned it, we would have both been speaking of it in entirely different ways and given it different names. And both of us would have been technically correct.

 

Strange. Spark seekers always join in when they come back, they miss the swarm! And we miss them.

What´s a lang map?
I understand you. It´s just that a gate making sparks out of stars doesn´t sound like the Ground. The Ground makes sparks from sparks we give back. So it didn´t sound like the same.

 

"Oh, that's not him when he really thinks he's superior," Lissa says, giggling a little. "You snorted when you told him about it, and I'm pretty sure he thinks you're hot. I've learned all kinds of things I don't think even he knew he liked since we started hanging around up here!"

 

Ford had been about to say something when Lissa interrupted. And now he's not about to say the thing that he was going to say. "Thanks, Lissa," he says with a wince, and takes a deep breath.

After a moment to compose himself, he shakes his head. "Look, I was halfway to apologising for the way I evidently sounded when you went and told me the priests in your temple never raped anyone during the war because there was a rule against it--a rule against priests doing it, implying that the rule was what stopped them. Do you want to, maybe, agree that we're both coming off the wrong way and start over?"

 

Ford nods. "Lissa and I love everyone in our nest. We all go places and do things. But home is the place you want to come back to no matter how good things are where you are."

 

Hm. Admittedly I don't know for sure where sparks come from, and your theory makes as much sense as any other. Though now I am curious, what do you think The Ground did to make the first sparks, before he had any old ones to make new ones from?

[Awkward grumpy frown. There, the old man is embarrassed again.]
Well I'm still rather spoken for even aside my somewhat questionable status as clergy. I am not really in the habit of seeking anyone else out nor do I want to get into the habit.

[He grumbles something to the effect of "if that's not him being superior while he can't actually pull his head out of his aft enough to listen to what's actually being said instead of what he thinks he's hearing I don't actually wanna see him being smug", then straightens up and glares.]
One, I exclusively talked about other members of the clergy, like the slagging false Prime and the bunch of compacted scrapheaps he called his staff, that didn't belong to my temple. And two, what stopped the priests of that temple from doing really anything during the war was being a little bit dead. See also Praxus being a Primus-damned crater now. There aren't actually many Praxians still alive, slaggit all. I thought that was common knowledge!

 

Well yes, but if you really want to see it, I'd do that. You're fleet! [And that means protecting each other were you can and doing nice thing afterwards if you, to make someone better]

 

"It probably is in your universe," Ford replies. "There are people here from a dozen or more different universes. So I'm sorry that I've offended you, but I really don't know anything about your religion beyond what you tell me. Most of the people here who discuss Transformer society in depth and state an affiliation are members of the Decepticon faction, and I haven't heard Praxus mentioned before, nor do I know if you're even from the same Transformer universe as the rest of them. Where I live, mechanoid sapients exist only as characters in science fiction. That's why I sometimes find it very surprising to learn exactly how similar some of your societies are to some of ours. I wouldn't have thought that would happen. I would have expected people who were not made of organic matter and did not have to rely on sexual reproduction to be more..." He frowns, trying to find words. "More alien," he finally says.

 

[Shrug.] Is hard. Is useless unless it reads itself. Carving maybe, but typing doesn't work.

[Gigglechitters.] Yes! He sounds good.

[Shrug!] Doesn't matter!

People are people. Even tiny squishy same-shape people. [Very serious nodding.]

 

What the slag's supposed to be about reproduction about interface? Sparks come from hotspots and before that they're suns in other universes that Primus pulls to ours and gives molten metal crowns and cloaks so that divinity may walk the hallowed ground of Cybertron.
Interface's for emotional regulation and stress relief as well as bonding! But things like that need to happen on equal footing with everyone involved knowing what they're getting into and priests are supposed to be guides and caretakers for all of primus' children. You don't let the new-forgeds 'face around in the clergy just 'cause the temple's a place they feel safe at and where everyone's obligated to listen to their problems and you don't frag the mechs lookin' for charity when they offer, 'cause they feel they should repay you. That'd be glitched as pits. Priests are celibate so that entire venue isn't even up for discussion and we don't gotta re-explain every single time that no really, everyone is entitled to our service as priests, so it would be unethical to pursue relationships with anyone. Primus, this shouldn't actually be something I have to explain! Especially not since I'm not actually a priest anymore!
... Well not one of the dominant primal doctrine.

Ah I see. Carving is perfectly adequate for serving the purpose of documentation of course, technically even better suited than digital data storage, as it is less easy to corrupt. Though... I'm sure there must be devices with either raised or indented letters on the keyboard and a tactile reading device?

I'm very proud of him and I'm so glad he chose me.

I-... well I find it interesting to think about?

 

-agreeing chirp-

-shrug- Not sure? Ask him?

 

i smell cult

 

Ehhh... Wires is trying. Wires and Stream. But we don't have a lot to make things out of? And also Wires is a fixer, not a maker. And I have them to read for me anyway, so.

Why? Is old. Old-old. Before-the-Making old.

 

We got letters! -summon a keyboard with the keys set at the bottom if small cones, designed to guide claws into them with minimal fuss-

 

.... I could do that couldn't I. He's here after all.
Though I suppose if The Ground is a person there's no reason to expect him to always tell the truth. Even if he just wants to play a joke on me.

Insofar as you can call one mech trying to make people treat themselves and eachother with kindness and take care of their frames a cult? I publish my writing but I do not exactly expect people to see me as any kind of authority. That's rather the opposite of the point I want them to see themselves and their own desires as an authority.

It is good that you have people looking out for you.
[He gives a small, hard smile.] If we ever meet outside of here and I have materials or help I can offer be sure I will.

Well, I'm old too. I like old things.
[He laughs.]

Ah! Those look very helpful. My congratulations to the genius who designed these.

 

i mean s definitely a noble cause
but thats basically exactly what troll jesus did with my limited knowledge of that
and hes got one of the cultiest cults in here
could win cult competitions
miss brainwashed 2009
except i think not brainwashing was his whole deal and making a cult thats like WHAT IF WE TREATED PEOPLE DECENTLY is about one of the saddest goddamn things i ever did hear
that treating people decent is so fucken radical you gotta make some goddamn templar secret society meeting in a cave on the new moon shit

 

Ask nicely?

Are! We all did. -happy chirp-