wippity

[driftingkaleidoscope]

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Lambency
AGE: 18+
JOURNAL: obscuredtempest
IM / EMAIL: lambencyRP@gmail.com
PLURK: effervescentemperor
RETURNING: nuh

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Drift of Rodion
CHARACTER AGE: like 5M...ish
SERIES: Transformers
CHRONOLOGY: Post-successful jump
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING:

BACKGROUND: Like any world, like any city, Rodion on Cybertron had its back-alleys. It didn't keep all its people safe, because not all of them met certain... standards. Drift was one of them. Among the guttertrash of Rodion's Dead End, Drift survived... somehow. He'll tell you sordid details in the right mindset but it's hard to know what's true and what's embellishment, but the absolute truth is it was through escape. Escape that, after a while, led to the point of suicide attempt through overdose, but that wasn't terribly successful thanks to a do-gooder cop and an off-the-record clinic.

So Drift found himself after that still a mess but at least not on the verge of shutdown. He was found after that by a mech named Gasket who brought him into a little group of survivours just trying to get by as best they could. And that was better, that was good for a while. Until Gasket tried to talk a couple of not-so-good cops down from abusing someone and due to mishap wound up shot for his efforts. Drift reacted, and it set him on a very different path from survival. A path of violence, serving the Senate that abandoned him.

It was good money, at least, and he made more than he knew what to do with after a while, hunting bounties for the government. But a poet-turned-gladiator caught his attention, and Drift joined the Decepticons. He was renamed "Deadlock" and he went on to make quite the name for himself, feeling something like belonging, something like standing for what he could actually believe in.

...But in the end, it wasn't enough. After a failed mutiny attempt against the 'Con he was stationed under, Deadlock escaped into space only to crash land on another planet, where his perspective took another very, very sharp veer. Instead of violence, this lesson was in compassion. Instead of a murderer, Deadlock took back his old name and learned what it meant to protect because of someone who took the time to help him, once again. Someone he, once again, lost. Still, he would keep Wing with him in the form of his Great Sword, a weapon carrying the energy of one's own spark, and Drift left that world to continue Wing's efforts of helping those in need.

It was through this he met a group of Autobots, the Wreckers, and he stuck with them for a time, finding... maybe not a family, but a group he could trust. There would be more meetings, travelling, and then everyone wound up stuck in the ruins of Cybertron thanks to a misguided plan.

Drift very pointedly spent much of that time avoiding the medic who'd saved him back in the Dead End. Who was there. Who'd asked about him before they were tossed back to Cybertron. Who'd remembered him. Nope, not having anything to do with that, nope, that's not guilt you're just confused!

(hint: it was shame, not guilt)

But all this somehow... works out. Because one of the Autobots who'd recently joined up with the Wreckers? His name was Rodimus. He and Drift seemed to get on quickly and well, Drift bought him a space ship (that money he made aaaall that way back was still good, though he does not like talking about where it came from) so they could go on an Incredible Journey, and hey! The war was over at that point. Time for something new to do, right? They were going to find the Knights of Cybertron! Hell yeah!

...fool's errand, by the way, but it's a ship run by a fool so it works. A fool Drift steadfastly believed in. Or... well, more complicated than that: he'd seen a vision prompting him to stick around. Rodimus would lead a quest, but he had to remain at the helm. Why? Because if he didn't... a lot of people were going to die.

Turns out! It turns out, that's not quite how it was going to go? But Drift wasn't there to see that one happen. Why? Because he'd been exiled from the ship. He believed so fully in his vision (or maybe he was just very afraid of it) that he took the fall for something that was reeeaaaally more Rodimus' fault. Good few reasons to be afraid, though, and a few more to go with the fall.

One: anything Rodimus wanted, Drift fulfilled. Their relationship was uneven and might have slanted towards manipulative if not abuse-of-power, but Drift was more or less in Rodimus' thrall and might not have noticed (he probably did; there was a lot to lose if he wasn't what people demanded he be).
Two: Drift had friends on the ship—not many, but some who... saw him as more than an ex-Decepticon.
Three: he'd seen these people dead in his vision. He wanted nothing to do with that coming to pass and he would do whatever it took to prevent it.
Four: ...yeah, he wasn't very popular; see "ex-Con". It took no time for the crew to rally against him as soon as he was pronounced exiled. Only one person bothered to reach out to him in all that.

Remember the medic? His name's Ratchet. Autobot Chief Medical Officer Ratchet, full title. Dude's not smallfry, and he's about as important to Drift.

They weren't close, not really, but they had a sort of... pick-on-you, pick-on-me, bitch-sass sort of relationship. They weren't really friends. Just... normal, after a point. Something the other grew used to. Drift remembered as clearly as could be done by someone coming out of a suicide-by-OD attempt the entire meeting all these... millennia later. And so did Ratchet. And, before the exile, Drift had risked dying for him. Not just because he'd done something stupid (he had) but because it pushed a virus through his systems that was corroding him from the inside out.

So maybe while Drift was exiled and doing everything he could to try and do better for the universe on a sort of personal quest to convince himself he was worth anything despite having stability (even if imperfect) and a place he could (barely) belong ripped out from under him, maybe the medic went after him. Maybe he realized how much and how he missed the shithead. Maybe they had an adventure of their own that might or might not have included Drift being daft enough to think playing dead would work on anyone and then exposed the ruse by talking (which, honestly, was probably on purpose because he's actually smarter than that).

Maybe they came back forever later closer than before. All because Drift had another stinkin' vision about the crew. So Drift returns with medic in tow, to save people's backsides—and the crew's grown and changed a bit and there was a mutiny and really, just an absolute mess.

Drift and Rodimus have half of a heart-to-heart where... eeeh, they sort of make up. Drift acts like they have, at least. Battles and mutinies and dimension-hopping (by the way, that's part of the explanation for the first vision at least), gods are real—wait, what. Drift also nearly dies...? And is saved by probably the last person he'd expect, but sometimes these things happen, sometimes you're a poet and a miner and a gladiator and a warlord and eventually a medic and you save one of the idiots who served you through some radical medical procedure when the other two medics present (not Ratchet, Ratchet's stuck with the god who shot Drift on another ship) declare him a lost cause!

That's gonna need some talking about, but it doesn't happen. Gods are real, and The God is the crew's therapist. Funny, that.

Enormous epic battle that includes a battlefield confession between Drift and Ratchet! And... then it's all very quiet. And no one quite remembers the therapist anymore. Did they have one? Well, there's an unused office that still has a whole collection of model ships in it, and it's covered in dust. Huh. But, well, rather than immediately turn in with a brand new (displaced!) Cybertron available? Rodimus talks authorities (one (1) jackass, who also happened to be responsible for the thing that Rodimus did that got Drift exiled, war is bad) into letting them have one more romp around the universe before he has to turn his ship in.

And then they break reality.

Well, they do a quantum jump, just in case it works out.

And it does.


PERSONALITY: On the surface, Drift is almost aloof with the degree of composure and discipline he carries himself with, pretty much the picture of "zen". He's a knight, after all, and endeavours to conduct himself as such. Or... Yeah, tries to, at least. Beneath that is an awful tangle of emotional responses, snagging hard on his temper with just the wrong kind of pressure applied. He hates it, does everything he can to bury that part of himself—the part of himself he associates with a lack of control, with his time as a hired gun for a government that wanted his violence and as Decepticon with a well-deserved reputation. He doesn't want to be that person anymore, wants to move beyond that, so he strives to be *anyone else*.

...To the point of lying.

Drift wears masks rather than honesty, is whoever or whatever is least offensive or what's expected of him. The disciplined knight is one of those masks. Make no mistake, though: he *is* disciplined, much of this is real, but that mask is still smothering in ways. The other mask he's worn is that of an enthusiastic hippie, more or less. Like his discipline, this isn't far off from the truth, but it's certainly played up to make him seem more harmless. His beliefs are very real, but maybe some of the approaches and the ways he interacts with it under this mask are a little... over the top. He plays the yes-man, is what people want him to be so he can be seen as worth keeping—as useful.

Drift is a mess, frankly, but there are those who get to see past those favoured masks once they manage to dig in deep enough. He's far more likely to hold others at an arm's length than to let them in close. He's a terrible person, you see, no matter how he works at it. To the point he allows what amounts to abuse to serve as a common occurence in a so-called "friendship" (things are... complicated with Rodimus, but improving? Maybe?), but he has rationale for that: see, he had a vision—which he very earnestly believes—about Rodimus needing to be captain of their ship and... Basically reasoned away why he'd put up with what gets thrown at him. If something says he should, he will absolutely sacrifice himself to make sure it happens. That isn't to say he doesn't resent it. He isn't good at communicating that, or even speaking up for himself; it takes an exile and a not insignificant amount of (controlled) anger to do it, and even that deflates after a while. Why? Because he wants to see the reasoning and the potential and the positive in others. A bit hypocritical if he wants them to see the positive in him if he denies it in them, right?

Still, the grip on those masks is loosening and he's a little more... settled in himself. Things are easier, or maybe the tension and pressure of a potentially-universe-ending event changes one's perspective on things. Or maybe finding someone who balances him in the way he needs and loves him in spite of it helps. It's probably that one, really. Someone who's seen him at his absolute lowest and puts up with his shit but can still also knock him back on track when he needs it.

But under the masks, in spite of his own imbalances and efforts and attempts to be so much more than a battlefield monster, Drift wants to protect. A lot of his anger and violence is founded on the fact that he couldn't protect someone—Gasket, who helped him while they were all stuck in the gutters, himself... Even Wing's death triggers a surge in violence in spite of the training he'd been put through with the Circle of Light. His first response is almost always to protect, and maybe that's because he hates the thought of anyone being hurt at all. Even if Ratchet can keep himself safe, Drift sticks close by on the battlefield to make sure of it. Rodimus gets grabbed and Drift's immediately threatening if he's been hurt in the slightest. Even before their crazy mission out into space to look for something that doesn't exist (not the way they've all been taught it does, anyway), Drift runs back through an enemy ship to rescue one of the Wreckers who'd infiltrated separately from him. Everyone deserves safety and shelter.

It's also pretty important to note, too, that Drift has a joker side to him. It's in the shape of sarcasm and selling things as well as he can. He will make you believe the shit he spouts and just smile when it starts to dawn that maybe he's full of it. It doesn't always sound nice in certain cases, though, but that's because he and Ratchet have a sort of... understanding. And know not to take each other seriously. Not that any of this is helpful when it comes to Drift needing to face things head on, but...

...it does kind of lead into the fact that he's not so great at admitting when he needs help for real. To himself or to anyone. He needs to atone. He needs to be better, and he can't drag anyone down with him. It's a struggle he's not done dealing with but he's mostly got sorted out—assuming he has the right help around. It's a process, it all is, and that's really to be expected after a few millions years of war and originally coming from an environment where admitting weakness could prove a death sentence.

POWER:
Human/Cybertronian form—typical Transformers thing, can turn into a car and be a 20ish feet tall robot, basic stuff. Human, he's... probably got nothin' going for him outside of his swords, but his skill's diminished by virtue of not being familiar with that body yet.

Sixth Sense— Largely it's the ability to read auras and receive visions (from the therapist he should have been seeing Primus). His visions in canon are for major events, and he only has three over the course of almost 100 issues. Mostly in it for the aura reading. While I would like him to be able to use this as a human, I'm alright if he can't.

Subspace— Personal storage. Only as a giant robot, though, and with limited space.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

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