DVD commentary meme: Tentacle Envy

[caiusbackup]

ultharkitty asked for commentary on Tentacle Envy.

I'm doing this one before "Serendipity" because I wrote it earlier, and there's a fair bit of overlap in commentary on the two Daniel Witwicky fics.

I'd been plotting out fic/meta on Daniel Witwicky, Boy Raised By Aliens basically since I first saw TFTM/Season 3. This is my first actual venture into it. There are tentacles.

The first fic I write specifically for the tentacle comm, and of course it's total genfic!

So, there was a new tentacle comm (tentaclesociety, ergo tentacle fic. Tentacle genfic. About Daniel Witwicky. :D

I'm not entirely sure where the idea came from, except that I'm pretty sure somewhere in a chat discussion, the observation was made that Daniel wishes he had tentacles, and it all went from there.

Somewhat later on, the observation was made that there's a lot about genetilia in this genfic. Perhaps that's why people like it. :D

Title: Tentacle Envy
Rating: G (there's discussion of private parts, but I can't really rate a six-year-old being six any higher!)

Ratings are weird. It doesn't make any sense to rate it PG for toilet humor...

Characters: Daniel Witwicky, Wheeljack, Hot Rod, Sparkplug
Universe: G1, six years pre-movie

Apparently Daniel is 12 in TFTM.

Summary: Daniel wants tentacles!
Note: Thanks to femme4jack for six-year-old boy beta.

I don't know a lot about children, really, and I wasn't sure if I had Daniel right for the age I made him. femme4jack has a six-year-old boy, so she helped me out there. :D

"I want tentacles!" Daniel Witwicky, six years old, burst into the laboratory, half in tears.

Wheeljack hastily disconnected his current project from all power sources. They'd never quite managed to childproof--or for that matter, human-proof--the lab, but the Prime had been quite clear on the need for safety procedures.

Too bad Wheeljack never did a PSA on lab safety.

Come to think of it, why had the door been unlocked?

And what would be necessary to build the child tentacles? He turned around and started working on blueprints.

Wheeljack, more than any other G1 Autobot, can be counted on to look at this as an interesting engineering project, not an ethical issue. :D

And then there was a small body clinging to his leg. "Uncle 'Jack! Make me tentacles! Please?"

"I'll see what I can do..." He glanced down at Daniel, looking for possible attachment points. "Do you want fleshy tentacles, or ones like we have?"

"Ones like you!" Daniel said. "I want tentacles just like Hot Rod's!"

Hot Rod is COOL.

Hot Rod--Wheeljack tried to remember where he knew the name from, and what his tentacles were like. Come to think of it, where had Daniel learned about the tentacles? Sparkplug had made them go through a whole lecture on what you Don't Tell Human Children, and tentacles had definitely been on the list. Because of them being analogous to human reproductive machinery, which was--and all the memos and lectures on this subject had never really explained why--taboo in their society.

There were SO many memos. And lectures. And explanations. And diplomatic incidents. Poor Sparkplug. Poor, confused Autobots. :D

Oh, and nothing untoward was happening between Hot Rod and Daniel--either they were bathing (or possibly peeing) together, or they were doing a 'you show me mine, I'll show you yours'. Like the little kids they are.


....Technically, no, Hot Rod's not a little kid, but effectively!

Ah! He remembered now. Hot Rod was the magenta-and-orange sports car. The one who was just running into the lab after Daniel.

"Daniel! You're not supposed to be in here!" Hot Rod's larger size didn't allow him to navigate the hazards of the lab as easily, and he stumbled over several half-built projects before reaching Wheeljack and Daniel. "Danny...!" He crouched down. "C'mon, we'll go driving, 'k?"

Of course Hot Rod is more of a lab hazard than Daniel, even when Daniel is six.

"Don't wanna go driving. Want tentacles." Daniel crossed his arms, and Hot Rod stared at him with the helplessness of an Autobot faced with someone small and delicate and utterly intractable.

Human! You can't just squish them.

"I'm, um, sorry, Wheeljack?" Hot Rod attempted. "I know we're not supposed to be here, I didn't realize he'd react like that...!"

"No, not at all," Wheeljack waved a hand with a stylus in it. "It's a really interesting project...somewhat outside my area of expertise, of course, but a fascinating technology...!"

"So you'll make me tentacles?!" Daniel said.

"Of course--!"

"...What's going on in here?" Sparkplug walked in from the next room, leaning rather heavily on the furniture. He'd refused all of their attempts to build him cybernetic replacements for his aging parts. "Daniel?"

Sparkplug, the Responsible Adult, called to the scene by his magical grandfather powers.

In my headcanon, Sparkplug dies before TFTM. He's lived a long and strenuous life, but (unlike Daniel) he's clinging to his humanity to the end.

"Wheeljack is going to make me tentacles!" Daniel said, excitedly.

Sparkplug gave both Wheeljack and Hot Rod a Look.

Sparkplug is really good at Looks.

"Um," Hot Rod said. "We were just leaving, really, I know we're not supposed to be in here!"

"Never mind that for now." Sparkplug looked down at Daniel; these days, he couldn't get down to the child's level any more than Hot Rod could. "Danny--you're a human, like your parents, like me. And it's a fine thing to be."

"...But I want tentacles!" Daniel pouted.

Aw, poor Sparkplug, trying to explain the value of humanity to a kid who just wants the cool toys the big kids have.

"You know what your parents say about that." Sparkplug levered himself over to a human-sized chair and sat down slowly, looking Daniel in the eye.

"They didn't say anything about tentacles!" Daniel said. "Roddy has awesome ones, show Grandpa, Roddy!"

"But they didn't say I couldn't get a flamethrower!"

Hot Rod just looked nervous. Wheeljack's mind wandered, back to the mechanics of integrating new parts into a human body. They'd done work on it before, with Chip, and then for the improvements Sparkplug refused to let them make, but never for quite this, and not on a kid.

Chip doesn't have the same inhibitions about enhancements Sparkplug does. Someone should write a fic about that. Or about Wheeljack trying to save Sparkplug from old age...

"You know what they said about wheels, Daniel." Sparkplug said, sternly. "And wings. And a trailer of your own."

...and, yes, they've been having versions of this conversation since Daniel could first talk.

Daniel pouted. "Not until you're older. I know. You won't even let me have a jetpack!"

"It's 1999 and WHERE'S MY JETPACK?"

"You're still growing, Daniel. Try to become a man before making yourself into a machine." He reached out his arms for his grandson, but the boy clung to Wheeljack instead.

"I'm not going to be a man! I'm going to grow up to be an Autobot. Like Roddy!" Daniel crossed his arms. "You'll see!"

Daniel doesn't really think of himself as human. More on that in Serendipity

Sparkplug sighed, and shook his head. "Give it a try, Daniel. Try being human, for your Mom and Dad and me?"

Daniel looked down. "And where are Mom and Dad? Off with the robots, right?"

I'm sure the writers didn't intend to write Daniel as a horribly neglected child, but that was certainly the effect.

"They both have important jobs, but it doesn't mean they don't love you just the way you are." Sparkplug glanced up at Wheeljack for a moment, helplessly.

Wheeljack was trying to figure out a way of hooking up tentacles to the human spinal cord, but he broke off to look back at his old friend. His very old friend. "I love you as a human, too, Danny."

See, Wheeljack does have social skills! Just not judgment.

"Me too!" Hot Rod said. "And I thought your penis was totally cool."

Autobots think humans are awesome. It's part of their programming. Also, penises are exotic when you're a non-sticky Transformer.

Wheeljack smothered a snort at the human etiquette violation--clearly Hot Rod had missed that memo. Sparkplug just sighed.

Hot Rod doesn't do memos, and he skipped the lecture to go driving.

Daniel loosened his grip on Wheeljack's leg. "Really? But it's so tiny and I can't move it at all without holding it."

"But you can make water come out of it! I can't do that." Hot Rod reached out a hand for Daniel. "C'mon, let's see if you can write your name with that thing!"

Sparkplug sighed. "Just don't do it out front, boys."

"I still want tentacles," Daniel muttered, but he climbed into Hot Rod's hand easily enough and seemed resigned to his human plumbing.

Hot Rod is the coolest babysitter ever and he made Daniel happier about his penis than Sparkplug ever could.

Sparkplug just isn't cool enough.

Wheeljack looked back at his blueprints. Maybe he could make tentacles that could release fluid? Something like the attachments Ironhide had...

And then Wheeljack made Kiss Players by mistake.

Sparkplug sighed. "Sometimes I worry about that boy."

"Hmm, do you think from the hips, or maybe the shoulders?" Wheeljack made some adjustments to the design.

"Not until he's eighteen, you don't." Sparkplug snapped. "Don't you have work to be doing?"

Aw, they're so cute together. And going to be dead so soon. :(

"...Right, right, the cybernetic ballista!" Wheeljack turned back to the equipment he'd hastily stowed away earlier. Now where was he?

And Wheeljack went back to making something that blows up and they all lived happily ever after.

Comments

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

I'm laughing so hard that I'm crying. Your DVD commentaries are way funnier than mine are.

I forgot how hilarious and perfect this story is. And now I have this image of Hot Rod and Daniel taking a bath together and comparing various appendages, and it is totally innocent because they are both such little kids. Otherwise, he'd sound like such a pervy sicko, but he isn't, because he is 6, just like Daniel, at least at spark.

I'm working on the Chip story - subplot in one of my long fics, and I'm pretty sure I've read the Sparkplug refusing one, too, just can't remember where *will go look*

[caiusmajor.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I think this is the funniest DVD commentary I've ever written, somehow this fic was good material for jokes. I'm glad you enjoyed them too.

Hot Rod is tooootally six. As much as I'm perfectly happy to have him slutting around in other contexts, he relates to Daniel like they're both little kids.

Cool! I don't read a lot of S1/S2 Autobot fic, but I'm glad to know you're tackling the Chip idea, and that someone's giving Sparkplug some attention.

(Which of your long fic? Can't promise I'll get to it, I'm terrible at reading long fic, but it'd be good to know where to look.)

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

Arranged by the Stars, which is my "the Matrix is engaging in arranged sparkbonding" long ProwlxJazz story. I really imagine it may not appeal to you at all, to be honest, if I'm recalling some of your fic preferences correctly, but the present day timeline does have one chapter dealing with Chip's disability and how they are handling upgrades, and I plan on doing more with it in future chapters.

But I'd actually like to write a totally Chip-centric fic because he is one of my favorite underutilized canon characters. I really like him.

[caiusmajor.livejournal.com]

Cool! And, yeah, the fic doesn't really sound like my thing, but I might go check out the Chip chapter anyway.

And I fully encourage more Chip-fic!

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

ROFL!

'Not until he's eighteen' makes it sound equivalent to getting a piercing or a tattoo :P

And now I want Wheeljack and Sparkplug to fake their own deaths and go off on an epic roadtrip together. In the sunset with them, damnit!

(And I still want tentacles. Danny, I feel your pain.)

[caiusmajor.livejournal.com]

Well, it is, more or less! Same idea--no bodymods until you're old enough to understand what you're doing. And physically mature, as well. Just a slightly more technologically advanced form of body modification.

YES TOTALLY. That roadtrip would be EPIC.

(Tentacles are awesome. Everyone should be able to have them!)