Application for Re/Alignment

[chatterbot]

Player Information
*Name/Alias: Surge
*Your Journal: surgeprise
*Age: Over 16.
*Contact Information: HPlus Future (AIM) | surgeprisingly
*Characters already in the game: N/A

Character Information
*Character Name: Swerve
*Character Canon: IDW Transformers
*Age: He's a pre-war bot, so over 6 million.
*Race: Cybertronian
*Timeline/Pull Point: More Than Meets The Eye issue #8; During Rewind's movie night.

*History: Here's a wiki link to his page. I'm also summing it up here, because that page kinda sucks ass.

There isn't much known about what Swerve did before the war. He apparently went to some Academy (probably the Academy of Science and Technology) and he says he had some previous affiliation with Blurr. It's possible that he's lying and doesn't really know Blurr personally, and it's possible that he used his metallurgy skills to design alloys for racer models and knows Blurr through that. Either way, Swerve reveals that he and Blurr were planning on opening a bar before the war started. He was going to mix the drinks and Blurr was going to work on music after he retired from racing. Obviously that didn't work out as planned, so Blurr and Swerve allied themselves with the Autobots as a soldier and a scientist respectively.

BONUS: According to what he told Rewind when they were replacing rivets, he didn't always used to be as short as he is now, and it can be inferred his size is somehow related to a punishment he received in his past.

Prior to Cybertron becoming an uninhabitable piece of shit, Thunderwing contacted several scientists when he was looking for mechs to tell about the planet getting all fucked up due to the Decepticons and Autobots blowing the shit out of large chunks of it. Apparently that was bad for the planet. Who knew? There was a possibility that Swerve was one of those scientists, seeing as one of the floating holographic heads did look a bit like his and IDW designs are inconsistent as fuck. Either way, he obviously didn't pay any heed to Thunderwing, or shit might not have gone as pear-shaped as it did. Or maybe it would have gone worse? Wh_oooooooo^oooo Kn_oooooooo^ooooows?

During the war, Swerve was stationed on Kimia, a science platform where he worked as a metallurgist. His main job was probably inventing alloys to help the Autobots arm themselves and armor up. It's likely that he's well aware of the whole shitshow that was the Ironfist and Skyfall incident, since he was subscribed to Wreckers: Declassified. His term on Kimia ended when Galvatron and his forces invaded the station near the end of the war. Swerve was lucky enough to end up on an escape pod with a few other scientists, and later they were "rescued" by Arcee and Hardhead. Along with the rest of the other scientists, Swerve was briefed on the entire situation with the Heart of Darkness and actually seemed to grasp the concept pretty well. When Arcee offered the opportunity to abandon ship before they ended up in the thick of things, he bailed along with everyone else.

After the that plotline ended, Swerve found himself on a Cybertron that had been reborn in a hostile and primitive state. It's unknown what he did in the time gap between the end of war and the start of all the non-affiliated Cybertronians coming back, but rather than stay and put up with the political tension between them, the Autobots, and the remaining Decepticons, Swerve decided to take off with Rodimus on the Lost Light because he thought a quest would be nice.

Seriously.

That's it.

Shit started getting real when the ship's quantum generators (basically an FTL drive) malfunctioned and they jumped across an unknown distance, exploded a bit, and literally lost 40 Autobots to rapid decompression and had to find them scattered around on a planet.

Like Pokemon, but with critically injured crewmates.

The root of the problem turned out to be Ore, who stood too close to the generators when they jumped, causing him to be jammed into the engines and killed. While they were stranded on the planet, Swerve sold off half his rations off to Ratchet infinitely for the opportunity to tell recently revived Tailgate that he missed six million years of shit going down. After that, Swerve took him outside to stretch his legs and tried annoying him into showing off his alt mode. They met up with Chromedome and Rewind, then Skids (who everyone thought had been dead) arrived on the scene fighting a bunch of huge fucking robots. He won. Chromedome, Rewind, Tailgate and Swerve brought Skids back to the ship in time to hear a speech from Rodimus about how he totally had everything under control no really.

When Rodimus locks everyone up to deal with a Sparkeater, Skinds and Swerve decide to team-up. By 'team up', I mean Swerve poked him in the aft and got them lost while trying to find a habitation suite they could share. Since Swerve was the one leading them, they ended up finding a bar instead. Go figure. Skids had a little chat with Swerve about how being able to remember his life isn't everything, because it makes it easier for him to wing it. While Skids went off to have an adventure in the overly large vents on the Lost Light, Swerve confirmed that he's all talk and more swagger than walk by staying behind, having a pint, and waiting for it all to blow over.

After the Sparkeater incident was cleared up, he managed to get a fully functional illicit drinking den totally legitimate establishment up and running in between playing pranks on Red Alert like the most understanding friend ever. He gave Ratchet the world's tiniest drink, it broke because Ratchet's hands were fucked up at this point, so he got the medic a comically over-sized mug instead. They had a quaint little nerd moment where it's revealed that Swerve wasn't the only one in their conversation who's had Wreckers: Declassified beamed into his brain, and then Ratchet fucked off to Delphi to go have an adventure.

After the incident at Delphi, the LL picked up Ambulon, First Aid, and Fortress Maximu. The latter went a little batshit since he was suffering from PTSD brought on by being tortured for 3 years by Overlord in Garrus-9. He snapped after being reminded that the Autobots had a duty of care towards him. To him, duty of care meant he got to make everyone go back to Cybertron so he could beat the ever-loving shit out of Prowl. He shot 6 mechs that looked like Overlord (barely) and locked himself Rung's office with Whirl and (duh) Rung.

During the hostage situation, Whirl waxed poetic about his past and Max pulled off Rung's thumb. Rodimus decided it was an awesome idea to get two non-combatants to try and shoot Fort Max through a window. After Rewind distracted him with a movie of his own graphic dismemberment, Max flipped a shit and froze up. After some prompting (read: Rodimus yelling at him a lot) Swerve took the shot because of said prompting and also for dumb reasons described in the Personality section. He accidentally blew Rung's head off, and put him in a coma. Skids ended up accompanying him to see his handiwork and drop off one of the psychiatrist's model ships. He was noticeably horrified by what he'd done, and disgusted with himself for doing it at all.

Eventually, after Tailgate got his shit together and passed his test for a preliminary Autobot badge, Swerve went to find Red Alert so they could attend the ball ceremony. It's implied that he'd been doing a decent amount of drinking after the Fort Max incident. Instead, he ended up in the engine room for the entirety of the Annual, talking to Ore, who was alive due to metrotitan shenanigans, while everyone else went off to have an adventure in Crystal City (except for Magnus who went to go get bribed by the Galactic Council).

Noticing a trend yet?

They went through a series of subjects mainly pertaining to why Swerve does the things he does (because he's a selfish idiot sometimes), why he's there (because he craves excitement and something to do), what the meaning of peace is (freedom to choose your own way in life) and whether or not Primus exists (maybe). Eventually, Rodimus ordered him to tell Ore that he was dead, hoping it would shock Ore into jumping the Lost Light away from the Galactic Council ship ready to ruin their shit because of a misunderstanding. Since someone ended up in a coma the last time he took orders like that from Rodimus, Swerve refused to take that risk again, told him so, and then hung up.

He got away with the back talk, because what is Rodimus going to do? Shame him for being right?

But yeah, they all got out of there fine, and Swerve had re-cap time with Rung's comatose body.

And then this happened.

*Personality:

It's never really been explained why people tolerate Swerve, aside from the fact that he was on Kimia for most of the war and that place was mostly full of mad scientists, as well as Perceptor and Jetfire. When you spend your days interacting with mechs who do not function at all on a normal level, it's not like they can call you out for being annoying when they're weird too. Y'know, like Brainstorm.

Swerve is chatty to a level bordering on ridiculous and doesn't mind interrupting every once in a while to tell a good story. In fact, the only times he's ever shut up is when he's listening to the story being told in More Than Meets the Eye #9, and when he saw the Decepticon Justice Division in action and was too traumatized to speak for six months. Compared to all the horrible stuff that's happened in the war, half a year of not speaking was apparently the worst thing that's ever happened to him personally, not including the whole accidentally shooting the one 'bot everyone likes thing. He doesn't have a problem with smiling and actually having a cheerful attitude, which is a bit of a rarity, and he tends to keep up the optimism even when shit goes south.

He doesn't have a problem joking about other 'bots either to their faces or behind their backs, but it's never anything too negative and it isn't sincere either. He's constantly making jokes and sometimes pulling pranks on others, even when the situation is a bit dim, but he does know where to draw the line sometimes. While he wouldn't go joking about people getting shot or dying, it's implied that he's not very tactful, seeing as Brainstorm has to remind him that no one should mention Jihaxus to Arcee even as a joke. He's also been known to gossip, and though he tells Rewind he's capable of keeping secrets, Chromedome once said that if anyone tells Swerve anything, it's a fair bet he'll inform whoever he think needs to know. Which is everyone.

His light-hearted nature and his non-combatant status help him come off as pretty harmless, and that's not a ruse either, because he really is harmless. He hasn't been shown getting angry to the level of most 'bots in the series, and while he's capable of being upset or annoyed at someone, he never reaches the levels of rage that others snap to pretty easily. He is not, for instance, the kind of bot who would flip a table over someone leaving. The only time we see him anywhere near angry, it's directed at himself for the reason he took the shot at Rung, and it's sort of a cold and detached sort of disappointment in himself. Nothing like a little self-loathing to make everything better.

Swerve has the tendency to talk a big game about how he likes to go on quests and adventures. For a guy who's a scientist, he tends not to think through what he's doing too much, which results in a bit of an 'oh fuck' moment when the reality of the situation hits. The thing about it is that he's a non-combatant and he's not very aggressive or antagonistic. He's not equip for dealing with danger in any way, and his main weapon is his rapier wit. He likes adventures and quests because he gets to go places and do things and unravel mysteries. Since he's not in it for the danger, he rarely thinks about it, and because he doesn't really think about it, he doesn't really prepare for it. He likes the idea of questing because it gives him something to do and he's not the kind of mech who can stand around being idle all the time.

Unsurprisingly, someone who was friends with Blurr before the war does have a habit of making selfish decisions, though Swerve's usually turn out better for other people. (Key word here is usually, not always.) He starts his bar without formal permission out of a desire to live out a pre-war dream he kept hold of for six million years even though he claims to think it was a stupid. The reason he takes the shot when Rodimus orders him to is because he'd have a better chance of re-opening said bar if he was on Rodimus' good side, and when he shoots Rung accidentally he had to come face to face with how terrible his decision was and how he's probably scum because of it.

Talking with a revived Ore in the Annual while pretending to be Pipes actually helped him re-evaluate his view not just on the course of action he took, but on what to do after the war as well. He realizes that peace and happiness aren't the same thing, and that the real upside to peace is the freedom to choose what to make with your life. While he still feels horrible for what he did to Rung, he's aware that he'd be a much worse person if he felt nothing. It gets to the point where he refuses to follow Rodimus' orders to tell Ore he's dead because the shock might kill him or drive him insane, and he doesn't want to be responsible for hurting anyone else.

And since we're already getting into sadness and character depth, let's keep on that track.

Swerve is described as everyone's friend and no one's best friend, which is kind of pathetic if you think about it. He's got a funny and cheeky demeanor up at all times, so no one really takes him seriously because his ability to socialize is seemingly limited to the kind of banter you'd assign to an acquaintance. No one bothers to see if he can be a deeper person, and he isn't sure if he wants them to because that means opening himself up to people and he isn't sure how okay with that he is. Hell, in the Annual he spends his entire time on the ship talking to a dead duobot crammed into a wall while pretending to be another person, and the reason he's okay with spilling the beans to Ore is because it's not like Ore can go and tell anyone. He knows that he's got a reputation as the gregarious prankster, but by the time he's being finished talking with Ore, he's conflicted about whether or not he still wants it. He wants a friend he can confide in, he's just not sure how one goes about actually having one of those anymore.

*Powers/Abilities:
Swerve has the standard cybertronian powers of being a giant robot who can crush things that are human-sized pretty easily, excluding military hardware of course. Considering he's Swerve though, it's unlikely that he will ever do this (on purpose). On the other hand, in a species of giant transforming alien robots, he's actually pretty small, and a non-combatant at that, so his aft can be easily kicked by any other cybertronian bigger than him and some who are just more skilled. While he went into an Academy pre-war, it was probably the Academy of Science and Technology, so he doesn't have any hands on combat experience. He can't fight hand to hand, and he straight out admits that he isn't the best shot with a gun. This is proven correct when he managed to blow Rung's head off with a rivet gun trying to hit Fortress Maximus, who is just massive.

Swerve has been identified in canon as a metallurgist, which means that not only is he a scientist (no really) but he is apparently a damn good one, seeing as he was stationed on Kimia along with the likes of Perceptor, Brainstorm and Ironfist, all of whom are/were excellent in their respective fields. Considering Ratchet asks Swerve to carbon date Tailgate when they first find him, he's apparently capable of figuring out something's age just based on the make-up of the metal. There's also a good chance he can do some armor repair and metalwork as well, as evidenced when Tailgate says metallurgists were called skin specialists before the war. Swerve's main skill is simply inventing the alloys though, and it's likely that his entire job there mostly revolved around discovering new ones that could be used to build weapons and upgrade the armor of those actively fighting in the war. If IDW’s flirtations with G1 have anything to say on it, he's probably got crazy-awesome sensor hands and terrible driving skills, but that's neither here nor there.

According to Swerve, he and Blurr were planning on opening a bar on Cybertron whenever Blurr retired, and because of that Swerve learned how to operate an Engex distillery. He good at mixing drinks, knows his way around a basic serving drone, and is generally savvy enough run a functional speakeasy establishment.

*Inventory: Bag of energon chips (or whatever the hell it was he was eating during movie night)

*Starting Polarity: No Preference.

If AU, how does your character differ from canon?: (Non AU apps may ignore this question. CRAUs and OAUs should get in to specifics here regarding what changes there are from their character's original canon. We'll need at least a paragraph explaining details.)

Writing Samples
*First Person Sample:

[Swerve looks pretty confused when his feed pops up on the Link, but to anyone who knows him, this isn't exactly new. He does perk up pretty quickly though, which again, isn't all that surprising. Swerve is pretty good at looking like he's perpetually in a good mood.]

You know, I kind of thought we'd crashed through some kind of portal at first, 'cause this looks a lot like Cybertron. So I was thinking maybe there was some kind of massive twist on the way and the Knights of Cybertron were actually on Cybertron the whole time, but it was an alternate version of Cybertron and the quest was actually supposed to teach us a lesson about perseverance and friendship.

But then some mech who was with me when I came out of recharge explained most of the actual situation to me. Kind of a disappointment, really.

[Though, if he thinks about it, this is actually pretty good. If there was a test on how everyone on the Lost Light was best friends, they would have failed it pretty quick. Because they're them.]

But, uh, just a note here? Waking up to someone who was watching you during recharge just to explain all this? Actually pretty creepy. So... might wanna get management on that.

*Third Person Sample:
Swerve looks at the pale blue mixture with a little more trepidation than he's used to feeling when he bartends. This is something else he knows he's good at, outside of metallurgy. It's something he can do to help the crew unwind. They tend to need some place to relax, seeing as they almost die every other cycle. As far as he knows, the Lost Light doesn't have any thing he can really use to craft alloys and forge them into plating and it wouldn't be a very good idea to have those facilities on an craft that crashes more than it flies.

So he bartends.

The thing is... Everything's been off since Rung went into his coma, and he's not really any sort of exception to the rule. If anything, the fact that he's the one who pulled the trigger has made it worse. He leans on the taps a little too long and mixes the engex in odd quantities because his mind is busy elsewhere. He knows he isn't good at a lot of thing. Bartending and metallurgy are his only real talents, but apparently his processor has made it a goal to make reminiscing about his mistakes another of his talents. To be fair, he's been around for more than six million years. Mistakes have piled up while he's been neglecting to remember them in favor of trying to be happy.

Still, he's not quite sure what went wrong with this particular drink experiment. As far as he checked, he mixed everything right this time around. Swerve has a feeling that this is going to taste horrible the moment he puts it up to his mouth, but slams it back anyway. A bad taste is always worth it if someone gets drunk fast enough, and these days he doesn't have much of a reason to be sober when no one is watching. Synthing drinks is similar to science anyway, in that they both rely on trial and error to get something good.

It hits smoothly at first before sizzling on his glossa. He can feel it start to burn a bit before his taste sensors wink out one by one. He's left with what he is sure is the sensation of acid burned metal.

Ratchet will not be pleased.

Swerve pulls the glass away from his mouth and stares at the remaining liquid like it's the worst thing he's ever made. Since it probably is and doesn't even make a good story, he's not planning on telling anyone about it. He stands up and paces around the thankfully empty bar for a while, waiting for some sort of effect. He's not disappointed when a pleasant buzz starts making it's way through his systems. It's nothing worth frying his sensors and enduring a lecture from Ratchet for though. He makes a mental checklist in his processor.

Tastes awful: ✓
Destructive: ✓
Not something to be proud of: ✓

"I guess I should call it The Swerve, then."

Final Notes: