#while cybertronians don’t have the same learning process

[keferon]

Just want to say, love your mimick au. I only found it like, an hour ago and I've devoured everything in the tag and I'm planning to do the same to the spellbound and monster hunter aus.

That said, in one of the mimick fanfics, Orion tells Prowl to leave him alone and to find a hobby, but a comic that (presumably) happens after this conversation when Orion meets Jazz, Orion seems to be back to working with Prowl. I thought the whole "leave me alone" order would go on infinitely because Orion didn't seem to have his goal locked down and he also never specified when to come back. So how did they return to working together? Did Orion find Prowl post-meltdown, or was it Prowl who just set an arbitrary amount of time before going back to Orion and going "so, how do you feel about defying god?" I just find Orion and Prowl's relationship so interesting in this au, simply because of how Orion doesn't seem to apply his morals about freedom and coexistence to Prowl despite the fact he's the one who points out that Prowl didn't include himself in his calculations, but at the same time, if he doesn't recognize Prowl's autonomy and only sees him as a tool (chatGPT style), he would have to accept that he's the one responsible for Prowl's actions because he's the one using him. But also also, Prowl encourages him to not take responsibility for all the immoral actions (like killing monsters to keep the Council's favor), which I think Orion does take up, but that would indirectly be accepting Prowl as a individual capable of making his own decisions, you know? It also the fact that Orion and Prowl both have different (and somewhat incompatible) ways of communicating. I was thinking when Orion asked Prowl to what he'd do to make the most amount of mechs happy, Prowl understood it literally: the majority of the population are non-monsters, so statistically, he'd focus on making non-monsters happy. But Orion doesn't want to make most mechs happy; he wants a diverse and equitable society, and that doesn't necessarily lead to happiness, especially in transition phases. Even in the academy, monsters are learning to compromise to live in a non-monster society; compromises are about restriction, which often aren't a source of happiness. But Orion equates that vision to happiness, and probably gets a bad impression of Prowl given "free reign" from his answer. It's great, it's so juicy.

And contrasts so well with how Prowl and Jazz interact and communicate with each other. Like how Prowl makes an attempt to learn hand language for Jazz in the same way he attempts to comfort Orion post-Shockwave demonification. But unlike Orion who has "Prowl is not alive" at the core of their dynamic, Jazz doesn't know and sees Prowl's attempt to learn as a genuine attempt to understand/communicate. You can argue that Prowl is just "programmed" to try and get more information and it's just efficient to ensure Jazz doesn't get carpal tunnel while working together, but you can also argue that we're all programmed to do that as well; small talk or bids for attention are behaviors/actions to build connection through information exchange that we are trained to do from formative years and general society. Which is to say, even if Prowl learns and tries to accommodate Jazz for mission purposes, it doesn't negate the fact that he is investing effort into communicating and building the foundation for a meaningful connection in the same way other people do. It's great, I'm having a blast with the whole AU.

Orion despite being afraid to continue his mission still has responsibilities in his Order so him and Prowl. Yeah hahah they just keep working together but purely on their usual legal tasks. I didn’t talk about the whole situation enough yet but basically Prowl never informed Orion about his new quest of suing God. Primarily because he knows that Orion definitely will try to stop him.

It’s kind of like. “What isn’t forbidden can automatically be considered allowed” mentality.

Also MY GOD YES. My favourite part of this au is reading asks like yours:0 Prowl exists in that thin line between being and not being a person capable of his own choices. Orion exists on the thin line between considering him being one of those options. He can’t see Prowl as a “real mech” because he knows for a fact it’s not true. But then seeing him as a tool means accepting that all questionable things he does are Orion’s responsibility.

At the end of the day Prowl is a metaphorical piece of fabric Orion uses to clean his consciousness. In his eyes Prowl isn’t alive enough to be fully blamed for all the bad things he does but he is also alive just enough for Orion to say “it was your fault. Not mine.”

Jazz doesn’t have that dilemma. Uh. Yet haha he will discover the truth eventually of course~. He thinks Prowl is obviously a real mech because in his world magic isn’t alive. It can create an illusion of a mech, sure, this is what all usual golems are, but it’s not smart or believable enough. It’s like one of those tests where all people think they can tell if they’re talking to an AI chat bot because “duh I would obviously know” and then fail to distinguish AI from a real person. Jazz is perceptive but he doesn’t know what to look for. All he knows is that Prowl is somehow doesn’t love anyone but seems to care about of things that aren’t people.

Also it’s a bit unrelated but I find it soooo interesting playing with the usual concepts of magic and technology. Because usually magic is perceived as something more “coming from your heart” and “connected with emotions” while technology tends to be more “soulless” and “emotionless”. And then we have the entire world of robots who think they are alive and magic isn’t :)

[scribblecon]

I wanna really see how Fulcrum would react in a scenario if his online friend is actually a human.

You know those online friend meet ups. I remember mine when I met them, I wasn't expecting 6'ft tall person and we're the same age and I'm short, not even past their shoulder 😭 asides from that we're from different countries so the cultural difference was there.

I thought it would be a fun scenario.

The Scavengers going to Earth so one of them can meet up with their online friend for the first time…. Again ahaha

I’ve set this after the IDW continuity ended btw so like. Cybertronians and humans are learning to coexist on Earth and everyone probably has access to intergalactic wi-fi now lol

SFW, fluff, GN reader

If I Get to Meet You

—

It’s been a year since you befriended this Fulcrum guy you met online and finally you get to meet up in person. He’s definitely Cybertronian, but you’re not sure he realises you’re a human. When he asked what you alt-mode was and you told him you didn’t have one, his response was ‘ohh so you’re a monoformer’. Whatever that means. He also seems to think your handle is your real name. Part of you wonders if this is really a good idea, but you’ve already agreed to meet up and while you may be a lot of things, you are not one to flake out on a friend.

—

“I bet you 50 shanix he accidentally befriended a human.”

“Oh, here we go again.” Fulcrum huffs. “Just because Airsteel didn’t fight in the war doesn’t mean they’re not cybertronian. They’re probably from- I don’t know- Caminus. Or one of those other colonies.”

“I’m just saying.” Misfire puts his hands up. “It wouldn’t be the first time one of us got catfished by an organic. Isn’t that right, Crankcase?”

“Leave Cons4eva out of this.” The triggercon scowls.

“Ignore them.” Krok rests a servo on Fulcrum’s shoulder. “Where are you meeting this friend of yours?”

“At a Cybertronian bar. It’s uhh…” Fulcrum sifts through your chat history looking for the link you sent him. “This one. This one here.”

Misfire peeks over his friend’s shoulder. “You do realise it says they serve humans too, right?”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Look, Fulcrum, it’ll be fine. The rest of us will sit at a table nearby, so if it turns out ‘Airsteel’ is a human and you start to feel queasy because they sneeze in front of you… we can bail you out.”

“Thanks, Krok, but that really won’t be necessary. Because they aren’t human.”

—

You lean over the handrail, scoping out the bar from one of the walkway areas designed to avoid human customers from getting accidentally stepped on by drunken cybertronians. Your guy said he’d be easy enough to spot: brown and orange paint job, pair of goggles atop his helm and a ‘very impressive’ chin. A few minutes after your agreed meeting time, a group of mechs enter the venue, bickering with each other. You notice one of them is wearing goggles as you watch him move away from the group. Could that be him? The paint job matches and you suppose his chin is fairly large compared to other bots you’ve met… using an elevator platform to get to the bar area, you make your way towards where he’s seated himself, ordering a drink while he fidgets slightly. Waiting for you, maybe?

“Fulcrum?” You’re standing on the counter, a couple feet away from where he’s sitting. “Is that you?”

“Airsteel..?” Fulcrum turns in the direction of your voice with a smile that falls the moment your eyes meet, feeling his fuel tank churn. You’re a human. Of all the people in the universe he could have befriended, he’s somehow picked one of the most disgusting organic species of all. To make matters worse he hears a loud guffaw of laughter from a few tables away and turns, along with half the bar’s other patrons, to see Krok and Crankcase both moving to slap a servo over Misfire’s mouth, almost knocking him out of his seat in the process. At least Spinister is behaving himself. For now.

“Are you alright?” Your brow furrows with concern. Why does he look so unwell all of a sudden?

“I’m fine, I just…” Fulcrum looks away from you and focuses on the drink he’s just been served. It’s easier to interact if he doesn’t look directly you. “You look different to what I expected.”

“Were you expecting a cybertronian?” Raising an eyebrow, you try to smile as you sit on the edge of the bar.

“Maybe?”

You let out a sigh. This isn’t how things were supposed to go. He should have laughed about the mix up, not start acting disappointed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He glances in your direction briefly. It’s uncanny how similar you look to a cybertronian, just… fleshier. Greasier. He has to look away before he starts thinking too much about your pores and accidentally purges.

“I thought telling you I don’t turn into anything would be a bit of a giveaway.” You shrug.

Fulcrum sighs, embarrassment washing over him. Why did he assume you were a monoformer? Thinking back on your conversations, there were quite a few hints he either never picked up on or wilfully ignored. That energon goodies recipe you sent him wasn’t your own, it was your coworker’s. When he told you about his standoff with the DJD, you had no idea who they were. You’ve never actually left Earth.

“I’m such an idiot.” He mutters.

“Nah, I should have been more upfront…” You look down at your feet. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you outright. I didn’t know how, with your germaphobe thing. I thought you’d stop talking to me.”

“I’m not a germaphobe, organics just weird me out.”

The two of you fall into an uncomfortable silence, both struggling to think of something to say. A couple minutes pass and Fulcrum is about to make his excuses to leave when you pipe up:

“… I watched that standup routine you sent me.”

“The Skullcruncher one?” Fulcrum turns to look at you, properly this time. You’re still weird looking, but you aren’t as bad as other humans. Probably. Maybe it’s because you already know each other, but he realises his initial disgust reaction has now faded. At least enough that he can relax a little.

“Yeah, it was-” you snort back a laugh, remembering the punchline. “I mean seriously, who names themselves after their dead pet?”

“Do you wanna know a secret?” Fulcrum grins, turning to look back at his friends, ready to point out Krok for you.

—

“You know,” Misfire leans back in his seat, taking a sip of engex. “I really thought he was going to purge on the spot, but they seem to be getting along now.”

“Huh. Well done, Fulcru-” Krok cuts himself off mid sentence as he looks over to the bar. “Why are they staring at me.” He squints in your direction, trying to work out what Fulcrum is telling you, why he’s pointing at him, not the other Scavengers. Your ensuing peals of laughter tell him everything he needs to know. Skullcruncher. Krok puts his helm in his hands and sighs. At least they’re getting along…

[typewritingyip]

The Arcturus Missions

Part Fourteen - Nightmares

Part Thirteen

———

Human mass is made up primarily of six elements; oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. That makes up around 99% of the human body, 0.85% is made up of another five, being potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium. Together the eleven elements are necessary for human life, the trace elements of the other 0.15% included, probably. 

There is no discernable thing that keeps them specifically alive, such as a Spark, but most organics experience similar characteristics. 

To most mechanicals, just understanding what they're made out of, they think if they harm an organic too much they will simply pop. It grossed most of them out and a decent number preferred to stay away. Those who didn’t find them gross, just don’t understand how they could live without a spark or something resembling a spark.

Mechanicals and organics, they typically didn’t get along whether for prejudice or misunderstanding.  

—

Once the cybertronians cleared out, they could disable the mobility assist and eat. Talking over private comms and eating, wearing their visors if they could, otherwise maintaining the wider visual feeds. The mix of alien food and perishable earth food was becoming less and less frequent as little of the stuff from Earth that would go bad remained. Almost seven months since they left home and they’d managed to make it last this long was nothing short of great planning and a miracle in the name of Prowl’s processor.

Hound was chuckling, eating the last of his almonds and something that had been deemed ‘Carrot Potatoes’, which was only called that because its growth process was similar. It did not look like a potato or carrot, or taste like either, it was more meat-like than anything but they couldn’t exactly say that out loud. Jazz learned that the hard way when mention to Prowl over three years ago that it tasted like beef, only the exact translation was that it tasted like organic animal muscle and Prowl found that endlessly disturbing. It generally was cut up and dried or superheated, similar to roasting. For the moment, Hound was enjoying the fired version as it was most similar to beef jerky. Along with the food, they had a nutrients drink of Prowl’s design, which was foul, but provided them with what they couldn’t get from any of the food they had access to. It was easier to wash down with water, which thankfully they did have regular access to.

Sideswipe was laughing, gesturing, “I can’t believe that, I mean, come on. Primus selected him specifically to be the leader of a whole planet?” Breakdown groaned, “Not this conversation, again.” Sunstreaker laughed and took a drink from the thing Prowl designed, not even gagging or choking on it like the rest of them. Supposedly he was used to the taste of vitamins and dirt. “I’m just saying, the mech is just like the rest of us. A somewhat normal life before the damn war and now he was selected by their creator to lead the planet, that would be like if god came down to Hound and made him the leader of the free world and the pope at the same time.” With a shake of his head, Jazz groans, “I hate that you’ve all held onto the pope analogy, it was a bad one and I regret it.” They all laughed at that, it didn’t translate well and to be honest, it’s what they all called him over private comms. 

It took them a while to calm down from their laughing fits, Hound finishing off his food first and disengaging his camera, “Alright everyone should get their heads down.” Breakdown chuckled lightly, “You say that like we’ll all be awake in an hour.” disabling his own camera for the night, “Yeah, I know. You all kicked ass today, just, get some rest.” Hound chuckled light as he took off his helmet and visor, shaking his head a bit, “Night guys.” With a chorus of nights and good nights, they all turned off their camera and microphones, turning off the comm line for the night. Each adjusting their settings as needed, setting up alerts and things for the night. It was difficult, having to sleep in your mech but they all made it work. Cots and sleeping bags, makeshift wash stations, pillows and blankets, or even just a bit of storage were all stuff they took cues from Jazz about. It made their life just that little bit more normal that they needed. 

—

It was the middle of the dark cycle when Sunstreaker shot up from his makeshift cot in his mech suit, they had all agreed it would be easier to remain in their cockpits as much as possible when in the field but when back in Iacon they would run any updates or cleaning protocols that were necessary. He was breathing heavily, sweating and unable to truly pull himself from the dream, “I can’t breathe.” Sunstreaker’s voice was faint, strangled from crying, practically falling off the cot he goes to the command chair and starts to run the toxicity test on the air outside his mech. The longer he was in the suit the worse he was getting, starting to hyperventilate, the claustrophobia was kicking in. Grabbing hold of part of his helmet, practically yanking the visor from it he holds it up to read the current reading before unsealing his suit.

The outside air was cool with a light breeze, the heater was several feet away but keeping the metal of their mech suits warm. Sunstreaker pulled himself from where his suit laid and fell to the ground painfully, gasping desperately as the panic attack set in. 

Nightmares were common for pilots, anything from the life before the suit, the comparability testing, being physically made compatible, or just the life as a pilot weighed heavily.  They all had nightmares. Nights where you’d wake up in a cold sweat or nights where you couldn’t breathe, it’s just usually you weren’t in the thing that brought about the nightmare.

Sunstreaker stayed where he fell for a while, both from the pain and the panic. The visor was still covering his face and his hands were over his ears, taking deep breaths when he could and when he couldn’t he was choking on the air. Nightmares and panic attacks were too common among pilots, but it was part of the way of life. What started to bring Sunstreaker out of his was a gentle tremor in the ground, much like how Megatron would shake the ground but significantly softer. Taking a breath, he slowly pushes himself up from the floor, holding his arm that he landed on painfully and tries to look around. Only now becoming away from where he was and what he was doing. Suddenly aware when bright blue eyes locked on his small form and stared, saying something in Cybertronian that he could only partially understand without the translator, “Shit.” In that moment, even in all his years of training and fighting, even back when he street raced he never froze like he did now.

Bluestreak wasn’t entirely sure what he was staring at, it was dark certainly but this small thing was sitting near one of the strange human mechanicals, one of his friends if he was being honest with himself. The twins, the split sparked idiots had grown on him, and had found his work impressive. It meant a lot. Taking a moment, he looks closer with a frown, “Are you lost, little thing?” The planet they were on had everything from organics to some cybertronian’s living on it. It was meant to be a peaceful place but their energy farms had been clocked by the Quintessons in the last quartex and now the fields outside the energy farms were battlefields. This was happening across the universe, especially in cybertronian space and apparently as distant of a quadrant as where the strange mecha were from. 

They both stared at each other for a long time, the visor on Sunstreaker trying to help out with translations rolling across the screen and what little else it could do separated from the mech suit, and Bluestreak was trying his hardest to seem non-threatening. One step from Blue though shook the ground and Sunny was quick to grab part of his suit to stabilize himself. That was a bad idea. 

Bluestreak was quick to grab the organic away from Sunstreaker, knowing the mech needed his recharge and brought the thing close to his face. Sunstreaker stumbled and nearly fell, clutching desperately at Bluestreak’s hand, swearing, “Fuck! Put me down!” Bluestreak’s scowl was rather menacing when it was this large and close, Sunstreaker nearly fell again as Blue started to back away from the group and the warmth of the heater, causing Sunstreaker to shiver from the cool night air. After all, a pilot didn’t sleep in his assistant suit if he could help it. 

With all the connectors embedded in his body, those being connected to the assistant suit made it hard to move and the wires both in the suit and down his back pinched painfully when leaning wrong, let alone trying to sleep in it. NASA had been kind enough to send them up with astronaut pajamas, but Sunstreaker kept those in Iacon where it was just about always cold. Now, he really wished he was wearing more than his boxers. Blue kept glowering at him and he was catching just about every other word, desperately holding onto his palm, he raises a hand and struggles with their very strange language, “Negative-motion!” Bluestreak stopped, his eyes widening slightly and Sunstreaker sighed, practically melting, “Thank god that worked. Uh.” He stares at Bluestreak before bringing himself back to standing, still shaking lightly. 

“Name, me. Star-Orbit-Postive, Positve-Speed-Positive-Movement-Someone.” Sunstreaker winced, it was a rough translation at best but, Bluestreak’s eyes flicked over to his suit before looking back and shaking his head a bit, “Negative. Name, Star-Orbit-Positve, positive-direction.” And he pointed. Sunny groaned and rubbed his face, taking the visor off briefly with a frown, trying to think. He continued to shiver, glancing over to his suit, and looked back, “Me, Negative-size. Motion-speed-negative. Movement-pain-positive, in—“ He stops and points, “Star-orbit-positive, positive-direction.” Holding up the visor briefly, before putting it back on and acting like he was holding a set of controls, “Movement-pain-positive, in Positive-size, positive-plating.” He hoped it would come across, if he was just in his suit he could explain. Then again, if he was in his suit he wouldn’t need to explain. Bluestreak continued to stare, frowning before shaking his head a bit, “Negative, Star-Orbit-Positive, recharge.” Sunstreaker almost growled, throwing his hands up and dragging his hands down his visor.

Bluestreak had started to walk away again by the time Sideswipe was back in his assistant suit and up, moving over quickly and just grabbing Sunny, “Blue, what the hell.” Sunstreaker grabbed desperately at his brother’s hands, eyes wide still and clutching desperately, “This organic is clearly lost Sides.” Bluestreak smiled a bit, “Plus, you should be in recharge.” “Yeah, well, so should Sunny.” Walking back over, his steps significantly lighter than Bluestreak’s as to make sure the others remained asleep, he lowered Sunstreaker back to his suit, “He’s freezing, why’d you take him away from the heater?” Sideswipe was practically growling, turning and glaring at Bluestreak, visor darkening, “Organics on this planet usually wear more of those organic coverings.” Sideswipe rolled his eyes, watching as Sunstreaker closed up his suit, Bluestreak’s eyes widening, “What the?” Sideswipe turned around and shoved Bluestreak hard, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the heater and away from his sleeping friends. 

Sideswipe’s fist collided with Bluestreak’s face, “You could have killed him! It’s freezing out here!” Blue caught his first the second time, “Sides, calm down!” “Don’t you dare tell me to calm down!” And he tackled Blue to the ground.

The inside of Sunstreaker’s suit was now just as cold as it was outside, the heater only helping so much as he pulled on his assistant suit and activated his direct comm to Hound, sending out his distress alert as he shivered. Trying to get in the pilot's seat and his suit up while Bluestreak and Sideswipe fought a dozen meters away. 

It took only a few seconds for Hound to wake up, frowning at Sunstreaker’s distress alert before getting up. Pulling on part of his assistant suit he activated his visual feeds, then quickly climbed into his piloting chair while swearing. They would draw the attention of the other awake cybertronian’s and wake up everyone else if they kept fighting. His suit was the easiest to get up and moving, though he wasn’t in his entire mobility assistant suit he was quick to override the controls and move over towards them as fast as he could. Just managing to grab Sideswipe and haul him off Bluestreak, “Enough! Go back to bed, now!” “But Sunny,” “Is fine. Go to him, now. I will handle this with Bluestreak.” Sideswipe yanked himself from Hound’s hold, glare evident even with the visor before storming back towards the heater and wrapping his arms around Sunstreaker when he was finally able to sit up.

”I swear, I didn’t do anything.” Bluestreak was bloodied, wiping at his mouth at energon leaked from the gashes there. Hound offered a hand to him, frowning, “I know, but we clearly need to talk.” With hesitation, Blue took Hound’s hand carefully. Sighing slowly, Hound helps Blue up then gestures, “We need to talk away from the others and we need to get Prowl on comms.” Bluestreak almost stopped dead in his tracks, “Prowl? But I just said,” “I know what you said. It has nothing to do with that. Come on.” He gestured towards where there was a turned off heater, away from the few cybertronian’s milling around outside.

—

Sunstreaker was still shivering, his mech shaking lightly, “I’m fine Sides, really.” he leaned his head against his brother’s shoulder, “I just had a nightmare and needed some air, I didn’t think anyone would be around.” Sideswipe was fuming, holding Sunstreaker close, “He could have killed you and not even realized it.” Sighing, “Yes, but I’m okay. Least till Hound has to explain the big secret.” He bangs his head lightly against Sideswipe’s shoulder, “I can’t believe I was so stupid and reckless.” Sideswipe quick led shook his head and held Sunstreaker closer, reading the message Hound sent, “You couldn’t breath, were not supposed to be spending every waking and sleeping moment in these suits.” He sighs slowly and shifts, “Come on, we need to get some more sleep for tomorrow. Hound is handling Bluestreak, as much as I want to kill him.” Sunstreaker nodded a bit and started to deactivate the connections, “I’m sorry.” “Don’t be, just go back to sleep Sunny. Hound’s got it.” Sunstreaker gently pulled off his helmet and visor, disabling the external feeds. Seeming to everyone who didn’t know their secret like he’d already fallen back to sleep. Sideswipe watched and waited for a few minutes before removing his own helmet, wincing as he unplugged part of the assistant suit from the piloting apparatus. He was bleeding a bit, from where wires had torn into his skin. 

A pilot is supposed to wear the entire mobility assistance suit when piloting a mech, but sometimes you had to save your brother from dying before you could get every piece on. Padding over to his makeshift bed, Sideswipe pulled out a medical kit to cover the gashes he’d gotten from the raw connections to himself instead of the suit. Him, Sunstreaker, Breakdown, Jazz and Hound had scars from doing this in the past that reopened far too easily. 

—

The comm only had to ping twice before Prowl was on the line, “Hound, it’s the middle of the night cycle.” Though he didn’t sound tired, it was more the concern, “This line secure? No one is listening in?” There were two quick clicks of mechs abandoning the line, “Now there is not. Why?” Hound sighed and sat down, turning the heater on high, “Sunstreaker climbed from his suit when Bluestreak was around, there was some sort of altercation and I need you to connect Bluestreak to the comm line.” Prowl was eerily quiet on the other side, after a moment Hound could tell the poor guy was hitting his head on his desk before there was another click, “Alright, what is happening? Why did an organic of all primes forsaken things climb into Sunny’s chest?” He sounded horrified and Hound bit his lip, trying to not yell and took a breath, “Bluestreak, that organic is Sunstreaker.” Shifting a bit, he claps his hands awkwardly, “And you came way too close to killing him for his brother’s liking or mine.” Taking a breath, Prowl clears his throat, “I will handle this Hound, you should return to the others and get more sleep.” Nodding a bit, it took Hound a second to speak, “Thank you Prowl.” He stood and hands shaking lightly, chose to walk away. Disconnecting himself from the comm line as Bluestreak started to yell.

When Hound got back to the makeshift campsite, all the others were either still asleep or back to sleep. He took a moment, standing away from the others and dragged his hands over his head. They were on yet another alien planet, around people they were just beginning to trust and now someone Sunstreaker had genuinely trusted just attempted to kill him. Maybe not purposefully, maybe even not-knowingly, but these other mecha were dangerous. Hound had to remind himself how dangerous they were. Moving back over and lowering himself to the ground, he stares up at the stars, tomorrow would be a day where none of them trusted Bluestreak again. Trust earned is just as easily lost. Looking over to Sunstreaker, he reaches out and turns the heater up, sighing a bit as it warms the metal around him comfortably. 

How could he protect them when everyone knew what they were.

—

Prowl was shouting, Bluestreak had his head down and was trying not to cry. The prime had clear orders whenever it came to organics and nine times out of ten it was to leave them alone. But Blue knew Sunny, knew he hated when he was splattered with energon or anything remotely gross. The guy liked to keep his paint clean, he didn’t think an organic with its slime would be appreciated. Now, he just felt stupid. He’d never seen them eat, they slept more than any other mechanicals he knew, and they preferred to handle their repairs themselves instead of going to Knockout; though who could really blame them for that. Everyone just thought they were weird, like their fascination with death, their avid prayer, and lots of talk about things that couldn’t translate.

“This is a secret that you must keep Bluestreak, you know the prejudices of our people and you know how they’ll be treated. Everyone will think they are piloting around corpses.” Bluestreak shuddered and gagged lightly, “They practically are!” “No, no they are not. Their suits were designed specifically for them, in most cases, Their people needed a way to fight the Quintessons and this was their solution.” Bluestreak leaned back against the seat, staring at the sky, “They look so much like us.” Prowl sighed deeply, “Blame Swerve, regardless, not only am I asking you to keep this secret Blue, but they are as well. Hence why Hound was the one to start this conversation, he only left because of his anger.” Bluestreak paused and looked over to the humans, their solitary huddle, optics leaking, “I didn’t mean to hurt him.” There was a moment of silence before Prowl spoke up, softly now, “I know and they will come to understand that, but remember that Jazz has been organic all these stellar cycles, everything he’s heard,” Blue gasped lightly, “He told them.” Prowl hummed sympathetically. Even Bluestreak found some of the things others said offensive, some of their people couldn’t comprehend how they were living beings or intelligent ones. Sure, some weren’t so bad but even then. 

Hiccuping lightly, Bluestreak takes a deep invent, “Primus Prowl, how did you keep this slag a secret for so long? Does the Prime even know?” There was another delay on the line, “I kept it a secret, cause I knew if I said anything it would put Jazz in jeopardy. And I didn’t tell the Prime because we needed him, we need them or we won’t survive these invasions.” They fell silent, both staring off into space, even on separate planets, “I’ll keep their secret Prowl, but how will I get back their trust?” Prowl opened and closed his mouth, “Blue, I wish I knew. Humans are fickle and unpredictable at best.” Bluestreak groaned and slid to the ground, covering his face, “To say as the humans do then, I fucked up.” Prowl chuckled a bit sadly, “Yes, unfortunately you have.” Bluestreak stayed there on the ground, by himself and the overly warm heater.

Prowl disconnected the line and stared at the display of maps and battle plans, the bots who were there to the left side and the humans to the right, taking a slow invest, he adjusted Sunstreakers, Sideswipes, and Hound’s statuses and marked them to not be disturbed until they reached out to the other mecha. It was the only thing he could do from so far away. Glancing over to the icon for Optimus, he thought about it, like he always did in a moment like this before returning to adjusting the plan for tomorrow. They’d just have to survive till they returned to Iacon then they’d be able to discuss this at his— Jazz’s apartment. 

———

A/N

So, this was not the initial direction that I planned to take this part but I love it so much. I knew that the twins were going to spill the secret in some way, I originally wanted it to be in a stupid way but I prefer to write angsty stuff.

Let me know if you guys want to know what his nightmare was about? I haven’t written anything down but I know what it is.

Thank you all for all the love I’ve been getting on these fics and I am thinking of setting up a release schedule? I know it will probably be between 4:30 and 6 EST. But I don’t know how many days a week cause at the moment I’m flying by the seat of my pants.

Tags!

@lunarlei68 @whirlywhirlygig @loop-hole-319 @pixillandjester @alek-the-witch @not-a-moose-in-disguise @goddessofwind8water @neurologicalglitch @dersereblogger @pixel-transformers @mrcrayonofdoom @wireplaces @twilightfreefaller @original-blog-name-2 @devilangel657 @robbin-u @childofprimus @miniartistme @starwold @tea-enthusiasm @valeexpris606 @celticdoggo @bird599 @agentsquirrelsgotrobots @aquaioart @dimencreasatlas @thatwandercat @artdagz @seisha974 @starscreamloverfr @halenhusky309

And once again thank you to @keferon for this amazing AU!

[in1-nutshell]

hello! I was wondering if you could write a slice of life with NightLight?

Hint, hint... Magnets.

Hope you enjoy!

Nightlight: Slice of Life

SFW, Platonic, Slight romance, Cybertronian reader

TFA

Nightlight really tried being fair with Bumblebee and Sari with their punishments when they disobeyed orders.

Not to say she didn’t understand certain situations there was a need to think outside the box.

But she did put her pede down when it came to deliberately putting others in harm’s way for a little ‘fun’ and sneaking out the Plant while they were punished.

Bumblebee: “Oh C’mon Nightlight! It was just a little bit of—” Nightlight: “I swear if you say fun Bumblebee…” Sari: “But it was just some fun! It was a boring day, and we were bored.” Nightlight: “You kids were put in the Plant as punishment for running headfirst into danger, even when Prime said he had a plan. THEN you two proceeded to sneak out the base for a joyride that nearly put Fanzone on the side of a building.” Bumblebee: “To be fair, he was already there when we got there.” Nightlight’s optic twitched. She sighs heavily before giving them both a tired smile. Nightlight: “Well, I hope you had fun today you two because you’re staying here again tomorrow. Have a good night.” Bumblebee and Sari watch the detective leave to her room. Sari: “Should we be worried?” Bumblebee: “Nah! You want to do the same thing again tomorrow?” Sari: “Yes!”

That night, the older bot had taken out her special magnetic ‘batarangs’ and started tinkering with them.

By the end of the night, Nightlight had two strong remote-controlled magnets in her servo with another larger on in her subspace in her chassis.

That morning, she volunteered to watch over the pair for the team.

She gave a knowing wink to Ratchet.

He knew that wink.

It was the same wink she gave when someone was going to learn a lesson or get what’s coming to them.

Nightlight soon turned to the two and gave them a pat on the back, securing the little magnets under some of their plating.

The strong pat would be the excuse for feeling a bit weird on their back.

The pair was okay for the first hour.

Then the second hour hit, and the detective spotted them about to leave the Plant.

Nightlight: “I don’t think so.” CLICK! CLICK! Bumblebee and Sari were suddenly pulled back by an invisible force. Bumblebee landed with his back on Nightlight’s chassis. Sari landed on her back on Bumblebee’s chassis. Sari was trying to fly but failing: “What is this!?” Bumblebee tried to transform but also failed: “What!?” Nightlight groaned a bit at the sudden weight on her chassis before smiling. Nightlight: “Your punishment kids.” Sari: “Let us go!” Nightlight sipped some energon: “Nope.” Bumblebee: “What do you mean nope? Get us off of here!” Nightlight: “No. You two are going to dangle from up here all day while reflecting on what you did wrong.” Bumblebee: “You’re old! You won’t last an hour!” Nightlight: “Try me.”

Oh, the pair did try her.

They tried transforming.

Didn’t work and ended up hurting everyone in the process.

Next, they tried reaching for different objects to pull themselves off.

Also didn’t work and left their servos sore.

Then they tried calling the others for back up.

Too bad Ratchet knew that they would try that.

RING! RING! Optimus goes to answer the line. Ratchet: “I wouldn’t do that Prime.” Optimus gives him a questioning look. Optimus: “And why wouldn’t I want to do that?” Ratchet: “Those kids are trying to get out of whatever Nightlight has planned for them. I highly suggest not answering the line unless you want to get on her bad side.” Bulkhead: “But what if they are really in trouble?” Ratchet: “You’d know it were an emergency. I bonded with an overthinker and planner, there are several plans in place that would let us know something happened.”

Finally, they thought of making enough noise to bother Nightlight.

Too bad that she had noise canceling headphones.

Sari was going to have a talk with her father when she got down from here...

The pair eventually resigned their fate and just dangled from her chassis.

Nightlight went about her business like there weren’t two bots on her chassis.

She did however make sure that their basic needs where met.

She wasn’t a monster.

The team quietly comes back to the Plant. Nightlight was quietly watching some TV program with a sleeping Bumblebee and Sari still hung to her chassis. The entire team snickered a bit at the sight. Nightlight turned and smiled. Nightlight whispering: “They’ve been out for a while. How was the day today?” Ratchet walks over to her placing a servo on her shoulder. Ratchet: “Peaceful, haven’t had one of those in a while.” Prowl notices the magnets on the bots backs. Prowl: “Have they been there all day?” Nightlight: “Not all day, they were good until they tried sneaking out again.” Nightlight pushed a button on a remote. Bumblebee and Sari slowly slide from her chassis. Bulkhead and Optimus caught the two before they hit the ground. Optimus: “We’ll get these two to bed, Thanks Nightlight.” Nightlight: “No problem Prime.” The pair soon went off followed by Prowl leaving her alone with her Conjunx. Ratchet: “How’s you backstruts?” Nightlight stretched a bit popping a few. Nightlight: “Worth it.” Ratchet grumbled under his breath. Ratchet: “Come one, to the med bay with you.” Nightlight smiled and intertwined her servo in his. Nightlight: “Thank you doctor for being so, so, so worried—” Ratchet: “On second thought maybe you should just go sleep on the couch.” Nightlight: “Love you too Ratchet.”

[weirdlookingsnakewithlegs]

Hiya! 🌱

I have no idea if my last ask was processed or not, so I’m just gonna rewrite it because it never hurts to ask again 🤷

I always think of dinosaurs instead of birds when I think of Seekers, I don’t know why. Anyway, for the longest time, I’ve imagined that seekers have these frills on the side of their heads that are unique to them. They work as some sort of defense mechanism and flare out as a form of aggression. Kind of like the dilophosaurus from the Jurassic Park film!!

I always like seeing seekers with biology different than standard cybertronians, I think it’s fun to experiment with.

Anyhow, I’ve had this thought for a while and I’m curious to see what you think :)

Okay I adore this and as a dinosaur nerd I’m all for it.

I honestly do always consider seekers to be more than just birds, in a way I think they’d be considered more like raptors. Many raptors are thought to be pack hunters and it’s suggested they live in packs to help raise young as well. However the majority idea of how flocks work comes from cat colonies.

Now dinosaurs are definitely one of the mysteries of Earth yet we are slowly learning more and more about them, seekers are likely the same way to grounders. That being said, I love the idea of seekers having things that just shock grounders, for example, their magnetized pedes and servos which once allowed them to climb the mountain side of their home that was Vos and perch on its buildings. Having frills however sounds awesome and I can definitely see it.

It’d be amazing if they retracted perhaps, only really out for threat displays or perhaps when they attempt to court each other via wiggles and dance. It could also be used for ground hunting, maybe to help pick up the weaker vibrations that occur when you’re lower to the ground.

[threshersharky]

My running theory for some Decepticons is that they become cons to get away with more.

Warning this becomes a rant about how autobots are just as bad at times but they tend to hide it more or it goes unnoticed, a bit less than halfway down.

fyi this is me over analyzing Prime and Earthspark :3

Some cons just become cons to get away with doing shit they know is bad because I mean, in most shows cons are mostly depicted only respecting higher ranks if they respect anyone at all, and I mean just look at Airachnid, did the Decepticons tell her to drive a bunch of species to extinction? I don’t believe so, did the Decepticons punish her? No, would the Autobots have let that fly? Idk maybe, I mean I haven’t read the comics or played the games but I’ve heard abt autobots doing near as bad or worse, but Decepticons have always been considered bad, so they don’t usually care much if their reputation is stained anymore than it is.

Autobots tend to hide the bad, not wanting it to deter possible allies, take prime for example, in RBA(Rescue bots academy) whirl has no fucking idea what cons are, which means they might not even know what the war was and that means they were either sheltered, had bad education, or Autobots decided to hide the wrong they and the Decepticons have done, I’d like to say Ratchet would not approve of history erasure because he says “THE PAST ALWAYS MATTERS” or something along those lines and despite being an unreliable narrator for the rising of Megatronus and Optimus prime he is correct. The Autobots will take what they can get knowing Decepticons are viewed as evil and the Autobots vice versa. Take the prime kids for example, they would believe ratchets story without question simply knowing autobots are “the good guys” and so they must always be telling the truth right? No Ratchet is an old man in politics, he is very biased, he is going to say Optimus was the better guy.

Prime Wheeljack nearly offs Miko, multiple times may I add, I get Miko was reckless too but Wheeljack knows better, he knew Miko was easy to squish but let her run around while he caused explosions in an energon mine and nearly stepped on her at least a few times that same episode I think, The only reason Miko trusted him not to was because he was an Autobot, just like Bulkhead, they were both wreckers too, so she probably though Wheeljack knew to be careful(obviously he did not because we know Wheeljack is immature, I love Wheeljack but I stand with Maggie because Wheeljack was actively putting Miko in Danger)

And we have the older bots in Earthspark, Optimus put Mo, Robby, Twitch, and Thrash in danger by bringing them to ghost headquarters, you wouldn’t bring a child around a bunch of weapons or Decepticons would you? OPTIMUS PRIME DID DESPITE KNOWING THEY WERE MEANT TO BE A SECRET! I know he expected them to stay in the trailer but did he really? I like to think he acts stupid but in reality is a shady Mech, but I know they just made him a himbo, and I do love that but OP has been around children in his lifetime, he’s been on earth long enough to know kids don’t always behave. Megatron sort of know but at the same time he’s not an Autobot, he’s simply an ally and most don’t hold him to the standards we hold Optimus to simply because he isn’t an Autobot, back around to my point that Autobots are expected to be good while cons are expected to have bad behavior and commit horrid crimes. The adult bots are also a bit careless with the Terrans because they think the Terrans can handle it, I believe the thought process is toughening them up, thinking they can do it because they’re partially Cybertronian, or they haven’t had young around in so long that they just don’t know how to handle it, for example Bee expected them to learn way too quick, and I’ll get to how Bee is just a bunch of teenage angst songs and sad love songs and rare American songs mixed together to create the sentient product of being a child soldier who lived to tell the tale(He was a child in G1, you won’t change my mind don’t try.) The Older bots leave the Terrans house unguarded despite the fact the Decepticons know exactly where they are, and I do like that the cons didn’t just attack there because it would’ve been so easy to just do it and get things over with.

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

Transformers Theory: If The Decepticons Of TFA Found Out The Core Of Cybertron Is Organic...

[Note: Please Don’t Reblog This Without Permission. also even though this post isn’t really mature, I’m still going to put the mature audiences only and not for kids tags for this. also reading this theory is optional.] 

I think they would take as well as Sentinel, which would be them freaking out and assuming the position where they lay on the floor and start to rock back and forward as learning the truth about their home planet has traumatized them.

yeah, in Beast Machines, it ends up turning out that Cybertron wasn’t always a Metal Planet, and was originally a Organic World....that is until it was Cyberformed into a metal world and had possibly harmed some of the organic life on it, half of it being killed while half of it ended up mutated into “Demons” that would later become Predacons and Maximals.

Megatron, could be shocked at first but could end up taking it a bit better than Shockwave, Lugnut, Starscream, the Starscream Clones and the rest of the Decepticons....

Blitzwing could be fine either way, but still be really super surprised that their home world was originally organic and has a organic core.

I think Shockwave might not be able to properly process it and might even keep saying that it isn’t possible or logical, yeah, try saying that about Brawn marrying a Human like Cover-Girl from G.I. Joe....

I think it would not just freak out the Autobots that the core of their home planet is organic, but it could very well freak out the Decepticons...

but some could take it a bit better than most, and some could have a very serious freak out about it and start running around and scream to the well of allsparks in the sky, that it isn’t true and it isn’t possible...

but no matter how much they try to deny it, they will have to accept that they too, have organic heritage.

it could still ended up freaking the Decepticons and Autobots out, that it being possible for Cybertronians and Humans to have children, and well Sari is living proof that it is possible, even if it is by having the hatchling scan the DNA of the human parent.

so it could be possible that Primus has been hiding this truth, that the planet cybertron has a organic core and it was the body of the Allspark, until Primus’s core and good half was placed into Cybertron....so that could mean that Cybertron has two cores, one being Primus the Male Half and the other being the Allspark which is the Female Half and is also the organic half.

and if Primus were to fuse his core half with the organic half, and it being willingly by both sides, it could be like a relationship...

Tigerhawk is still the first romantic fusion and relationship, and I’m going to view them to be like the Garnet of the Transformers Universe.

Tigerhawk isn’t two people, and he isn’t one person, he is a experience.

the Oracle, could turn out to be the organic core of Cybertron, having become one and in the same with it’s original organic core before Primus came along and fused with the organic planet and had cyberformed into a metal planet.

Techno-Organic Cybertron is the future and evolution of all Cybertronians.

but it doesn’t still mean that it wont still freak out TFA-Megatron’s Decepticons...

it be interesting that it isn’t just TFA-Optimus who can be a helicopter mom....well, dad...

because of how he was listening in on Bumblebee, Bulkhead and Sari when they were trick-or-treating.

Megatron being a helicopter dad, would be interesting...

like if he listens on Blitzwing and Lugnut  in the same way Optimus did, but like if Shari (Shattered Glass Sari) is with Blitzwing and Lugnut when it happens.

like they could be out at some dance club, when it happens, and Shari could comments that Megatron (not the one from Shattered Glass...)

is being a helicopter dad.

the name Shari can be seen as a type of nickname for SG-Sari, and I think it fits her....because it can also be seen as coming from the words....

Shattered Glass Sari.....so it still fits.

I’m not sure what else to say about my thoughts about how the TFA Decepticnos would react to finding out that Cybertron has a organic core...

other than that I don’t think all of them would take it very well and would likely freak the spark out....and when that happens, they would need time to calm down and fully process the truth....it will still be funny if Sentinel freaked out about it and he could take even longer to accept it than the Decepticons.

even if this post isn’t really all that mature, but I rather it still be read by a mature audience only, and it being not for kids....and hope some can understand that.        

also, reading this weird theory is optional, so it’s okay that not everyone reads it. if I decided to talk more about the theory about the TFA-Decepticons freaking out and losing their minds over finding out that their home planet has a organic core, then maybe sometime I will talk more about it...

but for now, this is all I have at the moment and I guess I can think more about it and how it could go for the Decepticons after they learn that Cybertron has a organic core....                 

[drill-teeth-art]

Summary of My Transformers Fan Continuity

So this is mainly for the new followers who saw my gender comic, and don’t know much about Transformers or what I’m writing with it. But also a handy summary of what I have so far for this fan continuity. Putting it under a cut because it got long. Sorry in advance for any spelling or grammatical errors XD

First, a bit of background about Transformers as a franchise. It started with a cartoon released back in 1984 commonly referred to as G1 (generation one). There was also a Marvel comics run of Transformers that ran around the same time, but I don’t know that much about it. But anyway, since the G1 cartoon and comic run and the success of both, Transformers has seen many retellings and reboots. Transformers Animated (commonly shortened to TFA), Transformers Prime, Transformers Cyberverse, the IDW comics (which I have not read beyond one issue so far), and more. Genuinely there’s plenty more than that. And world details and lore and the story varies from series to series usually following the same premise where two factions from the planet Cybertron, a home to alien robots who can think and feel and transform from a few different modes, end up on Earth and at war with each other on Earth. The factions are the Autobots and Decepticons. With the Autobots characterized mostly as righteous and good and the Decepticons mostly characterized as evil and cruel. Of course there’s different levels of nuance exploration in different tellings, but that’s the basic set up G1 used and has been reflected in most subsequent series.

When I was growing up, my dad had a few DVDs of G1 episodes, and it was the first “boy” thing I loved. Transformers was and still is commonly marketed as “toys for boys”. But I fell in love with the G1 series when I was little and my family was honestly supportive of that interest. I had Transformers toys, and it was awesome. It genuinely still means a lot to me. And I would love to do my own retelling of the series since in my opinion, many of the subsequent series still lack nuance. And I want to do a telling of Transformers not as a marketable show for kids. But something exploring things that are deeply important to me like gender, body image, learning to self love, healing from past trauma, finding peace with others, and being okay with not being forgiven while trying to be better still.

So anyway, without further ado, here’s the summary so far. The story is still being heavily workshopped, and honestly I don’t have the means right now to write it in full yet. But hopefully someday. And hopefully until then, people still enjoy seeing my tinkering process.

Ahem.

Cybertron is in the middle of an energy crisis due to numerous factors. The Autobots and Decepticons are two, small squads dedicated to researching short term and long term solutions to the crisis. The problem is that they hate each other. Personal grudges run deep between the sides, and they disagree with the other’s methods anyway. So they often end up brawling with each other over resources instead of getting anything done. The squads depart their home of Cybertron in desperate pursuit of energy rich asteroids just to provide some immediate relief to their struggling home. However, they get into a scuffle further from home than was safe, and their two ships both crash on Earth. Roughly 20 years passes, and their ships both boot back up. The main computers of their ships powers on their emergency repair systems and quickly researches to find compatible alt modes of Earth machines for the damaged Cybertronians to repair themselves easier while stranded on the alien planet. After an awkward altercation at a power plant that neither squad intended to raid, the Autobots got a chance to talk to humans first, and the Decepticons were quickly shut out of the telling of their story to humanity. Three human college students make contact with the Cybertronians after a while. One meets the Autobots. One meets the Decepticons. And one meets the mysterious Insecticons who had been on Earth long before either squad. The humans decide to encourage the Autobots and Decepticons to make amends on Earth before going home. A few members of both sides are committed to the plan, seeing all the good it can do. But plenty are still resistant, and the story follows the struggle of healing that divide, so they can work together to go home.

[earthstellar]

I made the above Psychological First Aid infographic based on some of the training resources I used during my own PFA certification process, mostly as a training tool for others doing similar courses, but also to use in some more Transformers analysis of medic characters LMAO 

You can see some of my PFA sources, including the source for the above, in this post where I discuss Ratchet’s good PFA practices in TFP. 

Click to enlarge the PFA information sheet! :)

At the moment, I’d like to talk some more about Transformers psychology and mental health-- This time, using Rung as an example! 

Cybertronian Psychology: What We Know From Canon 

We know that Psychology is an established field of practice on Cybertron, with several different mental health specialities being noted in various TF continuities. 

Froid and Rung are the best known, while Blot and Bombshell are Psychologists in the SG universe, among others. 

But first, it’s important to note that Rung is a Psychiatrist, not a Psychologist! 

Here’s a helpful resource for you to learn the difference, which I have summarised for you below: 

Psychiatry: The study of mental health problems and related diagnostic processes, management of mental illnesses, and prevention of mental illness. 

Psychology: The study of people, all aspects of behaviour, and the underlying sources of behaviour (thoughts, feelings, etc.).

Rung is a medical doctor, at least by human standards, as Psychiatrists are clinicians trained in mental health as a speciality. By Cybertronian standards, we have seen that mental health specialists on Cybertron tend to be mostly if not entirely separate from the general medical staff, which may be a matter of organising healthcare services by category based on a specific Cybertronian system of medical provision. 

As Rung isn’t ever referred to as a medic in the same sense as First Aid or Ratchet are, it hints that there are some key differences in how various medical staff may be trained, treated, or perceived based on speciality. 

This division of certain care services may have been influenced further by the war, demanding that hospitalists/clinicians be deployed as field medics, while mental health care teams may have been positioned at bases or in more defended areas to allow for post-acute injury assessment, follow up, and so on. 

This allows for emergency mental health support teams, such as disaster response, acute or emergent mental health care, and so on-- While also leaving mental health experts on hand at bases or other areas to ensure such care is available and accessible as much as possible. 

We see that Ratchet does hint at referring cases to Rung, or receiving referrals for patients from Rung, so we know there is a multi-agency healthcare approach-- At least, on board the Lost Light. 

What Does Rung Do? 

We see him carry out the following work, here and there: 

-Therapy and Support Sessions

We don’t know what various methods of therapy may exist, although from what we see in MTMTE, he seems to provide initial assessments, follow-up sessions, individually tailored therapy, and general mental health services. 

-Psychological First Aid 

Addressing and following up with patients who have experienced immediate trauma.

-Mental Health Intervention 

Taking on acute cases or referred cases to step in and assess + provide appropriate mental health care. 

-Provision of Referrals to Med Bay (Additional Care Services) 

In many healthcare systems, direct referral is referring a patient over to a specific named clinician, where a general referral is passing the patient to a service or hospital department etc. to determine who will see them and when.

In the context of the Lost Light, Rung seems to be able to assess a patient and determine they are at risk; At that point, he has a direct line to the CMO (Ratchet), which we see evidence of at least twice on panel. 

Two things can then happen: 

General Referral: Ratchet can then assign the patient to another medic to make an appointment and follow up. This is a non-emergent option, meaning if a patient is deemed at risk or in acute need of further care, a direct referral is preferred. 

Direct Referral: If the patient requires more specialist care, Ratchet may be named to take the patient in as “acute priority” for himself, meaning that he will pick up the case as he is the most experienced clinician available in their Med Bay. He will then see the patient as immediately as possible to address any concern(s). 

If another clinician is named (First Aid, Velocity, etc.), then they will have the “acute priority” patient and carry out the same process from there. 

Risk Assessment Process

The methods used for identifying patients at risk can be complex, and it seems that in Cybertronian psychology, there are some similarities in assessment processes compared to real world risk assessment. 

Here is a guide on good practice for assessing risk, provided by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. 

The above document gives a good idea of what “red flags” or concerns may be of note, and how to potentially handle a patient who may present a risk. 

This process may vary for Cybertronians, but possibly not by very much, as a lot of risk assessment is designed to be somewhat general as each patient must be assessed individually whenever possible-- There is no universal assessment process, as factors may vary significantly from patient to patient/situation to situation/etc. 

However, due to the differences in the physical aspects of the Cybertronian mind, there will inevitably be some serious deviations from real world practice. 

Many of these have extremely frightening possibilities; For example, note the panel below: 

With humans, many mental health concerns may have chemical imbalance or other organic/physical element as a significant or secondary contributing/compounding factor.

But with Cybertronians, their minds are essentially computers. 

Far fewer chemicals involved, compared to the number of mechanical components that may also present similar mental health concerns if any of those components should be damaged or working improperly. 

So, in a way, that difference is a similarity! 

Even so, the physical differences in relation to the mind are still significant to note: 

In the panel above, Rung is discussing a patient that has been deemed to be at risk by Froid, who has elected to employ extreme methods of “treatment”, seemingly in an attempt to resolve the mental health concern. 

Personality adjustment, in this sense, is to essentially re-write someone’s personality. It’s not an effort to see if further support may help change or improve someone’s wellbeing. It’s literally saying “your personality is bad, and it’s very hard to fix, so we’re going to give you a new personality.” YIKES. 

In human beings, addressing personality concerns is an extremely complex and lengthy process. Our brains form physical pathways, and physical and psychological factors are both heavily involved in personality development, resultant behaviour patterns, and so on. 

With Cybertronians, you can get a mneumosurgeon to step in (likely via referral, as there seems to be an established care pathway for this process) and just... Clean out the mind. Literally. 

This is alarming for a lot of reasons, but primarily because of this key point: 

Cybertronian mental health services do not seem to require patient consent, only the consent of a lead physician or healthcare professional. 

We see time and time again that it is not the patients being directly asked questions about their care or treatment methods, but rather, whoever is deemed to be “in charge” is asked instead. 

Patient Care: Ratchet vs Rung 

Even Ratchet pushes it a little sometimes, when he occasionally pushes back now and then whenever a patient chooses a care option that he has not recommended or approved of himself, even when that patient is well informed and has stated their wishes repeatedly. 

(Yes, even if a decision isn’t the best clinically speaking, a patient still has the right to determine how they would like to proceed with any medical care-- Or even to proceed without any further medical care.)

Of course, patient consent as we understand it is based on real world, human medicine. We don’t know what Cybertronian patient rights laws or practices might be in place. 

For example of a real patient consent framework, you can find a good outline of informed consent according to the Council of Europe’s Convention for Human Rights right here, as published by the European Commission. 

In context, Ratchet’s push back is sometimes understandable, such as when a care option chosen by a patient may be potentially seriously dangerous for the patient or for others. 

But it’s still worth noting, as such push back (especially with Ratchet’s usual grumpiness and his status as CMO lending him significant authority in matters of patient care) can sometimes cause a patient to question themselves, leading to them giving consent for a procedure they didn’t really want for example, or leaving a patient confused or unwilling to engage as much with medical staff in the future, in a way that can lead to unwanted or unintended outcomes of care. 

It seems as though the war has compounded serious problems with patient consent in Cybertronian medicine; Problems which were already established as being par for the course prior to the war. 

There are several reasons for this, including political influences on medical best practice guidelines before the war even started, which resulted in all sorts of horrific medical practices and procedures being carried out. This includes, of course, empurata. 

My father was an Army Medic who was part of MEDIVAC/CASEVAC, and... Let’s just say that providing care while under active fire is wildly complex and difficult for all involved, and the triage process is the framework for pretty much everything after a certain point. 

In conditions of war, patient consent gets complicated, too. Typical care frameworks are likely unable to be applied or are not applicable in such situations, the battlefield/wartime specific frameworks for patient care that do exist may not be applicable in all scenarios-- Medical ethics and patient care in the context of war is extremely complex. 

Rung, from what we see in canon, seems to have retained a very firm and possibly somewhat uniquely kind and patient-focused set of personal professional ethics. He doesn’t seem as weighed down by the war and any necessary deviations in practice standards or procedures, in contrast to Ratchet, who we know deals with at least some degree of trauma around perceived failures to provide adequate or successful care under the conditions of war. 

We don’t know about all of what he did during the war, but we do know that he was unsatisfied with the way things were prior to the war, and we know that he did not give in to poor standards of practice even when other leading professionals in his field capitulated to political pressure, social pressure, and constantly slipping care standards. 

Ratchet has also maintained strong professional ethics and upholds excellent practice; We know he was also upholding personal professional standards far above those expected of him during the pre-war period. 

However, his patient care can be a little more questionable here and there, with his grumpiness sometimes causing him to forget that not everyone will respond well or tolerate the more gruff approach that he developed out of necessity for himself and others during the war. 

(And we all know how his advice to Drift went down pre-war... Not the smoothest, although he is seemingly not trained in providing emotional support for certain at-risk patients such as Drift was at that time, lending to my theory that specialisation works differently in Cybertronian medicine. Which would explain a lot. I will make another post about pre-war Drift and Ratchet’s interaction, later, to cover it in-depth!) 

This is not to compare them too directly, as their situations and experiences vary significantly, and of course, we can’t compare Ratchet to Primus Himself...! 

But Ratchet and Rung are great examples of using patient focused practice and standards to disregard common/legal but harmful protocols in favour of actually preventing harm and actively addressing healthcare concerns, particularly for those most in need. 

Rung and Maintaining Duty of Care 

He takes on significantly at risk or “dangerous” patients, such as Whirl, and continues to maintain ethical and professional standards even when under duress or at risk of harm for specifically doing the morally and ethically right thing. 

He even names Duty of Care as his reasoning for maintaining patient confidentiality, even when the patient himself is threatening him for doing just that. 

This is a good document provided by the Australian National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum, which outlines some key Duty of Care basics. 

It’s almost time for me to get ready for my actual job at a clinic lmao, so I’ll leave this post as-is for now. 

As always, sorry for the length, but I hope this is interesting to someone! :) 

If you read all of this, thank you!!! <3 

[sunshineandcybertronians]

It’s Nice to Have a Friend - (Secret Solenoid) TFP Starscream x reader

Word count: 5,599

Warnings: none

A/n: This is my Secret Solenoid gift to @sheabeeprime. This ended up way longer than I meant it to be. The ideas for what I could do just kept piling up and I decided to do all of them. And in true Scarlet fashion, I named this after a Taylor Swift song.

~

The view was amazing from where you sat on the edge of a cliff. Staring at the amazing view ahead of you. The wind in your face and hair. Just you, your thoughts, and the giant robot on your left.

Yeah, you honestly had no idea why Starscream decided to sit with you. And no idea why he always came to your home to pick you up when he was hunting for energon. Maybe he just needed company? Whatever the reason, an opportunity like this was too cool to pass down. So you tagged along whenever you were free. Which sometimes meant having to tell him you were busy or why you weren’t home when he came last. Though it was amazing how he would avoid being seen.

You didn’t know much about him. All you knew was that he was grumpy, had a huge ego, and his ex co-workers sucked.

You bit your lip. Today was the only chance for you to ask this. You pushed a strand of hair that flew in your face.

His helm faced forward, but his optics were on you. “What is it, human?”

“Hmmm?” You looked up at him as innocently as you could manage.

“’I know you were going to ask me something. Just ask me and get it over with.”

“Well,” you began, “There’s this parade going on…”

“And?” he raised one of his large eyebrows.

“It’s celebrating all the different countries in the world.”

“So?”

“I was thinking we could go?” You shrugged and gave a strained smile.

“No.” He immediately shot down the idea.

“But you could learn all about different human cultures.”

“Why would I want to learn about other humans anyway?”

“Wouldn’t simply knowing those kinds of things get you ahead of, and make you more knowledgeable than, the Decepticons?” you asked nonchalantly.

“Hah! You think saying that will make me go?” A look of amused triumph was on his face, but you could see the metaphorical cogs turning in his helm. He soon let out an angry and reluctant hum. “But I suppose I could take some of my precious time to come to your… ‘celebration of opposing humans’.” He waved his servo.

You let out a laugh. “We aren’t enemies or any like that just because we’re from other countries. Yeah, there can be some wars, but we’re mostly allies.”

Starscream gave you a perplexed look with his head tilted. Eventually, he just huffed and turned away, mumbling, “That doesn’t even make sense.”

You examined him, then shrugged. “Okay. But whether or not it makes sense to you, I’m honored you’ll bestow your presence upon the parade.”

He considered your words and, once he processed that it was praise, he puffed out his chassis with his helm held high.

There was a bit of trial and error in figuring out how to get there. You didn’t have exact coordinates and Starscream didn’t know where it was. Finally, you both decided on a method. You would give him directions while looking at a map on your phone. Once you steer him in the general area, you should be able to see the parade from the air. Upon this decision, Starscream jumped off the cliff to perform a flawless, midair transformation. He soared back up to meet you, showing off a few spins, and opened the cockpit for you to get in.

You eagerly got in and he took off. He shot through the sky like a comet, reaching up through a puffy white cloud, which resulted in a huge smile on your face. There was something amazing about being that high above the ground. Clouds stretching out made it feel like a new, hidden world.

“Which way?”

“Oh, right!”

 It was strange how people appeared so small from up above. The whole event would probably have seemed grander from the ground, but you weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to see it from the air. Especially with a giant robot.

“Wow. Look at it,” you commented. Suddenly, the rule of ‘if I can see you, you can see me’ came to mind. “Uh, are they going to find it suspicious that a jet is just floating here?”

“You tell me.”

You thought for only a second. “Definitely.”

Starscream maneuvered himself into a cloud, enclosing around him as though it were just a hologram. The nose poked out and there was a thin layer of cloud over the glass off the cockpit.

“You can still see, right?” he inquired.

“Yep. Thanks.”

You leaned back comfortably. The view was amazing. However the wonder slowly wore off and the silence began pricking at you. You almost wished for him to start complaining, or asking you questions, or for a radio. Though you doubted that he would enjoy human music. Or would he? Maybe you should try introducing some to him, but which genre?

“So what’s going on?” Starscream’s question brought you out of your thoughts.

“Oh, well people representing each country are walking in their group with a flag of that country. Like Italy, over there. They invented pizza!” You sat straight and pointed.

“What now?”

“Pizza, it’s a type of food that has cheese and tomato sauce an-“

“Nevermind. I don’t want to hear about the things you fleshies consume.” You thought you felt his alt mode shudder.

“Hey, if you were human, you would like it too,” you said. You fought the feeling of being offended that was taking over your thoughts.

“Then thank Primus I’m not.”

“Whatever.”  You crossed your arms and slouched back. “… But we do need to eat to survive you know.”

He hummed in reluctant consideration. “I suppose you’re right.”

Some time passed as you continued to sit there. Occasionally you would comment on a ‘country’ that was passing by. Sometimes he would ask about one. It was surprising how much your mind blanked out when you tried to talk about a country. You would have assumed that you wouldn’t have this problem considering you grew up on Earth.

A white flag with a circle and black lines on the corners caught your eye. You couldn't see the details from so far away, but you knew the circle was a blue and red yin yang. "Oh! That's the flag for South Korea."

"South? That sounds more like a location than a faction."

"Faction? What? Well, yes, it's a location. A location with its own government and own way of doing things. Like how you're a cybertronian. Because you're from Cybertron? Were you thinking about it like that? Factions?"

He hovered slightly higher then fell back into place. "How was I supposed to know? Cybertron had one government and leader. Much simpler."

"Hmmm." You considered the thought. "That's either really nice or there was a lot of corruption."

"Oh, you bet there was corruption. But does that mean there's a north, whatever it's called?"

"Korea. And yes, there's a North Korea. It split into north and south a while ago. North Korea has a dictator and isn't a place you want to go."

“What kinds of governments does each of these ‘countries’ have?” He asked.

“Well, the USA is a Democratic Republic. And there’s also socialism in some places, and at some point I think Russia was communist? Why can’t I remember anything?” You cursed yourself.

“Remind me why there isn’t one large government and leaders over the whole Earth?”

“That would be hard to do. A lot of people just wouldn’t agree to that. One of the reasons being that people want their own way of doing things. Since all of these countries formed on their own, having them all agree on giving up their own leadership to have a universal government is nearly impossible. There will always be someone who disagrees on how to run things.”

“It would be easier if someone just conquered the Earth.”

“You think people haven’t tried? There’ve been quite a bit of attempts, like Napoleon, but they all failed in the end. It’s a big place and people fight back.”

Another silence fell upon you both. You bit your lip as you scanned over the parade again.

"There's Japan. They have anime," you said.

Starscream finally lost his patience. “I’m not learning anything of use here! I’m just sitting here watching humans walk! The most informative bit was what you told me about North Kaon!"

"North Korea."

"Whatever it was! You expect me to remember all of these names?”

“Well, at least you can get an idea of what each country is like.”

“Admit it, you just told me to go because you wanted to come.”

“Maybe,” your voice rose an octave higher.

He scoffed.

“But,” you added, sitting up, “I did genuinely want to see it with you and show you a little more of Earth.”

“Why would I want to stay here even longer?!”

“I didn’t say that.” You looked at the gauges softly as if it were his face.

“Ah,” there was a nervous stutter present in his voice, “right.”

“Why did you come to Earth if you hate it so much?”

“It’s one of the last locations where we can find even scraps of energon. And you’ve come along to aid me enough times to know it’s important,” he said.

“It’s one of the only things you do.” You recollected everytime you were with him.

“Because ever since leaving the Decepticons ranks, I no longer have access to our storage or equipment to effectively find it. But I promise you, if it weren’t for Cybertron becoming a desert wasteland during the war, I would have never come to this mud ball.”

“Well. Even if you really wanna get back to cybertron, I’m glad I met you. And that I got to experience your awesome flying skills.” You tugged on a strand of your hair and ran your fingers through it.

There was  a brief silence.

“I mean, of course you would… How much longer did you want to see the parade?”

“Maybe a half an hour.”

“Hmmm. I’m going to be sore after hovering in the same spot for so long.”

“I could always rub your wings later if you want,” you offered.

“And let your grubby, little, fleshie hands on my magnificent wings? I think not.”

“Okay.” You rolled your eyes playfully. “It was just an idea.”

For a few more moments, neither of you said anything.

“Would you like to see a demonstration of my aerobatic skills later?”

“Actually, I would.”

A comfortable pause fell upon you.

“…Would you like to go down there?” he offered. He tipped his nose ever-so-slightly to the ground.

“Nah.” You leaned back in your seat with a smile. “I like it up here with you.”

 It had been two months and six days since you last saw him.

Yes, you were counting and had no idea why. Maybe he finally got tired of your fleshie self and left. Maybe you should have seen it coming with how much he disliked humans. Maybe you annoyed him so much that he decided to never see you again without a word.

Yet, when you truly thought about it, it didn’t make sense. He seemed to enjoy being with you, even if he never showed it outright. He was always the one who decided to bring you along when hunting for energon. Even when he was a giant robot, and clearly had some sort of prejudice against humans, it felt as though he still treated you as an equal to some degree.

But maybe he truly did get tired of you.

You stood by your window. The sun had dipped below the horizon and the last ghosts of light had faded away into darkness. You stood in your sweat pants and baggy t-shirt. Your hair was brushed and you were ready to relax. A warm cup of hot chocolate was in your hands, the warmth seeping into your skin. You stared into the cup, thinking of nothing in particular when you blinked at a sudden light.

Your eyes instinctively followed the light. Outside the window, hovering just above the ground, was a large, greenish blue, swirling vortex. You stepped back, but promptly leaned closer for a better look. It didn’t seem to be pulling anything into it. It seemed gentle, yet powerful. You would have found it beautiful if your mind weren’t preoccupied with confusion.

Something seemed to appear inside of it. It was tall, and metal and--!

You nearly dropped your glass mug. After placing it safely to the side, you grabbed a jacket and rushed out the door. You raced to where you saw the portal as fast as your feet would carry you. It was still there when you reached it. Starscream held a device in his hands and his red optics searched the area, as if looking for something.

“Starscream!” You ran up to him, nearly in tears. “Where were you? You’ve been gone forever!”

His optics avoided your eyes. “Well, I…” His mouth pushed into a thin frown. “I lost my T-cog.”

“You’re what now?”

“T-cog! It’s what allows cybertronians to transform.”

Your current expression dropped as it finally dawned on you. The reason he had suddenly disappeared. Then you remembered that there were other people nearby.

“Why don’t we go back through your portal thing and talk about it there?” You began to jog into the portal.

“Ground bridge.”

“Whatever it is.”

You ran while he walked in. The fact that the ground seemed to be made of swirling energy, though it felt completely solid, messed you up. You being smaller didn’t help either. You were running and still falling behind. After a half a minute, Starscream turned around to pick you up and carry you through.

A flash filled your vision and you had to blink several times to adjust to the dark, new area. The walls, ceiling, and floor were made entirely of metal. The only light source came from a dim glow from an foreign, alien screen. It was clear from the dust that no one had been there in a long time. The scale was so large that you felt confident that this was something cybertronians built.

The portal behind you shrunk until it vanished. Starscream lowered you down onto the ground. As soon as your feet hit the floor, you dashed to Starscream’s foot to give him the biggest hug you could.

“I missed you,” you mumbled. Of course, he might have not heard it if it weren’t for nearly every surface being made of metal, causing an echo.

His posture went rigid. He began to reach down to pat your head, then pulled his hand away. He stayed like that without moving a servo the whole time you hugged him.

“Ah… Me too.”

You let go. The cold of the living metal still lingered on you.

“Where have you been? How did…?” You stared up at him.

“I came across some other humans,” he began as he walked over for something to sit on. He helped you up onto it and you sat next to him. “I tried to asist them in building a cybertronian. I believed that they would allow me to keep energon I allowed them to find.” He stared at the floor the entire time.

Your eyes stayed locked on his glowing optics. “Build a cybertronian? Wait, if that was what happened, how did you lose your T thing?”

“I-They needed a t-cog in order to build a cybertronian. The one they already acquired was lost and they decided to take mine instead.” He almost seemed to curl up at the last words.

This settled on your mind like a ton of bricks. You didn’t say a word. Suddenly the room felt very heavy. The silence was like a suffocating blanket that you couldn’t seem to push off. You swallowed.

“They took… it? But, you could have fought them off easi-“

“They shot me with some sort of stun mechanism then proceeded to rip me open to take it!” His talons clenched into fists before him.

Once again, you couldn’t speak.

“Why is it that the first humans I meet, other than you, are no better than the Decepticons?”

“… Because some people can just be like that. Just like humans have potential for both good and harm, it seems like cybertronians are the same in that way.” You stared at the ground. “So… You can’t transform anymore?”

“No.”

“And that’s why you couldn’t fly back to me?”

“Not until I found the Harbinger and a portable ground bridge.”

You nodded. You pulled your legs to your chest and stared off into nothing. “That must stink. Not being able to fly.”

“It’s been terrible! How do humans survive like this?” He lifted his fists to his face.  His eyebrows, or whatever they were called, dug into his optics.

You shrugged. “We’re just used to it.”

The metaphorical blanket came back onto you, but somewhat more comfortably. Somewhat. You both continued to sit.

“… Are you upset about my not being able to transform?” Starscream cut through the silence. Almost so softly that you could hardly believe he was the one who said it.

“Huh? Well, yes,” you let go of your legs, “because you’re upset. I know how much you love flying!”

“But what about you?”

“Me?” You pointed to yourself.

“Yes!”

“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“How do you feel about me not being able to transform?!” He stood up and spun on his heels to face you. His wings stuck up on point.

“Well,” you thought for a second, “I did enjoy flying, but it honestly doesn’t matter too much to me if you can turn into a jet or not. I’m just happy you came back.”

“Oh.” The frustrated expression fell from his face and he looked away. In any direction except at you.

“What’s wrong?” You straightened your back as if it would help you see what was up.

“Nothing, I think. I had simply thought that you only liked me because of my flight capabilities.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because Megatron only kept me alive because I was useful? It was always like that on Cybertron, and with those other humans. Once I become useless, I’m tossed away.”

You felt your heart twisted and your blood boiling. “I hate people who are like that. Forget them. They aren’t worth your time. I’m glad their out of your life.” You stood up. “And to me, as long as we get to hang out, I’m good.”

Starscream tilted his head. “You truly don’t make any sense.”

You shrugged. “The best people in life are free.”

“Huh?”

“People who don’t expect anything in return,” you elaborated. “They care and love you unconditionally.”

“I don’t believe anyone like that exists.”

“They exist. And so do I.” You confidently stared up at him.

His gaze darted between you and away from you. He took a few steps back, as if you were a mysterious creature that could become hostile or blow up any second. Eventually, he gave in to a beautiful, natural smile. And the room suddenly seemed brighter.

 “So, Starscream, I was thinking…” You walked into the room.

“If it’s anything about making a giant s’more again, I’m not interested.”

“No.”

Starscream had been feeling down, pun not intended, about losing his t-cog. You had cleared out two days in your schedule to have a sleepover with him. He had surprised you when you jokingly offered for him to brush your hair and he accepted. He also tried to braid it when you taught him how. It was surprisingly well done, considering the size of his talons, but still sloppy. You had to remind him that he wasn’t a failure at braiding. While laying in your sleeping bag and bundle of blankets you brought for the occasion, an idea came to you.

“I was thinking,” you continued, “that since you’ve been down about not being able to,” Starscream gave you the stink eye, “you know. So I decided it would be fun to do something similar to that one day with the parade.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I can’t fly you to another one.”

“No, not that. I mean that there’s this scout group doing a world presentation or whatever near where I live. They’re going to have cardboard stands set up for each country they researched about.”

“I really don’t think you’ve thought this through,” Starscream sighed, “I do not think these, or any, humans would react well to seeing a cybertronian.”

“I’ve already figured that out!” You bounced on your toes. “I’ll be carrying a camera that will stream video to you over here. That way you can see it without having to be there! And I have some earbuds so I can start a call with you and be able to hear and answer back if you have any questions.”

“Will the humans be suspicious about you speaking to no one?”

“Nope! They’ll just assume I’m on a call with someone, which technically isn’t wrong. So what do you say?”

 “Okay. So you can still see the video feed, right?” you asked while readjusting the camera on your hat.

“Yes, now stop shaking around!” Starscream’s voice came through your earbud. You swore that you would go deaf if this lasted too long.

“Okay,” you mumbled.

The sky was overcast. You walked into the building along with families that had come to see the scouts’ projects. There were tons of tables and three paneled boards lined up. People wandered around. They would stop to read, then turn and walk to the next one that caught their eye. It was clear which groups were family because they would greatly compliment the child’s work.

You figured you needed to start somewhere. It was a stange feeling to be there when you didn’t know anyone, even if the event was open to the public.

“Are we just going to stare?”

This snapped you out of your daze. You blinked for a second. Right, you weren’t alone. You had Starscream.

“Right,” you said and stepped forward.

You walked along the rows, glancing over them until one caught your eye. “France,” you said while pointing to the printed out flag, making sure your finger could be seen by the camera. “It’s in Europe. The capital is Paris. The population is 66 million.” You read off of it. You walked over to another. “Germany. It’s also in Europe. You know, maybe this whole row is European countries. Anyway, capital’s Berlin. Population is 83 million. Their currency is euros.”

“Ironic how these give more information than you did that other day.”

You rolled your eyes. “Yes. Ironic.” You walked a few more steps and stopped. “Some place named Estonia. The flag looks cool.”

“It’s three lines of color, like the other ones.”

“I like the colors.”

“There’s a lot of writing and pictures on each report,” Starscream commented. “Did each of these children research, find the information, and organize it in a presentable way?”

“Yes?” your voice came out as more of a question.

“Impressive.”

You smiled. “Some kids don’t do scouts, but they end up doing things similar with science fairs in school. They’ll do experiments or research, and they they have to make a presentation about it, like a vinegar volcano.”

“A volcano?!”

“No, it can’t do anything dangerous.”

“Then what’s the point? I wouldn’t call that science.”

“It’s simple science that kids are able to do. You know, since they’re kids?”

You noticed one of the parents staring at you and you gave an apologetic look while moving your hair to point at your earbud. You continued walking and eyeing some of the posters to read to Starscream. You had gotten to the Asia section and did your best to pick out something to show him.

“And see? The rainbow bridge.” You pointed.

“Huh? Oh, yes. Very nice,” he said absent mindedly.

You quirked an eyebrow up, but eventually shrugged. He was probably getting bored with all of this. A part of you was beginning to wonder why you thought this was a good idea. This thought detracted you from the sounds surrounding you. You suddenly felt cold and like something was hitting you?

You looked around and suddenly noticed that the fire alarm had gone off. Loud beeps filled the room. Everyone was trying to get out. Kids looked in all directions in confusion. Adults tried to keep them calm and safely head out. Your clothes were beginning to dampen. Instead of trying to get out, your first instinct was to get out of the sprinkler. You crawled under a table and peeked out.

The last few people were almost through the door. That’s when you decided it was time for you to go, but something caught your eye. Something in one of the upper windows that lined the wall near the ceiling. Starscream? His red optics stared down at you and he signaled for you to stay there, along with whispering to you through your earbud. You were confused, but you hid under the table once more.

You waited until the water stopped pouring. Once it was over, you pulled yourself out and to your feet. You glanced around. That was rather sudden. And now there were puddles all over the floor.

A loud rattling echoed in the room.

You turned to see the large door, the kind you would see in a garage, at the back of the room open up. The temperature of the room changed to match outside. Starscream held the door up with a mischievous smirk. You took your earbud out.

“What did you do?”

“I may have gotten bored simply watching through a screen and decided to come. And I may have possibly started a fire, opened a window, and held it next to one of those fire alarms.” His grin grew with each word.

“Really?” You asked rhetorically with your hands on your hips. But you couldn’t help but crack a smile yourself.

“What? I was bored.” He shrugged and waved a hand.

You shook your head with a laugh. “Whatever.”

Starscream ducked in. He had to stay bent down to order to fit. You moved out of his way was he came in.

“So, you were actually interested in this?” you questioned.

“I thought it would be better to see it in person with you.”

“Yeah, but some fire trucks or someone else is going to eventually come back here and see you.”

“Hmm.” He looked back. “I see. But one look for a nanoklick couldn’t hurt. I just did all of this so I could see it anyway.”

“Okay.” You shrugged. “Just hurry.”

After his wing nicked the roof when he tried to straighten himself, he quickly realized that it was easier for him to be on his knees. As he got down on his knees, you helped direct him down in the small free space between the tables. The legs skidding against the floor echoed through the room and made you jump. You were surprised he was even trying to do this when he could barely fit between the rows.

He had to lean in close to get good look of the displays. He would occasionally ask you the meaning of a word he didn’t know. You had to admit, it was more fun to have him there in person. Unfortunately you couldn’t enjoy this for fear of being seen. You constantly looked over your shoulder.

Eventually your paranoia dropped by a few notches. Though, by then Starscream had gotten tired of being crammed in a small space and probably noticed your concern. It was awkward getting to the garage door, between him being unable to move much and him blocking you. But you made your way out.

He lifted the door and ducked under and out. You followed when you noticed him freeze. Confused, you followed his gaze. Your blood went cold and you felt as if your mind was being squeezed into a box.

Staring up at Starscream was what looked to be a five year old child. The little boy was alone, probably wandered off, and had an orange jacket and hat. His expression twisted into disbelief then fear. Your heart rate quickened when you saw his face wobbling.

“Scrap,” you let out as you both turn the other way in panic.

Starscream closed the door with a loud bang that sent a shiver up your spine. You didn’t noticed what Starstream was doing behind you, since you were already running on instinct. When he came into your field of vision again, he was twisting on one foot to regain balance and lifted up the remote ground bridge device. In his panic, he hesitated on which button to click, but quickly pressed it once he remembered.

“Is it a good idea to open it up in here?” you questioned as the piece of cybertronian technology swirled and grew before you.

“I would have preferred a larger space, but I don’t believe we have much of a choice.”

He scooped you up and pulled you through. Like always, you blinked when a flash filled your vision. The air suddenly changed and you were back on the Harbinger as the ground bridge closed behind you. When he held you to the ground and you finally collected yourself enough to jump off, you realized that three of the cardboard presentations had managed to come through along with you and Starscream.

You stood there. “Well, that was interesting.”

“One shouldn’t cause any problems, right?” He looked to you before his eyes darted back to where the ground bridge was.

“That was a kid. They won’t believe him. They might look around, but after seeing no giant robot, they’ll dismiss it.”

“That’s good to hear.” Starscream groaned and held his shoulder. “That made all of my joints stiff. And the tip of my wing caught on the top of that door.” He glanced at his wing with a slight pout on his face.

You stared up at him, taking a moment to consider your words before you were unable to take them back. “… Would you like it if I massaged your wings?”

His optics widened and darted around the area. “Fine,” you could barely hear in the midst of low grumbles.

You blinked twice before fully processing what that meant. As you were trying to figure out how to even reach his wings, he held out his hand. You stepped onto it and he carried you to a table or whatever it was. It was too large for you to tell exactly. You carefully got off of his hand and he sat with his wings facing you.

You sat with your legs hanging off the edge. Your hands reached out to his wings. He readjusted himself so you didn’t have to lean forward in order to touch them. Your fingers shook. You hesitated. Finally, your hand laid flat on it. It was cold. You didn’t know what you expected. It was basically like touching a regular piece of metal. You weren’t sure what you were expecting. But somehow it felt different. Maybe because he had trusted you to touch it. You began rubbing it soothingly. You prayed that you weren’t doing anything wrong.

He hummed as you rubbed patterns onto it. Although you were sure he could barely feel it, you saw him relaxing. There was silence for several minutes.

“Why are you so kind?” he said.

“Huh?” You did your best to peek around to look at his face.

“How can humans be like this? At least you and the ones you talk about. Those small humans, no matter how well they proformed with their research, were praised. And how can other humans get along well enough to be allies despite having separate territories and governments? How can anyone do anything for someone else without expected anything in return.” He turned his helm to you. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“No?” You tilted your head in confusion. “I just wanted to because it was the nice thing to do?”

“How? Why?” He turned his whole body, leaving your hands floating in the air. “Why are you always so nice to me? Has it ever occurred to you that you would get nothing in return? Especially from a grounded Decepticon defect?”

“I’m not looking for anything in return,” you started calmly. “I might get to learn about cybertronians, and do some cool things with you. And I get to spend time with you. I get that in exchange, but I’m not expecting anything more. Can you please accept that there are some people who are just nice? Who actually like you and want what’s best for you?”

His face twisted, as if about to argue. But paused, like he had never considered that before. He opened his mouth again, but closed it again, when no words would come out.

He eventually sighed. “I suppose I’ll simply have to trust you,” he said softly. He stared at you closely. “Your hair dried.”  

You suddenly remembered it had been wet from the sprinklers. He reached out and touched your hair, letting it fall on his talons.  Then he flinched back. “Uh… apologies.”

You reached out to pull his finger close to you and hug it. “It’s okay.” You smiled. “I like it.”

Starscream appeared shocked by this, but relaxed and smiled. A genuine smile.

[whatudottu]

I’m having some thoughts on universal translators, and though I know absolutely nothing about programming or generalised tech, I might as well share- I have a language headcanon in the drafts.

Also, while this is mostly in reference to Ben 10 (mainly for the brief mention of R&D), the actual translation programming can actually apply to Transformers too, considering that they’re most likely built into a Cybertronian.

I, in making this, wanted to have a balance of sci-fi and sci-fantasy (ben 10 is already heavily sci-fantasy, try as i might to star trek the shit out of its logic), so in that sense, I decided upon two types of translators;

Full translators - native language to foreign language through speech alone; does not require understanding of the foreign language, but can have cultural misunderstandings and translation errors.

Full translators are simple, take what you say and (with delay or no, depending on how much coin you can spend) translate it for others to hear. And by being audio based, this translator can work two-way.

This doesn’t matter the price, the translation will always be yours and yours alone, the price only really affects how you hear it. The cheap alternative is simple, an earpiece or some other suitable listening device (depending on of course your biology and whatever the shape of your ear is). More expensive devices uses a one-way thought reader that provides the translation to the mind already. It looks the same as an earpiece, but it just skips the audio prompt and conveys meaning.

And again, full translators translate EVERYTHING you say, and while things may be semantically correct, native speakers of your chosen foreign language can notice something off with your speech. Plus, not all words have direct translation, and across the universe there are some concepts that don’t even have words in other cultures, so translations can be conflated with confusing words or words that don’t quite sound right in the sentence that you are trying to speak.

And that leads us right along to the second translator type;

Semi translators - native language to foreign language with foreign language thoughts and native language speech (i.e. thoughts marked as ‘intended speech’ with vocal imput); prevents cultural misunderstandings and translation errors, but an understanding of the foreign language is required.

Semi translators - I’m not a fan of the name but I’m the worst at making them - are used by individuals who physically cannot pronounce the foreign language they want to speak in (someone with vocal chords speaking a language with striation). Semi translators are typically a one-way translator - mainly due to the thought reading required - so even if the foreign language thoughts were not required for more accurate translations, a new speaker would still need to learn to listen.

Galvan’s have produced a lot of intergalactic tech used by the wider universe - and I think they have made some translation tech canonically - so why not be the ones to make semi translators a real thing?

R&D’s first attempts at making the semi translators initially lacked a line distinguishing intended speech and stray thoughts. A particularly detailed screenplay of a subject’s thought process was identified and consequently translated through, and while the subject was given points for creativity, researchers found the need for an intended speech market; why not use speech itself as the marker?

Taking the one-way thought receiver of the full translators and flipping it, again in the form of a wearable headset (of some form or another), the receiver has a proximity noise sensor that activates the mind-reading. This is far more sci-fantasy that I’m used to talking about (and far more programming shenanigans than i have any knowledge on to actually make a thing hypothetically possible), but essentially galvan smart and yada yada monkey thought translator a la Cloudy and the Chance of Meatballs, the foreign language thoughts are converted to sound thanks to the audial trigger of native language speech.

Of course if you’re a Cybertronian you can skip a few steps. It’s probably a median between full and semi translators that has its route in a Cybertronian’s processor; foreign words enter an audial and - if the planet has global network or some form of internet - words are translated on the fly. It’s prone to errors and misunderstandings - Ultra Magnus’ “What’s a ‘kilt’?” comes to mind - but unlike full translators, they have the opportunity to quickly fact check a word they don’t understand.

And uh… I think that’s it?

well for ben 10 there’s magic- skips all the steps and goes straight to ‘i mean to say this, and this has a certain meaning’

Keep an eye out for my alien language headcanon post- it’s fully drafted and is waiting on a good release time.

[eldritch-araneae]

Sparkpulse IV: Sleeping Beast Within.

Summery:

Bumblebee and Cheetor are chilling together on a nice quiet evening :3

It’s a nice and calm evening today. No Decepticons activities. Bumblebee and Cheetor are relaxing on a random ledge above the cafeteria, watching everyone chilling with their energon. Cheetor is currently in their spotted ray-cheetah alt form, laying with their limbs tucked underneath the body. A position which everyone lovingly calls a “loaf form”. Bumblebee is beside his feline friend, pressing onto their side and mimicking the same position.

Both Special Operations agents were talking about random stuff, from patrol and mission discussions to random shenanigans that happened to other Autobots. Life is never boring in their department, even during the night, considering a lot of agents are nocturnal cybertronians, including Bumblebee himself.

Bumblebee slightly nudges Cheetor to make them look at him. Cheetor is hard-of-hearing, and their hearing can vary from moderate to severe. They have hearing aids, but sometimes they are not much help. So everyone quickly learned that they must make sure that Cheetor sees them before talking to make lip-reading and signing easier.

“How was your patrol, by the way?” Bumblebee asks his diurnal friend.“Did you find any interesting stuff among the ruins?”

“Nope, whatever was in that building eroded long ago.” Cheetor sighs, but then grins a second later. “I still can’t believe you found that super old board game intact!” they exclaimed, lightly bumping the minibot with their nose.

Bumblebee giggles at the display of affection. He loves little things like this. He bumps Cheetor back with his forehead. “I know right! It was in such good condition that even acid rain and stuff didn’t eat it.”

At that moment, Jazz enters the room and as he sees the pair of “cats” on the ledge above, he bursts into laughter.

“I must admit, Cheetor, I never expected you to teach our youngest member the way of the cat!” the head of Special Operations Department chortles, “Bumblebee, please be honest! Can you purr already?”

Cheetor wheezes at Jazz’s question, while Bumblebee grins widely.

“Well, I tried, but apparently I can only growl.” the minibot answers with all his honesty. “It doesn’t feel like I am supposed to be a feline.”

“Well, it doesn’t stop you from being a cat anyway!” Jazz grins, gesturing at Bumblebee’s current “loaf” position. Cheetor wheezes, making a sound like a kettle from Wheeljack’s lab. That caused all three to burst into laughter. After that, they exchanged a few words before Jazz went to grab his energon cube. The minibot and the beastformer keep chilling on the ledge, observing everyone below them.

Imitation is an interesting thing indeed. It’s a natural process that allows a living being to fit better in their social environment.

It’s not like Cheetor was teaching Bumblebee feline behavior on purpose. It just happened because the minibot spent a lot of time with them and other Autobot felines after he made amends with Steeljaw.

Bumblebee adopted some cat mannerisms. This is when his beast protocols surfaced. Both Perceptor and Botanica are absolutely sure the minibot was bound to be a beastformer, but lack of resources forced him to take a vehicle-type alt form. This leaves a lot of questions, but it’s not possible to answer them for now.

Still, this explains a lot of things: his quadrupedal mode could be an attempt of his body to compensate for the lack of beast-type alt form. Or how he feels like he’s missing some parts, like additional limbs.

Bumblebee is sure he’s supposed to have wings! Every time he swings with his cables, the overwhelming nostalgia makes his spark ache and his back feels abnormally light. After a while, this feeling grew into an itch, and just swinging around the stronghold wouldn’t satisfy it anymore.

Windblade could see the pained look on his face, so she indulged him and took him skydiving. Just flying up with her already feels so much better. And the moment Windblade turns off her engines and they start falling is pure joy, making him tear up every time.

The wind rushing past him, the feeling of flying, the stimulant rush. Bumblebee forgets about all his insecurities and worries, feeling that he belongs in the sky.

This is the closest to flying he ever got, or will ever get, as sad as it sounds.

Bumblebee shakes his head. There is no reason to wallow about things he can’t have, he has to work with what he’s given. That’s why he can’t wait for Windblade to come back from her mission, so they can go skydiving again.

The anticipation quickly fades as the door opens to the cafeteria, revealing Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker going in. The minibot tenses upon seeing them. Those two are not buddies, not at all.

“Bee, are you okay? Your optics have slits.” Cheetor’s voice pulls Bumblebee’s attention to themself. Pupils turning into slits, another feature of a beastformer, that happens when one is angry, exposed to light, or in alt mode.

“I’m okay, it’s just... well him.” He hisses at Sunstreaker below, who seems like he didn’t realize that Bumblebee is in the room too. “I still don’t know what I did to him to receive such treatment.”

“He’s always been such a slaghead as long as I remember.” Cheetor sighs. “But it’s undeniable that he’s really out there to get you for no reason. Don’t worry, I will eat his shins if he tries to do anything to you!”

Bumblebee smiles at support. He really appreciates it. Though this smile fades quickly because the problem is still there and he does not know what to do with this.

Sunstreaker hates the minibot for unknown reasons and will grab any chance to harass him. Thankfully, his friends, especially Windblade, made it crystal clear that if he hurt Bumblebee, Sunstreaker won’t come out in one piece.

Still, Bumblebee feels that animosity directed at him from the yellow gladiator’s spark.

That’s just so unfair that it hurts!

Thankfully, before Bumblebee could start fully seething about this, Blaster, with his cassettes, entered the cafeteria. Cheetor greets the fellow Special Ops members, which pulls the minibot out of the spiral of negative emotions.

Suddenly, the optics of Bumblebee, Cheetor, Steeljaw and Nightstalker are locked onto each other. For a few seconds, they stared. Everyone who noticed this stopped doing what they were doing because they knew what would happen next.

Who will run first?

Who will start the game?

The next second, Nightstalker bolts from the spot they were standing into the stronghold corridors. Steeljaw jumps after them, followed by Bumblebee and Cheetor jumping from the ledge.

The chase has begun, leaving laughing bots in the cafeteria behind!

The stomping is so intense that someone might think it’s Dinobots, not three cats and Bumblebee running through corridors. He never said it out loud, but those games helped him to be more confident with his quadrupedal mode, making him even more agile.

After a few more turns of running, Steeljaw catches Nightstalker. Now it’s their turn to be chased. He turns around and runs in the opposite direction, into the medical wing.

A medbay door opens, and Ratchet almost got thrown on the floor if he didn’t see Steeljaw coming. With a yelp, he quickly jumps back into the room, and the rest of the group runs by him. He can only shake his head as he foresees someone getting hurt. But he cannot deny that cats need to get their zoomies out... though he still can’t believe they dragged Bumblebee into their games.

The three beastformers and the minibot keep running until Bumblebee finally catches Steeljaw.

“You’ll never catch me!” the minibot proclaims, as he takes an instant sharp turn and starts running at full speed.

“Hey!” Cheetor yelps, not expecting such a fast reaction from the minibot. Being the fastest quadrupedal out of Autobots, they quickly catch up with the minibot, almost being within their reach.

Bumblebee feels ‌Cheetor is getting close to him and takes another unexpected turn to avoid being caught. But surprises won’t end here.

Just ahead of him, the door opens and Optimus Prime steps into the corridor. Bumblebee sees it too late and slams into his leg at full speed. Optimus loses balance and falls onto his back. Cheetor, who was right behind Bumblebee, couldn’t stop in time and stepped all over their leader, including his face, before sliding into the wall. Steeljaw and Nightstalker, who were much farther behind, heard the commotion and slowed down, only slightly bumping into Optimus.

“What happened?! Are you okay, Optimus?” Prowl rushed from the same room to help his friend sit up.

“I am alright.” Optimus reassures the second in command and looks at the yellow culprit, who is laughing on the floor right.

“I’m sorry, Prime! I didn’t see you!” Bumblebee somehow utters the apology between laughs. He was so focused on getting away from Cheetor on his tail that he didn’t even pay attention to what was in front of him.

“I’m sorry too, for stepping on you!” Cheetor, who is giggling, apologizes next. “Looks like we got carried away.”

This earned a fit of giggles from everyone. Bumblebee’s laugh is simply contagious. No one can resist, not even serious bots like Prowl.

“This was bound to happen, I feel. Though, I wouldn’t expect Bumblebee to be the one throwing me off my feet.” Optimus chuckles. He turns to Bumblebee, who, despite the laughing fit, is cradling his left arm. “Are you alright?”

“I’m okay!” Bumblebee exclaims, trying to throw his arms up, but his left arm quickly responds with pain from sharp movement. “Ow, ow, ow!” he grimaces. “Okay, maybe I’m not. Looks like I dislocated my shoulder or something.” he corrected with a giggle. Sure, it hurts, but this entire situation is too amusing to him to focus on the pain.

“Oh no!” Cheetor feels bad for their friend. “I will make sure he’ll make it to medbay!”

“Good. So what did we learn today?” Prowl asks the youngest member of Autobots.

“I learned that if I slam into Prime’s leg hard enough --” he didn’t even finish as everyone erupted into laughs again.

After everyone calmed down, Cheetor with the cassettes helped Bumblebee to get to the medbay.

When they entered Ratchet’s domain, the medic already could guess what happened. But he would never guess who fell victim to their shenanigans this time.

“Let me get this straight.” Ratchet slightly pinches the bridge of his nose.” You, Bumblebee, tripped Optimus Prime? And damaged your left arm in the process?”

The only answer he received was another row of laughter from beastformers, which served as confirmation.

“Aright. Bumblebee, you get into the berth, and your three are out.” Ratchet said. The minibot nodded to his playmates, and they went back to their game, chasing after Cheetor.

Then he walks over to the berth. Ratchet helps him to get on it with his magnetokinesis, before proceeding to inspect the injury. The medic carefully popped Bumblebee’s shoulder into the socket. The pain is lifted.

“Thanks, Ratchet.” Bumblebee says sheepishly.

“You should be more careful with their games. You are not as durable as they are, Bumblebee, and they tend to play rough.” Ratchet grumbles.

“C’mon, they never hurt me, and it’s fun!” Bumblebee protests. He doesn’t like to be reminded of his condition, though he knows this comes out of concern. “Alright, alright I will.”

Ratchet nods, satisfied with the answer. “Hold still, I will check if your arm sustained any more injuries.”

Bumblebee decided to check radio channels as he waited. Maybe he can hear if Windblade is coming back soon. After swapping multiple channels, Bumblebee stumbled upon a strange signal.

The signal is transmitted through a channel that he never saw before. As if it was turned off until someone began using it recently. And the signal itself is something he never heard Autobots or Decepticons using. It sounded like a series of beeps, short and long.

“Is something wrong?” Ratchet asks, noticing the minibot’s confused expression. Bumblebee opens the radio channel with the medic, letting him listen to that signal.

“Did you hear something like this before?” he asks the medic. He’s one of the eldest Autobots. Surely he heard something like this, right?

But Ratchet is confused as much as Bumblebee, “I do not know. We should notify the High Command about this. Who knows if Decepticreeps invented another way of secret communication… after I finish with your arm.”

The minibot nods and continues listening to the signal. He can’t help but feel it seems oddly familiar to him. After multiple passes, Bumblebee notices it has a specific pattern that looks like this:

... .... .- -.. --- .-- .-.. ..- .-. -.- . .-. --..-- / .-- . / -. . . -.. / - --- / - .- .-.. -.- .-.-.-

After he got the pattern, much to Bumblebee’s surprise, his system recognized it and began deciphering. When he saw the meaning of the message, his spark almost jumped out of his chest.

“WHAT?!”

[my-writings-and-musings]

Here's a commission from an absolutely wonderful person, with Drift and a human reader going from the start of their friendship to becoming Amica Endura, and being ridiculously cute and sweet all the way. 

You'd been confused by the term at first, like you had with all Cybertronian phrases upon initially hearing them, but this one had been different in a way that didn't feel right.

Mostly because it sounded suspiciously like an insult.

Though the group of bots hadn't appeared to be especially troublesome, you had still seen Drift flinch when they'd referred to him as a Carnicon. That reaction alone had stirred immediate concern on your part, but their less than friendly tone and the sense of trouble they carried had made you act on the spot. Though the offending crewmembers had been gone by the time you managed to climb down the ladder attached to your designated lunch table, you'd still made it a point to hurry across the floor towards the lonely ninja bot, hoping that perhaps you'd just misunderstood what had transpired. Maybe the word was a nickname he hadn't heard in a while?  Distracted as you were just trying to avoid getting stepped on by the other bots moving about the room, such optimism was still obviously hopeless even to you. Drift had looked wounded by the comment.

"Hey, Drift! Down here, hello!"

Waving your arms for added effect, you called up to the bot as soon as you reached the floor beside his chair. Though somewhat out of breath, you had practiced getting the attention of much taller beings enough times to make elevating your voice quite easy, and you were noticed quickly. Raising his helm in a flash, Drift looked down to the floor with surprise that turned to a soft smile when he recognized you. A hand was offered to lift you as had become customary amongst the crew. 

"Hey, Y/N! Finish your lunch so soon?" He asked casually, all traces of his unpleasant encounter already wiped from his face. Hopping off his palm and onto the table, you had to sadly note the half eaten meal of his own sitting on a tray, untouched since he'd been called that word. The neatly organised arrangement of  energon cuts and various metals prepared as tasty little morsels was his usual lunch, something you knew because its sushi like appearance had stuck in your mind, especially do to how quickly he always finished it and the delighted mood with which he did so. Something must have indeed been wrong for it to be pushed aside and ignored.

"Yeah! I just wanted to come over, and..." Words failed you at the realization you hadn't actually planned upon what to say, or even how to go about saying it, despite your desire to help. All you'd wanted was to check up on him as swiftly as possible, and due to the distance involved there hadn't been time to think of a tactful way to accomplish that. Perhaps you should just be honest and not beat around the bush? Drift was a bot who could appreciate good intentions, if nothing else. Finding your courage, you ignored your somewhat rapid heartbeat to look up at him, smiling softly and adjusting your stance in a way you prayed came across as reassurance. "Well, honestly, I saw that group of bots go by and... I don't like to assume, but I wanted to make sure they didn't give you a hard time."

"Oh, those guys?"

His tone was casual, but even he couldn't hide the hurt that flashed in his optics. Clearly, and unfortunately, your instincts had been right on target. 

"Nah, they're just... Some mechs are a bit abrasive is all, it's how they socialize." He said, politely dismissing your concerns with fake sincerity that might have worked if you didn't know him as well as you did. Though not especially close, you'd spent enough time with him to learn he tried to play peacemaker on the ship, something made quite difficult by the past many crewmembers refused to let him forget. Somehow the particular variety of pain he earned from such a predicament was very easy to recognize. You could hear it in every halting word, and because of that you had to fight to keep your expression neutral as he worked his way through an explanation probably improvised on the spot. "I've been developing a more open energy flow in casual environments. It allows me to connect with others on a deeper level, but can make me a tad more... vulnerable, to such unexpected encounters."

Hearing the pain hidden just below the surface of his voice, you can't help but feel a protective stir in your heart, regardless of the fact Drift towers over you and is an experienced combat veteran. Size and strength clearly aren't keeping him safe from bullies, and you can't bear to think of him suffering that pain in silence. Perhaps it isn't your place, but leaving him to endure even another minute just isn't an option. Sitting down on the table, you keep your worry to yourself and speak plainly, one equal to another.  "It wasn't so much them, as what they said that seemed to bother you." 

Seeing him deflate a bit makes further conversation almost impossible, but you push forward with your question. "That word, Carnicon, was it an insult?"

"No." He replies, curtly but not aggressive as he looks down at the hands he's folded atop the table. Worried you might have crossed some cultural boundary, despite all but whispering the word in question to lessen its blow, you're relieved when he seems to decide against further deflection. Stroking his thumb over the back of his palm, he is open but not quite unguarded in his tone as he starts to explain. "Well, not in most situations. Carnicon is an older term for Cybertronians built to hunt or engage in combat with purely biological weapons; like claws or venom."

Now at least marginally caught up, though still uncertain how such a word could ever be used against someone, you gently encouraged him to continue when he paused. "But... in other situations?"

"Some look down on bots bearing features that are ascribed to Carnicons. Thus, the name is often levied at those with "beastly" attributes, such as tails, horns, or..." Momentarily worried he'd paused because the topic had indeed proved too much, you were too caught up in the sad implications of the explanation to notice it hardly applied to him in the slightest. It was only when he brought a hand to his chin that the pieces started to click. Tilting his helm, he opened his mouth just enough for you to catch sight of four incredibly pointed tips, all in the same spots as your own canines. Everything made a terribly sad kind of sense by the time he closed his mouth and returned his sad gaze to you with a single word. 

"Fangs."

Heartache barreled past your defenses to show on your face in the form of an unrestrained frown, one that almost weighed you down under a dense kind of sadness you'd never experienced. Bots kept surprising you with the downright absurd forms of bigotry found on Cybertron, but this... You didn't even know how to begin processing it. This poor bot may have made some bad choices in the past, but he's worked tirelessly to be better, and the whole time you've known him he's been nothing but kind. More than kind, in fact. Drift is practically smiling every time he sees you. To think he has to endure exclusion for his past, on top of harassment for a physical trait that's impossibly harmless, you find yourself wishing wistfully you were large enough to embrace him. A reassuring smile on his face makes you ache more.

"Although I'm not a Carnicon, the fact that a number of my dentae are unusually sharp in a manner some might compare to those commonly found in Carnicons has occasionally resulted in... heckling." At the last word he cracks, and for the first time his fake unaffected front is completely ineffective, allowing you to see the pain that's almost overflowing just below the surface. Such a sight makes you certain you'll never be able to unsee his suffering again. Suddenly you understand him on a deeper level, as if this little incident has made something click into perfect place. You've never felt more determined to comfort someone than you do as he tries to continue. "But I'm quite accustomed to all of the reactions I provoke, Y/N! It does not bother me. Thank you for your concern though, I hope this feature does not perturb you."

A wonderful burst of clarity nearly makes you laugh, if only because being so caught up actually made you forget something about yourself, but you channel that energy into a bolstering smile as you scoot closer on the table.

"Why would it do that? I've got them too."

Optics going blank, it looked as if his processor had crashed like an old PC before he utters two quiet words.

"Come again?"

Tilting your own head, you gently pull your mouth open and push your lip back to reveal your own canines, all of which extend far enough that all he has to do is squint before his expression brightens in realization. Tapping the pointy tip, you let go to enable yourself to talk once again. Seeing him watch your face a little more intently as you speak is oddly endearing. "See? All humans have these teeth, they're called "canines", but mine are extra big and sharp. It's called Macrodontia." 

"I... I never noticed..." He replied after a pause, speaking softly as his processor works over what you've just shared with him. There's hesitation holding back an obvious buzz of excitement, as if he doesn't want to take a risk and believe he's finally found someone who understands, or is worried you might be offput by the true level of his excitement. Equally concerned about not overwhelming him or overstepping, you reply using a casual tone to mask your eagerness to connect with him.

"As small as I am, no one here has." You say matter of factly, briefly wondering if any unpleasant sentiment would have been directed your way if your size didn't hide the feature. Flashbacks of taunts on Earth are overwritten by self admonishment, as you know for a fact nothing you've endured could ever compare to what he faces on a daily basis in terms of sheer isolation. No doubt the teeth also play into bot's assumptions on his "aggressive" nature too. Not wanting to make the moment about yourself, but also determined to let him know you would never do to him what others have done to you, you're left fumbling between what feels like two conflicting ideals. "Sometimes people made fun of me for it on Earth, so I... I know it's not the same as what you face, so I don't want to say I "understand" how you feel or anything, but-"

"Y/N... I think you do. A lot more than most." He says, not so much interrupting as reassuring you that the backpedaling isn't necessary. Letting out a breath you didn't know you'd been holding, the warm satisfaction of being able to help someone in a trying moment settled over your heart with a kind of fuzzy giddiness. There's a renewed brightness in his optics as he looks to you without shame and speaks openly. "Thank you for sharing this with me, and I assure you I won't tell a soul. But if anyone ever does find out, and gives you trouble..."

There's a gentle fade to silence as you lay a tiny hand on his.

"It doesn't have to be secret. I'm not ashamed of the way I am, especially considering who I share the look with." You say, and the effect is so profound his smile actually appears to brighten before the rest of his expression.

"I'll still be here for you, just as you've been here for me."

"Consider the feeling mutual."

---------------------------------

"Then there's this particular blade; do you see how it doesn't have any sharpened edge?"

Due to your size, you could probably see the finer details of the weapon even more clearly than your friend did, and thus the total lack of serrated sides was quite apparent. Thankfully the missing edge also made it easier to observe the features Drift was describing while he held the blade out for you to see, as you could get quite close without having to worry about excessive caution. It didn't hurt that you also wanted to observe as much detail as possible. Following along with him had taught you amazing things, and he actually seemed to grow more enthusiastic when you were attentive.

"Yeah! It's all just tapered to a point, like a stake." You said, sitting casually on the floor amongst the neatly arranged armory of swords and daggers of incredible variety. From the way Drift is gleefully chatting from his own spot in front of you, one might have thought he was discussing something more akin to collectibles than weapons of war, but this behavior had become so normal to you that the oddness didn't even register. As far as you were concerned, he was simply a friend sharing something he was passionate about. Seeing him smile so brightly made it even better.

"Precisely! This style is very unique; it's meant for close combat, either as a last resort in a sword fight or a single strike for assassination." He said, holding up the blade and flipping it elegantly over his palm. Optics almost shining with delight, he spoke so enthusiastically you could see his sharpened dentae peeking through every smile, which he only allowed to happen when he felt truly comfortable. Before you knew it your own cheeks were pushing up in an absolutely beaming grin, one enthusiastic enough to show your own little fangs as well. Seeing Drift this... free just stirred a kind of warm happiness in your heart you didn't know was possible. It seemed to only happen in select moments, but it was definitely becoming more frequent the longer you two were friends, and it was hard to miss how his happiest days seemed to occur only in your presence...

"Oh, and then there's this one!"

You startled as he pulled out a similiar but far more elegant blade seemingly from nowhere, moving so swiftly the fine edge made a whistle as it cut through the very air, but as he began to gush about the particular nature of this weapon you settled back in to listen eagerly. Truthfully you could sit here and let him talk through every weapon he'd ever owned. Being his friend was a reward in itself that you enjoyed each day.

---------------------------------

For the sake of the bot working so diligently, you tried to avoid moving in any significant way, going so far as to take shallow breaths whenever possible. It was resulting in rather minimal oxygen intake, but you saw it as worth it due to how little you disturbed his concentration. Unfortunately your metabolism really didn't approve of the sacrifice.

Thankfully, Drift had become familiar enough with human biology and you in general to notice just as you were starting to get dizzy.

"Y/N?" He prompted, getting you to crack your eyes open just a notch to look at him. Still unwilling to risk his work, you willed up the tiniest hint of air through your throat to respond without moving your mouth.

"Mm?"

A blurry smile came through your narrowly parted eyelids, his sense of reasurance shining bright despite the limited view you had as he spoke softly. "You can relax, I can do this fine with you moving a little."

Opening your eyes all the way, the words admittedly acted as a switch for your lungs, which sucked in a deep breath through your nose to catch up with your deficit. Relieved and feeling a little silly, you took a few more quick inhales as he paused his painting of your face. Apparently you'd been much closer to passing out than you'd realized... When dizziness finally faded away, you looked back to him with a sheepish smile and a permissive look for him to continue. Drift smiled right back and lifted the tiny brush again with another little reminder. 

"But even if I were having a problem, you staying conscious is more important than not smudging paint."

"Sorry, just don't want to mess up your hard work." You replied, now content to breathe normally but still doing your best to stay motionless atop his desk. The sentiment seemed to touch him, as there was a hint of a delay in his next brushstroke, but a little merry flash in his optics. Being appreciated in anything was still quite new for him, after all. Even with you his list of true friends remained sadly short. 

"Painting these symbols is just as much about the process as the result. Taking the time to get it right, even fixing little details, is all part of it." He murmured as the tiniest touch of a miniscule brush flicked under your right eye, his voice expressing his focus until he pulled back and relaxed with a quip. "Plus, you're actually doing better than I'm used to. Rodimus is always so twitchy when we try this."

A tiny snort of laughter escaped you at the image of a frustrated Lost Light captain getting antsy in a chair. "I can believe it."

There was an unusually long pause as Drift seemed to survey his work, mouth pressing into a thin line before he held up a bot sized mirror and looked at you with an expression just barely restraining hope for approval.

"Here, want to see so far?"

There was no need to exaggerate; you loved it. A part of you wished the intricate red could be permanent due to how beautiful it looked on your features, especially with how perfect the symbols were at accentuating what you liked most about your appearance. Tilting your head from side to side, you admired the expert craftsmanship with a smile impossible to hide, and were emphatic in expressing your thoughts.

"Drift, it looks amazing!"

"I'm glad..." He said on a sigh of relief, backtracking under the guise of a fake cough moments later. "I'm glad you like it! These patterns and colors are a very pure expression of friendship, so getting them right is... Yeah."

Seeing him so vulnerable pulled out the same desire to comfort him that had started your relationship, though unlike then you were totally certain now as you laid a proportionally tiny hand on his. "Marks or no marks, you're still my best friend."

Despite how casual the words left your lips, he looked just as touched as he'd been at your initial interaction in the canteen, and seemed quite affected as he lowered the mirror and replied. "You mean it?"

"Always." Came your automatic response.

---------------------------------

The Lost Light, being as massive as it was, had a wealth of rooms including viewing decks up for grabs at any given time. With one wall consisting almost entirely of windows to view the beauty of the cosmos, and plenty of space to set up furniture or whatever else one might need, they were a naturally popular choice for social gatherings. While some in ideal positions had become more sought after than others, they were plentiful enough that any given bot had no need to worry about being unable to find a space for any occasion. Thus they were perfect for gatherings of any size at any time for all who called the ship home.

Despite the ease of procuring such a space on demand, however, Drift had been quite insistent on the specific one he'd rushed you towards without warning. Accustomed to his often sporadic ideas, you'd happily let him carry your tiny form in his broad arms when he promised explanations would be coming. Admittedly the fact that he'd appeared nervous had given you some pause though...

Until you'd actually seen the viewing deck and what he'd arranged within.

Framed almost as if by hand, a brilliant red cloud of space dust sparkled in the infinite blackness beyond, giving the room a soft glow akin to a warm fire or a fantastic sunset. Spectralism heralded such a color as one of friendship and eternal bonds, and as you took in the recently arranged decorations around the room that made a brilliant kind of sense. From the gem studded light strings wound about the ceiling, to the crystalline flowers flanking the door, and the little table in the center draped in fabric to look somewhat like an altar, it's clear the whole room has become a Spectralist symbol of true companionship. With everything you two have been through together, you have a good feeling as to why. It's so touching you actually have to fight the urge to cry.

"I spent so long getting everything ready, the nebula kind of snuck up on me..." He said bashfully, still holding you in his hands as he walked forward with a little sigh. The story painted a clear image in your head of a studiously decorating bot looking up to be surprised by a giant anomaly in space, as if it was a guest arriving earlier than it was supposed to, and you had to chuckle at his adorable nature. "But I don't want to miss it, so I hope you'll forgive me if things aren't perfect. The backdrop is just too important."

Certain as you were about the purpose of all this, you still decided to open with a question, letting your friend take the lead with you as support. "What is it the backdrop for?"

"I think you know, but..." He said, smiling through significant nerves despite how clear it was you were fully on board. For all of his progress, the poor bot was still easily overwhelmed by doubt. The fact that he'd made this attempt all on his own, even with obvious anxiety every step of the way, made you proud as much as you were touched by his gesture. Approaching the little table, he set you down on it with a deep ventilation. Something quite positive but weighty needed to come off his chest.

"You've only been in my life a little while, yet every day our friendship has gotten stronger, Y/N. You're one of the few people who can look past my mistakes, and you remind me why I want to be better in the first place. I want to let you know how truly I value your companionship."

Though he spoke quickly, enough that he clearly had memorized the words and worried about saying every one, you were absolutely touched near to the point of tears. He'd spoken about Amica Endura in the past, particularly as of late when he'd dropped not so subtle tests to gauge your feelings on the topic, but nothing could have prepared you for him actually requesting such a thing of you. It was the deepest expression of platonic love known to his kind, meant for friendships that endured through their seemingly endless lifetimes. To be considered worthy of such a thing simply made your heart feel like bursting with gratitude.

Lowering his voice a tad, as if to separate his next sentence from everything else, he offered you a hand and smiled softly but warmly in the delicate light.

"If... If you're okay with it... I'd like to become Amica Endura. I know you mentioned the idea sounded good, and that I'm you're best friend, but I just want to check." He said, speaking so tenderly you might have forgotten he was multiple times your own height. Happier than you could convey in words, you nodded and had to sniffle back some tears. To think of the suffering this bot had endured, the exclusion and bullying he went through every day, yet still he found the strength to be so kind... What were the odds a little human would end up meaning so much to him? At your dotting of tears, he tenderly tilted your chin upwards. "Y/N?"

"Sorry, just... You know I can be a sap." You said through a laughing sob, brushing away the wetness from your eyes to see him clearly when you spoke next. Holding one of his digits, you put your heart and soul into every word. It felt somewhat akin to baring a spark of your own. "But I do want to be Amica, for real. You're my best friend and I want that to be forever."

There was an immediate dampness in his optics, but he pushed it back with a few quick cycles of his shutters. Putting on the most wobbly of smiles, he lifted both hands and had you lay your own atop his digits, the closest the two of you could get to clasping them together. "Okay, I... I just hold your hands, say some words, and then you say "today, tomorrow, and always" after I do. Got it?" 

Nodding, you watched in awe as he leaned back and opened his spark casing, revealing the brilliant glow of his essence to blend with the soft light already present, making it look like a miniature star was flaring in his chest. Cycling another vent, he looked into your eyes as he began.

"I bid you stand in the glow of my spark, so that you may feel the heat of my words and know them to be true."

The fact that the words were meant to be purely allegorical didn't make them any less powerful. You really could feel warmth from him, but almost on a different level than you'd ever experienced before, as if your happiness and his were filling the air between you. Perhaps the Spectralist beliefs about color connecting to emotion was true in ways you hadn't expected. Light from the cosmic cloud outside almost seemed to give his words the backdrop they needed to truly connect as he wanted, allowing every one to go straight to your heart and fill it with all the warmth and love he felt for you every day. 

"I invite you to receive my light and in doing so become my Amica Endura—from now until forever." 

You squeezed his hands softly as he hiccuped just a little, encouraging him to continue, and his voice broke a tad as he did.

"Y/N, for your empathy... As you are to me, may I be to you—today, tomorrow, and always."

A bit of coaxing was needed when it was your turn, not because you were hesitant but rather due to how difficult speech was while emotions overflowed your heart. Shamelessly sniffling and letting happy tears fall down a beaming smile, you took a deep breath at his soft look of reasurance. He trusted you to take your time in this. 

"Today, tomorrow, and always." You said to seal the bond, meaning it with every fiber of your tiny being to stand by this bot to the end of your days. The two of you had met by chance, had started to bond over the littlest of moments, and now you were here. It was more perfect than things often went for anyone. Yet there was no need to question the how or why, especially when it led to a friendship as pure as this one. As he closed his spark chamber, you felt residual warmth in the air like the lingering of an embrace.

Which became a very real one when he scooped you up for a hug that was wordlessly agreed upon. Unable to wrap your arms around him at all, you settled for holding them wide and letting him press you close, feeling the smoothness of his heated armor as it hummed with life. Despite being as tiny as you were, it seemed quite apparent the hug was as powerful for him as it was for you. Tiny, happy sobs occasionally bounced his shoulders like little hiccups. It was a moment you could have lived in forever.

When he parted to give you a grin so genuine it confidently displayed his sharpened dentae, you did the same, unable to believe such little things could have the most wonderful of outcomes.

Support me here if you like my writing! Every donation helps me secure more time to create, and the same goes for commissions, which are always available!

[pastelpaperplanes]

how do cybertronians age? is it like human aging, slower, or faster. Does the rate change depending on what subspecies

hmmm I don’t have an equation or idk,,set and coherent answer for that BUT!! I can say that I hc that Cybertronian’s age fairly fast when they’re young—but it slows drastically by the time they hit what would be considered their young adult stage (ehh maybe like age 18-21 they stop getting standard growth upgrades and their age plateaus for a long while!!)

I’d say that from newspark to about toddler age it would be fairly on par w human growth (so VERY fast according to Cybertronian standards, bbys don’t stay little for long :’c) the tween and teen years have at the very least a few centuries in between, and ofc from young adult and going on the years piles up from tens of thousands between hundreds of thousands and then MILLIONS—then ofc middle age hits and from then it goes on to span out to the TENS of millions of years!

I mean Cybertronians live for freaking MILLIONS of years, so like ofc they age slow and slower and slower as the time goes on! I mean what,, Megatron is for SURE well over 4 million years old and he’s still kickin more than Ratchet per say 😂😂

Now ofc that aging process is what I headcanon for Sparklings that are born, FORGED bots ofc could be hella ‘young’, but still start out life in their ‘adult’ frames, they’d just lack worldly experience but ofc are warped/programmed with the given skill sets and knowledge thats relative to their work field!

Like Ratchet was forged medic, he still went through hundered of thousands of years of Med school to perfect his skills and gain experience despite literally being programmed and built to be a medic—or Optimus, forged to be a soldier and still went through Academy and Bootcamp to learn and test his limits before being sent into an active battlefield!

As for subspecies and how they would differentiate in aging—they don’t! Cybertronians no matter the frame type/alt mode all age at the same rate, alt mode or frame type coding doesn’t give them that kind of advantage over another. Eh, keep in mind tho like stress, old wounds, sickness, extended fuel shortages, and like substance abuse or smth like that would have an effect on life span. For example Ratchet would have had far longer if he had taken better care of himself, Drift may also have a couple hundreds of thousands of years already buried in the ground by his own past substance abuse.

While a frame may tire itself out, there are certain this within a Cybertronian that cannot be replaced—that being like ofc a spark chamber, or like an optic to its once best quality, also certain infections/viruses or smth akin to like a cancer can sometimes never be fully flushed out—anyways YEAH there’s factors that can shorten a life span based on the frame, but sparks can and will burn themselves out at a point, nothing is forever. Cybertronians live for a hella long time but nah, they’re no where near immortal regardless of frame type.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #28- I Sure Hope Y’all Like Megatron

“Dark Cybertron” is finally over! Woohoo!

Who’s ready for a return to hijinks and mild peril?

I know this guy is!

Hold on a second-

We start our foray into Season 2 of MTMTE with a little meta-humor-

-and then it’s right into the swing of things, as Brainstorm uses the thin, fragile wine glass of faction-based morality to hold his personal need to make instruments of violence. Nautica disapproves, but then why wouldn’t she? She’s not been steeped in the militant ideologies of the Autobots for millions of years.

It’s six months after the convoluted events of “Dark Cybertron”, and our beloved ship, the Lost Light, is back on track for the Knight Quest. Nautica’s joined the crew, which is neat, but there are far more interesting things going on.

Like Rung actually doing his fucking job for once.

Wow, look at that little creamsicle man go.

It would seem that in the last half-year (by Earth standards) Megatron’s somehow gotten himself into the esteemed position of Captain of the Lost Light. This likely means that Rodimus has been defeated in battle, or perhaps fucked off on yet another space yacht to run away from his responsibilities. I suppose the narrative will have to fill us in on just what exactly happened.

Or, at least, I hope it does. Wouldn’t be a terribly good story if I had to guess on how exactly this dude’s in charge of a whole-ass Autobot crew.

Yes, yes, I know he switched sides, but goddammit, it takes a little more than saying sorry and changing your wardrobe to excuse the murder of half of NYC.

I mean, we can do both. Both is an option. I’ll break out The Communist Manifesto right now, let’s fuckin’ gooooooooo-

Six months prior to Megatron’s therapy appointment, Rodimus is ready to high-tail it off of Cybertron yet again. This is because, as established in previous posts, Cybertron kinda sucks butt. He bursts into the meeting Optimus Prime called- even though he’s really not leader of anything anymore, Starscream is- bids everyone farewell, and is about to run back out of the room when he’s stopped.

Turns out that the populace of Cybertron want Megatron to stand trial. That makes sense, given what all he’s done. Of course, the Autobot pals we’ve got in the room want to skip due process and go straight to the part where Megatron pays through the nose for the last four million years.

Which doesn’t feel terribly heroic or good guy-ish, but I think by this point you’ve probably caught on to the fact that everyone in IDW Transformers is morally gray at BEST.

Because Megatron’s had a rough time the last few years, in relation to his bodily integrity, spark extraction- that thing that High Command lied about in relation to Overlord- isn’t an option. It would just kill him dead.

Uh, excuse me? Optimus Prime, sir? Monsieur Premier?

Guess Optimus hasn’t been keeping up with exRiD.

Anyway, yeah, since Tyrest fucked off in “The Sound of Breaking Glass” and also tried to commit a genocide, we’re gonna need someone to cast judgement.

Course, a military trial isn’t exactly ideal, but as long as it’s open to the public, it should be fine.

Probably.

Anyway, Prowl’s also going to help. Ultra Magnus has been assigned the task of representing Megatron in court, a job which he’s positively delighted to have, if his face is any indication.

The gang breaks for lunch, and Rodimus and Optimus touch base on how the Knight Quest is going.

Because Rodimus’ half of the Matrix had the map for finding the Knights of Cybertron in it, they’re gonna have to go with Plan B.

Oh fuck yes, I love Plan B!

Unfortunately, finding the ideal romantic partner for all Cybertronians is going to have to wait until after the trial, because Optimus really wants Rodimus here for this. Though perhaps there’s a way to make things move a little faster…

Back in the present, Megatron’s had just about enough of Rung being a psychiatry joke, and is about to walk out of his appointment. Ravage is here, which is neat. Rung asks Megatron about the three most important people in his life, and how he met them. One of these people is, funnily enough, Rung.

Rung, if you’ll recall, was thrown into Megatron and Impactor’s table at Maccadams waaaaaay back in The Transformers #22, the first issue of the IDW run that Roberts wrote solo. It would seem that getting arrested and subjected to police brutality ruined his once-idealistic worldview. This is just a lightning-round recap of the events of the “Chaos Theory” storyline.

Being reminded of how hard he got dunked on makes Rung break out his copy of Megatron’s autobiography, Towards Peace. Of course, Megatron has to be “that guy”, and makes it out to be far more than it actually is. My dude, you used your writing to tell all your proto-Decepticon buddies to go beat up Whirl in prison. Let’s not make things sound more grandiose than they are.

Anyway, it turns out that Rung is actually just as much a nerd as he looks, as he reveals that he’s in possession of one of the only few copies of the original version of Towards Peace. And then he takes off his glasses and the fans go bonkers, even though he’s just got that Milne Same-Face going on, just like everyone else.

There you are, you animals.

Rung discusses Revisionism, I’m reminded that the first publication of Eugenesis had a dedication to Roberts’ son of all people, and we get the question of who Terminus is to Megatron.

But alas! The X-ray vision’s been turned on, and it’s time to see… nude robots? An in-depth anatomy lesson?

Robots are confusing sometimes. Anyways, major props to Milne for drawing all that detail. Dude does the technical stuff with a ferocity that must be awe-inspiring to behold.

Megatron’s decided that it’s time for lunch, and then he’s going to do captain stuff.

Because he’s captain of the Lost Light.

I’m convinced Rodimus is dead. That’s the only way this is happening.

Six months ago, Swerve was being awful Swerve-like, with his new buddy Crosscut- guess he finally learned the guy’s name- and Riptide, who we’ll get to a little later on. These three wonderful lads are holding a sort of “crew try-outs”, and it looks like the requirements needed for entry on Megatron’s Lost Light are stiff.

Still, maybe our new friend Nautica will make the cut.

Oh, you are simply delightful!

Despite Nautica having interest in nearly every topic in the universe, on top of having impeccable taste in booze, she just misses the cut. It’s at this point that Nightbeat bursts into the room to stop this farce from going any further. The fact that nobody mentioned anything prior to this is surprising, given that portmanteaus don’t really seem the type of thing Ultra Magnus would approve of.

Back six months ago, we see what Optimus Prime’s super great idea was to expedite the judicial process- Chromedome. It’s always Chromedome. He’s gonna do that thing he promised his late husband he’d stop doing. I suppose it’s a good thing- for Rewind, anyway- that Megatron is wholly against the idea of having his memories torn out of his head. Guess we’re gonna have to do the trial the normal, non brain-pokey way.

Optimus leaves the cell, because I suppose he’s remembered that there’s a conflict of interests here, but Rodimus stays behind to let Megatron know he deserves everything that’s coming his way.

Then Megatron breaks out the puzzle-box from Hellraiser.

In the present, Chromedome isn’t so much spiraling in his depression as he is circling the drain. Nightbeat doesn’t give a shit about that though- he’s more concerned with the fact that one of the numbers on the door to Chromedome’s room is missing. But I’m sure it’s fine.

It’s fiiiiiiiiiiine.

While Nightbeat’s busy being insensitive to his fellow man’s distress, Megatron’s arrived to his room to find his door’s been vandalized by a bunch of idiots who must have just discovered what a thesaurus is. Then he gets shot in the fucking hand with an arrow.

As you do.

Whirl’s gotten ahold of a bow, and he fully intends to use it for Megatron-directed violence. And also his fists. His very pointy fists. He punches Megatron through the fucking floor into the fuel furnace, and they fall what’s probably a good 200 feet to the ground below. Whirl yells about evening the score between the two of them, and then knees Megatron in the dick.

Turns out, Megatron remembers Whirl even better than originally thought, having gone so far as to order his forces to not kill Whirl, because, in a way, he was grateful for the lesson he learned back before the war in Rodion.

Oh man, I hope Rung’s somehow listening in on this. Like, eavesdropping is obviously bad medicine, but we’ve already established that he sucks as a professional, and he needs what few advantages he can get.

Whirl, enraged by the implication that he’s been fighting fixed battles for the last four million years, punches Megatron in the gut… and his arm gets swallowed up by an errant portal leftover from all of Shockwave’s tampering. Since you can’t really fight with only one arm, Megatron wanders off to do captainy things.

Walking back the timeline slightly, we revisit Megatron leaving Rung’s office, and the idea of personal revisionism, the conversation becoming parallel with the strange happenings going on within the ship, as Rewind’s final message is altered so as not to end with “I love you” but instead a blood-curdling scream. Chromedome is, understandably, upset by this turn of events.

Over with Whirl, it’s revealed that the little fight we saw was intentionally set up. For what purpose, or by whom, is left a mystery.

Please see a doctor.

One last flashback to the trial, as Prowl lists off everything that’s standing in the way of our Sympathetic Megatron Redemption Arc.

Good fuckin’ luck, James.

Back in the present, Megatron’s slapped a bandaid on the hole in his torso, as he checks to see what’s happening on the bridge. It would appear there’s a coffin floating around in space.

Pretty fucked up.

[writeyouin]

Skids X Reader - For the Dancing and the Dreaming (COMMISSION)

A/N - A commission for @officialpolnareff​ who I would like to thank for their patronage. You are a very cool person, thank you very much and I hope this is too your liking.

Description – Skids and you are in an established relationship. After a long meeting with Ultra Magnus, you come home tired to your favourite film, Sleeping Beauty. Halfway through the film, you are struck with the urge to waltz to the music. Skids comes to visit and is entranced with your dancing, completely awestruck that somehow, he managed to earn your affections. 

Warnings – None.

Rating – T

Word Count – 1066

You stretched and yawned, glad to finally be back at your hab-suite after a day spent in another dull meeting with Ultra Magnus, distracting you from your real job as the ship’s liaison to Earth. Why he felt you had to review the rules and regulations regarding human safety every three months was beyond you; it was nothing but a waste of time. Besides that, this meeting was longer than the rest usually were because now you were dating Skids; Ultra Magnus had added another twenty-nine pages of rules about human courtship with Cybertronians and you actually thought that list might have taken five years off your life. It was no use arguing that the Cybertronians only had to attend yearly meetings; Ultra Magnus had prepared a counter-argument about human fragility. Damn your organic body.

You sighed upon entering your room and turning on the TV. What you needed more than anything was a nice relaxing film that didn’t require much thinking. You couldn’t count the amount of times you had seen Sleeping Beauty, but it was enough for you to know all the words. While the film played in the background, comforting you with its familiarity, you decided that you would clean your room and maybe sweep up a bit. The sweeping used to be taken care of by Roombas, but after you had put two of them in a make-shift arena with balloons and knives attached to them, Ultra Magnus declared that you couldn’t have them back until you appreciated them for their intended function; killjoy.

You didn’t much mind losing the Roombas; it had been worth it. However, you did grow quickly bored upon sweeping the floor. You turned your eyes to the screen upon reaching your favourite scene, where Aurora was dancing in the woods surrounded by the woodland creatures. You smiled fondly at the sound of the music, and as Aurora waltzed with the owl and rabbits, you waltzed with your broom.

While you danced, lost in a world of your own, enjoying the simple pleasure of the music, you didn’t notice the hab-suite door open. Skids had come to visit you, having finished his own work early. He was hoping to lure you out on a romantic evening in his holo-form, which he had tailored especially for you, knowing the type of man you liked. He had short-cropped dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and a body that suited leather jackets and black jeans.

Instead of interrupting however, Skids leaned against the door-frame, watching you dance, completely enchanted by you. He had no idea you were into the whole romantic princess deal; his favourite part of your new-found relationship was finding out all these new little details about you and piecing them together like he was trying to solve a puzzle. 

His eyes flicked up to the screen where Price Phillip was watching Princess Aurora in awe. As the prince in the film swept Aurora off her feet, Skids too decided to make his own presence known, removing the broom from your grip as he pulled you into his arms, scaring you half to death in the process.

“Princess,” He smiled, bringing your hand to his lips. 

“Skids,” You blushed breathlessly. 

“I didn’t know you could dance.”

“I didn’t know you were a peeping Tom,” You retorted playfully.

“Only when my girlfriend is doing something cute,” He chuckled, caressing your cheek. “So?” He asked.

“So what?”

“May I have this dance, milady?”

He remotely hacked the film you were watching, removing the dialogue so it only played the music. Having studied waltzes among his research of famous human dances, Skids bowed to you, making you laugh. You curtsied in return and offered him your hand, the other going to his shoulder. Skids put his free hand over the small of your back, making your heart beat faster; this sort of thing never happened on Earth, it seemed that with Skids at least, chivalry wasn’t dead.

Without Skids’ support you would have quickly fallen behind in your amateur waltz, but his expertise led you into a world of sophistication and elegance. He knew exactly how to manipulate your movements as he spread your arms apart into a diamond shape, dipped you, and pulled you into his arms only to spin you out once again.

“Where did you learn to dance so well?” You asked, completely beguiled by his suave movements.

“I told you before,” He whispered in your ear upon embracing you once again.

“All skills are worth pursuing, especially if one can use them to woo a beautiful maiden such as yourself.”

You felt your heart race and your knees buckle as Skids drew you closer than he had before, his arms wrapping around your stomach, and his artificial breath warming your neck.

“Careful, you don’t want to fall now,” He teased.  “But if you do, at least I’ll get to catch you.”

You shivered in anticipation and Skids found his eyes tracing the curve of your neck. He slowly lowered his head till he was kissing your shoulder, nibbling lightly, and slowly making his way up to your jaw. He wanted to show that he was utterly devoted to you, that you had rescued him just as much as he rescued you on the night that you first began dating. The way how was simple, and Skids didn’t mind being open with his feelings, even if he wasn’t sure that you were ready to return them. 

He released your waist, turning you around to face him, then going down on one knee, he took your hand. “(Y/N),” He murmured your name reverently. “I love you.”

Shocked at the sudden omission and the fact that it had come after the two of you had only been dating for a couple of weeks, you fell clumsily to your knees. Skids smiled lopsidedly, grabbing your shoulders to support you.

“Don’t worry,” He said comfortingly, “You don’t have to say it back. Wait until you’re ready. I just wanted you to know-”

You threw your arms around Skids’ neck, crushing your lips against his, invading his mouth with your tongue and inviting him to do the same. He tasted of those three delectably sweet words that he had spoken. He loved you and nothing could ever sound, feel, or taste so good as that.

When you parted, you whispered breathlessly, “I love you too.”

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