I’ve read a few stories where one chapter would take place in the present, and the other in the past, and it has the reader slowly figure out what terrible events lead to the future- and that could be a fun spin on this fic idea. But I also would like a plain prologue in Hot rod’s pov, as it would allow for some nice foreshadowing :D
Hot rod/Rodimus is obviously the main character, but would this fic also have Optimus’s pov since he’s so important to the plot? Or would what happened to Optimus hang over Rodimus’s current story like a ghost haunting him?
Hot Rod won’t exactly getting a prologue in the traditional sense, but more of a short fic for himself that takes place before the actual main fic starts. I won’t exactly be required reading to understand the story, but I’d be able to give some context in regards to who Hot Rod was and his thoughts.
Optimus may end up getting a POV chapter every now and then to give the reader an insight to Autobot Command and what they are doing (It may be possible for a few other characters to get a POV chapter at some point) but Rodimus is our main character and our main point of view into this world and it’s history.
I’m unfortunately thinking about the Scavengers (again) (mainly Misfire) Specifically because I saw a post about someone theorizing that Misfire’s horrible aim is a ruse and then I also got to thinking about how The Scavengers sort of all come from different cultures in a way and how sometimes they just have to shrug and go along with whatever one of the others is doing and the shenanigans that could ensue.
I love me some alternating POV’s, I only limited my current fic to just Optimus’s POV as this is one of my first proper fics. The main character for my next story is actually Megatron, but I plan to have an odd character with someone else as the mc every now and then :D
Please think even more about the scavengers, I adore those idiots. There’s a lot of cool world building just in their small group, for example, Fulcrum is a literal suicide bomber? Made with the purpose of dying?? That’s tragic!! And AWESOME. It’s a crime there’s not more official stuff for them. Not to mention they have some of the best official found family vibes ever, and yes I’m including Grimlock in their found family, Misfire could be sad without the giant lug.
The Scavengers are the best, they’re absolutely freaking weirdos but that is what makes them them. Not enough is written about them be it official or unofficial.
The fact that it was mentioned one time that Misfire has ADHD is so important to my characterization of him that it’s not even funny. Not to mention Grimlock’s PTSD and that I’m 99% sure at least Krok and Fulcrum also have some sort of PTSD.
Am I thinking about throwing a smaller version of The Lost Light’s canonical crew+The Scavengers at the Earthspark continuity to see the chaos that could unfold? Maybe, probably have to finish watching season 2 and 3 first though.
No your right the scavengers definitely have some of the most interesting characterizations, maybe because they are side characters the writer felt braver making them weirdos but I love them <3
I wish you luck with Earthspark, i enjoyed season 1 but based off solely what I’ve heard on 2&3 I don’t think so can push through those seasons :’) I wish the original writing team didn’t get dumped
Alternating POV’s are always fun, but the POV being limited to only one character can be fun too. It really depends on how you wanna tell the story. Optimus being the only character to have a POV definitely works well for Glass Blowing for Dummies or GBFD/GBD for short, not to mention I think you’ve done a wonderful job of telling us Optimus’ mental state throughout the story without actually telling us and just simply showing us.
The Scavengers being side characters is both a blessing and curse, on one hand the writers felt braver making them a bunch of weirdos due to being side characters, on the other hand there is a high chance they'll never be featured in any significant way again due to being side characters.
I'll be honest initially when I was done with season 1 I started watching like half of season 2's first episode before I went “yeah no, I don’t like this” because it basically said “lol nope” to everything season 1 had going on with the idea that not all Decepticons are bad.
Optimus himself doesn’t like to think about his mental health, so all I could do for it to make sense for readers is show them how screwed up he is- not like that’s particularly hard though as a lot of his trauma is pretty normalized in the society he was raised in. I though one POV would also work better for this story as Optimus, try as he might, doesn’t know everything. Especially in the beginning. I wanted readers to learn about the world and the Decepticons with OP :D In my next story politics will be a whole lot more important, as will general available information that all the story characters know- so multiple POV’s makes sense, even if it’ll be my first time experimenting with that style of writing lol my current story was never meant to be as big as it is, but I got more and more ambitious as I wrote. Also I have my story called ‘GBD’ in my notes lol
Speaking of side characters, (rip the scavengers, I hope they’re relevant again some day.) I have a general idea of who all will be the Mc’s of my next story, but if you have any other characters for a larger story I’d love to hear about them
Hm, idk I guess the characters you use as POV characters should sort of depend on the story you want to tell and how you want it to be told/perceived by the reader. I think each character should bring something unique to the story whether it’d be a new insight about how the world works or another perspective we can see another MC’s actions from and how this other character perceives what is happening.
Sometimes a character just randomly stricks your fancy in regards to how they behave and you wanna put them under a microscope to study how they’d work within your story.
Like in “Point of Fracture” (my current workshop name for Rodimus and Drift’s story in GBD’s universe) I’m thinking of splitting the POV between Rodimus and Drift most of the time and possibly maybe give Optimus a chapter once he is introduced to our main two. Rodimus and Drift each offer something unique as to how the story is told with their different viewpoints, motivations and it gives us a chance to see one through the other’s eyes and not just in their own perspective. Rodimus has abysmal self-esteem and that is of course going to influence how he tells the story and us about his actions, Drift is somewhat resentful and feels guilty for what he did while being blackmailed since his ending didn’t really change his he still got put in prison and the only thing he really feels he did is prolong the inevitable.
The available POVs you could use also depend a little on when the story takes place. Seeing as you next story is a little more political my first thought is Shockwave since he was a senator in the past, maybe depending on there you wanna take the story you write a bit pre-empurata+shadowplay Shockwave and then show a drastic change in how Shockwave tells the story if he does end up going through the empurata+shadowplay. I guess another suggestion might be Soundwave since this is a Megatron centric story and could be neat to see the world through someone who is close to/trust Megatron a great deal. There are definitely also characters you could use to be against Megatron and maybe showing some of the oppression/judgement he is under.
(RIP The Scavengers, I too hope that they’ll be relevant one day again and that their new writer won’t completely butcher their characters)
I love love love that name for Drift and Rodimus’s story, it ties in so well with Glass Blowing for Dummies :D I love fic names that really tie into the actual story, as I had always planned for my current story to be the tale of how Optimus began to slowly heal- ‘glass blowing’ made a lot of sense to me, the fact I was writing for a shattered glass au just made it better lol
Not spoilers really for my next story as this will all be laid out in the first chapter, but Megatron isn’t actually being oppressed at all in this story. (Which I’m thinking of calling ‘here lies glory’ with a sort of double meaning in its name) If GBD started with Optimus the lowest he’s been in a long time, this next fic takes place with Megatron in the best place he’s EVER been. It’s sort of a continuity soup, but this Meg’s will have sort of the same attitude of TF1 and TFP megs mixed. Megatron is sort of an aspiring politician, and whilst he certainly had to slave away to climb the ranks, he climbed them at the end of the day. And once you’re at the top, it’s a lot easier to look down and see just how dirty the stairs are. And then his life goes downhill when he recognizes how evil his government is (who did a lot better job of hiding it than the Autobot society of GBD)
A lot of those characters definitely will be in this next story, as the more Megatron starts to fight for what’s right, the more people he’ll meet :)
I’m so glad you like the name “Point of Fracture” I wanted it to bare homage to the fact that it was a Shattered Glass au, but also inspired by GBD. It definitely also plays a little into Rodimus and Drift sort of being broken by the world around them.
I'm already excited for your next story and the world we'll delve into when that time comes, already sounds exciting. Definitely makes me wonder if there will be a civil war in this au or not. With a name like “Here Lies Glory” there a so many way I could twist that meaning 1) this is where Megatron gets his glory 2) this is where Megatron dies in the end and lastly 3) Lies as in not telling the truth and Glory being in reference to The Senate/Council. I’m excited for what you’ll do with the characters and to see the ending of GBD too.
I shall delightfully inform you more about my next fic, as I doubt anyone can possibly read all our comments at this point for spoilers lol
‘Here lies glory’ means both metaphorically and literally, so option 3 is correct :) The glory is both a lie, and it’s dead on the floor. The fic is a continuity soup like I mentioned, so here’s the basic premise.
Megatron is an aspiring gladiator, which is an admirable career in this Cybertron depending who it’s done by, who is beginning to sink his toes into the world of politics- with the help of his nice older friend/mentor figure Sentinel :) (notably, NOT Sentinel Prime.) The fic should start with Megatron about to do a more ceremonial fight to show people how he’s rising in society, who he’s fighting? Optimus Prime. Who doesn’t want to fight, at all. But who cares what a Prime thinks? Megs doesn’t want to fight a mech who refuses to fight back- but society is against them both. So will Megatron conform, or transform? :D That’s just the very first chapter, as later in the story Megs becomes more and more involved in the politics of this world, knee deep in the good and the bad.
Yeah by now I think it’s somewhat safe to say we’re probably the only ones to read these comment, I’m a little afraid to actually do the math in regards how many of the comments we are responsible for 😅
Can’t wait for Here Lies Glory, sounds super interesting. It’s definitely making me think of one of the very first Transformers fic ideas I had in regards to at least it presumably being pre-civil war and a fic where Megatron starts off as a gladiator. Only the fic I have is more Soundwave-centric, but it would definitely also put a lot of focus on Soundwave and Megatron’s early dynamic/friendship.
Megatron is definitely suffering a bit in that au, but large bits of this is solely due to Soundwave being severely socially inept aka Soundwave was raised by Ravage alongside Laserbeak and Buzzsaw in one version of canon (Frenzy and Rumble would presumably one their little family later on in Soundwave’s “childhood”) and I plan to mess around with that idea. I plan to write Soundwave as at least selectively mute at the begin due to his outlier ability (telepathy/super hearing) and the fact that Ravage, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw don’t exactly have conventional voiceboxes and therefore don’t really talk in a way most Cybertronians can understand.
Please..PLEASE write that fic I would die for a Soundwave centric story before the war that sounds awesome. Parent Ravage is always always a win, and I love when Soundwave’s outlier ability is played to where it explains how he communicates- he’s one of the most unique characters in transformers I think, it’s a shame he’s tend to be written off as ‘loyal’ and thrown away. He’s a mind reader, his loyalty is intense and most of all it makes sense! Slightly off topic but TFP fics where Soundwave defects should be more common- he joined the Decepticons to follow Megatron, and Megs even admits that he strayed from their ways around the time he got hooked of dark energon! That’s not a Megs Soundwave should have stayed loyal to. But I suppose in that universe all he has is lazerbeak, he can’t run with the rest of his cassettes.
I may mess around with a sequel to my TF1 Bumblebee one shot as a few people were asking for that, and then get started on Here Lies Glory as I’ve been waiting forever to write it lol I do need to flesh it out more though, as all I’ve really got right now is the beginning. Perhaps I could give it a more ambiguous end with the war just starting and Megatron starts the fight for freedom? As this fic sort of acts as his origin story before the war- if I go in that direction.
I might have to sit down and figure out the plot of that fic when, the possibilities of Soundwave’s severe social ineptitude intrigues me and I have a feeling he gives everyone around him headaches, even if he is trying his best.
Soundwave and Megatron’s first interaction would be from them becoming involuntary roommates due to lack of space in the gladiator pits. However this interaction is just mostly Soundwave watching Megatron while trying to figure out how other Cybertronians do things, meanwhile Megatron is just mildly uncomfortable with the silent staring and wondering if his new roommate just decided to hate him on sight. He is just studying you Megatron, congrats you’ve involuntarily become Soundwave’s primary reference as to how Cybertronians act and behave.
Also recently stumbled upon the mecha/reverse mecha aus for Transformers, so… might have to do something with that. I say like I haven't already begun worldbuilding a little, whoops 😅
Imagine Megs awkwardly trying to ignore his new roommate who has been staring at him for 4 straight hours now trying to think of what he did to offend Soundwave somehow, and Soundwave is just thinking, ‘hmm yes, normal people with opposable thumbs drink energon cubes THIS way’ weird component Soundwave is my favorite, I will never be able to say my exact favorite transformer but most of Decepticon high command is so interesting to me- I wanna dissect them.
Please please please share your thoughts on the mecha au stuff because I eat that up- genuinely one of my favorite popular au’s of this fandom. If I wasn’t scared to butcher the characters I’d definitely write my own mecha au, as of right now I lack the confidence lol I don’t think I’ve seen one where Rodimus meets Drift in space instead of on earth with Ratchet though? Food for thought.
Lol, that is exactly their early dynamic. I fear for Megatron’s sanity when he finally meets Rumble and Frenzy, because those two are socially inept in an entirely different direction than Soundwave. I can just imagine when Megatron finally learns Ravage raised Soundwave.
Megatron: :o Megatron: wait, you know what? That actually makes so much sense
Still working out the exact details in regards to some of the worldbuilding, but essentially Earth has been being attacked by The Quintessons for a couple of decades now (don’t have an exact timeline yet) Which lead to mecha suits being built to try and combat the alien threat, the two first mecha pilots being Minimus Ambus and Dominus Ambus. Eventually at some point in the before the next wave of mecha pilots Dominus would die defending Earth and over the years more people would join Project Lost Light as researchers, scientists, medics and pilots (with possibly Kup being it’s General/Commander)
Anyway skipping forward a bunch of years humans would eventually encounter their first Cybertronian and start modeling their mecha suit in a style more akin to that of a Cybertronian, their allies in the war against the Quintessons, even if they (Cybertron) are unaware of that fact and have no idea humans/Earth even exists. Who were the first Cybertronian and Mecha Pilot to meet? idk yet, but I’ll figure it out eventually. Part of the unofficial mecha pilot training is bluffing your way into making Cybertronians think you are one of them.
One of the people who made a lot of major developments in regards to mecha is a scientist who goes by the callsign “Brainstorm” with “Chromedome” being the one to pilot the first version of the first mecha Brainstorm ever built. Things were still very experimental in terms of trying to connect the pilot with the suit properly back then, eventually Chromedome and Brainstorm would create a prototype for a neural link which would lead to Chromedome's PTSD/Memory lapses (maybe they installed memory files from Cybertronias in an attempt to better understand how they fight?). Project Lost Light would try and let Chromedome go after they found about the negative side effect of the original neural link, but Chromedome would just straight up refuse to quit no matter how good the compensation they tried to give him was. Chromedome would also be the only member of Project Lost Light that would be able to perform mnemosurgery due to this more intense connection.
The neural link/suit would basically make it so that the mecha pilots would be able to feel their mecha as if their own bodies (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell) but pain from damage to the suit would be significantly dulled.
Not every canon member of The Lost Light would be a part of Project Lost Light and I have 4 (Kup, Acree, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe) (First Contact by S0methingS1mple opened my eyes to the potential of Acree, Hot Rod, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and First Aid as a friendgroup) non-canon (as far as I know) members in mind. (I think the way Sunstreaker and Sideswipe would be able to convincingly fake being split-spark twins is through having their neural suit/mecha linked with each other, because we're already identical twins and won't it be interesting to experiment with the possibility of having mecha pilots who are sort of telepathically linked?)
Ratchet and Drift in this au are still Cybertronians (Autobot and Decepticon respectively. The Quintessons attacking Cybertron and their colonies is one of the only reasons Optimus and Megatron finally managed to realize that the civil war had lost it's meaning and that they'd stand a better chance againstThe Quintessons if they joined forces) but Roddy (Rodimus/Hot Rod) is a mecha pilot for Project Lost Light. I'm think Hot Rod was his original suit before he eventually upgrade to Rodimus, before then destroying The Rodimus suit in the explosion/destruction of Nyon (city on Earth in this au, that was attacked and destroyed by The Quintessons) and he'd use The Hot Rod suit again while the extensive damage is being repaired.
I already have an idea of how the story would start >:D
I feel like a starving man with food being just out of my reach as you tell me about your mecha au, which is to say, PLEASE WRITE THAT OMG.
Minimus and his brother creating and running the mecha program is genius, they’re a rich noble family in IDW with military links, it makes perfect sense that’d they’d fill that role. It’s a common trend in these AU’s that when one of the co-creators of that program die, the other goes a little crazy, I doubt Minimus would ever truly turn cruel on his own, but what if Tyrest has been slowly using the poor guy’s grief against him?
Also if the whole mecha program is called the lost light or something to that effect I’d lose my mind that’s so cool :’)
All the pilots deciding to collectively gaslight the cybertronians into thinking that they’re just weird robotic aliens is great. I believe that is also implying that this version of earth is more advanced if pilots are regularly being sent out away from earth and then BACK to report. (Because obviously if the cybertronians were around earth they’d know their new friends were organics) But that’s also make sense with Minimus not wanting to send his soldiers away to their deaths, the only acceptable outcome to him would be one where his people return to their friends and family at the end of the day. Minimus ambus has my heart and soul.
Since Chromedome is such a workaholic I wonder if he’d be one of the first to get the whole mecha au more deeply involved with the cybertronians, maybe he disobeyed orders, went deeper into space chasing the enemy, he already interacts with the cybertronians more than most since he needs help with his memory files- maybe he’d get someone like Perceptor to talk to Brainstorm to speak more?
Let me just murderbot-ify these mecha suits a little, maybe they can control their own pain sensors? Off and on for whatever their little organic hearts desire for combat purposes. Imagine how strange the cybertronians will find these aliens, who they think look so much like them, who feel and hear like them, but have no sparks.
I love First Contact and its cast of characters, the twins pretending to be split sparked is a great concept- they are fully committed to the bit.
If Drift knew Rodimus in the time his Rodimus suit got destroyed and he then saw his friend in the Hot Rod suit imagine the confusion lol (and mild body horror on Drift’s end.)
Please feed me more- how would this story start, I’m gonna pull my hair out with how attached to your AU I already am 🫠
Ultra Magnus definitely isn’t evil and he does try to do what he believes is best for his people, but he also understands that in this line of business you have to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. But he does try very hard to keep his people safe-ish, even if they make it hard for him to do so, when they disobey orders and what not.
As a general rule the mecha pilots are told to try and keep interactions with Cybertronians to a minimum and if they do encounter one “The Intercelestial Bluffing/Hoodwink Protocol” (technically not an official protocol and more of an unofficial one) should be followed. Because generally it is a lot safer for the mecha pilots out there if they are believed to be Cybertronians from a small largely unknown colony called “Terran 1” than a small squishy organic creature in a metal suit. But I also like really your idea of the mecha being this sort of uncanny valley thing to the Cybertronians and them knowing about it, where they're like them, but also wrong on a fundamental level, hm 🤔
I love the idea of Murderbot-ing the mecha suits a little and making the user able to adjust certain stimuli to a degree.
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are definitely committed to the bit 200% of the way, don’t ever question their commitment to it or what they are willing to do for it.
Drift and Rodimus have never met since the story doesn’t start till a few months after The Rodimus Suit’s destruction, but Drift will definitely meet Hot Rod once the story starts going.
Currently the confirmed mecha pilots are: Ultra Magnus (but he is mostly retired from that part of the job), Chromedome, Misfire, Arcee, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Hot Rod. (Fulcrum technically also has the training to pilot a mecha, but it’s bare-bones at best. I’ve decided to take this au’s Fulcrum and dunk him in a pool full of blood and trauma, with the trauma from what he went through serving as fuel for his touch-aversion/haphephobia aka my mind latched onto the fact that organics creep/gross out IDW Fulcrum and decided I needed to do something with that, whoops) (actually a lot of Project Lost Light have some form of trauma from their childhood/jobs)
Other Project Lost Light employees I can confirm are as follows: First Aid (medic/doctor/possibly CMO, maybe mecha pilot <-for those sweet sweet First Aid and Ratchet interactions), Velocity (still studying for that medical degree), Nautica (Quantum Engineer), Anode (Pilot/Chafford for when they need to get around normally, for each confirmed fact they know about Anode they know at least 10 about Lug aka Anode talks about her wife a lot), Lug (Xenogeologist), Brainstorm (Scientist/R&D) and Fulcrum (Sort of tactical/technical support) (Krok, Crankcase, Spinister, Tailgate, Whirl and Cyclonus also work for Project Lost Light, but idk what they exactly work as yet)
My original plan for the insisting incident for the fic would be Arcee, Hot Rod, Sunstreaker and Sidewipe battling some Quintessons on a planet in our solar system, before The Quintessons groundbridge/portal starts failing, where it then begins sucking in everything around it and spits out our dear protagonists in different parts of Cybertronian space. Hot Rod landing near Decepticon forces, Arcee landing near Elita-One and some other Autobot members and lastly the twins landing near Ironhide and some other Autobot members. Chaos would then unfold from there, as First Aid silently screams while still on Earth with the rest of Project Lost Light.
I might rework this a little though because I really like the ideas you presented for this au with how the mecha pilots’ missions work and Chromedome’s raging workaholicism (this Chromedome definitely needs a Rewind in his life stat) I also really like the idea of Chromedome being one of the ones to really start getting Project Lost Light involved with The Cybertronians.
Oooo, idea. You mentioned a lot of mecha pilots having some sort of childhood trauma, it would make a lot of sense if that trauma effects their brains enough to make the brain start trying to protect itself- and therefore makes being integrated into the mecha technology easier on them. It’s no mere coincidence that a lot of our mc’s came packed and ready already traumatized, the program would search out those kind of people so less ‘protected’ people wouldn’t get hurt using the technology.
I’m a big fan of the cybertronians finding earth really screwed up when they think all their new Terran friends have just been subjected to some form of epurata just for soldiers lol A (minor) misconception, but all their pilots are just a little bit insane and sorta suicidal to take this job. (Especially Rodimus around the current story with Nyon exploding, I doubt that poor man even wants to return home when he gets separated in space. What if he thinks the portal killed the rest of his friends because they didn’t pop out next to him???)
Combining Fulcrum’s distaste for organics with a Human Fulcrum au is evil, I love it.
The ‘Lost light’ isn’t a literal ship in your AU as much as it is a group of people, but have you considered making it into a literal space station? That’s probably Brainstorm’s dream, but it’s also most likely to dangerous for now with all the squids in the sky.
I’m glad I’m giving you ideas, every time I read one of your comments I start thinking of even more AU’s lol Don’t be surprised if you see some sort of one shot series of a mecha AU where Grimlock is a pilot and gets stranded in space with cybertronian scavengers soon after I finish my current fic (which the chapter for that is either this weekend or the next, I’ll get this done I stg)
I think all AU’s need a bit of murderbot magic, makes the world more grim and funny all in the same breath lol
*Slaps metaphorically roof of Project Lost Light*
“These bad boys can hold so much trauma”
Ooh I really like the idea of The Cybertronians thinking The Terrans are victims of some sort of Epurata and how that could play out and the implications that come with this being a treatment that they seemingly give all their soldiers. I can just imagine when they finally meet First Aid (when he becomes a mecha pilot) and have the realization that “oh, okay so it’s not just soldiers, they do this to their medics too” I can only imagine the funny interactions this could cook up between Ratchet and First Aid (also just all the assumption that could be made in regards to exactly what this version of Epurata does to a mech/femme and what parts of The Terrans are The Terrans and what part are the side-effects of this other version of Epurata) (I imagine The Terrans would try and shove Whirl in a corner and make him stay there once they learn about Epurata, they’re still slightly too dense/oblivious to realize that The Cybertronians already think their all victims of another version of Epurata and I can only imagine the silent screaming The Cybertronians most be doing once they learn about Whirl) (yes Whirl is also a mecha pilot now)
It’s basically a job requirement to be a little insane (and possibly slightly suicidal) to join Project Lost Light 😅
I really just put Chromedome, Roddy and Fulcrum on the pain train in this au, but then again it’s pretty easy to get a ticket for this train in this universe. Chromedome, Roddy and Fulcrum just get the first class experience.
Post portal mishap Hot Rod is not having a great time that’s for sure, because to him this is the second/third time he has seemingly lost everything he has to The Quintessons. The 1st time being when everyone he knew were killed in an Quintesson attack before he meet and became Kup’s second ward (The second time possibly being the fall of Nyon seeing has he is the only one who survived a devastating Quintesson attack yet again) And he also has to deal with Megatron trying to figure out the whole redemption thing now that the civil war is over, which is a lot even on a good day. At least Deadlock/Drift is there, yay…? To be fair Arcee and The Twins aren’t having a great time either.
Arcee has to deal with the fact that she has essentially lost her pseudo younger brother and her best (and only) friends in space, but hey at least one of her best friends is “probably” safe back on Earth (are you ever really truly safe if an alien race tries to invade your planet all the time?) Arcee isn’t catastrophizing on the same level as Hot Rod in this situation, but she is definitely putting on a brave face to a degree and trying not to think about the horrible things that could happen to those she cares about in her absence. Because just like Roddy she “lost” her parents in a Quintesson attack, they aren’t dead, but… they’re both comatose and it’s HIGHLY unlikely they’ll ever wake up due to all the injuries, loss of limbs and head trauma. Which would lead to Kup taking her in as his ward and raising her (and Roddy) as his own not quite kids, but also not quite grandkids (It’s complicated, since he doesn’t exactly want to try and replace what their parents, but also deeply cares for his two wards)
At least Sunstreaker and Sideswipe have each other. This however is a horrible scenario for everyone around them, because those two can be very distrustful of unknown people, especially in stressful situations. The twins reactions basically being trust no one but each other definitely also says a lot about their childhoods and how the only other person they could reliably rely on before Project Lost Light was the other (The twins grew up in a poor neighborhood with alcoholic and abusive parents) (I can just see Ironhide having to treat the twins like stray abused cats trying to win their trust, something Kup and Ultra Magnus had to go through too)
Thanks for thinking that combining Fulcrum’s distaste for organics with a human au Fulcrum is evil, I try. I think about Fulcrum a lot in this universe even if he doesn’t play a major role most of the time. I do think that if he ever were to pilot a mecha suit that the touch aversion would carry over at little in regards to Cybertronians, the haphephobia won’t be as bad though (yay…?) I’m thinking that maybe Fulcrum was a part of a smaller more private attempt to try and combat The Quintessons, which never really got off the ground since everyone but Fulcrum was killed and he got to be covered in ALL the blood and gore, not to mention that they were probably being trained to go on suicide missions (as a small nod to IDW Fulcrum essentially being a suicide bomber) I can just imagine Krok, Kup and Ultra Magnus going to pick up this deeply fucking traumatized and suicidal person to join Project Lost Light (Imagine the draw 25 cards meme with Kup and Magnus with the card saying “Stop picking up traumatized and slightly suicidal individuals to join Project Lost List or draw 25”) (The touch aversion would carry over slightly because The Quintessons are mechincal aliens, which would make Fulcrum sort of associate mechincal aliens with the ~trauma~) (Maybe The Scavangers play the role of a sort of Search and Resue team for Project Lost Light?)
Project Lost Light is more like a military compound/facility (they might unfortunately have to do PR stuff every now and then) not to mention that I feel like a space station would be an easier target for The Quintessons, even if I can totally see the appeal in The Lost Light being a space station.
It’s so fun to bounce ideas back and forth with you, it’s definitely makes me think a lot about ideas that could be turned into fics one day too. Honestly if you end up writing that mecha pilot Grimlock au I think I just might combust with joy, it sounds interesting.
Every fanfic should include at least a little murderbot coding whether it’d be in the characters or worldbuilding.
Imagine Ratchet being used to highly competent Terran soldiers, and HOPING that it’s only the soldiers being subjected to harmful medical practices, so that when he meets First aid on maybe some sort of battle field, he thinks the poor medic is some sort of guard and hands him a weapon. First aid, who hardly knows how to work a gun, does not want to fancy alien death ray. He doesn’t know how to politely tell Ratchet to take it back, maybe he gives to it Brainstorm and the mad scientist does mad scientist things with it lol
Megs has already started one civil war over the treatment of ‘lower caste’ people in a society, if he’s the one stuck with Rodimus he’s probably tweaking a little thinking of how awful human soldiers are treated on their home world. He probably thinks the humans are subjected to heavy amounts of propaganda as well, because I doubt any of them take him talking bad about their government, aka Minimus, the nicest guy around, very well.
If a lot of Cybertronian’s first introduction to humanity was Chromedome, pared with the misconception their all mutilated to be super suicidal soldiers, it’s no wonder just about every Autobot and a Decepticon in a 100 mile radius looks at humans with barely masked concern.
If anyone was gonna be a pilot I’d be Whirl, he’s the perfect mix of insane and murderous to get the job done 👍 Once the cybertronians figure out most humans weren’t actually subjected to empurata, they can point at whirl to focus all their concern on. Whirl will hate it. <3
The twins are feral cats and everyone looks at Kup, Arcee, and Rodimus and knows those are Kup’s babies. They’ve trauma bonded, it’s too late to stop it. The Cybertronians will have to fight a custody battle if they wanna keep their Terran friends (who they think are heavily mistreated on earth)
At least poor Fulcrum probably likes being a pilot and turning down his sense of touch, but he probably over uses that feature and when he gets out of the mecha suit his haphephobia is back and 10 times worse :) he’ll never escape the angst train. Never.
Random thought, would Chromedome meet Rewind looking for a Cybertronian who could help him sort through his corrupted data files? Rewind would be an expert at data storage after all.
I’ve been thinking more about my Grimlock centric mecha au, and the more I think on it the more I want to write it 🫠 I’m weak and your encouraging this lol since I love the found family trope, I have the vague idea that all the other dinobots were on Grim’s squad on earth, and they died during an attack. This made Grimlock really unstable like how he was in the IDW comics, till he eventually was crazy and suicidal enough to follow the squids to space to hunt them down for revenge…and then he finally gets a break when he meets the scavengers :D Maybe he saves misfire from some sort of predicament, the poor lad is good at getting into those.
Oh a happier note, whilst Grimlock’s suit isn’t stylized like a T-Rex, him being a big dude with barely functioning arms that are mainly just for maiming purposes, he started getting compared to the dinosaur that way. He has fully embraced this. (Nickel is very concerned about how he is built, the body horror is carrying over to my AU as well lol)
I may draw his mecha suit some time actually, just now while I gotta finish GBD- I’m so close to finishing it I wanna get it over with. Even if it was fun 🫡
First Aid definitely spends a solid few minutes questioning his life when Ratchet hands him a gun, because “wtf is he supposed to do with this?” But now he is stuck holding onto it since he couldn't for the life of him figure out how to politely ask Ratchet to take it back. Ratchet and everyone else is gonna be in for a ride when they figure out that “No, First Aid isn’t soldier and yes, he is a medic” I imagine maybe First Aid maybe tells one of the other Terrans to aim for a specific medical term, only for the other Terran to go “???” and First Aid having to correct himself and telling them to aim for the neck or something like that (First Aid loves his friends, but sometimes they make him wanna move to the middle of nowhere and go off the grid never to be heard from again when Velocity finally graduates)
Megatron is not having a good time, because trying to redeem yourself is hard and having a walking reminder about everything he fought for does not make it easier. No Cybertronian knows about The Terrans being human for a REALLY long time and Megatron must be silently seething that somewhere out in space there is a seemingly a Cybertronian colony which never felt the effects of the civil war and everything he was fighting for during all that time. I can definitely see The Terrans reacting somewhat negatively when someone says something bad about their superiors, because when someone talks about their superiors/government/those who give them orders they don’t think of the people that fund a large part of Project Lost Light, they think of Magnus. Who may be a stick in the mud and a bit of a pain in the ass at times, but primus damn it he is their stick in mud and they know he cares about them in his own deeply emotionally repressed way.
Chromedome was the introductory course in regards to Terrans for a lot of Cybertronians and it definitely doesn’t take an expert to realize that Chromedome is definitely going through something and is uncomfortable nonplused in life or death situations. Meeting Arcee and The Twins was definitely an “oh shit, there is more of them” moment for Autobots who are familiar with Chromedome. The Decepticons are definitely more unfamiliar with Terrans and were not prepared to deal with Hot Rod and the implications, I can definitely see someone like Shockwave or Soundwave going through The Autobots’ data files and realizing “oh okay, so this is what this/he is, huh”
Whirl is definitely perfect for the job. Whirl would absolutely hate most of The Cybertronains’ concern being directed at him (because to them he has seemingly been through the traditional form of Empurata and the nontraditional form of Empurata they seemingly use on Terran 1) with a passion when he finally meets them, because “ew emotions, no thanks” It will definitely take a while for Cybertronians to realize that The Terrans aren’t victims of version of Empurata/Shadowplay, assumptions are dangerous things to make and The Terrans have basically been trained to not correct assumptions like this on a subconscious level (I’m think that Whirl might wear an eyepatch because he lost an eye, but idk the exact details of how he did it yet)
Arcee will definitely be having feelings in regards to meeting Blurr and befriending him, because is this allowed? Am I allowed and able to make friends outside of Project Lost Light? Meanwhile Blurr is probably seemingly unaware of Arcee’s internal crisis and just thinks she is cool and badass. I can definitely see Arcee and The Twins maybe pulling some complicated maneuver that would have taken years of practice and familiarity to pull off when they possibly reunite, with Elita-One and Ironhide going :o when it happens.
Kup may not be a mecha pilot but that will not prevent him from trying to throw hands with anyone who even thinks of trying to harm his kids (this definitely extends to other members of Project Lost Light too)
I love the implications of The Cybertronians trying to be like “no, don’t go back to Terran 1 you have it much better here” not realizing that The Terrans came pre-package with their trauma and that most of their concerning behaviors come before they joined Project Lost Light and half the reason their are as well functioning as they are is because of Project Lost Light.
I think Fulcrum definitely would abuse the hell out of being able to turn down his sense of touch (He probably won’t be able turn it all the way off for safety reasons and he hasn’t been able to convince Magnus, Kup or Krok to let him be able to fully turn off his sense of touch in the mecha despite his many attempts) I think the lowest any of the settings can go is 5%, but 5% is definitely enough for Fulcrum to be able to zone out in regards to casual and accidental touches, if it’s prolonged he will start thinking about it and freaking out internally. The Haphephobia would definitely be 10 times worse when he gets out of the suit after prolonged periods of using it or if let’s say the setting for his sense of touch broke and automatically reset itself to 100% ;)
I don’t think Chromedome would be actively seeking a Cybertronian out to help with his problems/memory lapses, because he is a member of Project Lost Light and trusting others with their problems isn’t exactly something they actively try to do. I think Rewind and Chromedome meeting through work related stuff and would know each other for a bit before Chromedome has is first episode in front of Rewind and gets the details of Chromedome’s PTSD/memory lapses explained to him in loosely. Brainstorm definitely also has a lot of thoughts about Chromedome’s condition that he never really mention to anyone since he feels partially responsible for what happened to Chromedome and emotional vulnerability is for losers.
I’m also thinking about Misfire, his aim and what might have caused the incident that led to him starting to go by Misfire (I’m not sure it was entirely his fault, but it was sort of easier to pin the blame on him than admit the others involved might have made some sort of mistake, not to mention that Misfire probably bothered to aim before the incident happened) I think Misfire in this universe does actually have decent/good aim, but he just doesn’t wanna bother with aiming 9/10 and hopes for the best. Misfire in this au most be so confusing to Seekers, since it’s assumed that a seeker is what he is.
I wholly support your crusade to finish writing GBD and wish you luck in your endeavours🫡
First aid probably considers moving out into the middle of no where for at least a short while for a mental break, but he feels to bad throwing Velocity to the wolves so he sticks around and suffers his friends being idiots. He’ll be able to bond with Ratchet over trying to keep these crazies alive. (And Ratchet probably tries to make him rest as well, and fails miserably- but at least an attempt was made.)
At least the Autobots were…slightly prepared for Arcee and the twins. The ‘Cons barely know what species Rodimus is, and he keeps accidentally trauma dumping on them because he’s so tired- Deadlock is becoming reluctantly attached and Megatron is holding back from murdering Minimus because of a misconception as then Rodimus would kill him lol
One good thing is that because the Cybertronians have actually interacted with humans before, aka Chromedome, the humans stuck with Autobots won’t be that stressed about being stranded in space because they know theoretically how to get home, even if it’s super far away. (Or maybe that’s worse because then they’d have to break protocol and tell the Autobots where earth is if they want help getting home- as they can’t exactly get over there themselves.)
Maybe Whirl’s eye loss would come from over use of the mecha suit? He could be another one of the very first pilots, and not knowing the dangers of overuse, he’d turn his vision up to max all of the time and it eventually started screwing with one of his eyes so much it had to be removed. The situation being completely prevented would make it hurt all the more, I think :) perhaps only one eye had to be removed because his other eye was lazy, and the vision settings being turned up all the time actually fixed the lazy eye? A perfect trade lol
Arcee having not spoken to anyone outside of the lost light in literal years is having a small breakdown over suddenly having friends. Blurr’s opinion that his friend is a badass is only proven more when she meets up with the twins again, oh how I love highly competent mech suit users. Everyone is impressed, ironhide wants to keep them and Elita is beginning to be open to the idea if they all can slice an enemy in half like butter. She’s practical! (And attached.)
Oh god the touch function malfunctioning and going to 100 percent would be AWFUL. Let’s do it. Imagine if Fulcrum gets up into space somehow and it happens in front of the cybertronians! Their concerns grow by the minute.
Very strange pair, but imagine Starscream seeing what he thinks is a young seeker who’s been living in some far off society where the soldiers are subjected to empurata and all traumatized. That ‘seeker’ is Misfire and he just thinks the weird alien is neat, maybe if he gets some sort of thruster boots so he can ‘fly’ he’ll bother to finally aim! Maybe. That and an energy drink may do it. Starscream had witnessed Megatron become really attached and concerned for Rodimus and he scoffed at his foolish leader, because how could he possibly be so affected by one random sad guy? And then he met Misfire.
Minimus is so depressed thinking so many of his (friends) soldiers are disappearing and presumably dying in the middle of space, when in reality they are all off being feral space cats and defending his honor. If Megatron is still stuck on killing an authority figure they rat out Tyrest.
Thank you for the support, this last chapter is kicking my ass. I want it to be good and I also just wanna finish it :’) HOPEFULLY it’ll be done this Tuesday and the epilogue will be out next weekend. I’m frothing at the mouth wanting to start a new series. I may space out my future fics more and have several stories at the same time that I can update as I please. (The Grimlock mecha au speaks to me, I can already see how the first chapter starts.)
As much as First Aid jokes about early retirement he’d never actually do it, he is too much of a workaholic for that, Ratchet most hate getting a taste of his own medicine in the form of First Aid and his horrible work habits. I think as a treat First Aid should be allowed to threaten the other Terrans with medical procedures, like “If you do something like that again I might just lobotomise you, but like in the old fashioned way of just taking a random piece of your brain/processor out and hoping for the best. It’s not like there is much higher cognitive function that can be lost anyway”, “Have you ever heard of this thing called trepanation? Maybe drilling a hole in your skull/helm will fix whatever made you think that was a good idea” or “You know I could easily rearrange your guts and you would be none the wiser about it, I wonder what happens if I do so. Do you think your body would just continue functioning properly if I rearranged them right or do you think your insides would try to move to their original place again?” Ratchet gets to threaten people with wretches and First Aid threatens people with weirdly specific and well informed medical knowledge, that must be fun for The Autobots to find out about when one of them accidentally does something so incredibly stupid that First Aid just automatically slips into passive aggressive threats.
Megatron is just silently seething, meanwhile Deadlock and Hot Rod are off in the corner trauma bonding.
It’s probably nice knowing how to get home in theory, they just can’t actually practically do it without breaking protocol and a lot of questions being asked.
Whirl definitely became a mecha pilot some time after Chromedome, so things were still a little experimental in regards to how to properly connect the pilot to the suit. I think the mecha’s settings being at 100% is like setting them the standard human experience, but maybe when Whirl was just starting out the mecha were capable of being set above 100% so he did exactly that in regards to sight. Which would lead to Whirl developing migraines from the stress on his eyes and eventually one of his eyes going permanently blind in an attempt to cope with it, since real life migraines can cause temporary vision loss on one eye and Whirl has been fucking up his vision for a long enough time for it to become permanent (This is probably one of the reasons there are rules in regards to the mecha settings with a minimum and maximum set in place. I imagine Minimus and Dominus’ original mechas did not have all of this fancy sensory stuff and they had to monitor everything through screens and such while also piloting their mecha)
In Arcee’s opinion she is having a very justifiable breakdown about the whole friendship thing, meanwhile Blurr and everyone around her is completely unaware of this and I can just imagine the twins sharing a look once they reunite with Arcee and almost instantly knowing what the deal is. Not that they can blame her, it is totally weird interacting with someone outside of Project Lost Light and it not being a press event or a meeting of some sort.
Fulcrum would be having a horrible time once the setting controls break, especially since at the very least The Autobots’ reactions to Fulcrum’s visible distress would be trying to physically comfort him. Which would just make everything worse. Fulcrum is probably torn between crying and throwing up. No matter what, The Terrans are already used to respecting Fulcrum’s personal space, even when the controls are working probably so it doesn’t exactly change much for them, but they might have to step in and push away any well meaning Cybertronians.
I think Misfire’s mecha is the only one who has thrusters seeing as his wings need to be there for a reason, further selling that he is a seeker even if he is a bit of a weird one. Starscream didn’t want to care about Misfire, but primus damn it he somehow ends up doing it anyway (He can’t even judge Megatron for caring about Hot Rod anymore, which totally sucks) Starscream would definitely also have to deal with Misfire’s ADHD/Alternative Programing on top of everything else, which leads to Misfire doing more weird/concerning things than he already does. I think Skywarp and Misfire would get along like a house on fire (probably literally and metaphorically) By the time Hot Rod and Misfire see each other again Misfire has already had time to establish himself as terrible shot, so I can just imagine Starscream’s bafflement when Misfire hit several target precisely on the mark before moving on like it didn’t even happened. (Do I think Misfire can also pilot a real genuine fighter jet? Yes, I imagine he is actually a pretty good pilot and his ability to quickly adapt to situations around him is definitely one of the reasons some people wanted Misfire recruited for Project Lost Light)
Magnus is not having a good time back on Earth with the other members of Project Lost Light as they try to figure out what happened to “The Terrans” and Magnus silently fearing the worst.
I just had a thought!! Rodimus is probably used to at this point in the story calling himself, well- Rodimus. But he’s not in the Rodimus suit. He’s in the Hot rod suit, so he tries to refer to him AS Hot rod. Imagine some Cybertronian catching him slip up, and immediately assuming the absolute worst. Maybe they think earth soldiers completely have their memory wiped of their old lives, and faces re done, all so they can be the perfect soldiers. Megatron continues to seethe, he is NOT the Prime, he’s not meant to pick up (adopt) random mechs off the side of the road.
If First aid jokingly threatens to lobotomize a cybertronian this implies he will eventually have to explain what a lobotomy IS. This will not go well for anyone. Ratchet is horrified.
The twins get to Arcee and are immediately waiting for her breakdown to come into full effect, it’s too late to stop it- she’s feeling emotions. I imagine the twins at this moment are feeling less emotions as they’re in survival mode right now only really trusting each other and Arcee. Aka they’re still feral cats.
Who would be the poor sorry sucker stuck with trying to figure out why Fulcrum is having a panic attack, and whose the poor sorry human sucker stuck with trying to keep the cybertronian from getting handsy in an attempt to help? Whoever they are, they’ll bond over the experience lol
Skywarp and Misfire bonding over ‘alternative programming’ is adorable omggg. The seekers are all one big family and Misfire has been forcibly added to it, dw, he’ll make them be friendly with the rest of the lost light as well. No pilot is really sane without the program! Imagine Misfire gets separated from the seekers for a little while, and when they next see him- he’s flying an actual jet. At this point in the story they’d be on earth for some reason or another and know Misfire is organic, but still it’d be a shock.
How many humans have to disappear before Minimus starts getting suspicious? Maybe he sends someone like Chromedome and Whirl to go investigate and that’s how they get involved in the story. If he discovers they’re all waiting patiently for pick up on Cybertron, maybe he himself gets up and back into his mech that he hasn’t touched since his brother died. He isn’t stupid, he knows high command would probably leave all his soldiers to rot on that alien world- the fuel to get them all back would ‘be a waste.’ But if he shows up on Cybertron’s front lawn, he’ll have to be retrieved. He won’t be abandoning anyone.
The cybertronians would probably be initially hostile, even after presumably all the humans are reunited and in one location and have nothing but praise for Ultra Magnus, but after seeing that Minimus looks just like all the other soldiers? That minimus’s vision is even worse than Whirl’s with his old sensors and monitors? They’d assume there’s an even bigger scheme at play here, that Minimus is just another victim. I mean he his, just not in the way they think lol
Hot Rod definitely has a few close calls in regards to his name, but he does manage to save face some of the time by going by the nickname Roddy and being able to avoid a few close calls thanks to that. Megatron is not having a good time, especially when he realizes that he is acting a little like Prime would in regards to Hot Rod (Poor Megatron)
I do think that lobotomy should in theory exists within Cybertronian culture seeing as you could view Shadowplay as a form of lobotomy (in a way) and us being able to see IDW Crankcase’s processor thanks to his injury could also support the idea of a someone being able to remove/sewer parts of a person’s processor. I do have a strong feeling that lobotomy and trepanation aren’t the only older medical procedures First Aid has threatened someone with.
The twins realizing that Arcee is close to having a breakdown probably ups the feral catness, seeing as they're both still in survival mode to a degree and know how vulnerable intense emotions can make you, especially if there are others around who could take advantage of this. Arcee definitely also looks at The Twins and instantly knows how on edge they are with everything happening around them. Poor Chromia is probably in for a bit of a surprise when Ironhide comes back with the twins in tow.
Idk who exactly I’d stick Fulcrum with yet (maybe Fortress Maximus or Smokescreen, with Fort Max probably being equally uncomfortable with the whole situation, but is still trying to help and thinking the best way to do that would be trying to handle the situation in a way any other Autobot than him would handle it. Thankfully for Fulcrum Chromedome would arrive to save the day, thank Primus) I’m also just thinking about Fulcrum and when he first joined Project Lost Light and ALL the aftermath of what happened to him. Kup, Magnus and Krok definitely had their work cut out for them with Fulcrum. I might have to make a fic specifically dedicated to telling the story of the different mecha pilots’ first days/weeks/months with Project Lost Light.
The seekers all being one big family and forcefully adopting Misfire into this family is just an amazing idea, unfortunately Starscream might have to fight Krok for metaphorically custody of Misfire, not the mention Misfire probably taking one look at Grimlock and deciding that he is friend material. I’m thinking maybe Flyhigh/Misfire was a fighter jet pilot before the faithful “misfire” incident and was recruited for Project Lost Light after this incident.
Thinking a bit about Krok’s backstory in the story and I’m pretty sure that Magnus, Kup and Krok all having military backgrounds is what would fit best for their characters. The only thing I can really confirm about Krok's backstory as of now is that before Project Lost Light he had another squad who all died/were all killed.
If “The Terrans” were missing for a significant enough amount of time and they finally manage to track them down there won’t be a lot that would be capable of stopping Magnus going to get back his soldiers. I imagine Magnus, Chromedome and Whirl’s mecha have all been upgraded/adjusted a little over the years to better keep them to the standard of the newer mecha and to also remove some of the more unsafe features. Maybe in some of the very last chapters some Cybertronians finally end up coming to Earth and getting the meet the rest of Project Lost Light, which definitely end up being a bit chaotic (It’s The Lost Light what did you expect?)
Starscream probably compares megs behavior to Prime first and Megatron physically gags at the thought.
A note on the lobotomy and Shadowplay comparison, I wonder if First aid would find Shadowplay interesting as it’s sort of the perfect lobotomy. Lobotomies were created to remove specific character traits from people, they just sorta suck at their intended purpose- Shadowplay works even if it sucks for everyone involved. Sorry I love little freak First aid hcs. Or is it even a hc if he just like that? What a weirdo, he’s great.
Ironhide holds up the twins like a proud dad showing up his caught fish to his wife. Chromia is not impressed and wants to know where he found more mentally unstable soldiers from.
If we’re going with my idea of the lost light’s mecha users coming pre-traumatized on purpose as it helps with protecting the mind from the advanced technology, for a smidge of comfort, I like the idea of mandatory therapy. Their brains are already good and ready for the mechs, so now helping them get better is only logical! So says Minimus to high command at the very least. Healthy soldiers make good soldiers. (And Rung wanted to be included.)
Maybe the therapy started getting popular after Fulcrum joined up and Minimus took one long look at him and said. ‘That guy is like. Super fucked up…someone should prolly do something about that.’ And then he was the one to have to argue for a therapist because he’s the only person capable of filling out paperwork lol
Maybe the Misfire incident in this au was that he accidentally straight up shot someone. That’s a good way to traumatize him 👍 and then it’d make sense it seems that his aim is so bad, it’s not that he’s just being lazy either- he’s intentionally aiming away from people. Whether subconsciously or not he doesn’t wanna kill someone he cares about ever again.
Krok will never escape the curse of having his old team dead and buried, poor dude. Even in my mecha au they died- don’t worry, he’ll bond with Grimlock over their past teammates deaths, as all the other dinobots are also dead :) they’ll get a break…eventually.
When a treaty is emplace and the Cybertronians finally figure out what is up with the humans, I need to have Brainstorm and Perceptor smushed together. They should hold hands in every universe me thinks.
Please please please write that fic I need it. I love all these characters I need to see their trauma in action :D
I think First Aid just lives by the mentality of “I'm a medic, but…”. First Aid definitely spends a significant amount of time pouring over Cybertronian medical practices both old and new when he get access to it, if any Cybertronian saw First Aid's research they might be a bit concerned. One of the reasons First Aid definitely feels comfortable butting heads with Ratchet is because while he may still be a bit of a amateur in regards to Cybertronian biology he was CMO for Project Lost Light and has been so for a couple years now. It must be a bit confusing for Ratchet when the Terrans are more willing to follow a medical order from First Aid than himself, despite First Aid having less experience. (Idk who the “victim” of First Aid's threat and substance info-dump about trepanation is yet)
Chromia definitely isn't super impressed with Ironhide. I imagine she looks towards Elita-One in hopes that she'll be able to speak some common sense into Ironhide, only for her to see Elita-One sneaking by with her own mentally unstable soldier. Ironhide and Chromia weren't parents before the fic started, but bu the end they'll have emotionally adopted Sunstreaker and Sideswipe as their own.
Tyrest and associates probably aren’t super eager about giving the members of Project Lost Light, since the trauma sort of serves as a means to manipulate them, it’s also a bold assumption to think any member of Project Lost Light would willingly go to therapy. The only members of Project Lost Light who have ever been to therapy are probably Arcee and Hot Rod because Kup took them to it when they were younger. I do like to imagine that Magnus and Kup tried to fight for a therapist, but ended up having to have a sneaky slightly under the counter agreement going on with Rung that they keep secret from High Command (Fulcrum’s “situation” is probably a big factor in Magnus agreeing to do this despite it being against orders), too bad most of Project Lost Light will only show up for the mandated once a month therapy session (Since it's not entirely over the counter I don’t imagine Rung actually has access to any of Project Lost Light's medical history and can totally see a moment where Rung just assumes Misfire knows he has ADHD and the confusion that ensues because “no he did not know that”) (I totally agree with Magnus being the only one capable of doing paperwork or at the very least The only person willingly to actually do it)
In regards to The Misfire Incident I don’t think the shot was accidental. I think maybe Misfire’s previous commanding officer (who was still slightly new to fighting Quintessons) ordered Misfire to take a shot he knew would kill his teammate despite Misfire trying to protest this, maybe the loss of the additional firepower was what lead to the rest of Misfire’s team dying and the blame would end up being pinned entirely on him, maybe that teammate was Flywheels (I feel a lot less guilty killing off a character who is already dead and it would also explain why Flywheels isn't a member of The Scavengers)
Thinking about the difference between The Rodimus Suit and The Hot Rod Suit and I think I might have figured it out. In a sense Roddy still has his “outlier” ability in this au, his mecha suits being built with the ability to channel heat/fire seeing as some of The Quintessons’ minions are composed of more organic materials, those minions being people from other planets they've conquered and mutated÷brainwashed (Fulcrum can never win) The Hot Rod Suit is an earlier version of The Rodimus Suit so I think it'd make sense if The Hot Rod Suit might burn through fuel faster, seeing as his powers still needed a bit of perfecting.
You have no idea how much self restraint I'm going to have to practice when I start writing the chapters in Chromedome's POV since he is the first to interact with,Perceptor and likely The Terran that does it the most, but alas Chromedome does not have contact with Brainstorm and Brainstorm therefore can not be put anywhere near Perceptor till the last chapters.
Krok will never escape the curse, just like Crankcase will never escape major head injury.
When I start plotting the fic I'm probably going the have to do it in arcs and then chapters 😅 I'm thinking the fic might end up being between 50-60 chapters long with 5000-10000 word chapters and that if not even counting the prequel fic, which probably be short but have even longer chapters (why do I do this to myself?)
It’s good of you to already have a chapter line out! When I originally started GBD I came in with a ‘fuck if we ball’ attitude and some half written story notes. Which is why the word count for all the chapters…vary so much. Oops. I at least have an actual plan for Here Lies glory, way longer chapters (like 5-10k every time) but give myself a month to write them. Don’t have a name for my mecha au yet but it’ll start with either a pretty decent sized one shot, or he a bunch of shorter chapters all smooshed together.
I don’t blame you for killing flywheels, he died so fast I wasn’t gonna include him in my own au lol Not much to work with for his character when he lasted a couple pages longer than skybound bumblebee 🫠
First aid, “I’m a medic but…” soldier probably would stare down at the very least his friend group until they go to therapy. Man is not to be messed with. First aid may vouch for Ratchet eventually, but with a mix of all the humans already being on edge and them not wanting a cybertronian to figure out what they really are, Ratchet isn’t getting any check ups done.
Also I very much enjoy Ring being some guy TM who’s being pain under the counter.
God get Misfire a trauma train ticket to, lad was going through it. If Megs wants to worry about anyone being mistreated by the government he should come figure out what’s what with the weird seeker. (If Starscream lets him come to close, he’s territorial.)
Imagine if Rung figured Misfire already knew about the ADHD, so he doesn’t tell him. Misfire figures out he has ADHD when the alien with the space equivalent of it mentions how similar they are. (Skywarp is trying to bond.)
I love seeing how outlier abilities would carry over to mecha suits, they’re definitely more dangerous and less researched, which would make sense why there’s very few of them.
The quintessons must be Fulcrum’s worst nightmare, things are only getting worse and worse for this man. At least he has some nice shiny metal armor to protect. Orrrr, imagine if his suit was critically malfunctioning and he had to get out of it- both giving his cover away to the cybertronians and having a panic attack as PEOPLE ARE PICKING HIS ENTIRE BODY UP AND HES TWEAKING. Chromedome come rescue this sad wet cat man.
Poor Brainstorm, having to wait to meet his husband for so long. Long shot here, but imagine if Brainstorm was one of those kids who was obsessed with aliens- but he’s a genius still. This causes problems. Think of him getting some crappy, half put together message out into space. And only years later SOMETHING replies to it. I think in the original mecha au swerve and Blurr had a dynamic like that where they communicated over super long distances and had no idea what other species the other was for a long time.
Crankcase prolly has intense migraines 24/7 instead of his skull literally being split open. It’s fineee he can just turn down the pain sensors on his suit and ignore it 👍 it’s a lost light classic.
I can just imagine First Aid’s “victim” slamming the door open into another room after surviving that encounter and telling the nearest Autobots about it while they go “That doesn’t sound like First Aid, he is always so nice and I don’t think he’d ever threaten anyone” meanwhile one of The Terrans (I wanna say one of the twins) walk by and only ask one question “what did he threaten you with?” that’d be fun, especially because it implies that trepanation isn’t the only threat First Aid has.
I love the implication of Megatron not knowing anything about Misfire and as a side-effect of this Roddy doesn't know about Misfire being with The Decepticons either because they keep just missing each other, Starscream doesn't mention Hot Rod to Misfire because he has other things that he needs to do and when he has time he keeps forgetting to do so. Megatron and Starstream really need to communicate with each other and have a conversation, they're just really bad at it.
Seekers/Flier kind of have their own language with their wings, right? The thing is, Misfire would not know this and I can just imagine the postponed (because he doesn't want Misfire to be there for it) external screaming Starscream must be doing when he finds out about this. I Imagine Starscream or other Seekers would make note of how still Misfire’s wings are most of the time and this observation would lead to subsequent realization and pity/horror.
On one hand Roddy is definitely a bit happier when he finally crosses paths with Misfire, which Megatron is probably reluctantly glad about (he doesn’t care, he DOESN’T stop implying he does) on the other Megatron has to deal with there being more than one of them now and Misfire is also just spilling trauma everywhere.
I love the idea of everyone just assuming Misfire knows he has ADHD, so no one says anything about it and Misfire only figures it out thanks to Skywarp. Misfire mentions this to Roddy and Roddy is like “I thought you knew…?” When Misfire gets back to Earth he and Rung are gonna have words, he involuntarily went to therapy and this is the treatment he gets “what the frag?”
I’m gonna be nice and say that if one of the mecha suits were to break it won’t be Fulcrum’s (I’ll let him escape the horrors just this once) Early days Fulcrum is never having a good time, I don’t think he could stomach eating meat for a while, just the idea of it would make him empty his stomach and if he did manage to choke it down it come back up again.
I don’t think it’d be a long shot for Brainstorm to be one of those kids obsessed with aliens and I can totally see him doing that, but idk if it’s fit with the story I’d have to think about it, but imagine poor Perceptor having to deal with The Terrans while also wondering why his long distance acquaintance/friend is taking longer than usual to answer (Brainstorm and Nautica are a little busy trying to figure out how to build a groundbrigde from scratch with zero knowledge of how they work)
Crankcase is a pilot, just not that kind of pilot. Crankcase is kind of The Scavenger's designated driver/pilot for their search and rescue/disaster relief missions, since he does not wanna be in any kind of vehicle with any of the others behind the wheel (In Misfire’s case that might be fair) The only person he might begrudgingly trust behind the wheel is Krok, but he is still on probation in that regard. Anode might be Project Lost Light’s other driver/pilot and research partners with Lug, but that does not mean he is comfortable in a car with Anode at the wheel, he trusts her SLIGHTLY more in a plane as a pilot.
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