Tag: Cybertronian headcanons

Avalon is nearly a priest.

When the war started, it scared him. It was loud and violent and bright, and he wanted to hide as deep as he could. So he hid in the depths of the mine, then dug down further, using gauntlets pieced together of old armor shards to dig and press through gaps. 

He got past the mine, and went deeper, through any spaces he could find that got him away. His dentae are numerous and very sharp, his jaws open unusually wide, and he can process most fuels, so he ate raw crystals and animals for fuel and kept delving.

He’s been deeper into the planet than anyone other than a few exploration teams, he’s seen wildlife that no one else has seen, and he understands how the planet works.

Cybertron is a living being, and it is, in fact, the being known as Primus. Whether or not one believes it’s a god varies, but it is undeniably a living creature. The entire planet is laced with wires and lines that gather energy, from sunlight exposure and solar radiation, and store it as energon. This is largely lost knowledge. 

The planet nearly died for two reasons. First, and most dangerously, the warring population on its surface took more energon from it than it could stand to lose. It functions fine losing small amounts of energon to its inhabitants, just not losing EVERYTHING. Second, all the buildings on the surface were blocking out its absorbance of different energies from space.

Avalon slept near the energy lines, and the planet’s impulse-thoughts carried over. He understood the gist of this from his observations, and the details from the planet, and the planet guided him to safe passages ever deeper. 

Until he decided, of his own accord, to surface again. The planet was weak, almost dying, barely kept alive by the energy it was getting from the sunlight. 

Avalon doesn’t have a concept of gods or religion, but he understands that the planet is alive, and deserves more respect than it’s getting.So he surfaced, and he started looking for solar panels. Natural creatures or artificial constructions, anything he could find that got its energy from somewhere other than Cybertron itself. Every time he found something, he’d take it down to the nearest energy line and, one way or another, give the energy to the planet.

Essentially, making sacrifices.

Milu doesn’t know why Avalon is doing this. He has a tiny bit of an idea, but he doesn’t actually know that the planet is alive, his background as a weathervane for nobles didn’t give him much of an opportunity to learn that. It’s clearly important to Avalon, but Avalon has no way to explain himself.

He’s basically the first priest of an accidentally created religion. That involves feeding and petting one’s living home planet. 

Hey Agatha! Me and a friend had a TF question, if you’d like to answer. What do you think could cause chronic pain in a Transformer, even with therapy and/or suppressants to target it?

agatharights:

Well, it depends a lot on the cause- I know the sources for my own pain issues, so I can kind of go off of there, but in theory any sort of complex moving body has the risk of chronic pain, be it organic or cyber.

One of my major issues with pain is related to mobility- this runs in the family, stiff joints and muscle strain, a lack of cushion between bones or improper development of said bones. For cybertronians, replacing joints or whatever’s needed to lubricate them might be easier than it is for humans, but if their body can’t manage to upkeep of these joints I imagine any sort of mobility-based pain would return quickly. In most of my setting Cybertronian bodies function more or less like organic ones, with nanites and specific systems dedicated to various bodily functions, and sometimes there are inherent flaws that result in continued failure of these functions. Sometimes they can be treated, but other times there’s something perhaps spark-deep or the result of traumatic injury that refuses to let the body heal.

My other pain issues start at what is effectively the source of all pain- the brain and nervous system. Phantom pain and I are well acquainted friends, usually triggered by fatigue or other stressors, and it’s hard to recognize when there’s pain because something in your body is actually hurt, or because your nervous system is basically so stressed it’s crying. This might be a major issue for Cybertronians because pain that exists in the processor or spark may be similarly difficult to identify and treat without extensive and continual care- for me, antidepressants help, and they help a lot, but this also comes with the reality that if those fail- pain is waiting to return.

So that’s two options- cybertronians are full of moving parts and when those fail to work in tandem, chronic pain could result, or otherwise pain can stem from something deeper and less physical.

As for other options…chronic pain could be the result of illness or chronic illness– maybe a rust disease causing degredation internally, even if the immune system can repair and keep things going it would still be unpleasant or painful and certainly tiring, the constant repairs/re-repairs so on so forth. Or even a parasitic attachment, scraplets as the equivalent of tapeworms, just waiting in deep systems, passively sucking away life.

An old injury that never healed fully and instead other structures healed around it.

An unidentified allergic reaction or intolerance to an impurity in energon or paint (I mean, can you imagine cybertronian lactose intolerance?)

Stress from a million years of fear and warfare, when abated, suddenly the body doesn’t know how to handle not being constantly ready to fight, to die, and the pain starts because the brain is trying to find an outlet because something must be wrong, something.

So on, so forth! I think it’s an interesting avenue to explore, the causes and treatments of chronic pain in cybertronians.

A word suggestion for the TF fandom: “slickware”. 

Literal translation is “one who is easily aroused/one who lubricates easily”. It’s used to indicate someone who’s up for most things with most people, and is generally but not always used to mean someone who prefers to use their valve. 

It’s roughly equivalent to “slut”, but carries none of the negative connotations. In fact, it’s often used in a more or less positive manner, and is a crude term of endearment among some people. It’s a crude term, but not generally considered to be an insult. The sort of person who can be referred to as slickware generally doesn’t mind crude terms. It could be used in a negative way depending on tone, but so can most words. 

Blackspark has at least one friend who likes to greet him by shouting “YO, SLICKWARE” regardless of company. He finds this hilarious, and considers it more than accurate. He is up for most things with most people, regardless of species as long as it’s safe.

A similar term: “slickspike”. Refers to a spike mech who gets laid a lot. Implies that said slickness is someone else’s lubricant. Again, crude but neutral-to-positive. Can be used as a crude term of affection.