#'original' is the most flattering descriptor you can give me about my worldbuilding

[altraviolet]

Hello! I have been wondering, if you were not asked before: what was the inspiration for the Mirage's dimension worldbuilding? It was truly peculiar and original look into TF au worldbuilding as whole, I was mesmerized.

>peculiar and original yessssss this is a huge compliment to me >D thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed!

If you mean specifically the fate of his Cybertron, I talked about it in the Afterword (last chapter of the fic) so I'm gonna yank the answer from there :D

...the original plan for 2938 Cybertron. Originally it was going to be an insecticon-riddled wasteland. The video game that Rodimus plays with Soundwave, Hostile Planet II, had his game character running away from insecticons as foreshadowing for this original idea. But as I got closer to the Firelove arc, I thought it would be more interesting to go the “stark wasteland” route, instead of the “insecticons are eating everything” route. I did a twitter poll and “stark wasteland” won, so I thought… let's try it.

here's a screenshot of the poll!

in terms of how did I get to "sterilized world"? I... don't remember :'D I might have the train of thought written down somewhere in my hundreds of pages of notes. I think I was trying to think of 1) something that hadn't been done before, but was 2) still really horrific despite being "clean."

Now if you meant the whole "crystals determine everything about their society, including their language," that grew out of thinking A LOT and really hard about what it would mean for that to be so. Crystals were a huge part of the fic, so I just... leaned super hard into it, haha.

2938 Megatron shows the reader what Soundwave could become. That grotesque hunger for knowledge... idk, it just feels natural that it could come from a society bound up in layers and layers of meaning and expression.

I hope that answered the question. Was there a specific part of the dimension you wanted to know about? If I didn't cover it, feel free to shoot another ask :)

Thanks for the ask!