#implied Dratchrod | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sweet7simple · 4 months ago

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Dratchrod where they live on a planet after everything happens.

Its a nice cabin that fits them and then some.

Roddy plants a nice large garden away from the cabin not sure if the two like them but they’re so into it and they are so surprised that Rodimus loves flowers and knows how to plant and tend to them.

They get to see a side of Rodimus he doesn’t really like showing and they love it!

I’m thinking of him planting cyber fruits and vegetables that he makes fuel with and they come back home every cycle starving for his food. He’s a really good cook and they can’t get enough. He’ll do dishes from his culture and theres and its always good.

Idk i was supposed to make it so they gift him plants because they want to show they love him but then i got lost in the rambles and building the scenario lol

I hope this is okay if not i won’t leave an ask like this again.

@cozzzynook, you can ask me almost anything. Just so you know, though, I also got lost in the rambles really bad while writing this. As in, I wrote most of this response, then came all the way back to reread your prompt, and realized that I missed some of your main points. I hope you can forgive me and that this still pleases you.

This raises interesting questions because it implies that the Cybertronians have their own version of fruit and that they derive some nutritional value from them, or that they fulfill some dietary need. Or, like how humans enjoy high-fat, high-sugar foods, maybe cyber fruit is actually unhealthy for them in large quantities, but it just tastes so damn good that the fruit is addictive.

If energon was the life blood of Cybertron, then it's possible that what we are going to call "fruit" for simplicity's sake were actually these units of cells that filled up with energon, or an energon derivative, or maybe the cells filled up with some other fluid as a chemical reaction with acid rain, or so on. No matter what, when we say "fruit", I am imagining a variety of capsules that, if cracked open, have a network of cells that are filled with some sort of fuel that Cybertronians can eat. When I say "cells", it might be easier to just imagine a bee's honeycomb. A honeycomb is actually just a collection of hexagonal cells that are used to store eggs and honey. For the outer shell of these fruits, we're not talking about banana peels and coconut husks and apple skins - we're talking about thin, bendable sheets of metal that unfurl as the fruit fills with whatever fluid the fruit is designed to let in. Or we're talking about different kinds of elastic or hard plastics. The thinner the outer shell, the more likely you are to determine the readiness of the fruit by the change in color. The harder (less transparent) the outer shell, the more likely you are to determine the readiness of the fruit by how heavy it is.

I am making this all up as I go and there is every possibility that there already exist Cybertronian fruit and I just don't know about it. In which case, I am a fool, but I am a fool having fun.

Let's keep in mind that, when the energon stops flowing through Cybertron, most of this fruit dies. The circuit trees rust and the web groves rot. The fruit that might survive this hellscape are the fruits that depend on either rust or acid rain to grow - and that's if there are places where acid rain is still falling. Chances are, though, even these fruits don't last much longer.

These fruits also wouldn't replace the importance of energon in a bot's diet - they would just work alongside that staple fuel, or be considered unnecessary, but highly desirable snacks. Humans enjoy eating bananas and apples and oranges and peaches, but fruits don't replace our other dietary needs and too much fruit can actually have too much sugar for you.

This is all background for the ask, but the first question I had when I saw your prompt was, "how do I make a Cybertronian eat fruit if they're giant robots?" The answer is to make is to define what a fruit would be on Cybertron.

Before I get to the prompt, I want to talk about our mangosteen.

I have never tasted this fruit, I have no idea what special tricks there are to eating this fruit, but this is more or less what I think some Cybertronian fruit would look like based off the thick shell and the seeds - except I imagine that the shell is a type of plastic that starts out as a very dense marble and then is pushed outward as the cells become engorged. The seeds of this mangosteen would be fully engorged cells. Maybe the walls of the cells are only permeable to energon, or maybe they're made of up some chemical that reacts to acid rain and what filters through is some kind of coolant that is beneficial to bots, or maybe these fruits are solar powered and there's some self-replicating circuitry inside that expands as it builds and they're affectionately called "bytes" (like "bites", hah, see?) and they're crunchy.

Sorry, I got too involved in the pseudo-science of it.

So the thing is, on the Lost Light, there's a vertical farm, which just means that there's this indoor space where food is being grown on shelves. This vertical farm lets the Lost Light develop dietary supplements and additives that go through what we might think of as a "growth phase" and require care to reach their final phase. The care for any two fruits might be different. The frigus have their own artificial environment that lets them filter through acid rain and engorge their cells with coolant (I'm calling this "frigus" as that's the Latin word for "cold"). The circuit trees with their bytes don't require much more than a slow and steady trickle of energon to fuel their self-replicating nanotechnology. The supposed easiest fruit to grow, the fusa has a plastic outer shell with soft plastic needles extending out of it. It stores energon in a plate at its base and that energon is drawn up into the cells through filters when the fusa is dry. When the cells are full, they actually pop through a pore in the fusa and stick out like dark pink orbs. The energon is so concentrated and sweet from the filtration system that they're considered delicacies. The problme is, the fusa is very slow to fill their cells. If you try to drown them in energon, the cells swell up too fast and rip. If you're not trying to grow them for fruit, though, they're very easy. They can go long periods of time without fuel and can get solar power to work their filtration system from almost any source of light.

Rodimus receives a fusa and lets it die because, what the frag is he supposed to do with it? Teach it tricks? "Now, fusa, sit! Good production plant!" He's not interested.

Not until Ratchet sees the dried out husk of the fusa, shakes his helm, and says, "I bet you couldn't keep a plant alive even if you wanted to."

And Rodimus is contrary, so he goes, "Oh, yeah? What are you willing to bet?"

And Ratchet says, "It's a bet you'll lose, you sure you want to take it?"

"Bring it!"

So Ratchet bets that if Rodimus can't keep his next fusa alive until it fruits that Rodimus has to take an emergency first aid class with him ("What does First Aid have to do with any of this?" "Hah hah, and that's why I want you to come to a class.")

Rodimus says that he can and, when he does, Ratchet has to do that thing he likes with his mouth and the spray paint and the interface aids (plural). Ratchet likes doing that anyway, but he pretends to grumble his way through the deal so that Rodimus feels like it's actually a fair bet and he doesn't win either way.

So Rodimus picks up another fusa! And it dies. The cells rip because he tries to fuel it too fast. So Rodimus goes to an emergency first aid class where Ratchet is his teacher and he makes the class unbearable for everyone (there are maybe six or seven other crew members there) by flirting outrageously with Ratchet.

"Hey, teacher, I think I needs a servos-on demonstration."

"For frag's sake, Rodimus."

Ratchet thinks that's the end of it, but now Rodimus is determined, okay? He doesn't like being wrong. He doesn't like being bad at something he actually wants to be good at. He doesn't like that he failed at something that he thought was going to be easy.

So he gets another fusa (he has to sign an agreement with dietary techs saying that he will reimburse them for the loss if it also dies and if he returns for any other production plants). The dietary techs are helpful enough to give him a datapad loaded with instructions on how to develop production plants and the instructions for the fusa are fairly short and easy to follow (Step one: Do not overfuel). Rodimus doesn't read it because that's a waste of his time, he'll just feel his way through the process, do what feels right.

He has to reimburse the dietary techs. It's a heft trade. He plops down with the datapad and groans and moans his way through the pages for the fusa and it takes him hours because he keeps letting himself get distracted. He hates reading, is the problem. Once he actually finishes reading about the fusa, he realizes he doesn't remember anything he read (a brain module is very good at saving memories, but he's so used to dumping his short-term memory whenever he's listening to lectures or reading that he did it again without even realizing it). He's furious and finds an instructional video instead. That helps.

He gets another fusa and tries again. It lives. It takes a long time, okay? It takes the Cybertronian equivalent of years, but it lives. And the day comes when he walks into the hab suite he shares with his mates and there's this tiny, dark pink bud shooting out of his fusa and he doesn't hesitate. He carries his fusa throughout the whole ship, showing off his accomplishment. He did it. He produced a fruit! He's practically giddy every cycle he watches the fruit grow rounder and rounder until it sags off the side of the production plant under its own weight. He plucks it off and punctures the thin, plastic capsule and the cells inside are so swollen and slippery in his servos. He shared the cells with his mates and it's. It's a moment for him.

It's a moment to watch Drift and Ratchet enjoy, even savor, something he nurtured for so long. They're overflowing with praise for him and what he's developed. Drift shutters his optics as he chews slowly, rocking back and forth on his pedes as he lets the thick, concentrated energon drain down his fuel intake.

"It's incredible, Roddy."

Ratchet tries to bite his in half and accidentally squirts it across his face and down his chest. He makes a sound of mourning at his own loss and hastily shoves the rest in his mouth as he tries to scrap up the sticky fuel and lick it off his digits.

Rodimus proceeds to help him clean up with his glossa.

It's great. It's incredible. Rodimus doesn't have to develop his fusa anymore - he's proven that he can do it. But he does because watching Drift and Ratchet enjoy his fruits is probably one of the most erotic and fulfilling things he's seen in a long time.

So while he's growing a fusa, he hustles back over to the vertical farms to see what else he can develop.

(He tries to argue that he's grown a fusa now! He can handle the hardest production plant they have. He wants the production plant with the tastiest, juiciest, messiest fruit! They have to be the messiest so he can lick them off his mates again. The dietary techs are all, you didn't have to say all that out loud and, no. Here's the next easiest production plant to develop after a fusa.)

It goes on like that for a long time where he picks up a plant from the vertical farms to grow fruit for his mates, suffers a setback because he doesn't actually know how to develop this particular production plant, and then he deigns to watch an instruction video before going back to the vertical farms to get another one. The vertical farms rack up a lot of favors from him due to his failures, but that's not the point. The point is that, sooner or later, Rodimus ends up with a forest in his hab suite and most energon meals are supplemented with fruit he developed himself. Drift and Ratchet sometimes try to help, but his production plants are his and if they help, then it feels like it takes away from the gift of fueling them himself, so, no, they're not allowed to touch. Besides, he's the plant tech now (unofficially), they might destroy his production plants! Trust him, he knows what he's doing. No, Drift, don't fuel my fusa, you'll rip the cells. No, Ratchet, don't change the microplastic medium for my mini fragrance tree, you might upset the root network and then the fragrance fruits will fall off before they're full and they'll taste bad.

Drift and Ratchet are, at first, surprised. Then they learn to live in a jungle of which they're not allowed to touch anything until Rodimus hands them a fruit and tells them to enjoy it. If they don't praise Rodimus enough, Rodimus donates the production plant back to the vertical farms. If they're not groaning like they're in a pornovid, Rodimus considers a fruit a failure.

Problem is, once they're groaning like they're in a pornovid to let Rodimus know that they like this fruit so please keep developing it, don't send it away, Rodimus gets revved up. So then they're distracted doing other things.

So sometimes Ratchet looks at the fruit they offer in the mess hall alongside their energon rations and has this uncontrollable response where he starts getting hot and he curses Rodimus quietly as he quickly looks in a different direction. It's not every time, but it's often enough.

Drift doesn't even bother going to the mess hall anymore. There's nothing the dietary techs can offer him that he can't get from their hab suite.

Rodimus is a very proficient plant tech by the time Drift brings him a mini circuit tree to develop.

"You want bytes?" Rodimus asks, grimacing.

"Oh," Drift goes, suddenly a little uncertain. "You don't enjoy bytes?"

"I mean, they're just crunchy. They don't taste like much and they scratch up my dentae." Then he sees the disappointment on Drift's face. "But, hey, if you like bytes, sure. Gimme it, I'm going to produce the best bytes you've ever tasted. Drift Jr. can go right here." He sets the tree down with one servo as he looks up instruction videos on a datapad in his other.

"Drift Jr.?" Drift asks, amused.

"Yep! Since it's going to be all yours, it might as well be named after you."

"Thank you, Roddy. Is there anything I can do to thank you for this?" He's being flirty.

"Yeah, if you can get the techs to give you an abstergo for me, that'd be great. They keep telling me they don't have enough to hand out to a production plant killer like me, which is just not true, I haven't killed a production plant in - wait, wait, you were flirting with me, no, come back, I want to change my answer -"

Drift does pick up an abstergo (think a production plant with vegetables full of washer fluid) for him and playfully denies his other less innocent requests.

Ratchet thinks this is a great idea and also brings Rodimus a production plant. Rodimus is quick to ask for a scandalous favor, all saucy grin and glowing optics.

Ratchet leans in real close and says against his mouth, "I'll do that as soon as I've had my first gold bar."

Note: This production plant doesn't actually develop gold in any form, but the vegetables, when fully developed taste and look a lot like soft bars of gold. It comes down to chemical reactions and pressure gradients within the outer shell of the fruit.

Rodimus is very determined to develop his production plants well, but especially the production plants that Ratchet and Drift give him.

At some point during the adventures of the Lost Light, they end up in a universe where Cybertron exists, but it's uninhabited. Either Cybertronians left a long time ago or there was some mass extinction event. His scientists are working diligently - and, in Brainstorm's case, with great excitement - to figure it out.

Before Rodimus even realizes it, his crew is settling down. It's not a surprise. The Lost Light has been travelling for an incredible amount of time through dimensions both boring and terribly exciting. No one's talking about decommissioning the Lost Light, but Rodimus and Megatron do eventually make an announcement that they're staying indefinitely to rest and refuel.

They're not planning on staying forever - they're all wanderers at their sparks, adventurers and discoverers and thrill seekers - but it's nice to get to spread out and build their temporary hab units and do their own thing and not live in fear of the hull of their home blowing out and stranding them in the middle of cold, dark space. The Lost Light gets to go through extensive repairs instead of just patchwork repairs and there's flowing energon on the planet for them to stock the ship up with and synthesize energon derivatives with and plenty of land for the dietary techs to farm. Being in a new dimension, they even discover new production plants they've never seen before.

Rodimus, Ratchet, and Drift build their own hab unit by one of the farms (to the horror of those dietary techs who live in fear of Rodimus and his propensity to develop production plants only after he kills one or two first).

Rodimus is thrilled. He has so much land now to spread his garden across. A stressed-out dietary tech even gives him another datapad on thermal-fluid science.

It basically says that some fruits and vegetables taste better when subjected to a high heat environment and other fruits and vegetables become toxic or explode. And then these fruits and vegetables explode, but they taste better after they explode, so just be careful how you expose them to high heat. There's even notes on certain production plants suggesting adding certain minerals or metal flakes to improve their taste or dietary value, or mixing them with the cells of other fruits and vegetables.

Rodimus flips through a few pages, looking at the pictures, and then says with disgust in his voice, "It's a cookbook."

"Well, I'm a doctor, but there's not much difference in repairing a combustor versus cobbling together a combustion appliance," Ratchet says thoughtfully. "And we have the room for one."

"And I can cook," Drift decides, having never actually cooked.

"Absolutely not," Rodimus says. "If anyone's cooking, it's going to be me." They're his production plants, after all. If anyone's playing around with the taste and texture of his fruits and vegetables, it's going to be him.

Ratchet and Drift agree with him (rather amusedly). Ratchet builds in a combustion appliance.

Ratchet builds him another combustion appliance after the first one explodes.

Ratchet builds him another combustion appliance in a completely separate building after the second one catches half the hab unit on fire.

Rodimus watches a lot of instruction videos and roasts some bytes in his free servo for Drift to snack on.

"I don't know why I even need a combustion appliance," he growls to himself. "I combust."

"Of course, Roddy," Drift agrees serenely, helm in Rodimus's lap. He opens his mouth and accepts the smoking hot bytes his mate feeds him with a happy little hum, crunching them loudly as he chews. "And you're very good at combusting."

"I am! This is useless."

"But it would be more convenient if you could use a combustion appliance," Drift continues, almost thoughtfully. "It would be difficult to roast fuel on your own servo and stir with your other. And some of these recipes call for a controlled explosion, which would be dangerous if you're heating it up on your own frame."

"Okay, yeah, I get your point. I have to use a combustion appliance."

"Ratty made this one particularly safe, just for you," Drift assures him. He chews another byte.

"I hate the sound of that," Rodimus tells him. "I can hear it scratching up your dentae."

"But you develop them for me?"

"Well, they make you happy. And they're not hard to develop."

Drift smiles up at him, thin lines of metal silver showing through the white coats of his dentae.

"You're lucky you're cute," Rodimus says down to him.

"Funny, that's what Ratty says about you."

Rodimus eventually figures out how to use the combustion appliance and suddenly, he's not only feeding Ratch and Drift. Now he's got Swerve sneaking in and making off with his leftovers. Megatron invites himself over and brings Minimus with him because Minimus would never deign to ask himself. Whirl pops in with Cyclonus and Tailgate, all, "I've gotta keep Team Whirl fueled, y'know."

Brainstorm says he's coming over to talk about what he and Perceptor are up to in their labs, but he just says big and confusing words while he and Perceptor eat Rodimus's cooking. Rodimus nods along because it sounds very science-y and mumbo jumbo-y and that's how it usually sounds when Brainstorm and Perceptor talk to him.

After they leave, having eaten far more than they actually needed to, Ratchet explains to him that Brainstorm didn't actually say anything they didn't already know.

Rodimus throws up his servos. "Then why were they here?"

Ratchet pointedly sucks down his smoked motor oil and give him an even more pointed look.

"Those fraggers," Rodimus says more to himself than anyone else, servos on his faulds. "Am I just feeding everyone on Cybertron right now?"

"I mean," Drift says, "more or less."

Rodimus imitates outrage, but he's actually quite pleased.

He loves his mates and he loves his crew and doing this for them, developing these production plants and giving them tasty fuel and snacks, feels like a really good way to let them know they're loved.

He saves the best for his mates, though.

#transformers #Dratchrod #Cybertronian Food #Cybertronian Botany #Cybertronian Nutrition #story prompt #Cozzzynook can do no wrong

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