#sparkeater au

[terminumart]

Some stuff from a sparkeater AU with @bardocklives, where said sparkeaters are more akin to vampires than mindless creatures. Shockwave and Longarm are also separate entities because I am a big sucker for those AUs and Longarm is a helpless loser.

Also Shockwave's nasty weird mouth. (How else is he going to eat sparks)

[zephyrrhiesfyrian]

a wip for that sparkeater fic i mentioned: Perceptor and Highbrow bond over noms (the noms may or may not be a former crewmate, it's unclear)

what is Getaway looking at

i do not remember why i drew this tiny hoist

Protectobot snuggles!

BLADES, DOWN, DOWN BOY--

Senator Shockwave has a crisis

[rust-bearer]

Eventually I’ll finish the Sparkeater first aid au story but I also sometimes wonder what he looks like in that au. Vs ‘before’

[doctor-pharma]

Pharma shot up with a gasp, causing the thin blanket of snow that had gathered on his frame to disperse. He was alive. His frame battered and damaged, but he was alive and strong enough to move, despite the pain. As he raised his arm to wipe snow from his face the doctor was met with a gastly reminder of why he had fallen in the first place. His wrists ended in nothing but cut wires and dried energon.

His slender blue servos were gone, severed by Ratchets pet Ex-Decepticon. Staring at his mutilated wrists Pharma felt anger rise up inside him. He would make them pay, he would tear Drift's spark right out of his chest and he would… Would what?

Pharma shook his head, trying to clear his pain clouded processor. Righteous fury and thoughts of vengance would not do him any good if he died out in the snow, his first priority had to be to fix himself up and replicate his cure for Red Rust so he could fly again.

---------

At Delphi only the emergency power was still on and the facility was utterly deserted, save for the many rusting corpses, which the doctor tried hard to ignore.

Not until he had managed to reach one of the treatment rooms did it occur to him that he might truly be screwed. Replacing someones servos wasn't hard for him to do, even replacing one of his own would be doable, but how in the name of Primus was he supposed to do it without any hands or help?

Judging by the pink stain in the snow he had lost quite a bit of energon, Messatine's icy weather cooling down his frame and freezing his severed energon lines was likely the only reason he had yet to bleed out. That however was not going to last. The frost was already melting of his plating and the cold numbness was beginning to subside. Pharma had to come up with something. How was he supposed to replace his hands if he needed his hands to do it? He couldn't just move the tools with his mind for crying out loud!

Agitated by the issue, the recent events and his current desperate situation the jet had begun to pace around the room. Both this pointless pacing and his by now rather gloomy thoughts were interrupted when he caught a brief glimpse of his reflection in the glass door of a cabinet. What he saw there made him freeze on the spot. Not only was he in a generally terrible state, something was different. Very different and very, very wrong.

Almost automatically he raised his right arm as though reaching to touch the strange tendrils, only to remember again that he lacked the servos to do so. The thin, snake like appendages appeared to be rooted in his back, a thought that made him feel naseous. However if they really were attached to him in the way he feared, than perhaps he could.. control them?

---------

As it turned out the answer was 'yes'. He could indeed control them, well enough even for them to present a solution to his problem of having no hands.

Now he sat at the desk in his office, flexing the digits on his replacement servos. Pleased with their responsiveness Pharma turned his attention to more distressing matters, like examining those new appendages of his. Running a digit across the surface of one such tendril he found that he could feel the touch just as if it had been any other part of his frame. That was the scary part, by all accounts those things seemed to be part of him. But that did not make any sort of sense…

With a sigh Pharma again picked up the cube of medical grade energon he had gotten to refuel and downed the rest of it.

He could not recall ever having read about anything like this in any piece of medical writing. Though maybe he should still consult the many datapads of medical history? He got up, though he did not get further than a few steps from his desk before a wave of nausea swept over him. He could feel liquid rising in his intake and before he had a chance to do anything else it spilled from his lips onto the previously clean floor of his office.

---------

By the time the sick feeling began to fade he had already thoroughly emptied his fuel tank and was sure that something was seriously wrong. This prompted the doctor to examine himself more carefully. Previously all he had been looking for was physical trauma, this time a more general check would hopefully reveal a hint capable of leading him to some answers.

What he found were abnormal readings, his frame temperature not rising above that of his surroundings, his optics emitting only a dim, sickly green glow and finally his spark being… gone. The answer, Pharma realized, was something he could never have found among medical records and scientific studies. No, the answer lay in ancient tales and horror stories…

Nickel, Iron, Cobalt, Chrome, He'll eat your soul, Turn your spark to stone…

[suweetmichi]

Sparkeater Senator Shockwave AU (hopefully no one has done this yet...)

I don't exactly know how sparkeaters work so hopefully I'm somewhat close lol. Honestly this AU is great for angst potential (mainly optimus and some of the Outliers he used to mentor) and possibly... would give post empurata shockwave a mid life crisis seeing his old body like this? I might make a comic about an interaction of either of those 2 soon, but I'm throwing this out here now lol

[cukerka32]

I've been cooking this for a while and it was TOTALLY worth it

Like gosh he's so beautiful!

[moonlight-tmd]

Thinking about what would happen to Wasp in the sparkeater au.

Like, obviously he bullied Bee in boot camp but I also think he knew something was up with that mech.

He was suspicious of the way Bee carried himself and always seemed to be sneaky. Obviously he had to investigate and tattled to the officers about the suspicious amount of stashed energon in his dorm.

Still, he couldn't help but feel anxious about the mech. He's seen him run around the camp at night and tried to get on his aft again upon spotting him still hiding around the place- which only got him in trouble. Apparently the rumors of the spy have arose and Wasp was pointed main suspect by an anonymous passerby that spotted him roaming after hours. Somehow he got put in jail for the supposedly his evidence and left to rot.

Obviously he knew it was Bee, but it didn't matter how many times he's told the same story. All he got was less of a chance to get out by cooperation. The first chance he got at escaping he steered himself to get the real traitor...

When Wasp kidnapped Bee from patrol on earth, he thought about all the ways to get revenge for all those cycles locked away... But it didn't turn out the way he wanted it to.

One moment he had Bee grappled, the next he was held up against a wall with claws digging deep into his plating and crushing the metal beneath them. He tried to get out or even fight back but it was useless...

But the scariest part of it all was when Bee started apologising. His voice was shaky and he felt bad for Wasp.

"I was trying to protect you... You brought this upon yourself." Was the only thing he whispered before Wasp realized what had hit him. Not even a second later his own spark was dangling from a razor sharp tentacle as his own frame got ripped to shreds.

Longarm was worried, along with the news of a convict Wasp escaping, soon after came the news of Bee going MIA. He knew Bee tended to be a loner when stuff got overwhelming so he drove out to check the spots he knew Bee would hide out in. Never would he expect his beloved to run into his arms crying while babbling apologies.

Bee killed Wasp and ate his spark. He couldn't hold off anymore and Wasp left him no choice. Bee showed him the ugly remains of his corpse. He begged Longarm to help... which Longarm did.

He protected Bee from this mech once, but he kept pushing and found what he's been so desperately trying to find. He took the remains and put them in a spot where 'cons were known to hang out at. Sure enough, the patrol that found it bought the hint of it being cons and the case was closed. Bee however had to stay in hiding for a while.

While he wouldn't likely to be suspected of anything, the fact Ratchet would be persistent on doing a check up scan on him was a high threat. Bee knew Longarm rigged the scanner a while back but he still didn't want anyone close to him. Rigging a scan result is one thing, having traces of another spark signature is another.

So they had to wait out few days. Longarm persuaded Blitzwing into playing a part in their little charade in return for some fancy snacks, he never questioned a thing and soon Bee was returned from the supposed "kidnapping".

Bee felt awful, he never wanted to hurt anyone because of his condition. Longarm kept reassuring him that he had no choice and Wasp was at fault. It took a long while for Bee to let it go and forget but deep down he still held onto that tiny bit of guilt.

[leafdragon16]

I'm yet another person from AO3 but I do have a question lol-

Was the design and stuff for Wheeljack based on the IDW comic sparkeaters? Because I've been thinking abt this for ages and it seems so-

It's also made me think abt another character- Soundwave- like he has a visor (that's possibly over his face) and he has tentacles- like it could be very easy for him to be one as well-

I mean I'm not saying to include this in the story- just smth I thought I'd point out lol

Ok so I just went to the IDW TFWiki page for sparkeaters and

WHAT? WHAT. WHAT?? WHAT???

So I have never read IDW and the only information I have about it is what I’ve absorbed from my TF mutuals. I knew sparkeaters were some kind of monster BUT I NEVER KNEW WHAT THEY LOOKED LIKE?? WHAT?

First of all that’s really creepy looking and secondly THEY LOOK ALMOST EXACTLY LIKE HOW I IMAGINE EX!WHEELJACK DOES. DOWN TO THE KNIFE TENTACLES AND EVERYTHING. HOW?? I’VE NEVER SEEN THESE THINGS IN MY LIFE I’VE ONLY VAGUELY HEARD OF THEM

So to properly answer your question, no, Ex!Wheeljack’s design is not based on sparkeaters, it’s just a really weird coincidence (and frankly I kinda wish I had because these things look cool lmao). His design was actually based off the first plotline I had for Horror Show before I scrapped it. Shockwave was originally going to try to create synthetic energon but since he has even less information than Ratchet does in canon, it doesn’t go well. Naturally he decides to go big or go home, mixes it with Dark Energon, and injects it into Wheeljack. But that felt too much like copying canon and a virus seemed more like Shockwave’s style anyway so I changed it. You can still kinda see the original plot in his design because I just started by basing it off of the Terrorcons from Thirst and then I went “what if he had stabby tentacles too wouldn’t that be fucked up”

And YEAH. I think it was the Art of Prime that mentioned Soundwave was deliberately designed to seem alien even when compared to the other Cybertronians? I’m not sure when sparkeaters were introduced/if Prime was out by then but Soundwave’s design, especially when compared side by side with sparkeaters, is certainly a CHOICE. [eyes ideas folder contemplatively]

[kandy-sticks-zaza-blogs]

Ultra Magnus is a Attorney lawyer and a former soilder in the war.

Minimus Ambus is the assistant of Alpha Trion.

Ultra Magnus is Hot Rod father figure and Minimus Ambus is Hot Rod mentor figure.

Are they the same person in my AU?No they are not the same person in my AU also they have a rivalry with eachother.

Dr Widow is a former Senator and space exploration scientist he went missing out in space for 30 years or cycle no one has ever found them until Decepticon found them in the adapted to a new form into a sparkeater using him as the experiment.

[dimorphodon-x]

Sparkeaters in the bird au

Sparkeaters are so rare that they’re often dismissed as fantasy. It’s not known what causes a bird to become one or how they work, but in most stories they are somewhat like zombies/vampires, minus the living dead aspect. They are able to rip the souls (sparks) of other birds to devour. Their crops/gizzards often glow with sparks.

Newly formed sparkeaters at least have a better chance of being cured, though may be mentally scarred by the fact that some of their insides were outside. Namely their blood vessels.

[zephyrrhiesfyrian]

so i'm working on a very self-indulgent "oh noooo the crew is sparkeaters D:" fic and it's taking up most of my creative capacity, so have a silly doodle

Getaway is the only non-sparkeater left on this goddamn ship 😭

[rust-bearer]

Deathless AU mirrors the Sparkeater AU in that “the person you love isn’t what they seem fundamentally, but in reality they are still the same”

But deathless au focuses specifically on the hopelessness. Sparkeater is perseverance, in the end, but being unable to die? And every attempt to save someone proves almost ultimately fruitless? To be doomed to die quietly and alone on loop, always alone.

[transingthoseformers]

what are your top three headcanons in a tfp au?

(can be spicy or not, your choice)

For a TFP au?

Tfp Megatron and Optimus being exes is usually an idea I return to again and again and again, whether I push them back together again or no

Smokescreen was supposed to be hot rod. You cannot convince me otherwise.

Soundwave is considered unconventionally attractive, you're either terrified of him or terrified of him and find him hot.

[lets-try-some-writing]

For artificial prime: Optimus becomes a sparkeater during the unicron arc.

Heck yeah, an excuse to ruin my boy more.

Most relevant post here.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙

The perfect machine. Optimus Prime was expertly designed to mimic a living Cybertronian and possess all the cognitive abilities of one. He had no spark, but the false Matrix served as both his power regulator and strategic aid. He believed he lived, and that was all that mattered. Ratchet wallowed in his guilt and his creation marched ever onward following the calls of war.

Then Unicron woke, and everything went to slag.

Optimus was not a true Prime, he couldn't be. However he most certainly had the visions of one. Ratchet created a false key to Vector Sigma as a failsafe for his use. If Optimus's false Matrix ever fell apart, Ratchet could use the data stored on the key to restore its databanks. That was the whole point. But Optimus believed the key to be real, and so his plan almost entirely revolved around throwing himself into danger to try and use the false Matrix to force Unicron back into stasis. Ratchet only managed to drag the plan out of his creation through the use of some of his well hidden coded commands, but once he had it, he knew he could not let it be. Optimus was going to use the Matrix and there was no getting around that. But Ratchet could alter it, he could make Optimus's plan work through subtle uses of technology.

A quick jab of sedatives in the dead of night, a quiet dissection of the faux Matrix, and a swift integration of an EMP field generator was all that was needed. Just like back on Cybertron, not a spark was suspicious. Optimus's memory was carefully altered to show that he'd come by for recharge inducers before heading to his berth, hence his helm ache and sluggishness. Then, just to be safe, Ratchet copied his creation's AI onto a drive he specifically designed for such a scenario. He would not be caught unprepared, especially considering the likelihood of his creation not coming back was quite high.

Optimus marched toward what Ratchet could only guess was certain death. While it hurt the medic's spark to see the only remnant of his oldest friend throw himself into what was likely to be his doom, he did nothing to stop his creation from going on. He had his failsafe, and while it would certainly be a trial to create another frame, he could do it... he had the knowledge needed to make it work... and yet, Optimus had long proven to be able to feel, if only because Ratchet made it so. The part of Ratchet that saw the being before him as his progeny in a twisted sense could not bear to let Optimus go without a farewell. As such, before the false Prime left, Ratchet held Optimus's servos in his with a gentle smile and offered what words he could.

"Come back to us alive, Optimus. We... I cannot go on without you."

Optimus was surprised, but he took Ratchet's emotional response with grace. Ratchet for his part grit his denta and stood firmly as his creation, with Megatron by his side, went through the groundbridge. Ratchet did not waver, he did not allow himself to as he kept dutiful tabs on the vital signs of the team until he could no longer trace them. He remained with the children, praying to Primus for the first time in his life since he created Optimus that all would be well. When the ground shook, he gathered the children around him while continuing to hope and shielded the small humans in the event that the worst come to worst.

Then it all stopped.

The ground no longer shook. The tides returned to normal. Tornados dissipated and volcanoes fell dormant. Optimus had succeeded, and Ratchet could not have been more relieved when his creation's vitals came back online. However that relief was short lived when the team returned without the machine Ratchet had spent so long cultivating. Megatron had dragged Optimus off and the team had been unable to stop it. According to the reports, Optimus's memory seemed to be largely shot, leaving him with only recollections of his time as Orion. For Ratchet, that translated to one horrible horrible situation.

Optimus's AI was shot, and considering he went with Megatron, his faux Matrix likely was as well. There was only one way forward, and Ratchet already hated it. The false key would fix the faux Matrix without issue. But restoring Optimus's AI? It was likely an impossible task. He would need to be captured, then Ratchet would need to see if his mind was salvageable. If not, he would need to be purged and the copy implanted. The issue with that plan? The upload of an AI copy would be a highly delicate procedure. One wrong move and the AI could be corrupted. There was no room for failure as Ratchet issued orders to begin retrieving the missing Prime.

Thankfully, they did not have to do much to get Optimus back.

Not even a week after he went with Megatron, Optimus Prime came flying out of a ground bridge in the middle of nowhere. He was covered in energon, cuts, and wounds, but he was alive. The team, Bumblebee especially, were relived beyond words when they dragged Optimus back and plopped him onto Ratchet's medical berth. However that was when things went wrong all over again.

Up until that point, Optimus had been unconscious, his AI likely overwhelmed from whatever he had gone through. However as Bumblebee came near to try and check on his Sire in all but bond, Ratchet's creation shot up, and Bumblebee dropped to the ground totally immobilized. The team could hardly comprehend what was going on until Optimus's entire frame seemed to warp and cables whipped out from somewhere beneath his plating. An unholy shriek echoed from his vocalizer before he leap and his jaw unhinged, his gaze firmly on Bumblebee who remained prone on the floor. The team prepared to open fire in pure terror, but Ratchet stepped forward first.

"OPTIMUS! EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN! CODE ORION.P.2229!"

Just before Optimus could lock in on Bumblebee or cause any damage, he froze and dropped like a bag of bolts. The team fell still, Bumblebee scurried to his pedes, and the Prime lay on the ground without so much as venting. His gaze was lifeless and Ratchet could only groan as he dragged Optimus onto the berth yet again. Scans were run as the team watched, and it was not hard to figure our that the creature of legend was now what made up the husk of their leader. Optimus's AI was totally corrupted without a trace of any sentience left. His very CNA had been altered to match that of the notorious spark eater. The only salvageable part of him was the faux Matrix, but even that was nearly impossible to even attempt to remove with how much Optimus's frame had warped.

There was no saving him. Unicron's taint had permanently devastated the frame Ratchet had so perfectly crafted. He did not have the means or the materials to make another, much less fix the faux Matrix. He had Optimus's uncorrupted AI, but it would do him little good with Optimus's nature still a secret. Waking the AI on a computer would be traumatizing for Optimus and would reveal everything all at once. There was no winning. Either Ratchet would need to somehow pull something out of his aft and fix the feral sparkeater enough to be usable, or he would need to snag a protoform from the Nemesis, alter it, get a new power source, wake Optimus's AI and get him up to speed, and THEN put him in it with the correct codes.

An impossible battle.

Ratchet warded off the team with assurances that he would fix things, all the while he strapped the spark eater down and watched it flail once the shutdown wore off. He held the datastick with Optimus's AI in his servos as he watched, contemplating. The team needed their leader. Ratchet couldn't just produce one out of thin air as he had on Cybertron. Deals with Megatron were out of the question and the team needed the wisdom of Ratchet's dutiful creation. The secret would need to come out, preferably before Optimus's AI was activated. Then hopefully, if they didn't kill him on the spot, they could find a way to get Optimus up and moving.

Surely they would see reason? Surely... they would understand... right?

Ratchet could only pray as he gathered around with the team, showed them the datastick, and began one long explanation.

[witchofthesouls]

Are there any differences between the verses where the djd + nurse + nickel are more around the rest of the cons / doing their kill list spree on their own sweet time?

Nickel and the nurse are Hot Gossip to those outside the Justice Division because of all the mental fuckery that's going on there.

1. It's the D.J.D.

2. Why does the torture-kill squad get two medical professionals?

3. Newsparks

4. Tarn as a donor with newsparks

5. The D.J.D. has newsparks!

It doesn't help that the 'cons have a certain mindset that's stacked against the classically trained medical professionals.

The biggest difference is stress.

In the original au, Tarn's Conjunx did need to do an induction to finish off the second trio in some incubators. Nickel runs a tight ship within Tarn's fist, so she isn't afraid to take anyone's knee joints if any of the mechs disturb the newparks finishing off. She had to chase Vos away several times because the mech would treat it like a koi pond.

In the au where Tarn needs to be present at all officer meetings, the poor nurse was doing a lot to keep themselves safe.

Not only is Overlord shadowing as a hungry, temperamental poltergeist whenever the nurse leaves the ship as he speaks terrible, disturbing, and/or filthy things to them, he also acts like the most menacing, attention-seeking cat that's leaving half-dead mechs as bait to fish out the D.J.D.'s new medical team. (You find that Overlord is a very curious and chatty mech. As you and Nickel work on stabilizing the poor glitches, Overlord voices his observations and relishes going over all the strange tinctures and concoctions you've used on him. Right or wrong you refuse to give him answers but he's weirdly into it.)

And whenever you leave the ship, you gain several persistent barnacles. Not only Overlord at your heels, but there's one of the Constructicons and, weirdly enough, Sixshot.

The constant hypervigilance and ever-increasing stress, especially when you need to keep testing new formulas to put down a Phase Sixer as curious as Overlord because there's no way in the Shadow that you'll be on the same planetary system as the mech without something to put him down immediately.

Unfortunately, it pushed the poor nurse into an early emergence before the trio was ready. The incubators could only do so much because you and Nickel were still preparing them. The second trio will be very small and fragile as newsparks, but once they hit the late sparkling stage, they'll catch up to their older siblings.

[cukerka32]

Sparkeater Soundwave! I remember my follower comented that it would be better if my Feralvave had his mouth suitable for eating sparks, so here it is!

(Also i remember someone tagging my art with "Feralvave". I don't remember who you are, but I adore this name you gave my Soundwave!)