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meet the bayverse

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So I was thinking about the whole “Omega Key In Smokescreen’s Internals” Thing and just

there’s no fucking way it didn’t hurt

Because like. This thing DEFINITELY wouldn’t be comfortable no matter how you put it in

so I went back to the episode to do some Calculations and scaling stuff to see just how big it was and

it wasn’t until I paid more attention to the exact spot where Knockout was scanning that I realized the Key had been put in at an angle

And where does that leave it?

smokey

SMOKESCREEN

ITS LITERALLY STABBING THROUGH HIS PELVIS AND INTO HIS LEG

AND KNOCKOUT JUST

REACHED IN AND TORE THE THING OUT

MAYBE ITS JUST ME BUT IM 99% SURE SMOKESCREEN’S BODY WASN'T BUILT WITH HOUSING AN OMEGA KEY IN MIND, SO WHO KNOWS WHAT TRION HAD TO MOVE OUT OF THE WAY TO PUT THAT THING IN THERE AND IT BEING TORN OUT PROBABLY JUST FUCKED IT UP EVEN FURTHER

And that’s not even TOUCHING the fact that the Key was 1) a foreign body in his system, 2) put in during what was likey an emergency surgery type thing by a guy who didn’t know medicine, 3) really old and rusty with who knows how much unsanitary stuff on it, and 4) fucking BIG and POINTY

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So, I saw this post and it gave me ideas, and I decided to express those ideas by giving Prowl some spider children! I'm working on drawing them right now, and this is also only part one of the story, so there will at some point be updates. Stay tuned.

The whole fiasco starts back before the war, when Prowl and Mesothulas are dating working together on sciency things. Mesothulas, being on a mission to create the ultimate Cybertronian and also being strongly of the mind that Prowl is the ultimate Cybertronian, keeps stealing Prowl's genetic code and using it to inspire his work. He will "accidentally" poke Prowl with something, collect a small Energon sample, and use the CNA present to replicate parts of Prowl's genes. This leads to the creation of Springer, but it also leads to the creation of many, many tiny spider-bot frames as well as several other experiments.

When the lab explodes, the tank they've been growing in breaks, and the spiders are released. Thing is, they're very tiny: like, the Cybertronian equivalent of our smallest house spiders kind of tiny. Prowl, in the confusion, backs into the tank and cuts himself on the broken edge (and no, he never does go get a tetanus shot, if you were wondering). A few very intrepid mini-spiders smell the Energon, go "Oh hell yeah, it's food time," and sneak inside the cut, making their way surprisingly easily to his fuel line. Because Prowl is perpetually stressed, his immune system sucks, and it assumes the new arrivals are large repair nanites or broken chunks of his bones or something simple like that, so the spiders are pretty much left alone. Eventually, via the whims of the circulatory system, they make their way to his spark chamber, which has an instinctual reaction of New Thing? Must Be A Child, Let’s Encase It and traps the spiderlings in the sparkling pocket.

Side tangent about the sparkling pocket: Cybertronians have the capacity to reproduce sexually or asexually-via-the-Well (cassette carriers can also propagate like plants, but that’s another story). Nowadays, (almost) all new Cybertronians come from the Well because most bots don’t find someone they’d want to have kids with, plus society looked at carrying, said “oh my, that’s kind of icky,” and decided to codify it into not-quite-law but very strong social pressure that you do not go around creating new sparks. This, of course, is a significant amount Sentinel Prime’s fault. Thanks, Sentinel.

But Sentinel Prime, try as he might, does not drive evolution, so Cybertronians by and large kept the physical structure that they would have used to carry sparklings. Said physical structure was formally named (by some very bored scientists) the sparkling pocket, and it consists of a small secondary spark chamber that is protected from the immune system and can safely house other sparks until they’ve got enough of a protoform body to move either to an external facility where they can keep growing or a larger tank inside their carrier (which one it is depends on whether the carrier feels like being a sparkling house for months or not) (even during the functionist period; there's no way the government was making you do anything that would potentially impede your ability to "fulfill your alt-mode's destiny". Pre-Sentinel Prime, they'd only let you carry internally if you proved it wouldn't get in the way of your job). The existence of the sparkling pocket is the reason most doctors don't recommend making any Endura bonds while you're carrying. It probably won't cause that much harm, but y'know. You don't want the sparkling to get chilly.

Side tangent over, and our dear Prowl has upgraded from being stressed and having a terrible immune system to being Double Stressed thanks to his position as Autobot second-in-command. His immune nanites have thoroughly given up at this point, but all the cortisol analogue in his system has sent out a massive alarm, completely suppressing the growth and development of the baby spiders living inside his spark. And it remains that way through the entire war.

Eventually, however, the war ends. Prowl starts to adjust to things being less hectic and dangerous all the time—he gets boyfriends, he starts going to therapy, he learns how to bake. And this drop in his stress levels for the first time in millions of years causes his long-dormant carrying capacity to come back.

The moral of this story, obviously, is to be very careful around the biologists, because you have no idea what they're up to (spoken as a biology major—this is very true).

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greenie beanie

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What if Prowl sees Jazz’s hair for the first time and is absolutely fascinated by it, just playing with it and stuff and Jazz just becomes limp and Prowl is like ‘are you okay??’ And Jazz is just like ‘mhm, feels nice’ bonding activities <3

Ooouwwwww>:3

Imagine like. 99% of the time when Jazz is around Prowl he either pilots his mech or wears his suit. So the only part of him that Prowl can really see is his face.

But then at some point they get to a place with normal earth-like breathable air + normal temperature and infrastructure and stuff. And Jazz is so damn happy because he can finally take off his suit and just enjoy the sun (or suns) and the wind and everything. Also him and his suit are both in desperate need of washing lol

Anyway. The suit is cleaned and while it dries up Jazz kind of just walks around in a tank top and pants and this is when Prowl finds him.

And he is so fascinated

I imagine him rubbing Jazz's head with just one or two fingers because he is too big and is afraid of accidentally causing pain. The gesture is so gentle and cute and Jazz is like aaauuuww that's nice~~ while Prowl looks like hes doing open heart surgery ahahah he is so concentrated.

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For Here There Be Dragons, will Prowl get some type of chewing stick? For animals it helps destress them. It does the same for humans as well along with keeping our teeth straight.

Since Prowl is a dragon disguised as a mecha, will he have trouble with an instinctual response to chew on something as a destressor? Based on how you describe his strength I assume most materials will be too soft for a satisfactory chew.

Also, I wanted to ask a few other things. Because Prowl has been underfueled for a long period of time, does that mean he's smaller than average for a dragon of his age? Are there subspecies for dragons? If so, then what subspecies would Prowl be?

Concerning Jazz, will Prowl have any instinctual courting behaviors? With anyone else, would he display any pack behaviors?

Sorry for the amount of questions, I just got really curious for dragon species worldbuilding.

You're good! These are great questions!

The idea of Prowl enjoying something to chew on is absolutely adorable. I imagine through all life stages dragons would enjoy it. But their age/size determines just what they can reliably chew on. In fact, I like the idea that certain strong metals could slowly be consumed and help the dragon grow. So they get the benefit of something to chew on, and over time get a good source of nutrients!

Prowl getting anxious/stressed, maybe he has gone through countless styluses. He didn't do the best job at shaping his mech teeth either and as a result has some pretty gnarly, sharp molars and fangs. Jazz has been trying to learn more about dragons, so maybe he'll be able to help a dragon out. Maybe see if Wheeljack has any spare extra dense metals lying around XD

Prowl likely is smaller than he should be. Since he wasn't full grown when dragons fully went into hiding, but especially since living 100% among mecha, he is probably considered a bit scrawny! But he's not quite aware since he hasn't been around other dragons in a looooong time.

There are indeed different types of dragons! Different sizes, different body types, different wing types, no wings, preferred biomes, abilities, etc. I haven't nailed down exact distinctions yet so I still don't have Prowl's type completely figured out.

Prowl will certainly have some instinctual courting behaviors. Giving him gifts, especially shiny gifts, grooming, showing off how pretty his wings are, etc. Although Prowl has made an effort to NOT behave like a dragon and maintain some distance from most meche, thanks to Jazz, he just might start behaving a little oddly around others. We shall see :D

Thank you for the questions! They give me plenty to think about. When I started this fic I didn't have a lot ironed out. I just decided 1 day I wanted to make a dragonformers AU since there aren't enough of those. I jumped right in with a loose plot!

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A comprehensive guide to Raptordyne

(This is what my fucking life is I guess)

With a show as incoherently written as Dinosquad there tends to be a lot of guesswork and inconsistent information left for the fans to work with. But not anymore folks! I have scoured the entire show to bring you a comprehensive breakdown of Raptordyne, what it does, who works there, and how it’s built. Let’s get started.

What does Raptordyne do?

The show seems to push the idea that Raptordyne is pretty much exclusively built as a factory for global warming and ooze monsters but that obviously can’t be the only thing happening here.

in the first episode Rodger states that Raptordyne is a biogenetics company and phrase that, like most things in this show, is a vague mush of science-y sounding words. Then in the episode Easy Riders and Raging Dinos we see that Raptordyne owns an animal feed company.

With that in mind it seems safe to assume that Raptordyne is in the agricultural industry more specifically designing GMOs and related products.

Who works there?

Now that we know what Raptordyne does when it’s not making horrible mutants, let’s see who works there. I’m going to go in order from most relevant to least relevant.

Victor Veloci

The main guy, the clown that runs this circus, our leading man, the CEO of Raptordyne. Despite seeing this guy every episode we don’t really get to see him actually doing his human job, we do however know that he spends a lot of time on charity work, thanks to the first episode and the episode Perseverance.

Lieutenant Alpha

A surprisingly unknown character despite showing up in two episodes with speaking scenes the Lieutenant is shown to be in charge of most of the masked grunt force at Raptordyne. Though in his two episodes, Who let the dogs out and Scents and Scents Abilities he is shown to be disliked by Veloci and doesn’t seem aware of the true purpose of Veloci’s work.

Peter

Anyone who knows me also know that this guy is my personal favorite character of all time, despite only showing up in the first episode for 20 seconds. Contrary to popular belief Peter is not actually Veloci’s assistant, his real work lies in the engineering department. He developed nanobots that are supposedly used in primordial ooze and potentially built the robot seen in the episode Wannabe or the hologram dinosaur in Who let the dog out. Peter was injected with primordial ooze however the outcome of that experiment was never seen.

Gregor, Mina, and Robert

I would like to thank the Dinosquad discord server for helping me name these scientists, if you haven’t joined it yet go check it out. These three scientists appear in the background of a few episodes though are never named or given speaking roles. From left to right on the second picture we have Robert, Gregor, and Mina. It is implied in the episode Attack of the Brainasuarus that Veloci works directly with these three to develop prototype ooze.

The twins

These two only appear in the episode Pet Peeve and are the masked grunts working under Veloci for the day. I wanted to point them out not only because they are the only grunts seen without their uniforms but they are also significantly more incompetent than any other grunts seen in the show, thus designating them as their own significant characters.

Workplace Environment

With all our players in place let’s talk about Raptordyne itself. The underground lab seems to be made of one continuous room situated in a cave system underneath the main building. Let’s break it down.

The Entrance

Pictured above is the left end of the cave lab. It’s primarily just Veloci’s ominous skull chair and the entrance elevator (not pictured). This is the area we see the most in the show. What’s interesting about this area is the room over looking the lab just past Veloci’s chair, and the rail tracks cutting through the center of the room, but more on those later.

The Lab

Pretty self explanatory, just across the rail track is the lab where the ooze and mutants are made. The mutants shown in the test tubes are not used in the show but their humanoid shape does imply some sort of human experimentation.

The airlock

On the right side of the lab there is this specialized containment zone. As seen in the episode One Precent Inspiration this area is used for the temporary containment of live specimens and also has an airlock at the top of the containment unit for the release of airborne specimens.

The Greenhouse

Seen only once in the episode Growth Potential this room is what I believe to be in that raised portion of the lab seen in the entrance. This area of the lab is used exclusively for the production and study of mutant plants, a concept that is severely underutilized in the show.

Veloci’s Office

Realized i forgot this originally whoops. Being the influential man he is Veloci obviously needs an office that isn’t in a secret dinosaur lair. This is one spacious office in what looks like the top of the Raptordyne building.

The warehouse

Technically this isn’t a part of the underground lab, nor is it a single building in my opinion. Featured in Scents and Scents abilities we see what is one of possibly many warehouse outposts. Complete with their own security systems and staff.

In the episode it is featured in the place seems to be controlled exclusively by the Lieutenant and masked grunts. So why is this relevant? I propose that the railway seen in the main lab is actually a transit system between the main lab and a network of these outpost facilities.

Conclusion

Go nuts nerds

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DATSUN BROTHERS PROWL, BLUESTREAK AND SMOKESCREEN SPOTTED IN A TF ONE SCENE MY PRECIOUS BABIESSSSS

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just got the mental image of one of miko with a fever falling asleep with her head pressed against bulkheads hand and bulkhead cant move now and i am dying of the cuteness

All I can see with this concept is Bulkhead having to endure what we humans do when a cat plops itself down upon our laps.

Poor Miko coming back from school with a light fever and just, pulling herself over to Bulkhead to lay her head against his leg. I can see him being quite confused with the whole situation, since Miko is normally bouncing off the walls with energy. One careful human child collection later, and he's stuck standing in the middle of base with this small child half asleep, too sick to want to move and shivering.

"Jackie, she won't move."

"Is she dead?"

"No. But she's shaking and curled up like an isopod. What do I do?"

"I don't know Bulk. Don't move?"

"But-"

"Look, I don't know slag about the squishies. Just don't drop her."

And thus, Bulkhead gets to stand in the center of the base, scared to move and only able to stare at Miko as Wheeljack throws a blanket on her. If he moves, he might wake her. If he so much as twitches, she might get up. The new brand of cuddly is different but not unwelcome after all.

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Here. Take the Prowls👇👇

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If animals can be war heros and get medals and stuff, does that mean animals can be war criminals or no

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Shortstack to Brickhouse

Jazz had endless fun making Orion run after him before the war. Unfortunately for him, Optimus has taken it upon himself to pay back the vorns of runs through Iacon.

(This is going to be part one for a series methinks. We shall see.)

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━

"There's a bar this way that I enjoy. Best engex in Iacon." Orion, looking more than a little winded, huffed as he all but sprinted to keep up with Jazz's strides. The archivist's vents flared as he ran along, his fans running on their highest setting in an attempt to follow Jazz along the purposefully convoluted path.

Any potential guilt he might have felt for forcing the far shorter mech to tail him was smothered behind amusement. Orion hardly left the archives, and when he did leave, he usually just took the train. Jazz's logic was simple. He took his bestie for a walk in order to get him to move for once, and in return, said bestie got a treat at the end of the trip.

"How far is it?" Orion managed to choke out a question in-between frantic venting. The poor mech hardly reached Jazz's hips. Every step Jazz took was four or five to the smaller bot, a fact that he found eternally amusing during their outings.

"Just a few city districts." Jazz had to fight back a snort as Orion all but deflated, his optics wide in distress.

"A few districts? Jazz, it can take me joors just to get through one!" Orion's exclamation was one that had been repeated many times over their various trips. He never stopped being dramatic, especially when forced to be active for once. It didn't matter that Jazz had been slowly working Orion into taking longer and longer trips. The archivist was agitated regardless.

And it was hilarious.

"Then we better be moving quickly, Rion! Otherwise we'll miss out on the bar!" Orion made a sound that bordered on a wail as he increased his pace in order to match Jazz's casual jog. His shorter companion straddled the line between being categorized as a minicon and a small civilian frame. It showed in his every step, especially with his frantic sprinting.

The only reason Orion wasn't legally registered as a minicon at all was due to the lack of rights for such frame types. It had taken more than a little effort on Orion's part to prove himself worthy of being listed as a normal civilian instead. But secretly, Jazz was pretty sure Orion was some flavor of minicon all the same, if only because he was built like a brick despite being on the taller end for such frame types.

Not that he was going to tell Orion that, of course. Orion was rather touchy when it came to his height, a fact Jazz abused on the regular.

"Come on shortstack!" Jazz laughed as Orion almost tripped over his pedes in an attempt to keep up. The archivist threw a middle digit in his direction, a scowl on his face as his frame steamed.

"I'm going… to shove you… onto a train… track." Orion wheezed out between erratic venting. His optics blazed with anger that Jazz had only ever seen directed at him while on similar trips. He liked seeing Orion all riled up. If he was pissed off when they got to the bar, he'd be far more fun than he would have been otherwise.

Angry Orion made a great drinking buddy, unlike calm Orion, who would chat the audial off the nearest bot, likely to rant about his favorite philosophical topics. Jazz shivered at the memory of Orion's last composed trip to the bar. Jazz had fallen into recharge in his seat watching Orion preach to some poor spark who got wrapped up in conversation with him. Yeah, he'd take his chances with angry Orion any cycle if it meant his bestie would actually be interesting outside of his work.

"You can try, Rion! If you can catch me, that is!" Grinning, Jazz gave Orion only a nano-klik to gather himself before he broke into a proper sprint. As he ran, he laughed and gleefully listened to Orion's screech of outrage.

Sooner or later, Orion would give up and resort to his alt-mode to try and keep up. It would dig at the smaller mech's sense of pride, only serving to make him more upset. This particular trip was long too. Jazz was betting at least twenty shanix on Orion being absolutely livid when they got to the bar.

Primus, he couldn't wait.

----

"We have an inspection to perform. Please follow me." Optimus, still reading a datapad, tapped Jazz on the shoulder to stir him from his defrag. He reset his optics to rid himself of any lingering lethargy before standing up with a stretch. His spinal struts popped as he did so, earning a groan of relief as he fell into step with his friend turned Prime.

Gone was the archivist who could barely ride most attractions even if he were to be allowed into Six Lasers. Now there stood a towering giant who dwarfed Jazz and most of everyone else by at least three or four heads. It was a lot to take in.

"Righty Rion! Lead the way!" Before the words even formulated fully, Optimus was already striding forward with newfound grace. Jazz adjusted his visor, processing just how fast Optimus was moving at a casual walk of all things. But he quickly got himself back in order and hurried after his friend and leader.

He had to jog just to keep up, a fact that he noted with a hint of surprise as Optimus didn't bother to slow down as he usually did with others he brought with him for whatever reason. Jazz didn't mind the extra effort it took to keep moving, but he did file the chance in behavior away for later. Was Optimus feeling alright?

Optimus led the way out of the Citadel, guiding Jazz through all sorts of back roads that the Primacy would faint seeing their Prime walk down. The path was meandering and wild, with no coordination that Jazz could pick out. Even more strange than that, Jazz could have sworn Optimus was picking up his pace. He didn't look like he was moving all that quickly. His every stride was graceful, weight perfectly distributed. Compared to him, Jazz was starting to feel a burn in his legs as he forced himself to move faster just to keep up.

"Where are we going? This isn't a path I know." Jazz called out, but he was met with a contemplative hum instead of a real answer. Optimus hadn't even looked up from his datapad, almost as if the path and the brutal pace didn't bother him in the slightest.

"Military installation 43B." Optimus finally spoke up as they rounded a corner. The moment Jazz registered what was being said, he skidded to a halt and stared at Optimus in horror.

"That's on the other side of Iacon!" Optimus, slag him, turned around slowly. As he did, Jazz found his spark sinking as he noted a smug grin on the Prime's face.

"That it is. But I'm sure if we move quickly, we can still arrive in time for the inspection I scheduled." Optimus returned back to his datapad, his pace absolutely picking up as he started into a casual hustle. Jazz scrambled to keep up, having to sprint to make up the difference as Optimus laughed.

"If you can keep up, that is." Oh that slagger.

"Rion!" Jazz lamented his every life decision as Optimus continued on his merry way, settling into a slow run that left Jazz throwing all the power in his frame into running as fast as he possibly could.

Slag it all. The Matrix may have made him bigger, but it hadn't made him any less Orion.

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Lost Light Tyrest AU 2: Electric Boogaloo: the Squeakuel 
this was going to be in the original post but it got a little long!

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...wanted... to add so much more.... but I'm dead.... maybe will add one day more since I wanted more battle side by side scenes... I love them your honor in every universe.... Song remix <- link *making cackling voice* Mecha pilot Jazz au by Keferon

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i don't need to explain myself you all know what i'm talkin about

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@dear-fellow-travelers​ you’re in luck, i needed a cooldown tonight and these served perfectly! i assume the ram-EN also counts as instant food. i was trying to think of some kind of canned soup but aside from vague ideas of oil and antifreeze i got nothin

(other food posts found in this masterlist here)

1) have you ever plugged a hole in a tire with slime? yea, it’s this stuff. make sure you have enough time to eat this, because it will gum up your mouth real good, like slimy peanut butter. the spoon thing that comes with the package is sharp on the edges so you can cut through it rather than trying to scoop

2) proper cafEn is high-charge, high-quality energon along with certain additives that give a long lasting boost of energy. instant cafEn on the other hand is a granulated package that goes in warm regular energon to provide some of that extra energy, with worse taste and sensation. if you’re REALLY insane, you can down the packet like pixie dust and hope for the best

3) polystytoes are blobs of polystyrene ball foam, compacting together and gradually expanding within cracks in the ground. some of them can grow enormous, and more than one road or building has been compromised by tiny spuds eventually growing boulder-sized and destroying the underlying foundation. they’re a very common and useful fuel source, with one of the simplest ways being grinding them up into loose foam, then later cooking them to make mashed polystytoes. with oil gravy on top, it’s a pretty good meal!

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Yet another Cybertronian food dump! You can find all the other posts in this masterlist here.

1) look at these cute fluffy Cheeps awwww. It’s not *quite* the same texture as marshmallow Peeps, being rubber and all, but it’s still delicious. Somewhere out there is a certain purple dinosaur beastformer chowing down on these and hissing yessssssss…..

2) rebars are nice crunchy snack bars for when you need a convenient refuel. After all, you aren’t you when you’re hungry! They come individually wrapped and also in buckets. Imagine how heavy one of those buckets must be��

3) no I will not apologize for referencing a dead meme, it’s funny. There’s many types of gelweed, but this variant in particular is native to the Vinvissius Canals. Usually it’s just ropy, plasticky corded lumps on the shore, until the tide comes in and the tubing begins sucking up fluid. Once it’s fully pressurized, the cyberflora extracts nutritional compounds and stores them in pods, sealing and falling off as edible berries. Tide pod bowls are popular staples of “cleansing diets”.

4) blatantly traced from this post here, thank you very much for the suggestion ;) While crystal gardens are very common, from hobbyist to fuel source to huge ecological preserves, custom grown crystals like this platter are expensive to make. It takes a lot of time and precision to grow them so carefully that their edges are as straight as a laser. Sure, you could cut them, but there’s a pride in achieving a perfect surface without any modification.