SVSSS AU - Real Villainy

SVSSS AU - Real Villainy

Svsss au where Shen Jiu says fuck it and just becomes a real legit villain. He’s tried to do the right thing and it always goes wrong - maybe if he tries to be evil he’ll do good? Unlikely, but what other choice does he have at this point?.

He comes to Cang Qiong while Yue Qingyuan is still locked in the cave and finds out that, rather than give the man medical attention they shoved him in a cave to let the chips fall where they may.  

Shen Jiu is like “wow, actually, fuck these guys” but he hangs around to learn from them, ends up head disciple of Qing Jing, then Yue Qingyuan is released from his cave and he’s like “right. I’m busting us out of here”

 But the peak lord of Qiong ding isn’t going to let her successor go so easily and beats the tar out of Shen Jiu when he comes to sneak Yue Qingyuan out. Shen Jiu is slippery though and he escapes.

He is still head disiple of Qing Jing though. His Shizun is very fond of him and refuses to instate a new disiple, even though SJ has technically defected and fought the sect leader.

Teams up with some demon whose cultivator wife betrayed him because he’s going to get his Qi-ge back if it kills him - well. Kills someone else. No point getting his Qi-ge if hes not alive to enjoy it.

 Then he finds out the disciple was the head disciple of Huan Hua and he’s like “oh, the girl with the pervert master?” And suddenly Tianlang Jun is like ’,,, maybe we should find her first. Before we do the murder.’

They plant a body of Su Xiyan and raise baby binghe while they wait for it to grow.

Free uncle for Luo Binghe

Literally the day SXY crawls her way out of the ground (only took a year, but it was a year too long for SJ) the three of them - and binghe, in a baby sling - storm Qiong Ding and reclaim YQY. 

The two of them enjoy their life as ‘cultivation consultants’ to the demonic emperor - aka, they baby sit Binghe and back Su Xiyan up when she tells Tianlang-jun that he’s being a moron. 

Living Remnant

When Optimus dreams, he relives the memories of his predecessors, often believing that he is them until he wakes. But when he does this, odd things tend to occur.

Sleepwalking

More often than not, when Optimus dreams and delves into the memories of the other Primes, he ends up sleepwalking as the Matrix's way of keeping him safe while he is unavailable. The Matrix will pilot his frame, using the remnants of the Primes minds and muscle memory within it to operate. It normally isn't an issue, the team will just let Optimus wander for a bit and one of the more insomniac members will lead him back to his berth. However his sleepwalking is highly volatile, one wrong move can lead him to lash out instinctively as the Matrix is unable to tell friend from foe.

Not only that... but Optimus is rather terrifying when the Matrix controls his frame. He wanders the base like a machine. Everything he does when sleepwalking looks wrong, almost like he is a broken record stuck on loop. Sometimes he won't move for hours, not even so much as twitching, just standing in the shadows and watching with empty optics. Other times he will repeat the same set of actions over and over, lifting and item, carrying it to another spot, and putting it down before doing it all over gain. Startlingly, he also might wander looking lost and repeating ominous phrases as he walks, usually something about it "hurting". And most frighteningly, but thankfully most rarely, Optimus's frame will start to mimic previous Primes.

One such instance led him to wander around the base with his blades extended, lashing out and trying to attack any bot he saw. The team spent the entire night hiding behind locked doors, terrified for their lives. They never mentioned what happened to Optimus after he woke, not wanting to make him feel guilty for things he had no control over. But still, the team hypothesize that the memories that the Matrix was using must have belonged to Nova Prime, a Prime notorious for his paranoia and his death at the hands of his own inner circle.

Another similar instance led Optimus to begin working with dangerous chemicals trying to make... something in his zombified state. Ratchet tried to intervene but he was stopped by a startlingly empty stare and a few muttered sentences about how "There must be a cure" and how he "Must find the cure". Ratchet ended up watching in fear as Optimus created an antidote for the rust plague, something not hard to make with their knowledge but concerning when the thought of which Prime the memories originated from came into play. Optimus woke from his stupor with nearly a dozen vials of rust plague antidote's surrounding him and with his servos covered in all sorts of cuts and chemical burns. Ratchet was thankfully there to calm him down and treat his wounds, but neither have spoken of that particular instance since.

The last instance of such terrifying behavior taking place that the team are aware of started with Optimus sleepwalking as he normally would. But when day came... he didn't wake. The team tried to break him out of it but he was completely unresponsive, totally immersed in the Matrix. He remained in a state of waking sleep for days... hardly moving and only doing one of two things, that being singing songs in the ancient tongue and drawing murals with whatever resources were available to him. It was a horrifying experience, that with the team being unable to wake him in any way, not even to get him to consume energon. Ratchet ended up giving him shots of energon directly to his systems as he spent nearly a whole week in that state. The team were beginning to worry that he wouldn't wake, that he had finally fallen too far into the Matrix's grip when he finally showed signs of stirring. By the time Ratchet dragged him to the medical berth for a checkup, Optimus had already created dozens of highly unusual and very... disturbing murals depicting everything from the creation of the Primes to the great war.

Some were indecipherable, only depicting mecha in various states of agony or other forms of discomfort. Others were clear as day and nearly prophetic in nature, depicting the omega lock, Unicron spark chamber, and even one of Smokescreen with the omega keys. And then there were a few that shook the team to their cores, murals that told a tale of horrible suffering. Those murals showed the deaths of a Prime or Optimus being dragged down into a sea of corpses, always with his face scribbled out in a mess of blue paint.

The team hide those murals away before Optimus could notice them and only brought them out a few weeks after the incident, fearful that he might panic upon seeing the murals or fall right back into the Matrix's grip.

Mistakes

After a particularly intense session with the Matrix, Optimus tends to leave its grip a bit... off. He is never completely right in the helm afterward, either being eerily emotionless or saying and doing worrying things.

He will... mistake things around him on those days, speaking of mecha who have been dead for millennia as if they were present and looking at the team and not really seeing them, instead thinking them to be someone else. Bumblebee was mistaken for Senator Shockwave at one point due to his cheerful disposition, much to the discomfort of the whole team. Arcee was Elita-1 in Optimus's view for nearly a week at one point, leading to some rather awkward situations. Ratchet was referred to as Pharma in part due to their similar appearances, ultimately leading Ratchet to temporarily redo his paint to help Optimus see him for who he really was. Bulkhead and Wheeljack kept getting mixed around, being called by any number of names ranging from Tailgate, Hightide, Ironhide, to even Kup. Ultra Magnus and Smokescreen didn't fare much better when it came to getting misnamed.

It isn't just names either. When out on the battlefield Optimus's fighting style, way of speech, and even his priorities can be warped depending on which Prime he interacted with in the Matrix. Nova's memories made him extra violent, often leading Megatron to retreat quicker but at the cost of the team having more injuries or missing the actual target. Guardian's memories made him far more calculating but less caring of the loss of life, usually requiring another of the team to take over handling civilians or potential casualties. Sentinel's memories made Optimus paranoid as pit, unwilling to take any risks whatsoever if there was a way around it, tending get the team better results when the plan worked, but only if the plan actually worked.

Of course there are other smaller things, like habits that linger during those days. Things like Nova's tendency to constantly have a weapon on hand and keep every bot on high alert was commonplace. Sentinel's notorious paranoid patrols and continual health checks were both common and both the best and worst thing to ever happen to Ratchet. And Guardian's habit of organizing everything that could possibly be organized due to his impossible workaholic nature was something that also become prominent in Optimus on days where the Matrix's touch lingered.

Drowning

It doesn't happen often, in fact it only happens after events that even the powerful emotional suppression of the Matrix can't handle. But sometimes, when times are most stressful for Optimus or when he feels the most useless, the Matrix will activate it's in built defenses and take control of Optimus's frame during his moment of mental weakness. It will push Optimus's mind back, sending him to consult the memories and experience the more... safe ones while it operates his frame. It is the Matrix's way of keeping its Prime safe, and it works for the most part... except for a few occasions.

Usually when the Matrix takes over it will do what it does when Optimus dreams, merely piloting his body somewhat aimlessly until he is ready mentally to take control again. But sometimes while Optimus is still recovering within the Matrix, something happens that the Matrix can't handle, leading to it pulling Optimus back into a semi-operational state in panic. In those instances Optimus isn't fully aware, his mind still half submerged in the Matrix and vulnerable. And so to not damage Optimus's recovering mind, the Matrix will feed him memories from its previous holders on loop depending on the situation so that he can still rest while performing as needed.

If it is battle that causes the Matrix to wake Optimus prematurely, it will feed Optimus the memories of a battle that matches the circumstances best. This is by no means foolproof and leads to more problems than solutions usually, but the Matrix does what it must. In those instances, Optimus truly believes that he is the Prime whose memories he is experiencing. He will act like them down to the smallest details, matching their memories expertly. He will give orders that match the scenario he is in, but they are always off, generally directed toward an enemy that has long since been defeated.

Ultra Magnus: Sir! Vehicons incoming!

Optimus: The Quintessions will fall! Shoot them down! Show no mercy! They will not take Cybertron from us!

Ultra Magnus: *Looking at the others nervously* You heard him, man your blasters and shoot the Vehicons down.

Everything he does seems off, almost like an NPC rehearsing the same lines over and over again. He even has an idle action depending on the memory set.

Ratchet: Prime, I need to check you for injuries

Optimus: *Standing guard periodically checking his blaster* All non-essential personnel are to remain indoors throughout the quarantine cycle. The rust plague is a real threat and should not be underestimated.

Ratchet: ...Just hold still

It is incredibly off-putting and can either be downright strange or dangerous with very few instances of there every being a situation in between. It can take up to a week for Optimus to break from his memory loops as he finishes his recovery mentally. The team always breath a sigh of relief afterward, even though Optimus does not recall what he did.

hi hi i really enjoy your writings, and always look forward to what you post! i'd like to request a scenario where optimus crashes and is stranded on a random planet and has to revert back to his wild base coding to survive, the local creatures saw this feral cybertronian and decided yea this guy's one of us now.

What an excellent request! Time for some more feral Optimus! It has been far too long since I had the chance to write about him just being a wild little gremlin.

Not According to Plan

It wasn't exactly his plan to get sent spiraling off course on his way back to Cybertron, but then again, Optimus wasn't really expecting to be brought back to life and pitted against the Fallen either. There really wasn't much he could have done when his transport back to Cybertron got intercepted by rouge pirates, forcing him and all others on board to rush toward the escape pods as the ship's engine was damaged, threatening to explode. But considering his luck, he really should have known that something like a stray meteor hitting his pod was a viable possibility.

He was quickly sent hurtling away from Cybertron and toward a rather unassuming planet to the far end of Cybertronian space. All he could do was leave a signal trail and set up his beacon to give others a vague idea of where he had been sent careening off to. It only took him around a day and a half to crash land onto the surface of the planet. And another half a day to climb out of the wreckage, drag his beacon out into the open, and get a good look around.

It rapidly became obvious to Optimus that the world he had landed on was once a colony world from Cybertron's golden age. He could see the remnants of old Cybertronian inspired structures, abandoned mines, and of course after accidentally stepping on it... he could see the sad remains of a bot long dead, once infected by the rust plague. Upon learning this, it dawned on Optimus just how slagged his situation was. Even with a beacon and a signal trail leading directly to his location, next to no ship would dare come anywhere near. Planets like the one he had landed on had long since been written of as dead, quarantined, an unsuitable for habitation by most technologically advanced species. Unless a bot had a death wish, they wouldn't bother coming to his location, even if he was the Prime. At most they would sent a drone to pick up the Matrix from his corpse after his life signal puttered out.

While there was still a solid chance that one of his former team would take the risk anyway and come pick him up, Optimus could predict that even in that instance, help would still be a long way off. And so settling in for the long haul, Optimus got to work.

The first thing he did was shut off all nonessential systems. Everything from his high maintenance battle protocols to his extra sensors were shut off, leaving only his base systems in operation. His initial observations pointed to some energon being present, but with his huge frame, operating at optimal levels at all times was an excellent way to die of starvation. And so after shutting off his nonessential systems, Optimus went about tearing his pod apart, using what he could to construct a simple base. The end result was a small hovel, only just big enough for him to hide away from the elements in. It felt more like a cave than anything else, but Optimus made do, he had lived in worse conditions.

Once shelter was taken care of, Optimus spent the next several days running off his reserves, scouting for sources of energon and potential threats. He found a few energon deposits, but they were small, and likely would do nothing to keep Optimus alive with his bulky build. Thankfully threats for a mech of his size seemed to be near nonexistent, at least animal wise. But still he did not stray far from his shelter, worried that something would come and attack him, breaking the suffocating silence of the seemingly dead world. The territorial hazards were not nearly as bad as Cybertron, merely irritating. Huge dust storms and acid rain regularly scoured the landscape, often leading Optimus to sit it out wherever he could but ultimately being more of a pain than an actual threat to a warmachine like Optimus.

Time passed quickly on the near silent world filled with the corpses of the dead. The nearby energon deposits were exhausted within weeks, leading Optimus to abandon his shelter and instead take up a more nomadic lifestyle. His frame and his mentality also swiftly shifted to match his circumstances, the Matrix quieting its prodding as there was nothing for him to protect. And without the Matrix hounding him at all hours or a whole world to care for, Optimus was left with only his thoughts and instincts. By the time month four of his time on the dead world rolled around, Optimus had completely returned to his wild state. With no need for complex thought, morality, or anything else beyond the natural drive to survive, there was nothing stopping him from falling back into his previous state before his integration into society.

He looked completely wild. Without plentiful energon his frame slimmed down drastically, giving away most of his raw power for speed, endurance, stealth, and heightened sensory capabilities. His armor deteriorated with the constant abuse from the weather and lack of energon, becoming a dull gray largely matching the landscape. His traits normally kept dormant by the Matrix reemerged, fangs, claws, and more jagged armor growing in as time passed. Biolights also started to emerge on his frame, allowing him to have greater visibility on the dark world.

He travelled around the surface of the dead world, no thoughts beside his next meal and the desire for a pack occupying his processors... that was until around month six when he came across the first signs of intelligent life on the world. He found a small bot around double the size of a human with a nasty wound on its leg. To Optimus it looked like a sparkling, and with fatherly instincts and his desire for a pack being so strong he couldn't help but pick up the bot and take it with him on his travels. The bot was of course not pleased, flailing, screaming, and panicking in its native tongue for days as Optimus nursed it back to health and did his best to take care of it as he would a sparkling.

After around a week the bot calmed and seemed to sense that Optimus had no desire to hurt it, only to care for it. The bot and Optimus bonded over the course of a handful of weeks, the bot coming to see that despite Optimus's monstrous size, he was a gentle giant. And so with a great deal of effort on its part, the bot managed to convey to Optimus its desire to take him to another location. Optimus eventually understood, despite being feral, and was led deep into the cave systems beneath the world's surface. It was there that he was met with a whole tribe of bots much like the one he had taken in.

There were some difficulties after his initial arrival, but the bot managed to calm its fellow tribesman and prove that Optimus was no threat. And while the tribe had issues with the idea of feeding a mech of Optimus's size at first, after the bot proved that Optimus could hunt for himself, most other complained cleared up. As for the Prime, all he saw was even more parentless sparklings and so immediately came to see the tribe as part of his pack, and therefore under his protection. And soon enough a tender alliance was formed.

Optimus became a member of the tribe, serving as a powerful guardian and warding off the far larger animals living in the caves. He would hunt the huge worms that tunneled in the caves, bringing them back to the tribe who always celebrated and drained the energon from the creatures. He would travel across the surface with the bot he had originally rescued to collect old relics from the surface (Optimus would later come to learn that the bot he had rescued was a historian, hence its reason for being on the surface at all). Optimus would also help the tribe move things, like huge rocks and other obstructions from the tunnels to give the tribe access to places previously unavailable to them. And when not working, Optimus lay on the ground in the tribe's small village, playing with the sparklings who were barely the size of his digit. He loved to hum to the sparklings, allowing the rumble of his frame and the warmth of his spark to comfort them.

By the time Optimus had been stranded for a year on the deserted world, he had become a centerpiece in the tribe. He was their guardian, their protector, their gentle giant. And despite only operating on instinct, Optimus began to pick up the language of his adopted pack, learning that the name he had been given was [Star-sent-Savior}. He learned of the tribe's struggles with providing for themselves and collecting energon with so many creatures of the deep. He learned of the hardships they faced travelling across the surface to collect relics from their past, of which they knew little. And lastly he learned of how rare sparklings were due to how few managed to be collected from the hotspots on the surface before they died.

Despite not having the mental processing capability to understand the deeper meaning of anything said to him, Optimus could comprehend the basic idea. And as he went about making the lives of the tribesman easier, saving sparklings from the surface, retrieving relics, and hunting. He came to be heralded as a god-like entity, hence his name [Star-sent-Savior]. When all was said and done, the tribesman accepted him fully and carefully painted his armor in glittering shades of blue, weaving tales describing his heroics and making murals on his plating portraying his glory. The sparklings loved him and recharged against his side every night, leading Optimus to hum to them and curl around them as he would his own sparklings. The older tribesman made him a space in their village, carving out a den in one of the walls of the tunnels for him to rest in when the day was done. And the bot that Optimus rescued first came to him each day, reading to him and telling him of the history of its kind, leaning against him and speaking of all that came to mind. All the while Optimus listened quietly, only the low rumbling of his frame giving an indication of his state.

Two years after being stranded, a sign of help finally seemed to appear.

Bumblebee, his team, and Ratchet had arrived on the planet's surface in response to Optimus's total radio silence and beacon. They scoured the surface, following his life signal until they arrived at the entrance to the tunnels. They entered and followed the signal, expecting to find Optimus in stasis in some dark corner or hiding out near an energon deposit. They certainly didn't expect a very feral, very protective, and very angry Prime to be guarding a whole tribe numbering around a hundred small bots. And they most certainly were not prepared to be attacked on site, only for the Prime to stop after few attacks as he seemed to recognize them.

With Optimus refusing to separate from his tribe and the tribe refusing to let their guardian be taken from them, Bumblebee, his team, and Ratchet were left with quite a debacle. And so began to long process of returning Optimus to awareness in order to reason with him, all while attempting diplomacy with the tribe to figure out how they survived the rust plague.

For those of you confused, Megatron(tfp) isn't chaotic, he's a madlad. He understands societal convention just fine and chooses to subvert it. This does occasionally cause chaos but isn't actually truely chaotic energy. He will absolutely commit to the bit when challenged.

(Note this is not about dnd chaotic, that's different.)

The type of guy who would write his report on plagiarism about how his proffessor failed to give credit to coworkers/assistants and took their ideas.

Also the type of guy who would lie about not peeling oranges before eating them, all because someone made fun of him peeling one with his teeth, get sick from doing so, not see that person for three years, remember the interaction when he saw the person, and do the exact same thing.

Respect.

Shattered glass Megatron would be too powerful for us. Would say, "math is like, soooooo hard for me." With 2 PhDs in it in the background. "I've only memorized the first nine digits of pi, isn't that awful?"

If an idiot pushes push bc they don't think meg knows it, will absolutely double down and go, "oh you know, 1, 2, 3, 4..."

No, location does not matter, would do this as a keynote speaker at space NASA.

Optimus is not chaotic. He's feral. Man doesn't know what the hell applause is. Claps once at the end because everyone else was clapping (Canon rescue bots). He may be partially domesticated but doesn't fully understand basic societal rules.

The type of guy who you'd give an orange to and he'd just say thank you and put it on his shelf because he doesn't know what to do with it. Once you told him it was a fruit he'd be like oh, and bite into it like an apple.

If not immediately corrected just thinks that's the way to eat them. Will politely inform you "Yes. I am enjoying it," because he understands that is polite. Will one day comment about "oranges are really bitter for a fruit. Are they like tomatoes?" And absolutely horrify someone who tries to give him an extra sweet orange. There's a 50/50 chance he instead finds this out by trying to substitute oranges with tomatoes when making pizza sauce and scarring people for life.

Optimus would be asked to go fishing and having only seen bears fishing on tv would try to do that. He would also somehow manage to catch one. Someone: "How did you do that, I haven't even gotten out the poles yet." OP about to give this person a stroke: "poles?"

The occasional brush with being feral is Op's best trait. If you disagree you are wrong.

Now both of these are on the chaotic spectrum, however, what both lack is majorly the "whim" factor. They may have had it once but lack it now. You will not see Optimus go completely unhinged and run after cars on all fours. Megatron will not spontaneously decide to fuck with someone and wear so much glitter he looks like a disco ball only when say, Steve, has the night shift.

This form of chaotic is best displayed by someone walking towards the elevator and noticing the open air balcony right beside it and jumping off that to get down. Your mileage may vary on who is the best example (Rodimus or Smokescreen perhaps?) but whoever it is will still be on one side of the unintentional vs intentional and madlad vs feral chaotic energy.

Optimus is unintentional feral, Megatron is intentional madlad.

Starscream (if you're wondering) is an unintentional madlad. He is the type of person who will sit beside someone start telling them all about his buck wild day, turn to them in the middle of it, "wait, who are you?" Then decide he doesn't care. "Oh, nevermind. So as I was..."

I'm not sure who I would label as intentionally feral, but it would have to be someone who decides the best response to someone saying something they didn't like is to bark at them. Soundwave might I suppose, but he would bounce too close to madlad behaviour. Tentatively I suppose Shockwave would think laying down and staring at the ceiling because he heard surprising news is a reasonable thing to do. But he also explains exactly every horrifying thing he plans on doing to someone because he thinks it will scare them less, which makes him run too close to unintentional feral behaviour.

Now the final sphere is unhinged behaviour.

This is the type of person who when told they have big eyebrows will film themselves shaving them off. The type of person who when you post something they don't like will come to your house and use your pc to delete it. Someone who pays in coins but tips in bills; not a large tip or anything. Just standard. They only have cups in their house, no bowls or plates, they like cups better.

I mean... sure but why? How are these things related?

The most chaos thing to be aligned with but to be truly chaotic is to bounce between all of them.

Anyway I haven't read/watched anything with Vortex in it but that's him. Goodnight everybody!

URGE TO READ ALIGNED CONTINUTITY BOOK SERIES INTENSIFIES

CQL/MDZS ULTIMATE CHARACTER RE-DESIGN

Added sect leaders + some additional designs for the different time periods/stages for some of the characters!

ALSO! if anyone wants to use these designs for art or edits or fics, please feel free to, i'd be so honored! all i'm asking for is to tag me/send it to me so i SEE AND DIE OF HAPPINESS