After a little bit of procrastinating, lots of polls in our server, and gathering all your amazing opinions, I’ve finally set up the 2025 AO3 collections for our favorite duo: Carrier Breakdown and Sire Knockout! 🥳✨, it's set!!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Link for: Collection regardless of ship-Carrier Breakdown
Keep reading for for information!
Collection Rules
Tag: Works must feature Breakdown (Transformers: Prime) as a carrier (can carrying, parenting, or nurturing, or other options.)
Fandom: Transformers.
Ratings: All ratings accepted (Gen, Teen, Mature, Explicit).
Pairings: Knock Out x Breakdown.
Warnings: Please use at least the mandatory warnings.
Moderation: If any submission is not relevant to this collection, let us know here, https://www.tumblr.com/kobd-carrierbreakdown?source=share. Submissions are reviewed for theme relevance, not quality or length.
Respect: No harassment, plagiarism, or AI-generated works.
Sign up Timing:
If anyone runs into any hiccups, weirdness, or just has questions, please let me know! I want these collections to be super fun, easy to navigate, and enjoyable for everyone.
Your stories make me smile and i really like them, thank you for writing them.
You're welcome and thank you, that is lovely of you to say so
(sorry for the late response, I didn't really figure out the asks policy until later on, but then got spammed with those gaza asks)
Here is a short interlude of a sweet op and meg moment as compensation
The light was soft—slanting golds and rose hues brushing over the war-torn skyline of Iacon. Dust drifted lazily through the air like ash, but for once, it wasn’t from battle. It was just... peaceful.
Optimus stood beside Megatron in silence, the kind that wasn’t uncomfortable but full, like something sacred. His hand shifted, fingers brushing the back of Megatron’s, tentative. Testing.
His hand gently cusped Megatron’s as they stood side by side in the quiet aftermath of a long day. The sun dipped low behind the ruins of Iacon, casting amber light across the broken metal and dust.
Megatron didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
Nor did he didn’t flinch. Instead, he let out a quiet ex-vent, sharp edges dulled by the warmth of the setting sun. Then—without a word—he entwined their fingers, claws careful not to pierce. It wasn’t much. Just the touch of two worn hands, but it said everything.
The warlord leaned ever so slightly, brushing their shoulders together.
Optimus turned his helm, soft optics catching the faintest curve of a smirk on Megatron’s mouth. “You’re not as terrifying when you’re quiet like this.”
Megatron snorted. “Don’t get used to it.”
“I won’t,” Optimus murmured, pressing a kiss to Megatron’s temple. “But I’ll still cherish it.”
i was having a conversation with a friend and while speaking of something i have to complete, I thought of a fic idea. I've now set on drafting that idea.
(I've hopefully figured out scheduling posts properly, so let's hope this posts correctly.)
Optimus used to be Orion Pax -> His worldview was one where rules meant fairness (at least before he discovered the High-Castes wrongdoings.)
Additionally, early in the war, order and structure were how he protected people, clear chains of command, moral clarity, the illusion of strategy even when the odds were chaos.
As war stripped that away, Optimus began trying to reconstruct safety with internal rules. Not for others anymore, but for himself.
Where hierarchy and philosophy failed, numbers and rituals became his fallback.
“If I speak carefully. If I move carefully. If I plan carefully. Then maybe they won’t die.”
Never speak an odd number of words when those he loves are in danger.
Avoid mentioning his comrades names to anyone outside of his high command when possible.
Must finish any conversation (specifically the last sentence) with Ultra Magnus on an even syllable count, or he’ll dream of the dead again.
Never walk away from an injured comrade in medbay without tapping his fingers in mirrored sequence: Left-right-right-left.
If he says someone’s name, he must say it again in his mind or else it "doesn’t protect them."
Each rule has a history. Each is linked to a memory, a failure, or a death.
A coping mechanism born of grief, guilt, and loss.
He blames himself for what was never truly in his control.
Optimus Prime is a mech who takes responsibility for everything. He doesn’t make excuses. He doesn’t delegate guilt. He drowns himself quietly.
Autobots die? It was his fault for leading them.
Civilians suffer? His failure to end the war fast enough.
Megatron? Optimus wasn’t persuasive enough.
He draws links between his actions and outcomes, not because it’s rational, but because it’s the only way he can keep from drowning in uncertainty.
Optimus was forged (literally and metaphorically)to endure. To be noble. Steady. A leader that does not fall.
He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t break down in front of others. He doesn’t run from pain, he internalizes it.
But internalized pain has to go somewhere.
When you don't allow yourself to cry, rage, or grieve openly, the mind finds quieter, colder ways to express fear. Rituals. Fixations. Small rules. Thought patterns that carry the illusion of control.
He sees them as necessary safeguards. Quiet mechanisms to prevent the next catastrophe. At least, that’s what he thinks.
Optimus knows what his name means to others. He knows how many bots went into battle under his command and never returned.
And deep down, he wonders, 'Was my hope worth their lives?'
He can’t bring them back. But he can ensure their sacrifice had shape. That their loss wasn’t for nothing. Each “rule” becomes a tether to a life lost. A grim totem. A piece of meaning salvaged as remembrance.
He’s desperate to reclaim a sense of control, meaning, and moral responsibility in the face of irreversible loss (also war is traumatic).
If OP took a hit of dark energon like Megatron did what do you think would happen? Angsty internal fight to retain his personality and morals amid the corruption of Unicrons influence?
Or the correct, funny option, which is that Unicron and Primus become his cartoon shoulder angel and devil?
Primus: This path leads only to suffering, my child. You are the last light of Cybertron, do not extinguish yourself in vengeance. Strike only when necessary. Use compassion, not chaos. However for him, all exception's work.
Unicron: Blow up Megatron, you know you want to.
Optimus is stuck in the middle, deadpan staring into the void, gripping his helm like he's got a migraine from hell.
Ratchet: "Are you talking to someone, Prime?"
Optimus: whispering with terrifying calm UNICRON and PRIMUS are telling me to commit a war crime."
Ratchet: "...WHAT?"
Meanwhile, Primus and Unicron are bickering on his like divorced parents fighting over custody.
Megatron keeps inviting Optimus to help him archive or translate something just so he can listen to him talk for hours about literature, history, and ancient Cybertronian poetry.
Versus Megatron’s internal monologue as he frantically texts Soundwave.
“This fool is talking about cave inscriptions from before the Well of All Sparks and I want to kiss him. Help.”