I was wondering about transformers AUs and have wound up thinking about a mythology one in regards to Tarantulas and his family.
First off, the more obvious: Tarantulas would definitely be a jorogumo in a myth au and not just for the spider connotations, but also because of the behaviour of the creature:
Described as very clever and cunning as well as often very cruel creatures who care little for individual lives - think Tarantulas/Mesothulas caring about “the Specimen” but very few actual cybertronians - there are several variations of differing ploys used by them.
They consistently lure in humans by typically playing up their beautiful disguise as well as a skill, that usually being described as playing the “Biwa”, a Japanese lute, as well as skills associated with silk.
Tarantulas notably also attracted Prowl with a skill, albeit that skill was science:
(I can’t draw, but the stick figures take cues from the superb humanformers versions that @eliasdrid does. Definitely want to rec them they’re a fantastic artist.)
But what they do next varies.
For example, sometimes they simply eat them or otherwise drain their lifeforce.
Something which Tarantulas has done variations of to people, think the subjects he had Roadbuster bring to him and then experimented on.
Sometimes, however, they try to get the human they’ve met to marry them and/or present the subject with “their child”- their child however, is in fact an egg sac because the mum is a spider and the human never reacts well to this presentation.
Think the situation with baby Ostaros.
There’s also another version that can be related: such as where one keeps appealing to a human to marry them. She claimed that they had wronged her and yet she still came to them and as such they cannot let her feelings come to nothing. Later, they woke up, from what turned out to be some sort of dream and remembered the time where they chased a spider away from them.
Think the SOTW storyline.
That and, finally, how another story relates to the discovery of a jorogumo who helped out a human, but what happened between them had to stay a secret.
When secrets eventually no longer remained so in that tale and things came out it went...poorly.
Really, there’s no more appropriate creature Tara could be in a mythology AU.
I think, Prowl however would be a human here.
A human who came across this spider being.
Like with transformers, they’d work together and have feelings for each other for a while, but eventually Prowl would decide that Mesothulas had to be dealt with and trapped.
Likely due to how jorogumo tend to eat people in this version:
As for Ostaros...likely would also have to be a spider in this version. With how babies work with these guys.
Perhaps a finding Nemo like situation here, where most of the eggs are destroyed along with a parent (in this case allegedly), except one and the surviving parent steps in to ensure the wellbeing with that one.
Although, with the plot twist to mind as well as the shapeshifting nature of these spiders, Ostaros here likely wound up looking like a human baby soon enough.
Thus adding another layer of surprise to the whole “guess who your family actually is” affair:
Naviko meanwhile - that aquatic kid that a version of beast wars Tarantulas made out of a gps - if you wanted to incorporate her here in this AU she would probably be a young ningyo Tara adopted some point after the fallout incident: