Let’s Talk Headcanons: Sparkmates and Spark-binding
So lately I’ve been getting the urge to ramble about headcanons again, and there’s one I want to do, but to get to it I need to talk about this one, first. And “this one” happens to have to do with one of my favorite Transformers topics; unsurprisingly, it’s the spark. I find the idea of the Cybertronian spark to be utterly amazing and beautiful; ever since Beast Wars, a Transformer’s soul has been a tangible part of their body, synonymous with their heart, real and physical and able to be seen and touched. To me, that has endless potential... especially since that same continuity first coined the term “sparkmate” in Airazor’s bio, and confirmed in-series with Tigatron’s dialogue that showing another Cybertronian your spark was an act of intimacy. The romantic potential of the soul being physical has had me swooning for years now, so let’s share some of those thoughts!
.... but first, I’ll give any of you who are looking at my username and raising an eyebrow a moment to finish. Oh, yeah. I’m that dork.
So! The concept of a ‘sparkmate’ was first played upon in Beast Wars, where the whole spark mythos began. Before that, in G1, there were certain allusions to certain pairings, but nothing was overly-concrete and the pairings were seldom, often never, visited again. Which is a shame, because I loved Ironhide and Chromia in G1, but I digress. Later uses of the term were scarce to the point of being virtually non-existant, although Brainstorm apparently dropped the word in MTMTE issue 38 (thank you, TF Wiki!) so, while the term is obscure, it does still get some credit even today. And I, being me, like to ponder on it from time to time.
I’ve read many pieces of fan fiction in which a set of Transformers can “bind” their sparks together to become sparkmates, I am in love with this idea. The spark is not exactly a durable thing, Beast Wars makes this clear... they can be easily damaged, even collapsed, if not properly protected inside a body. Transformers: Animated lends strength to this idea with the fact that even with a new, completely undamaged, factory-fresh body, Yoketron’s spark was already too far gone for Prowl to save him. Canon fact. The spark can be very fragile.
So to show someone your spark, you have to be able to trust them. To let someone handle your spark... that trust has to be absolute. It’s a beautiful gesture; you’re showing someone the concentrated force of your entire existence, and trusting them not to harm it. And then, taking it a step further with the more fan-based concept of spark-binding, you’re holding that pinpoint of existence so close to their own that for a brief time they merge into each other, and from there a bond is formed that crosses space even when partners are separated, that allows them to give their love and support directly to their partner without a word, through pure feeling...
Hold on. I need a moment here. The implications are just too beautiful...
Which, of course, means in my head that they probably aren’t without their caveats. I honestly think there must be some danger in spark-binding, a thought that I’m fairly sure I’m not alone in; namely that the bond between sparks is so intimate, and so powerful, that the death of one partner may well mean the death of the other. This is where I come into the idea, a bit more my own, that most, if not all, sparkmates are Conjunx Endurae... but being Conjunx Endurae does not make you sparkmates. Essentially, in my world of headcanon, becoming Conjunx was the poor mech’s sparkbind.
Oh yeah, I’m going class-ist with this.
Now, I’m going to talk about two major continuities here, IDW and Aligned. IDW will be first, because it is the briefest... Conjunx Endurae are pretty rare, and from what I’ve seen, I believe a lot of this stems back to the Functionist era. Love doesn’t have a function that these people can categorize, and the Functionist council was known for being utilitarian to the extreme, so... well... you get a few lines of dialogue that make it sound like such things were frowned upon, at least on Cybertron, itself. And when they weren’t frowned upon, they were strictly regulated... Swerve makes mention of the fact that Amica Endurae, on Cybertron, are Conjunx Endurae that didn’t work out. As in, a pair could only become Amica if they tried to be Conjunx first. Bittersweet, indeed...
Honestly, if just getting married is that difficult in IDW, I can only imagine that sparkmates are very few and far between. It’s something that is kept quiet, hushed voices beyond locked doors. Sparkmates keep it secret, keep it to themselves. It isn’t always even out of necessity anymore, the habit just won’t die. It makes me a little sad...
Aligned, of course, is another kettle of fish entirely.
It is my firm belief that when you look at the pre-war power structure of Aligned, true love was treated as a luxury of the rich. The lower classes would have been discouraged from forming bonds, largely because of the inherent danger of losing two workers if one is killed in an accident. Sure, you can just replace them, but training newbies takes time and enough of them get crushed by mining cave-ins or fall off of towers under construction anyway... it’s just too inconvenient to let them bind. So you either make it sound like some terrifying thing, or you just don’t tell them it’s possible at all. Many of the slave castes went their whole lives without knowing or understanding that the ability to never feel alone existed at all. The highest castes, however, the elites of the elite, could love and bind as they chose... not that the decision was ever made lightly, but still, they could make it freely. Sparkbinding was a luxury, a risk that only those who lived the most ‘safely’ could afford to take. At least, until the war broke out... at which point just about everyone was thinking that a bound spark might be a little bit dangerous right now. This did lead, however, to many couples pledging to bond with each other once the war was over. A beautiful dream, indeed.
So that’s a bit about the views on sparkbinding, as I imagine it, in two major continuities. Now for some of the generic headcanons I entertain about sparkbinding...
Sparkbinding is not limited to couples. Trines can become sparkmates just as easily, and groups of four or more are possible, although I can’t imagine who would do that, myself. But if a combiner team or some such wanted to, hey, a combiner team or some such could.
Some things are harder for a sparkbound set to share than others... and some things are harder to hide. For example... and this is a fun one... it’s virtually impossible to cheat when you’re sparkbound because your partner or partners will feel you interfacing with someone else. Some trine sets, however, use this to their advantage... if one partner tries to stay at work too late or hit the bar too long on the way home, the other two can... encourage them, so to speak... to come back home more quickly. And some sparkbound pairs like to partner-swap or send one member out to find a bit of fun because... well, because some people are just into that. Consider it long-distance foreplay. Hey, I’m not going to judge!
Not everyone can sparkbind, but this is usually the result of deliberate medical procedure, not any sort of defect a Cybertronian would be naturally born with. Crediting @chief-justice-tyrese with this one, but very often the inability to bond is part of the punishment an Empurata victim endures... it further separates them from the rest of society by preventing them from ever truly sharing themselves with another. Because you know, I needed yet another reason to feel horrible for Whirl and want to give him all the cuddles. Yep. I didn’t need my spark today, either.
High-ranking political figureheads were often discouraged from sparkbinding because of the risk of someone trying to assassinate them by killing the bondmate. Primes were never expected to bind. Many council members kept secret spouses, though, because who was allowed to tell them no?
Bonding does not give a pair any sort of advanced telepathy or anything, but many who have been bound for a long time find that they don’t need it anyway... they learn to read their partners perfectly well through the flux of emotions fed through the spark link, without ever a word passed. This can easily lead outsiders to assume that they do have some sort of telepathy going on...
And, finally, the reason I needed to do this before writing about a different headcanon entirely...
Sparkbinding is the only way to get sparklings. Which is why they’re called sparklings in the first place. That’s right, folks! Tune in next time for Sparkpulse rambling about where she thinks babies come from!
