Guilty Pleasures (Part 2)
More secret/wholesome hobbies for my giant lovely robots!
Starscream is a bundle of pent up everything with paranoia serving as the cherry on top, and so to deal with it he picked up several small wholesome hobbies over the course of the war.
He tried writing for a while, (he still has a stash of his old works somewhere) he did painting as well, (his art is still on display in his berthroom) and he even committed to sculpting for a while (his rather vivid depictions of Megatron in various states of defeat are proudly displayed on a shelf)
However his most recent hobby is one he acquired from earth.
Currently he handles his pent up emotions through knitting, something he picked up after he found out that a determined knitter can make just about anything.
Inspired, he took up the craft and uses his sharp talon like digits to knit while he has nothing better to do.
When he can, he will requisition a Vehicon or two to hold his yarn balls and follow him around so that he can pace and knit at the same time.
But due to how often Starscream needs to vent out his frustrations via knitting he developed quite a large pile of finished accessories.
And so to make way for even better works of 'art' Starscream gives his little creations away to others on board the nemesis, and sometimes those not of Decepticon allegiance.
Knockout has found himself with several well knit neon pink sweaters that he hates with a passion not only because the color clashes with his armor but also because they all have some iteration of 'Slagger' on the back.
Breakdown has been given a few rainbow colored beanies that he isn't quite sure what to do with, and Soundwave has acquired a handful of knitted stuffed animals with various angry expressions.
All the Vehicons have little mittens or scarfs of various colors and Shockwave has begrudgingly accepted an eye mask with a rather disturbing optic knitted on the front.
Not even the Autobots are safe from Starscream's passive aggressive knitted works.
Optimus has five quilts as large as he is tall depicting Starscream perched upon a throne with both Optimus and Megatron at his pedes, usually 'All Hail Starscream' is present somewhere as well.
And Ratchet has two dozen rugs that seem to be a series of sorts as each has 'Frag Megatron' kitted in a different language.
No one is quite sure how to react to it.
Despite her sarcastic, stoic, and blunt behavior, Arcee has an incredibly wholesome hobby, the hobby in question being gardening.
What she did on Cybertron wasn't really gardening by earth standards.
Before the war and even during its early years she kept and incredibly well maintained crystal garden to which she devoted enormous amounts of time to.
She had a whole room filled with towering spires of glowing crystals which had been carefully directed to grow in splendid archways and branching designs over vorns.
Each crystal had a date carefully carved into its base and was skillfully attuned to her own spark signature, helping them to grow and offering her a deep sense of peace when in her garden.
It helped ease a great deal of the stress she accumulated throughout the early years leading up to the war.
However her garden was ruthlessly destroyed after her residence was bombed.
She tried keeping a few small potted crystals which she managed to salvage from her old garden but it was mostly a lost cause with how often she was required to change bases and locations to fight.
She still kept a few of the shards with her though when she travelled to earth, more as a sentimental item than anything else.
When she arrived to earth she was introduced to the human concept of gardening.
Organic things were not an unknown concept to her, but caring for plants is far different than caring for crystals.
She ultimately decided to give earth gardening a shot and has so far grown to be just as frustrated with the process as Ratchet is with human baking.
Why do plants need so much water? But then if they get the water they die? And they need sun, so much sun, but not too much sun or they also die? They also need to be pruned like crystals but they grow so quickly that it is nearly impossible to contain them?
Not only that but they just sometimes randomly die? For no reason?!?
Poor Arcee is trying and has succeeded to a degree. She, after devoting a great deal of time to research and through much trial and error has cultivated a small garden of succulents.
She prefers succulents above other plants because they are the most similar in requirements to crystals.
She has even given her most prized plants names. And it is these named plants that she loves above all others.
As such, the death of Jerry due to Bulkhead and Wheeljack's careless game of lob ball has earned them several well deserved smacks and more than one chilling glare when they get too close to her other plants.
For such a big strong bot, Breakdown's hobby is remarkably tame.
When he isn't working or buffing Knockout's armor, Breakdown enjoys making candles, preferably scented ones.
It is not that he is particularly fond of fire or the messy substance that is wax, he just likes how lovely the flame, melting wax, and scent of the candle are when all combined together.
He only really started making candles after coming to earth and loving the dramatic effect candles gave to whatever place they were lit in.
He quickly got invested in the burning glow sticks and began making some killer candles of his own after a great deal of research.
Of course his early candle making days were not without their fare share of failures.
It took weeks to clean up the waxy mess that came from Breakdown's attempt to make one giant super candle.
Megatron was less than pleased.
But everyone else on the nemesis actually really appreciates Breakdown's hobby because it gives the nemesis a nice vibe.
The Vehicons really like the random candles spread around the ship and will take extra care to keep them lit and even take a long sniff if no officers are present.
The Vehicons love the candles so much that a group have come together and created a little club with Breakdown where they all just make candles together.
It's wholesome, sweet, and the end result is lovely.
The sections of the nemesis where few officers go are filled with candles of various shades and colors, usually scented in lavender as it is the Vehicons favorite.
Breakdown thinks it is the sweetest thing seeing the Vehicons so appreciative of his work.
Most of his gifted candles go to them, but a few end up with Knockout and Soundwave who use them to add a little spice to the atmosphere of their workspaces.
Largely due to Miko's influence, Bulkhead has gotten himself a tin cap and become a conspiracy theorist after coming to earth.
Much like Optimus with his hobby, Bulkhead's fixation wasn't really intentional, he just found the theories on the internet infinitely fascinating.
After all, who would have thought that the moon landing might be fake? Sure there is a ton of evidence to disprove it but still!
And an organization controlling the entire world? Not completely impossible. The Autobots had a similar thing going on before the war too.
And what is this about a giant furry ape like creature wandering through the deep woods? Who knows? Bulkhead is an alien robot from space, anything is possible!
Bulkhead has a whole bulletin board that he keeps near the main part of base, completely unconcerned with what the others think of his fixation.
The thing is positively covered in clippings and photos all connected by obnoxious red string.
There are at least ten running theories on his board at all times, most of which the team tolerates but doesn't believe and Ratchet hates with a passion due to the ridiculousness of them.
However there have been moments where Bulkhead has managed to catch the entire teams attention with one of his more logical theories.
On multiple occasions the team, having been convinced by Bulkhead, have gone hunting for any and all data on a theory just to put their minds at ease.
Optimus once spent three restless nights franticly searching the internet and questioning agent Fowler to figure out if the Abominable Snowman was a real thing or not.
The poor Prime was left with his questions largely unanswered, much to his own discomfort and slight horror.
Wheeljack wasn't left much better off, having been roped into watching hours of conspiracy theory videos with Bulkhead on several occasions.
In the end he spent several days paranoid as Pit, refusing to remove his tin cap for fear of alien intrusion. (Why are you afraid of Aliens Wheeljack!? You are the Alien!)
Miko knows what monster she created by introducing Bulkhead to conspiracies and she is proud.
Shockwave doesn't really have a hobby.
All he does is research, which could arguably be a hobby if one were to look at it as such.
When he isn't working on his research the closest thing Shockwave does that could be considered a hobby is study the organisms of earth... for science purposes of course.
Does he need to know how much a blue whale weights? Probably not but you never know.
Does he really need to know the exact migrating habits of water buffalo? Also probably not.
Does he learn the random earth facts anyway? Absolutely.
He finds BBC documentaries fascinating and will watch them on loop for extended amounts of time while waiting for his experiments to show any changes.
He even has a dataslate where he takes notes on earth animal facts because it could perhaps be useful one day. (its definably not because he likes learning about animals, no, what gave you that idea?)
He usually keeps the fact that he knows all the random earth animal facts a secret but occasionally it slips out when someone starts giving out incorrect data about the earth organisms.
More than once Shockwave has unintentionally gone on a monotone rant about earth animals when someone like Starscream or Knockout starts throwing around data that is obviously wrong.
Little does he know they are mostly just being drama queens.
It still scares them a bit though when Shockwave goes into his little fact trances and more often than not those on the nemesis have learned to avoid talking about earth animals for fear of having to endure Shockwave's emotionless gaze as he corrects them in detail.
Oh boy, Smokescreen has a rather interesting hobby.
Besides idolizing Optimus and geeking out over the fact that 'ohmygoodnessitsOptimusPrimeandI'mherewithhim!!!' Smokescreen has one other interest.
While he does play video games and race, his true passion lies in the rather niche subject of beetle fights.
He thinks watching the small creatures fight is just fascinating.
As such he collected a few of his own with the help of the children and has painstakingly created a whole mini arena for his beetles to fight in.
After a great deal of preparation the beetle matches begin in earnest.
The children place bets and Raf serves as the narrator for the matches, going above and beyond by creating intricate histories and stories for all the gladiator beetles.
Miko throws confetti when one of the beetles wins and Jack brings out a royal red pillow and high quality beetle food for the victor.
The whole thing is incredibly dramatic and often ends with the victorious beetle being paraded around like some sort of war hero.
No bot really understands Smokescreen's beetle fights, not even Bumblebee... that is until Wheeljack rolls round and sees the epic set up.
Smokescreen and Wheeljack immediately get along like a house on fire and ramp the beetle fights up to a new level of dramatic.
Together they devise and craft armor for the beetles and even genetically modify a few to make the battles even cooler.
They even devise traps for the battle field to add some tension to the conflict.
Of course spotlights and cameras are set up eventually and everything is recorded and documented in great detail.
Team Prime doesn't get it and Optimus is once again left slightly disturbed by the whole thing but opts to not question it.
Occasionally though the team will drop bets on particularly interesting combatants in the beetle arena, usually when there is nothing better to do.
On those days the battles are rigged so that Wheeljack and Smokescreen can revel in their ill gotten gains, throwing around the fake money that everyone bets with like they just won the lottery.
Aight I know this ain't everyone but I will create a third and final Guilty pleasures post to get the poor bots I missed in this post. Thank you for taking the time to look at my little headcannons.
