Awakenings

Title: Awakenings
Characters: There are quite a few of them. Mainly, this is about Nightbird. She interacts most importantly with Megatron, Starscream, and OP, but there are others in it. Soundwave, Cliffjumper, Mirage, Jazz...
Verse: G1
Wordcount: 6,600+
Rating: PG for some mild violence/fighting
Warnings: Not too much, really. Maybe a bit of violence, since there's fighting, but it's not very dark. And a few bits that I suppose could be suggestive.
Summary: This is basically my retelling of "Enter the Nightbird." Her character is rather fascinating to me, and I wanted to show why I see her as more than a token female character, and hopefully flesh her character out in a way even those who aren't partial to her can enjoy. I've seen a lot made of her inability to speak, as well, so I decided to give that an interesting history and explore the implications of a character who has to find alternate means to communicate. As a person with a disability myself, I find the idea of what disability would be for giant robots, and how they'd deal with it, an interesting question. I'm also tired of seeing disability presented in some really stereotypical ways in stories, and of it being fetishized and little else. (I don't mind people having kinks, but I wish I could find more than kinkfic looking for it.)

I also really like her origin as human-built... especially since she's on the Decepticon side, and they have so little love for humans. I wanted to play with that origin as well. What it means for her and her self-image, and her place in her faction.

And for the purists, I take a fair amount of liberties with what happens in the episode. I'm aware of this, and I chose to take those liberties. I hope they're understandable and well-reasoned.

Thanks to meaisin_caoin for beta.

( Awakenings )