History Fanfic / TFAKaleidoscope

* FireForgedFriends: Downplayed. Optimus doesn't exactly become friends with the other Autobots after they finish dealing with Starscream, but they at least tolerate him and decide that the Allspark is safer in his hands than theirs.

* ForWantOfANail: Sari being an orphan and Optimus not being one of the Orion crew leaves the Earthbound Autobots a lot more dysfunctional and detached from the humans. Ratchet's leading style forbids human interaction to put their focus on getting back home and the lack of connections means that the Orion is their main base 24/7.

* DeclarationOfProtection: Optimus makes it clear to the Autobot that he's not just the Allspark's protector anymore, he's now Sari's protector now to.

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: Given to a great number of characters in this story, mostly through the Great War having a deeper affect on them.

* WorfHadTheFlu: Optimus doesn't do so well against Pyro-Goblin since his reformatting at the car factory had him rebuilt using weaker Earth metals (it's noted that even the police drones have more durability), plus he starts out the fight with a worn out and powerless ax and the entire battle was in a cramped tunnel where he didn't really have any room to move about.
* WouldHitAGirl: Optimus has no problem fighting and hurting either gender if he has to. When Wheeljack calls him out on this, Optimus questions how much he actually fought in the Great War.
* TheXenophile: Prowl is fascinated by Earth, the life on the planet, and it's beauty. This causes no end to Ratchet's frustration, as he wants his team to avoid all contact with the humans.

* IndustrialGhetto: Sari made her home in a run-down and abandoned car factory, which is surrounded by the more high-tech, modern day Detroit city. This becomes Optimus' home as well.

* ItsAllMyFault: Prowl blamed himself for the injuries Arcee sustained during the fight with Megatron back on the Orion since she jumped in the way and took a deadly hit for him.

* VillainBall: Sky-Byte was able to pin Optimus to a wall and prevent him from retrieving the Allspark back during the Great War. Instead of just taking the Allspark to Megatron, he decides to let loose on Optimus and beat him within an inch of his life, giving him enough time to fight back and get out of the hold.

* NominalHero: Optimus only cares about two things above all else: protecting the Allspark and protecting Sari. When Starscream attacked, he only cared about killing the Decepticon and made it clear that the hostages that he took weren't a priority. He only goes through with Sari's plan to save the hostages on her insistence, and even then, he was very apprehensive about it since the plan involved putting the Allspark at risk.

* PoliceAreUseless: Subverted. The police are pretty competent at their jobs, with the only instances where they falter involving opponents well out of their league like Decepticons or super-villains, and they hold their own against the human super-villains well enough.

** Starscream takes sadistic glee in brutalizing the Autobots and terrorizing the civilians. He's also shown to not really be mentally stable, especially after 50 years of isolation in his search for the Allspark.

* ShellShockedVeteran: The Great war has not been kind to Optimus.

* BodyHorror: Time has not been kind to Optimus while he was in stasis. Before his repairs, his body was heavily eroded over and rustic, with [[FacialHorror his face being almost completely gone and left in its place was a warped metal skull]]. Sari thankfully uses the factory equipment to repair him when she learns how to use her key. Though she doesn't manage to fully repair him until later.

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: Given to a great number of characters in this story.

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade:

And that's where the similarities end.

* DamselInDistress: Male example: Fanzone ends up in mortal peril a lot. It's to the point where the author has decided to call him the [[Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles April O'Neal]] of ''Transformers Animated''.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Thanks to being a DecompositeCharacter with Shockwave, Longarm isn't the mole and is genuinely one of the Autobots.

* AxeCrazy:

* NominalHero: Optimus may have noble intentions, but he only has two goals that he prioritizes above all else: protecting the Allspark and protecting Sari. When Starscream attacked, he only cared about killing the Decepticon and made it clear that the hostages that he took weren't a priority. He only goes through with Sari's plan to save the hostages on her insistence, and even then, he was very apprehensive about it since the plan involved putting the Allspark at risk.

* IronicName: In the main series (according to the [[AllThereInTheManual Allspark Almanac]]) Optimus's name was derived from his optimistic and positive outlook on life. He's, more often than, a complete cynic in this story thanks to his war-time trauma.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Thanks to being a DecompositeCharacter with Shockwave, Longarm isn't the mole and is genuinely on the side of good.

* TimeAbyss: Most Cybertronians are older than every human on the planet combined, with three of the Orion Crew having experienced the events of the eons long Great War. Optimus far exceeds the rest of the Autobots (expect Ratchet) in age and has been in stasis lock for about ''4 million years'', and has been fighting in the Great War for perhaps even longer than that.

* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: Optimus, due to being an outcast, is detached from the Orion Crew while his show version was close with all of them (barring Wheeljack and Arcee).

* {{Irony}}:
** You know how Optimus and Sentinel hate each other in the original series? Here, while their exact relationship is unknown, Sentinel ''agrees'' with the idea that the Allspark should remain lost since that is the reason the peace has lasted as long as it has.
** Optimus and Ratchet are close friends across all incarnations of the series. Here, they don't know each other and pretty much hate each other on introduction.