It all started with the Jettwins.
—The summary of House Divided
House Divided
is a Transformers: Animated fanfiction written by spaceliquid.
Set post-season three, it follows Optimus Prime on an increasingly tense Cybertron. When their Decepticon coding makes the Jettwins behave strangely, Optimus decides to help them. With limited options, he's forced to go to an imprisoned Megatron for advice. What Megatron asks for in exchange surprises him, but he decides to go through with it. But when an old enemy returns to take advantage of a divided Cybertron, the consequences of their bargain turn out to go far beyond than themselves.
This fic provides examples of:
- Abandoned War Child: Jetfire and Jetstorm are "newsparks" (equivalent to children), that were created during conflict with the Decepticons.
- Action Girl: Strika and Slipstream are both competent fighters, being active Decepticons and all. Sari is also one after her upgrade.
- Alien Invasion: The Quintessons attempt to take advantage of the tensions on Cybertron by invading.
- Aroused by Their Voice: Optimus finds Megatron's voice attractive. It's not just him, as Optimus notes that many Autobot cadets joke that bots must have joined the Decepticon movement purely because of his voice.It was widely joked that the Decepticon lord had swayed most of his followers to his side by entrancing them with his voice. But really, the mech could make any phrase sound like he was seducing someone!
- Break the Haughty: Sentinel Prime's relationship with Slipstream begins with this, as she has no time for his ego or his arrogance. He ends up becoming a better person because of it.
- Citadel City: Kaon, the former Decepticon stronghold, looks like this when approached from the ground.
- Continuation Fic: Like many fics for Animated, the plot continues from where season three left off to explore what happens afterward.
- Dating Catwoman: Optimus, an Autobot renowned as a hero for defeating the Decepticon leader Megatron, falls in love with Megatron and has no small amount of serious moral struggles over it. In the end, though, they're able to be together after working as a team, along with Sari, to save Cybertron from the Quintessons and turning it into a safe haven for both Autobots and Decepticons to live in peace.
- Deadpan Snarker: Slipstream, being a clone of Starscream, is very good at puncturing Sentinel's ego and bringing him down a notch or two. It's why they don't get along.
- Enemy Mine: Optimus has to work with Megatron to get his advice on how to help the malfunctioning Jetfire and Jetstorm. Later, Sentinel ends up forced to be allies with Slipstream, who saves his life, and the Autobots and Decepticons in general have to team up to stop the Quintessons when they attack Cybertron.
- Friends with Benefits: Megatron and Strika had this kind of dynamic for many years during the war, without affecting her relationship with Lugnut negatively at all.
- Heel–Face Turn: It takes a while, but Megatron eventually stops being a megalomaniacal conqueror after his relationship with Optimus, along with working with him and Sari to save Cybertron by reactivating the Well of the All Sparks and weaponizing it against the Quintesson ships, changes him profoundly. To a lesser extent, Sentinel also becomes somewhat less of a prejudiced Jerkass after working with Slipstream.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Slipstream, while cynical and self-serving genuinely cares for the Jettwins, and takes them under her wing.
- Love Redeems: Megatron's unexpectedly sincere romance with Optimus plays a crucial part in him ending his tyrannical ways and reforming, to the point that he helps him and Sari save Cybertron from the Quintessons.
- May–December Romance: Optimus ends up falling for Megatron, the powerful Decepticon leader who was an active combatant in the Great War millions of years before Optimus's time.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Optimus' crew comes to rescue him when he's on New Kaon. As it turns out, though, he's not in danger. At least not for the reasons they think.
- Overzealous Underling: Lugnut shows a fanatical dedication towards Megatron, as usual. It gets particularly embarrassing for Optimus when Lugnut reveals that he heard Optimus and Megatron getting it on and tells him he should be proud to "interface" with the "glorious" Decepticon leader.
- Parental Substitute: Optimus becomes this for the Jettwins when he takes over their traiing, with the help of Megatron's parenting advice.
- Rape as Backstory: It's later revealed that Megatron was sexually abused during his time as a slave before he became the leader of the Decepticons.
- Resentful Guardian: Sentinel Prime is irritated by the twins, and pushes the responsibility for them on to Optimus as soon as he can.
- Silver Fox: Megatron is described as this. He fought in the Great War, which happened millions of years before the events of the story, and Optimus finds him incredibly attractive and charming when he actually gets to know him (much to his own chagrin).
- Slash Fic: The fic focuses on Optimus's burgeoning romance with Megatron, and has a few explicit scenes between them.
- Twin Banter: Like in the show, there's plenty of it between Jetfire and Jetstorm.
- Unexpected Virgin: Megatron is quite surprised when he finds out that Optimus is a virgin before they're about to sleep together for the first time. Optimus is somewhat embarrassed by it, but that doesn't put Megatron off at all and just makes him more excited.
