YMMV / A Child Shall Lead Them (Transformers)

• Complete Monster: Unicron, the evil brother and antithesis of Primus himself, devoured many planets and their inhabitants, including Lithone, Kranix's homeworld. After learning about Optimus Prime's death, he rebuilt Megatron into Galvatron, orders him to destroy Pterodactus Prime, and devours the Autobots' Moonbase. When Galvatron fails him, Unicron torments him and decides to destroy Cybertron as a punishment. After Pterodactus got inside him, Unicron tries to convince him to destroy the Matrix of Leadership and when that fails, orders Galvatron to kill him. A sadistic and merciless monster who hates Primus's creatures, Unicron won't stop until he destroys the entire universe.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Pterodactus chopping off Wreck-Gar's arms — not especially funny. Slag and Sludge proceeding to play catch with said severed arms — priceless.
• Fanon: Swoop serves as a medic in this fic, a popular Fanon for Transformers fanfics.
• Funny Moments:
  • "Me Grimlock good teacher!"
  • "For last time, Sludge, Easter Bunny just stupid human legend! No such thing!"
• Goddamned Bats: Unicron's antibodies. Repair robots that just will. Not. Stop trying to do their jobs... even if it means attacking the Transformers, who keep smashing them apart.
• Heartwarming Moments: Pterodactus' meeting with Optimus Prime, Wheeljack, and Ratchet in the Matrix. After everything he's been through, a So Proud of You moment is sorely needed.
  • The moment where Pterodactus spots the thread and breaks through Unicron's manipulations. The moment Unicron tries to convince Pterodactus that Grimlock is just using him, Pterodactus is infuriated that Unicron tried to paint Grimlock as a villain. After everything Grimlock has done for Pterodactus before and after he became leaders of the Autobots, it's a touching showcase of the strength of their bond.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Pterodactus's What the Hell, Hero? speech is most satisfying after everything he's gone through at the Autobots' hands.
  • Pterodactus's final encounter with Unicron, in which he throws off Unicron's mental manipulations, single-handedly defeats Galvatron and then uses the Matrix to destroy the planet-eater.
• Moral Event Horizon: Galvatron seems reasonable enough to make an alliance with at first... but when he stabs Pterodactus in the back and tries to cut the Matrix out of him while he's still alive, all pretense of Affably Evil is gone.
• Spiritual Successor: Can be seen as this to the author's other Dinobot fics, The Alone Place and its sequel, Dividing Wall. All three fics share similar elements, such as Swoop being a medic's apprentice, Snarl being a pilot, and Arcee being one of the few Autobots to stand up for the Dinobots. The mistreatment of the Dinobots and the divide between them and the other Autobots also drives the plot in all three fics.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Blurr, whom the author has claimed to be the most annoying character in the cartoon on several occasions, gets told to shut up frequently.
• The Woobie: You will want to hug Swoop at some point during this fic. Losing Optimus and his creators, treated as a mindless animal by most of the Autobots (who spend most of the story rejecting him as leader and keep trying to take the Matrix from him on the grounds that his getting it was an accident), rejected by his own brothers for receiving the Matrix and therefore "not being one of them" (until he finally breaks down and gets through to them that he is still a Dinobot at heart), mentally manipulated by Unicron (until he sees through it)...

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