Curate, connect, and discover
More for this au (my brain really likes it):
Hot rod told Rodimus stories about his time in the wreckers and his life before the war and during. He also told him about nyon and its history and culture. And Rodimus, wanting to give respect to hot rod and make sure he's also happy, decides to take on the culture of nyon as his own.
He tells the wreckers that he isn't hot rod. He believes that it won't be fair for them to not know, nor will it be fair for him to try and act like someone he is not.
They don't believe him. And Rodimus doesn't blame them for not believing (he's aware that what he told them is insane, and also that they don't want to believe that a mech who was their friend died and the matrix just made an entirely new mach to possess his dead body).
The problem is that even after the war and at the lost light nobody believes that he isn't hot rod. And Rodimus does get annoyed by that, but he also doesn't want to hurt them, so he doesn't say anything.
Hot rod is pretty pissed though. He understands why Rodimus doesn't say anything, but he also knows how much it annoys him that no one believes what he says. (Hot rod tried on multiple occasions to communicate with the wreckers and other machs through their dreams just to be able to yell at them and explain that Rodimus isn't laying, and actually isn't hot rod).
Am au where rodimus isn't actually hot rod, but a manifestation that the matrix created of an entirely new mach.
But the problem is that he (rodimus) is literally a sparkling.
All of his knowledge is from the matrix. But the matrix (and primus) were stupid and only gave him the most basic knowledge, like how to speak, read, write, transform, and other basic stuff.
But they (the matrix and primus) forgot to give him the mind and mentality of an adult mach. So it's literally a Shazam situation with a child (sparkling) in a grown up body. The only difference is, this sparkling can never change out of the adult body into the one he was supposed to have, and his stuck acting like something and someone who isn't him.