Tesarus' life before the DJD

[insecuriosity]

So, before we got more issues about the DJD. Before we learned their real names and watched as Megatron sent them to the afterlife, I felt inspired by Tesarus.

His grinder doesn’t make that much sense as a torture instrument once you think about it. Permanent harm does not mean as much to Cybertronians as it does to humans with how much of their frame can be repaired and rebuilt without a trace, and the shredding would be too damaging to keep up for long without the victim dying.

So Tesarus was probably not sparked as an executioner or a torturer. No. Tesarus was one of the many, many garbage disposal bots that lived on Cybertron.

You had janitors, the taller, more respectable cleaners that could be found in towers, offices, and habsuites. There were streetcleaners like Tailgate, minibots tasked with plumbing work and garbage distribution - ferrying smaller garbage to their proper drop-offs to be brought to the garbage plant. Those garbage mounts were picked up by garbage trucks, or unfortunate truckformers who had not found a contract for ferrying less disgusting cargo. And finally there are the smelters and shredders; confined to the garbage plant to shred and smelt larger parts of garbage into re-usable and refineable parts.
All of Cybertron’s lower class mecha were disposables, and just like the miners and construction workers, Tesarus was a monoformer disposable owned by his city. As such, he was subjected to certain rules and regulations.

He was only legible for repairs after he fulfilled a certain amount of work, and those repairs only extended to wear-and-tear or injuries that affected his ability to work. A pained leg or a rusted out hip joint was something you had to pay for out of your own pocket, even though the credits paid for the work were only enough to keep a fuel tank full.
By way of example, grinders and smelters with missing legs, arms, or mobility issues were simply kept lined up outside in a row, with only their grabber arms intact to process garbage.

If they do not do enough work to warrant a replacement on their blades, there is a chance of decommissioning, which boils down to being melted down for scrap and spare parts.

Tesarus is one of the garbage grinders in Iacon. With a growing phobia for dirt and grime, he does not have many friends among the garbage disposal bots, and he saves up as much of his earnings as he can to try and earn himself ununtrium blade-lining.
There is, however, only one way that he will be able to save up enough to make that a reality; good ol’ crime!

For a fee, Tesarus hides important caches of illegal substances somewhere in the garbage plant. He also gets rid of unwanted mecha. I imagine that one of those times, he passes someone through his grinder that is too important to go unnoticed, or something similar.
A monoformer disposable wanted dead from two sides is not going to have an easy time. Especially not if you factor in a lack of friends, a phobia for dirt, and the fact that he is easily bored.

And even though Scissorsaw is a great and menacing name… I headcanon that he was called Chipper before he became a soldier for the Decepticons.