#if only things turned out differently. but in every world optimus prime and megatron end up leading opposite sides of the bloodiest war ever | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

earthstellar · 3 years

Text

Transformers Analysis: Folklore and Folk Magic in the Mines of Kaon

thinking about Miner Megatron again, as always. here we goooo

So I've been doing some folk magic, as I usually do, and it got me thinking:

Surely, the lower class/caste bots wouldn’t feel welcomed into the more organised Cybertronian temples etc., or might even be outright banned from joining in shared spiritual spaces or rituals.

So it’s time to teach y’all some working class magic history and how we can apply that to Cybertronian spirituality:

Working Class History: Casting Spells on the Job (Just Call it Prayer so the Boss Doesn't Find Out)

Here's a quick history of rural Appalachian folk magic, for some context:

1) The Christian Bible has been used for spellcasting all up and down the rural East Coast in the USA from day one of colonisation.

In Pennsylvania you have Hexenmeisters and the Pennsylvania Dutch practices, for a well-documented example.

2) The working class has done spellcasting with the Bible from the very first day shitty bosses started

This is for several reasons, but primarily because Bibles were common and cheap, you didn't have to know how to read in order to follow along with or change the lyrics of popular hymns and prayers to fit your own needs, and it was very easy to sneak what is essentially localised witchcraft under the radar when it just looks like you're reading the Bible to everyone else.

Catholic materials were used a lot for this, because they were often provided for free by any local churches, and a lot of working class people in Appalachia were Italian (Roman Catholic) or Eastern European (Eastern Orthodox Catholic), which meant there was no shortage of all sorts of votive candles and the like to utilise for what we would now identify as spellcasting.

It's important to note that it wasn't called spellcasting outright by anybody; Sometimes it was called "hexing" or "sweet talking", among other terms, but if you called it spellcasting it was heavily frowned upon.

A lot of people were uncomfortable (and are still uncomfortable) with verbalising it or identifying it as such due to stigma from the more mainstream religious communities or their own religious backgrounds, and of course, historically if the boss found out that all the workers hated their jobs so much they were doing fucking witchcraft about it, it would not have ended well for the workers.

So, stealth it is. And that's why there are so many specific folk practices in a lot of historically working class rural regions/communities-- Not just in Appalachia, but similar things happen in similar communities around the world.

What does this have to do with Megatron?

Everything we know about the lower classes on Cybertron, the lower caste members, and the mines/industrial regions in Tarn and Kaon suggest that a similar folklore likely existed within these working communities.

And any local folk practices likely developed for the exact same reasons that this type of folk practice developed in the real world:

Workers are fucking miserable, "mainstream" religion isn't satisfying their spiritual/emotional/social/material needs or concerns, and close-knit people in small communities spending most of their time together naturally start to sort of do their own thing based on their collective situation.

People get desperate, there's nowhere to turn and nothing to do, so spirituality becomes a lifeline in that it builds solidarity and creates a more appropriate sort of support system.

For example: If we aren't allowed time off work to mourn our friend who was killed by heavy machinery, and we aren't allowed any time to process that or deal with it or take care of each other, then we will invent a ritual that allows us to grieve on the job.

This was, and still is, a common thing.

Which brings us to...

St. Barbara and the Mines + Solus Prime

St. Barbara's backstory can be summarised, roughly, as such (based on the version of this story that I know; keep in mind the details can vary):

She was kept isolated from others by her father, who became furious that she refused an arranged marriage. When she fled, he chased her; She ran into two people working in a field, the first who helped her, and the second who gave her path away to her father.

She was captured, and brought to a prominent local figure (the title varies based on different versions of this story), who had her tortured for escaping and disobeying her father.

However, when imprisoned, they tried to kill her again and again, and every morning she was healed. Fire intended to be used to burn her would cool the second it got near her skin, and daggers used to cut her would go dull when brought near her.

Snakes thrown into her room intended to bite her would then die the instant they went to approach her, and ropes intended to be used to bind and choke her would spontaneously fray and snap before they could be tied.

Eventually, she was condemned to beheading, and a special sword was used to cut her head off, which finally killed her.

Her father is the one who beheaded her, and as divine punishment, he was hit by lightning-- A single bolt that lasted so long that his entire body went up into flames, and his ashes disappeared.

Her gravesite became a place of veneration, where people prayed for protection and safety.

She became known as the patron saint of all people with dangerous jobs or jobs where the bosses don't care about the worker's wellbeing or safety, for obvious reasons: Nothing but the hands of her own father could ever harm her.

(The imagery of St. Barbara being slain only by a special sword is very reminiscent of Solus Prime being slain only by a special sword...)

Workers, especially those with particularly dangerous or shitty jobs but also just anyone working class in general, can interpret this story in several ways which can make it additionally relatable:

Her father = A controlling and aggressive boss who abuses or neglects their workers to death.

The field workers = A pro-union worker (a helper) and an anti-union worker or scab (a betrayer).

So you can see how St. Barbara became immediately adopted as a common worker's saint, and was used in a lot of regional working class folk magic practices (where such folk magic developed within local working communities).

And this is still going strong as a tradition; Crossrail tunnel borers in London consecrated the drilling site in the name of St. Barbara in 2013:

"Several hundred contractors and senior management attended the St Barbara's Day ceremony at the Thames Tunnel (pictured) which will link Plumstead and North Woolwich when completed. The site was so large, that sound engineers put in place an amplification system for the ceremony." - Article here.

"As a long-standing tradition, one of the first tasks for each new tunnelling projects is to establish a small shrine to Santa Barbara at the tunnel portal or at the underground junction into long tunnel headings. This is often followed with a dedication and an invocation to Santa Barbara for protection of all who work on the project during the construction period." - Article here.

And here's a related example of a worker's prayer for St. Barbara, from here:

So this is very much a tradition that is still going strong, and it isn't just Catholic workers who engage with these types of things!

To accommodate more diverse groups and communities of workers, folk practices (including what eventually becomes folk magic) increasingly develop even further away from any one specific religious origin, in order to become more inclusive for the majority of people who can be from all kinds of different spiritual or cultural backgrounds.

Hence, more folk magic is made-- And I believe something like this could absolutely have evolved in a similar way in working communities on Cybertron.

Cybertronian Spirituality: The Primes, The Knights, The Titans

My personal theory/headcanon, and there is not much in canon to support this particularly so please keep that in mind, is that given the average type of manual labour working environment in Tarn and Kaon (dangerous, dark, and deep), it would make sense for the legendary Titans to become worked into some kind of folk practice.

We have this concept of the Titans as these giant and very particular beings, which reminds me somewhat of the Jewish Golem of Prague, in that the Titans are made from raw materials in some kind of mystical or cosmically spiritual manner, then eventually ally themselves to at least one respective Prime who then acts as a director of their actions to achieve victory over cosmic evil(s).

The Titans then go forward and act as guardians of Cybertronian life by combating the origins of these cosmic evil(s) as protectors of their respective polities and regions and eventually colony worlds, called into action by what is essentially a metaphysical and possibly outright spiritual pull of the need of their Prime(s) and later on the needs of the Cybertronian and colony world populations in times of threat or desperation.

These details are peppered throughout canon and vary based on media/franchise, but most recently Titan lore was covered again in IDW’s Optimus Prime series, issue 10, literally titled Origin Myths.

What is interesting is that while the Golem association could be reasonably made, you could also reasonably say that the Three Original Titans (Metroplex, Chela, and Metrotitan) could be associated just as easily with the Catholic concept of the Holy Trinity.

Lots of different interpretations could be applied to this stuff!

Class Stratification Within Cybertronian Religious Institutions

No matter how you may interpret it, we know that the Titans have a similar mystical presence in Cybertronian history and cultural lore to that of the Primes and Knights, and it would make sense for those spurned and disparaged by "mainstream" spiritual practices (which were likely just as stratified by class and caste as everything else was on Cybertron during Megatron's youth) to go ahead and create a folk practice based more around Titans.

This is because the Primes would like be associated directly with their oppressive rulers and upper classes, and the Knights, who are said to be the first Cybertronians to come from the Well, thusly represent a very high class onto their own which may have repelled working class bots who were very likely sick of essentially worshipping those venerated in their class stratified society solely due to the conditions of their creation; The Knights were "born with silver spoons", essentially, and it's hard to sell that to people who suffered due to the conditions of their own creation.

Therefore, the Titans are the other most likely Cybertronian figures of historical lore that could reasonably be adapted into a sort of folk religion for the working classes and lower social caste bots.

The imagery is strong, and relatable: In Megatron's case, the manual labourers and miners all have large frames compared to the average Cybertronian, they all toil invisibly and in relative silence, and they are kept away from the end products of their labour and yet without them, Cybertron planet wide would instantly struggle to sustain their raw material demands.

They are critical workers, yet many of them have no names/designations; It is noted at least once in canon that some Titans are so old or so little known that their designations are not recorded. Yet without these unseen/unknown Titans, it could be the case that cosmic evil could have achieved victory.

While the Titans are critical, they are largely a mystery and unknown in any real detail. They do not normally engage with average Cybertronians, and when they do, it is usually indirectly-- Even though their actions actively impact the lives of nearly everyone.

And though the Primes and Knights are generally never physically present, at least not within living memory, there is real and physical proof of Titans. I feel like that aspect alone may well appeal more to people who are very physically oriented; We also see a stark realist mentality from many of the lower class/caste bots, who are sometimes realistic to the point of nihilism (which is part of why Megatron's writings were so revolutionary, in that they re-introduced hope to people who had previously concluded that there was no realistic possibility of ever rising up).

The Titans being a known, tangible physical reality may well have endeared them as a more interesting folkloric or spiritual focus to this particular cohort of bots.

Just like with St. Barbara in real life, you can see how the Titans may have been interpreted in certain ways by the lower class/caste working bots which may have made them more appealing or more easy to structure into a framework of sorts for their own practices within their local cultures.

A Little Meta: There's a Lot of Various Religious Imagery in Transformers

Like with all media, especially Western media, inevitably some Jesus sneaks in there.

Which usually sucks, because it can be alienating for literally anyone who isn't familiar with Christianity in some way (as some references or parallels are inevitably not going to be as obvious or even detectable at all to people who didn't grow up with all this sometimes very specific shit, resulting in missed thematic elements and so on due to no fault of the viewers but rather the tendency for Western shows to overwhelmingly be written and designed by primarily Western white middle aged cis straight men who tend to throw some Jesus in there when there should not necessarily be any Jesus in there, but I could yell about this all night).

Transformers as a franchise altogether is not immune to this; As with all media, it is made by people, and people are influenced by their social/cultural upbringing, and that includes religious influences.

We could read some of this into the TFP/Aligned Continuity, in regards to the idea of the Thirteen Primes and how that concept is interpreted in TFP.

Transformers Prime: Alpha Trion is Essentially Paul the Apostle

The TFP Primes resemble both the Apostles as well as various Saints, and especially the Fourteen Holy Helpers; These fourteen Saints in particular are elevated above the others in many cases and contexts-- Similar to how the Primes are held up as elevated over other Cybertronians and other figures in Cybertronian history and presumably within certain Cybertronian spiritual practices as well.

For example, Alpha Trion is strongly reminiscent of the Christian figure Paul the Apostle, who was a writer/scribe known for documenting early Christian concerns of faith in his letters, which became extremely important to theological historians in regards to determining early Christian discourse and attempting to create a timeline of early Christianity.

His letters are included the New Testament in thirteen (!) sections called epistles, which are archived forever in various iterations within the Christian Bible.

Now, let’s take a look at the symbolism, using the TFP main illustration of Alpha Trion as featured in the Covenant, and a popular Icon image of Paul the Apostle:

Beard, cloak, book-- Even the pose they are in here is very similar, look at the feet and the way they are both standing. Even the halo of Cybertronian glyphs around Alpha Trion’s head resembles the gold filament of Paul’s halo.

And much like Alpha Trion's questionable ability to write/re-write history and determine events through some kind of cosmically divine power of foresight, the timeline of Paul's letters will likely never be fully verifiable, and of course, there are so many translations and interpretations of these letters along with the rest of the New Testament that while key points remain fairly consistent, there is still no "true" version or exact outline of events or discussions as recorded by Paul-- Primarily because in at least a few cases, Paul's letters are the only allusion to certain events or conversations.

This is extremely similar to how Alpha Trion states outright in the Covenant that he himself doesn't know if what he writes is actually factual anymore, or if he has changed things so many times to try to construct a more favourable narrative of actions and events that reality itself may have been warped by his Quill, either forwards or backwards in time...

You could also argue that Alpha Trion is presented as a God-like figure in TFP (especially when he appears to Optimus in the form of an echoing voice and shimmering spectral figure in a vision caused by what is essentially the equivalent of a holy relic), and Orion Pax would then be comparable to Jesus pre-Crucifixion, with his reformatting into Optimus Prime post-Matrix heavily resembling Jesus in the eyes of his followers post-Resurrection.

The main cast of Autobots in this comparison would then roughly correspond to the Apostles, of whom there were twelve, with Optimus then making Thirteen... And of course, canonically, Optimus is the resurrection of the Thirteenth Prime.

You can also see visual similarities in the depiction of Thirteen in the Covenant; It reminds me heavily of the Divine Mercy image of Jesus:

Both have their right hands raised, their chests emitting a holy/cosmic light.

I'm just saying, it is totally possible to make connections between fictional lore/spiritual figures and real world ones, and TF is loaded with content that can be re-contextualised in this way.

(I also want to point out at this time that it is not my intention to offend anyone with any of this analysis; I am writing from the point of view of someone who grew up with folk spirituality, and I am also a Quaker Attender, just so you are aware of my own personal background. I would love to hear any other interpretations of any spiritual imagery in Transformers media, because there’s a ton of possible ways to read into this stuff!)

In Conclusion: Cast a Hex on Your Boss by Calling Upon the Titans

Just for fun, as someone who has actually done folk magic for my entire life, I've adapted a hex against bad bosses to fit this headcanon. I think this is something that lower class/caste bots would absolutely engage in; It's common in real life as well.

The original I'm basing this off of was actually something I found in one of our old family Bibles before I moved out, and was written in Girard, Pennsylvania sometime between 1920-1930. I believe it was written by a relative of mine who worked either on the farm or on the railways.

Remember that folk magic like this is for and by working class people, so there are no fancy supplies needed; Don't ever buy shit to do magic, you can do it with anything laying around you. No need to spend money.

If you have a shitty boss, please let me know if you hex your boss with this. I always encourage witchcraft, fictional or otherwise.

Here's what you do, if you want to actually try this:

1) Using any old paper that you have lying around, cut it roughly into a square (doesn't need to be perfect.) It doesn't matter what type of paper it is.

2) Grab any pen you like, it can be any type of pen, any type of ink.

3) Draw a square outline on the paper, making a border on the page. This can be big or small as you like, and you can decorate it if you want; Just leave enough space to write inside the square.

4) Fold this paper into a square, any way you'd like as long as it's a square, and take this paper while it's still blank to work in your pocket.

Carry the paper with you for at least one full day at work. If you can, place it in a chest pocket or a pocket where the paper will be fairly close to your body.

It doesn't matter if the paper gets dirty or smudged or torn; In fact, that's even better.

(Some people who do variations of this spell in real life even use the paper to wipe dirt off their hands etc. throughout the day, to really get the energy of a work day settled into the paper. As long as it can still be written on, you can do this if you'd like.)

5) At the end of the work day, take the paper out, and write the following:

Where I have put [X], the word "Lord" was in the original version of this hex which was in my family Bible, but to contextualise it within the fictional headcanon lore here, you can replace this with the word "Titan". (Or you can replace it with anything else that may be appropriate as well, if you would like to actually use this hex!)

"Give us pay for our work, or the poor will plea to the [X] against you, and you will be struck down, cast down.

If you do not give to those who give to you, you will be cursed coming in, and going out.

Just as the [X] can raise you up and lead you to prosper, so too can the [X] turn away from you, and you will be left to have your walls destroyed, your fortress ruined.

Us servants will rejoice, but you will cry out in anguish, you will be put to shame.

Without the toilers, the land is made desolate, the haunt of jackals.

[X], turn your gaze to us, we labourers of all kinds, see our tears and our sweat.

Lay curses upon those who use their hands to hold us down; Kept below water, our tears lost in the flood.

Raise the waters, and surge the shores of their ill-owned kingdom; Bring forth to their memory that the [X] stewards the land, and that all among the land are equal in spirit.

The [X] will cast fury upon the unrighteous and conniving, cast rage and stand among us mightily, each motion casting winds against the oppressor who weakens like fractured stone under the onslaught of rain.

The [X] will make a storm from our anguish, which brings us higher, raises us from desolation. Our tears, become the rain that withers the false tower looming high above us.

Our hands will raise from our tools and duties, and offer high praise to the [X], who guards the disparaged and lowly, who enacts justice against those who have done wrong against us.

Let us be brought high, and those who revel in our struggle, may they be cast down."

6) You may flip the paper over once the ink is dry, and on the back, put three Xs in the upper corners of the paper. You may also add three more XXXs to the centre of the paper, where the crease in the paper is from folding it.

7) Re-fold the paper, and put it in the bottom of your right shoe. If this is too uncomfortable, carry it in any pocket on your right side.

You can also place it in your wallet for safe keeping, as your wallet contains money and possibly a work ID or something similar, which are all tied to work and working.

And there you have it! Fuck shitty bosses, both fictional ones and real ones. Join a union, do some witchcraft.

This post was long as always, but I hope it's interesting to someone out there! <3 Thank you to anyone who actually reads through all of this! <3

#megatron #transformers #tfp #transformers prime #alpha trion #transformers meta #transformers analysis #long post #idw transformers #idw 1 #miner megatron #young megatron #maccadam #tw religion #working class history #witchcraft #spellcasting #hexing #solus prime

121 notes · View notes

silkling · 3 years

Note

Hey, Can you make (Bayverse) Starscream meets (TFP) Knock Out?

Knock Out came to with an aching helm and a curse on his lips. He groaned as he sat up, one palm dressing to his forehead and blinking away the static overlaying his vision. He looked around himself once he could see clearly, pausing when he noticed that he was in the middle of an organic forest. The realization made his upper lip curl faintly, and he looked down at himself. And that was when he froze in horror. His finish! It was ruined! There were scrapes in the paint and he was covered in all manner of dirt and other organic filth. He hated it. The medic scowled as he stood, red optics shining with rage. Whoever was responsible for this was going to pay very dearly, he decided. For now, though, he had to get back to base.

He paused as he heard jet engines overhead, optics narrowing. Now, was that one of the little squishies or was it one of the Decepticons? That question was answered when there was the sound of a transformation and a heavy metal form crashed through the tree tops to land in front of him. A red gaze landed on him, and Knock Out could see rage and disgust building in the flyer’s optics before he paused. The look was replaced with confusion and suspicion, and then he spoke.

“Autobots do not usually have red optics.” he growled, voice deep and with a permanent growl woven into it. “Yet I know of no Decepticon who wears such bright colors.” Those optics narrowed to pinpricks. “Speak, stranger. Who are you?”

It was at this point the medic paused. How did this flyer not know who he was? Knock Out was the only proper doctor in the entirety of the Decepticon army. (No, Hook did not count. He did not have the training or the license, for all he had the learned skill). All the others had been offlined in the War. He would have thought that every bot on either side knew him, if only because they knew what he was.

“I am Knock Out.” he said carefully. “And who are you?”

The flyer grinned here, the look savage and far to gleeful for his comfort. “I am Starscream, second in command of the Decepticons!” he announced.

Knock Out blinked slowly, once, twice, then a third time, before fury twisted his features and he let loose a litany of vicious, filthy curses in Cybertronian, combining several dialects and even throwing in one or two curses from the dead languages he’d enjoyed studying in his youth. It made Starscream rear back, optics wide with shock and and EM field buzzing with disbelief. After several long minutes, in which the Seeker could only stare in a growing sense of horrified fascination, (wait, Knock threatened to do what with an engine and an intake? Ouch. Starscream did not want to be in the place of whatever poor fool as angered the bright red Cybertronian), the Aston Martin spit out one last curse before his expression smoothed over and he turned to the Seeker. Starscream, by this point, had taken several steps back and was now hoping that this bot wouldn’t turn his ire on him.

“So sorry about that.” Knock Out said lightly. “I’m afraid I just understood how I got here, and the mech responsible for this mess is going to feel every bit of my wrath when I return.”

Starscream blinked. “I…see.” he said carefully.

Knock Out smirked. “I don’t think you do, so allow me to re-introduce myself.” He stepped forward, crossing an arm across his chest. “My name is Knock Out.” he said with a flourish. “Chief medic to the Decepticons.” he finished his introduction with a dramatic bow.

Starscream sneered. “Impossible!” he snarled. “The Decepticons have no medic. Our last one was offlined by Optimus Prime. This must be some puny Autobot trick!

Knock Out blinked. “Goodness, Sweet Rims actually offlined a bot that wasn’t just a Vehicon drone?” he mused. “This really is different.”

The Seeker reared back, reeling over the fact that this so-called “medic” had just called Optimus Prime Sweet Rims, of all things. Then the second statement caught up to him and he frowned. “Different.” he repeated in a deadpan.

“Yes!” Knock Out threw his hands to the air, the gesture wide and dramatic. “You see, my dear Starscream,” he purred, clasping his hands behind his back. “I am from another dimension entirely.”

Well, that was a new one.

“Explain.”

“In my world, the Great War between the Decepticons and Autobots ended up being brought to a small organic planet called Earth. I assume it’s the same here.” he said, gesturing around them. “Recently, Lord Megatron, that is, my Lord Megatron became aware of the existence of the Iacon Relics. They’re powerful artifacts that were stored in the vaults of Iacon before it’s destruction, and sent away from the planet before they could come into Decepticon possession.” he said. “Lord Megatron learned that possessing the relics granted whoever had them a rather significant advantage, especially certain specific relics like the Relics of the Primes.”

Starscream snorted. “Get to the point.”

Knock Out sighed dramatically. “Oh, very well.” he drawled. “The point is: myself and my partner were sent to retrieve a relic that had only just began putting out a detectable signal. According to our data files on it, it had been created by the old Senate before the war. Unfortunately, the research notes on the subject were corrupted, but what little of the research was clear suggested that the device had been created to study the multiverse theory.” Here, he paused and glanced around himself. “Given that you’re Starscream, and the Starscream I know looks nothing like you, and you do not know me, and the Decepticons have no medic…” he trailed off, raising his hands, palms up as he shrugged. “It would seem that the device was for more than just researching the multiverse theory. The last thing I remember is grabbing it and making for the ground bridge, only for that Pit damned Wrecker to shoot the device in hopes of keeping it from falling into Decepticon hands. Then there was a flash of light and a surge of energy, and what do you know, I’m waking up here!” he finished, through his arms out with a flourish.

Starscream frowned. That…actually lined up. He had been sent ahead of Sideways and Barricade, who were also on their way to this location, because the sensors at the hidden Decepticon base had picked up a surge of unknown energy. If Knock Out was the cause of that surge, and given the fact he was here at its location he might very well be, then it would stand to reason that his story was actually true. Even aside from that, Starscream could pick up no deception in his field or EM field. Granted, bots could still lie even without their voices or fields giving it away, but Starscream was a master at lying, and prided himself on being able to sniff out deception like a turbo-fox sniffing out cyber-rats. Nothing he could tell suggested Knock Out was lying. Which meant his story was, at the very least, partly true.

“I see.” he said, voice devoid of any intonation.

The medic narrowed his optics at the seeming non-reaction, his arms crossing almost delicately in front of his chassis. Something about the way this Starscream had said that made his instincts itch. He didn’t like it. This version of the Air Commander was so very different from his. His Starscream was more skittish and wary, though that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, given how his Megatron treated his second in command, the Aston Martin was entirely unsurprised at his Starscream’s more lacking confidence. As of late, Lord Megatron had been….well, even more unhinged than usual. Given how Megatron had taken to lashing out at Starscream for ever petty grievance, it was no wonder the more lithe Seeker was jumpy. This Starscream had many of the same core personality traits, from what he could see, but his behavior was quite a bit different.

“You needn’t worry about me causing any issues in your world.” he said airily, forcing his processor back in track. He dusted some dried dirt of off arm, lip curling upwards in disgust as the stuff flaked off his armor. “I’ll find a place to lay low and stay out of sight of any locals, be it Cybertronian or human. I’m certain Lord Megatron will either fix the device if it was broken or retrieve it if it was stolen and find a way to bring me back.” he said airily. His tone was confident, and though his words sounded like it, he wasn’t bragging.

It was a fact. The Decepticons needed him. None of the others knew how to do proper medical care. Breakdown could certainly perform the simpler procedures, and most soldiers knew basic field care, but Knock Out was the only one who could handle the injuries that went beyond that. Without him, the Decepticons of his world wouldn’t be able to heal their injured soldiers, which would mean more ‘Cons would die and they’d eventually deplete their numbers enough to put the Autobots at an advantage. As vain as it may sound, Knock Out knew that, right after Megatron and Soundwave, he was the most essential member of the Decepticon forces when it came to keeping the faction running,

Starscream clearly didn’t like his tone of voice, however, because the Seeker growled in displeasure. “Oh? And what makes you so certain?”

Knock Out snorted, one optic ridge arching up. “Oh, don’t get so sour.” he admonished. “I told you, I am the Chief Medic to the Decepticons. I am also, however, their only medic. I can put mechs back together from scrap metal, if I must.” he made a vague gesture with his hand. “I do not mean to sound so vain, but I am very much needed by the Decepticon forces back home.” he said airily. “I’m the only trained, licensed medic they have, after all.”

Starscream stared at him for a long moment, and Knock Out did not like the suddenly considering look in his sharp gaze. “I see.” he narrowed his eyes. “So you’re a skillful medic, then?”

The red mech paused. “I’m not as good as Ratchet,” he said carefully. “But I was in the top of the field before the War broke out.”

Starscream smirked, then, the expression showing just a hint of teeth. Knock about suddenly had a very, very bad feeling. “I see.” the Seeker repeated, sounding sickeningly pleased.

There was the sound of pede steps behind them, and two mechs stepped out from the foliage. Starscream lifted his gaze, head tilting with a dark grin. “Barricade, Sideways.” he hummed. “I see you finally made it.” He flashed teeth in an expression that bordered on a sneer. “I’d like you two to meet Knock Out,” He gestured at the increasingly tense medic. “Our newest medic.” He finished with a vicious grin.

Knock Out tensed, his armor plating clamping closed and tight. Oh, he’d been right. He didn’t like this. “Excuse me?” he hissed.

He was ignored. The two new mechs glanced at each other, then looked at him, clearly unimpressed. “He’s a medic? He’s very…bright. Is he a ‘Bot? The silver one asked, sounding dubious.

Starscream hummed. “No, Knock Out here is a certified Deception medic. We’ve been unable to fix any injured warriors properly ever since Prime took out Scalpel. Our new friend here is from…somewhere else.” he smirked. “But he should fill Scalpels’s pedes quite well.”

The black and white mech shrugged. “Works for me. He’s real colorful alright, but he looks too sharp for an Autobot. And Autobots’s don’t have red optics, either.” he sounded bemused.

Knock Out, by this point, had enough if being ignored. His hand transformed into his saw, and the blade whirled to life. “I think,” he snarled. “You will find that I am not quite so willing to go along with you, Starscream. I’ll be found by my own eventually, so I suggest you and your little friends frag off and leave me be.” he hissed.

There was the sound of smaller transformations, and all three mechs were pointing weapons at him. “Weapon away, doctor.” Starscream said, sickeningly sweet. “You are outnumbered, and if you offline one of us the other two will have you subdued easily enough.”

Knock Out snarled furiously, his engine all but roaring with his rage, but he knew the Seeker was right. He did as he was told, and the two mechs behind him stepped up, one on either side, to grip his arms and force them behind his back. He glared at the Seeker, gaze promising pain.

Starscream only stepped closer, reaching out to tap the medic’s chin with a finger. “I think, Knock Out,” He said with a dark grin. “That you will find Lord Megatron reluctant to simply allow you to be stolen away now that we have you. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if he orders Soundwave and perhaps even Shockwave to develop a way to ensure you cannot be tracked and retrieved by your friends.” He leaned in close, lips twisting in a mocking sneer. “You belong to us now, little medic.”

Knock Out was tense, his processor racing. This was bad. If that was true, then he doubted he’d be able to ever return home. Unless he could get away now, that is. But he likely wouldn’t be able to. He was the smallest mech here. All three of the duller Decepticons were taller and bulkier than he was. He wouldn’t be able to fight all of them. The medic growled, low and angry, and leaned forward against the hold the other two had on him. It caused their claws to dig into and scratch the paint of his arms, but for once he didn’t care. He got as close to Starscream’s face as he could, eyes holding dark promise.

“You had better pray to Primus that you never end up on my medical berth, Starscream.” He said, voice low. “Because while I may fix you, I will also ensure that your stay in my medical bay makes the Unmaker’s Pits seem like the Well of All Sparks.”

There was a rough laugh behind him, and then he was being yanked away from the still Seeker. “Come on, Doc. Time to get moving.” The silver mech grinned.

He was guided firmly through the forest, until they came to an empty road. He obeyed the cold order to transform from the black and white mech, and then they two larger bots followed suit and boxed him in. Making sure to keep the red medic trapped between them, they drove back towards the Decepticon base, the newest acquisition of the Deceptions firmly in tow.

Back at the clearing where Knock Out had appeared, Starscream remained frozen for a moment longer. Suddenly, he felt like he might have made his decision just a little too hastily, and he remembered the creative threats and curses the smaller bit had spat out. If Knock Out was actually capable of even half the things he had threatened in that little spiel, and Starscream got the unpleasant feeling he was, then he very, very much did in fact hope he never had to go to the medic for repairs. Though, given his luck as of late…he had a feeling he’d be seeing the doctor sooner than he thought.

Frag.

#request fic #silkling request fics #tfp knockout #bayverse starscream #knockout #Starscream #TFP #transformers prime #transformers bayverse #bayformers #transformers crossover #Starscream makes a mistake #angry knock out is scary #Starscream has regrets #knock out is gonna kill all of them out of spite #just you watch #maccadam

127 notes · View notes

sparklingpax · 3 years

Text

A Different Side (2/2)

Summary: Optimus comes back from an unsuccessful mission and seems to be out of sorts…but there’s more to that story.

///

A/N:

-Part 1 arguably where I should have ended it :’)

-Literally been a year and I apologize so hard sdjdj ;w; also this part is too long asfsksdjfl aaa

-BEFORE YOU ATTACK ME, this is not “the first time optimus ever makes a joke!!!” kind of story, despite how much it looks like that. It’s just. something,,,

-as usual, there are definitely typos and mistakes; hopefully I get around to fixing them aha ^^’’ Also please don’t mind the weird spacing, for some reason the way I type things out never seems to translate well to when I put it here so,,,

-please I’m literally not funny, my humor is broken 😀 Like, I didn’t quite know how to continue or conclude this, and it’s not creative or interesting at all and it highkey doesn’t make sense tbh?? so aaa qwq I just hope it’s not too cringe,,,,but I did say I’d finish it so rather than keep y’all waiting any longer than I already have, here it is....part 2....

-I just. wanna apologize again that it took so long and this scrappy second bit is all I have to show for it. hh.

///

“At last…” Ratchet sighed contentedly to himself.

He carefully placed two pieces of metal together and wielded them to one smooth shape.

Stepping back to admire his work, smiling a little, he then picked it up and started towards the supply room.

After a long day of work, Ratchet was pleased to finally be able to place the repaired tool back on its shelf and retreat to his room for a few hours of quiet reading.

Maybe three at the very most, he wagered his bet with a slight grimace.

After all, it was commonplace for commotion to interrupt his every attempt to enjoy himself quietly.

Such is my fate.

However, hearing a familiar set of footsteps thumping slowly down the halls, Ratchet paused.

“Optimus? Is that you?”

He leaned to the side and peered down the hall.

Said mech emerged from the corridor and into the medic’s view. He had a funny look in his eye as he came to a stop quite abruptly.

He placed his hands on his hips and regarded Ratchet for a strange few moments of….awkward silence…before speaking.

“Ratchet,” his voice tremored almost imperceptibly, “Would you consider me…humorous?”

The medic blinked at him. He was officially more confused.

He had been just about to ask what had happened to upset him so much earlier, or if there was anything he wanted to talk about, one-on-one.

After all, from time to time, Optimus would reach a point where he could no longer bear whatever was troubling him. And of course, Ratchet was right there for him, ready to listen and help. In the end, he was able to get Optimus to say what was troubling him, and they would talk about it or they wouldn’t. But something about the way Optimus walked away each time told Ratchet he’d done at least something to help.

“…Ratchet?” Optimus prompted him gently, eyes showing a little concern.

Scrap, I still haven’t answered his question—Ratchet, focus!

Still, the thought drifted through the recesses of his mind: had Optimus…not been upset in the first place?

If so...what had it been all about?

Or was he simply reading too much into it?

At a loss as to how to answer, the medic fumbled for a word to say in response.

He actually didn’t know, now that he thought about it.

Optimus—or Orion, even—had never really attempted to be funny before as far as Ratchet knew...which Ratchet was well aware that he didn’t know everything. It couldn’t be a yes or no. Of course, there were moments Orion was humorous, everyone has their moments.

No, he means funny—as in, on a regular basis, as something part of his personality, even. And to that....

A more appropriate response was ‘why?’

But Ratchet knew better than to snark at Optimus like that. It was uncalled for, at the moment.

Perhaps Megatron would be more likely to know.

After all, it had been him Orion had spent the most time with back in those days.

As if I could just call him and ask!

“W-well, Optimus, I wouldn’t really know that!” Ratchet paused, feeling slightly guilty for his tone of voice just then. “You’ve never tried to be…that I knew of, anyway…”

Optimus just nodded slowly. That weird glint in his optics remained. It hit him that something seemed….different. Like the Prime was planning on...doing something.

Just then, footsteps alerted the two of Jack’s arrival. He came into view, leaning against the wall and panting. He pointed wordlessly at Optimus for a second, trying to catch his breath. Ratchet stared at him, somehow growing more confused as the seconds passed. Then, finally, Jack straightened, managing to say what he’d wanted to.

“Optimus was…not upset…”

“What?!” Ratchet practically squawked. “What?!”

Optimus glanced from Jack to Ratchet, looking surprised for all of a moment, then simply nodded. Just then, Arcee, Bumblebee, and Bulkhead returned to base. Their engines could be heard from all the way down the corridor. They skidded to a halt in front of Optimus and Ratchet, transforming a backing up a bit.

“Oh no,” Bulkhead murmured to his teammates. “Cue pissed-off Ratchet.”

And pissed Ratchet was.

He had been worried for his friend.

“Wh—then—why on earth did you go off to your room in such a huff?!” The medic exclaimed, setting down the newly-repaired tool not-so-gently.

“That is—”

“AND WHY WOULDN’T YOU OPEN THE DOOR?!”

“I—”

Just as Optimus was about to answer, a proximity alarm went off. Everyone gathered wordlessly around the main computer screen as Ratchet pulled up the video feed. He rolled his optics, sighing heavily.

Instantly everyone knew it could only be Agent Fowler.

Jack took this opportunity to attempt to get Optimus’s attention and pull him aside for a second. He waved and whispered the Prime’s name.

When Optimus finally heard him, he departed from the group and made his way over to Jack, kneeling down when the human motioned for it.

“Hey, Optimus,” Jack started, a bit awkwardly. “Sorry—uh……so....I saw what you were watching…”

“Oh…” Optimus instantly looked kind of embarrassed. “Well, I was….admittedly….curious.”

Jack tilted his head.

In the background, their liaison to the government was shouting something about Bumblebee and a burger joint parking lot, to which Ratchet was defending his teammate and annoyedly asking how it could be his fault or problem.

“After yesterday,” Optimus began to elaborate quietly, “Miko said...something to Ratchet. It dawned on me that Earth humor is much different from Cybertronian humor—which, in honesty, I never knew much about anyway.”

“You mean when she yelled ‘in this world, it’s yeet or be yeeted’ to Ratchet after he asked why Bulkhead decided to throw that guy he was fighting?”

“Yes.”

“So…” Jack sighed. He looked so confused. “You looked up vines?”

“No, Jack,” Optimus responded rather seriously. “I used the Google Engine program you children seem to enjoy so much—”

Enjoy…not when you have friends like mine, Optimus. I’ve seen some things...

“—to find the meaning of ‘yeet.’ Through my research, I came across the concept you humans refer to as…” his optics flicked to the ceiling for a second as he held up a hand and air-spelled the word, trying to remember the pronunciation. “…Memes.”

“You…you found memes?” Jack repeated, as if he couldn’t process this.

“Yes, Jack,” Optimus affirmed, looking very pleased with himself. He had that same sparkle as when he watched his teammates laugh, when he was tired but relieved everyone returned from a mission alive.

Except. It was for memes he found. On the internet.

Jack was about to ask another question when Optimus abruptly stood up again. He put a finger against his lip in a shushing motion, smirking ever so slightly. A twinkle in his eye told Jack all he needed to know.

“O-Optimus, which videos did you exactly—”

“Vine is no longer dead!!” Optimus whispered a little too excitedly.

And then he winked.

“This is a dream,” Jack murmured in disbelief as he heard Optimus walk away.

He was apparently going to try to make vine jokes.

Jack knew it would be hilarious, but he was also worried for the Prime’s dignity.

Oh, Lord.

///

“Oh, YOU want to hang up on ME?!”

“THAT’S DAMN RIGHT,” Ratchet hollered back, “YOU CAN TAKE YOUR COMPLAINTS AND SHOVE THEM UP YOUR—”

‘Ratchet!!!’ Bumblebee cut in, looking rather uneasy. He hated it when people were shouting at each other like that.

The medic whipped around and Bumblebee flinched a bit. The older mech was fuming.

He had been in a generally awful mood after the events of the day, and as the seconds of silence passed, he realized just how angry he was—or at least, how he seemed to everyone else.

Can’t vent frustrations like this, Ratchet—you have to talk it out. He stared back up at the computer screen and watched Agent Fowler straighten his tie as he started up again.

“Now you listen to me, Ratchet. Neither I—nor my superiors—will tolerate your—”

Ratchet decided he’d had enough of dealing with others’ foul moods, because they were only making him even more upset.

“Agent Fowler, I’m frankly not the bot you want to talk to right now. These are not my doings, you in fact have no qualms with me. All you do is call us up and gripe at us, and no one here appreciates it,” he hissed at him, having toned his voice down to a mild stern one.

“HEY!! DON’T YOU DARE—”

“Goodbye.”

And with a simple tap, the base fell silent again.

“Well….that’s that,” Arcee said.

“Yup,” Bulkhead agreed.

‘Why is Fowler so aggressive all the time?’ Bumblebee buzzed, annoyed. Arcee shifted her weight and shrugged.

“He wants what’s best for humans, and he’s concerned for the planet. I mean, yeah--he has the right to tell us to be careful and all,” she made her guess. Then her optic twitched as she, too began to look rather irked. “But he’s so….”

“Insufferably rude,” Ratchet finished for her. Arcee nodded.

‘And…loud.’

After a moment of attempting to compose himself, Ratchet turned to Optimus, who had discreetly drawn up beside them.

The medic was about to ask him what the scrap he’d been doing and why he left Ratchet to fight with Agent Fowler on his own. It was usually Optimus who took the calls, and that’s why there wasn’t always an argument like this. Fowler would yell at Optimus, but not for long.

They had some kind of interesting mutual respect for one another. Of course, all the bots respected Fowler—even when he was being overly aggressive—but Optimus seemed to even get along with the government agent in a special way.

Even more of a reason he should have been the one to talk to him.

So, Ratchet was annoyed. Or he was.

It was then he noticed the grin on his leader’s face. His first question was understandably, why.

Before Ratchet could speak, Optimus put up one digit and tapped it against his lips, as if to signal for quiet.

“I apologize,” he said solemnly, leaning a bit closer to Ratchet. The medic felt his spark begin to pound, and was sure that some color was heading to his face. He swallowed.

“That’s alright….but, uhm…what were you doing instead?”

“I was discussing with Jack a rather important finding…” he responded quietly. Ratchet tilted his head at Optimus.

Arcee and Bulkhead exchanged confused looks. Bumblebee debated leaving the room or asking what exactly he was talking about.

It was at that moment, Optimus bit his lip, visibly trying to hard not to laugh. He then took a shaky breath and stood straight.

“Ratchet, I have but one question.”

Tentatively, Ratchet moved the conversation forward.

“…yes?”

Optimus pointed to his tools lying on the metal surface behind the two, and with the most level tone, spoke.

“...What are thoooooose?”

There was silence before Ratchet slowly and rather confusedly glanced back at the desk. He answered Optimus just as slowly.

“They’re.....my…reparation tools….”

And with that, Jack lost it laughing so hard from the corner. Optimus looked on the verge of bursting into laughter himself.

But Ratchet wasn’t laughing. He just stood, blank.

Very quickly, Optimus realized no one else was laughing either—except for Jack, of course—because they also looked like they were trying to process this.

He felt a pang of worry.

Even if gradually, Optimus had been hoping for a long while that he could show his teammates that Primes do laugh, lose their cool, cry, and party. It was a silly notion, he would often chide himself. Nonetheless…it was a hope.

After all, it was the only reason he had gone to the Google Engine and decided to try and figure out what exactly humor entailed.

But…I might have approached this incorrectly.

Now looking just a little annoyed, Ratchet backed up and picked up his tools. He had no idea what had just happened and wanted some time alone in his quarters.

Optimus gently grabbed his shoulder, causing him to stop and look at him again. The Autobot leader looked rather abashed, obviously regretting the last five minutes of his existence.

In the background, Jack had gone over to the other Autobots and started explaining what had happened, the vines, the context of what Optimus had just pulled…

“I…apologize, Ratchet…” Optimus looked away for a moment. “It seems I…lack the ability of timing…”

Ratchet blinked a few times, then setting down the tools, he sighed.

“Optimus…”

“I know now that it is not my place to attempt humor.” He looked quite sad, but at the same time, resigned to it. Ratchet was about to tell Optimus that not everyone was cut out for everything, and that he was rather amusing in his own way.

But he was interrupted for a second time by laughter. Ratchet and Optimus instead turned to see behind them, the other three team members absolutely losing it.

Optimus was taken aback.

He wondered briefly if they were laughing at how pitiful his attempt at humor had been. Then Bumblebee spoke up.

‘Jack just told us what that actually meant!’

“Yeah!” Bulkhead chimed in. “And now I wanna know what vines are!”

Arcee, giggling, added, “Yeah, and what crocs are.”

Ratchet felt Optimus next to him, struggling to contain his pride, and himself began to laugh. At this, Optimus let a little of that joy show, smiling and standing straight again.

What a funny thing to be proud of…

But, then again, that had been the Prime’s intent.

///

*dies* I’m sorry I even wrote this please forgive me--

37 notes · View notes

tarklesbehindthescenes · 3 years

Note

🔥

Transformers Prime was so disappointing. As I said in tags, I'll try to be nice, but I just. I'm going to put this under keep reading. It will be lengthy. I do have some good things to say about it and I will, but I have so many complaints. Can't say I didn't warn you.

I'm going to start off with: I saw Cliffjumper in the first episode, paused immediately and told my friend that if he got red-shirted in the first five minutes to prove the situation was serious, I was going to be ANGRY. Lo and behold, Cliffjumper died to prove the situation was serious. And what was the time? Oh, around 4 minutes 30 seconds give or take. I screamed. My friend said something to the effect of, "I think they killed him off because his voice actor was The Rock and he was pricey". My response to that is, "Then maybe they shouldn't have hired him and gotten someone else."

My boyfriend came to the conclusion at one point that Optimus Prime sets the tone for the Transformer shows he's in. And I'm inclined to agree. Optimus is an absolute edgelord in this and I can't make myself like him. And the rest of the show follows. All I'm seeing is a show that tries too hard to be dark and gritty. It's like the writers were focused so much on the dark themes that the characters, their personalities and their backstories, they were all just an after thought. To me. Just my opinion.

Bulkhead... Why the heck didn't they keep Animated Bulkhead's personality? Why did they make him a generic brute? Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with the generic brute types, but Bulkhead is different. It just feels like a slight on what Bulkhead's character was in Animated. I understand that each continuity has every right to their differences. But it still bugs me.

I don't like Arcee. I don't care about her, I don't like the show's half-hearted attempts to make me care about her, she's so darn bland, and it really feels like she is looking to bring down the moods of anyone around her. "Smokescreen's too cheerful and immature. Time to berate him." Glitch, let him have some fun! Dumping hamburgers on someone's car is not something to be mean to him for. Just roll your optics and leave the mood be.

Ratchet does not hit it for me like G1 and Animated do. Maybe because he's racist? He treats the humans like vermin. And then the show just suddenly shows him with a slight change of heart when Raf gets sick. No warning or build up. Just "You humans are so annoying. Oh crap, this child I suddenly care about is dying!" I may be exaggerating, but that's how it felt to me. I guess an argument could be made that Animated Ratchet is racist, too? So if that's the case, then maybe that's not what rubs me the wrong way. But either way, I really don't care for Prime's Ratchet.

I don't care about Raf or Jack. They're just... there. Jack's blander than Arcee. Raf is just some kid with computer knowledge. How in the world does he understand Bee? This isn't G1, they can't just pass it off with "He just can". And I think you said you like Miko, so I'm sorry about this, but I loathe her. She just grates on every fiber of my being. Why is she allowed to put everyone in danger with no repercussions? If they do acknowledge it, it's usually just a slap on the wrist and she goes and does it again. I consider myself a pack animal, so if anyone was pulling stunts that endangered my family, I wouldn't hesitate to deck 'em and give 'em an earful. I'm sorry.

Starscream feels like a joke... He's so hung up on killing Cliffjumper. Like dude. Surely you killed more than just that one tired and beaten Autobot throughout the entire time the war has been going on. And if you haven't, how the heck did you get your position? People say his design is sexy and I just... don't see it. He's very expressive, and the way he moves his wings is great, but aside from that. His voice actor did a great job. But Starscream having a deep vampire-ish voice is not my cup of tea.

Soundwave really should have gotten more screen time. When I saw him slam down Airachnid, I knew I really wanted to see more Soundwave action. Megatron looks like Shredder's armor grew a face (TMNT). I can't take Megatron seriously whatsoever. From his bulging optics that can't look straight ahead, to his alt mode that shows his head and eyes peaking out at the top.

Can the Decepticons in general just have some more color, please? Knock Out and Breakdown are okay. Skyquake and his bro can get a pass. But most everyone else are just colored black, grey, super deep purple, etc. Airachnid should have died in the explosion caused to the Autobot base.

The Autobots are really not much better than the Decepticons. The amount of vehicon violence. They make it a game. But vehicons are filler, they're there to be cannon fodder, etc. Vehicons are so used to being killed off that the second they get punched, they lay down and pretend to be dead so they don't actually die. And the Autobots just laugh amongst themselves and treat it like some game. G1 treated Decepticon battles like a game sometimes too, I know, but they weren't actually killing their enemies. They were just thrashing their butts. The Prime bots kill off the cannon fodder, but don't kill off the main Decepticon characters when they get the chance? Oh! But Bulkhead smashing Starscream's clone to a bloody pulp and killing him! So unnecessary when the clone was clearly not a threat.

The abuse that Megatron throws at Starscream isn't really addressed in a satisfying way. Nobody tries to comfort him or help him get out of the abuse. It just happens. I haven't gone through all of season 3, so I'm only going off of what I've seen so far.

How. Dare they tease the idea of Breakdown having a change of heart and then kill him in such a stupid fashion. Just as I was getting past the fact that they turned him from a paranoid combiner in G1 to another brute like they did with Bulkhead, and beginning to like him. And he was friends with the vehicons! He was the only one that treated them with respect and gave them the time of day! And the writers killed him off! I will never not be salty about that.

...Okay, I think that does it for the negative stuff. Mostly. Now I can move on to the positive stuff.

Smokescreen is precious and I adore what they did to him. It was not worth waiting two seasons for him, but now that he's showed up, I can tolerate the show a little more. He just wants to be the best he can be and prove himself to Prime. The team does not deserve this ray of sunshine.

Knock Out and Breakdown's dynamic was adorable. It took a bit for them as individuals to grow on me, but in the end, I like them and I like their relationship.

I appreciate that the show gave the Decepticons some wins as well as the Autobots. Really made it feel like an actual war and that the "good guys" weren't overpowered.

Scraplets were a nice touch. I like the concept of some tiny terror being a predator to mechs. Makes the bots feel less indestructible. The bringing in of the Insecticons was kinda nice. Wish the design was different, but I appreciate they were even brought in. They really feel like a threat.

I liked the arc where Earth started being cyberformed. I don't think I will never not like the concept of cyberforming.

June Darby with her crush on Optimus. Oh, how I wish they explored that.

Miko and Bulkhead's dynamic is nice. They have a good friendship. I like the idea of a troublemaker dragging around their dim, but sturdy friend around and getting into trouble.

Ratchet on the synthetic energon was great. Give me more kickass doctor, please. Minus the vehicon torture and slaughter.

Predaking is precious as well. I think his fate has been spoiled for me, but we'll see. Hope I'm wrong.

I appreciate that around season 2 the humans started doing more work. They were no longer freeloading.

The vehicon that knocked Optimus' ass out with a tree trunk. He must have had direct beef with Prime and was training for that moment, because oh my goodness.

There was more that I liked about the show. Hence why I don't hate it. I'm just super bummed that I can't move past all those negative points. It had potential. And I want to enjoy it. Whoever loves Prime, like my sister, that's great. I'm glad you do. Somebody has to enjoy it. But it's not for me.

#Transformers #Prime #rant #strong opinions #tl;dr #I don't hate this show #But I can't enjoy it as much as others do #which is sad

21 notes · View notes

pastelpaperplanes · 4 years

Text

Calling in a Favor part 4

Ultra Magnus was not having the best of cycles.

The cycle had started with him waking up with a crick in the neck, and it had been joined by a headache caused by the presence of one Sentinel Prime.

He reminded himself that everyone grieves differently, but the ego of his second was honestly starting to grate on his patience.

Half way through reading a report, he caught the sound of a commotion not far from his ground floor private office, taking a long suffering sigh, he got up, poured himself a cube of high grade, and stepped out to deal with whatever Sentinel was likely upset about this time.

Had some poor bot put the filter in upside down in the general energon dispenser again?

Was there a tiny crude drawing scratched into a surface he spotted?

Maybe his attempt to flirt with First Aid had backfired in his faceplates again and she was giving him the what for…

Or perhaps his second in command was having his faceplates smashed in by the business end of a wrench that a familiar pseudo retired medic was wielding.

Ultra Magnus let the shock show on his features for a few moments before he schooled them and spoke up, using his ‘I’m in charge’ voice that he knew carried well enough to get everyone (hopefully Ratchet included) to stop what they were doing and shut up.

“What, in the infernal pits of Kaon, is going on here?!”

Everyone froze.

Except Ratchet who got one more good swing in past Sentinel’s feeble attempts to prevent it.

He looked between Sentinel and Ratchet, expression furrowed into a frown. “Ratchet, this is not like you, what has happened?”

Sentinel, who was pinned under the older, smaller, supposedly not as aged as he looked mech, growled. “What does it look like Sir?! This maniac attacked me!”

Ratchet got up, but kept a pede firmly planted on Sentinel’s chassis, likely leaving a dirty footprint on his shirt. “Oh, you don’t know, I’ll tell you, and every bot here what happened.” He paused, the dramatic effect was certainly felt. “This morning, I heard a ruckus above my clinic, I go to investigate, only to find one of the tenants, Bumblebee, in hysterics and screaming at his apartment mate Bulkhead, it took me getting two cubes down him and four trips to the can to purge before he spat out what happened.”

Another pause for an effect, but this time it felt more like the medic was taking a moment to compose himself before trying to continue, the look in his optics suddenly becoming haunted.

“Optimus is dead. The mob got him. Bee was a bartender at one of the clubs apparently, one of the goons told him why one of his best friends hadn’t shown up. They took him to the Docks last night and he never came back.”

The words hung in the air for a time no one present really thought to keep track of.

What broke the silence was the cube of high grade Ultra Magnus had been holding, the cube smashing on the ground just ahead of him, spilling its contents across the floor.

The sound of the cube shattering snapped Magnus back to the present. “My upstairs office. Now. Sentinel, you too.”

Sentinel grumbled as he got himself upright and trunched after the two senior mechs, barely squeezing into the lift between Ratchet and Magnus before the doors closed, having chosen to turn around at face the doors along with the two so as to avoid optic contact with the medic who’d just been trying to rearrange his face with the wrench he was still holding, he could feel energon dribbling down his faceplates.

Once they were all behind the soundproofed and locked door of Ultra Magnus’ entire upper floor spanning office, did he turn and address Ratchet. “Ratchet… I understand your distress, I was of the impression you had taken Optimus under your wing so to speak… But… You are aware you just assaulted my second in command with a wrench, correct? I really should be arresting you for that, but I have a sneaking suspicion you had a rather good reason for targeting Sentinel, correct?”

Ratchet’s gaze locked on Sentinel and turned murderous. “Looks like you never told your boss, how about you tell Magnus now what you’d been holding over Optimus’ helm?”

Sentinel, with his now rather smashed in faceplates, still managed to look like a mechabuck caught in high beams.

Magnus turned to look at Sentinel as well, an incy disposition falling over the head of the Elite Guard.

“Sentinel Prime… What in the name of Primus… did you do.”

It was at that moment that Sentinel knew… he was slagged… and Optimus wasn’t alive anymore to take the fall for it… not again.

The Polaris

Optimus waved Shrike and her younglings goodbye, they’d been paged by Shrike’s lieutenant about a fight breaking out in the main engine room, not a joor after they’d finished touring that area.

Apparently her way of dealing with such issues was to, and to quote Rumble, a youngling, directly ‘Bea’ tha bolts ou’ ah those slag suckers!’

He distinctly remembered that some of those slag suckers were the twins sparkling sitters when Dust managed to catch Shrike and attempt to put the femme back together.

Optimus shook his helm at the whole thing, making a personal note not to take a trip to the engine rooms unannounced, as lovely as all those giant oil and grime caked mechs and femmes had been, they were all rather quick to brawl, and some of their fists he swore were bigger than his whole helm.

He turned to regard the door Shrike had left him standing outside, and after a moment, knocked, Shrike had said something about him finding his direct supervisor inside.

The door swung open after a swift ‘Coming!’ and he was brought faceplates to faceplates with a pure white armoured femme who came up to about his chassis, who had a metric ton of vibrant organic plumage sticking out from one side of her helm, specifically around her audio.

The femme looked up, took in the sight of him, and tutted. “Orion right?” He nodded. “Goodness Shrike took you to the engine rooms! You’re filthy!”

He jerked his helm down to look over his casual attire. “Oh! Oh no this was just the first stuff I grabbed out of my r-”

The femme didn’t let him finish, promptly dragging him by the collar into the room. “Everyone! Calipso! Get me a dressing gown! Eion put down the optic liner and help me get this mech to the showers!”

Mechs and Femmes alike, all of them arguably some of the most beautiful and gorgeous bots he’d ever seen all spun in their make up chairs to look him up and down, some of which still applying make up to their features as they did so.

Two jumped up, a mech who was mostly soft greens with a red highlight colour that framed his lithe figure, and a femme of soft lilac and blue who looked half dressed if the fact she was only wearing a form fitting dress and nothing else was anythign to go by, she wasn’t even wearing shoes.

All of this he was able to take in in the few short moments he had until the mech, he assumed to be Eion, pulled him into what he guessed was the mech shower room, and began setting up a stall for him.

A dressing gown was tossed at him before the doors were shut to the shower area, leaving just him and Eion.

The mech chuckled and offered a servo. “Eion, Orion right? Congrats on getting the spot.”

Optimus’ jaw was hanging a bit. “Um… what? I’m sorry I’ve been told… very… very little about what’s going on here… where am I?”

Eion laughed. “You’re on level four, and this chunk of the level is set aside for us Entertainers, the femme who dragged us in is our supervisor, Jadarite. The rest of us, you now included, all work in the main entertainment district of the Polaris. Dancers, wait staff, table jockeys, that kind of stuff… got any experience with dealing out tables?” Eion asked.

Optimus shook his helm. “Um no… I was just a waiter and danced back at the club… sometimes I also sang, sometimes.” He flushed the full way through the admission of his previous roles.

Eion smiled, hopped up and patted Optimus on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you get up to speed, but Jadarite was, well, right, you are filthy, c’mon, showers work like any other shower, but be careful, the max temp is only the max temp because we have some sadomasochists on board who get their jollies off going to Dust for scalded plating!” He grinned and giggled as his own apparent joke, whacking him on the shoulder quickly.

Optimus knew his jaw was hanging a bit, it felt like it was going to be a permanent expression on his features for quite a time to come. “Why do I feel like… at least half of this ship is on their way to going insane?”

Eion really laughed then, waving the mech off. “Comes with the territory! I’m assuming you’ve never been off the home world before?”

Optimus shook his helm.

Eion grinned. “Then don’t worry, you’ll be one of us in no time in that department too! Now wash up! And dump those clothes in the hamper over there, they’ll be given a proper wash and sent to your new quarters long before we’ll be done with you for the cycle!”

And with that, the green and red mech slipped back out, closing the door behind him and leaving Optimus to stand alone in the mechs showers holding a dressing gown and wondering what fate Megatron had thrown him to.

Tentatively, Optimus got to undressing, spotting the hamper Eion had mentioned and dumping them all inside and silently hoping he didn’t loose them, he hadn’t had time to pack anything at all, not even a spare change of briefs.

He didn’t bother to don the dressing gown just yet, putting it up on one of the hooks a safe distance away from the showers next to where a number of unbelievably plush towels were hung, they were so soft…

Before he even knew what he was doing, he had one of the towels and was just rubbing his face against it, it was so soft and fluffy he could just melt!

He supposed otherworldly soft towels was a good quality he could chalk up to working here.

Knowing he’d get to wrap himself up in at least two of those towels once he was washed, he moved over to the showers and inspected them, the controls looked simple enough, hot and cold were colour coded and he just needed to lift the lever like nob up to increase the pressure.

Picking a temp a bit below the ‘you sadomasochists’ engraved plaque that was over the dashed part of the red, Optimus braced himself and turned on the shower head he’d found himself under.

HOT.

He jumped back, luckily the tiled floor was dry so he didn’t slip, but Primus!

Oh right, he’d not had a hot shower since his cycles at the academy, wanted to avoid paying a high heating bill.

Steam was already starting to billow out from around the spray, bringing up the humidity of the area.

He reached past the spray and notched down the temperature and tested it again with two digits, still warm, not scalding.

Bracing himself, he stepped back under, and got to work trying to get himself presentable, making use of a handy little solvent dispenser that was mounted on the wall in a little wire basket just to his left.

Eventually the suds and solvent were all washed away, and the water running off his frame was just as clear as when it hit his helm and the broad span of his back.

Turning off the faucet Optimus looked out at the steam filled room, and carefully, mindful of the now wet floor, stepped over to the towels and where he’d left the dressing gown.

The first one he used to rub down his frame to get the water that was taking it’s time vacating the panes of his frame, the second smaller one he used to rub his faceplates dry, as well as focus on the harder to reach spots.

All done with drying off, he slipped the dressing gown on.

And oh he was never getting out of this, the inside lining was even more soft, and fluffy!

He gave himself a few kliks to just melt into the softness before he moved back to the door that led back out to where all the other bots were.

He cracked the door open, and found many of the bots from before were gone, Eion was still there, as well as Calipso and Jadarite, but only two others remained, and they seemed to be just finishing the last of their apparel.

Jadarite turned to regard him and smiled. “Much better darling, c’mon out, there’s no need to be shy.” She coaxed, she was an older femme who had apparently perfected the ‘soothing frightened bots’ voice, because the moment her servos took his, he was more than willing to step back out into the main area, despite only wearing a dressing gown, he should feel more… not ashamed, he’d done nothing wrong, embarrassed? No… considering how communal everything in this area was, he couldn’t imagine these bots around him being very prudish.

Jadarite patted his shoulder once he was seated at a vanity that was much more barren than the rest of those in the room. “Alright dear, let’s see how we can gussy you up right pretty with what we’ve got here.”

He nodded, and just let them do what they wanted.

Three joors, a number of rambles about Knockout’s skill of being better than him at this sort of thing, and a whole reel of measuring tape, and the, dress prep? Was complete.

Jadarite clapped her servos together, and spun his chair to face the mirror.

Okay, he’d bite, he looked good, the eyeliner in particular was really framing his optics well while also defying the laws of physics to a truly astonishing degree.

Calipso, who was a rather timid thing, gave him a small smile. “We’ll figure out stuff like what colours work best with you and if plumage works next cycle, do you wanna keep that stuff on and wash it off later or do you prefer us getting it all off now?”

He glanced to the three who’d laboured and experimented away at his features for the last three joors to get him looking this good. “Um, I’ll keep it on? So… what next?”

Jadarite beamed at him. “Now’s the fun part, the shows over for the night, so everybots gonna be coming back to finish up for the cycle, and from there, we’re all hitting our private bar here on deck four. If you want to come along, I’m sure Unverlo will be able to lend you something comfortable, he’s a bit bigger than you so you shouldn’t have any issue with fitting into something of his.”

“You’re sure he won’t mind?”

Apparently the mech in question didn’t mind at all, and had an apparently love for big, fluffy and baggy jumpers, which hung off one of his shoulders no matter how many times he tried to adjust it while he found himself sitting at the Entertainers private bar and had conversations struck up with him by basically everyone he was going to be working with.

The Bar was, Optimus couldn’t describe it in a single word, but everything seemed to of been designed for relaxation and winding down.

There was dim mood lighting that pulsed around the room, the only stron light coming from the vibrantly coloured tanks of energon that bubbled and churned behind the bar.

The opposite side from the bar was where the tables were, built into the wall around circular tables, the padded seats had enough room for everyone.

Opposite from the entrance, and passed a small dance floor, with a familiar pole mounted in the centre, was a floor to ceiling window out into space, the stars beyond providing a stunning backdrop to the bots dancing.

Unverlo, the mech he was currently sitting next too at the bar was a soft spark with a love for neo-felines, he apparently had four in his own suite and he had maxed out three data-pads image storage with pictures and videos full of the brightly coloured, highly affectionate things.

Unverlo admitted he spoiled them all rotten with treats and affection.

Optimus had cooed over every picture and goofy video he’d seen, even asking at once point if he could be taken to see them one cycle.

Unverlo was more than happy to accept, setting a date and time right there and then before taking a cube of mid grade, he apparently wasn’t too fond of high grade, something about his tanks not agreeing with it, before he vacated the seat next to Optimus and let someone else quickly take it.

Which turned out to be Calipso, who struck up her own quiet conversation with him.

The rest of the night cycle continued like that until Jadarite announced it was time for everyone to retire, which many did without too much grumbling.

Some left in pairs, others in small groups, Eion offered to show him where his room was and he gladly accepted, Unverlo had already left so he assumed the soft baggy clothes would be returned to the mech the next cycle when clothes more suited for him were ready.

Admittedly he’d miss the jumper.

Eion led the way to his new room, providing some idle chatter about this and that as Optimus took the time to appreciate just how, luxurious everything was.

Him bumping into Eion’s back was what snapped him out of appreciating the decor.

Eion held up a key, not a key card, but an actual key and passed it to him. “Don’t loose it, okay? The smith here on the ship doesn’t like it when bots loose his keys.”

Optimus nodded in understanding. “I understand, thank you Eion… would you be willing to collect me tomorrow? I fear I may get lost a number of times before I get proper bearings of this place.”

Eion smiled up at him and nodded. “Sure thing! I’ll come pick you up before morning feuling, see you then Orion!” The mech waved goodby as he walked off, heading towards his own suite.

Optimus watched him go for a few moments, before turning his attention to the door and sliding the key into the keyhole.

A quick twist and the sound of a needlessly complicated locking mechanism coming undone later, and he was stepping into his suite.

The moment the room registered to him, he did a double take.

It was larger than his shared apartment back in Iacon!

His jaw was dropped once more as he took in the sprawling open plan suite.

A glance to his right revealed a modest kitchenette, fridge, oven, energon dispenser, sink, a number of sleek engraved cabinet doors…

A glance to the left revealed the open door to a lavish wash rack, there was even a bath large enough for him to submerge in completely!

He walked into the washrack and felt his lower jaw threaten to fall off, it wasn’t just a bath, it was a Primus be damned jacuzzi!

He found four dressing gowns hanging by the door, and soon discovered his alias designation of ‘Orion’ had been stitched into each on the breast pocket in cursive text, in golden thread no less.

He found some make up wipes in a draw under the mirror in the washracks, and after a bit of hesitation, wiped off the makeup he’d been wearing, he was planning to locate the berth and pass out, and he didn’t want to make a mess of the pillows he had a hunch were going to be just as lavish as everything else.

Finished with cleaning himself up, Optimus stepped back out into the open plan living area, there was a number of pieces of furniture dotted about with little tables and table lights next to them, perfect for some light reading under soft light.

He’d have to see about acquiring some data pads from the Library Neolock had mentioned earlier, apparently it was two floors down nearby that floors branch medical bay.

Walking through the door into the berthroom, he had to do a double take.

That berth could fit four of him!

He was hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion, and suddenly he didn’t care that the berth was massive, wider than his old room in Iacon was, he reached the end, fell into a crowl, kicked off his shoes, and slid face down onto the covers and just took in the smell of freshly washed sheets.

Running his digits over it, he marveled at the texture, cool to the touch, but promising to trap heat…

A bit of fumbling later and he was under the covers, snuggled into one of the ludicrously plush pillows.

Recharge claimed him before he could even turn the rooms lights off.

A few moments later the lights flickered out, and an airy giggle came over the speaker nestled in the wall.

“Sleep well new crew.” An autotune voice whispered, as the lights in the rest of the room shut off, and the door left unlocked deadbolted itself shut.

#:’)))))#i love this little series ahh #cops and mobs creations #fic #submission

85 notes · View notes

baebeyza · 4 years

Text

Pros and Cons of all the TF shows I watched [updated: Unicron Trilogy and BW Neo]

Update info: Whyever the hell I wrote this and why people care about my opinion is beyond my current understanding, but @chaoticgirl23 asked for the Unicron Trilogy I hadn't watched back then, so- Also decided to write down if I actually like the show or not xD

(also I removed wfc, because I cant really judge after all with the show not being finished) My personal opinions + stuff that can be dubbed controversial and problematic, so beware for racism and sexism! But also beware of my idiotic attempts at humour

G1 (loved the show with all my heart)

Pros:

- The original show

- big cast of loveable characters

- Really awesome human side characters

- Very clever and witty dialogue

- fucking batshit insane

- Rodimus Prime is babe

Cons:

- apart from Arcee, female autobots being treated like a subspecies and only appearing in like one episode (3 if you are generous)

- Motherfucking country called “Carbombya”

- Some human characters are actually shit (those boys from B.O.T)

- Rodimus fucks as a human and not as a robot

- Everything animated by AKOM

- Galvatron’s portrayal as a person with brain-damage reads as ableistic (Personally I still love his G1 version more than the others I’ve seen)

- The “You’re only truly disabled if you lose your courage” line from Chip, it was explained to me that it’s ableistic as well

Headmasters (loved the show)

Pros:

- exciting plot

- characters die, fuck yeah

- Planets get destroyed, fuck yeah

- <3 ~ Power of Friendship ~ <3

- Sixshot is babe

Cons:

- Everything about Cyclonus and Wheelie

- Rodimus fucks off after episode 10 and never comes back

- Arcee going from warrior to secretary

- If you come from IDW I have to break it to you that Chromedome is straight

SuperGod Masterforce (loved the show with all my heart)

Pros:

- A darker and more serious storyline if you’re into that

- Lots of character arcs and well-written characters in general

- Decepticons having a more family like dynamic

- Decepticons with a level of depth to them

- Redemption much

- Ginrai is babe

Cons:

- This show’s focus is on the humans so if you don’t like human TF characters, this aint for you

- The character Cab has a level of racist stereotyping - he comes from a fictional country in Oceania called Karin and the depiction of that country is everyone living in wood homes and having no electricity. (The show plays in the future so that makes it worse) Cab himself gets introduced as a Tarzan kinda dude who can talk with animals.

While I found Cab himself not bad as a character, the problem with how his background is written sure is stupid and insulting. There isn’t a lot of focus on his country in the show however, but it’s still there

- There is a scene in which the boys Shuta and Cab spy on girls during swim class (they get called out and apologize for it though and the “fanservice” scene itself is really damn modest and tame)

Victory (loved the show)

Pros:

- Similiar fun tone as G1

- lovable cast of idiots

- Exciting episode plots

- Leozack is babe

Cons:

- The only two prominent female characters are love interests and nothing else (which is drop in quality when compared to Masterforce, which had Minerva as a fleshed out autobot with agency and Mega as an interesting female villain)

- Leozack never punches Deszaras in the face

- Fucking retcons the destruction of Mars in Headmasters

Beast Wars (loved with all my heart)

Pros:

- Really compelling story and characters!!!

- Well written dialogue

- Wonderful character animation

- Dinobot is HONOUR and babe. Also I’m crying

- Megatron and his bullshit

Cons:

- Megatron and his bullshit

- That stupid love triangle subplot in season 3

- Some major plotline not being fully developed (the Vok plotline)

Beast Wars II (liked the show)

Pros:

- The Predacons in general

- Lio Convoy (the Optimus of the show) having a son

- Galvatron is babe and so is Starscream

Cons:

- Maximals are lame apart from Lio Convoy and the arc with his son Lio Junior

- A lot of uninteresting characters an episodes

- The Jointrons as racist mexican stereotypes

- Only female robot is part of a love triangle (even more annoying than the love triangle in Beast Wars)

Beast Wars Neo (liked the show)

Pros:

- Big Convoy being a lone wolf turned teacher was a really sweet story to follow <3 How he and his team learnt to trust each other over the course of the show was really nice!

- Unicron in this show was a delight

- D-Navi was always fun

- Magmatron was a rather nice Decepticon leader

- Heinrad is babe

Cons:

- No girls (Boo!)

Beast Machines (very conflicted, tend to dislike)

Pros:

- Plays entirely on Cybertron

- Explores themes of technology and organic life forms and really tries to be something different and deep

- The last episode is really nice

- Jetstorm is babe

Cons:

- No fun allowed - the maximals are really frustrating because we only ever see them being angry and fighting and a lot of them only show us their worst sides

- The maximal character models are HIDEOUS

- You may not actually like the philosophical aspect of the show, especially when you think too long about it and realise it’s kinda shit

Robots in Disguise 2001/ Car Robots (liked the show)

Pros:

- New continuity! New story, new take!

- Funny and lighthearted

- Cute characters

- Sky-Byte/Gel-Shark is babe

- Ultra Magnus/God Magnus is a fucking jerk and I love it

Cons:

- Sideburn/Speedbreaker’s gag about loving red sport cars and chasing after them - it’s played as a joke all the time but I can see that stuff making people uncomfortable when they see the female driver trying to get away from him and his catcalling (Apart from that I do like him a lot though)

Armada/Micron Densetsu (disliked the show)

Pros:

- Lots of feels between Megatron and Optimus

- Starscream's arc

- The ending arc

- Jetfire was babe

Cons:

- The pacing was unbearable

- Half the time the characters didn't act like people and I was confused about almost every conflict, action and point they made. It's not a great story when I watch episode and need an hour to figure what the hell the story even was

- The parts I liked in concept are not helped by how unnatural and weird the characters acted at times. I liked the ending, but how they got there was so weird that I just can't enjoy it

Energon/Superlink (loved the show)

Pros:

- Megatron/Galvatron - Everything about him

- The japanese voice acting was fantastic!

- Really nice death scenes (I love death scenes btw)

- Mirage/Shockfleet being in love with Megatron

- Bringing back old names apart from Megatron and Optimus

- Rodimus being an equal to Optimus was a nice touch

- The few scenes it was 2D animated

- Jetfire/Skyfire is babe

Cons:

- Animation

- The "for the toys" thing kinda ruined some characters, where instead of getting the toys as completely new characters, they killed old ones and brought them back with a new model. It did suck story-telling wise (and me, loving death scenes, get annoyed when a death scene gets ruined by bringing the character back). So you got all these character arcs that feel like the just stopped

Cybertron/Galaxy Force (loved the show with all my heart)

Pros:

- Love the setting and world with all the different colonies and how they were explored ~

- Optimus Prime, this one is my favourite version of him!

- Vector Prime, they should bring him back

- All the different leaders

- The friendship between the characters- this show has my favourite set of Autobots from all TF media

- This also has my favourite Mega&Star dynamic

- Starscream himself is so well done here!

- Jetfire/Dreadlock was babe

Cons:

- Megatron was lacklustre. When it came to him and his dynamics with other characters (apart from Starscream), he was hardly written as a person with feelings. He never reacts to anything happening within the ranks of Decepticons and it is really disappointing, because there was a lot of potential! (with Flame Convoy and Chromia specifically)

Animated (loved the show)

Pros:

- Character writing, plot and themes!

- Lighthearted tone but enough scenes that dig a little deeper

- Really nice and smooth animation

- Optimus is baby

Cons:

- The chins

- No 4th season

Prime (loved the show)

Pros:

- Best friggin fight scenes and animation in general

- Really exciting plot

- Ratchet is babe

Cons:

- Predacon Rising exists

- Characters dying for budget reasons (Just don’t hire celebrities when you cannot pay them for more?)

Robots in Disguise 2015 (it's okay)

Pros:

- ...the Stunticons are babe

Cons:

- characters never developing and learning the same shit over and over again

- almost no interesting villains

- even the interesting ones being shoved aside a lot

- no real built-up for the climax

- lots of filler and not enough time spent on the actual plot of a corrupt Cybertron goverment

Prime Wars Trilogy (loved the show with all my heart)

Pros:

- Megatron, everything about him, he’s babe

- I really like the soundtrack

Cons:

- Bad storytelling, both narrative and visual

- Horrible or mediocre voice acting

- Static and bad facial expressions

- Static and bad character animation

- Feels like no one involved in the production had any idea how to tell a story

Cyberverse (meh)

Pros:

- Really cute as fuck

- Big cast

- Astrotrain is babe

Cons:

- No time for character arcs, they just jump from set up to conclusion with nothing in-between

- Unfocused plot that jumps from one idea to another

- Megatron broke my heart and I hate him

#transformers #tfa #tfp #g1 #beast wars #bwii #prime wars trilogy #cyberverse #headmasters #masterforce #victory #beast machines #rid01 #rid15 #bey's shit #transformer posting

110 notes · View notes

shikai-the-storyteller · 4 years

Text

I absolutely didn’t go back through and edit this at all and hardly any of this is verbatim but I tried to take notes on some of what Mae Catt said during her stream if anyone is interested!

EDIT: Here’s a cleaner post with most of the Q&A.

She says she doesn’t want to yuck anybody’s yums re: ships. She seems Arcee and Grimlock more as friends, but she didn’t say they can’t be in a relationship

They fell in love with Perceptor so they wanted him on the “End of the World fighting the Quintessons” team

They had to dedicate a lot of effort into Dead End b/c it takes time to send in info for modeling a character and deciding on their alt mode

She was pitching Obsidian from Beast Machines really hard. She didn’t know what his personality would be it was just a “Look how cool he is!” sort of thing

Thought it’d be fun to have someone pessimistic like Dead End be on the team

“According to us, Drift did not make it, but I fully endorse whatever you want”

“The brand team had grown up on the toys as we had grown up on the toons, so we just wanted to make the best thing imaginable.” That’s nice

Rodimus was never considered for the show “it’s been covered to death”, but they were adamant about portraying Hot Rod as someone who wanted to be a leader

Hot Rod is someone who is learning to be a leader

“Please don’t tell JRO I forgot about Whirl” re: talking about why they chose each character for the “Anti-Quintesson” team

Q: Re: Why did Drift try to kill Roddy A: They said they needed a double-agent and they needed someone who would (seemingly) kill Hot Rod

She loves that Optimus is just trying so hard to rebuild Cybertron, I just want society to start rebuilding

Q: Since you mentioned Optimus's death... he didn't seem to have a plinth in "our" Matrix realm. Does that mean the list of Primes works differently? Like are the 13 more of a dynasty, rather than all being a group together? A: They decided Optimus would be in the Alt! Universe matrix because they wanted to show he was dead. Logical backflips because he needed to be among the 13 to talk to Windblade.

She says Starscream’s death hurt her most

They didn’t want to kill people off willy-nilly for shock value

"The audience will fall in love with Slipstream so she has to die" LMAO

She almost wanted Starscream to emerge from the Judge heads untouched but she’s ultimately glad that idea got shot down

Dead End’s eyes are white

She’d love to have a MTMTE Magnus / Minimus included. She wished and prayed to have Frenzy and Rumble

They wanted Jazz to be a lady!!!!!!!

These characters are like grown ups (kinda) with their own lives that we don’t see. Lots of stuff happening between episodes

“Rumble and Frenzy are always considered in my heart, but there wasn’t enough time or space or assets to do so”

“Alt Soundwaves also had their own Laserbeaks. I wonder if the scientist would’ve taken them out. He might’ve just gotten rid of them.”

“A lot of intelligent life is inherently mechanical” explaining why so much of the life we saw in the show were robots

She would’ve liked to have the other shows show up (TFP, TFA, G1, Shattered Glass) but they don’t have those assets or budget. “This will quickly become unclear to audiences who aren’t (you people).” They couldn’t have all these references when some of their audience wouldn’t get it

“Why does anyone collect what they collect? That’s a really angry dad who’s got five children and he plays music. Gotta have that” --re: the Scientist and Soundwave

Knock Out was considered but every Transformer under the sun was discussed at some point in the Writer’s room.

Developing Sky-Byte’s character was simultaneous with Jetfire’s character, "We knew we wanted Sky-Byte to be a poet, and we wanted him and Megatron to be chummy”

From the getgo they didn’t want any humans distracting from the Transformers

Q: Is Megatron dead? A: “In discussions we wanted to kill him. Wanted to do a reverse Optimus death. However, in the final product, I kinda enjoy the ambiguity rather than the final decision. Can’t remember if we were decisive about that in the script.”

She wanted them to have IDW Tarn in there “OBVIOUSLY (the perfect decepticon) should look like this guy. A faceless mindless Decepticon that only serves Megatron”

Q: Is Dead End a good boyfriend? A: Dead End is a work in progress, but maybe Percy is patient enough to get him there

Q: Is Astrotrain a good boyfriend?” A: “No, no...he’s not a good person, really”

“When I was desperately trying to save Starscream’s life even though I brutally murdered Slipstream--” LMAO She wanted Starscream to have amnesia and she says she wanted to have a redeption arc. She wanted him to have a Windblade shard and have it be kind of like Castaway, where he only talked to it (and the shard only had 5 phrases it could say) and eventually Bee would befriend him Wanted to write Starscream as an abuse victim who expected the worse of the Autobots, but she wanted him to warm up slowly

Wanted a Starscream and Optimus episode where he’s like “you did your best and that’s what counts”

Q: Is Percy a good boyfriend A: “Absolutely--WAIT HOLD ON. He’s very blunt, he doesn’t mince words, if you can handle his bluntness then you’re good. He is what he is and you have to deal with him.”

Q: Is Soundwave a good boyfriend? A: Soundwave is not a good boyfriend. He’s a good casual romance but he’s not a good boyfriend. Soundwave would be a terrible listener. He hears a lot but he’d tune you out.

Percy did permanently take over Mac’s bar

She really wanted Obsidian and Transmutate to be in the show.

If Thunderclash was in the show he and Jetfire would HATE each other. Thunderclash would be a rival reality star (maybe) to Media Fire

Fave Episode was “I Am the AllSpark” b/c of that Megatron and Starscream dialogue Also S2 04 Soundwave and Shockwave

Transmutate would be more like the uprising version (?) but modeled more on the BeastWars version

The Starscream & Megatron beatdown was super severe and they were like “holy frick they’re really going for it” when they saw the boards for it

She likes the Windblade / Slipstream ship

Her favorite VA is Jeremy Levy, he’s a really cool guy

She thinks Starscream and Cheetor could become (not necessarily friends, but connected?) because of their connection to the All Spark

Describes Starscream as an “Awful gremlin” several times

They say Megatron didn’t actually kill Starscream, just really beat him down hard

“Don’t take things I say as the end all be all”

She doesn’t think Bee would be a Prime, Windblade and Hot Rod would be a better Prime. He wouldn’t want to be a Prime. He’s the #2 to Primes!

With unlimited budget combiners could’ve been included, but it doesn’t seem like they thought about it

Astrotrain and the Insecticons are from Megatron X’s universe

Megatron’s priorities changed when he saw his doppelganger. Realizing he was a horrible tyrant, that scared him enough to return and not kill Optimus and make peace no matter what.

She thinks Cliffjumper and Bee wouldn’t get along, solely because of the IDW2 comic stuff

Got 26 episodes for season 3 because they got the 4-part movies

Megatron cares about his troops but not in a way that we would notice that care

Wasn’t a HUGE die-hard TF fan when she got into the series but she was a bigger GI Joe fan, she reread a bunch of things and did a lot of research

Cut joke: S2 E5 Megatron and OP finds the All Spark Decepticons and Autobots popping all over the world, Soundwave pops into Brazil where there’s a music festival and he’d crash the concert and hang out. He likes EDM the most?

The Titans want to be cities. They want citizens. They want to be lived in, that brings them joy (ouch)

Q: How did the Decepticons learn to stream? A: Because they’re deceptive! He knew he should dedicate some time to winning the hearts and minds of humans. Starscreams’ funeral was not the first time they streamed Optimus would use the official media channels, not a streaming service. Megatron would try to speak more directly to the people.

From the conception, the show wasn’t going to have humans

She thought people would ship Dead End / Percy but it wasn’t until she saw art that she started shipping them

Q: Is Optimus the type of streamer who would take 10 minutes to figure out how to un-mute his microphone A: Optimus is a dad. He has no idea what’s going on re: streaming. Optimus would say embarrassing news while Bee and Hot Rod are in the middle of streaming

Doesn’t ship Bee with anyone, she sees him as a little brother

Randolph put Rack ‘n Ruin in the show.

AcidStorm is genderfluid

Cold Construction doesn’t exist in this show. Maybe there’s one jet mode all the seekers really like

We have Mae Catt to thank for Whirl

Percy didn’t transform because not a good time to turn into a microscope while you’re trying to save your planet from Quintessons

If she were a transformer she’d want to be a stealth bomber. She’s 5′3 so she says she’d probably actually be a motorcycle like Chromia

They killed Prowl because it was Shadow Striker doing the killing and he’s a self-sacrificing lieutenant.

Enjoyed writing Starscream most, Clobber and Hot Rod became a joy, S2 E4 was her first one, it was fun getting into Hot Rod’s voice. She said it was hard doing Optimus’ voice, she’d always pass it off to someone to look at it.

She loves the idea of Wild Wheel robbing Astrotrain in train-mode, totally wild west-style

One of her proudest things was turning Lugnut into a gal

They wanted to include more female characters

They love Cosmos, she has a little toy of him. R2D2 but a transformer! They loved having her in the show

Blurr really was the fastest

Maccadam looking like a buff Rung was just a strange coincidence

Q: Megop rights? A: “Oh absolutely, duh”

Says we absolutely SHOULD write fanfic. Fanfiction made her into the writer she is today, she says you should write it

There’s a lot between episodes, people living their lives and characters living on the ship that don’t pop up in the show

She wrote non-stop Matrix fanfic from 12-20 years old, she learned a lot thanks to writing fanfic

Uses “They” pronouns for Rack ‘n Ruin but they both use “he”

Sad that Skywarp didn’t get a speaking line

Re: Starscream’s redemption arc: She wanted Starscream to have amnesia if they went the “he comes out of the ruins of the judge totally fine”. “A redemption arc needs to be facilitated by a character acknowledging that what they did was wrong. He would have a laundry list of excuses for everything, even if there was all that evidence to the contrary, but needs to acknowledge that reasons don’t matter because people got hurt. Needs to intend to do better. Let them try and let them fail, they don’t need to 180, it’s hard work to be a better person.”

Shadow Striker is taller than Optimus or is his height. She loves the gender-neutral designs for a lot of characters

She’s not going to say whether Ratchet finished medical school or not Laughed at the "i don't believe that man has ever been to medical school" comment

Q: How would you feel about a female Optimus Prime? A: [GAY LAUGHTER] “So do you turn Optimus Prime into a woman, or do you take characters like Elita One and uplift her? I would want to lean more into giving Elita One more oomph, I do love how Optimus doubts himself and if he’s worthy of being a Prime.”

Says Rack ‘n Ruin are probably the Prime in that one weird universe lmao

Loves the idea that Transformers have siblings / families

She doesn’t think Cybertronians celebrate birthdays. “Why would you celebrate being alive for 4 million years that sounds like a nightmare.” She says that people would be celebrating milestones if nothing else

She’d kill to have Perceptor meet the other stunticons

She says she doesn’t post fanfic as much anymore. Sends them to Natalie as love letters (Ghost Busters fics specifically)

In a world where you had unlimited budget it’d be fun if Cybertronians were constantly shape-shifting and changing their forms, they’d like having Transformers who “grew a beard” and decided to “shave it”

Re: Ratchet and Medical school: she wants a “I choose to believe Ratchet has never been to medical school” shirt

Natalie (her GF) said hi

She doesn’t understand cycles or astrocycles, she doesn’t understand the weird Transformers time stuff. (mood)

Natalie explained how ghost traps work and it was a delight "You're basically making a pocket dimension, that's how you capture ghosts" “The Technology for a ghost trap is like magic and science”

Maecatt's bringing all her TF toys over to the camera

Q: Elita prime when? A: All the time, in my heart!

Q: Why are you so mean to Percy? A: He's so mature and pragmatic that he can take it, and is willing to take one for the team bc he understands that it's what he needs to do. Yes, he’s calmly feral.

Yes to the hurt/comfort Deadceptor fanfic joke answer

She jokingly says she's willing to buy Cyberverse fanart prints

“Arcee was fun to figure out because there’s an extra bit of pressure to develop a female character, there is extra pressure to do it well since it’s representing a different community (not that women are different species) more representation is needed. “What kind of woman can our Arcee be?”” Scared to write her poorly, but they realized she could be a fun dynamic duo with Grimlock, someone who could keep up with him, not a “girl” version of him, but someone who could stand on her own two feet

Collecting Soundwave because Soundwave is COOL. Wouldn’t you collect a single father of 5 who carries them around in his chest?

Shockwave altered his vibes to have maximum bad vibes to destroy the All Spark

Rebooting the franchise: she’d maybe do beast wars or something

Skullcruncher is a lady! She misses Mac but Percy takes good care of her

She loved Beast Wars Inferno, she loved that Inferno called Megatron a Queen. It was played as a joke because the 90s weren’t very socially conscious, but she liked that Megatron never corrected him or beat him down

She wanted to have Lightbright and Nickle in the show

"Maybe Drift is alive, maybe he's rethinking his decision and he'll come back later"

She said it's hard talking about writing a show because you're designing the experience and you have to make sometimes what sounds like cold and pragmatic decisions (eg: "we need a cold and spunky female") which sucks, but they need to balance out the show. She says she'd never do that just for the sake of doing it, but it's part of something that they do need to be aware of while working on a show “Starts from a weirdly cold pragmatic place, but we try and put truth in it”

Q: Is Skullcruncher Percy's bouncer now that he's running Maccadam's? A: Oh totally

She felt bad about the writing thing because she says "you could throw a rock in California and you'd hit a writer / director or whatever" but she says she really likes being an authority on things now, even if it’s weird

She said Drift would've been helpful in S3 for sure, maybe he'd come up with Repugnis

Q: If Tarn is the perfect Decepticon who's the perfect Autobot A: Someone with a Firetruck alt mode, Autobot insignia as a face. Nat and her talked about it a lot. She says Optimus SHOULD be a fire truck, it makes the relationship between him and Ratchet a little more fun since Ratchet is an ambulance, and Optimus has an AX. It just makes sense! She agreed that the perfect Autobot would be Thunderclash after the chat said that

“If you put the proverbial budget-gun to my head, I’d keep Unicron in planet-mode because it’s more mysterious, but I want both alt modes”

Her favorite Megatron is Beast Wars Megatron

They didn’t want to go the Unicron route because everyone goes that route

Q: What sort of documents DID Optimus work on in the archives? A: Probably historical archives and working on all the Primes. Something like the French / American revolution equivalent, which informed his speech writing for Megatron and his own ethics. (NICE)

She doesn’t like Sky Lnxy’s design, it’s creepy. “He talks in the G1 episodes and the voice makes it worse.” She can’t get over his face

“Found” the social awkwardness for Optimus. Optimus depicted as a father figure in S1 because it’s from Bee’s perspective, S2 / S3 they were able to explore more and found the limits and found it was hard to maintain that level of heroic dialogue. Optimus would feel awkward about it too. Randolph did an impression of Optimus’ speech. “He can’t not be in war-mode” :(

Q: Were Optimus and Megatron friends ever, or did they just work together on the speech stuff? A: Oh hell yes, I think [the story] is always enhanced when they’re friends and when Optimus really believes in what Megatron was working on. Optimus’ rejection of Megatron is what pushes him over the edge, his best friend rejecting him pushes him into a place where he becomes a tyrannical person.

Q: Does Maccadam know we love him? A: *puts hand over heart and looks into the distance* Yes

“Who knows where Dead End ended up” then backtracks and says “Wait that sounds flippant”

Soundwave’s favorite Earth song is Despacito

Q: What's the best selfie Arcee's ever taken A: Mae Catt loves the one with the giraffe. She likes the idea of Arcee having a bunch of human friends

Q: What do the Transformers think of the Florida Man? A: They can’t really tell the difference between humans, they don’t really get it. It just sorta looks like all the normal stuff they see on Earth (or something)

Q: Who's the Florida Man of the Transformers A: Rack ‘n Ruin or Skybyte. But he’s too nice hmmm.

Leaned into the wackiness of Wheeljack because of the VA

Q: What does Optimus do when he's not giving speeches / being a leader when they were all hanging out on the ARK? A: I think he reads, he seems like a heavy reader. It’d be cute if he read really bad Earth romance novels. He seems like a guy who needs a break from everything.

Q: Does Optimus have hobbies? A: Not to borrow from Rung, but doesn’t it seem like Optimus would make model ships? Very quiet, very focused detail-oriented hobby. Oh duh, he also plays basketball.

“I’d love to see more jets [who aren’t our usual gang] and find out all jets are kinda snobby”. Kaon and Tarn would be fun, it’d be cool to make up places.

(Someone asking if Optimus would read 50 Shades of Gray, someone else saying “They’d take it the wrong way because Transformers turn gray when they die”)

Everyone on the Autobot side are friends with each other.

Q: Does Megatron do anything for fun or is he too angry? A: I want to say he’s too angry, he has fun beating people down but I don’t think he’s had fun for a long time

Q: Were you surprised that Jake Tillman was in his 20s listening to his Optimus the first time? A: Jake Tillman was a vine-r she listened to a ton. She’d heard him when he was in his teens

MaeCatt loves that Shadow Striker saved Windblade’s body and kept her safe

Q: what was most important to you personally to put out in each episode? like humor/characterization/arcs A: Wanted to make sure she didn’t write dialogue that was condescending, wanted to be true about the character. Needs to be true to the characters (and gay)

Transformers probably don’t know what memes are. They know what they ARE, but they don’t get it. They wanted Hot Rod to be super into Earth culture (winning races and driving off before humans could realize no one was in the car), but they never had time to really get into that.

Wound up in the Cyberverse writer’s room thanks to her agents, says she was the only person who gave a crap about GI Joe stuff, the executives were so sweet and let her chat, and they said she wasn’t a good fit for the current live action project so they sent her to the animation side, they sent her to Michael Howzer and they hit it off talking about GI Joe stuff. She was a post PA, someone who helped editors finish things for TV, got a call with an offer.

#i talk #Cyberverse #Mae Catt #I'm watching Cyberverse #Transformers #Cyberverse Spoiler /#Primordial Robot hell

163 notes · View notes

the-odd-job · 3 years

Text

Building Dreams chapter 1 - Origins

Warnings: Chose Not to Use Rating: Mature Category: Other Fandom: Transformers Relationships: Sideswipe & Sunstreaker Characters: Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Unnamed Characters, Original Characters Additional Tags: Alien Culture, Dubcon, Canon-Typical Violence Words: 4413

Okay apparently I’m writing this well before I should. The thing I posted previously is the second chapter of this, so here’s the actual chapter one.

They snuck inside, hoping the actual owner of the apartment was too deep in a high grade induced stupor to notice their arrival—or their departure once they’d done what they came here for.

It was nothing illegal, really. This wasn’t officially their place of residence anymore—their room in the Pits was—but it was owned by their commissioner. That legal binding hadn’t been broken yet.

But would be soon, hopefully. There was nothing about this place or this mech they wanted any ties to. They were nearing the one event that inevitably led to a mech’s legal independence, anyway. It was just a matter of time before the mech in the living room of the tiny apartment could lay no claim on them.

Not that he particularly had at any point of their lives.

“–Lord Megatron of Kaon was once again caught in a heated debate with Optimus Prime of Iacon at the publicized Council meeting. We’ve all heard the arguments on both sides a million times, haven’t we?” the entertainment screen droned on, the channel turned to some manner of talk show. What a waste of time.

But that was all their commissioner did or had ever done, wasted his time away. The chair he was currently sitting in had its back turned to the open door into the hallway, and the brothers used that as an advantage to the best of their ability. They weren’t built for stealth and silence, who here was, but with the volume of the show turned up so high, it should mask the sounds they made pretty well.

Like always.

“Carriers this and carriers that—as you’re all well aware of, Optimus Prime is still campaigning for the demolition of the Housing system. What should be established in its stead? Equality for all? How does that help our species? No, he doesn’t have a replacement plan! As always, Lord Megatron called him out on this, and in a surprise move, Lord Starscream of Vos actually backed him up. Imagine that, the two of them united in something! For a mated pair they sure argue a lot—and if that’s in public, how much worse is it in private?” Laughter from the screen, both from the host and the audience present in the studio. Sideswipe huffed to himself, only to get glared at by Sunstreaker. Yeah yeah, keep quiet. Get the last of their things from their old room and beat it the pit out of here before their commissioner ever got any wiser they’d even visited.

It was kind of funny, though, how easily you could tell you were in Kaon just based on the kind of entertainment that was aired. It wasn’t that there was never anything critical of Megatron, but in this one thing most of Kaon seemed to agree with their leader, and thought the Prime was nothing but a bumbling dumbling.

Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker by extension? Or whoever was the extension of who or if it was just the In-Between, anyway, they stayed out of politics. That was a thing that only brought more stress on you when you needed to argue with anyone who had differing opinions to your own. So tiresome, no thanks on that.

Although he could kinda agree the Prime was a little dumb. At least the things he said were dumb. And the whole scandal with his so-called mate… Yeah, there was something just wrong with that mech. What the pit even drove him to these things?

Alright, end of opinions, right there, or else he’d find himself a political activist or something. Dumb Prime, Megatron calling him out on it, the end.

What mattered more than the artificially created problems Cybertron had—really, why do anything about a good thing that worked already?—was them and their little life. Maybe it didn’t matter to anyone else, but that was what life was about. Taking care of yourself, standing up for yourself, making it out there in the cold, cruel world… Or something like that.

He liked to think they’d gotten pretty far already, as Sunstreaker opened the squeaky door to their old room as quietly as he could. Once it was parted enough that they could fit through, they stopped to listen—but there were still just the sounds of the show, nothing from the third occupant of the place. “So they’re there, both trying to sway the Council, Optimus jabbering on about ‘freedom is the right of all sentient beings’ or something like that—did you stay awake listening to him? I sure didn’t. And Megatron comes in and points out the obvious: we need the breeders! Where are you going to get a newspark from otherwise? Out of thin air? By miracle of Primus? ‘Hey, big guy downstairs, would you be so kind as to send me a newspark, I really need one’? Not happening, is that?”

Alright, so what had they still left behind? There was Sunstreaker’s old art pads and art books on equally old datapads. They were carefully picked up and subspaced while Sideswipe quietly opened the subspace containers embedded in the walls and made sure nothing was going to get left behind. Some of the stuff they were taking and had taken with them was nothing but junk that they threw out to the nearest trash chute, but dammit their commissioner wasn’t about to get any of it, junk or not.

It was the principle of things. These were things they’d acquired on their own, with their credits or their wiliness. They belonged to them and no one else.

Unless someone picked them up from the junk piles on the lower decks, but if a mech was crazy enough to wade through that mess, then pits, they had deserved whatever they found.

But really, most of these things just weren’t worth anything.

Once he’d checked through all of their containers and Sunstreaker had looted their secret stashes—because sometimes that was the only way to keep more valuable things from addicts —they slipped from the room as carefully as they’d come in.

Or thought they did. In the gloom of the hallway, there were two red optics staring at them. Sunstreaker froze in place the same Sideswipe did.

“Are you leaving?” their commissioner asked quietly, voice a little staticky as it always was with this mech.

Ugh. Why couldn’t they have just managed to come and go unnoticed?

“Pit yeah,” Sunstreaker growled at him.

It was impossible to tell if their commissioner was sad or not, his field was always just a fragging mess and nothing else. “To the Pits?”

But they knew this thing. He didn’t like the Pits overmuch, and he definitely didn’t like that it was where the brothers had found a livelihood and a home.

Sideswipe could’ve sworn most of it was just seeing them succeed in something, even if only in a limited capacity. Getting rich with Pit fighting… Yeah, not happening.

But making ends meet through winning matches? Doable, if you were good enough.

And they were.

And they didn’t waste every credit they earned.

It was an argument they’d had a million times before. Sunstreaker didn’t do more than rev his engine in warning. And it was a warning. They’d taught themselves how to fight through blood and dents and more blood and dents. They knew what they were doing by this point, at least for mecha their age. They were better than most of their peers, even if they weren’t about to get to champion levels anytime soon.

Most fights weren’t fair to begin with, but it would be especially unfair against a mech who could barely stay on two pedes. One punch and he’d be down—and anyone who knew Sunstreaker knew he was perfectly willing to throw that punch.

Then again their sole remaining commissioner didn’t exactly know them, so maybe he thought there was some sort of affection or respect that would keep them from decking him.

There wasn’t.

“Out of the way,” Sunstreaker ordered once their stalemate had gone on long enough. “We’re fragging leaving.” And not coming back.

“You’re not yet mentored.” Mentored, legally independent, same thing.

But bad wording. “You’ve never done a damn thing to mentor us,” Sunstreaker hissed, taking one step forward. A clear threat. “Or did you totally miss the bit where we had to raise ourselves because you were too busy wallowing in your misery?”

“I stayed,” their commissioner argued with a shaking voice, although Sideswipe couldn’t have told what made it shake. Emotion or high grade?

“All the good that did!” Sunstreaker argued right back, his voice raising like it often did when they were caught in situations like these. It was doubtful the neighbors would even bother to see what the ruckus was about, anymore.

And there was a lot of bitter resentment there—and this might be their last chance to air any of it. They sure as pit weren’t planning on ever seeing the face of the damn mech again.

So Sunstreaker chose to do just that. “We had to practically live on the streets anyway, because you sure as pit weren’t looking after us! It’s a fragging miracle we didn’t need to whore ourselves out just to get enough fuel to get by, and what did you do? Sat here all day every day, on your fragging aft, trying to drink your problems away? What’s even so sad about your life, the slagging fact you were stuck with us? You commissioned us!” his brother alternatively growled and straight up yelled.

Was it a fair rant? Not really.

Was it well earned despite that? Sure was, if you asked Sideswipe. He got it, it was tough to lose one of your best buddies that you had planned to mentor a sparkling with, and then have that topped off with your second best buddy just taking up and leaving because none of them apparently knew how to handle any of their issues.

What excuse was that to neglect the life you had paid to create and supposedly committed to mentor into maturity?

Or maybe they were just really slagging selfish and should’ve gone easier on the mech—that had taken credits they’d earned just to spend it on more high grade. Oh, they’d learned real damn fast to hide that slag, or spend it on necessities right away so there was nothing to even steal. What did it matter if they had enough fuel to even stay online, as long as he had more high grade to drown himself in?

Sideswipe didn’t think they were the more selfish ones here, but he might’ve been a little biased.

Their commissioner was shaking, but it was still impossible to tell why exactly. “I–”

“No,” Sunstreaker cut him off with a violent lash of his arm, his sharpened claws inches away from scratching the fragging drunkard. “I’m not listening to your fragging excuses. Out of the way.”

Damn right.

When their commissioner didn’t move fast enough, Sunstreaker’s arm flashed forward, his servo closing around the mech’s faceplates—claws digging into his helmet. There was a muffled sound of protest, then a scream when Sunstreaker simply closed his servo, crushing and tearing their mentor’s face off, protoform deep.

His vocalizer was still unharmed when Sunstreaker let go. His victim dropped into a graceless heap on the floor like the fragging piece of scrap he was, sobbing, bringing his servos to a face that wasn’t there anymore. There wasn’t blood, only the sparking of severed wires and gouged, sightless remains of optics. Crushed plating, scratches.

Sideswipe made a face, but stepped over the weeping frame on his brother’s heels. This… Was a death sentence. There was no way their commissioner could afford repairs, and it was unlikely there was any spark kind enough around to pay them for him. He’d starve into stasis in his bleak, lonely apartment, and one day someone would come to see why he hadn’t paid his rent, find his frame in stasis, and send it to the scrapyard. No one would bother fixing up a random mech that probably couldn’t even pay back for it.

He’d die as alone as he’d lived. Justice? Or, “That was kinda over the top,” Sideswipe commented once they were back in the hallway.

“He had it coming,” was all Sunstreaker grunted in response, setting their pace towards the exit.

Sideswipe thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. Not like they would get in legal trouble for it either. This was Kaon. It was every mech for themselves under the dark cast by the first deck.

So, whatever.

They made it to the outside of the residential underbelly of a tower that probably rose somewhere into the sky up above, but that here was nothing but an oily base for wretchedness of so many kinds.

At least they were free of it, now, even if it hadn’t quite happened as Sideswipe had envisioned.

Back to the Pits with them, then, which some would’ve just called a downgrade— but for them it really wasn’t. They had a room just for themselves, fuel, occasional maintenance, and even more occasional chances to hose themselves off instead of just trying to wipe themselves clean. It wasn’t a steady living, but they made it work.

They transformed onto the road and drove through the shadowy streets that no one bothered to light properly. That wasn’t the case everywhere on the lower decks, though, and as they neared their arena, the lights turned brighter and more numerous until they made it to the center of activity surrounding the arena. It was almost as bright as the day of the first deck in this section of the underworld.

Definitely an upgrade.

They drove to the arena’s secondary entrance, transformed back to their bipedal modes, and entered the building. Here there was more to gloom to be found, and more dirt, grime—stains you didn’t even want to know the origin of; dents on the walls, floors, and even the ceiling. Nothing was clean, nothing was in full repair.

But that was the Pits for you. Really, it was just a part of their charm.

The mecha down here didn’t look much better than their surroundings, and they knew they weren’t exactly exceptions. Oh, they tried to take care of their looks, but so did almost every other sorry sap around.

It didn’t work too well for anyone, aside from some of the administration. Those you could recognize when you saw them walking about. Rich bastards—relatively speaking, most of the time. No one down here could compare to the wealth of those who could afford to live in the upper towers.

“A groon until my match,” Sideswipe commented as the reminder popped up on his HUD. “Wasn’t yours one fight after that?”

An affirmative grunt.

“Time to kill. Let’s go watch the matches and make overtly judgmental comments about everyone’s techniques,” Sideswipe grinned, flicking his claws to urge Sunstreaker into following him as he took the turn towards one of the arena gates. Not like they could really go up to the stands, but you could see at least something through the floor level gates, too.

Together they chose a gate that didn’t have more than one other mech observing the fights and went to lean against the thick bars. There were no impressive fights going on this time of the day, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything to learn from observing others.

Even if it was just in the way of ‘geez, I’m never doing that myself’.

“Ugh, the green one’s footwork is garbage,” Sideswipe snickered. The corner of Sunstreaker’s mouth twitched in a near smile.

He’d get the damn mech smiling yet, before his match. That was what he was here for! Be a menace that brightened his twin’s day by being all lovable and slag. He was lovable, wasn’t he?

Sunstreaker was eager to tell him that no, he wasn’t, he was just lucky they were twins or he’d have booked it a long time ago. But, see, Sunstreaker was smiling when he said that, because he couldn’t help himself once Sideswipe found the right buttons to push. It was perfect! And only took him a few seconds, see. Pretty good, if he said so himself.

That still left all the other seconds of the groon to get on each other’s nerves, to the point where they annoyed the third spectator into leaving. You know, instead of each other.

Twins.

“My time!” Sideswipe announced once it was minutes until his match would be called. Still together, they made their way to the right gate, he picked his weapons—twin swords, as he preferred—and entered the arena proper once the gate rose to let him through.

The lights were bright enough to blind, here. Not one drop of energon would go unseen because there wasn’t enough light. Everything they did would be on full display.

Sideswipe grinned, that particular bloodthirsty grin, and nodded at his opponent. The mech was bigger than him, but then almost everyone was. Oh, he wasn’t small in the grand scheme of things, but in Kaon he was.

Came with not being able to afford big enough upgrades to reach the sizes of most other Kaonites. But that was fine, he made this work too.

He went to prove that much both to the audience and his opponent. He was smaller, but that meant he was faster with less mass to move around, and more agile with his lighter armor doing less to restrict his movements. Play your strengths, make up for your weaknesses, all that. He’d danced this same dance thousands of times before, even if the choreography was never quite the same.

The other mech was brandishing a mace, and if that wasn’t a devastating weapon if it landed proper hits. So, don’t let it land proper hits. Sideswipe could’ve never put the same amount of oomph behind the swings as the bigger mech could, but as they moved, it became obvious enough that there really wasn’t that big a skill difference between them. A good match for the audience, not so much for them. Uneven fights where you had the upper hand were always better for finances.

But that just meant he’d need to work harder to come out on top, and preferably without too severe injuries, too. One thing he did have on his side—the rarity of frames at least a head shorter than everyone else. There was really no getting used to fighting mecha his size when you faced them so rarely.

Meanwhile, he was intensely familiar with fighting mecha bigger than himself, because basically everyone was that.

It tipped the odds in his favor just enough, this time around. His opponent couldn’t judge his speed right. Sometimes he thought Sideswipe was slower than he really was, other times that he was faster. As many hits as glanced off of Sideswipe’s armor, leaving minor injuries behind, only one hit him in the side in full force.

Hurt like a bitch, that one, and sent him flying off to the side pretty spectacularly. He landed on his pedes though, only briefly made the mistake of instinctively bringing a servo to his side, and was ready to dodge out of the way when his opponent tried to finish things off. Not like he hadn’t landed his fair share of damage, himself. Some were pretty bad, too.

Don’t get cocky. That got you beat down into the arena dirt. He was supposed to be better than that by this point.

The roar and stomp of the crowd thrummed through his lines along with the excitement for a victory he tried to push down before it could distract him—and managed, enough so that when one dodge under the mace’s swing saw him in position to sink one of his swords into the other mech’s chassis, he wasn’t too distracted to see and take the opportunity. He had to get the frag away from there right after because that mace came right back around, but the injury was pretty debilitating by Sideswipe’s judgment. Damaged internal components that were actually important, that sort of thing.

Don’t fragging dare get cocky.

Just a little more. He could do this. If nothing else, his opponent would succumb to his injuries with time, even if Sideswipe couldn’t carve some more on him. Playing it safe wasn’t like him, though, so he didn’t hang back to wait around for time to win the fight for him.

That was what made him good at this. The showiness, even if that sometimes meant not doing the smartest, or at least, the most cautious thing. The spectators loved that. They wanted a real fight, every time, and if Sideswipe could deliver that, frag, he would.

It didn’t cost him, this time. He got hurt a bit more, but he also got to hurt a bit more, and although none of that damage was really severe enough, it piled on top of the existing injuries until this one time his opponent couldn’t keep his footing anymore and fell, onto his back, into the dirt.

Sideswipe took the chance it was to close in. The mech tried to still fend him off, but just couldn’t anymore, not before Sideswipe’s sword pressed snugly against his throat.

It wasn’t a death match. There wouldn’t be a kill, this time.

But had he gone through with that last attack, that would not have held true. Everyone knew it.

“Yield,” his opponent said, grudgingly, but he got to walk away with his life. Did that make him lucky, or just someone who now had their life, sure, but no credits to their name?

Not Sideswipe’s problem. He grinned at the mech one more time before he turned his back to him and lifted his sword to the cheer of the crowd.

Credits. They always needed those. They needed to fuel, they needed to pay for the repairs they couldn’t perform themselves, they needed tools for the repairs they could do on their own—their room wasn’t free either, they had to pay to use it. They needed to maintain their looks even somewhat. Cloths, solvent, sometimes even polish.

Expenses, expenses, expenses, no matter how frugally they tried to live.

Were they ever going to dig themselves out from the gutters, or would they always live on pede in the sludge of the streets? Everyone tried to get out. The vast majority never succeeded.

But they could dream.

His side was wonderfully caved in, armor uncomfortably pressing against his jarred and misaligned internal components, and that was a little too much for them to fix. Sunstreaker accompanied him to the sorry space that worked as the arena’s medical bay—they paid, he got repairs from someone who had probably failed the integration of his medical files. That was what you got down here. No one could truly count themselves a winner if they were stuck in the arenas of the lower decks.

But it got them by. He felt worse by the end of his repairs than he did before them, but the damage warnings had either dismissed themselves or lowered in importance.

Good enough, that was all you could ever ask for.

Sunstreaker was always a pleasure to watch in the ring, too. He was efficient, not one to play around, just a destructive force on a warpath that would see anything in its way destroyed. Did he always win? No. They faced their betters semi-regularly, like anyone else.

That didn’t make Sunstreaker any less as a fighter, in Sideswipe’s opinion. And they got better, constantly. They practiced, took every opportunity to learn more, studied others, studied themselves to analyze what they could do better. They didn’t settle.

His brother’s unbridled brutality won him his match too. It wasn’t just their unfortunate commissioner that got to taste his claws, and whatever other weapons he chose to use, a sword this time. Just one.

The weapons, too. They practiced with as many of those as they could, not just so they could wield them themselves, but so they knew how they were wielded and wouldn’t get caught off-guard by someone who used them.

Maybe they’d never make it out of here, but slag, they’d try their hardest anyway.

Sunstreaker needed a few things fixed by a medic too, but even after those payments, their winnings were enough to get them fuel. The rest would go into savings, this time.

They weren’t the only ones at the energon dispensers they made their way to, and they weren’t all strangers there, either. Sunstreaker never talked a hell of a lot with others, but Sideswipe made up for it like always. A couple of friends, a bunch of acquaintances, chatter, teasing, laughter. Recounting of their more recent victories, lamenting of their losses.

The message alert popped up on both of their HUDs at the same time, high enough in priority that it overrode– Actually, that was the highest priority a message could be.

They shared a glance. There wasn’t much question what this was about.

“I think we just got our test date,” Sideswipe stated out loud at the inquisitive looks they both got for their sudden distraction. There was a chorus of understanding noises after that. It wasn’t a secret they hadn’t reached maturity yet, at least not officially.

But they would have, after this. Independence, not tied to anyone. Do what they wanted with no one able to tell them they shouldn’t. Well, aside from the law and all that. But mostly what they wanted!

“Congrats, you’re about to join the big league,” one of the mecha he wouldn’t quite count a friend yet laughed.

“Yeah, it’s really just a formality,” another shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Just show up, get it done, and that’s it, you’ve got your legalities all sorted.”

“I mean,” Sideswipe said after he consulted his navigation system to see where the address they were given was, and wow, “at least we’ll get to see some high end areas for once.

“We’re gonna look so out of place.”

More friendly laughter. Everyone kept their distance from Sunstreaker, but a servo clapped Sideswipe on the shoulder. “Enjoy it while it lasts! Take in the sights, snap some pics. You’ll be back down here right after.”

“Bring a souvenir, too!”

Sideswipe laughed and even Sunstreaker made an amused sound. “I’ll snatch something from the clinic before making a run for it, that good enough?”

( Next )

#transformers #maccadam #sunstreaker #sideswipe #fic #2021 #breeder au

8 notes · View notes

writeyouin · 5 years

Note

Maybe like a tfp scenario where optimus and human reader are in a relationship but keep it a secret from everyone until one day miko finds out when she catches the human giving him a cute smooch on his lips and miko takes a picture of that to show everyone else.

TFP Optimus Prime X Reader - Photo Finish

A/N – I have gone so far out of order with my requests that by this point I’m just picking up the ones that inspire me for a while.

Rating – T

Warnings – None.

Optimus held you lovingly in his servos as you pressed your head against his. It was rare the two of you got to share such a tender moment but hidden from prying eyes in his hab-suite, it was finally safe to do so. When Optimus had first asked you to be his, he warned you that the relationship would have to be kept secret so as to protect you from the dangers being with him could bring; you didn’t mind living in stolen moments for him, after all, Optimus rarely asked anything of you, the least you could do was keep a secret.

“(Y/N)…” Optimus said wistfully.

“I know,” You whispered. “You have to go.”

Optimus sighed heavily, wishing he could give you more, yet resigning himself to the fact he couldn’t.

You pecked his helm. “Stay safe out there.”

Optimus put you down carefully, making no such promise. How could he when each mission could be his last? Instead, he made a small request of you, “Go home, and get some rest. I will inform you of my return.”

“Is that a promise?” You asked with a small smile.

“You have my word,” Optimus said sincerely.

You nodded, satisfied as he escorted you out of the base where the two of you would part ways. There was no time for second glances or sweet words after the two of you left his hab-suite, for when everyone else could see you, any exchange with Optimus became a professional act.

You tried to walk slowly through the base as you made your way to Optimus’ hab-suite, but it was almost impossible to keep calm after hearing about his extensive injuries from the previous mission. Apparently, he’d barely escaped with his life after going toe-to-toe with Megatron. You supposed you should be happy he’d escaped, but truthfully, you were hurt that Optimus had broke his promise to tell you of his return. Instead, you had to hear about it second-hand from Miko over the phone. You knew you shouldn’t be angry considering the circumstances, but what else was there to feel when you were trying to stave off worry?

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ratchet said sternly from behind you, knowing full well the only room ahead of you was Optimus’.

You forced yourself not to clench up, hating that Optimus was alone and in pain with each wasted second. You didn’t dare to face Ratchet, fearing he would see your feelings written all over your face. Casually, you held a datapad in the air, “Prime asked for this. I thought I’d bring it, so Fowler didn’t come and bug him.”

Ratchet tutted indignantly. “I think not. Nobody is seeing Optimus until he recovers.”

You composed your face into a neutral expression, ready to finally face the grumpy medic. “C’mon Ratchet, what do you think will happen if Prime doesn’t get this? He’ll stop resting and come looking for it.”

Knowing how much of a workaholic Optimus was, Ratchet saw the logic in your argument. “Very well, hand it over and I’ll take it over to him.”

“What if he’s recharging? You are way too big and loud to sneak in there. He’ll never notice if I slip in and drop this off. I’ll be in and out before he notices, promise.”

Ratchet scowled, evidently not trusting you to complete the task without bothering Optimus.

“Ratchet, if you go in there and wake him up, we both know you’ll never get him to rest again.”

Reluctantly, Ratchet withdrew his servo. “Fine, but be quick,” he snapped.

“You got it,” You said, trying to keep up your act as you walked the remaining length of the hallway where Optimus was waiting.

Upon entering Optimus’ hab-suite, you weren’t surprised to find that Optimus wasn’t resting. Instead he was hunched over his computer console, completing one of the million tasks he had as leader of the Autobots. Normally, you would have made a joke about his working habits or laughingly reprimanded him. However, you didn’t have any humour in you as your eyes traversed his body, noticing every dent, scrape, and odd patches of energon that had dried from crudely welded injuries.

Seeming to sense another presence, Optimus looked over, saying nothing when he saw you.

“Are you okay?” You asked quietly, wishing you had something better to say.

“(Y/N)…” Optimus sighed, hating that you had to see him like this.

Slowly, you padded over to him placing your hand over a recently welded cut on his leg. “Why didn’t you call me? You promised to call me. I would have been here for you.”

“I did not want to concern you.”

You shook your head angrily, “But you did, Optimus! You did! I had to hear this from Miko, and she’s vague at the best of times. Do you get that?! I heard you were injured from a kid! It should have come from you.” You didn’t really know why you were yelling, only that you couldn’t stop, and Optimus wasn’t arguing his own defence. “Look, I know we have to keep our relationship a secret from everyone else, but when did we start keeping stuff from each other? My God, say something!”

Optimus bent down, pressing a servo gently on your back, “I’m sorry.”

You huffed defeatedly, leaning into his touch, “Yeah… Me too. I didn’t mean to get worked up about it, but please, you have to tell me about stuff like this.”

Optimus withdrew his servo, unable to respond to your affections when guilt weighed so heavily upon his processor. You swallowed anxiously, sensing the change in the atmosphere, “Optimus, what’s wrong?”

“(Y/N), I believe that we need to talk.”

You nodded slowly, hoping that meant something different in Cybertronian terms than it did in human terms. “Okay.”

“I am…” Optimus searched for the right word to convey his feelings. “Concerned about your welfare. During my time on your planet, it has to my attention that humans put a great deal of effort into cultivating relationships that will last a lifetime. It would be selfish of me to remain with you when I cannot provide the lifestyle you deserve.”

“Optimus,” You breathed. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“Please, let me finish, you need to hear this. When I asked to be with you, I was being selfish, yet you complied. I then requested you keep the relationship secret and you agreed. I know if I asked anything of you now, you would say yes. When will the point come that I ask too much of you, presuming I haven’t already? You should not have to live a lie on my account.”

You shook your head, smiling adoringly at Optimus, your reaction shocking him completely. “I’d rather have every stolen moment I can get with someone I love than a lifetime with someone faking it.”

Optimus’ spark jolted, sending shivers up his spine at your declaration of love.

You bit your lip, backing away to the door, “I uh… I see I’ve given you a lot to think about, so I’ll leave you to get some rest. Goodbye Optimus.”

Optimus stood frozen in time, completely shut off from the world around him. He tried to put himself in your position but found himself unable to. He could never admit he loved you if you tried to break up with him, mainly because it would have broken him too much to hear. On top of that, he felt the familiar sense of selfishness that he so often got where you were concerned.

He called your name, limping out into the hallway after you. He expected that you might be long gone after such an awkward interaction, but as it turned out, he needed only to take a few steps out, finding you leaning against the wall with your head in your hands. You looked up tiredly, fearing that he’d come to end things once and for all.

His face became an expression of pure seriousness as he said, “I love you too.”

“Don’t run in the hallways Miko,” Miko said, immaturely imitating Ratchet’s stern voice. “Don’t be reckless Miko. Stop getting in the way Miko. Be quiet M-”

Miko stopped her sarcastic commentary, upon seeing you and Optimus in the hallway ahead of her. Optimus held you on his servo where you stood, kissing him ardently; by the looks of your tousled hair and flushed cheeks, the two of you had been at it for a while.

Miko rushed to grab her phone from her pocket, just in time to snap a picture before you and Optimus pulled apart, whispering in hushed tones. Miko crept away, admiring her picture and thinking about a lot of instances wherein you and Optimus had been together that were only now making sense. She couldn’t wait to tell the others about it and was going to wait for nothing to do so. The second she thought you and Optimus wouldn’t see her, she ran off, calling for the others.

While Miko raved about her photo to a group of startled Autobots and humans alike, Optimus placed you gently on the ground, wincing from his injuries on the way back up.

“I wish I didn’t have to go,” You said sorrowfully.

Optimus nodded solemnly, “Me too. May I escort you back?”

“No. You have to get some rest. Goodbye Optimus. I love you.”

“And I you, with all my spark.”

You gave a small wave, leaving him alone in the hallway as you made your way to the main room of the base where you would call upon a ground-bridge to take you home. You didn’t pay much attention to the conversation everyone was in, but you did notice when a sudden hush came over the room at your entry. All eyes and optics were on you, making you feel you’d done something wrong, though you couldn’t imagine what.

“Hey uh… Is something wrong?” You asked your new-found audience, looking from one face to another. Bulkhead and Jack were shifting uncomfortably, unsure of what to say, Bumblebee was making a series of clicks and whistles that Raf was unwilling to translate, Arcee simply stared at you as if impressed by you, Miko was grinning smugly, and Ratchet was shaking with undeniable fury.

It was Ratchet who broke first. He pointed an accusatory digit at you, growling, “You!”

“Me?” You forced a smile, fearing whatever was to come next in the mystery you had stumbled into.

“HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN GOING ON?!”

“Excuse me? I’m sorry, but what are you-”

“YOU AND OPTIMUS!”

“Me and-” You paled, looking to the others for help, but nobody said anything, each clearly waiting for some kind of explanation. “OPTIMUS,” You called, hoping he’d hear your distress and come running.

“DO NOT AVOID THE QUESTION!”

“OPTIMUS, GET IN HERE NOW!”

It took a minute but Optimus half-limped-half-ran into the bunker, clearly looking for some kind of attack. He glanced around, confused by the way everyone was looking at him and you.

“(Y/N), has there been some kind of problem?” Optimus asked curiously.

“Oh, I’d say so. They know about us.”

“About us?”

“Yes Optimus, about us.”

Optimus took another look at everyone’s faces, realisation dawning on him. He knew this was going to take some explaining, yet he didn’t know where to start. He glanced down at you, checking if you were okay and silently begging your help.

“Okay,” You sighed. “It’s kind of a long story, but if you let us explain, then you can chime in at the end.”

After an arduous discussion with multiple questions, an awful telling off from Ratchet, and many inappropriate jokes from Miko who you’d found to be the culprit, you and Optimus were finally free to recover in his hab-suite.

You stared guiltily at him, wondering exactly what this meant for the two of you. It was only a few hours ago that he was ready to break up with you, where did this put your relationship now? You found that you couldn’t sit and wait in the thoughtful silence Optimus had set.

“So… That could have gone better,” You said anxiously.

Optimus hummed stoically.

“I um- I can leave if you want. You clearly need your rest, and I’m just getting in the way of that.”

“This will change things,” Optimus commented pensively.

“Yes. Yes, it will.” You searched Optimus’ optics for answers or a hint of the future, “Optimus, is everything okay between us?”

Optimus looked at you as if he was seeing you for the very first time. The more people that knew about the two of you, the more danger you would be in. He wondered if he could put you in that kind of danger just to be with you, yet as he reached absently for you, he knew the answer.

“(Y/N), would you do me the honour of staying here tonight? I do not want to see you leave just yet.”

Your heart skipped a beat. Before, your secret relationship limited how much you could see Optimus and the opportunity to stay over had never come up. You smiled, fighting away emotional tears, “The honour is all mine.”

“I love you,” He said for the third time that day, growing to love how it sounded.

“Not as much as I love you.”

Like my work? Buy me a coffee and earn preview of the next fic, or commission me on the commissions page.

#tfp #transformers #transformers prime #maccadam #optimus prime #optimus prime x reader #fanfiction #fanfic #reader #reader insert #photo finish #Anonymous

364 notes · View notes

officerofcybertron · 5 years

Text

If All Were One: Return

@oneshallstand

Note: This RP is Canon Divergent where Optimus Prime survived and the end of the war happened on Earth when Megatron was defeated.

Stars and rays of light streamed past the large forward view screens on the bridge as Ultra Magnus walked forward onto the command deck with a purposeful stride. At one point in time a very different mech had traversed the same path Ultra Magnus was, but now the Nemesis had been recommissioned as the Autobot flagship: the Guardian and it was Ultra Magnus, and not Megatron, who commanded it.

Stopping short of the forward console where a young mech by the name of Databank was positioned Ultra Magnus looked up at the screen, folding his arms behind his back in a parade rest. His optics moved to take in the visual contrast of the bridge from when he and the Wreckers had stormed it during their attack on the Decepticon ship on Earth. Formerly lit by purple and red lights, the bridge now hosted the off-white and blue lighting favored by Autobots. Much of the computer systems had remained as they were, but without the sinister lighting the dark gray of the ship looked clean and well maintained.

“Ultra Magnus, sir,” greeted Databank, turning to look at the commander. From all around the bridge other mechs and one or two femmes also turned from their stations.

“Databank,” Ultra Magnus greeted in return, “prepare to drop from sub-light at my signal.” At his words the air within the command center crew tense and expectant. A thrum of energy seemed to surge from everyone who’d gathered – and it was quite a gathering. In two’s and three’s, the crewmembers and residents on board the Guardian had joined the command team on the bridge. Ultra Magnus could feel the fluctuations of their EM fields and the intensity of their optics on his back.

“Yes sir,” Databank replied crisply, but even the professional air with which he returned to his station could not diminish the smile that played across his features. Ultra Magnus took a moment to look at the faces of the others that had gathered and on them he saw Databank’s smile reflected.

“Disengage sub-light drive in three,” Ultra Magnus began to count down and the air frizzed with excitement, “two,” frames stiffened and in that moment the only sounds to be heard was the humming of Cybertronian systems. “One.”

With a great roar of its systems the Guardian dropped out of sub-light speed. Gravity gripped at Ultra Magnus’ frame and like many individuals on the ship he rocked ever so gently as they slowed, but the silence did not dissipate. Instead it grew deeper. For on the forward screen was Cybertron.

It was not the Cybertron that Ultra Magnus had left, however. No longer was it dark. No longer was it poisoned. Instead it seemed to glow with life and shimmering metal. Energon wellsprings blossomed on the planet’s surface. Cities rebuilt and the Well of All Sparks brighter than a star.

The crowd of cybertronians that had gathered gazed at the planet not unlike a hungry pack of hyenabots and yet still there was no sound. There was no laughter, there were no words. Instead the fluctuations of EM Fields rolled; joy, sorrow, fear, trepidation, and confusion all roiled together in a tempest, but at the center of that tempest stood Ultra Magnus. A point of calm within the hurricane. One by one all optics returned their gaze to Ultra Magnus who turned to look at those who’d gathered. Turning his back momentarily of the visage of their home world to address those who were looking to him.

“Autobots,” Ultra Magnus said, his voice carrying with confidence over the silence. “Welcome home.”

A cheer that evolved into a roar erupted from the gathered mechs and Ultra Magnus was certain that cheer could be heard throughout the ship as others watched from smaller viewing screens throughout the halls and rooms of the Guardian. Hands slapped shoulders, individuals who’d fought for millions of years together embraced, and more than a handful dropped to their knees; armor shaking from the relief. All of it told Ultra Magnus what they were all thinking: It’s over. It’s finally over. Their home, their world, their planet. The war was really over.

“Incoming ship, this is Cybertron Command, please identify yourself. Over.” A hail came from over the communication’s channel and Ultra Magnus raised his hands to ask for quiet. Every single voice lowered allowing Ultra Magnus to turn and look at their communication’s officer; Blaster.

“Cybertron Command, this is the Guardian do you read me?” Blaster’s voice had a distinct radio-announcer, hip-hop, beat to it. Ultra Magnus had often thought the mech would have fit in well on Earth. “I repeat, this is the Guardian under command of Ultra Magnus. We’re back, we’re stacked with survivors, and we’re ready to bring it home.”

“Guardian we read you,” the voice on the opposite line sounded as excited as Blaster. “We’ve got docking bay C reserved and ready to accept you. Please provide an ETA on your arrival. Over.”

“We copy you, Cybertron Command. Dig it, we should reach planet side in twelve hours. So have the high grade ready because tonight there’s a crew of mechs on board who’re ready to par-tay.”

“Copy, Guardian. We look forward to welcoming you home. Continue along your current vector. Cybertron Command out.”

“You got it, Cybertron Command, Guardian out.”

Ultra Magnus would not normally condone the manner in which Blaster facilitated communications, but ultimately the music-loving mech was exceptionally adept at any and all broadcast types. With his help they had avoided traps and pitfalls that would have otherwise possibly cost the small, initially rag-tag, crew their lives.

“Databank, you have the bridge,” Ultra Magnus ordered over the now tumultuous shouts and cheers of celebrations. Databank turned and looked up at Ultra Magnus.

“Sir?”

“I need to organize prisoner transport details and ready my report for Optimus Prime,” Ultra Magnus explained.

“Understood,” Databank’s reply was immediate and as he stepped back away from the control panel another mech by the name of Hardlock stepped up to take his place, but only after slapping Databank on the back jovially. Databank smiled at gently patted the larger Hardlock on the shoulder, but before he could call out attention that Ultra Magnus was leaving the bridge Ultra Magnus raised a hand to stop him.

“Let them celebrate,” Ultra Magnus said. “Right now the important thing is that they’ve made it home.” Without another word Ultra Magnus made his way down from the deck, stepping in-between individuals and offering words and the occasional hand on a shoulder in celebration, but while the others celebrated, he had work that needed to be done.

Not everyone on board the Guardian was returning of their own free will. There were prisoners, individuals who had made their lives by preying on small mining outposts, colonies, and ships that fell victim to their traps. There were a few Decepticons who’s crimes meant Ultra Magnus was duty bound to return them to Cybertron where they might face justice and then there were two individuals who had admitted to being pirates and who, disturbingly, did not consider themselves Cybertronian at all, but rather declared that all Cybertronians were their enemies.

And then there were whispers. Whispers of a not-so alien force that still existed on the edges of the universe.

There was a great deal to write down in his report to Optimus and Ultra Magnus intended it to be as clear and concise as he was capable of.

Cybertron Command was abuzz with excitement. The Guardian had returned to Cybertron. Six years prior Ultra Magnus had set out under Optimus Prime’s direction to collect survivors and refugees unable to return under their own power. Now they were back. With how many Autobots was anyone’s guess, but the news was something to be celebrated.

Rather than simply send a comm. to Optimus Prime a mech, named Breakneck, was sent directly to the Prime’s office with a datapad detailing the time and decent of the Guardian to the planet’s surface. He was stimined only momentarily outside of Optimus’ office, but a quick word of the reason for his visit to Optimus’ secretary was enough to gain him immediate entrance.

“Optimus Prime, sir,” Breakneck said as he ran in through the doors. The excitement in his EM field impossible to miss. “Sir I have some news you’re definitely going to want to hear!”

The runner offered out the datapad, but he could not wait until the Prime read through the report that had been placed on it. Instead he blurted out, his voice a rush:

“Optimus… the Guardian has returned!”

#If All Were One #oneshallstand #CanonDivergent

3 notes · View notes

twitchesandstitches · 5 years

Text

I’ve got a few questions here and there for Optimus so I’d like to clarify a few additional details about him!

he is, in the current state of the metaplot, in the Great Library of Wan Shi Tong; how he got their is a mystery, but its the reason he’s been missing. Having wound up there, he is unable to leave the pocket realm under his own power, but this has kept him alive for a long time whne otherwise he might well have died.

Well, inconvenced him, at least. Optimus cannot die. In the mythology of this AU, Prime is not a simple title, but a direct anointment by Primus Herself to act as Her voice and communicate the will of Primus to all things, leading the world into a new age. They are given different abiltiies, in addition to absolutely ludicrous raw strength, to fulfill this goal. In Optimus’ case, whenever he is killed, his indestructible spirit returns to his body, piecing it back together, and he rises anew to continue his quest.

“Until Cybertron is whole once again, and ‘til all are one, you may not rest. Not until your task is done.” So spake Primus when She bequeathed him the Matrix of Leadership, signifying his position as Prime, and it was quite literal. No matter what happens, he will not stay dead. Melted into slag? He regenerates. Blasted into a billion bits of scrap? They come back together, and he rises again. No matter how badly he is beaten, no matter how dire the odds, Optimus Prime will never give up. He’ll always get back up and never stop fighting.

Nevertheless, he has been worn by the long battles of his lifetime, and genuinely lost hope many times. He comes to the Fleet, rescued from the Library by them, and is shocked to find that things are... better, a new massive fleet of heroes, and his Autobots among them! He joins them, osteniably as a religious figure, but unwillingly becomes a part of the inner circle of heroes, for not even Rose Quartz is as highly respected as Optimus Prime in freedom fighters. He relents, provided no one puts him in charge.

His time in the library has allowed him to return to his greatest joy in life; learning! Optimus has learned much in his unwilling exile, including much about the nature of reality and magic itself, and he is gradually teaching all his knowledge to the Fleet, and takes a central role as a father to the children of the Fleet, and has administered to much of the legal code to make it as Just as possible. All those who revere wisdom and righteousness regard him as a living embodiment of Lawful Good.

Of note, though, Optimus has a complicated relationship with King Grimlock. The two have been best friends for eons... of the ‘fuck you, I’m gonna kick the SHIT OUT OF YOU’ sort, rivals who always fought and respected each other, but they have never seen eye to eye. Optimus views Grimlock as a vengeful hothead whose lust for retribution may cause more harm than it heals, while Grimlock considers him a stubborn academic who could have ended the war if only he had just killed Megatron when he had the chance. Optimus believes in mercy and change; Grimlock in vengeance and justice. They’ve settled into an uneasy truce, though Grimlock believes Optimus deliberately abandoned the fight in favor of playing the long game, and resents him for leaving them to fight alone for so long. Optimus, for his part, has seen unspeakable horrors in his long exile, and really dislikes the implication that his torment was pleasant.

He has return to his beloved, Elita-1, and lives aboard her ship body! In the old days, he was the diplomatic leader of the proto-Autobots, while she was a charismatic rebel figure working to expel jetformer dominance from their homeland of Iacon. He the spiritual heart, she the fierce leader. They maintain this relationship into the present day.

Of particular note concern to Optimus is that he has not been called to pass on the Matrix yet. Cybertron, since rejoining the Fleet, has been restored to full function, and serves as the central part of the Fleet’s home system. The Autobots have returned home, and Cybertron teems with life. Why then, is his mission not fulfilled? He believes that Primus’ mission, to unite all things, means to unite all sapient life in all the multiverse, within the Fleet. He has resigned himself to being Prime for some time longer, but he believes for the first time in a long while that it really IS possible!

finally, Optimus and Rose apparently knew each other in their respective youth! They wrote to each other, bridging the gap between Gem and Transformer, and became good friends before wars tore their lives apart. They are still good friends, and much changed from the people they were. The relationship... MIGHT have been platonic, but its a big might. They certainly are very friendly with one another, but its hard to say if its them flirting or them just playing an elaborate charade in order to confuse people for the hell of it.

Optimus’ personality here is a gestalt of his different incarnations; given the light tone, he is primarily based off of the more easy going and silly G1 incarnation; jokes about having a lock picking technique before shooting the door, loves obnoxious dad puns, and hes just a good ol’ charmer with a weird sense of humor. He used to be like Animated Optimus back when he was a younger bot named Orion Pax, and there’s elements of IDW Optimus in his angrier, more revealing moments. Most of all, he is like Beast Wars Optimus Primal; he’s funny, prone to making snide comments at his more annoying friends, and he takes a relaxed approach to leadership, but he’s very uncompromising when it comes to justice and he does NOT suffer fools or people trying to play mind games with him.

He’s a wise but somewhat embittered and spiritually worn out figure. He is TIRED; he’s been alive for so long, seen all he’s worked for ground to dust over and over. He’s seen his people go nearly extinct, watched a close friend go mad with greed and give himself over to the Mother of Annihiliation on purpose, and for all his power, he could not save all the planets the Decepticons ravaged. The situation has improved, but nonetheless, he’s tired of watching people die.

Optimus here may be considered a paladin, in D&D terms! He’s a noble warrior blessed by Primus, with his various abilities as divinely powered gifts. He is incredibly strong (able to punch a city into dust with a single hit), just as durable, and on top of that, he is one of the most experienced leaders and warriors alive. He’s been fighting for longer than some civilizations have existed, and he has learned well; few can best him in combat experience, and he uses this as a teacher to instruct others.

He is a multiformer as well, and his favorite forms include heavy duty modes that emphasize stamina over other features! He can become an alien truck, shifting his excess kibble into a large trailer; this trailer can transform into a flying drone and weapons bunker that carries some of the Fleet’s nastiest weaponry, and in robot mode, it transforms into a kind of power armor that is normally integrated into his body. He can also transform into a giant robotic bat (prior to joining the Fleet, it was his primary mode) and he spends much of his time in this flying shape, lurking in libraries and vowing revenge against the Dewey Organizing System. He can also turn into a massive mechanical gorilla, a battle-ready flying tank, and a more conventional ground tank. (In short, his G1 mode, his Prime modes, and his Beast Wars modes are all options!)

He forms the crucial component in many combiners; he is the heart of the legendary Last Autobot combiner formed of every single Autobot in existence to make a planet-sized super-Transformer and vessel for Primus, and he and Elita-1 can fuse into an embodiment of their love and fighting spirit named Star Saber (not an individual character here, but reimagined as a combiner).

#queued #twitchy!transformers #twitchy!optimus

1 note · View note

hanaby-3 · 6 years

Text

TransformFriday

Okay, this is an idea that I've been meditating for a long time but I think now is the perfect time to carry it out. Because my favorite comic book (Transformers MTMTE-LL) will soon come to an end, I have decided to carry out this idea: my own Top Ten of favorite transformers... drawing version! The truth is that the end of MTMTE and LL generates me many mixed emotions: on the one hand I am happy because at last I will be able to know the end of the story and I will not observe how my favorite series becomes the next infinitetale (I will not say names ... but we all know who they are ...) but on the other hand I'm so sad about it. This is a story that has marked me and I know that when the comic ends I will no longer be the same person as before. This (at least for me) is a special moment, comparable to when Inuyasha, Death Note and Evangelion ended. I remember fondly when I started reading it: back then I still had the hype of transformers prime and I was looking for more things about it and then a friend in a forum recommended Transformers More Than Meets the Eye and I started reading it (specifically I got it in chapter 18, the house of ambus) and I was speechless with what I found. All the characters were so similar and at the same time so different from everything I already knew. I remember how I was surprised by the lore and all the mythology that had been assembling around the transformable robots and seeing how a world was created so unique and credible with such a cliche premise and yet I fell completely in love with it. I hallucinated with neurosurgery and empurata, I loved how action and psychology were balanced in about 20 pages in such a harmonious way, and the characters ... my god, the characters! I love how James Roberts takes you by the hand and makes you walk the halls of lost light with his characters, I remember being so sad with Tailgate's disease, getting excited about the battle between cyclones and Starsaber, to love and hate the same time to Tarn for his personality, to be moved for the scavengers, the evolution of rodimus and Megatron. For my Transformers it has not been another series of my childhood. James Roberts and Alex Minle have taught me what someone can do with dedication, hard work and a lot of imagination and their comics are not an empty reading. Thanks to this story I have learned so many important lessons from life and myself, I have come to learn how strong and courageous I can be. Thanks to MTMTE I was encouraged to write and draw my first comic, I learned that the hardest It is forgiveness to yourself, I have learned that it is not bad to ask for help and how powerful teamwork is, thanks to TMTMTE I wrote my degree thesis ... My God I can say it, Thanks to Transformers I got graduated! And finally, thanks to MTMTE transformers I still find the strength to continue doing what I like, which is to draw. That's why I decided to celebrate these last months of Transformers drawing my ten favorite characters and of course explaining why every Friday (of course the position 1 and 2 already know them, I'll leave you below the links if you're interested) because the end of this wonderful saga will also mark the end of a stage of my life and is that the truth, without TMTMTE I would be a completely different person and that is why it is and always will be one of my favorite series.

Top Ten

1.-Prowl

If you have read any of the wreckers comics then you know that Prowl is a bastard. He is not a noble, kind, or honest hero, I can not even call him good. Actually Prowl is a villain who "fortunately" plays for the good side. If I had to define Prowl in a word that would be hate. He hates the decepticons, he hates the new cybertron, he hates his leader/friends for not listening him, even I think that sometimes he hates himself, his life and especially his failures and that's why I love it. I love the contradiction and the final message of Prowl: hatred has turned him into what he most detests. Ironically, Prowl is more decepticon than many cons and at the same time that hate is the fuel that drives him to improve every new plan and fight for a future and a peace that may get to destroy him. He is cruel, manipulative and ruthless but also has moments of weakness and even compassion ................. although he is still a bastard and has not been able to overcome his ex-boyfriend. I love Prowl because he is not a character, he is a person, he is very real and very human and the world and his own decisions have made him into what he is today.

2.- Starscream

Leaving megatron aside, my favorite decepticon is Starscream. Either in comics or in the animated series Screamer always amuses me and always manages to make me smile ... basically because I love to see him fail in everything he does. I do not joke, either bad luck or his own ambition always make him fail. If Prowl is hatred, Starscream is ambition. he reminds me a little the homuncle of FMAB Greed, he wants it all, power, wealth, fame, fear, respect and especially the decepticon leadership.

He knows he is the best option to be the leader of the decepticons and he is an incredibly ruthless person who does not hesitate to lie, murder and manipulate everyone to meet their own whims but like Prowl Star is much more than just ambition. I'm not going to say that he's not so bad or he can redeem himself or some stupidity of the style (I really hate that) but Starscream has a reason to be like that. He is an incredibly lonely person who has struggled to survive before, during and after the war. He has learned that he can not count on anyone because sooner or later they will betray him and that is why he only sees the people around him as pawns. He's logic: if you do not approach or attach to anyone they can not betray you. deep down he knows that sooner or later his bad deeds will overtake him and he must prepare himself.

And yet Starscrean has virtues as great as his flaws: he is incredibly determined and hardworking, when he wants something he does not skimp on resources, time or effort in getting it, he is extremely intelligent (probably not as much as Prowl but he is a force to have in account) and he always learns from his mistakes. I would say that's why he has had such a long reign in comics and even has moments of humanity and genuine compassion. Maybe he really wants to redeem himself ... but he knows that he is beyond all salvation and that for him it is too late.

3.-Cyclonus

The truth is that this is a character that I find it hard to talk about, basically because he is someone I love so much and I identify so much that I block myself.

I will start strong: Cyclonus is my perfect waifu, he is a revision to the classic stereotype of the solitary warrior and constantly reminds us that every age, however dark or terrible it may have been, created beauty. Fuck, Cyclonus loves any form of art: music, writing, architecture and also he is a killing machine that can slice just about anyone, what else could you ask for? And in spite of him being so cultured he has a huge darkness inside him, of course Cy is fully aware of that and always tries to channel it ... with mixed results.

But the truth is that the feature with which I most identify with cyclonus is his sense of honor and loyalty, that is something that resonates a lot with me. The moment that I see Cyclonus is willing to do him on the side in order to ensure the happiness of the person he loves the most is something that makes my throat tighten. Besides that his relationship with Tailgate is the best yaoi I've read, let's be honest and he has the best sentence ever written. you want to know? You will have to read the comic because the spoiler is not from God.

4.- Megatron

Of course Megsi was to be in my topten, he is almost a god in my pantheon (sorry optimus). I love all the incarnations of Megatron except for the transformers prime novel (seriously, a revolutionary who hates the primes but he wants to be a prime …. what the hell?) But my favorite so far is the IDW Megatron , he is a very complex character that goes through different stages: fallen, self-discovery, acceptance, temptation, redemption … all a carousel of emotions. He pass from being a ruthless murderer to a pacifist in constant conflict with himself. Although my favorite aspect about megatron is its moral: we all deserve a second chance … but redeption is not as easy as bowing your head and apologizing. Throughout MTMTE and LL Megs works every minute of his life to redeem his mistakes even when he knows they are too big and as he advances towards his death he knows perfectly well that there is a possibility that no one will forgive him but that does not stop him. Megatron words always resonate strongly within me: We are all work in progress.

5.- RungMy second perfect waifu and a cinnamon roll too pure for this world. Rung is the most adorable autobot ever drawn … until he takes off his glasses and becomes the greatest latinlover ever created. But leaving aside my inclination for robots, Rung is an incredible character, I know that many joke about the theory which says that Rung is the self-inception of Roberts, but I think that rather Rung is the connection with the reader. He is a character that has been kept at bay from most problems by having a very convenient good luck, he is skinny, short, lovable, sometimes too much kind and he prefers conversation rather than confrontation but he is not weak On the contrary, Rung has incredible mental and emotional strength. he has not only endured that everyone, absolutely ALL mispronounce his name at least once, Rung listens to the problems and confessions of others around him to make a living; he literally knows the worst of all, he knows the darkness that dwells within each of his companions … and that never stops him from helping or comforting others. If I had to define the role of Rung in some archetype that would be the maternal one. Of course there are parents in fiction who are loving and protective, but the mother figure always ends up being kinder, the comforter and the one that drives you to improve and that is precisely the raxon for which I love Rung.I have met many maternal characters but what makes the difference with Rung (besides being male) is the moment in which (spoiler alert) during the kidnapping of Fortress Maximus, Rewind reproduces a part of the torture in Garrus 9 and Max, realizing that he is doing exactly the same as Overlord and reliving those horrible memories, he throws himself to the ground to mourn and Rung, with a patience of a saint, despite the kidnapping and even though Max had yanked his thumb out… he surrounds him with a kind arm and tells him that everything will be fine and everything ends for today. That’s something my mother could have done.Because deep down Rung is that, he is kindness and he teaches us the strength found in compassion and as the functionalist universe demonstrates, Rung possesses incredible strength of character and determination and he is capable of giving his life to save those who he care … and that’s a large number of people.

6.- ...

7.- ...

8.- ...

9.- ...

10.- ...

#topten #topten trasformers #transformers #transformers mtmte #prowl #starscream #cyclonus mtmte #megatron #rung

5 notes · View notes

mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune · 3 years

Text

My Thoughts When Heroes Become Anti-Heroes

first we knows how The Ending of The End Part 1 to 2 went down...

even if both episodes were still awesome, one part of it wasn't so great... and that is the whole turning Cozy, Tirek and Chrysalis to stone... and yet Discord was the one who started it in the first place.... Celestia, Luna and Discord really couldn't of just I don't know, maybe had the three go to the Human World

that Sunset lives, since Sunset appeared in The Last Problem, it means that she is canon. didn't they learn the last few times that stone spell was used, that it doesn't truly solve anything.

what it might do, is cause Cozy, Chrysalis and Tirek to form Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. or PTSD for short, but it shouldn't be mistaken for the other types of PTSD that doesn't have "Stress" in their names.

I believe that Fiona Fox had PTSD, and even if he might not show it, I believe that Scourge The Hedgehog could of had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as well. plus it is possible that the relationship of Scourge and Fiona, wasn't pure "in love" feelings.

but at the same time, they could of still cared for each other, but what they thought was romantic feelings, was more likely knowing how it feels to be hurt by those who called themselves "good guys".... Fiona was hurting, and it only got worse when the other freedom fighters didn't understand that and had distrust for her.

I believe that she had enough and turned back to her old ways, because she wasn't welcome by the freedom fighters. yes I believe now, that Fiona and Scourge's relationship, to be a toxic relationship.

I also want to say that I don't blame Lauren for that Ending of The End Part 1 to 2.

I know they didn't have anything to do with that, but I guess I shouldn't blame those who had Discord, Celestia and Luna pull a Anti-Hero move....

and I know some fans think it was 100% okay that it happen that way.

but I and a few other fans will have to disagree on that.

plus if Chrysalis already had PTSD, then being placed in stone, might make it much worse than it is now.

I can't agree with Anti-Hero moves that some characters make. like when Star Butterfly decides to destroy the magic, the last episodes were still awesome, even to the end where dimensions become one and the same.

but placing the blame on the magic, that HER FAMILY misused, is NOT okay. that is just as bad as the Player/Frisk making Chara the scapegoat, which gave birth to the AU versions of Chara where they truly do use Frisk,

but in the canon it isn't Chara who starts the whole Geno Routes.

Star could of came up with a spell to kill Mina and The rest of the Solarian Warriors that Moon help make.

but even that would be going too far, but making the Magic the scapegoat, when it was her family that kept misusing it, was not okay.

I don't think I will ever understand why they had to have characters from both SVTFOE and MLPFIM pull Anti-Hero moves.

we know that there will be Anti-Heroes and Anti-Villains. take Optimus Prime from TFA, even if Starscream did place a small device on Megatron to go Boom. it wasn't him that caused Megatron to be thrown out the ship, that was Optimus. so even if Starscream did cause Megatron to become injured, it was Optimus who caused Megatron to be fully destroyed, and his head ending up in Sumdac's Lab.

Optimus even tried to place the blame on Starscream when he was Lockdown's captive.

plus it isn't like the Autobots are all innocent, because of how the Decepticons became "The Decepticons" in the first place. even if in most of the Transformers Timelines, the history of how the Decepticons formed because of mistreatment, might not be in all the timelines, but it could of still be placed in some timelines.

and yet most Autobots think they are the innocent, but really they aren't, well the Autobots that just became Autobots that had nothing to do with what happen during when the two factions first formed, it is the new generation of both Autobots and Decepticons that are 100% innocent from what the first Autobots and Decepticons have started.

Homeworld Gems and Autobots are kind of the same, same goes for Decepticons and Crystal Gems being the same. but there is still differences too, the Crystal Gems wanted to protect the life growing on Earth. and Autobots well, if the Autobots truly did force the Decepticons from Cybertron in Transformers Animated... then they are no better than how the Homeworld Gems use to be, but at least they reformed. yes the Crystal Gems was able to force The Homeworld Gems off of Earth, but a lot of gems on both sides ended up hurt. Lapis wasn't even a Crystal Gem during that time, and she ended up hurt by both sides. it is possible she had formed PTSD when she was mirror.

Steven's Mom, was both a Good & Bad person....she caused problems that Steven felt he needed to fix.

and at some point Steven ended up in a dark place, I'm not sure if he ended up with PTSD, but we do know that because of what he went through and his Mother's actions, it caused him to view her different, and even started to see his Dad being just like her.

even if Greg was both Good & Bad like Rose, his view of his parents couldn't been right. there are two sides to every story, and Greg might of not seen the full picture on why his parents treated him the way they did.

Steven wasn't really a Anti-Hero, but more like a Hero who was becoming emotionally hurt. just when he was becoming better, his Dad made him go right back to feeling really bad.

and with the money that Greg got from his old partner Marty, he could of taken Steven to the hospital or even send him to school.

well send him to school or get someone to come to Steven's home to teach him, because not everyone is able to handle school.

I mean if both teachers and other students give off too much energies, it could cause seizures to those who are sensitive to energies, from both people and some supernaturals.

such energies causing a person to form seizures can be misdiagnosed, which of course will have doctors who don't know anything about those kind of seizures,

to get ya medicine that you freaking didn't need in the first place, all ya did need is to get as far away from the town and people that were giving off such dangerous energies,

and maybe get some gems to protect you from energies even in the new less negative place you end up living at next.

we can see Energies as Magical Energies, and they can be dangerous to those

who are very sensitive to them if they are not of their own Magic Energy.

I asked my pendulum if unicorns are real, and it gave me a "Yes"

I even asked if I was a Unicorn with Wings in one of my past lives, and it gave me a Yes....

so since Unicorns with Wings are called Alicorns in this day and age,

it means I was technically a Alicorn in one of my past lives, I mean if it isn't one of my pendulum's pranks. but being reborn as a animal and not just a human, might be good....but I think I rather just be reborn as a human. my pendulum even gave me a Yes, when I asked if I was a Dire Wolf in one of my past lives. and it seems in both my lives of being a Dire Wolf and Unicorn With Wings (also known as a Alicorn today.) I was always Female, well biologically female.

I kind of hope that my being a Dire Wolf and Alicorn in one of my past lives, isn't one of my pendulum's pranks.

I hope that no one takes this the wrong way, but I don't EVER want to be reborn as a Male Human....

or Male anything, I guess it be find if I was reborn as a Female who happen to be Intersex.

but I really don't want to be reborn as a Male, I have my reasons....

I mean even if there can be Male Humans I can trust, most of my past life problems have been caused by Men...

and it is good thing I can't remember it, but I think it can be possible for someone to remember a little...

I know that most of my past life problems were caused by Females too...

my pendulum gave me a Yes,

when I asked if I was aborted in one of my past lives.

(but it could be pulling a prank about that, or it could be true.)

but I just don’t think I would be comfortable being reborn as a Male....

also I asked my pendulum, and the little girl who is known as Rosalia Lombardo is in fact haunting her body,

but her soul is not in the body itself, the soul and the body of Rosalia Lombardo that is being persevered, are bonded....so if the reborn soul of Rosalia is alive today, they would be unknowingly haunting their past life body.

so if it is true, then any time someone sees a persevered body open their eyes, it is because of them being bonded to their soul that has a new body and went through rebirth.

I asked my pendulum if I am Rosalia Lombardo's reincarnation, and it gave a Yes. but it could be one of it's pranks, but still I guess it could possibly be true... the yellow bow on top of Rosalia's head is really cute, but if it is true that we are one and the same soul.

that would mean that Rosalia was a Earth Angel.

I even asked my pendulum if the Rosalia body only opens their eyes when I sleep, and it gave a Yes.

but it could be joking about that, I mean it isn't like that is true...at least I think it isn't.

so if a persevered body who's soul has left that body, open their eyes. it could be because of the bond of the soul and it's original body. if I had to, I would pray that I stop haunting that body I use to be the home of my soul....

I can take a guess what would happen if I do so, I don't know if my pendulum is being truthful or not,

but I asked it if I do just that, will it caused my past life body to turn to dust, and it gave a Yes.

I'm not really sure if it is true, but I think it might be for the best to at least try, even if people might be upset. but if it is true that body was me in a past life, then I have a right to stop myself from haunting it.

it is time for that part of myself be given true peace, I'm not even sure it will even happen, but if it does, then I guess my pendulum wasn't pulling a prank on me about Rosalia Lombardo aka "The Sleeping Beauty" being my past life self...I mean if it is true, but there is a chance that it is one of it's pranks.

anyway after I post this up, I will get to work on praying that I stop haunting my past life body of Rosalia Lombardo.

I mean if it is true, but it could turn out my pendulum is just on one of it's prank kicks....

anyway back to the whole Anti-Hero talk, I still can't agree with the whole Anti-Hero move that happen in MLPFIM or SVTFOE,

even if the last episodes of those two shows were still awesome and good, but I can't agree with Magic taking the fall for those who had misused it,

or Discord getting away with what he did, and Cozy, Chrysalis and Tirek ending up as the scapegoats.

also it is possible that the power of the element of harmony, do not have the power to turn living beings to stone.

this spell could only be done by those who know a stone spell, and the elements of harmony can only heal and bring those who have been turned to stone back to flesh.

when Cozy, Chrysalis and Tirek are turned to stone, they are turned that way by Discord, Luna and Celestia. not the elements of harmony or those who truly represent them, and from what we can understand, there is more than one Tree of Harmony.

it can very well be possible that there is a Tree of Harmony in the human world that Sunset now calls home.

what if Moondancer was suppose to be one who was suppose to become the Princess of Friendship, not Twilight?

what if Sunset was suppose to be part of the elements of harmony in her original world, but then when she started to form friendships in the human world, she started to become one of the elements of harmony in that world instead. what if Bubbly Hooves (also known by Derpy Hooves, but I like calling her by one of her other names which is "Bubbly" now, because it seems better.) is Loyalty, Vinyl Scratch is Generosity and Octavia Melody is Inspiration, well I think it could be possible....

but what if Moondancer, Sunset Shimmer, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia Melody, Doctor Chrono Whooves, Amethyst Star, Lyra Heartstrings and Sweetie "Bonbon" Drops were suppose to find the elements of harmony instead of Twilight and her friends?

but that would possibly be in a Alternate Timeline, but I can't help but think that Sci-Twi might really be the counterpart of Moondancer.

don't misunderstand, and just think I believe that because of them both wearing glasses, I wear glasses too you know.

but I think it is possible that the Twilight we have known from Season 1, might really be different.... Twilight could of been given memories of Moondancer, who was truly the one that hatched Spike's egg.

the Twilight we know as Sci-Twi, might be Moondancer's twin sister and Twilight Velvet and Night Light, could be Moondancer's real parents who's memories were altered. Twilight Sparkle could really be a Magical Pony Homunculus that was created. the real Twilight Sparkle who would then be Sci-Twi, ended up taken from her real family and given to homunculus clones of just her father, mother and older brother, then taken to the human world to live there. while Moondancer was given to a pony who was the niece of her mother Twilight Velvet.

it's fine that no one agrees about that theory, but what if it were true.... that the Princess Twilight we known for so long, turned out to be a clone/homunculus that replaced Sci-Twi? maybe that would be better in a Fanon Alternate Timeline.

there is no way that would be canon, I mean fanon yes, but it wouldn't be canon...

no one has to agree with me or others who believe that Cozy, Tirek and Chrysalis were wronged, and the whole turning them to stone was a Anti-Hero move...if the elements did in fact heal them, and doesn't have the power to turn them or any living being to stone, this power might very well be magic that can only be done by those who know the spell for it.

so yeah I now believe that the elements of harmony can not truly turn someone to stone, but are able to heal and bring back those who were turned to stone.

it be kind of interesting if my pendulum was being truthful about one of my past lives being a winged unicorn, which is known now as a Alicorn. like I said many times before, it tend to pull pranks when it isn't being truthful.

so if nothing happens to the Rosalia Lombardo-Body, after I pray to Divine Father & Mother for me to stop haunting it and for my original body be given true peace, then I think I will go watch season 2 of Transformers Animated.

I had been watching some cartoons on my Xbox, well DVDs on my Xbox.

like Sonic Underground, it be nice if Sonia and Manic became canon in the Sega games of Sonic The Hedgehog.

once again my pendulum giving me a Yes, about me being Rosalia Lombardo’s reincarnation, could very well be one of it’s pranks.

but I don’t think I should ignore it if it turns out it isn’t pranking me.

and if it turns out every time I go to sleep, the eyes of Rosalia start to open.

my pendulum gave a Yes, when I asked if Rosalia’s father having persevered the body was a sin, and it went clockwise fast for Yes.

I asked my pendulum, and it seems that preserving a Earth Angel’s original body, is a sin...so Rosalia’s father who had someone persevere the body,

committed a sin, so if my pendulum isn’t pulling a prank on me and it giving a “Yes” or “No” is true.

then it means that the eyes that open on persevere bodies,

are being haunted by their reincarnations, and when their reincarnations sleep, the eyes do open....

I mean it is still possible that my pendulum is pulling a prank about that.

but that would be interesting for some kind of story.

but I’m still gonna pray that I no longer haunt my supposedly original body,

but if nothing happens, like the persevere body doesn’t turn to dust by some miracle after I do pray for myself to no longer haunt or be bonded to that original body I had in a past life, then I will know that my pendulum was just pulling a prank on me.

again even though I really love MLPFIM and SVTFOE,

but I just can’t agree with the Anti-Hero actions that happen in the final seasons.

I do hope to get a real complete series DVD of Star Vs The Forces of Evil.

it isn’t fair that it is only on Prime Videos, where you can either only buy a episode or season, and it sure isn’t gonna be send to you by mail.

which really sucks, because I would like to get a DVD box of SVTFOE.

and hopefully they don’t make it too expensive.

not everyone can go past $100...

I’m thinking of changing my tumblr name, but I still want to make sure others still know it’s me, so I could save the original name by writing it down on my tumblr page.

I guess I can think about it a bit more.

I think after I do pray the prayer that I need to do.

I will check out some stuff on here after doing that, and then I will go and watch Season 2 of Transformers Animated.

and maybe watch a Movie with family too.

once again it be nice if it turned out my pendulum wasn’t pulling a prank

about one of my past lives being a Winged Unicorn, plus it be even more awesome if the whole me being a Dire Wolf in one of my past lives would be really REALLY awesome.

but I still think I would like to be reborn as human, even if some humans are not all that great....I have a better chance living a bit longer as a human than as a animal....because you know, how most humans treat animals...

but if my pendulum is being truthful, Earth Angels don’t reborn as Animals anymore....

I asked my pendulum and it gave a No.

but it’s fine that no one thinks this is true or agrees about it.

I mean some people still believe that Lucifer and Satan are one and the same,

but there not.

but even if it were true that Lucifer is the true father of Cain,

he still ain’t the boss of me, and I’m still technically rebelling against him.

because of me having started to once in a while,

pray that the Anti-Christ never fulfills the prophecy, and their power keeps sealed and they just live a normal life and find happiness.

I can only hope that my pendulum is joking about the whole Lord of Terror.

I asked my pendulum if the Lord of Terror is biologically female,

and it gave a Yes.

well the Lord of Terror from Sgt Frog is female.

I asked the pendulum if the Anti-Christ is biologically male, and it gave a Yes.

seriously it is fine that no one believes about it.

my pendulum gives me Yes or No replies by how it moves.

so blame it on my pendulum, not me.

according to my pendulum, the reason why the Lord of Terror prophecy wasn’t fulfilled, was because she was not in the place where it would be fulfilled.

which might be a good thing, that is if it were true...

but I’m still gonna hope that the info I asked about the lord of terror, isn’t 100% true and my pendulum is just pulling a prank.

I’m also gonna pray for the Vaccines to help everyone,

anyway it’s fine that those who are either Religious or Atheist,

don’t agree about my believing most of the things that my pendulum gives a Yes or No to, plus even though I had discovered I was never truly a Christian in the first place, I can still believe in God.

but I also believe in The Divine Mother Goddess too.

according to my pendulum, I'm a Priestess of The Ma-Acolyte Religion.

it gave me a Yes when I asked that.

but I don’t think there will be many Ma-Acolytes, and I’m fine with that.

I’m not gonna try to convert others...

like I said before, converting should be of someone’s free will.

and I think those who are Christian, Jewish and other religion,

who aren’t part of the toxic side, will agree that it is wrong to force convert others.

also even if some might not agree about my feelings about it,

I don’t think it’s right to shun those who choose to leave Amish Community for good or the Amish’s religion.

I don’t think it is wrong for someone who is formerly part of the community, to want to visit their family who are still part of the community.

but that whole shunning them for wanting to no longer be part of it, doesn’t seem right.

according to my pendulum, it is wrong.

it gave a Yes about it being wrong, but even if I do reveal the answer it gives me, it isn’t like others will even agree about it.

those who are Amish, do not have to agree with others...

or what the other answers that my pendulum gave me the answers about those who live in a Amish Community, which I wish not to say at this time.

and I can only hope my pendulum is just pulling a mean prank.

but it could be possible that my pendulum might not be pulling a prank,

when it gave a Yes about the shunning being a sin.

it is possibly true, but we can only hope my pendulum is just pulling a prank.

anyway I’m not sure if anyone will even read this, I know I got off topic when talking about how I don’t agree with the Anti-Hero actions that happen in the last seasons of SVTFOE and MLPFIM.

once again I don’t blame the creator of MLPFIM for what happen in the two part episodes of the last season of MLPFIM.

turning anyone to stone or even placing them into a Crystal Prison,

just because they seem evil, doesn’t seem right.

some times villains become villains because of wrong actions of the hero.

I still believe that it is possible that Cozy, Tirek and Chrysalis

could form Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,

and if Tirek and Chrysalis already had it, it could become far worse once they get let out of their stone prison.

if those three were truly evil, then they wouldn’t of showed signs of them starting to feel the magic of friendship when they were working together.

but because of their bad experience to the magic of friendship,

they shake it off and reject it, but even if they do this, it doesn’t mean they did not still form the magic of friendship between the three of them.

someone who was truly evil, would of not acted the way they did when they started to feel good about working together and being together.

I don’t believe Discord should of got away with what he did.

and I don’t agree about the ponies locking up the original monster fauna away in the same place they put Tirek...

even if no one agrees about the theory, and that is okay with me.

but I still believe that it is possible the Old Equestria,

could of been that broken land of snow that is right next to Storm King’s Castle.

and the land that New Equestria is,

was the home of Tirek, the Monster-Fauna and the Crystal Empire being the original home of the Changelings, who use to look like the forms they have now to the end of the show.

but after their home was taken by Earth Ponies turned into Crystal Ponies,

and being far away from the Crystal Heart that feeds them and they in turn give back to the Crystal Heart, the Changelings starve and their bodies turn into their starve forms that we first see in their first appearance in the show.

the Pony Tribes that use to live in Old Equestria, did have a Tree of Harmony,

but because of the tribes fighting with each other and bringing too much disharmony, I believe that their Tree of Harmony could of created those Windigos to punish the ponies.

so when the Ponies of the different tribes moved away from their destroyed home of Old Equestria, the Windigos followed them.

still acting on their purpose given to them by the Tree of Harmony that created them....well that is my theory...it be interesting if that turned out to be true.

like the only way the ponies could break the curse, is if they return to their ancestors original home land of old equestria and they ask that Tree of Harmony for forgiveness.

but what if that Tree had transformed into a Tree of Disharmony,

and it had created not only the Elements of Disharmony, but also Discord?

okay that idea about a formerly tree of harmony turned disharmony,

having created Discord, could be more like Fanon

and might not be canon at all.

but if it were true, that would mean the Ponies from the Old Equestria

were partly responsible for Discord’s birth into existence.

anyway I better not make this any more longer than it already is.

even if you all don’t have to agree about my feelings about how those two shows ended, or how my pendulum gives me a Yes or No to the questions I asked it.

but I hope you all can respect my different view.

I can only hope that some stuff I asked my pendulum is just pranks.

like the Year truly being 3021.

or the whole Aliens from the Game Mass Effect being real, and the game is based off of the real races that are in a real life citadel.

it can’t keep up that prank up forever...

or the prank it pulls about two of the races that appear from that game,

being part of my heritage.

if it were true, then they would of made contact by now.

my pendulum is still giving me a Yes about the Krogan Race living on the Planet Mars in real life.

it can’t keep up the prank about me having Salarian and Quarian heritage forever....it has to give a No at some point.

my pendulum is still giving a Yes to my question about Gaster being real,

and he implanted the idea of Undertale and Deltarune in Toby Fox’s mind.

it once again gave another Yes to both of those questions.

but it could very well be a prank, so it can’t keep up those pranks forever.

anyway I’m just gonna hurry up and post this up,

and check some stuff out on here, and then I will pray to no longer haunt one of my past life bodies that is known as sleeping beauty, then I will go watch Transformers Animated and later a Movie.

once again it is possible my pendulum is pulling a prank about Rosalia being one of my past lives, and the body being persevere was a sin and it caused some form of bond between the two bodies, even if the soul is in a new body.

well according to what I asked my pendulum.

but if the body that is Rosalia, doesn’t turn to dust after I pray for myself to no longer be bonded to it or haunt it, then I will know if nothing happens to it, then I will know my pendulum was just pulling one of it’s pranks.

so yeah thanks for listening, see ya later and stay safe everyone.

and if anyone uses a pendulum, and your pendulum pulls pranks at times.

just take some food salt, pray for it be truthful and also for the negative energy to be cleansed from it, then throw the salt that you prayed with in your hands,

on to the pendulum and leave it alone until maybe a few hours or until the next day.

it seems to work for me, and I have been doing that every once in a while.

but it’s fine that not everyone does it, and it is just me that does it.

1 note · View note

iincandcscence-a-blog · 7 years

Text

Rodimus has clearly obvious tropes that are embedded into his personality, I want to elaborate on a few. Namely, his Chronic Hero Syndrome / Hero Complex / Heroic Self-Deprecation (these all, ironically, go hand-in-hand), his Brilliant, but Lazy attitude (which is also tied into another trope that I wish to elaborate on), his very clear Fatal Flaw(s), what’s Beneath the Mask / his personality as a Jerk With a Heart of Gold, his role as The Atoner (it’s not an extreme level, but it’s there) and how it connects with the trope My Greatest Failure, and last but not least his thought processes: It’s All My Fault / My God, What Have I Done?

Oh, and of course, you have his Father To His Men attitude. Because he’s not always immature when it comes to that but I will go into this last.

(Thank you, TVTropes.)

Now, to put this under a read more because it’s LONG. Like, super long.

Chronic Hero Syndrome is different to Hero Complex, and Hero Complex is different to Heroic Self-Deprecation. What’s kind of sad is that, for Rodimus, they all tie into each other in some way. You might have gathered that this all has something to do with him being a hero. And it is! Just not necessarily in a good way.

The definition of Chronic Hero Syndrome is provided by TVTropes and is as follows:

“Chronic Hero Syndrome is an "affliction" of cleaner heroes where for them, every wrong within earshot must be righted, and everyone in need must be helped, preferably by Our Hero themself.”

This part of Rodimus is... Well, it’s not entirely mild. It shows in the comic in various ways and when Megatron came into play, they decided to go around and help those in need along the way (or, maybe, it pushed Rodimus into doing more and trying to help - whether it was out of pride or finally having a reason to try and one-up Megatron is debatable). Though, because of this trope, it’s more than likely the key reason Rodimus was so easily manipulated by Getaway and, by extension, the mutineers - because his heroism can be so obvious, they could’ve expected that he’d jump on the opportunity to go and investigate a distress signal.

And, in a way, this stems into his Hero Complex. Where Chronic Heroic Syndrome is an extreme, Rodimus more or less fits better into the Hero Complex. Simply put, a Hero Complex is the innate desire to fulfill heroic deeds, for recognition of their heroic deeds.

The extreme is destroying things to then make said things better once again, though with the intention of doing so in the first place. Rodimus does this unintentionally, but that’s not quite the focus. Rodimus wants to make amends for what he’s done (this will be discussed a little later on), but to do so, he has to complete as many heroic deeds for this. However, there is usually always a motive behind their Hero Complex: what would Rodimus’ motive be?

Thanks to this in-depth look into what causes someone to have a Hero Complex, we can gather what motives Rodimus may have and why he has the drive to be everyone’s hero.

“They are approval-seeking and require outward validation. A person who was unable to learn how to approve and validate their inner world will sometimes seek approval and validation from others to the point where they are willing to nearly die for it. Those who have this reason for their hero complex have inner worlds of insecurities abounding, and they need that other person or other people to help them feel like they’re worth something.”

This probably isn’t so obvious, but we do know that Rodimus hates himself (as confirmed by James Roberts) and seeks validation from others. He does reckless things because he knows that, if done right, people will praise him for it. So sure, the whole process of doing it, nobody really thinks that he’s doing this right... But the approval he gets from actually pulling off a dangerous stunt and the validation for being others’ heroes is enough for him.

The best example is at the very start of More Than Meets The Eye. He shoves the sparkeater into the quantum engines as they jumped and promptly saved his crew in doing so. He got the approval and praise from Drift, which was enough for him (clearly, since it didn’t bother him much when Ultra Magnus attempted to scold him for pulling off such a reckless move). Another time that applies this is also pretty early in the comics, where he sacrifices the Matrix - and nearly himself as well - to save all Cold Constructed Cybertronians. While he never got outright approval for such a risky action, and got a rather... Unpleasant reaction from Optimus (granted, he only mentioned that he broke his half of the Matrix), it still plays heavily into this.

Which brings me to the last point: Heroic Self-Deprecation. Just to clarify what this means:

“No matter how much they do for the world or what their loyal friends tell them, they're still incapable of believing that they're anything more than useless. Every little mistake leads to a massive display about how it's all their fault and how they're just not good enough.”

Now, one might think, “oh, Rodimus couldn’t have this, he’s too confident!”, but I beg to differ. If his backstory is anything to go by, he puts the entire world on his shoulders and holds up every little regret like it’s the end of the world if he doesn’t. What he does do well, he doesn’t seem to give himself enough credit for. Perhaps the key turning point for this was after issue 15, specifically, since he seemed to suffer from this more prominently since then...

In Dark Cybertron, the feeling that he’s not good enough is way too clear: this is highlighted in a few different parts, one namely being his conversation with Magnus before he left. When Magnus tells him he’s not a leader, Rodimus responds, “don't tell me that you can't do my job, because you can do my job - probably better than I can”. Now, while this may be true, he’s putting little to no faith in himself; not only that, but he blatantly ignores the obvious compliment that Magnus had given him. That was, I quote, “I haven't got-- whatever it is that you have. That extra something. I haven't got that”. There was something Rodimus had that Magnus didn’t that made him a more capable leader in Magnus’ perspective.

I think the worst part of it is during the rescue mission of Kup. No, really. It hurts me because I love both Rodimus and Optimus / Orion, but the exchange they have when Rodimus tells him about what he did and then how he handled it...

“I messed up. No, but I mean hugely. I smuggled a Decepticon prisoner on board the Lost Light and he escaped, and people died, and then I let my best friend take the blame... And after he left - I haven’t heard from him in ages - the guilt got the better of me and I ‘fessed up. First to Ultra Magnus, then the rest of the crew. I apologized. And after I said sorry, I invoked the Crisis Act.”

“You asked them to vote?”

“All of them, yeah - well, the 190 who were functional at the time. A referendum, really: ‘should I stay as captain? Yes or no.’”

“And here you are. Still captain.”

“Yes, but... Eighty-nine people wanted me gone. That’s why I carved the- y’know, in my hand. See? ‘S like a permanent note to self: ‘you gotta win ‘em back, Rodders.’”

...

“You could’ve resigned.”

“I, er... I what?”

“You should have resigned. You only invoked the Crisis Act because you thought you’d win. If you’d been truly ashamed of your actions, you’d have stepped down.”

“Um... I kinda thought it took more courage to stick it out?”

“Nonsense.”

“Um. Yeah.” ... “I was, um, sort of expecting the standard Optimus pep talk...? Nobody’s perfect, learn from your mistakes, that kind of thing?”

“I’m not here to absolve you of your guilt.”

(Conversation between Rodimus and Optimus. Dark Cybertron, Volume 2.)

While this is reconciled later on in the story (with Rodimus giving Optimus the pep talk; I’m so proud of him), it’s in this moment where there’s no praise. There’s no helping him. Nothing. It’s just Rodimus confessing everything, right from what he did to how he wants to get them back, and he’s actively seeking some comfort from his role model; he said so himself that Optimus is his role model. Sure, not exactly direct, but...

“You know who I always wanted to be, Orion? I’m talking all my life.”

“Yes - Rodimus Prime. And I’m sorry, but that makes you a fool. To actively want to be a Prime after the damage wrought by my predecessors...”

“You’re wrong. I never wanted to be ‘Rodimus Prime.’ Not deep down. Deep down, I always wanted to be you. The real you - not Orion Pax.”

(Part of a conversation between Rodimus and Optimus. Dark Cybertron, Volume 2.)

(And then, when the conversation ended and Rodimus was shot in the chassis by Nova, Optimus went into full dad mode. Because nobody shoots his son after he gives the pep talk and gets away with it. Looking at you, Nova Prime. I hope you feel many regrets.)

I feel like all of this, all of this right here, connects with his Heroic Self-Deprecation. He knows what he did, he knows that somehow, he has to win them all back, but at the same time... He wants to be like Optimus. He wants to have those same qualities that Optimus has and he knows that it’s impossible for him to have it, because he’s even scared to live by the decency, and the integrity, and the morality. But that’s not the point.

The point is, Rodimus thinks little of himself. He thinks so very little of himself, in fact, that he thinks that Magnus would be a better leader than him, even though he has that extra something. He got a pretty obvious thing, that he mostly like had thought of, smacked in his face by Optimus saying that he should’ve just given up because of that mistake. He thinks that, essentially, he’d be better off being someone else rather than himself. Rather than Rodimus, or even Hot Rod.

Now, let’s go onto the next one, shall we?

Rodimus has a serious case of being a brilliant mind, but being rather lazy. This does tend to make him seem stupid, but let’s just face it; he might never understand science, but he knows enough to come up with some pretty smart ideas. He might rush in at a moment’s notice, but he’s smarter than he looks overall. The definition of “Brilliant, But Lazy” is as follows:

“...you have the Brilliant, But Lazy character, who is more than capable of taking care of any situation that the heroes have to deal with, but doesn't care.”

It’s less that he doesn’t care, but more that he doesn’t like to deal with responsibility. When he does deal with it, he can be brash and quick to make assumptions, or he can be level headed for once and actually help out a bit better than most. However, it’s this dislike of responsibility that stems from a few various sources (after all, he already has a lot of burdens) that makes him seem lazy in nature. He’s capable, more than capable at the best of times. But even when he accepts the responsibility, it always seems like someone else is willing to stand in for him...

“... Need a scapegoat? Get an ex-Decepticon.”

“Well it’s not gonna happen. I’m taking the fall for this one. Your name doesn’t have to come into it. It’s taken you years to win back people’s trust, and you’re not throwing it all away on my behalf.”

...

“I won’t let you do this for me.”

“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for everyone else.”

(Bits of the conversation between Rodimus and Drift about the inquiry related to the Overlord incident, in the prose story “The Sound of Breaking Glass”, MTMTE #21.)

Or, they push aside the fact that he’s taken responsibility for something because it’s just expected of him. That, or they think he’s doing it because there’s something about the situation that really calls for it, even though he has shown great promise as a responsible leader and warrior, behind the various levels of (faked) immaturity. He tends to shove it all onto Ultra Magnus, or Drift, or even Megatron when he arrives on the Lost Light - but for what?

This can be left up to interpretation, but for me, it’s linked to his Heroic Self-Deprecation. How, you might wonder? Well, he not only thinks little of himself, he’s sure others think little of him as well. Perhaps he just plays into everyone’s thoughts of him...

Which brings me to the trope I connect with this one; him faking his stupidity. He’s not an idiot. Actually, he’s far from it. He’s made smart decisions in the past that have saved his life, and even his reckless decisions have some sense in them. He has remarkable timing, he’s got sound strategies when he needs them, and he does know what he’s doing.

“Another variant is of someone who is a genuine genius but who pretends to be The Fool in order to avoid responsibility, either because they are lazy or because of some trauma which has undermined their confidence.”

Based on the quote above, I think it’s safe to say it’s a mixture of both.

He might not be a full-blown genius like Perceptor or Brainstorm, but he can play connect-the-dot in the right situations and he can make the right decisions when he needs it. For example, he was the sole reason that Nightbeat was able to break Nova Prime’s hold on him by asking him a simple question that forced Nightbeat to think. This was related to the numbers on his hand, a personal reminder that he needed to win back the 89 people of 190 active crew members that wanted him gone as captain. He knew Nightbeat couldn’t resist the right mystery.

But, just like that, I’m linking it back to his brilliant but lazy attitude; he shoves his responsibility on Drift, Magnus and Megatron, intentionally or not. And he’s stated once before, in the More Than Meets The Eye annual; “... Beneath my cocksure exterior I have incredibly low self-esteem”. Now, whether he was joking, and whether or not Ratchet realized this...

(Most likely not, since he seemed quick to dismiss this and claim that further beneath that, he does think he’s better than everyone else...)

... It’s possible - no, certain - that Rodimus hides it with layer upon layer of faked confidence and egotism. And that faked confidence and egotism links back to the mistakes he’s made and the Heroic Self-Deprecation, and THAT links to his brilliant but lazy attitude and his faking of stupidity. Because it seems like, whenever he is smart, people are surprised by it.

And if he can’t impress them, and it dents his self-esteem, then why bother being smart?

...

Let’s move onto the next one!

Rodimus is painfully aware that he has many flaws, and even more so aware of the fact that he has some very clear fatal flaws.

“Heroes have a Fatal Flaw which they wrestle with on a consistent basis. This may open them up for specific conflicts later...”

One could say his fatal flaw is his ego - but based on the evidence above (and that I’ve stated this literally a few paragraphs up), this ego seems to be a very extravagant cover-up for his lower self-esteem. Plus, he doesn’t quite fit the criteria to have his fatal flaw be egotism. This, ironically, seems to fit Getaway. No, Rodimus’ fatal flaw wouldn’t be egotism.

It’s one of two things: his impulsiveness, or his recklessness. Both are connected, however...

Let’s have a look at what TVTropes has to say.

“A Tragedy of Impulsiveness is when a tragedy is caused by someone's impetuousness or irrational impatience. This trope's power comes from the fact that if characters had thought before they acted the tragedy could have been avoided.”

This seems rather accurate. Perhaps it was also what Rodimus was referring to when he was talking to Drift at the end of Lost Light #7, when he said that he needed people like Drift and Ultra Magnus to keep him in check. And perhaps he’s right; his impulsive nature has gotten the crew into many unpleasant situations that derive from exactly that, and a lot of said situations tend to contain a tragedy in them. So, this as a fatal flaw makes perfect sense. Rodimus’ impulsiveness knows no bounds and he needs someone to regulate this.

But what about his recklessness as his fatal flaw?

(How lovely for TVTropes to title recklessness as “Leeroy Jenkins”. Funny video.)

“The Leeroy Jenkins (or just Leeroy for short) is a specific type of [person] who has no patience for complicated plans, preferring to charge full-tilt into the fray and start attacking whatever's in front of him.”

... Well, it’s not wrong.

Rodimus is notorious for running in without a plan. That, or his plans are to the extreme, and therefore are more suited to the trope called “Crazy Enough To Work”, since half of them actually do seem to work in his favor. (See: “Spotlight: Hot Rod”.) In general, however, Rodimus will think recklessly and make a frontal assault without really putting in the thought as to how it could all go wrong. Granted, the times he did so in prominent parts of the comic were in the Overlord arc, the Tyrest arc, during Dark Cybertron when it called for it, and of course, that one time Rodimus thought it was a brilliant idea to tackle one of the Functionists...

What may be obvious is that his impulsiveness and his recklessness tend to go hand-in-hand with each other. Actually, one tends to lead into the next, and it’s his biggest flaw. What’s further ironic is that his impulsiveness and recklessness, accompanied with his Chronic Hero Syndrome as mentioned much further above, are all reasons behind him falling into the trap...

Now, let’s look at his attitude, shall we?

“Virtually everyone has to wear a public mask in order to be accepted by others. That's a simple fact of human psychology. When circumstances (such as anonymity, strong emotion, or sufficient power) allow a character to take off that mask and act in complete accord with their inclinations, they reveal what's beneath the mask.”

Look, I won’t dismiss the fact that Rodimus does have confidence. I won’t dismiss the fact that he’s charismatic, and with a slight hint of an ego, and overall a fun guy that attracts others to him by being him. (After all, he and Megatron combined killed off the personality ticks due to there being too much charisma in one room...) However, you would have noticed that throughout the comics, it seems to have been enhanced to the point that it’s actually obnoxious and almost infuriating. You may have also noticed this started almost immediately when Megatron became co-captain of the Lost Light and after Dark Cybertron.

This was something told by James Roberts as well: Rodimus enhances his better parts of his personality to cover his self-hate. There’s nothing quite as simple as that. Rodimus is a strong character, in both physicality and mentality, but there’s only so much one can handle, especially after four million years of war.

This is somewhat of a coping mechanism for Rodimus. If he can’t voice his grief and even gets criticized for something that isn’t true (yes, Rung, looking at you; he really did feel like he failed the crew), then it’s better to hide it and say that he’s completely okay. Some may be able to look right through him, others will take it the wrong way and think that he’s just being childish. In retrospect, turn to the very start of the comic series. He was more like himself; charismatic, somewhat confident, a slight ego. He didn’t act the way he does now back then.

In turn, this leads me to my next point.

“A person you would expect to be a big Jerkass has some redeeming qualities behind their tough demeanor. Occasionally, they'll try to make it a Hidden Heart of Gold.”

It’s no secret that Rodimus has acted like a jerk, even in the newest issues; and, unfortunately for our poor learning speedster captain, it’s had an everlasting effect on a few people. One of those people namely being Brainstorm, having adjusted so poorly to Rodimus’ usual reactions to his work that he even has to explain himself to Cyclonus...

“You see? You see? That’s what success looks like! Swerve and Ten, plucked from a pocket prison and delivered, safe and sound, to your welcoming arms. And to think - to think! - you said it couldn’t be done.”

“On the contrary, I said I was confident you’d find a way to bring them back. In fact, I’ve been nothing but supportive since I brought you the wand.”

“Oh. Yeah, sorry. Thanks to Rodimus I’m conditioned to expect incomprehension, mockery and boredom - usually in the span of thirty seconds.”

(Conversation between Brainstorm and Cyclonus, Lost Light #5.)

So yes, Rodimus has screwed up a lot by acting like a jerk. However, I firmly believe that it isn’t intentional, and that his mouth runs faster than his thoughts do. It doesn’t excuse the behavior, and I could provide plenty of examples where he was a downright jerk. For example, when he said that he had “rehabilitated” Drift (yes, how smart of you to say, Rodimus), or when he attempted a joke about Tailgate’s face being punchable during the Brainstorm arc...

But, he really does have a heart of gold. Or, a spark of gold, in this context. In which a heart of gold is an expression that means “to be very kind and generous”. Synonyms vary from considerate, to well-meant, to supportive and good-natured.

Rodimus cares deeply about his crew members, and I will elaborate on such later on, but he is willing to do what it takes to make up for his actions. He doesn’t quite have the hidden heart of gold like Whirl, for example, because it can be so damn obvious that Rodimus has this wonderful heart of gold for his crew members. Let’s take, for example, not only the prose story “The Sound of Breaking Glass”, but also MTMTE #36. Oh yes, that issue. That one issue. Where Rodimus tried, with all his power, to make sure that Trailbreaker would live in the future.

But first! In the prose story, Rodimus is shown being kind and good-natured towards Red Alert, who had just been woken up after his suicide incident - which Rodimus put upon himself. This is in front of Getaway and Fortress Maximus, too, but he’s kind of... Subtle.

“Red Alert?”

“Captain, I want to apologize for--”

“Stop right there. No apologies. Not on my ship.”

“But I can’t imagine the inconvenience I caused by my decision to, um, remove myself from the field of play.”

“Nonsense. You were under tremendous pressure. Okay, so you didn’t feel able to confide in me, but that says more about my failings as a leader than anything else.”

...

“My point, Rodimus, is that I’d like to stay here ... What are they called, Legislators? We could reprogram the Legislators to act as the moon’s protectors.”

“I think with you and Fort Max, Luna 1 is going to be in safe hands. Just promise to stay in touch!”

(Conversation between Red Alert and Rodimus, “The Sound of Breaking Glass”, Issue #21.)

Based on the meaning behind having a heart of gold, it does shine through here. Whether or not the others present register it (a part of me feels like Getaway was too silent in this moment, which is both understandable since he wasn’t involved in the conversation, but concerning...), Rodimus clearly cares. And clearly, he knows that being on Luna 1 is better for Red Alert.

Now, Issue #36. How many of you remember the despair Rodimus had when he saw that Chromedome had shaken hands with Trailbreaker and ultimately erased his memory of the previous conversation he had with him? The conversation that would’ve ultimately allowed for Trailbreaker to live in the future? A lot of you might find that moment memorable (at least, I do. Roddy was incredibly hurt because it was his only chance to avoid the needless death), and/or very painful to reflect on, but that conversation he had before showed his kindness.

“Will you do that for me? It’s very important.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

“Trailbreaker.”

“Ofsted XVII. Stay inside the ship. Got it.”

... “You’re a good person.”

(MTMTE #36, conversation between Rodimus and Trailbreaker in the past.)

What really gets me is that Rodimus even went out of his way to tell Chromedome to not shake hands with Trailbreaker, no matter what, even though he never said why. Mostly because one isn’t supposed to be tinkering with time (because Rodimus, you’re not supposed to change the future, even if you really want to), but it shows he cares. It even proves his kindness and his consideration, even. He most likely puts himself at fault for Trailbreaker as well, even though he had nothing to do with it; after all, Trailbreaker was a member of his ship.

This will be used as an example for his “Father To His Men” attitude, but let’s continue.

The Atoner. Now, this trope quite literally makes up Drift’s entire character, but this applies to Rodimus in a very specific context. He wants to atone for whatever he’s done in the past. This isn’t just relating to Overlord, either; this can be seen in a variety of different lights. Though, the real problem is that Rodimus doesn’t necessarily fit into The Atoner by definition of the trope.

“The Atoner is an evil character who has realized the error of his ways, possibly wants to make amends, and has decided that they will do so via heroic deeds. Simple imprisonment won't do, because it does nothing to make recompense for what he's done wrong.”

The trope clearly specifies this is for a character that was once bad turned good, and seeking out redemption for the past sins that have been committed. Which is why, while Rodimus does want to atone for his mistakes, he just doesn’t quite fall into this category. This is very much suited to Drift rather than Rodimus, though the elements behind it make it favorable...

He’s more suited to the category of “My Greatest Failure”. By definition, given via TVTropes:

“Nothing defines a hero better than his morals, and the biggest sympathy point can be guilt over some monumental screw-up that taught the hero to buckle down and stop taking his job too lightly.”

So, the last part didn’t quite follow through like he intended to, but in MTMTE #21, Rodimus tells Ultra Magnus the truth behind Overlord and how he wished to make amends for it.

“Magnus-- (I’m gonna call you Magnus.) Magnus, if this is it - it I’m going to die - I need to come clean. Everything you’ve just said - I’ve done worse. I’ve done much worse. I brought Overlord on board. I was part of it, with Drift and Brainstorm and the Duobots. I let it happen. Prowl said I owed it to the Autobots. Before we left Cybertron, he... We met in his office, and he told me he wanted an Autobot Phase Sixer - somebody as powerful as Overlord, but on our side. And then he said-- These might not have been his exact words, but he said if I was scared of having Overlord on board I could say no, which... Well. Here we are.”

...

“I don’t want to die.”

“Of course not. Of course you don’t.”

“No, I mean-- Self-sacrifice, Magnus - it’s cheap. It’s a cheap way out. I need to live so I can make amends and--”

(Conversation between Rodimus and Minimus Ambus/Ultra Magnus. MTMTE #21.)

The idea behind “My Greatest Failure” is that they feel incredibly guilty over a gigantic screw-up and they start taking their job seriously again. While Rodimus does feel insanely guilty over the fact that it was his fault Overlord was on board, it doesn’t mean he stops taking his job lightly. That’s thanks to his personality, however. However, his need - not want, need - to live to make amends? It’s what fits him into the Atoner trope. He knows what he did was wrong and he desperately wants to fix it. He does make some amends with Drift, with their reunion...

“I don’t trust myself with words - they’re too easy to manipulate. But you taught me that there are a dozen better ways to speak to someone. If you read my aura, or listen to the timbre of my voice, or look at the colors in my eyes... If you do any of those things you’ll understand how bad I feel - and how badly I want things to be like they were.”

(Part of the reunion conversation, said by Rodimus. MTMTE #52.)

I adore this little bit of conversation. And while I am a little upset that there was only one page dedicated to their reunion and their need to talk out the radio silence and so on (seriously, it had been three years since Drift left - you can imagine how bad Rodimus felt without his best friend around, and at his fault too), this really touched me. Not only does Rodimus try and make amends for his banishing of Drift, but he does so through telling Drift to analyse how he says things and what his body language tells him.

And so, Rodimus is kind of a mixture of the two tropes, though contrasting one another. But let’s not dwell on these contradicting tropes for too long and move onto the second last points I have.

“My God, What Have I Done?” and “It’s All My Fault” go hand-in-hand. They usually follow from one into the other, and this is so very prominent in not only the Overlord arc, but he has a literal moment in the Functionist Universe arc in Lost Light. The meaning behind the two are:

“My God, What Have I Done?” - “Well-intentioned but misguided character ... comes to realize that his actions have caused incredible damage, physical pain, emotional pain, or even loss of life.”

“It’s All My Fault” - “You see characters blaming themselves for major messes fairly often, especially when they're not the only ones who are suffering as a result. It's a universal phrase used in every genre and medium.”

Rodimus has this moment a few too many times, and it ties into his Heroic Self-Deprecation, for the most part. The two most obvious moments are, of course, after the Overlord incident and he talks to Drift about the inquiry (as so in “The Sound of Breaking Glass”), and during the Functionist Universe arc, soon after he decided to punch alternate Rung.

Let’s see, did he say either of the two phrases in the first example?

“I had to do something! People were asking questions! And what do you do if you want to stall things? You launch an inquiry.” ... “An inquiry into something I’m responsible for. Oh god. Oh god, I feel sick. I’ve messed up big time.”

“I can sort this out, Rodimus. Honestly, I can fix this.”

“This is my fault, not yours. We were standing in Prowl’s office, and he was trying to convince me that bringing Overlord on board was ‘right and proper’, and you called me an idiot for even considering it.”

(Conversation between Rodimus and Drift, “The Sound of Breaking Glass”. MTMTE #21.)

... Well. Looks like he says both of the phrases, even though worded a little differently. This is important: Rodimus knows he’s responsible, and he knows that technically Drift is responsible for it too, but he’s more than willing to take on all of the blame and avoid getting anyone else involved. Or, more like, he feels like it’s all his fault and he knows he’s messed up horribly...

Alright, how about the dialogue about alternate Rung? Now, this is more or less just focusing on the whole “what have I done” aspect instead.

“I’m serious, Rodimus. I need the Cog to destroy Luna 2, and I won’t let you stop me. I can’t.”

“If that’s how it is...” ... “Fine!”

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“I...” “... I...” “... What the hell am I doing?”

(Rewind snaps some sense into Rodimus. Lost Light #6.)

Now, this is a less minor occasion, but the trope still applies. Rodimus has caused physical pain to alt. Rung, just because he was so desperate to get to Luna 2 so he could get home. And, because of that, he made an impulsive and reckless decision to punch alt. Rung in the face.

This also heavily ties in with his Atoner-like personality where he feels obligated to make amends for what he had done. It was why he was so quick to tell everyone to get off the Cog while he remained behind, to make sure that the Cog found its target... And while yes, it’s implied that perhaps he was thinking of self-sacrifice, he’s crashed ships into things before and survived it. (See: that one time Hot Rod stole Magnus’ ship to re-retrieve the Matrix.)

So, in case you haven’t quite understood what I’ve said so far: each of these tropes feed into one another.

Fatal Flaw(s) (Impulsiveness + Recklessness) > It’s All My Fault / My God, What Have I Done > The Atoner / My Greatest Failure > Chronic Hero Syndrome / Hero Complex / Heroic Self-Deprecation > Brilliant, But Lazy / Obfuscating Stupidity > Beneath the Mask / Jerk With A Heart Of Gold.

Can you see how they all interconnect with one another?

And now, drumroll, for the very last trope that I want to talk about (finally!)............ And now we shall talk about his attitude as a Father To His Men!

Now, hear me out. Rodimus is technically not cut out for this trope. He has trouble remembering his crew, and he has his moments where he seems to have blatant disregard for them. He’s just that bit too much of a jerk, though unintentionally, to make this work. Optimus fills this role so much better than Rodimus does. However, he has his moments shine through.

Now, I wish to give you a few snippets from the page that stands out.

“This commander cares deeply about his men and exhibits it constantly. A mentor to the officers under him, he takes a deep personal interest in their welfare and tries to keep them out of harm's way.”

“This character generally cultivates a father-figure atmosphere. He is a source of morale, discipline and stability.”

“He will accept responsibility for any mistakes, even if it was not entirely his fault, especially if the failure would result in severe punishment for a subordinate.”

... Which are all, unfortunately, not true in Rodimus’ case.

While he does care about his crew, and very much so, he does a horrible job of keeping them out of harm’s way. A constant example is convincing Chromedome to inject when he needs it, so he can ultimately help the others, while not being any help at all to Chromedome. Another example is Overlord, since it was a last minute decision that put many in harm’s way.

He’s far from the second snippet. In fact, it sounds more like Optimus. Optimus gives off a father-figure atmosphere. Rodimus even stated himself, Optimus defined what the title of Prime really meant during Dark Cybertron. Optimus is this snippet, but this is what Rodimus wants to be. He wants to be the source of morale, discipline and stability, but he can’t be - because he’s none of those things. He’s far from it, actually. And he knows it.

The last point is a little iffy for Rodimus. He was prepared to do it once, for Drift, but I cannot recall another time he was willing to take the full blame for something that wasn’t solely his fault. The only reason he didn’t go through with it was because Drift insisted he left instead...

So, why am I talking about this trope when it doesn’t seem like it fits Rodimus?

Because, out of all the tropes possible, this is the one trope Rodimus aspires to have. He wants to keep his crew safe. He wants to be the perfect role model and he wants to be the one to take on any responsibility regardless, because he just won’t let them take it instead. The only thing that’s holding him back is his own fatal flaws. His impulsiveness and recklessness hold him back from being this kind of figure to his crew. He has the heart of gold to make it work, but Rodimus doesn’t have the right level of... Well, maturity, perhaps. But he also makes poor decisions, and they usually come at the cost of the crew. And he gets in the way of himself.

And so, overall, Rodimus has a very fleshed out character. These tropes may be common, but they make up most of his character, and they’re all so important in their own way. And, in a way, they all affect how I portray Rodimus. He’s not always immature, he might say something insensitive here and there but he never really means it...

He really is trying to do the best for himself and his crew. It’s just too much for him right now.

#🔥 ▸ ❝ reflections of the past. ❞ ( headcanon )#long post //#// MAN #// i honestly could go on and on and on about roddy but holy shit this was so long #// 6.3K WORDS EVERYONE THIS IS HOW DEDICATED I AM TO R/ODIMUS #// someone: r/odimus is one dimensional #// me: PULLS OUT RECEIPTS

8 notes · View notes