#and it's so weird! i actually...!! look at megatron now!! since he's on my romantic list!

[thanksjro]

Robots in Disguise (2012), #1-22- A Recap, For Reference Purposes

Before we begin with “Dark Cybertron”, a lightning round style recap on the 22 issues that took place in the sister series to MTMTE, Robots in Disguise; just so we know what’s up with all the folks who didn’t hitch a ride on the Lost Light.

Here’s the Story So Far, since it’s been a minute.

Now for the nitty gritty.

Cybertron is a literal hellscape, as established in The Death of Optimus Prime, the very flora of the planet trying to murder anything that comes within a few miles of the surface. This has caused a massive economic slump in the tourist trap towns, who surely will not survive without the summertime revenue. Truly, life is cruel and not worth living.

Bumblebee narrates, as we show off all the weirdoes who live on Cybertron now. Bumblebee tries to greet a new batch of arrivals, as Metalhawk actively attempts to make him look like Satan incarnate, because all the NAILs have gone full ACAB at this point.

A robot who looks like he’s wearing a beanie commits vandalism and is then subjected to violence via Decepti-cop.

This is more or less the flavor for RID as a whole. You have been warned.

Prowl breaks someone’s hand just because he can. Blurr is made to arrest someone for disturbing the peace, even though he’s, like, basically the only guy on the Autobots who isn’t a cop. Bumblebee doesn’t believe in democracy.

Ratbat is the leader of the Decepticons, even though Soundwave is right friggin’ there. We establish that the military state is in full swing. Prowl commits a microaggression against a Senator. Ratbat gets pissy about his guys going out to beat people up, not because it violates his moral sensibilities, but because it benefits the Autobots.

Probably that you’re killing people by remote control, in as horrified a tone as he could manage, because that’s FUCKING EVIL. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Prowl says to cancel the memorial for the Lost Light, because he thinks the Decepticons are up to something. Which they are.

Everyone hates the Autobots. Like, everyone.

Ironhide runs away from a murderous hedge and smashes into a wall. Prowl has a talk with a mysterious individual about his feelings during a romantic sunset.

Metalhawk releases hat guy from prison. He and Bumblebee have a little chat, during which he tries to gaslight the little guy. Bumblebee explodes Horri-Bull’s head in front of at least 30 people.

Except he actually didn’t, because the chips don’t actually work. T’was a ruse! Starscream enters the narrative. Ratbat used to be an actual person and not just a bat. Sideswipe wants to shoot someone. Bumblebee tasers a man unprovoked; guess he’s picked up a little paranoia from that time he got shot.

Starscream calls Prowl ugly, then spills the beans on Ratbat’s plan to kill Bumblebee at the memorial, solely because he thinks Ratbat is an idiot. Needlenose and Skywarp beat up a NAIL to work through their emotions.

Bumblebee shows a snuff film to hundreds of people at the memorial. Skywarp tries to frame a NAIL for murder, but Prowl says nuts to that idea, through the power of dramatic irony.

Long Haul tells a fib. Bumblebee and Metalhawk agree to work together. Ratbat gets turned into chunky salsa by Arcee, who will use the excuse of self-defense if questioned. Starscream pulls some fucking bullshit and third-wheels the agreement between Bumblebee and Metalhawk.

Ratbat’s death is played off as a suicide. Blurr is still a cop. Starscream is helpful. There’s a guy who looks like a frog, and I don’t care for what his eyes are doing.

Frog guy explodes, because nature is a cruel mistress.

Wheeljack has a hell of a time trying to answer the phone in the middle of an economic debate. Prowl is paranoid. Starscream handles the housing crisis. Wheeljack visits the hospital and causes a scene. Another explosion happens, killing dozens, including this guy:

You will be missed, Tiddytron.

Wheeljack realizes that the moon is trying to kill everyone, so he shoots missiles at the problem. The Aerialbots fuck off into the wilderness.

The Decepticons get some perks now that Starscream’s a government employee. Starscream destroys the military state through the power of talking over people. Prowl and his cronies investigate a murder at the trash factory.

Bombshell is arrested for thought crime, and spills the beans on the I/D chips not working. Prowl has Dirge on a chain for some reason, and it ends up causing nothing but trouble. Blurr runs every red light in the city to make a citizen’s arrest, and gets his ass kicked by a bunch of construction workers. Prowl has a complex about Spike Witwicky.

Prowl fixes the I/D chip issue and things go poorly for the construction workers. Blurr gets upset about having his ass kicked by construction workers. Prowl is very paranoid, even as he has a borderline pinup panel devoted to his weird robot bellybutton and positively ridiculous cinched waist. I begin to worry about how much I’m learning about Andrew Griffith’s tastes.

The poetry shark shows up.

Arcee reveals a little bit about herself, and I shed a tear as I shake my fist in the general direction of England, cursing Simon Furman’s name.

Metalhawk brings Sky-Byte to a literal trashcan fire to meet his buddies, and they all rag on the Autobots for a while.

Ironhide goes joyriding and finds Sky-Byte Oh Yorick-ing a Sweep’s head. Turns out they have a history. Blurr reveals his dream to own a bar. Metalhawk brings up the fact that setting up a group of folks to have their heads explode if they step out of line is some dystopian bullshit.

Sky-Byte meets up with his old buddy Swindle, and gets the skinny on the bullshit that’s being pulled on this brand-new Cybertron. Everything goes to shit very quickly. Streetwise gets set on fire. Prowl needs to stop. Ironhide commits violence against the general populace, then advocates for the removal of the I/D chips.

Blurr opens a bar, and it’s dinosaur-friendly. Prowl commits property damage on a table, because he’s tablephobic. Ironhide reveals the future.

Shockwave sends an entire race of Big Birds to their frozen demise. Orion Friggin’ Pax comes back into the narrative, in the middle of his giant fuck-off-from-responsibility space adventure. Wheelie and Garnak are here, which is cool, I guess. Jhiaxus yells a bunch, and Orion decides to go to Big Bird planet.

It’s farkin’ cold in here.

Orion and Hardhead talk about Rodimus’ tumultuous relationship with death. Shockwave is the only person in the universe who understands quantum mechanics. Monstructor wakes up from his cryo-sleep. Wheelie and Garnak are grievously wounded, and the patch job seems less than medically sound, since we’ve just put a screw into Garnak’s orbital socket to hold his eye-patch in place. Orion walks into a trap, knowingly and willingly.

Wheeljack does some espionage, even though Mirage is right friggin’ there. Turmoil swings by Cybertron to say hello- the Decepticon, not the emotional state. Drift is outed as a war criminal- well, more so than originally thought. Turmoil has a time machine.

Sky-Byte and Jazz team up for slam poetry night. Blurr tells Metalhawk a story. Wheeljack’s espionage adventure goes poorly. Turmoil gets trapped in a hamster ball. Wheeljack and Metalhawk get trapped in a hamster ball.

The Dinobots and Ironhide go on a camping trip. Starscream craves democracy. Skylynx is a glorified taxi. Slag hasn’t changed his name yet, despite half of the people working for IDW being from the UK. Swoop breaks down IDW Phase Two to its bare essentials.

Prowl sits on someone’s desk, because he doesn’t respect tables. Slag’s face is on fire all the time, and it’s sort of distracting. Swindle bothers Shockwave. Ironhide is attacked by the Dinobots.

Bumblebee sits outside and has some Night Thoughts. Cybertron wants everyone to stick together, and God help you if you don’t. Bumblebee is beginning to develop a complex. Blurr is upset with himself. Ravage and the Reflectors go on an adventure. The time machine isn’t actually a time machine. The time machine disappears.

Ironhide finds the Aerialbots, who have been combinered by the horrors of new Cybertron. Everyone yells at Bumblebee.

We get a taste of Old World Cybertronian propaganda, where everyone talks in the third person, as is tradition. Starscream gets curvier every issue. Again, I begin to worry about how much I’m learning about Andrew Griffith’s tastes.

Blurr causes an explosion in the wilderness looking for Ironhide, much to Starscream’s delight. There is a Titan under the ground, and its very existence is making reality shit the bed. Tailgate’s lies in MTMTE are so extensive, red herrings have leaked into the sister series.

Nova Prime commissioned Monstructor, and Omega Supreme hated it so much he punched it in the face.

Starscream invites a bunch of friends over to see the Titan. Brainstorm is used as a scale for end-of-the-world scenarios. Starscream is revealed to be chosen by the gods.

The Reflectors visit a planet and shit gets weird very quickly. Wheelie is about to have a goddamned stress-induced aneurysm, not that Orion particularly cares. Time nonsense is established. Wheelie-speak becomes plot-relevant. Livio Ramondelli subjects me to his nightmares’ nightmares.

Starscream gets interviewed on national television. Starscream owns a hat that makes him look like a Gundam. Omega Supreme explodes. Metalhawk flip-flops between who he’s defending like a fish on the dock. Starscream yells at Shockwave for being an instigator. Prowl and Starscream make a deal.

Arcee stabs a cat in the throat. IDW settles the debate- at least for their own continuity- and says RIRFIB. Prowl takes a fireball to the face to convince people he’s on the up-and-up. Arcee is smarter than Starscream. This asshole shows back up.

Bumblebee really, really wants to kill Megatron, but politics demand he be taken in as a POW. The fellas construct a conspiracy theory. Starscream tries to lead his peers, but it goes poorly. Not a single medical professional of Cybertronian descent actually keeps track of their patients. Maccadam’s gets several light fixtures ruined by Arcee. Wheeljack gets called a tool. Prowl shows up in his hot new body, decked out with enough weaponry to annihilate a small country and a gun that’s as big as he is.

Starscream gives Megatron a piece of his mind. The Decepticons are rioting in the streets. Prowl shows Wheeljack his toys. Arcee plays her trump card. Bumblebee tries his hand at negotiation.

Bumblebee learns a valuable lesson about leadership. Politics are hell. Megatron is released from prison. Democracy finally gets its day. Megatron enters the Black Room with his whole ass hanging out. Pretty much every Decepticon you thought was dead isn’t actually dead.

Metalhawk gets a taste of how 24/7 news has ruined everything. Prowl is revealed to be the mastermind behind all the bullshit that’s been going on the last few months, and he’s been working with Megatron. Swindle gets run over by a train. Wheeljack’s head is turned into a memory by Prowl. The crazy-making signal out in the wilderness was made by Megatron. Megatron walks in in his hot new bod, carrying his old one like his new bride. And what a pretty bride it is.

We get a literal talking heads sequence explaining just how exactly Megatron survived the events of “Chaos” and why Combiners are the bees’ knees. Prowl isn’t Prowl, but actually being controlled by Bombshell.

Dang, wonder who could have caused that, CHROMEDOME.

Prowl is released from his mind-control, and immediately plays the blame game with Bumblebee. The Constructicons and Prowl have a thing going, and show it off, much to Bumblebee’s horror.

Circuit gets given Fixit’s dialogue for some reason, and I can’t tell if this was an issue on the art side or the script side. Devastator wrecks shop. Megatron laughs at Starscream for being a loser, then crushes Bumblebee’s head like a grape. Ironhide finally shows up to the party, and he brought a veggie platter.

Jazz tries to warn the medical staff about the Combiner coming their way, but no one ever listens to Jazz. Prowl has a crisis of self. Jazz breaks up the two-man act. Megatron let Bumblebee keep his cane, proving that even heartless monsters can respect the Disabilities Act.

Ironhide and the Dinobots save the day. Superion and Devestator get into a fistfight. Prowl reaffirms his complex over Spike Witwicky. Bumblebee says some halfway transphobic shit, and I shed a tear as I shake my fist in the general direction of England, cursing Simon Furman’s name. Arcee switches sides again and stabs Bombshell in the face. Prowl takes a nap. The tides turn.

Ironhide resists Frenzy’s sonic attack through the sheer power of gumption. Skywarp says fuck this and gets out of dodge. Devastator becomes a real boy. 

Bumblebee WILL kill Megatron. Arcee makes it weird. Ironhide helps Prowl figure out his life. Bumblebee never learns. Metalhawk saves his BFF, and gets his arm shot off for his troubles. Starscream uses Metalhawk’s fuck-you-level long arm to kill a man.

Swindle carries a dude twice his size to safety with one of his arms off. Needlenose gets his just desserts. Devastator rips off his head to escape his crippling self-doubt. The Constructicons are having a hell of a day.

You said it, Hook.

Wheeljack saves the day from beyond the grave, that clever man. Metalhawk is killed by politics. Hat Guy tries to fight Bumblebee, and gets mad that he doesn’t remember his name. They’ve spoken to each other maybe once.

Metalhawk is made into a playing chip by Starscream, and also a speech writer from beyond the pale. Starscream tells everyone to get naked or fuck off, then takes off his top. All the Autobots and Decepticons who don’t want to get naked fuck off into the wilderness.

The Dark Cybertron “Prelude" issues kick in.

Shockwave and Dreadwing fly through the photorealistic sky to get to where the Titan is.

Listen here you little shit-

Shockwave shoots Dreadwing to test a theory, because ethics are for nerds.

Back when Shockwave was a hot guy with feelings, Jhiaxus was dealing with the Monstructor thing, then fucked off into space. Shockwave took the opportunity to be better than his teacher in every way, as is tradition. Proteus threw a whole-ass person across the room, because classism. Shockwave revealed himself to be a budding ecoterrorist. Shockwave joined a terrorist organization to further his own goals. Orion Pax tried to appeal to Shockwave’s softer side. Megatron killed the Senate. Shockwave replaced his shitty claws with a gun. Shockwave shot Dai Atlas in the legs and can’t explain why.

Dreadwing comes back to life, thanks to the power of Shockwave’s 14th ore.

Bumblebee has the Big Sad about Starscream being King of Iacon. Arcee doesn’t know what emotional turmoil feels like. Metalhawk’s lifeless body lays in the sun for several hours. Prowl is propositioned by the Constructicons. Arcee tells Prowl’s darkest secret, and it kills Bumblebee. Swoop is having a great time.

Arcee knows about Bumblebee being Hasbro’s golden boy. Prowl uses his manners, but only when no one can hear him. Arcee and the Constructicons get into a fight, with more flaming swords getting involved than you might expect. Slag offers to buy Arcee a drink.

Bumblebee gets a hot new body. Arcee gives herself a stick-and-poke tattoo. In a few hours, the sun will rise.

Pal, you are way ahead of schedule.

Shockwave makes a dramatic entrance.

Waspinator tells a story about the time he killed a servant of God and met death. Orion and pals visit Gorlam Prime. The Dead Universe comes into the narrative again. Wheelie has his arm blown off to keep from getting disintegrated, but he shrugs it off, because life is always awful for Wheelie.

Waspinator gets chased through the desert by Monstructor. Orion Pax acts like a dumbass. A Titan is revealed. Monstructor rides on the time-travel ship like it’s a horsey. Waspinator controls a Titan and makes it teleport. Orion plays fourth-dimensional chess, and reveals that his personal ship is named after his best friend.

Starscream talks to a corpse. Blurr tells Starscream to fuck off. A very good boy enters the narrative. The paparazzi ruin Starscream’s attempt to get underlings to do what he wants. A literal rat enters the narrative.

Starscream talks to Megatron, and I genuinely don’t have the words to explain what exactly is going on with that guy. Starscream takes a gander into the very good boy’s toolbox. The very good boy lays it on thick. Starscream destroys a man’s reputation.

Starscream breaks into Rattrap’s apartment. Rattrap becomes a government employee. Starscream talks to Wheeljack, who isn’t dead.

Soundwave has a flashback to when the Decepticons surrendered after the Chaos event, confirming that Ratbat was universally hated. Soundwave has robo-synesthesia. Shockwave is the perfect Cybertronian- Soudwave hates him for it.

Shockwave calls his teacher. Ravage judges Soundwave. The Decepticons reminisce on the time they resorted to cannibalism. Soundwave thinks mourning is for dumb babies and tells everyone to shut up because he’s big man on campus now.

Nobody deserves it more than you, babe.

The infighting begins, because no Decepticon has the ability to be halfway decent to each other, and they won’t learn that skill for a good while. Needlenose throws Blitzwing across a field and admits to having feelings. Soundwave is abandoned by the Decepticon forces.

Soundwave talks to himself in the Crystal City, then gets his ass kicked by Dreadwing.

In the past, Shockwave calls Bombshell a loser and outdoes him.

Soundwave kills Dreadwing. Shockwave hides in the shadows like a weirdo. Soundwave is done trusting Shockwave. Soundwave grabs Shockwave by the boob and yells at him. Soundwave is a hopeful guy.

In the past, Soundwave stole Ratbat’s brain and put it in a cassette, proving that space-Communism only works on paper.

Soundwave punches Shockwave in the head. Shockwave assumes Soundwave is alone, despite knowing he can contain many small men inside him.

Shockwave explodes a cat. Soundwave fires missiles at Shockwave and hits him in the tit. Shockwave would fuck Microsoft Excel if he could. Frenzy is just happy to be here- no, I didn’t mix them up, the colorist did.

Ravage is a grown-ass man. Soundwave’s synesthesia used to be a lot worse. Shockwave sends Soundwave and pals home. The Titan and Waspinator show up.

Soundwave has a face. Ravage and all the other cassettes are emotional support animals, who are also fully sapient.

Shockwave’s gonna fuck everything up.

And THAT, dear children, is the entirety of Robots in Disguise, up to issue #22. We’re all caught up and ready.

#transformers #rid #exrid #recap #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post

[loopy777]

Do you think the avatar fandom has an interest in shipping that exceeds what is normally found in other fandoms? I’ve heard this said before, but I never really noticed. Primarily because I never really posted in threads dedicated to shipping. Be that as it may, it seems a little hard to believe since shipping is a big part of internet culture. I was never part of the Harry Potter fandom while the series was ongoing, but I’d imagine that it was pretty crazy too.

Well, I’m coming at this from a weird perspective, because the fandoms I was part of before Avatar were Star Wars and Transformers. Sure, you could look in those two fandoms now and find shippers a’plenty, but back when I joined them, they each had their Main Fandom that was dominated by dudes, and then the walled-off female-dominated ‘playgrounds’ to which the shipping was limited because that was too gross or gay for the Mainstream. I was only vaguely aware that there were some Transformers fangirls out somewhere on the internet who thought Megatron and Starscream had some real sexual tension going, and I heard rumors of people who actually didn’t think the romance between Anakin and Padme was eye-rolling and even made fanart and wrote stories celebrating it!

Obviously, that’s shifted a bit.

So Avatar was my first experience with a fandom that was both female-dominated in the mainstream and had a strong shipping component. I was actually quite surprised at how fervent and prolific the shipping discussion was, because it seemed obvious that the AtLA cartoon was only interested in incorporating romance in small, cliched doses. (This was before most of Book Fire had aired, keep in mind.) There was non-shipping discussion, of course, but most of that was centered on Speculating On The Next Episode, my least favorite fandom activity ever. If I wanted to discuss characters and themes, I seemingly had to at least wet my feet in the shipping discussions.

Avatar was also my first experience with Ship Wars. I heard rumblings that the Harry Potter fandom had a similar flavor going on, but my experience with that franchise is still limited to seeing the first movie and listening to the music that John Williams composed for the series. (Boarding school fantasies never really did much for me. Boarding school sounds pretty horrific, actually. It’s school you can’t go home from. Yikes!) With Avatar, I could see firsthand the fans arguing about whether Katara slightly shifting her head while talking to Aang indicated that she’s destined to marry him or signified that she’s imagining Zuko naked in that moment. It was so bizarre, especially once I was immersed enough to see the show itself starting to engage with this segment of the fandom. I look back at those days and I’m not sure whether to smile with fondness or curse them, because now Disney makes blockbuster movies entirely dedicated to addressing complaints from illiterate fans on Reddit, and I wonder if it all started with someone deciding it would be fun to tease the shippers.

(More likely, though, it started with some television writer joining a message board to yell at someone who posted that the latest season was “stupid LOL.”)

However, I wanted to engage with Avatar fandom, and shipping is, when you really break it down, all about character, so it was easy enough to dive into. It was especially easy to figure out the fanfic component. Nobody reads genfic, even if it’s a cool story about two great characters engaging in banter and then stealing a train, but a certain segment of the fandom will knock over the furniture in a rush to read a Maiko/BlueMai fic about Mai and a Masked Zuko engaging in old-fashioned romantically-charged banter and then stealing a train (especially if there’s a great kiss at the end). So shipping became a fun way to write the stories I want with the characters I like, so long as I also take time to satisfy the shippers; I quickly came to enjoy the unfamiliar challenge of selling the reader on why these characters should kiss at the end, and I’ve become rather critical of token romantic subplots in professional fiction because so much of it is bad and it’s so easy to make it good!

And I haven’t really expanded my fandom horizons since then, to be honest. I’ve poked into some other fandoms and peeked at others, but it’s hard to gauge how much shipping plays into things compared to Avatar. What I think makes Avatar stand out on the shipping scene, though, is how bad the Ship Wars got. And I think that’s largely a matter of the timing. Along with Harry Potter and Twilight, I recall Avatar being one of the first online fandoms to achieve notice outside the fandom for the degree of vitriol and bad behavior centering around the Ship Wars, with the Canon!Zutarians standing out for the degree to which they seemed disengaged from the actual work they were supposedly fans of. Nowadays, that type of thing is an old tune, and the same kind of bad behavior is now more associated with more-woke-than-thou fights.

I mean, look at the first Star Wars neo-fandom. It tore itself apart and ruined the very movie it was a fandom for, but shipping was only part of that. We have a second neo-fandom now, and Disney has wisely decided that the only characters who get to kiss are frog aliens.

(Happily, the Transformers fandom has seemed to very neatly divide itself into the ‘No shipping ever’ fans and the ‘Why can’t everything be like that Gay Robots In Space comic book?’ fans. And never the twain shall meet. I wish more stuff would be like that comic book, myself.)

But at the time? Some people online only heard of Avatar by way of people fighting over which boy the Blue Girl should get with. It was one of, like, three things I knew about Avatar when I first checked it out. (The others were that the star is a funny-looking kid with an arrow on his head and the main antagonist looks like he’s going to join the good guys until a sudden twist at the end of a season finale.) So I can see where Avatar has a reputation for Shipping.

Or, at least, that’s my perspective.

#for the record #i have no problem with zutara as a ship #and i've even written a few short stories for it #it's the shippers who think it was or should be canon that make me roll my eyes #Anonymous

[scintillating-galaxias]

Love Notes

my first chapter of my fic for thunderrod week! i cant wait to see everyone’s works! :D

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Rodimus starts finding a series of love notes outside the door to his hab suite. He's determined to find out who is leaving them behind. (read it here on ao3!)

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“And stay off of level seven tonight! Magnus is on duty there, and he’s not gonna be as nice about it if you run into him.”

“Yes, sir! Thanks for the heads up!”

Rodimus huffed fondly as Tailgate sped by him with a cheery wave, the hum of his hoverboard rising and falling as he zoomed around the corner. He made a note to ask Tailgate about where to get his servos on one of those sometime. High speeds, slight peril, and the constant possibility of giving Ultra Magnus a spark attack? What wasn’t to love? It could never replace meteor surfing, but it’d be a suitable substitute until they came across another shower.

He turned to his hab suite door to tap in the passcode when a flash of red caught his eye. The crest of his helm twitched slightly as he plucked it off the frame of his door. It was a note—a real, paper note. It felt strange to have something so flimsy in his servos. He gingerly wiggled a digit underneath the shiny red seal that was keeping the paper folded shut. It popped off smoothly, revealing a single sentence written in offensively neat, bold, black penmanship:

You put the brightest of stars to shame.

Rodimus shuttered his optics once, and then twice, and then a third time for good measure. He brought the note closer to his face, flipped it over a few times, even held it up to the light, before jerking it away to snap his helm up and down the hallway. It was, obviously, completely empty. No one was there shyly peeking around the corner. No one dropped out of the vent to shout ‘surprise!’ at him. He looked back to the note.

“Jeez,” he said. He finished typing in the rest of his passcode and hurried inside his hab suite without looking away. He deftly navigated the drawing irons on the ground he kept vowing to pick up and sat down behind his desk.

You put the brightest of stars to shame.

Rodimus smothered a silly grin and tried to focus. There were so few reasons to write anything when datapads existed, hardly anyone ever actually wrote things down. So unless he wanted to go make over two hundred mechs write down the message until he found a match, guessing on penmanship alone wouldn’t be possible.

There were a dozen other ways he could figure it out—requesting security footage, setting up a twenty-four-hour watch out in the hallway, Pit, just asking around would probably yield some answers. Yet he felt oddly reluctant to do so. True, he was insanely curious about who the sender could be, and it took everything in him not to call Nightbeat right away to tell him about another case. But he also wanted to see things play out on their own. It could be… exciting. Fun, even. The kind of fun he hadn’t had in a long, long time.

(And he wouldn’t complain if he got a few more notes like this.)

He decisively planted his chin on the tops of his servos. If the notes suddenly turned creepy or threatening, then he’d act accordingly. But for now…

.:drift:.

.:drift:.

.:driiiiiift:.

.:Yes?:.

.:can you come to my hab suite? there’s something weird i wanna show you:.

.: I’m feeling oddly disinclined given the last ‘weird’ thing you wanted to show me involved your exhaust pipes exploding in my face.:.

.: it’s way weirder:.

.: I’ll there soon.:.

Sure enough, a few faithful moments later, a polite knock sounded at the door. It slid open a second later, and Drift strode in with a curious tilt to his finials.

“What is it?” he asked as he came to a stop before Rodimus’ desk.

Rodimus handed him the note. “Someone left this outside my door,” he said as Drift took the paper from his servos. “I wanna know what you think of it.”

Drift sat down on the edge of his desk as he read the note over. His optics crinkled slightly in an amused smile. “I think someone’s very interested in you,” he said.

“Yeah, no slag, but I wanna figure out who. But like, the old fashioned way.”

“Hmm.” Drift gave the note back to Rodimus. “I can’t think of anyone off of the top of my head.”

“I’m guessing whoever put it there must have gone out of their way to get paper,” Rodimus mused. It made sense. Everything aboard the Lost Light was tech and metal. Any organic materials would likely only be found in the labs for whatever reason the science folks needed them.

“And there’s even a wax seal,” Drift pointed out. “I think it’s a human tradition to seal letters with a wax stamp, but I could be wrong. Either way, whoever it is clearly cares a lot about you.”

“So it’s probably from someone who I’ve already got some kind relationship with. Someone who’s been with me since the beginning of the quest.” Rodimus drummed the tips of his digits across his desk. Then he pulled a datapad from a drawer and pulled up a roster of the mechs on board. After a few swipes, the roster shrank from two-hundred to around forty mechs. “Not Magnus,” Rodimus said after a moment, crossing his name from the list. Drift snorted.

“Definitely not. Besides, I don’t see him being so indirect about it.”

“Or poetic.” The energon drained from Rodimus’ face. “Oh, Primus, you don’t think—?”

“I sincerely doubt Megatron is even persuing a romantic relationship of any kind,” Drift quickly assured. “Even if he were, I don’t think he’d be using love notes to tell you.”

Love notes. Now that was a phrase Rodimus hadn’t heard since he’d graduated from the Academy. It made him feel eons older and younger simultaneously. He grinned. “He’d probably see it as a waste of time. Sucks to be him, love notes are great.”

“How would you know?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“You know, you never did finish telling me that story about you, Two-Step, and the scented—”

“Not about me!” Rodimus hissed as Drift chuckled. He shot him an ineffective glare before swiping another line across the datapad. Then he glanced over at the note again. “Actually, hold on, look. It’s got the Nyon dialect, look, there are the weird swirlies on everything…”

“Oh, you’re right. So they could either be from Nyon—”

“Or they’re trying to impress me.”

“I was going to say they could simply also be very thoughtful, but that’s an option too. I guess.”

Rodimus hummed. “Not Mags, not Megs… Someone who’s been with me since the beginning... Is it you?”

“I’m a married mech, Rodimus.”

Rodimus curled his free servo and swung his forearm in a small damn motion. “Had to try.” Drift rolled his optics and shook his helm as Rodimus crossed his name off with a small tsk.

They continued back and forth like that for a while, slowly whittling down the list from forty to thirty to twenty potential mechs. Even then, barely any of them particularly leaped out at Rodimus as the potential note-sender. The only one that really seemed to match in terms of thoughtfulness and care was Thunderclash. Which had to be wrong, because one, there was no way a mech like him was still single, and two, they barely knew each other. Well. He knew some stuff about Thunderclash, like his favorite drink, and how his laugh filled up a whole room, but that didn’t count.

“It’s getting late,” Drift eventually said. His optics were beginning to dim with exhaustion. “We should pick this up in the morning, though.”

Rodimus glanced down at the time on his datapad in surprise. “Scrap. I have a morning shift tomorrow too. Ugh.”

“Have fun with that.” Drift gracefully pushed himself up and off the desk and made for the door. “Maybe whoever sent it will come forward soon. We’ll just have to wait, I suppose.”

“Guess so.” Rodimus stretched, groaning as struts in his back tensed and released. “Thanks for helping me out.”

“Anytime.” Drift smiled. “Good night.”

“‘Night.”

As the near-silent sound of Drift’s pedes faded away, Rodimus shut off the datapad and picked up the note once again. The berth sank slightly beneath his weight as he sat down on the edge of it, still reading the note.

You put the brightest of stars to shame.

Feeling warm, he placed the note on his nightstand before he reached over and turned out the lights. A pleased smile spread across his face, and did not entirely disappear as he finally slipped into sleep.

#thunderrodweek #thunderrod #rodiclash #fluff #love notes #my writing #maccadam

[hibiscera]

scalpel (:

YES I sent myself Scalpel as an excuse to infodump about Scalpel. Mind your business.

First impression

This is THE best design I have ever seen out of all the best designs I have EVER seen. I could become obsessed with this. Also right before I got into TFA, I got into Awful Hosital so my other reaction was DR HM PHAGE!?!? Also I was just into MLAATR before too so KRACKUS!?

Impression now

Honestly, I was always destined to love Scalpel. My track record shows as much (looks at phage and krackus and every other mad scientist and weird doctor I’ve ever fixated on). He’s a mad doctor. He looks like a weird bug. His design is essentially just EYES which is a sure fire way to get me to like a design. He is EVERYTHING.

We only know so much about him. We know he prefers taking things apart. We know he created Toxitron, Magnificus, Nemesis, and Dark Rodimus. We know he works with Oil Slick. So I just took his character and ran with it. I base my interpretation partially off of Dr. Phage, but I see him as very?? Enthusiastic about his work. Very competitive too. I could write an entire essay on my depiction of him, but just know I love and adore him and I love developing him.

I am, admittedly a bit grateful he never had his chance to be on the show because I have had SO much fun developing what I have for him. Lots of creative energy from this little bug!! 😭

Favorite moment

By default, this, since it was his ONLY moment.

Idea for a story

Besides my Re-Animator AU.

I have a fic wip of a research log by the bot I headcanon as his creator... and I have an AU I want to write about where Oil Slick goes offline andScalpel desperately tries to revive him, Frankenstein style, and Mindwipe is dragged along for the ride. And I want to write about his days in the science guild. I want to write a lot about him.

Unpopular opinion

Looks into the camera.

Favorite relationship

SCALPELSLICK... canon lab partners who cloned a bunch of bots together?? Umm that is called PARENTHOOD. They are in love! It’s that simple! I adore the idea of their relationship, Oil Slick bregudgingly beginning to find Scalpel’s endless hubris ENDEARING the more they work together?? Finding him CUTE?? Falling deeply in love and the two of them being deeply impressed by the other’s work!?

The dark romantic-comedy... a morbid and deeply loving relationship, like the Addams family except like actually evil. I love the potential they have... Also Scalpel’s relationship with their CLONE CHILDREN!! He does play favorites and his favorite is Toxitron.

Also, I love him having a one-sided rivalry with anyone he doesn’t like, but especially Perceptor. Also legally I have to mention Mindwipe, his annoying in-law, since I headcanon that Oil Slick adopts Mindwipe as a younger brother.

Favorite headcanon

Ok this is gonna be more than one.

- He was created in a research lab far off from Cybertron by a certain scientist who was focusing his research on experimenting with Protoforms. He would also put said creator offline before making his way to Cybertron to join the science guild. Fellow creations from the same lab are Nightbird and Autobot X.

- His main focus in his research is creating LIFE. He was kicked out of the science guild because his ideas were starting to get... dangerous. Like the kind of dangerous where he insisted on using the allspark, you know, the source of all Cybertronian life itself, for his experiments and research. PC Magnus was like. Ok. This guy has got to go.

- One of his personal experiments involved using a tiny fraction of his spark to create a little lab assistant for himself. It worked! It’s horrifying but he treats it like his baby.

- His loyalty to Megatron is conditional, he has no deep loyalty to the Decepticon faction, he mostly cares about being able to do what he wants and having the equipment he needs.

- His opinion on gender is “I don’t care how others perceive me so long as they perceive me as a threat”

#long post #LISTEN!!! I JUST LIKE TALKING ABOUT HIM. #scalpel #mir answers #themself! #tfa hc tag

[orangewritesstuff]

Hi, may I have some headcanons for a young pre-war Megatronus falling in love?

Oh my god, anon, you don’t even know how much I love Megatron(us). Pre-war, during the war, post-war. I’m sick and weird, but I loved him since childhood for some weird reason, so this request is playing on the strings of my heart.

And this might be not-so-accurate, because I had to rewind something, and some things I couldn;t rewind, so there might be some mistakes, also this is MTMTE/IDW and I just can;t actually remember, uuughhh

Megatron (Pre-war,  aka Megatronus)

He actually had some thoughts about finding an s/o. I don’t know, but I see him as a very romantical mech. So, even if he knows that it’s not that easy to find a love when you are a low-class mech, he definitely thought about it (dreamed more likely).

Probably, he may fall in love at the first sight. Especially if s/o had a chance to show their intelligence or free-thinking. Or it may be the sweetest slow burn ever. 

He can be very stubborn when it comes to defending his ideas, but if his s/o can maintain a good and calm discussion, he will be so impressed and amazed. And if s/o supports his ideas - he is the happiest mech alive. He can talk about his passions for hours, and if his s/o appreciates that and listens to him - he is so grateful.

Oh, he is sweet. He is a poet and romantic, you know what that means. He spends hours of his free time on writing special poems for his s/o. He is adorably frustrated when he can’t find the right words - because, all of the praises in his head is just not enough! His s/o deserves so much more!

Now in his dreams about the better world, s/o is always standing next to him, happy and safe.

Also, he is daydreaming a lot now. He even got in trouble at work for that - he was smiling like a fool and thinking about s/o while he actually needed to do something important with some instruments, and it caused a small collapse in one of the corridors of the mines. Luckily, no one gets hurt.

A lot of accidental (not so accidental if you know what I mean) touches. Everything like in movies - while s/o trying to grab something and he is too and their fingers touches for a moment. Everything like this.

Even if he is a stubborn boy, he actually starting to listen to s/o, when they give him critiques. 

Oh, sometimes he is such a sweet young boy in love, I swear to Primus. It’s always so amazing when he acts so nice and caring, even if he is actually not that sweet in his character. I mean, sometimes he is suddenly looking at s/o with this loving optics and he looks so… young and almost vulnerable, actually. 

And when he is excited - he is the C U T E S T, I s2g.

I love him. I love imagining him falling in love, even though this love is probably doomed because he will oh so change when the war will start. 

Ok, I’m crying now. I should end this here. I know it’s not how most people see Megatron back then, but I just want to believe that he would be this passionate young romantic, who’s dreaming of the better world, the better place, who is just… young and happy because he has his dreams and determined to make them come true?

#orange imagines #oh no #my heart is set in motion #i'm not prepared for that #i'm crying why #transformers imagines #transformers headcanons #transformers #mtmte headcanons #mtmte imagines #mtmte #more than meets the eye #mtmte megatron #megatron #idw #idw imagines #idw transformers #maccadam

[optiprimus]

lost light #7, or: i’m suing for whiplash because that’s the fastest i’ve ever gone from loving an issue to...NOT

All of the spoilers under the cut.

Breakin’ in the sideblog with a reaction to lost light 7! It’s a shame I fucking hated it. 

I liked the first...fifteen pages--I liked everything Rodimus did, I liked Magnus’s actually really tragic not-breakup with Megatron-who-is-no-longer-around. I liked Tailgate’s teen drama reaction to Whirl’s news! It’s exactly the kind of silly, over-the-top solution I’d expect from him (and, let’s be honest, most of the rest of the crew.)

The ending? Did not like that. For anyone who’s interested, here’s why. TL;DR at the end.

COMPARABLE DEATHS OVER THE COURSE OF THE TRANSFORMERS: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE (i.e., deaths of one half of a romantic relationship where the other half is left alive to mourn)

REWIND AND CHROMEDOME. This is the O.G. Dead Gay Robot Tragedy; I wasn’t around when it happened, but I hear the outcry was so great that we, uh, got Rewind back. Because killing off one of your two canon gay men at the time is not a particularly progressive storytelling choice. And I’m glad James has no problem fixing his mistakes--hell, in this issue we get another reference to the whole “estriol positive” gendered sparktypes situation, specifically to hammer it into the ground that just kidding, that was a poor decision on my part and I apologize for it. But I digress.

Rewind’s death was INCREDIBLY fucking sad. I cried. My high school friend who knows absolutely nothing about trans formers cried. But narratively, it was satisfying. Rewind dies as a heroic sacrifice; he dies saving all his friends and the person he loves, and while that is tragic, it makes you feel proud of him. His last act is selfless, which is, in my opinion, the best note to end on.

The romantic nature of his sacrifice (romantic in the “idealized view of reality” sense as well as “expression of love”) is somewhat undercut by the apparent brutal nature of his death--if we’re to believe Overlord, he got, uh, ripped to pieces and cried for help the whole time. Which, to be fair, is what I would be doing too.

From a metafictional point of view, Rewind’s suffering is a consequence of his choice to be a hero. While this isn’t fair, it’s an established convention, and it’s what makes “making the right choice” difficult. That’s why it carries the weight it does.

Also, he, uh, comes back to life. Although the “alternate universe version of my lover returns to replace the one that died” plotline is its own can of worms, the fact remains that at the end of the day, both living members of the couple are happy again. As happy as you can be in this sort of comic.

Carrying on.

SKIDS AND NAUTICA. Hoo, boy, this one makes me cry. I will be honest: I did not realize this was meant to be a romance until issue...fifty-two? Maybe? And then I went back and looked at the panels where they’re there in the background but don’t speak, and I was so impressed by the visual storytelling that I forgot to be sad for a few minutes.

But then I was sad again. I liked Skids. I really like Nautica. I want them both to be happy. I think they made a cute couple--but Skids’s death served as a necessary part of the story in so many ways. He gets a heroic sacrifice that allows his friends to stand firm in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds (although you could argue that their powerups were pointless; they are set to lose anyway until Megatron shows up, because it’s always about Megatron. Just kidding; I like that guy.) 

It’s a natural conclusion to his character arc, and although it’s a tragic one, it’s one I really liked, in the same way I liked Sunstreaker’s death in All Hail Megatron. It’s sad, but it’s narratively satisfying (there’s that word again), because at least when they’re dead, they’re at peace.

It serves Nautica’s development, in a way that’s incredibly reminiscent of the countless dead-girlfriend-in-fridge narratives we’ve seen since time immemorial. Skids’s death pushes her towards violence in an actually really sad nod to her ongoing desire to learn more “practical” skills. When they’re up against the personality ticks, she laments her lack of combat ability, and then outsmarts the enemy instead of punching it. With Skids, there’s nothing she can fight or outsmart--but at least she can get some revenge, and put his sacrifice to good use.

Skids gets the death of a romantic hero, and for what it’s worth, I doubt he’s gone forever. I doubt any of these guys are gone forever, given what little we know of the Big Plot of the comic so far. But we can’t assume, so for now, he’s dead; he just died well.

LUG AND ANODE. Who are confirmed girlfriends, to the surprise of hopefully no one. This one feels almost like it shouldn’t count, because we see Lug in almost every issue (even if she’s a brain ghost for a lot of those) but it fits the pattern.

Lug’s death and reincarnation are one hundred percent fodder for Anode’s character arc. Let’s get that out of the way now. She dies because of Anode’s reckless adventuring ways, Anode hallucinates her presence, Anode overcomes her fear of blacksmithing to resurrect her, and Anode’s grief is resolved. In this arc, she is a storytelling tool that serves to introduce Anode and what she’s like as a person.

I don’t think this is necessarily bad. Lug has a character of her own, even if she has no agency in this arc, and from now on she gets a chance to have her own angsty plotlines. I’d be on edge of Anode were, you know, a dude, but she’s not, so this is something I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt...on. about. I don’t think that works

Lug doesn’t die a hero’s death. Her death is an accident, resulting from someone else’s carelessness; it’s not a conscious choice on her part, which means it’s also not her fault. The story doesn’t blame her for her own death. It’s not the inspiring sacrifice we get from Rewind or Skids, but that’s okay; not every death is like that, even in fiction.

And again, she comes back. Which we sort of knew would happen, given what Anode used to do for a living. In the end, everyone who’s, you know, alive doesn’t have to be alone. It’s perhaps a bittersweet ending, but it’s a happy one.

And now the main event.

TAILGATE AND CYCLONUS.

Here’s a fun fact: I don’t think Tailgate is actually dead. I think he’s going to make it out, one way or another. I don’t know how long he’s going to be gone. We lost Rewind for upwards of a year; I don’t want to do that again. Either way, this is written with the assumption that he’s perma-dead, because as of right now that’s what we’re being led to believe.

Here’s a fun fact: if one of these two had to die, I would have preferred Cyclonus. In a heroic sacrifice. Yes, I know he wasn’t the one scripted to die way before this. No, I don’t want either of them dead. But if any character would be one hundred percent satisfied and at peace dying to save someone he loved, it’s that guy.

But instead we got this.

Tailgate dies a horrible death as a result of being a dick (apparently due to powers that...make him lash out at people and be a dick. If I’m reading that right.) You can argue that Fangry (who had such a good name, man, why did he have to be a throwaway villain. Assuming he is one) was justified in what he did; personally, I don’t think he did his due investigative diligence. Also if he was helping Kaput with this project wouldn’t he have heard him mention that Tailgate’s aggression is due to his magical girl powerup? Digression.

Here’s what the order of story events is. Tailgate breaks up with Cyclonus in a teen drama esque scene complete with a very sad visual callback to issue whatever is the one where he does bomb disposal. Cyclonus leaves and is sad. Whirl comforts him. Tailgate says “please Doc remove my dangerous superpowers so I can not die and also finally get together with the boy I like.” Doc says okay I’m going to irradiate the fuck out of you. We bury Tailgate in what is transparently a coffin a BIG BOX and then Fangry shows up and says “enjoy death fucker.” Some flowers grow. The end.

Tailgate gets revenge-killed...because he wanted to be alive and happy with the person he loved. Within the story, that’s of course not how it went down, but narratively, his death is a consequence of wanting a happy ending.

If he hadn’t had the audacity to want that, he wouldn’t have been in a position to be murdered. From a meta point of view, he is responsible for the situation and for the motivation of his killer, because he had weird superpowers and liked a boy. And he had weird superpowers because...oh. Because he liked a boy.

Maybe he’s not really dead. Maybe he escaped the death box! Maybe he’ll come back like so many others have. But even if that’s the case, I don’t understand the point of this fakeout. I don’t get it! What emotion is this supposed to engender in me besides disappointment? I’m not concerned for Tailgate because I have no way of knowing if he’s survived and I doubt I’ll find out either way for a while. I’m sad for Cyclonus, because uhh yeah I’m sad for Cyclonus, but I’ve been sad for Cyclonus since like the first issue! This isn’t new!! Anyway.

TL;DR: Every other couple split up by death has had the death be a heroic sacrifice, or not a direct result of the dead person’s mistakes, and most of them came back. Tailgate died because he beat up a dude (bad) maybe because of his magic powers (not his fault)--and because he asked Kaput to fix him so he wouldn’t die or kill anyone else and he could stay with his not-boyfriend. He died because he asked for a happy ending. Even if he’s not dead, I don’t see the point of the cliffhanger; if he’s dead, he’s dead, and we’ll be wondering indefinitely if he’s going to come back. If he’s alive, we spent [x] issues being needlessly anxious about him. That’s not a fun cliffhanger.

Drama thrives on conflict. Them’s facts. But some conflict feels good to read, and some just makes you feel sick, because it’s scary or unfair or hits a little too close to home, and I don’t know about you, but I read this comic about space robots that turn into cars for fun. Not because I want another story about “life isn’t fair” where good people die in horrible ways and bad guys get away with being bad. And if you dare to ask for a happy ending, with the person you’ve been fighting to be with for sixty issues, you suffer for it.

It’s pain for the sake of pain. It’s pointless. God knows we have enough of that already, thanks.

P.S. holy shit sorry to all the people who were invested in megs/mags that SUCKS and I feel for you

#mtmte #lost light #mtmte spoilers #lost light spoilers #tailgate #it's time for bre's opinion