#as well as to create an actual fucking arc for this absolute fun monstrosity of a human being

[sniped-hugger]

BTW how was The Guy reacting to David being tied up (gift-wrapped even!) and given to thier dear old friend emile.

Also would you ever make a blog for them (would love to gift them with murders)

Positively, obviously. Although a little jealous that they didn’t think of that psychological torment first. Anything that pokes or prods at Emile’s mental state and the sheer potential in their worst instincts is their Christmas

And like. Maybe???? I don’t really have any motivation to at the moment and am currently entrusting any Guy appearances and characterization to Mx. Scotty-boy running Emile’s blog. If I were to though, although it definitely would be that silly, kinda loose stuff as is the nature of rp blogs, I still definitely would be crafting a full thought out story and plot with it with a beginning and end with a middle that can manipulate just how bad, good, or weird that end gets. Because I’m Like That™️ as a natural consequence to my deeply ingrained special interest in storytelling

#answering #The Guy #it’d take a really good bout of inspiration to push me to make one #as well as to create an actual fucking arc for this absolute fun monstrosity of a human being #they’re just kinda this silly mean little cat to me right now with very little real depth #perhaps someday #likely not any time soon #but there will always be hope and good chances

[brandxspandex]

TF IDW reread: Monstrosity

I recall Monstrosity was my favourite instalment of the Autocracy-Monstrosity-Primacy trilogy, and upon rereading it I think that is going to remain the case. It’s a fun story featuring batshit crazy Decepticons, swarms of beastly monsters, dire and deathly places, and Megatron being a BAMF. Watching Megatron transform into Garbage King of Trash Planet and go on a quest of self-discovery with his riddle-spewing pet Quintesson in tow was quite entertaining, and it was the kind of setting and storyline where Livio Ramondelli’s artwork is quite appropriate. The Quintesson, Pentius, was a fun character, even if there was pretty much no explanation for any single thing that he said or did. He was like some sort of spirit-guide/sensei character who guides another character on a journey towards enlightenment, only instead of guiding Megatron towards enlightenment he guides him towards a greater clarity of evil…which I guess is enlightenment from some people’s point of view. There is no clear reason why he does this, although he is a historian, and some of the cryptic things he says are somewhat reminiscent of Metroplex’s comments to Optimus about the cyclic nature of history and Optimus’s role as a recurring player in it. Maybe Pentius recognised Megatron as another one of those major players and wanted to see him fulfil his destined role, or maybe he just gets his kicks out of encouraging people to be evil, who knows.

Quintessons are also established as having (green) sparks in this series, which raises questions about the nature of Quintesson life and their connection to the Transformers in the IDW continuity. If I recall there are some continuities in which the Quintessons are descendants/creations of Quintus Prime, so maybe that is true of this continuity as well. The fact that the end of the IDW continuity means we’re going to miss out on the opportunity to properly explore this version of the Quintessons is one of the many things about the reboot that makes me thoroughly upset.

The current Optimus Prime series established that Junkion was blown up in the war between the Autobots and Decepticons at some point after this, but turns out that at this point Junkion was just a goddamn shard anyway, so not much of a loss really.

Autocracy made Megatron look like a little bit of a chump (and the Decepticons clearly agreed, given their decision to get rid of him), but Monstrosity quite pointedly reaffirms his terrifying badassitude, while making him look outright sane and heroic next to the nutcase that is Scorponok. It could be said that Megatron (somewhat thinly) veiled his desire for endless violence behind a motive of social change, but Scorponok didn’t make the slightest effort to disguise what he was after, and took it WAY up to 11. Scorponok basically wanted to turn Cybertron into what Junkion already was, and after getting banished there Megatron seemed to decide that he’d had quite enough of that. I guess that what Monstrosity ultimately establishes is that while Megatron has most definitely fallen to his bloodlust (energon-lust?), he hasn’t gone completely loopy; he still has goals beyond simply killing things, or at least still believes he does. I find it kinda weird that Megatron’s character arc on Junkion is meant to be about becoming truly monstrous, yet the whole story is also about establishing him as a much better alternative to Scorponok. In fact he seems less villainous and nutty when he gets back from Junkion than before.

Then again, Megatron’s “revelation” on Junkion is that what he truly wants is dominance, “the only truth in existence”. Perhaps the contrast that the story was trying to establish between Megatron and Scorponok is that while Scorponok was basically “chaotic evil” and wanted to create a primordial wasteland where only the strongest survive, Megatron wanted to establish a more ordered evil, with himself at the top. That being said, I can’t believe that Megatron wasn’t to some extent driven by the same sort of lust for violence that seemed to motivate Scorponok, as there are several moments throughout the continuity that heavily imply/basically outright state that Megatron was more interested in killing than actually winning the war. However, I guess that while Scorponok was nothing but that lust for violence and twisted might makes right philosophy, those elements of Megatron’s character were somewhat tempered by other aspects, such as his desire for absolute dominance. I do wonder how much of Megatron’s desire for dominance stemmed from the moments he had felt helpless, like on Trepan’s table, which spawned the desire to never feel that way again.

We saw Starscream being pretty damn critical of and fed up with Megatron in Autocracy, which seems to culminate in him helping overthrow Megs here. That being said, it’s not made clear how much say Starscream actually had in the coup – whether he was one of the first people calling for Megatron’s blood, or if he watched Scorponok blow the heads off anyone defending Megatron before deciding to play along. Either way, it doesn’t take him long to start hitting Scorponok with the same sort of criticism he had recently been levelling at Megs, although he also offers some pretty valid advice, and even tries to break up in-fighting between the Cons. It just seems like he earnestly wanted the Decepticons to be successful in doing what they set out to do, but unfortunately for him Scorponok was everything he seemed to hate about Megatron concentrated and amplified.

I guess we don’t actually know for sure if Starscream was Megatron’s SiC at this point, though his interactions with Megatron certainly made him seem as much, but either way it’s interesting that he just lets Scorponok take command. It comes across as though he initially wasn’t actually that interested in being the leader at this point in history, but rather preferred an advisory role from behind the scenes. Unfortunately none of the leaders he gave advice to were interested in listening to him. While I think there are a number of factors underlying Starscream’s eventual ambition for leadership, I tend to think that one of the most major factors was the fact that all the other leaders he followed continuously let him down. He was fucked over by the Senate, Megatron, Scorponok, until eventually he thought “fuck it, I’ll do it myself”.

He doesn’t seem quite at that point yet however, as he doesn’t use Scorponok’s raging incompetence and unpopularity as an opportunity to seize control of the Cons himself, and he looks outright delighted when Megatron shows up again to take power back from Scorponok, which is a great scene by the way:

I love how Megatron’s silhouette makes him look like fricking Dracula or something in that panel.

Anyway, Megatron is understandably upset with Starscream after this, and promises him that they would discuss his role in the coup, which is something we never get to see. I find this really frustrating given that Megatron and Starscream’s relationship is made up of many more questions than answers, and this seems like it would have been a major turning point between them assuming this was Starscream’s first major betrayal. I have to wonder what went down between them after this so that Starscream not only survived, but maintained his major ranking in the Cons. I could imagine Starscream arguing/pleading to Megatron that Megs had constantly reiterated that the leader of the Decepticons must be strong and indomitable, so by discarding Megatron in favour of another leader after his defeat, Starscream was only following the doctrine Megatron wanted him to follow. If Megatron was won over by this argument, I wonder if this could have been the beginning of their dynamic of Megatron keeping Starscream around to challenge him and so give him the opportunity to reaffirm his dominance as leader. I also wonder if this is around the time their relationship turned violent.

Assuming Starscream’s initial loyalty to and idolisation of Megatron was genuine, and I’m inclined to say it was, it would seem that this initial “positive” stage of their relationship was over by this point in time. But was their relationship as simple as an initial, relatively short positive period in which Starscream was loyal, followed by a really long, horrible period in which Starscream was treacherous? I’m inclined to think it was more complicated than that. Starscream may have welcomed Megatron back in Monstrosity just because he could be used to get rid of Scorponok, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Megatron’s strength and determination in returning from Junkion and reclaiming the Decepticons had restored some of Starscream’s eroded faith in him. I could imagine Starscream going through another period of loyalty to Megatron after this, although it probably wouldn’t be as strong as his initial loyalty, and their relationship would be tainted from that point on by Starscream’s betrayal. I bet their relationship would have gone through a number of such phases of Starscream warming back up to Megatron to some extent before souring to him again and trying to get rid of him, but with an overall downwards trend as their relationship for the most part deteriorated. In fact, we kind of saw another instance of this at the end of All Hail Megatron, if I recall, with Starscream saving Megatron’s life shortly after he had attempted a coup.

Also Scorponok noted that Megatron had apparently kept Starscream at arm’s length (something Starscream puts down to Megatron not having much trust for politicians, an explanation that makes a lot more sense now that we know Starscream used to be a senator even before the Decepticons), but this seems like a kinda odd thing to say given that Megatron apparently made Starscream his SiC, trusted him with a number of important duties, and had him alone by his side several times. If Starscream’s early passionate fixation on Megatron hadn’t just been for show, then maybe he wanted to be emotionally close to him as well (not necessarily in a romantic way if that’s what you assume I mean…although also maybe that) but Megatron kept his distance in that respect. If that were so, I wonder if that could have been a contributing factor towards Starscream’s attitude towards Megatron going sour.

Meanwhile poor Optimus Prime has been contending with Dai Atlas’s bitching, and to be fair I guess he kinda has a point; Cybertron was a bit of a shitshow so perhaps packing up and leaving was a reasonable thing to do. On the other hand, if your solution to all your problems is to pack up and run off to someplace else and start over, you’re never going to achieve much. The vision of unity that The Matrix granted Optimus when they bonded makes him pretty insistent that Cybertronians ought to all stick together. I imagine that Optimus would have felt that Cybertronians leaving the planet and scattering would have also amounted to them abandoning each other, and he didn’t want to leave anyone behind, as illustrated by his refusal to give up on the Dynobots and their monstrous predicament.

Optimus does however wonder if he’s just jealous of all the people leaving Cybertron’s problems behind while he’s stuck there dealing with it all, which is really sad because that’s pretty much the same sort of sentiment of frustration with his position of responsibility that he expresses 4 million years later in The Death of Optimus Prime. So Optimus was done with the position of Prime from more or less the day he got it, and he’s probably been sick of it for the entirety of the 4 million year war. Honestly when the continuity ends I really hope he gets to survive and quit all his responsibilities and go and live somewhere way out of the way of any drama and just like…garden or some shit.

Seems kinda weird that the Dynobots were trying to avoid getting too riled up to stop hulking out into their monstrous alt-modes, but had also been involved with the Decepticons via the gladiatorial death-matches; surely gladiatorial death-matches would be a sure-fire ticket to hulking out. Maybe that’s why they didn’t go through with joining the Decepticons; if death-matches weren’t gonna do it, a revolution just might. On the other hand, given that The Dynobots joined in Optimus’s uprising against Megatron, and that Scorponok pointed out that Grimlock’s “fatal weakness” is compassion, maybe the Dynobots left the Decepticons because they noticed that the movement had got a bit shit. The dynamic between the Dynobots is pretty endearing; they’re like a bickering but incredibly loyal and loving family.

So Trypticon was manufacturing monsters in his innards…doesn’t that kinda make them his babies? Certainly seems to be further evidence that Titans can produce life of their own. Also, what’s the deal with Trypticon and babies? In his first appearance he’s making all these monster babies, then in his more recent appearances he’s adopted a bunch of babies. Is that just IDW Trypticon’s thing? Everyone views him as this horrible, terrifying monster that does nothing but wreck death and destruction, but in actual fact his just wants to have a bunch of babies and see them grow up strong and healthy with pack lunches and name labels on all their stationary.

On a final note, let’s all laugh/cry at the first panel of the series:

#Transformers IDW #Maccadam #Monstrosity #MEGATRON #Pentius #Quintessons #Scorponok #Starscream #Dai Atlas #OPTIMUS PRIME #Dynobots #Dinobots #Grimlock #Decepticons #Transformers #IDW #TF IDW reread #Trypticon #meta