#autocracy trilogy

[enby-rodimus]

I hunger for pre-war hot rod in nyon content but there's literally none or it's buried so deep i can't find it

#PLEASE #I NEED TO SEE HIM PRIOR TO AUTOCRACY #WHAT HIS RELATIONSHIPS WERE LIKE #genuinely something i wish more content was made of but it's not!!!!!! #transformers idw1 #idw1 #autocracy trilogy #autocracy #more than meets the eye #mtmte #lost light #ll #hot rod | rodimus #hot rod #rodimus #musings #maccadams #maccadam

[lord-squiggletits]

Do you ever read a post online where someone complains about how "IDW never talks about this [idea/character/plot/theme]" and you just think to yourself... this person hasn't read anything besides MTMTE have they?

Really sad when you see people complaining "the story never talked about this!" and act angry about it as if it's some oppressive flaw that the writer (JRO) was evil for never talking about but it's like. Bud if you just read exRID/OP or maybe Windblade/TAAO you would have read plenty about that.

The two worst ones I can think of off the top of my head are "Optimus is always treated like a saint, I hate how he gets away with everything just because he's a Prime" (wrong, read literally anything Barber writes) and "the Decepticons never get a sympathetic perspective, they're always just villains and the narrative is totally just treating them as if being revolutionaries makes them evil" (wrong, read several side stories that Barber wrote). Like literally the moral of the story is just "read something besides MTMTE."

And I'm not complaining about people who are just curious or don't know. I'm talking specifically about people who complain, or say MTMTE is bad, or generally act as if JRO's writing/MTMTE/LL represents the entirety of IDW1 and basically act like, if JRO didn't write it it doesn't exist and clearly since he didn't write it that means no one else did. Like please I'm begging you to read the other less popular but still good series in IDW1 and you'll find multiple stories/ideas that they tell that MTMTE/LL doesn't.

#also it's just funny to me that mtmte/ll readers will complain about there being no decepticons #my brother in christ you are reading the story about autobots in an autobot ship going on an autobot adventure #like. the entire premise is that it's a ship full of autobots and a few other random people they pick up #why are you reading the autobot story and getting mad it's mostly about autobots. this is the TF idw equivalent of 'read another book' #also don't complain about how the story never talked about xyz thing when you've only read one single series #squiggposting #granted i don't think JRO and his work are without flaw but like #idk i think there's just something about how like. just bc JRO didn't write it doesn't mean you can't find it elsewhere in idw #that and people seem too inclined to think that the comic writers all conspired to write/not write certain things for an agenda #when in reality they were just a bunch of independent writers trying to make things kinda coherent but mainly doing their own things #anyways. i would recommend reading the phase 2 dinobot trilogy by barber and the autocracy trilogy by metzen #barber's stuff in general is worth reading. i don't like a lot of his choices but he DID choose to write about them #i think it's worth reading his stuff if only as food for thought and more ideas even if his execution was middling in many parts #i also think mscott's stuff isn't talked about much and is underrated for how much exciting stuff is in it

[singingcicadas]

Some personal favourite panels from the Autocracy trilogy :

The Autobot standard:

Iacon's pretty skyline:

The art style works great for atmosphere and panoramic scenery, not so much for the individual characters. The way it does the faces is just... unflattering lol.

I also find it a bit hard on the eyesight with how dark most of the pictures are.

#also don't like the frequent use of high opacity overlayers #screen brightness need to be cranked to max #idw transformers #maccadam #transformers #Autocracy

[fearthefluff]

Fantasy Romance Recommendations Pt.2

This is list number 2 and it will be focusing on Urban Fantasy and Contemporary romance with fantasy elements. For more traditional Fantasy recs, check list 1!  Maybe it will help someone somewhere. XD ***Some of the books listed here are not Romance novels officially but all have romance and have HFN or HEA endings Urban Fantasy Romance (Paranormal Romance) 

Hidden Legacy Series by Ilona Andrews 2 Trilogies Nevada Baylor is a Truthseeker; she is able to tell when people lie. When her family's detective agency is tasked with apprehending a powerful fire wielding psychopath, it puts them on the path of collision with the powerful magical elite who rules Houston. Guildcodex Series by Annette Marie 4 Series. Spellbound, Demonized, Unveiled and Wraped. When feisty redhead Tori landed a job at a sketchy pub, she had no idea she'd just joined a magic guild. And the three guys she drenched with a margarita during her first shift? Yeah, they were mages. She's about to get a crash course in the world of magic and mythics. Mercernary Librarians Trilogy by Kit Rocha Meet the Mercenary Librarians: a trio of information brokers who join forces with a squad of elite super-soldiers to use their knowledge to help the hopeless in a dystopian post-apocalyptic United States ruled by a corporate autocracy. Psy-Changeling Series by Nalini Singh A world shared by Changeling, a race of animal shifters , the Psy, a race of powerful psychic who live without emotions and Humans. Tension between the 3 races are rising. The Firebrand Series by Helen Harper Emma, an aspiring detective, is placed with the Supernatural Squad in London. Soon she is brutally murdered by an unknown assailant,  wakes up twelve hours later in the morgue – and is very much alive. Contemporary Romance with Fantasy Elements The Dead Romantic by Ashley Poston Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem... she no longer believes in love. Then her new editor shows up at her front door as a ghost. Romance is most certainly dead... but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family--and a new love--changes the course of her life. A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong Thorne Manor has always been haunted...and it has always haunted Bronwyn Dale. As a young girl, Bronwyn could pass through a time slip in her great-aunt’s house, where she visited William Thorne, a boy her own age, born two centuries earlier.

#Fantasy Romance Recommendations Pt.2 #fantasy romance #fantasy #romance #fantasy books #urban fantasy #paranormal romance #ilona andrews #annette marie #kit rocha #nalini singh #helen harper #ashley poston #sangu mandanna #kelley armstrong

[decepti-thots]

do you have any thoughts on autocracy the miniseries?

Autocracy is kind of a fascinating blip to me. One thing I think gets overlooked in its existence is how it's an early attempt to do "digital first" in the 2010s: once upon a time, that wasn't just novel, it was a possible future for comics. (In its way, it half resembles the format Roberts originally pitched a bunch of his ideas in!)

It's a piece of canon that accidentally has interesting implications for things that come later. I wrote some thoughts on its specific, accidental influence on phase two Rodimus here (and why I love that element). On its own merits, it's utterly sterile, IMO: uninteresting thematically, terrible visually, no interest in the surrounding canon (bc it's basically an attempt to overwrite IDW canon to do a bland G1-inspired story that pointedly ignores all interesting work IDW did up to that point), and yet despite all that its underlying ideas echo inexorably. Its refusal to engage with what makes IDW1 interesting accidentally helps make IDW1 extra interesting. It is not a good comic. It has awful dialogue, terrible visual storytelling, no interest in making something once derided into fodder for good comics like both really early phase two titles. Frankly, it sucks absolute ass. The rest of the trilogy (including Autocracy, Monstrosity and Primacy) is even worse. But. But! Autocracy's specific unspoken influence on Rodimus in later stuff is undeniable; Roberts called out its influence in at least one panel when asked about Rodimus' relationship to bad coping mechanisms in early MTMTE. Its incongruence is somehow weirdly compelling, honestly. When you choose to deliberately read against the grain, it becomes interesting again. The version of IDW canon where Rodimus and Megatron met this way and Megatron fucked it for these specific reasons is, genuinely, fascinating.

Autocracy sucks. But it is inextricable from the IDW stuff that is good in a way that is not just canon based but formally inextricable from later ideas of characters like Rodimus, and for that reason alone I find it VERY interesting.

[ddaroll]

[outlier-roddy]

i don't know why i did it to myself, but i reread the autocracy trilogy and when i got to primacy where slinger got murdered after his change of heart by the predacons i was like "wait a minute one of them looks kinda familiar."

so it turns out after a quick readthrough of the tfwiki and issue itself, razorclaw, the guy who led slinger's dismemberment, was the one rodimus shoved a bunch of cerebro-shells into, which, to me, shines a whole new light on rodimus sending razorclaw to attack starscream for the matrix.

also before slinger died, onslaught went after hot rod stating that if he killed him, he might be elevated to a member of high command. this gives credence to, despite the lack of attention to it, rodimus possibly being notorious for his insurgency and later conflicting affiliation with the autobots amongst the decepticons, especially given that it seems like they were working with them closely for access to resources back in autocracy???? though maybe it was just swindle they had contact with.

i thought you might enjoy these tidbits i discovered and i hope you have a good year

These are insane observations and I'm so into them dude tysm... I think I've said before anything that references hot rod being well known as an insurgent is like tf candy to me lol. Your brain though... 🙏

#personal tag #maccadam #and like... it's just a tiny part of his character that I have decided to make into my favorite little playground and i love it

[kryptonitecore]

Re-Read: Transformers: Primacy

Primacy is a bit of a disappointing way to end this trilogy, as I think it’s the weakest part - it continues some of the ideas of Autocracy and Monstrosity, but what really killed it for me was the characterisation. The challenges to Optimus’ character are rapidly eroded, but it’s Hot Rod/Rodimus and Megatron who are really in trouble.

Hot Rod shows up, having apparently completed Autobot training in the background, and is now completely and unambiguously in support of Optimus. Any skepticism regarding the Autobot cause and its connections to the old Senate have disappeared while he was off page, and his actively Decepticon-leaning sympathies have also disappeared right along with it. In fact, to prove that Hot Rod has moved on, there is a brief and mostly one-sided confrontation with Slinger, his friend and one of the few survivors of Nyon, who has recently joined the Decepticons. Rather than dig into this, the writer makes Slinger abruptly hostile and he disappears from the book until he can be brought back for a death scene where he confesses how wrong he was. (Slinger and Fasttrack can both join the ‘former friend to Decepticon to corpse’ club!). Facetiousness aside, I think the real issue was the feeling that this story wanted Hot Rod to be a different kind of character than Autocracy and Monstrosity had created - for example, pairing up Grimlock and Hot Rod as grizzled veteran and inexperienced, optimistic kid just does not work for me considering Hot Rod’s past as an insurgent, everything that happened to Nyon, etc. I just feel that once you’ve been forced to destroy an entire city, you may no longer qualify for ingenue roles.

Megatron is similarly a point of strange characterisation. Characters making mistakes is not necessarily a problem, but having a supposedly intelligent, strategic character who is intended to serve as a major villain repeatedly make daft choices? Less good, and it is especially not good when the behaviour of the character is described differently from what actually happens in the story. The writers continue to define Megatron’s version of villainy in terms of dominance and control, the implication (to me, at least) being that he is precise and focused in a way that other villains, like Scorponok, were not. However, Megatron’s actual behaviour and dialogue in the comic does not live up to that - he repeatedly takes massive risks or makes obvious tactical errors, relies on fear and blunt, brutal tactics, and can be quite self-indulgent. Although obviously mistakes and character flaws are fine, I think the writers settled for mistakes that were just too, too obvious in terms of tactics and created a bit of a clash between what they wanted Megatron to be and where the plot actually took the character.

First up, there is the decision to place Pentius’ spark inside of Trypticon. Megatron is aware that Pentius is actively malevolent, but seems to find no potential drawbacks to placing his spark inside the most powerful physical body available and only afterwards does he apparently think to ask ‘How am I to trust you?’. He is then shocked when the evil alien whom he had been able to control on Junkion because Pentius was literally a head on a chain, can suddenly be far more independent and dangerous when placed into a giant hell-dinosaur. Later things are smaller, but moments like Megatron only realising that acid rain would damage his air force as well as the Autobots’ halfway through a battle added to the impression that the writers were scrambling for a way to end the series quickly.

Optimus fares better. For example, his enjoyment of the mission to the pole has interesting implications for his tendency to isolate himself, but the flaws or challenges that gave him a lot of texture in Autocracy and Monstrosity have been shaved down - his main personal issue in this book seems to be a generalised sense of the pressure that comes with leadership. Compared to the Optimus of Monstrosity, this is a very smooth Optimus. Overall, the story seems more interested in propping up Optimus as the hero - Omega Supreme’s interactions with him spring to mind - but that comes at the cost of the specificity that previous books had given the character, which is a shame, as I think they helped me appreciate him more.

In fact, a lack of specificity is the cause of a lot of my problems with this book. The battles between Trypticon and Metroplex are so huge that it is difficult to really engage with them, they take place on a disaster movie scale, but named characters are in little danger and I wasn't attached enough to Iacon or Harmonex to really feel their destruction. Other threats are similarly poorly defined, like Pentius, and resolved through vague solutions, like Optimus showing Megatron the Matrix, which apparently removes or destroys Pentius' spark or its connection to Megatron for reasons that are sort of unclear.

There are still things to enjoy about this book and I fully intend to read it again at some point, but the plot holes and characterisation are glaring enough that it is definitely weaker than its predecessors.

Well, that was the last of the -acies series and I’m actually glad I read them, even if this last instalment didn’t do as much for me. Time to move on to Spotlight: Thundercracker!

#comics #transformers primacy #transformers #rereading! #the grand reread 2023-2024

[heliopauseentertainments]

MegOP for either faction swap au, but not shattered glass. Or the war very nearly happened, but was averted at the last moment au.

Hi, Anon! Thank you for your patience.

I'm not really feeling strongly pulled by either option, but I think I'll give it to "War Averted Last Moment." The trick would be finding something that could effectively cause that aversion.

In IDW1, you could theoretically use an earlier intervention by legal actors such as Tyrest, Xaaron, and Ultra Magnus. They could negotiate a deal of some sort to head off the worst of the hostilities.

Certain points in the Autocracy trilogy (hiss, boo, yes, I know) would be possible times for such an intervention.

In other continuities, it would be tricky (Ex. in Sunbow!G1, the war predated Megatron and Optimus) so it really depends on which baseline continuity one uses.

Another good point would be in Cyberverse if Optimus had been able to successfully talk Megatron down from escalating the conflict.

Let's go with that one. That could make for a nice little vignette, probably a quadruple to sextuple drabble to comfortably explore that. Or a background to a somewhat larger piece exploring the actual fallout of not destroying their sci-fi world.

Title: Back From The Brink

Loose Summary: Freshly bonded with the Matrix of leadership, Optimus struggles to convince his old friend that cooperation is still on the table.

#admin post #ask #ask meme #anonymous #megop

[gayboymint]

Pax! Hi! Have you got a favourite (favourites?) series/version of canon for the transformers franchise?

Beetle Bug!!! Ily! Ooough, my favorite TV series is Transformers: Prime. It's one of the few shows I watched as it was coming out in real time, when the transformers special interest was in FULL bloom, AND happened during some of my favorite years of being alive so far, so it is very special to me.

My favorite comic run is More Than Meets The Eye/Lost Light (MTMTE CYCLONUS AND WEIRD UNCLE MEGATRON MY FUCKING BELOVEDS)and the sick as fuck Wreckers Saga. Also the Autocracy Trilogy was really good and had a major affect on my brain when I really started questioning the beliefs I was raised with.

#brain go brr #asks

[quetzalpapalotl]

I think I've only read the first part of the dinobot trilogy so far, but the part where Megatron and Grimlock were squaring up, got eaten, then Grimlock immediately tried to go back to killing Megatron was top tier. Just like he decided "guess it's a cage match now"

Ok, so that's not what I was talking about. You're talking about Monstrosity, by Metzen and Dille, which is part of the Autocracy Trilogy.

What I refer to as the Dinobot Trilogy (officially The Transformers: Redemption of the Dinobots) are the Punishment, Redemption and Salvation mini series by Barber. They deal with what the fuck do the Dinobots, notorious killing machines, do in peace time. Grimlock does not feature in them because he's in Mtmte with the Scavengers.

#also not to be confused with maximun dinobots #which is a phase 1 series by furman #the dinobots feature in way more stories than i had a first impression of

[enby-rodimus]

listen.

i'm aware the earliest example of where blaster stands when it comes to functionism is hinted at/shown in all hail megatron where he talks about how perceptor defiled himself to become a sniper.

however.

despite the autocracy trilogy being a huge mess, the blaster they introduced is my most favorite characterization in the continuity and to me it makes sense. blaster as a reporter who tries to bypass censorship, is at conflict with authority such as enforcers like orion pax, because while he may have stormed the senate and publicly called them out, he went right back to working for them under zeta, which blaster called out, and continues to question the newest iteration of a violent, flawed government interests me. he's not blind to the flaws of the institution and it's put him at odds with it. hell, it seems heavily implied he's even critical of functionism despite the writers failing to properly write the early days of the war and the motives of each faction.

basically, i wish blaster had his anti-autobot characterization from autocracy and circumstances forced him to join the autobots

#transformers #transformers idw1 #idw1 #autocracy trilogy #autocracy #more than meets the eye #mtmte #ahm #all hail megatron #blaster #tf blaster #musings #maccadam #maccadams #i'm writing this like really late so this may not make sense at all since my brains scaramlbed #but autocracy has been in my mind due to the impact of the events that occured #even if characterization and actions were very questionable #bc what do the autobots do with members who've had a violent history with the faction or are fully aware they're not the good guys they #portray themselves to be #also i;ma very biaased towards blaster

[lord-squiggletits]

A compilation of all the times during Autocracy in which Megatron praises Orion or twirls his hair like a schoolgirl saying "I wonder what Orion is doing now"

Or in other words: Autocracy Megatron is incredibly fond of Orion Pax

Bonus: Megatron lied that he ripped Orion apart with his bare hands when he actually just shot him. Why? Is it because a gun is less gay than your bare hands?

#squiggposting #read the autocracy trilogy please

[coruscantiscribbler]

star wars asks: 21, 34, and 40!

21. Which Heroine is your favorite:

That's a tough one because there are 3 that I really love, Ahsoka, Leia and Hera. But I think I've got to go with Ahsoka. Her relationship with Anakin and then with Rex, they were so moving.

34. Which trilogy is the best?

My knee jerk reaction is the middle one Star Wars: A New Hope, Empire Strikes back, but then I come up against Return of the Nehi... I mean Jedi which I did not love apart from the absolutely fabulous moment where Luke says: "I'll never turn to the dark side. You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

And of course I love the moment in Empire when Yoda tells Luke "Do or do not, there is no try." That was the moment in that darkened movie theater when I realized I was going to try to follow my dream and become a writer instead of a deeply unhappy attorney.

So, yeah upon reflection -- it's the original trilogy. (I do not speak of the sequels, they are apocrypha. Some lovely actors, but no consideration of the narrative or a coherent theme at all.)

40. If you could make your own Star Wars trilogy/series, what would it be about?

I love Agent Kallus so much because he has such an interesting character arc, and he's a character who could be used to show us life on planets that aren't all desert worlds that look like they are stuck in the 12th century. I'd love to see what makes a person embrace autocracy and fascism and what was in their background that gave them the courage to turn away.

#Star Wars Ask #alexsandr kallus #yoda #luke skywalker #Ahosak #Hera #Leia

[bumblebeesdoorwings]

i got the Autocracy Trilogy.

time to see what the fuck Metzen did.

[aeonmagnus]

#Transformers #G1 #Megatron #Autocracy #Transformers: Autocracy Trilogy #Transformers: Autocracy #Autocracy Trilogy #Livio Ramondelli