I keep seeing lots of takes about Megatron in Earthspark that I feel like don't reflect his characterization... I see people saying things like, "He's a good guy now and I hate it and it's boring/wrong," or "He's a good guy now and I love to see it and he's been completely redeemed for me," or sometimes, "Why isn't he fighting harder about what's happening to the Decepticons in prison?!" etc.

What I feel like people keep missing are the facts that 1) Megatron is deeply flawed and a giant hypocrite in Earthspark and he knows it, and 2) the fact that he's not putting in the work to advocate more for his former soldiers is the way in which he is flawed. He is also clearly aware of this, feels guilty, but his fear and belief that his ultimate goal is right is preventing him from acting... and this is good, nuanced writing on the part of the team behind this show. He is an interesting character who is both clearly used to shutting down dissent through violence, yet is also quick to fold when in conflict with the people in power on the side he switched to late in the War. I explain in more depth below the cut:

Megatron expresses a desire to see his former soldiers be treated better, such as when he claims he'll make sure Soundwave is treated well in prison, and then he obviously never follows up on this. He also decides to attack Soundwave while also claiming their conflict is not personal, when it blatantly is. This isn't the behavior of a completely morally good character, and it points to a past of Megatron being used to getting his way with violence and threats. We can also see that he has given up on Cybertronian life in many ways and is guilty about how his own actions potentially will lead to its slow destruction over time. This is all pretty clearly indicated when Thrash feels bitter about Megatron putting the entire future of his species on the Terrans when it is in fact Megatron's fault that Cybertronian life may be lost, while Mo believes that Megatron doesn't want them to end up repeating the mistakes he made.

I think there's also something that will probably be discussed later which is that Megatron switched sides right when victory was within grasp for the Decepticons, and he says it was because Dot showed him compassion (we haven't seen this yet, presumably it is being saved for a grand reveal later)... only for Megatron to continually fold when his own former troops are being tortured and not treated with compassion in the present. I think it's easy to see that it's guilt causing him to become so hypocritical. Over time, I think we'll continue to see other Decepticons being really angry at Megatron for this, and that is justified.

TL;DR Earthspark's Megatron is a unique take on the character, one who, while being as strongly dedicated to an ultimate goal as he usually is, has also become increasingly willing to fold when confronted with conflict because of his own cognitive dissonance caused by trauma and guilt over how his actions brought about the end of the War. And in my opinion this is very strong, multi-faceted writing for the character. This isn't just a flat, "Post-redemption arc Megatron!" situation. It's a Megatron who, while working alongside heroic characters and having positive qualities, has become someone who in many ways is a hypocrite and a coward.

Okay , So we covered, Pokemon and Genshin Impact but what I wanna know is what Transformer partners would your characters likely team up with and why? :3

HOO (doing tfp only because. it's the only one i know lmao)

cole would absolutely make fast firm friends with smokescreen. they both like going fast and being reckless but also trying to do the right thing and failing at it, and i can picture cole taking 1 ride in smokescreen's altmode and going "ok hell yeah i'm going to be doing this forever. what do we call this? joyriding? i'm in". he would probably get along with knock out for the same reason. cole knows how to keep his hands to himself so i imagine he'd be a pretty good passenger for a transformer to be honest. except when he puts his filthy boots up on the dash, which both k/o and smokescreen would shriek at him for

corvidan would like arcee i think. she probably rescues his dumb ass from a Situation and he has a moment where he's sitting on this motorcycle zooming along a highway and is like "wow this is like riding my dragon girlfriend except without the dragon. feeling kind of weird about this now actually. actually yeah psychologically impaired right now can i get off" and arcee pulls over and corv attempts to explain that it's not her, it's him, also he has a girlfriend. arcee is like "that's great but i'm into women. also i am a motorcycle. youre being extremely weird about this rescue. you are MAKING this rescue weird" and corv would be like hmm point taken. and then they would be awkward friends who complain about everyone else (cole, smokescreen, k/o) being reckless

turo would probably end up with the decepticons by accident. like, he's learning Alien Robot Mechabiology as fast as he can and accidentally gets really good at modding and one of the decepticons is like oh shit dangerous asset, we're kidnapping you. and it's an extremely dangerous line that he's walking because he does have the know-how to singlehandedly do another Fucked Up Zombie Breakdown War Crime situation and everyone sort of knows it and is unnerved by this weird human creature with no apparent moral boundaries so they keep him on a tight leash. he falls in with shockwave and helps him around the lab. meanwhile, soundwave inexplicably is fascinated by him. turo is putting out radiation you've never heard of. soundwave would love to know why. also he seems kind of morally batshit which soundwave seems to think is extremely amusing for some reason, though it is annoying when turo accidentally commits yet another scientific war crime against robotkind every other week

kincaid falls in with knock out for SURE. he just thinks knock out is extremely funny. knock out probably hates him. knock out stops paying attention for half a second and this human shaped bitch is lounging languidly on his shoulder or sprawled on his head or sitting pretty on a wing door. knock out cannot get rid of him because he's too fast to smack away and kincaid thinks knock out is a prime source of entertainment so he won't leave him alone. Tiny Vampire Bullies The Shit Out Of Giant Robot. i think they eventually learn to coexist though. catch knock out and kincaid eventually begrudgingly getting along and muttering to each other and then looking directly at you like girls at a party who you KNOW were just talking about you

meuric is the starscream to geel's megatron. but they don't get along. meuric hates starscream and starscream hates meuric. this is because deep down meuric was a good person once and he sees what starscream became and it feels like a mirror and that is maybe the Worst. anything else about meuric depends on what prince geel does, because he's fiercely loyal

including bug this time because i've been thinking about them a lot lately! bug joins up with the decepticons and hangs out on the ship doing cleaning, living in the walls like some kind of benevolent cockroach. the decepticons have tried to get rid of them like eight times and they just keep surviving. eventually someone realised they're actually sentient, and going around mopping the ceilings and checking the ventilation and wiring is all up to standard, so they get left alone after that. amazing the kind of intel you can pick up when you pretend to be a janitor. and then when shit goes sideways, bug abandons ship and goes straight to the autobots and dumps months' worth of intelligence on them all. bug in every setting is that one janitor that listens to everything and then defects and it'd be no different here