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blighted-lights · 1 month

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slaughterhouse posting part 2 that isn't going to be polished at all and has been sitting in my drafts for days, but this scene is so interesting to me because i genuinely have no idea what megatron wants from ravage in this interaction- and i don't know if megatron knows, either.

megatron starts out by saying that the decepticons' loyalty isn't to him- its to the cause. ignoring how this is immediately striking me as completely, blatently wrong due to the times we see megatron rallying the decepticons around himself when other leaders fail to do the same (nevermind the fact that he started the cause in the first place), he then gets angry with ravage when ravage confirms that- yeah, actually. you're not the cause anymore. we have moved on with someone new. megatron gets so angry he stands up, he looms over ravage, he raises is voice and balls his fist- and why else would he do this if he wasn't upset that they're moving on without him?

which would, of course, make megatron a hypocrite. he left the decepticons and refused to take any effort to rejoin them- he clearly doesn't actually want to return to the fold. but when the decepticons unite themselves and move on from him, it's different. i can abandon you, but you cannot abandon me.

i've always took this reaction as being an immediate, no thinking, gut reaction to finding out the decepticons are moving on without him. he's angry, potentially feeling betrayed by them, when he... doesn't have much of a right to feel that way. and it's not like megatron wasn't given an option to join the decepticons again if that's what he actually wanted.

he was given a choice. he turned it down. he could of turned it down for any number of reasons, but no matter the reason, the point remains that he turned it down.

going back to panel after megatron snaps, ravage clearly takes megatron's outburst as him being upset that they've moved on without him. despite the aggressive way this interaction started with ravage attacking megatron, ravage spends most of this conversation attempting to reassure megatron. megatron gets angry that galvatron took over and they're moving on without him? okay- so then he wants to come back, right? he's upset he's been replaced?

well, galvatron isn't permanent. say the word and you'll be back in charge. megatron says that the decepticons aren't loyal to him, ravage reaffirms that they were loyal to him but now they've chosen a new leader since he left, megatron gets angry that they're moving on without him, and then ravage reinforces their original loyalty to him by saying if he wants to come back, they'll follow him.

and then megatron turns it around; yes he was just angry that the decepticons were no longer loyal to him, but now that same loyalty is toxic, actually. and it is! it absolutely is toxic. but i think ravage backed him into a corner here, even unintentionally. he can't sit down and actually address why the decepticons moving on makes him angry without admitting some part of him wants to return to the cons. or at the very least he still feels possessive of them and doesn't want them to function outside of his influence. when given the option to rejoin, he responds by insulting the decepticon's (and ravage's!) sense of devotion/loyalty and then quickly changes the topic to seawing and the trial. he doesn't say a solid yes or no answer because he doesn't actually have one to give.

ravage nails it down anyways. megatron has no idea what he wants from ravage in this interaction because he doesn't know where he stands anymore, let alone what he wants for himself. before ravage was revealed to be on the lost light, megatron was captain. he even seems content to BE captain- but ravage makes it complicated. ravage is a direct reminder of who he used to be and the people he used to surround himself with. worse, people he's abandoned and hurt in order to get to where he is as captain now. megatron left the decepticons behind with no command structure, no guidance, no plan- and ravage's mere presence is a bitter reminder that even if he's run off to the autobots, he can't escape that.

he's settled into a state of stagmentation with the autobots. one he's content with, maybe- at the very least one he can live with where the guilt isn't as heavy. it is the easiest way out megatron saw for himself.

but if anyone can get him to doubt himself, well.

who else better than ravage to stir up the past?

#blight rambles #blight's meta #transformers #maccadams #maccadam #mtmte #more than meets the eye #transformers idw #idw transformers #idw tf #tf idw1 #transformers idw1 #idw2005 #tf idw #ravage #mtmte ravage #tf ravage #transformers ravage #idw ravage #megatron #idw megatron #mtmte megatron #tf meta #transformers meta #this post is very messy and i debated a lot on posting it bc. idk if it even reads well or if my view on this scene isnt completely biased #because of how much i like ravage #but uh take it anyways. i cannot stop thinking about the slaughterhouse scene #i WISH. i wish their dynamic stayed fucked up. i wish they stayed angry and uncomfortable with each other #i wish ravage having to reassure and comfort megatron while ignoring his own pain was an intentional writing choice and not just #well. what we got in canon. where ravage is megs' support and thats it

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storm-and-starlight · 4 months

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Rodimus and ADHD

I'm gonna start this out by saying that Rodimus having ADHD is something that's been pretty fundamental to my understanding of the character since I first read MTMTE/Lost Light (seriously, I can point you to the exact panel when I went "oh okay this is Canon to me now") but also that I've almost never seen a portrayal that really vibes with how I interpret it? A lot of the fics and fanon I've come across tend to take a fairly... typical view on and portrayal of ADHD where the things that are focused on are hyperactivity and task/responsibility/boredom avoidance, and to me that's not... it's not the, like, the fundamentals of how I read Rodimus and ADHD? It's not the main issues that affect who he is and how he interacts with the world -- those would instead be the impulsivity and the... idk how to phrase it, the "ADHD trauma"? It's really distinct and I'll get to it later.

The impulsivity is fairly easy to get to, and fairly obvious -- the best representation of how it manifests in Rodimus specifically is in the initial description of the Rodpod, where someone (I can't quite tell who from the panel) says "you know what he's like: he obsesses over something, then gets bored" and then it's revealed that Rodimus presumably commissioned an entire ship built in the shape of his own head. That's really what I see as the main ADHD symptom -- the mix of obsession and impulsivity. We see it when he gets everyone to go on the quest, we see it when he tries to chop off his own arm because he thinks it might stop the future from happening, we see it in his plan to stop the sparkeater -- it's basically how he responds to every problem he's presented with, and often significantly more than that, and that kind of impulsivity is very much a noted feature of ADHD. (Being briefly but intensely obsessed with something before losing interest and dropping it is also a really big ADHD thing -- just look at the cycle of hyperfixations that's so common in fandom).

(Also, when combined with his ego, recklessness, and carelessness, you get basically the entire negative side of his personality out of this, which is why I consider it so fundamental to his character -- significantly more so than, say, task avoidance.) (though recklessness, and carelessness are also fairly common with ADHD -- it's related to impulsivity in general.)

The "ADHD trauma" thing is a little trickier to explain: it's basically how I describe the constant awareness that you have screwed the hell up in the past when it's important and you are going to screw the hell up in the future when it's important and hating the fact that it happens and yet also being completely and fundamentally aware that it's something you can never, ever change about yourself no matter how hard you try (because you have tried, in the past, and it has never worked even a little bit). Like, hello, that basically describes my entire childhood and also the lives of most of my friends who also have ADHD. The panel that convinced me that he does have ADHD is the one that basically explicitly describes this, in Lost Light where he and Drift are talking after they return from the Functionist Universe and Rodimus says "Oh, I know what I'm like. That's the trouble. I know exactly what I'm like -- I just can't stop myself," because, like. that's it. that's the experience in a nutshell.

And like, I'm not saying that this is super severe -- he definitely has more self-confidence than is often warranted, but he also does have a lot of self-esteem issues, and I think this is really the root of them: failing, over and over, until you reach the point where you start thinking that it's bound to happen someday and that everyone will hate you for it forever. That's a super common experience with the kind of disability that ADHD is, especially if you don't know you have it in the first place, and that combined with all the smaller traits (the impulsivity, the hyperfixation, and yes even the task/responsibility/boredom avoidance) is what really convinced me that he is an ADHD character.

#transformers #transformers meta #maccadam #rodimus #rodimus prime #rodimus and ADHD #obligatory internet disclaimer that this is my own personal interpretation of canon and you are allowed to disagree with it etc. etc.

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lord-squiggletits · 9 months

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IDW Megatron and Optimus weren't friends before the war. Here's why that makes their ship dynamic more interesting.

One comment I've heard among people comparing IDW1 MegOP to other continuities of MegOP is (paraphrased) that since they weren't friends before the war, there isn't as much material to ship them with/they don't have an established dynamic/they don't have ~*history*~ that makes them be the bitter exes we all know and love them to be.

In this meta post, I'm going to contend that the IDW1 MegOP lack of friendship before the war is actually a benefit to their dynamic in this continuity, not a negative. Although they didn't get a lot of time together before the war in terms of quantity, the quality of their interactions and the weight it gave their future rivalry is due to the tragic nature of their relationship: They saw a glimpse of each other at their best in their youth, but like a tragic myth of old, circumstances conspired to keep them apart, traumatize them, and turn them into people who couldn't trust or reconcile with each other.

The IDW MegOP's first meeting is like a fated encounter, almost as if it was destined to happen. The way that one single brush can change the entire course of history.

I like to call this a "love at first sight" moment because, although they're not in love, it has this sort of storybook magical quality to it where this one single moment has a lot of weight. This one moment where they saw each other at their best and could have a positive interaction.

When I say that they met each other "at their best" here, I'm referring to Megatron's pacifistic essays and poetry that represent his pure revolutionary spirit and care for Cybertron, and Orion's trait of showing kindness and encouraging individual freedom despite his position of authority. The way that their first encounter was so brief and unassuming makes us, the readers, yearn for more. Doesn't Megatron's silent glance behind him in that final panel make you wonder what he's thinking? They only had that one brief talk at the rodion police station but it went on to ricohet the rest of their lives. Orion started thinking about the corruption of the system due to Megatron's writing. Megatron looked back at Orion with curiosity/lingering feeling after he was escorted out of the station. Even Megatron being put on Messatine was indirectly due to Orion, since Orion delivered that speech on his behalf.

It's almost like literal chemistry, where two particles bumping into each other once can cause a chain reaction of other particles bumping and bumping and bumping until suddenly those two particles are back together.

It's a sort of magical real life scenario where you meet a stranger just once but something they did or said to you makes you remember it and think about it for a long time afterwards. except in this case the MegOPs are (un?)lucky enough to meet again. And they start a war.

I also really like that Megatron and Orion/Optimus spent most of their pre-war backstory apart from each other, because I feel like it makes them stronger characters individually instead of making all of their most important moments be about each other. This is more of a comment on fandom than canon, but many romantic stories fall into a pitfall of a relationship where the two people obsessed with each other: their romance is the most important relationship they have; the entire plot revolves around whether they're happy or upset with each other, it can even make their relationship seem unhealthy and like they have no meaningful relationships outside of their romance. In terms of MOP in other continuities, I feel that putting too much emphasis on their friendship kind of cheapens the worldbuilding and political conflict. True, it's nice when the personal and political intersect in the MegOP's lives, but sometimes I feel (especially in fanon) that the "they were friends but then they disagreed and now they're not friends" concept sometimes ends up being written as if this one simple friendship conflict was the basis of a whole war.

The benefit of IDW1 MegOP is that because they spend their pre-war time apart from each other, they develop separately as people and end up transforming into someone different from their "love at first sight" moment. I like that Orion had relationships with people like Shockwave, Roller, and Zeta, and Megatron had his student/teacher relationship with Terminus and the whole arena thing happening.

Both Megatron and Orion went through traumatizing events during this time period that changed their worldviews for the worse and made them more cynical. Megatron suffered an attempted brainwashing, losing his mentor, his first killing, then being stuck in the arena. Orion went through the loss of Shockwave to a fate worse than death, then the disappearance of his best friend Roller, then worked for Zeta and began to doubt in his ideals/goodness as a leader. In that time between the MegOP's first encounter and their ensuing encounters in a military conflict, they came back as very different people than the first glimpse they got of each other.

Since they only had that ONE first glimpse they had of each other, then met again only to be disappointed by each other's fall from grace (in each others' eyes), this sets up a lot of angst. They wonder if that first glimpse of each other was really true or if it was a lie. Should they trust in those "good" versions of each other they saw so long ago? Do those people even exist? Are they or were they ever worth believing in? Does that man I saw still exist or did I just WANT to see something good in him? That man ruined my life and I hate him for fighting against me, he's a hypocrite. I thought that man was a good person, but he's betrayed the hopes I had by becoming a violent criminal warlord/working for the evil government I thought he opposed.

It sort of has the vibes of a "love at first sight" story gone wrong where their first encounter was kind (I like to imagine Megatron was touched or at least curious about Orion, a cop, telling him to keep writing and be vocal) but then they descended into their worst selves. They only had that one small glimpse of each other at their best but now they're in a scenario where they can only be enemies.

The longing and disappointment is more obvious on Orion's part about Megatron, because Orion got this shining glimpse of Megatron at his best and most passionate, only to encounter Megatron again and all those good parts have been buried to leave only his worst. Megatron's POV about OP isn't really shown, but I feel like it could be interesting to write headcanons about it. How did Megatron feel about Orion making that speech on his behalf? Getting moved to Messatine because Orion made him so public, and all the bad things that happened there?

Yes, their first encounter was brief and they didn't really have a personal relationship before the war. But that brief encounter changed the trajectory of their entire lives. When you combine that with the fact that they saw each other as their "ideal selves", it creates that valid obsession between Megatron and Optimus. It is kind of unhealthy LMAO, because they do kind of become obsessed with each other based on an incomplete view of the other as a person. But then the war happens and they keep having personal and professional encounters that would give them opportunities to meet (such as in diplomacy meetings like Tyrest's peace negotiations and other political things that come with war). And those repeated meetings would only cause them to get to know each other better. Then you get into more mythical/legend-like story dynamics where Megatron and OP have to learn how the other thinks tactically, and their tactical knowledge becomes so intimate they start understanding how the other thinks and it's very dramatic lol. The typical our-enmity-is-so-deep-it-could-be-love enemies to lovers fare.

TLDR:

Circumstances outside of their control drove them apart, made them into different people, and kept them from becoming friends. It makes IDW MegOP feel legendary or mythical, like some sort of epic Greek tragedy of two people who were always 🤏 this close to being friends. There's longing there, and tragedy, imagining what might have been if they'd only been able to talk again, or if they had somehow been able to influence each other before they went down the bad path (violence and crime for Megatron, following Zeta and becoming Prime for Orion/Optimus). But despite that, their natural chemistry perseveres, and they talk to/about each other in a way that shows they still think of each other even when apart.

#megop #idw megop #megatron/optimus prime #opmeg #transformers meta #squiggposting #in short i love them lmao #i didn't even compile all the evidence i couldve i got lazy. but since most of this is under a readmore #i can always update it at some later point i suppose #also i admit i was slightly peeved and that was part of why i made this post #the megops don't need to have a prewar history to have an interesting dynamic #if that was the case then g1 and tfa megop wouldn't be as popular as they are and those dudes had zero relationship outside of being enemie #anyways. i dumped this in a friend's dms and pretty much copied it here #edited it. then added some screenshots. but the longer i look at it the dumber i feel so tadaaaaah #mtmte

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hatsalad · 5 months

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I think there's a really interesting concept that the 2007 bayverse film had going on in the first like half to 3/4's of the film that it and the rest of the franchise completely forgot about. Which is a lil funny to me cause this concept kinda has a domino effect for the franchise and even outside the movies with MECH from TFP and Ghost from Earthspark. And it's mainly about Humanities relationship with Cybertronians/Autobots and the creation of NEST, the og MECH/Ghost.

The 2007 film kinda broke the usual patterns for how humans are introduced to the Autobots. Usually either humanity meets the bots first and so when the cons arrive, the Humans already see the bots as friends and allies. Or, they meet the cons first and are almost immediately helped and saved by the bots. Meanwhile bayverse starts with a Decepticon destroying a military base, killing a ton of people...and the bots don't show. The autobots don't show until half way through the film and even then, they don't actually fight the cons until the final act. Like Optimus in the films opening of the Cube floating through space literally says "but we were too late." The Autobots were too late and now the conflict of the first half of the film isn't decepticons vs autobots. Its Decepticons vs Humanity.

It's Humans having to save Human survivor's from Scorponok. It's Humans having to predict the cons next move, all the while not even knowing what the cons even are. It's Humans having to deal with and stop the cons hacking and stealing information. The Autobots were <i>late</i> and so the larger Human characters, for a moment, had to stand alone and defend themselves from the cons. And this has the lasting consequence that the Humans in bayverse do not look at the Autobots and see friends. Humans in other continuities who have met the bots first or were saved by the bots around the same time that they're introduced to the cons are able to easily be like "ah okay, theyre the good robots and those are the bad robots." But because bayverse has Humanity dealing with the cons before they ever meet, when the bots do show up it's more of "these are the bad robots and those are *looks at Autobots*... the other robots".

And thats the concept that I find so interesting. The Autobots were too late and thus were too late to save their relationship with Humanity.

Now, saying that, I will acknowledge that a lot of bayverse has the vibe of "ugh 🔫🇺🇲AMERICA🇺🇲🔫" and for Bays fetish for the military and explosions. And so a lot of the choices and writing made for the 2007 were probably surrounding that. And Humanity turning against the bots and just not being really friendly with the bots at all was probably just for the drama and just to add more conflict rather than any sort of exploration of Humanity's relationship with the bots.

However, I think you can acknowledge that way something is in a story is influenced by the creators in real life and still be very interested in how those influences actually look in the universe and how characters are influenced by it. So yes, the 2007 has a unique focus with the Decepticons vs American military because of Michael Bays personal interests but that doesn't change that in universe, the Human characters are forced to stand against the cons without the bots in a way that Transformers continuities don't tend to do. And how that change will effect the Humans relationship and dynamic with the bots.

And when the Autobots do finally show up and fight the cons, it's not outside a small town or in a field or somewhere else isolated. It's in a heavily populated city. This is Humanity at large's introduction to the Autobots...and it's to the bots and cons completely decimating a Human city where very clearly, a lot of Humans are killed. So of course the Humans of bayverse are extremely cautious, theyre distrusting and even outright hostile. Like...I want you to think about every bayverse film and how in every one, a Human city is destroyed. How many Humans lives are lost collectively in these movies.

"Oh but all the Humans that the Autobots have to deal with aside from Sam and his current love interest are selfish and greedy backstabbers, so clearly it's the Humans at fault here." The majority of Humans that the bots have to deal are not a good representation of Humanity of a whole. This is why I think the introduction of Cade Yaeger and his friendship with Optimus could have been so interesting because unlike the politicians and businessmen and military men, people is high positions of power that can be used to manipulate that Optimus has previously been working with. Cade is a random smuck who lives in the middle of nowhere, he has no power or influence to his name and everything he knows about the bots has been things he's read and seen in the news. He had the initial introduction to Cybertronians as a whole that the rest of Humanity had. And that would have been the events of the 2007 film, mainly the final big fight in the city.

Sam does not and should not count. In the first film he was attacked by Barricade and almost immediately saved by Bee, he has the more traditional introduction to the bots. Sam is an outlier and so an inherent bias. And so after going through these films with Optimus thinking that Humanity is ungrateful for the sacrifices his friends and comrades have made and for the work they have done. He meets Cade and he finally gets that outside perspective and how they're introduction actually really looks to the rest of the world. And I just think this is a completely accidental concept that the film didn't mean to introduce yet here I am unable to not think about it and am going a huge rant about.

#transfomers #maccadam #transformers bayverse #bayverse #tf bayverse #optimus prime #tfp #transformers nest #transformers mech #transfomers ghost #transformers meta #me #so sorry lads for this but i couldnt stop thinking about this #cade yeager

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polygonal-trees · 9 months

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with everything else that happened I almost forgot we got some Optimus Prime origin story!!!

we still know barely anything, but we now know for sure that:

Optimus has the Matrix of Leadership

It was given to him directly by a Prime

It was given to him specifically because the civil war began

The civil war began as a fight over 'Cybertron's future'

Optimus used to be Orion Pax, and looked considerably different (a la G1)

Orion wasn't a dock worker, an archivist, or a cop, but a manual labourer of some kind

things we can now infer:

presumably, unlike in G1, Megatron did not attack and injure Orion Pax. when and how exactly they first met is still unknown

Orion may have been part of an oppressed labour class

The Primes (or at least some of them) had a more active presence on Cybertron compared to other continuities

Optimus got his new name and frame directly from the Matrix

The Matrix is extremely powerful

some screenshots I think are cool:

#transformers earthspark #earthspark spoilers #transformers meta #earthspark optimus

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dirtyreusablehandkerchief · 5 months

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so i had a thought this evening

#transformers #maccadam #maccadams #meta #analysis #fandom meta #transformers meta #TF meta #transformers analysis #TF analysis #fandom analysis

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transformersmadnessandmore · 6 months

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Transformers: Cybertronian Reproduction, Sex and Gender labels

This has been on my mind for a while. What’s the in-universe reason for transformers to have sexes and genders? Meta reason is obvious: it’s an 80s children’s toy franchise aimed at young boys. Of course the characters are needlessly gendered!

Ranting aside, what’s the in-universe reason? As far as I know, as a member of a sexually dimorphic species, there really shouldn’t be. Every CANON reproductive process removes sexual intercourse from the equation. And Cybertronians all fill some role regardless of gender. If sex/gender serve no purpose for survival or civilization, what necessity does it have? What purpose/niche is it fulfilling? Sexes exist because of sexual reproduction. And genders, from my understanding, are cultural concepts built from the existence of sexes. (I think, I could be completely wrong about this-Feel free to correct me/give your own takes in the notes)

I like how James Roberts tried to handle this; Cybertronians got exposed to other races, and got encouraged to explore themselves and their identity. Definitely helped fixed the damage Simon Furman caused. (Females went extinct and Arcee was forcefully turned into one wtf?!)

My personal headcannon is that Cybertronians didn’t have sexes or genders because they don’t reproduce sexually, and thus didn’t develop a culture built around sexes or genders. Once they developed space travel and discovered other species, they learned about sexes and genders and got HUGE gender envy! They started incorporating aspects of sexes and gender into their society and that’s how we got the Transformers we know today. (My explanation for why the Thirteen and Guiding Hand are gendered is because of cultural osmosis. It just became part of the culture and no one questioned it.)

Note: I specified Canon because fanon is its own can of worms, with its own rules. And it destroys the purpose of this question. Mostly. There are other things with that that I’m not qualified to explore or explain.

#ramble hrs #this has been on my mind #and I have no answers #wonder what other ppl have to say #transformers #transformers meta #maccadams #maccadam #transformers culture #transformers reproduction

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mega-ringsandthings-world · 1 year

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Back on my transformers bullshit and having Thoughts, so here’s one, in canon and in fandom, miner/gladiator/lower caste bots have the rep of being rough-and-tumble and antagonistic. While I can obviously see where that comes from, I think that wouldn’t be the case at all, and that lower-caste bots/miners/construction workers/factory workers and so on aren’t perpetually ready to throw down. In fact, because of their situation and livelihood, fighting for the sake of fighting is frowned upon, since they are hardly given the resources to repair those who are injured on the job, let alone treat injuries acquired off-clock? Yeah, they’ll get physical, but it always stops before any serious injuries are had, but those that do fight are left to die, because they chose to be reckless. This also accounts for how the pits/gladiators rose to fame, and became so widespread in Cybertrons underbelly, the lower-castes desperately needed an outlet for their frustrations, and blood-sports are an absolutely wonderful way of doing that.

#transformers #transformers prime #transformers g1 #transformers maccadam #maccadam #megatron #transformers meta #transformers analysis

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mrfandomwars · 9 months

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Reasons Why I Think IDW2 Sentinel Prime Was A Still Technically A Young Prime/New First Senator By The Time We Meet Him - a mini meta

We are told that Nominus not only oversaw the final push against Exarchon - which happened like, 2000 years Before canon events - but also that he was the one who was in charge when Bumblebee and Cliffjumper were built - and Iacon was already rebuilt by that point, or at least mostly rebuilt from what we could see

2000 years to a species who can live up to millions, at very least, is like. Not a lot. At most a month or a year, something like that; Meaning that Sentinel could have only become a Prime at least 500 years after the War of the Threefold Spark ended, and that is if we are being generous with how quickly the Constructicon's finished Iacon and of Bumblebee and Cliffjumper's age.

So like. Sentinel, although he probably had been trained to take up the mantel of Prime by Nominus, was probably a young Prime by the time we met him

At most, he was like. A newly elected president who may not have yet fully completed a year on the job (maybe even less, enough to settle in with a new president but to still be considered a New President), because even though a lot of time passed to us for Transformers, it isn't, again, a lot comparatively to their life spans.

Also also: what better time to try and start a revolution/civil unrest? with a new leader that people are getting used to and is currently away.

#transformers #tf idw 2 #tfidw2 #tf idw2 #tf #sentinel prime #idw2 transformers #idw2 sentinel prime #nominus prime #bumblebee #cliffjumper #tf meta #transformers meta #my thoughts are still messy on a possible issue #that is that maybe Megatron started pushing forward to have that unrest not because it was time #but because he lost the first Senator election months/kilocyles before #and he waited until he had enough people to cause some real damage #again #my thoughts are still messy on this possibility so I shan't speak about it

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blighted-lights · 2 months

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as much as i joke about it, i do think that it is strange that ravage was simply allowed to remain on the lost light with zero restrictions or repercussions. ravage is an active decepticon who was spying on the crew for an extended period of time before forcibly being revealed. he is an active decepticon with the order to kill megatron, and he attacked megatron during the split lost light arc.

and then right when he appeared, they find a ship full of dead autobots, brainstorm is revealed to be a decepticon, and the universe almost crashes down around itself. ravage was not responsible for any of these events, but the timing of it is awful. you're telling me that the crew just passively accepted the fact that there is a "bad batch" of energon at swerves that knocks out everyone the instant they return to the lost light and ravage joins the crew? remember that the crew doesn't know the truth about brainstorm's timecase shenanigans. they believe that it's a bad engex batch at swerves that poisoned them. it would of been incredibly easy for people to point fingers at ravage.

it's just. so many events happen back to back and there is no suspicion on him? like. he Isn't Responsible. he isn't. but i feel like there should of been at least some sort of pushback from the crew. if they're upset with having megatron on their crew, then surely they'd also he upset that ravage was not only allowed to remain, but invited.

like im just! it's weird. it's weird to me.

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honestlyvan · 9 months

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Do you have any headcanons on the effects of energon on human physiology? E.g. prolonged exposure (just being around it), skin contact, fumes, etc. I'm torn between the idea of making it like gasoline/petrol/bleach (with fumes and whatnot) vs making it more "safe", more like an oil (probably causes dryness/irritation/etc. in long term, but if you drop a bit on you, it won't kill you)

Not a lot, I'm not really a hard scifi person and chemistry has always been my rock-bottom subject, so it's not something I can easily arrange in my head. Energon also behaves differently based on continuity, the only consistency being an indistinct "chemical" wrt how it affects carbon-based life forms, which.. like, it's classic macguffin writing, and I don't know enough about the exact processes to be able to unpack it >_>);

In Aligned, especially, I tend to just treat Energon as liquid magic. Like, it's a protoconscious material that came from a giant god machine, it's got its own phases both in the physical and in the sense that it's not just a fuel, it's also an energy-carrying medium that can be charged and depleted. I remember discussing this with one of my physicist friends and kinda just coming to the conclusion that it's exotic matter similar to eezo in Mass Effect, but that doesn't really bring us any closer to figuring out its effects on humans.

So, hat-pulling it is. Personally I treat it like reverse mercury in that the fumes it produces are largely just ionised atmospheric gases, so it's not too too terribly dangerous to just... be around, but it's very reactive with carbon so touching it and especially ingesting it can be very bad for you... in some forms. I'm of the mind that pure SynthEn is basically inert in the human body, and that even regular SynthEn is less harmful to humans than both regular and Dark Energon -- like, it'll poison you, but you won't die. It's the kind of thing that is treatable with activated charcoal, whereas taking activated charcoal when poisoned with regular Energon is absolutely the worst possible thing you could do. Luckily Energon loves binding to silicon, so all is not lost.

Also I kind of prefer to write Energon as caustic, and having a lot of the same symptoms as alkali poisoning just because that's a little more interesting to me than making it like crude oil. If I was writing Animated, I would probably make it far more oil-like, though, just because I feel like that's the way the worldbuilding pulls in that continuity.

#van's answers #Maccadam #Transformers Meta #Transformers Prime #anonymous #you were probably sent by Barbie and I hate to be a disappointment #in just having my own ideas to share rather than some kind of definitive theory #I think it's fine if Energon just does whatever you need it to do basically #And I haven't thought about it harder than that |'D #Also like I think Dark Energon is largely poisonous to absolutely everything because Unicron is the anti-life #it doesn't really matter how it poisons people -- it poisons people because it's made of itty bitty particles that want you dead #And that's why Dark Energon poisoning in humans and mecha is so similar #SynthEn being less toxic to humans than it is to mecha #is the result of it lacking some of the features Primal Energon does #and having the replaced with Earth-based chemical features which resemble Dark Energon #And pure SynthEn lacks both -- which ironically makes it more dangerous to mecha than it is to humans

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lord-squiggletits · 10 months

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Pharma's place in a Functionist society (headcanon)

So I've talked in some previous posts about all the reasons that Pharma isn't a functionist because canon never showed him espousing functionist ideals + he's actually in a place to be a victim of functionism. And I've been working on a Pharma-centric oneshot that made me put into words the best metaphor I can think of for Pharma's relationship with Functionism:

He doesn't support Functionism, but is simultaneously a beneficiary of it and also marginalized by it, because his position of being forged both a doctor and a jet basically turns him into a "token minority" of sorts.

I know that sounds kind of silly or maybe like a clumsy political allegory, but hear me out. There are a couple facts about Pharma and the circumstances of his forging that put him at the crossroads between privilege and marginalization within Functionism:

Tyrest says that Pharma was "famous for being forged." Not famous for being a forged medic-- otherwise surely Ratchet would be just as noteworthy-- but famous for being FORGED. But also, note that this is an opinion that SOCIETY had about Pharma, not something that Pharma espouses about himself. (For the sake of an example, Pharma isn't Starscream, who has an explicit, deep-seated need for others' love and approval. Pharma himself doesn't express any opinions on his own popularity or convey that fame/adoration is something he wants.)

Functionism on Cybertron held that if someone was born with a certain alt-mode, they can/should only have certain jobs. For people born with flight alt-modes, those people were almost always regulated to military or transportation/courier jobs

SIMULTANEOUSLY, Pharma was forged with medic hands, which under a Functionist society were viewed as the peak of medical care and all the best doctors were forged or at least had a "special something" that non-forged hands lacked (according to Ratchet).

So taken in combination, this means that from the moment of Pharma's birth, he straddled a line of Functionism between two different "predestined" paths for him, where he was simultaneously forged to be a doctor and also forged to fly, fitting into BOTH of these categories despite norms of Functionism which say you're one or the other. And I speculate that the reason Pharma is "famous for being forged" is precisely because of those lines he straddles: his very existence is a contradiction, but he was also FORGED that way. The same creed that dictated the two different functions of "hands" and "alt-mode" also says that Pharma should be what he was born to be. What he was born to be was a forged medic jet.

In my opinion, I think that being "famous for being forged" is sort of like a token-minority situation for Pharma, where perhaps Pharma was seen as a curiosity or even something exotic, not just as a person. Maybe because he was a jet and people assumed jets were only soldiers/transportation, a lot of his achievements were put in the light of "Oh, he's a really amazing doctor, for a jet" or "It's crazy that he's a doctor AND a jet at the same time". The attention Pharma received for the unique circumstances of his birth WAS positive, but it would've likely been framed in a bit of a condescending way, as if Pharma is noteworthy and famous not for being a good doctor, but for being a good doctor despite being born a jet.

So I would say that as far as Pharma's personal experience with Functionism, he simultaneously experienced privilege and marginalization. He enjoyed the privileges of being a medic while avoiding the restrictions of being a flight frame. However, a lot of the idolization and attention he received would have also come from a place of tokenizing Pharma: he's "famous for being forged," because in this society he's defying expectations merely for existing as himself. That is to say, Pharma in a Functionist society wasn't treated as remarkable because of who he is as a person and how hard he worked to be a good doctor; he was treated as remarkable for the circumstances of his forging, something he had no control over and can't change, and apparently Pharma being a forged medic jet is such a noteworthy origin that he's "famous" for it.

The above paragraph is purely headcanon, of course, but I like to imagine that part of Pharma's reason for having a big ego isn't out of simple vanity or insecurity, but because of a sort of "gifted student" syndrome, in a sense. From the moment he was forged he was treated as a rarity and an incredible phenomenon, and he would have had to work incredibly hard to be seen as "an incredible doctor" in his own right rather than just "that forged medic jet." Maybe, as a jet, he also had something to prove; he had to show to a Functionist society that being a jet doesn't make him an inferior doctor and that his alt-mode has nothing to do with his skills at his profession.

That is to say, I don't think Pharma would have been openly anti-Functionist, or had many opinions about it at all. I actually lean towards the interpretation that Pharma basically saw himself as getting lucky with the way he was forged and being content with the fact that he'd managed to carve out a reputation for himself as being incredibly skilled. However, Pharma not getting involved politically in Functionism doesn't change the fact that he WOULD have had a very complicated relationship with Functionism, in that alt-mode discrimination would have had an effect on him even though he was in the scientific/medical class and supposedly privileged.

#mtmte #mtmte pharma #transformers idw #transformers meta #mtmte meta #squiggposting #pharma apologism #pharma doesn't fit neatly into categories of privileged or oppressed and that makes him especially interesting #tldr: pharma probably got microaggressioned a lot at work lmao #some med student: oh my gosh... a flight frame in medical school... how did you manage that?#omg pharma it's so craaazy that you can fly and you're also a doctor #wow pharma your hands are incredible it's a good reason you have them or they probably wouldn't have let you in #pharma smiling tightly with a drink in his hands: yeah. crazy.#pharma: anyways i'm gonna go perform a triple organ donation everyone fuck off i'm working #i think pharma never got political mainly because he comes off as the type who focuses on his job and nothing else #like he's experienced marginalization on account of being a forged medic JET but he kind of just went #well I overcame the odds and i'm the best doctor ever now and my position in society is comfortable that's all i wanted #but it's a far cry from fanon that decides to make him a full on card carrying functionist that's openly bigoted #i feel like i just repeated myself over and over again without saying much ah well

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magpiecrust · 2 years

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Miko's host parents. Image from episode 1, i think.

It's not said they have any children of their own, so presumably they don't.

#tfp #transformers prime #tf prime #maccadam #tf: prime #transformers: prime #transformers #tfp meta #transformers meta #miko nakadai #madge's

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polygonal-trees · 9 months

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not trying to start anything but i kinda disagree with the idea that Megatron's characterisation is inconsistent per se

I think it's more that EarthSpark features two very different Megatrons - the mid-war, 'pre-redemption' Megatron and the post-war, 'post-redemption' Megatron

(I used quotes because redemption is relative)

for the most part we only see post-war Megatron, a guy who has grown a lot, learned lessons, and is actively trying to be a better person. He's now trying to be a gentle leader who talks things out without resorting to violence

but he used to lead through violence and intimidation, we know this explicitly

and very frequently a lot of older, violent, mid-war traits come through.

we see early on that Megatron still enjoys violence in some capacity ("resist, it's my favourite part!"). He shot the pretend AllSpark the kids were playing with without any warning. And he quickly returned to his old ways when Starscream entered the picture

but I don't think that means Megatron's characterisation is inconsistent - I think it's a realistic portrayal of someone who's having to grapple with two very different, very incompatible aspects of himself. progress isn't always linear, so even though Megatron is trying to do better, he slips back into his old ways.

that doesn't necessarily mean it's done well, of course, but I'd have to rewatch EarthSpark to comment on that.

tldr: I don't think Meg's characterisation is inconsistent, I think it makes sense in context.

#earthspark spoilers #transformers meta

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shychangling · 1 year

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in which Megatron and Jetfire scream out for Optimus... There is love.. but each loves very differently.

Grief is there... but they grieve for different reasons.

One for their Combining Comrade, a part of themself that may never come back. Leaving a block of confusion and anger, paired with a mishandling of their own emotions.

The other grieving an enemy they'd known for so long that finally destroying them leaves an empty void of apathetic grief. What is the point of winning if the other isn't there to see their triumph and conquest.

#Transformers Armada #JetOp #MegOp #Transformers Meta

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storm-and-starlight · 1 year

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Why GHOST?

So I was figuring out a sort of... rough timeline of the backstory events in Earthspark, and it gave me some headcanons as to why Optimus would align himself with something so Obviously Shady as GHOST; primarily, that public opinion of Cybertronians on Earth is bad enough that he didn't have any other options that weren't worse.

It starts out with them coming to Earth in 1984, thirty-eight years before 2022, and yet he mentions that he's been allied with GHOST for thirty years in ep. 9, not thirty-eight or rounding up to forty. If you go with "it's been exactly thirty years since he started working with GHOST", that leaves a time span of eight years in which the Autobots are, presumably, unaffiliated with any human power.

And I'm willing to bet that having two factions of enormous alien war machines trying to kill each other for eight years without any oversight, or even really reason to care about humanity, made a lot of governments very nervous. We already hear about the amount of collateral damage in the Battle of the Bay from Autobot friendly fire, not to mention the missing limbs of both Mandroid and Dot, and add in Megatron's "this is why humans fear our kind", and I get this picture of a lot of mistrust and dislike towards Cybertronians (Decepticons in particular, but the Autobots were definitely lumped in with that). I've seen meta going around saying that GHOST looks a lot more like it's meant to police Cybertronians, rather than work with them, and I absolutely agree with that idea. (It also goes on that hard propaganda sell, which... I mean yeah it's sketchy but that plus the comics we see kind of feel like a heavy push to rebrand the Autobots as "friendly, helpful, cool aliens fighting the evil bad guys" rather than "giant terrifying war machines".)

So the backstory that I'm getting here is that Cybertronians brought their war to Earth inadvertently, and yet managed to freak out the major political entities quite a lot, what with all the collateral damage and (presumably) the thought of "what happens if they decide they want humanity out of the picture”, meaning that Optimus and the Autobots get forced into finding a way to collaborate with humanity in some way, and not-particularly-governmentally-affiliated GHOST (especially compared to the explicitly-US-military connections in something like Prime) was the best of their options, giving them supplies, resources, freedom, and marginally-better PR, rather than being forced to align themselves with any one country or human organization with explicitly political motivations (imagine how the world would react if America suddenly had a giant alien war robot working as explicitly part of their military. Not a good or stable situation lmao.)

Optimus even says it out loud at some point, that GHOST was the best of their options, and thinking about the exact timeline of what was happening and even just what we're shown in the show (the Nova Storm and Skywarp fight was filmed like a disaster movie and I am absolutely going to read into that), it really does kinda ring true despite how thoroughly shady the entire organization is.

#maccadam #transformers #transformers earthspark #transformers meta #will this all probably get proven wrong by later canon? maybe #but it's fun to think about!#(also I WAS figuring out a rough timeline for ficwriting purposes)#(so like... expect that at some point in the future)#(and also I'll probably finish up that post that collects all the information we're given about the backstory war at some point too)

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