TFs: DARE TO BE STUPID

Hey, hey, I just shared this via PM with coldstars, but imagine: Prowl and Rewind tearing into each other over Chromedome, and getting really ugly about it. Rewind is like, 'You do know how we met, don't you? You don't have the right to tell me to get out of his life when you obviously did a horrible job of supporting him yourself.' And Prowl is like 'Good job, I hope you're proud, you've successfully manipulated a suicidal mech into being emotionally dependent on you, even though you can't commit to him fully because you're already married, you motherfucker.'

I mean, I'm going to use the premise for some deliciously vicious hatesex :V Priorities! But I'm going to really enjoy seeing how much they can hurt each other over Chromedome in the process.

 

Ooh, an interesting tidbit!! In later exRiD, someone is trying to describe one of her relationships, and she starts to say 'he's my amica-- or, uh, I guess you cybertronians might say best friend?' But in MTMTE, it seemed like Nightbeat already understood amica versus conjunx. Some of it might come down to using human words to describe alien romantic paradigms, but it's totally a plausible reading that Prowl was deliberately making snide insinuations that Rewind isn't really Chromedome's conjunx.

(and yes times a thousand on the pettiness in their dynamics! it gives me so much life and I love it to pieces)

 

JRO tweeted at one point that multiple conjunxes aren't a thing, so I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a deliberately messy area. Which is great for drama, not so great for my poor heart. I'm pretty sure that the only reason Rewind is quote-unquote allowed to have Chromedome as a conjunx is because he's nominally widowed... except he's maybe not and the major goal of his life is to find where Dominus disappeared to.

I think JRO said that at some point we're going to see Chromedome and Rewind's four acts on the page, so some of the messiness might come up then! I'm really hoping it does. Slash, I saw someone speculate that the current story arc is going to finish with Rewind's broadcast... and Dominus seeing it. I will absolutely DIE if that happens, even though I'm on pins and needles for Chromedome's sake. Both their sakes. This whole thing is such a delicious mess, I just want it to be resolved for maximum happiness points ;_;

 

Today's out of context Ratchet quote: "Bumblebee, I can't interface with Optimus Prime!"

Or how about this tidbit about Tracks from the wiki: "In the wink of an eye, [Tracks] can erect his hardened launcher shafts"

Hasbro, buddy, I've been wallowing in transformers porn for too long, I can't handle if you're going to keep doing this kind of thing to me

 

I'm not sure the cassettes ever get introduced cleanly, even in the original idw transformers run! If you're looking at small decepticons, especially those with beast-type forms, odds are good that they're Soundwave's cassettes. Ravage is a cat (he mostly features in mtmte), Laserbeak and Buzzsaw are birds (exrid), Ratbat is a rat...bat... (exrid), and Frenzy and Rumble are fairly humanoid (exrid). Soundwave is one of the more iconic old-school decepticons, so I don't think they ever bothered to go back over all of these other related characters.

I know some of them met Soundwave ages ago, before the war. Iirc, Soudwave was in Dead End and doing badly and some of the beast-mode transformers (who were pretty disenfranchised under the functionist government) found him and they bonded and worked together and eventually they were modified to be his cassettes. Ratbat was converted at a later time, and I think someone might have said it's partially a punishment? Because he was a senator in the functionist government before the war, and turning him into a cassette is kind of degrading. I'm not positive about all that, though, I'm weaker on that end of canon.

The LL crew does get a decent amount of screen time! There will be LL crew in at least two locations through most of the story arc, I think. The dead universe art is hideous, but it's kind of worth it for the character moments you get with Cyclonus, Rodimus, and Nightbeat. The rest of the art is really hit or miss, but there are some gems scattered throughout. And oh man, Chromedome in particular gets one scene that is just FANTASTIC.

Oh, also, for everyone who started at MTMTE/exRiD, Nightbeat!

Spoiler: pre-mtmte nightbeat

So waaaaaaaaay back at the beginning of things, he was orbiting earth while the autobots and decepticons were starting to square off for the first time on our planet. The autobots were just starting to clue in to the ore-13 business, so Nightbeat was supposed to be helping sort that out. There was some kind of disturbance on another planet (Gorlam Prime), and Optimus sent him off to investigate. He brought Hardhead with him too, who's one of the other characters who has been bopping around.

Preemptive spoilers: this is all the beginning of Galvatron's dead universe nonsense

Well, first, the planet was creepy-deserted, and they managed to find a sketchy like... underground lake where it seemed everyone had just walked into it and disappeared. Plus, it turned out that Nightbeat's brain had been compromised, and he was unwittingly working for the people trying to bring the dead universe through to our side of things. Now, the reason he brought Hardhead along was as a failsafe, where if things went wonky with Nightbeat, Hardhead was supposed to shoot him. Which he did. Point blank bullet to the head, bam, and Nightbeat fell back into the dead-universe-portal-lake-thing. And then, as far as everyone knew, he was dead.

Hardhead and Arcee spent a few years chilling on Gorlam Prime, watching over the lake together. Hardhead passed the time exploring, Arcee passed the time torturing Jhiaxus. Fun was had by all! Arcee isn't sure if their shared experience and time together makes them friends or not. I have a lot of feelings about Arcee and social interactions.

 

I think that in IDW, there's been no mention of Blaster having cassettes at all. I went looking for it, because I'm fascinated by the whole concept, but I think that might have gotten dropped in this continuity.

Ps, guys, spotlight: blaster is another issue that's a fun read and stands well on its own!

edit: aw man, getaway has a little cameo in there! only for a panel, but it's good to see the garbage son :')

 

While I'm being a pest, psst, @WinkWonk, I saw your tumblr post about problematic faves and I come bearing a fine vintage. His name is Trepan!



Plus at one point he gets abducted by the robot GHB and they are terrible boyfriends together

Aw heck, while I'm at it, let's have the robot GHB too. His name is Overlord!