I'm okay with it from a perspective of how long it's been since then, and because of how strongly it clashes with what we see on the page. So like, okay, it's a little hard to track down Whirl's lowest lowest point, but let's assume that Whirl's time in the Dead End was a big factor, then also the empurata, and probably that one prison experience. The timeline is a little fluffy here, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine that all of these things happened pretty close together. He lost his shop -> Dead End -> at some point the functionist council empurata'd him and pressed him into service -> shenanigans with orion pax and jail time. We already know that the empurata and hand things have been rough on him. Plus in the jail we see that he isn't getting medical attention and the guards are letting prisoners beat him to the edge of death... and even Ultimate Good Guy orion pax sees what's going down, says it's unfair and needs to be fixed... and completely fails to help him. Plus the government jailed him in the first place.... for.... following the government's orders (and getting caught). So I'm guessing that whole thing was a seriously traumatic experience. When Whirl is talking about how Optimus recruited him to the Autobot cause, he talks about it as 'laying claim to him' before the Decepticons could, which does not really sound like Whirl himself was in a great place at the time. Sorry, I'm all over the place here. What I'm trying to get at is that I think that eventually joining the Wreckers was a major stabilizing force for Whirl. If for nothing else, just for how badly he flips his shit when Roadbuster kicks him out. And this business with Rotorstorm was pre-Wreckers, post-empurata, post-jail, and I am guessing that he was a fucking dangerous person to have around. I'd believe he was holding himself to really strict standards of good behavior in public, because by now he knows what happens if he crosses the line and gets in trouble, and he knows what jail is like. There's that one meta that I've linked before that talks about how him being afraid of imprisonment still seems to be a big driving thing for him. And after his treatment at the hands of the functionist council et al., I'd really, really believe that his understanding of what constitutes a healthy social relationship was HELLA fucked up. This is getting real speculative, but like. To go from ex-watchmaker/homeless mech to corrupt government enforcer is a pretty big step. I'd guess that he had some kind of mentor figure in the mix, whether it was a politician, or like a buddy cop system to teach him the ropes. Given what we've seen of the functionists, I can't believe that any of that was done in a healthy social way. And even apart from that what-if, the guy's been hammered by trauma after trauma, spent time on the streets, and spent how long in jail? Centuries? That I'd totally believe that he'd slip into abusive patterns without properly realizing that what he was doing WAS abusive. I think that's a line that some people struggle with in real life too. What's the difference between giving someone constructive feedback when they're overconfident and cutting them down for the sake of cutting them down? When does it stop being corrective discipline and become plain physical abuse? I think it's really tragic for both parties if Whirl really was trying to be a mentor figure, but he was so fucked up by everything that had gone down that he just... yeah, no. That's why I really like the idea of him realizing just how far around the bend he'd gone after the CR chamber thing, and immediately leaving town. I think it fits in pretty cleanly with some of the other moments of clear, bitter regret we see from him in canon, where he wasn't trying to do bad things just for the sake of doing bad things and had actual reasons (like roughing up/killing Megatron on the government's orders, or trying to give Springer a mercy kill), but things play out super badly regardless. And him leaving fits nicely with his general attitude of it's-better-for-people-if-I'm-not-around, even if these days he tends to take a more... let-Megatron-kill-me approach. And given how poorly he still continues to connect to people (person-you-want-to-punch night at the bar, and almost everyone is Whirl), it's really sad thinking about him and Rotorstorm in the context of Whirl having actually decent intentions. He doesn't really do much reaching out to people now, maybe it's because he saw how badly things went when he did build a close one-on-one connection? But I definitely think he didn't come to the award ceremony to be cruel. That's not like him. Regardless of his intentions in the training (I like my view a lot, but it's pretty speculative), I think he was proud and genuinely wanted to show his support and just did not realize how it would hurt Rotorstorm. We don't really see Whirl expressing himself in... emotionally dishonest ways, if that makes sense? He'll lie about why he and Cyclonus were fighting, but he keeps his same attitude, regardless. I think it's really sad to imagine that he tried to show that he was genuinely proud of Rotorstorm and wanted to express that without giving himself a chance to slip into the same old abusive patterns, and is so bad at healthy social connections that he just didn't realize how badly even his presence at the ceremony would retraumatize Rotorstorm. SORRY, THAT GOT LONG, i have too many whirl emotions
I was gonna read the next few spotlights in bed to wind down, as one does, but HI THERE KUP WOULD YOU LIKE SOME NIGHTMARE FUEL WITH YOUR HALLUCINATIONS? O_O time to go find silly rodimus pictures until certain panels stop being the first thing on my mind, yeesh.
Getting an answer from JRO will be awesome if it happens, but I got to that information by googling 'transformers jetstream wiki,' and it directed me straight to whirl's page. Usually the tfwiki gods have been pretty good to me. And I didn't dig around too hard for sources, but I think the articles are saying that Whirl's name was Whirl at first, then he changed it to Jetstream, then changed it back (maybe he was trying to break away from his past and get a fresh start and failed tragically?) Oops, one more wiki quote I found, from the mtmte 6 wiki article:
But if the business was POST empurata he doesn't have a face or hands. It either have to be pre-empurata, but possible post shadow play. Or it's another mech going by Jetstream/Whirl's name and Whirl hates himself enough to not correct anyone.
Well at this point in the general comics canon, Whirl was around, but nothing much was being done with his character yet, and his design hadn't been fully polished yet either. His legs and chest and all were WAY off compared to how they eventually worked out, and I don't think empurata got much focus at all until MTMTE. Mmmmaybe with shockwave, I don't recall, but not really as a general social thing. And I don't think taking someone's hands as deliberate punishment came up at all until Whirl's character got real focus. It seems like a detail that would be easy to miss unless they were planning years ahead, and the differences split the phase one/phase two gap, so I'd be willing to believe it's just an editing fail that slipped through because it was something the creative team didn't really think of as an important character detail yet.
Fair enough. ...and, I guess it's not hard to guess that Whirl at that point in time was pre-THERAPY, too. Whirl in MTMTE has been seeing Rung for a while.
@spockandawe fair, but I think I'll mostly be headcanoning it as being someone else using the name because it really doesn't make sense or fit with stuff and I know a lot of the first wave IDW stuff is cherried picked - like how somethings with Arcee are now pretty much ignored. Plus since I can't make it fit and it doesn't make sense to my brain, my brain is making wounded noises at the whole thing. See also my issues with DC trying to constantly change up everything about who Clark Kent is and my brain just goes "no? no that's wrong?"
SCREECHES i'm sad now :( well. if i can forgive drift his deadlock days, i can forgive whirl his jetstream days. godspeed, you awful, beautiful robots
I'm kinda bow out of the Whirl/Jetstream conversations because no one needs me repsonding to everything with: "but it doesn't make sense" in ever increasingly whiny voice.
AHAHA, okay, I've been trying to reply to this since it got posted, but between choir and other giant robot things, I kept derailing myself. AWRIGHT. So the point raised here, about self-sacrifice, is a really interesting one. So there are some interesting psychological things that get addressed in this series, and I love all of them, but there's one that's really relevant here. Primus apotheosis, or the desire to emulate Optimus Prime. One of the big characters mentioned as definitely having it is Pyro, so a lot of what we hear about it is in the LSOTW text stories, so Ima just dump a bunch of screencaps here really quick. Spoiler: long -- -- -- -- I just bring this up because Rodimus has piles and piles of daddy issues relating to Optimus Prime, but look at how much our baby is being his own mech! Contrast Rodimus with Pyro, as shown here. I could go on forever breaking down particular contrasts, but the big one (relevant to the screenshot in the post up above) is that you have to watch out for suffers of primus apotheosis looking for opportunities to sacrifice themselves. Rung is even worried about Pyro doing sacrificing himself, and Pyro tries to reassure him that 'no, no, I'm going to wait for something really epic before I do that!' That's... less reassuring than you think, buddy. And look at Rodimus doing the opposite of that thing! And specifically saying he doesn't want to sacrifice himself! This is a medical condition that's really widespread in-universe, and even affects one of the members of the decepticon special forces unit. You'd think that Rodimus would be in a really vulnerable position for this condition, especially given how badly he wants Optimus's approval, and he's still out there doing his own thing. I'm just really proud of him (I mean, more than I usually am. A fresh dose of proud-of-Rodimus), and wanted to share.
It is both horrifying and impressive that Optimus is so charismatic that he's the cause of an entire class of psychological afflictions.
Yeah, wow, 2% of autobots is a LOT. And, of course, the ironic thing is Orion Pax/Optimus Prime isn't actually a great role model.
I've often wondered about a few AO3 fics I saw that had 'au: Whirl is not Jetstream' in the tags, and honestly the context I'm getting from this thread is that this weird backstory seems...horrifically out of character for the Whirl we know. Eh. I'm inclined to mark it down to early continuity fail, and set it aside
I mean, OP all but says "hey yeah you should have given up command [sacrificed your ship] despite how the vote fell" even when Rodimus is kinda like "uh.... I thought sticking it out was...", so dude definitely encourages it without even realizing I don't think. For such a introspective guy, OP is REALLY BAD AT TELLING just what his words and actions are going to do. (Which I mean, I don't think OP is wrong about Rodimus being pretty sure it was gonna swing in his favor, but I do feel like he's misjuding what those 89 people voting against him will actually MEAN.) edit: Also like, okay, they're giant robots and you can fix them up lickity split when it comes to surface damage but c'mon. Cyclonus carving into his face? Tyrest drilling everything? Self harm is still self harm and the fact that he CARVED that into himself instead of painting is just... c'mon.
I think the latest version of tumblr purity culture regarding slapping abuse/abuser labels all over fiction has me extra determined to accept sketchy histories for even my favorite faves. It doesn't jive with Whirl as we see him, but I can personally fit it into his history, assuming he's grown since then, without feeling too much dissonance. Though I can see why people wouldn't! tbh i kind of want to see if i can write something for it, i love exploring that sort of history like i've touched on a little with prowl and chromedome, or rewind and dominus ambus. Kind of like how even super sympathetic current Megatron makes me want to give more attention to his nasty history with Starscream, or how when people say that Optimus is Prowl's abuser and I get all inspired to kick back with my own takes on the characters :P So I probably don't have the most objective view on this whole sort of character debate, but I have a weakness for my faves fucking up in horrible ways, and found a way that it clicks for me. I figure a couple million of years of separation and character development lets me have my cake and eat it too, but I do also understand people who just aren't feeling it.
True! Millions of years is a long time frame to work with, and a lot of these characters have changed radically in ways we can barely scratch the surface of with what the comics' timeline and flashbacks cover. In this case it's just personally, for me, too weird of a disconnect, so it comes across more as continuity fail from when they'd barely conceived of Whirl as a character (see the physical description fail/timeline weirdness) than character development to my brain. I'd love to see what you could get from including that as part of Whirl's character though :o Also yeah, the best part of TF comics is the fact that the thirst is so real for all of these gay robots. My god. On some level it probably started with the incessant need to describe identifying features of robots in detail for the sake of Toy Sales(tm), but good lord, that prose...bless these comics...
It's not, not feeling it, it's it not making sense at all that he has hands and a face if it's Whirl post emputra. And if we're going to say well it was early IDW weirdness and his design wasn't pinned down then we can say that while Jetstream might be Whirl's original name in canon, the Jetstream Rotorstorm knew isn't Whirl. Unless he's using a holoform and Whirl has done plenty of fucked up shit without trying to shoehorn in this incident into his history when it doesn't work in the timeline at all without a lot of twisting. And if we're going to keep the early Whirl weirdness and not making sense with current timelines canon, then why not the bs from Spotlight Arcee or some of the other early IDW stuff that no one uses and has been pretty much ignored? Like if people want to have that indecent be something Whirl did and works with Whirl's backstory and make it work with the hand/face thing and accept it has canon, I don't have an issue. But thinking it makes no sense and doesn't work isn't just not feeling it or wanting to ignore canon to excuse abusive terrible behavior. Sorry, sorry this is just really gotten a burr under my skin and I know I'm not being rational about how much this is bugging me. ):
Oh, no, that's meant to be about a separate thing, not about you! I get where you're coming from with the design and character stuff too, I've just reconciled it in my head and didn't really have anything else constructive to really say there, so I was leaving it at an agree-to-disagree place. I was just thinking about any other possible explanations for why people might be making a point of tagging Whirl that way on ao3 fics, and connected the dots to some other unconnected wank that's been on my dash, where there's this nasty trend where someone who's been mean to someone in the past is ALWAYS AND FOREVER AN ABUSER, NO GROWTH ALLOWED. I've seen people trying to pull that business in a few fandoms now, fortunately none of it coming the people I'm actually following, but it's been really bugging me, so I was just idly wondering whether that could be applying on those fic tags. It's like, if people want to gloss past the ugly stuff in Arcee's origin or past Prowl's OOC spotlight, or whatever point they're changing, I haven't seen them make point of tagging that change in particular, so I was trying to figure out why Whirl was getting that treatment.
