Spoiler: Whirl "I bounced around a bit, changed my name, became a flight instructor." THAT'S WHEN HE WAS JETSTREAM OR WHAT'S HIS FACE. that's when he had his face and hands back. But then he... redid the mutilation. Did he... do that to punish himself? Is that why he hasn't asked for his face or hands back even though I'm sure there's surgeons who would do that for him, even though the Senate can't stop him? He's punishing himself??
Well having his face and hands back and then getting the re-mutilation is fanon! It's the best way to me the backstory makes sense, but it's never said outright in canon. Potentially if the senate was involved, it may have been done TO him without his consent, like the initial empurata, or it could have been self-punishment. My one fic blended the two things. But then iiiiiin issue 18 or so? He has a conversation with Cyclonus that touches on why he hasn't gotten himself fixed up since then. There was one character... Glitch I think? He was shown with claw hands at one point, then regular hands at a later point, before the functionists are out of power, so it IS possible to get it undone, but we don't have a good picture of the exact circumstances these characters were in at those points in the past.
Well, the story mentions jetstream's hands and face, soooo. Either that's wrong or he was restored and then remutilated. But if you think about it, I can understand him doing it himself. It's not healthy, but... a lot of the damage done to Whirl was mental damage. In prison, he tells Optimus he wants his hands back, and that's not a lie, but it's not the whole truth. He fairly reasonably wants to be the person he was before awful things happened to him, and before he did awful things. But that isn't going to happen. He's got to process his own trauma and heal, and the resulting person isn't going to be the person he was. It's pretty heavily implied that Whirl's clockmaking is a mental block for example, like when he starts to make digital clocks again it's showing he's starting to finally process that trauma instead of just maladaptively coping. Obviously the claws are going to fuck with fine manual dexterity, but if he did get his hands back at some point, it wouldn't surprise me if he just realized that it didn't fix the things he wanted to fix. Which you touched on in your fic.
Oh, I know!! I'm on board the fixed-and-remutilated train. But when I first connected Jetstream and Whirl and brought it up in the thread, there was some discussion of the hands and face thing, and some disagreement on whether it was a writing mistake, given that it happened after his empurata, or whether jetstream and whirl aren't actually the same person, or whether there was some other explanation (like being fixed and then empurata'd a second time). Canon never explicitly explains how he lost his face and hands, was put in a situation where rotorstorm particularly noticed his face and hands, and then was bopping around without a face and hands again. I really, really like how whirl and jetstream are the same person, and the things that adds to whirl's backstory, so being fixed and remutilated is what I run with! I personally favor it as being a punishment from the senate after whirl fucks up, but something he lets them do, because of all the things you're saying up above about the psychological damage he's taken, and maybe him thinking that he 'deserves' it. However it went down, it's a plot point where I just love thinking about how it plays into his character! (and I'd somehow never actually noticed that Whirl mentions the flight instructor thing in this scene, so I'm super stoked to see phase two confirmation of that part of his backstory. I'm all OuO over here)
Yeah, that's why I brought it up! I learned about it after I'd passed that scene in my initial read, so it didn't register.
That's a little chilling. Whirl had a face and hands for awhile.. It makes a whole bunch of sense, what he did to--- the guy (can't remember name, it's been too long), if he was either on the verge, or having, some sort of severe mental breakdown, or if he was trying to keep himself going by using that poor guy as a scapegoat to fuel his anger/hatred (i.e. the thing that keeps him alive in the MTME timeline) A note, Whirl might actually have more manual dexterity to make clocks now, then he did with normal hands Those appendages in his claws look perfect for fine circuit work. I wonder if he gave himself that out when he lost his hands the second time, so that there would be nothing physically preventing him from doing the thing he loved when he was ready to try again.
Okay, I am really proud of myself right now. Credit/blame to @coldstars for coming up with this fantastic idea Spoiler: robogore, also large
I don't remember how I found my way to this etsy shop, so it could have been from a link in this thread (and if so sorry for the redundant post). But I recently ordered some magnets and and Cyclonus and Tailgate charms, and the seller contacted me and let me know that I'd been charged more for shipping than I should have been and gave me a refund for the extra charge, and they've been WONDERFUL to work with, and I seriously recommend their shop to anyone who's in the market for some cute transformers swag.
help I'm having Lost Light feelings because of jpop Spoiler: translation of questionable origins We're groping around for a dream; There's nothing there, we just believe We want a one-way ticket To the far ends of the universe Wow... There are people who notice us, But even if no one looked at us, We link our arms together and laugh We definitely won't be defeated Wow... I don't want anything Always, right now, Wow, there's a constant star train Music is everything We're travelling through The distant universe on a star train Taking the path without tracks, We wanna go beyond imagination Engaging like gears, Our power isn't transmitted by just one person Wow... I don't want anything Always, right now, Wow, there's a constant star train Music is everything We're travelling through The distant universe on a star train Wow...
You know, having come from fandoms with really wishy-washy creators (and even from peripheral knowledge of how a lot of superhero comics/The Big Two treat people who talk about Superman being gay or whatever) it's... really nice having JRo be so chill about it? And literally write gay marriage into the comic? Like, that blows me away every time I remember that it's canon. And the fact that Alex Milne not only take commissions but happily takes them for gay shit too is so? Cool? I'm so used to dude comic artists getting SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE at the implication that anyone can kiss unless it's Hot Lady and Male Artist Insert. Anyways this tweet screenshot showed up on my dash and I though y'all would appreciate. edit: coralus is apparently the one who commissioned it and the picture is like, the size of my chest, so not only is this beautiful, it's beautiful and MASSIVE IN PERSON. God bless us every one.
All fluff aside. I wonder if it's REALLY maybe possible that guy robots will kiss at some point in the actual comic. Is that a possibility in this day and age? Is that kind of thing still considered too offputting/threatening for all the straight-guy readers?
You know, I really hope we do end up with a couple of dudes (or ladies) kissing. Though I can't recall any kisses going around (possibly because of how many face masks there are) so my fingers are crossed for kisses in general. Or gentle mask boops. That's okay I guess.
I nominate the two lady bots from Windblade #7 to have the first all femme robo smooches in IDW, because their relationship was really cute. I don't know about the Cygate kiss, does Cyclonus even have robolips? Maybe he could gently chew on the rim of Tailgate's faceplate. I'm with you though, Even if Tailgate doesn't have a mouth, they've GOT to have those two kiss somehow (SO HYPED FOR #55, we get to find out what happened to both of them...) Mask boops are very important. We've only seen them forehead boop so far, they need to take it to the next level
