https://outlashting.tumblr.com/post/139457357523/can-you-do-tfp-smokescreen-arcee-and-breakdown Bless Outlashting and their edits. And pffahahah, I wish they had more fang Arcee, but they also took that exact panel Spock posted and...removed the fangs XD https://outlashting.tumblr.com/post/137434025081/sort-of-an-odd-request-but-do-you-think-you-could
SO, i was over in the revolution issue (again) admiring Thunderwing, because godddddd, what a GWARGEOUS design (those wings!!! those engines!!!! and so HUGE!!!!!) and the Stormbringer art was murky and hard for me to process, so this is pretty much the prettiest Thunderwing we'll ever get to see. And I realized. That is one heck of a complicated body he's got there. Now... how hard did this dire wraith fellow have to study to get all of that locked down? How much did he have to go over pictures or records or whatever to manage all those many little details? Because I'm picturing him studying really hard so he can just nail this design and show up in a frame that's important to Grumpybox Crankcase............ and instead he accidentally triggered his boyfriend, oops :V We don't see much of this character, but I am SUPER sad about that, because I'm pretty positive he's as much of a precious dork as the rest of this crew, and I want more.
Brainstorm remained in the LL universe while everyone else went to the Functioniat universe, right? Because that's a shame. It means he's gonna miss his chance to have his heart torn to shreds by Quark.
OuO And this is the same Quark who was perfectly content to participate/be complicit in the examination (torture) of Rung for all this time. How is a Quark who was able to happily exist under a totalitarian functionist government different from the Quark he knew? How similar?? Plus, I'm not convinced the rest of the crew will be staying away for long :3c Given the situation Rodimus and company landed themselves in, I think they might need a rescue at some point in the near future. Plus it would be GLOOOOORIOUS to see some of these characters reacting to functionism, oh my god. I need to noodle on about some of these guys when I have a chance. Also, I'm not sure the comic made things clear, but okay. So that geo-bomb went off and nothing seemed to happen. But could it have nudged the entire planet sideways into a neighboring timeline? It seems plausible, and then Brainstorm just has a garden-variety transporter, not one that crosses dimensional lines. Maybe Rung's alt mode is the key to getting them back across to their own timeline? I know there's supposed to be confusion in the plot right now and things will be revealed in due course, but I want answers NOW :< ps, also, I don't think it's terribly likely Trailcutter would have survived under this government. But I bet Shockwave would have flourished OuO I bet Glitch could be just fine. I bet any of the DJD is fair game. I don't know if the government would have bothered killing off Dominus Ambus after they finished with Rewind. CENSERE could still be alive here. Oh oh, fuck, if Soundwave is still going strong, I bet RAVAGE is fine too :DDDD There's so much potential for people to come back ("come back") from the dead here, and that's without even touching functionist versions of living characters. But if they can possibly drag Censere or Shockwave back to the regular universe with themm, I would KILLLLLLL to see that happen.
...I wonder, would any of the circumstances that lead to Cyclonus being around happen in Functionist timeline? .....also given the functionism I. I doubt that a beastformer would be deemed useful. And if they killed off all the dataslugs, then cassettes might not have been far behind.
If we're still working under the assumption that the only change that happened here was Megatron never existing, Cyclonus had already wandered off to the dead universe two million years back. But!! Depending on how complicated the writers wanted to make things, Galvatron's bizarre return-from-the-dead-universe scheme could still be in the works, and another Cyclonus could theoretically appear. But that was such a weird, inaccessible plot thread from the start, and just got more convoluted the more they tried to explain it, I don't know if anyone would want to touch that again. OH. But there is another Tailgate, out there, still stuck underground. Who could have sploded his way out by now... or he could still be passing out for years at a time and still be stuck there. If that gets brought up, I wonder if Cyclonus (or anyone, but especially Cyclonus) would insist on getting him out and to someone who can help him. And if that happens, I wonder if the Tailgate he finds will even still be alive, or whether he died of cybercrosis out there, in the wilderness with no one to even comfort him, alone, unremembered, and unmourned. I figure the beastformers have weak odds of survival on their own, but @coldstars and I have been tossing some functionist ideas back and forth, and okay. So Soundwave in the regular universe was brought in for intelligence work under Ratbat, and did very well for himself. And he also has those mind-reading outlier skills that he was keeping secret at the time. And he is one HELL of a protector, personality-wise. Now, option one is that he gained power and influence through his intelligence-gathering skills. Plausible, maybe a stretch. The other option is that like Glitch, this is an outlier power the government can really use and exploit, and if they can control him, he's a powerful tool. Either way, given his backstory, I feel like his number one priority would be protecting particularly the people who saved him when he was alone on the streets, and his number two priority would be taking as many similarly disadvantaged individuals under his wing to protect, under the guise of needing them as assistants for his job. Gah, this one's complicated to explain as paragraphs instead of as a story, but it would be a complicated story :P If he framed it in terms of their uses that can't be replicated by standard-looking mechs or dumb machines (covert surveillance, I'm assuming), he could justify a function for these mechs, but it would presumably only stretch to as many mechs as he personally can make use of. I want to see mama bird Soundwave trying to make as big a nest as possible, all with the same flat affect and cold exterior we see from him, and with the same deeply protective interior we see from him. I think he's better equipped to hold onto his sense of self while tied up by functionist control than a lot of the cast is, and it's the same like... that quiet, subversive anger that led him to undermine his employers and support the decepticons in the first place. I want to access as much of that as I can. And given his backstory, I think that if he's around, he'd do anything in his power to at least shield Ravage, Laserbeak, and Buzzsaw, up to the point where the government decides he's a liability and offs him too.
...and if he only saved HIS mechs, then anyone would know that his casseticons, the only casseticons, were spies... but man I'd love it if Soundwave was around and a protective mama birdcatbot. soundwave having a sparkdeep protective love for his casseticons is so much to me.
there's so many interesting ideas for potential angst and drama, but literally all I can think about is 'original universe characters find their functionist twins, make out a bunch', brain please, you can do more than this on the other hand, two Tailgates and a Cyclonus! or original-flavor Rung and his counterpart, oooh
Remember that the Functionists already have a lot of spies, in the form of the Primal Vanguard. Involuntary spies, yes, but a lot of spies nonetheless. So Soundwave would be good for tracking down thoughtcrime, but deedcrime would be pretty well covered.
Oooooh, but the primal vanguard are only incidental spies! They're good for general, covert surveillance, but while they're invisible and don't even realize themselves that their eyes have been altered, that means you can't send them on any quests in particular. Soundwave's mechs can be given orders, sent to find very particular targets, or... can even be sent to spy on members of your own government who are aware of the primal vanguard changes, but are more vulnerable to a stealthy cat with attention-deflectors sneaking into their home at night. But this means Soundwave is under constant pressure to justify the use of his spies, so he can keep them alive. He has to make the case for why they have their own uses that altering people's eyes can't mimic, and where static cameras wouldn't do the job either. He has to deal with frequent questioning over whether he really needs so many of them to accomplish everything, and whether all these mechs are really filling a necessary function. Imagine him being confronted with hard numbers as to the energy expenses of feeding these... creatures... and knowing he has to bring in enough information to be worth a comparable monetary value, at the bare minimum. The constant, constant pressure that if he slips at all, the people he's protecting will die, and it will be his fault.
GUYS. Krok named himself after his pet. That's a detail we're given. But did you know his pet shows up in other continuities too? Because I sure didn't. WHAT A CUTIE PIE, how is anything supposed to beat that? And he even got a toy! He even transforms! Into a nifty little gun thing! Looks kinda like-- --oh. oh oh :(
1. Spock - that's heartbreaking. Why have you done this thing 2. Why did none of you fukcers inform me that there was a transformer named Big Daddy?? My god. It's like I was blind, but now I can see. I ship him with Revved Up the porn star
Spoiler: tfp liveblog continues, s2e13 Starscream's on the title card of this oooh preview is about dreadwing, oh dear I still want more of these relics to be of the Thirteen STARSCREAM NO SELF-SURGERY WHAT IS IT WITH THESE ROBOTS AND SELF-SURGERY scream your cog is in your pelvis not your cockpit, what are you doing ...how are you getting to these without flight, scream or are you gonna try and sell them to ratchet again bc he didn't seem terribly interested the first two times and I think you're smarter than to try a third you want to send wheeljack with ratchet I mean that's better than sending wj with bulkhead but that works the fuckign. robot moped tho I need moped-alt'ed robot now convenient excavation site, complete with red flags on the one hand, ouch, I'm pretty sure scream's chest just got stabbed on the other mmmm that size difference scream dicking around with his guard in the background omg we officially have a Staredown guys we're a real Space Western now optimus leaves so many openings as he moves jesus someone get this archivist some melee training (on the other hand, dammit dreadwing playing flashy doesn't help you) ...well I mean if he has to make an attempt at Playing Turncoat again Optimus really is his best option to sweet-talk DAMN SON I was not expecting that but it's nice to see even Optimus isn't that hopelessly optimistic buddy if it's an antarctic research facility I highly doubt one fantasy-CIA agent can get you in there that is some beautiful rendering on the ice tho god, just this could be a photo, goddamn ...well that works. I don't want to know what they think they're chasing but "don't wreck the joint" >ten minutes later tops, giant robot fight ooooooooooooooooooooooooooh niiiice "apex armor" that sounds familiar hmmmmhmhm "don't wreck the human base" >multiple blast craters wowch these heartfelt monologues are going on and all I can think is "wow the working parts of OP's shoulder are really pretty" ...actually, hang on, isn't Dreadwing the guy what killed Cybertron in comic-continuity? well that can't end well for anyone
Thunderwing was the one in the comics! But I imagine they both came from a 'quick, come up with an intimidating airplane name' place, which, uh, is a trap I definitely haven't fallen into as I try to come up with an intimidating airplane OC ;;;>_> (goddammit, now I have to come up with an actually imaginative robot name )
Dirtboss, boss of the dirt. ETA: Quote is a bit wrong. Dirt boss can control transformers with darts, so he does boss them around.
Ah yes, the constructions! If you love Prowl, you'll probably learn to love them, with bonus canon mind meld mindfuckery. But sometime remind me to dig up some of the prowl/constructions porn stuff that's out there. But TFA plays by its own rules and doesn't afraid of anything! The constructions are an established legacy group who have been around for ages and are all matchy matchy and also can be a combiner. Dirt Boss and his two buddies are random construction equipment that was magically brought to life. They... do stuff. And dirt boss maybe has mind-controlling powers? I don't remember if I'm making that up. Also the weird al bot is a literal pile of garbage that was magically brought to life. TFA really plays by its own rules.
