But even if Tailgate had made it, he wouldn't have gone with them on the arc, he was only supposed to clean it before takeoff. I really wish I knew more about Cyclonus' time in the dead universe. I don't think the comics touch on it at all. I have a feeling that Tailgate would be a completely different person >>;. At the very least, he would have had to watch his only companions for six million years die horribly when they were all cut off from the dead universe. Noo, stop, this is all leading toward Grimdark Tailgate, he'd end up unhinged like a batman supervillan. I ship knockout/breakdown so much, I'm writing a tiny fanfic... You can't separate them. Edit *horrified face*. Whirl wouldn't have made it past the first or second issue of MTMTE >>;
I... don't think it'd necessarily have to be grimdark, any more than any of the characters who have canonically gone through a ton of shit (Whirl, Rewind, Rung, etc) are. The point is to see how he'd change, but it feels a little insulting to me to call it Grimdark Tailgate and 'unhinged like a batman supervillain'. I appreciate you don't like darker AUs, but...
I was thinking less grimdark and more touched-by-the-void--cheerful-but-alien, and then i remembered, wrong universe.
I also kind of imagine Tailgate deliberately playing up being cheery and helpful and nice on the lost light to try to balance out the suspicion everyone has for Cyclonus. Gotta help the bae. Especially if Tailgate played a role in Cyclonus' brutal attacks (either background support or being used to 'motivate' Cyclonus) but nobody else knows.
OH MAN, okay, apologies in advance if I'm being redundant or veering off in an unexpected direction or anything, because I read half of these posts at a rest stop before I did a couple hours of driving, then read the other half on my phone as I lugged my bags back to my apartment, but oh my gosh. OH MY GOSH. I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS IDEA SO MUCH I CAN'T STAND IT. Actually, hold on, I'm going to put those thinky things in a second post, so I can say a few quick transformers things before I forgot I ever planned to say them Petra, mizushimo, and applechime, aaaa, I'm so glad you enjoyed the cywhirlgate story!! I love them so so so much happy and stable, but even more than that, I love them where Whirl ships Tailgate and Cyclonus hard, and likes being there with them, but also has a hard time being there with him, because he doesn't think he fits, barely believes they actually want him there, but would rather keep idly hurting himself by wedging himself into the mix instead of being alone and not being with them at all. Which isn't how Tailgate and Cyclonus see it, but. Whirl. I love him so much I love him I love him, aaaaaaaaaaaa. And getting even more weirdly specific, I have this thing for Whirl pushing hard for play where he's, like... more vulnerable than he's actually comfortable being? If that makes sense? But... hm. It's hard to articulate, but you get the mix of him not wanting them in his spark, because that's romantic and intimate and he's the puzzle piece that doesn't fit, but also he wants it because he doesn't fit, but also feeling bad because he's taking this thing he doesn't deserve. I am having trouble finding the right words for this thing. But kind of a mashup of having nice things he doesn't think he deserves and punishing himself for having those things, without ever thinking through the motivations that clearly. tbh what I really, really want to do is have spark merging with two of these three, and exploring some of the emotions from that level of inescapable intimacy, but I haven't figured out a way to do it yet without unbearable amounts of melodrama ALSO. So I visited a friend this weekend, and she and I watched buttloads of cartoons together, at least four distinct shows, plus bits and pieces of four others where we couldn't get her Chromecast to cooperate. One of the things we did was catch up on this week's SU episodes. The last show we watched was me introducing her to TFA, and us shotgunning the entire first season together. And in Nanosec's episode, it was nagging at me so bad that his voice. His voice sounded so fucking familiar. And normally, I am literally the worst at these things. I can't tell voices, faces, anything. But it was bugging me and I couldn't place it, and I haven't done much in the way of tv or movies in ages and ages, so where would I even have heard him? WELL. Imdb says: Nanosec is Sour Cream. I had literally just been listening to this guy like two hours beforehand.
Spoiler: Mtmte 55 preview kind of late so I doubt I'll be saying new here but eh RAVAGE IS ALIVE AND SO IS REWIND AND SWERVE AND THAT MEANS MAGNUS IS NEARBY AND NO-ONE HAS BEEN FRIGED I WAS WORRIED Now that's out of the way Getaway made a deal with the Galactic Council, not the DJD. Knowing that he didn't think he was sending Skids and Whirl off to certain death makes me feel marginally better about him ( with emphasis on the marginally). They're also the ones who found and repaired Overlord, and now they want to escalate. From sending Overlord. I am honestly curious as to how. I'm not sure how this fits with Censere's death and the psychic weapon that originally lead team Rodimus to the planet though - the conspirators on the LL seemed to be expecting it as a signal, which made sense when they seemed to be working with the DJD but now seems like a bit too much of a coincidence. I had thought that outlier abilities like Trailcutter's were sparkbased rather than built in, but his panic bubble was presented as being different from the rest of his abilities and it wouldn't surprise me too much if it was something he'd backwards engineered from his own skills rather than being innate. As for Megatron stealing it - well it's probably not backed up very well by canon but I think that might br a bit of a cultural divide? Ravage isn't surprised that he did it, and I've generally had the impression from previous issues that the Decepticons were generally not hugely well supplied. It wouldn't be surprising if they, er, recycled useable parts from their dead as a routine thing. The rest of the scavengers thought Krok carrying the thumb around was odd, yes, but they had no idea about what it actually was. (This doesn't really explain Ratchet's cavalier attitude to other people's body parts, but I'm just going to class him as an outlier who sudnt have been counted.) And then they use the psychic weapon. Deathasaurus is obviously affected, and we already know he was wavering, it doesn't seem to have affected Nickel, and I really doubt that it's going to have any kind of effect on Overlord. But I'm interested in Tarn's response to it. We already know he can't look when the rest of the DJD start killing and that he 's an addict, so I'm hoping that there's a guilty conscience under there somewhere. And Megs is also in range to get hit. Whoops.
Sorry, I didn't mean to dis your AU, I was just joking around. In all seriousness: I guess I don't really understand how the dead universe affects the transformers? I think it would help if I knew what some of the characters were like before they ended up there. I could see Tailgate genuinely going insane. I can't really think of why any of them would be sane after six million years in that place, the amount of time they spent there is almost unimaginable to me. Tailgate is extremely impressionable, another possibility is that it would be difficult for him to stay distinctly himself in that kind of environment.
That's true. Cyclonus never really talks about his time there and we don't see it a lot, so we don't know how much the crew of the Ark stablized there after the initial 'ohshiteverythingishorrible'. I was also thinking that maybe Tailgate could end up accidentally on the ship when it took off, after doing his cleaning job, since you were right that he wasn't a crewmember.
This is perfect, because when they inevitably discover him in the storage closet and demand to know why he's spying on him, you can have Cyclonus be like 'stoicstoicstoic...........conceal don't feel..........fine' and cover for him, saying he's an extra service mech that he brought on board for reasons. Because Cyclonus does cover for Tailgate not actually being a member of the Ark crew in canon - he'd totally do it again
OKAY OKAY SO DEAD UNIVERSE TAILGATE! Spoiler: I already know this is going to be stupidly long So, this going off on a different tangent from exploring Tailgate/Cyclonus under Galvatron, and all that, because one post jumped out at me and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Someone mentioned that Tailgate wasn't actually going to be on the Ark? He was just there to clean some shit and leave? WHAT IF. As a starting point. (edit: ninja'd so hard, that's what I get for typing for so long @_@) Instead of his accident on the Mitteous Plateau, what if he had some kind of accident that left him stranded on Ark during takeoff, so he wasn't discovered until after they had embarked? So we've got basically a cybertronian stowaway, on this epic, historic space mission, some low-level nothing citizen, who is the first ugly mark on this vain, dangerous, probably-murder-happy leader's Big Event. I mean, I'm sure Nova Prime has dealt with setbacks before, and we don't really see that much of him on screen, but I don't think he's the kind of guy to take it well or to value Tailgate's existence in any way. And Tailgate. Tailgate, man, his whole backstory hits me in a weak spot for massive damage. Falling into the Mitteous plateau when he was two weeks old and nobody noticing he was missing or anything, that's bad. But at least for him, that trauma was like... mitigated by the fact that he woke up, and was immediately surrounded by friendly people who were taking care of him and respecting him. In this case, it feels like such a prime setup for trauma on a slow burn without any hope of improvement. So, okay. Lets lay out a best possible scenario: Tailgate is incorporated into the crew, makes friends, and everything is good times until they dive into the dead universe. Now, how likely is that? The people in power on this ship were all dicks. Jhiaxus is an ass. Galvatron is an ass. Nova Prime is an ass. Like I mentioned above, are any of these people going to be inclined to treat Tailgate decently for messing up their Epic Space Quest, even without all the class stratification and prejudices of Cybertronian society back then? Also, Nova's character stuff has a running theme of fear of losing his power, or people taking his glory, lots of like... background paranoia-type stuff, so I think he'd personally be even less inclined to go easy on the poor sap who dared to mar this mission that's part of his big destiny. I think it's more reasonable to expect, maybe... Tailgate doesn't get executed (or this would be over real fast). But he's beyond low-ranked. Barely counts as a person, maybe. Maybe there are, say, projector robots and laser pointers and data slugs and junk on board, those kind of individuals that hardly count as people under functionism, but at least Nova Prime meant for them to be on board. They have a Purpose here. Tailgate? Doesn't have that same purpose. Even if he was meant to be a waste disposal robot on Cybertron, hey. The Ark has waste disposal bots already. Tailgate might have a function, but his function isn't needed here, if that makes sense. I'm trying to say something about pseudo-religious functionist philosophy coming back around to fuck him over hard, even though he's done nothing to deserve it. So maybe even without being an outlier, he's given to Jhiaxus for experimental purposes (maybe that's even how his outlier powers get activated?). Or maybe he's... hm. Like, imagine if you were locked in a building full of busy people and given nothing to do. Nothing to occupy your time. Even if you asked if you could help, everyone told you that you weren't needed or wanted. How long before you fucking lost it? I'd crumple so fast. It would destroy me. And I'm fairly self-contained, Tailgate is much more outgoing and sociable than I am. If he was in a position of disgrace, I bet even the other low-ranked members of the crew would be reluctant to associate with him, or act friendly. Plus, when Tailgate is all like 'I WANNA BE A DECEPTICON' in front of the Lost Light people, he's humiliated when he learns the broader context that Cyclonus didn't tell him (never mind the broader-broader context of both sides having valid points and doing shitty things). In this setting, he would have been so humiliated by being the guy who ruined ("ruined") the Prime's big, epic space quest, the whole crew knowing he was the one who ruined it, everyone knowing who he is and what he did. Doing his waste disposal job for the Ark was supposed to be the high point of his entire nigh-immortal career, and instead... he messed up and is surrounded by people who know he messed up, and even the Prime is pissed at him for how he messed up. So like, either way, Tailgate is Tailgate, and he's gotta make some friends eventually. If only because I don't think he'd be able to function under that level of sustained, universal rejection. I don't think he could do it. But also he has a genuinely wonderful personality and he's so eager to please, that I'm sure people (low-ranked people) would soften to him eventually. And then he has friends! Just in time for everyone to go into the dead universe and start dying horribly. I don't think the dead universe is ever defined well (or if it is, it's in the bad parts of canon that I can't get myself to read properly, but shhhhh sh sh it ok). But I like thinking about it as a really... slow rot, in more than just a physical sense. Not fast or easy, not painless, taking its toll on your mind as much as your body. And kind of like depression in some ways, where being there for an extended period just saps your ability to fight back or to take action. Drowning at sea, stretched out over millions of years. I wish I'd known what Scourge was like before the Sweeps thing, because I can see how Galvatron, Nova, Jhiaxus, and Cyclonus could manage to survive it, and I want to know how Scourge managed. And oh my god, there is so much potential to explore how Tailgate would deal with something like that! Especially in contrast to Cyclonus. Because Cyclonus is so reserved and self-contained, and even Nightbeat comments on how he struggles to express himself. Tailgate can barely manage to hide his emotions, even when he's trying, and he cares so hard so fast. Even if being the guy that "ruined" Nova's mission was a humiliation, I think that watching the people he cares about slowly rot away would be so, so hard for him. Whether or not they cared about him, because just look at how he treats Cyclonus in MTMTE, even when Cyclonus is still being a total ass to him. If he did have friends by this point, watching them die. That's bad. Tailgate reacts badly to death, because he hasn't had the life experience for the impact of it to wear off. Even back then, Nova had just carried out a big epic war of reunification, especially in a ship crewed by people with higher status and experience, Tailgate is young and is still going to struggle a lot like how he does in canon. But even if he doesn't have friends, imagine the despair! Blahh, I'm getting too excited about other stuff to explain this part properly. But okay. When Tailgate picks out a person and is all 'you will be my friend!', even before it's reciprocated at all, he cares so hard. And if those people die before ever reciprocated, double emotional whammy, because one, losing someone you care about. Two, they withered away, slowly and painfully, before they ever began to care about him. They died without caring about him, no matter how hard he cared about them. He's going to die, eventually, and there is no escape, and nobody will have ever cared about him by the time he dies. Okay okay okay, but let's get back to a rough MTMTE-esque setting. Whether or not Tailgate subs in for Scourge with the Sweeps (so cool, but such a big emotional detour to explore! I can't spare the brainspace yet). Let's just say, for the sake of narrowing things down, that Cyclonus and Tailgate never especially got close before. Cyclonus was loyal to and respected Galvatron until mind-control shenanigans, and after breaking free, Cyclonus felt pretty dang violated and rejected Galvatron hardcore. Tailgate was... maybe more involved with Jhiaxus, maybe just neglected. But in a position to absorb everything else that was going down and see the things Galvatron and company are doing. And I'm too lazy to look back to see who said the thing, but I REALLY like the idea of Tailgate clinging to at least an appearance of optimism as a coping mechanism. Acting positive even if he can't necessarily think positive. Even in canon, he's got lots of self-loathing, he lies about his past because he doesn't think he's worth much the way he is, etc., etc. I like the idea of him being friendly and outgoing even if he's been rejected enough he doesn't think it'll work, because what if it might work? You don't want to shit-talk the merchandise in front of customers. (I don't know if I'm actually being that coherent about this, but I can articulate it better later if people are confused) So when they end up on the Lost Light (which could be played any number of interesting ways), Tailgate doesn't just ask Cyclonus to be roommates because he recognizes the guy from way back when, and they were kinda sorta contemporaries. They were comrades! Compatriots! Spent a couple million years chilling together! Did they ever really talk or anything? Maybe not, but they can fix that now, right? And here, perhaps, Cyclonus isn't only rejecting him because he's still burning over what Galvatron did to him, and what Cybertron has become, and everything he's been through, and now here's this dumb little rando acting all buddy-buddy and wanting to room with him. Here, Cyclonus is hurting over Galvatron and all that, and he thought he was getting away from all these reminders of everything, and... no. Here's Tailgate. Almost the biggest, most obvious reminder of the dead universe he could possibly get. Acting like they're friends. And wanting to live together. I could see a lot of delicious conflict happening for Cyclonus here, all muffled up in the way he's so gloriously shitty at expressing his emotions. Because on the one hand, Tailgate does understand, probably better than any of the other survivors. The other survivors were the officers who were actively being assholes, Cyclonus and Tailgate are the only surviving collateral. And on some level, he can recognize that Tailgate has had it much shittier than him (and on a deeeeeeeep deep dark subconscious level, also Tailgate is being friendly and making friends and appears to be coping well? so maybe it is possible for cyclonus to also cope well? maybe? eventually? tailgate is not actually coping very well, but shhhhhhhhhhhh). But on the other hand, he went on this stupid silly quest to get away from reminders of his last stupid silly quest and how badly everything turned out, and he can't escape it. No matter how hard he tries to get away from it, that trauma follows him. In this AU, no wonder he's kind of hostile to Tailgate. Though here, I'd kinda imagine he'd thaw faster to Tailgate than he did in the main canon. I am all about that unhealthy codependency, and like. Just look at this shitfest they're dealing with. It's gonna happen. Someone mentioned the cybercrosis thing before, I think? Just like when he was trying to make friends with people before, Tailgate... doesn't show the bad stuff. Just keeping it quiet. Don't bring up the bad things openly, or the whole facade crumbles. Just act positive, and it's almost as good as actually being positive. Also, so Tailgate is a much, much more sociable person than Cyclonus is. So Galvatron comes back, who's really going to be gossiping with Cyclonus and passing that information along? But Tailgate makes friends with so many people, he hears the news. He manages to keep it together until he gets back to their hab suite. GOD, I can't even talk about how it would play out, because there are SO MANY DIRECTIONS to take any of this!!!! I'm so fired up about all of it! I want to write like five variations on every important plot point in this AU! Agh, I'm getting too fluttery to write in a linear way. So I just want to bring up some Things To Consider before I hit post If Tailgate is double extra attached to Cyclonus because they have actual history instead of the barest hint of almost a history, how will this impact Tailgate's interactions with Whirl? How will it affect when Cyclonus is accused of murderizing Red Alert? So, you know the moment when Swerve is like 'i thought we were friends, why didn't you tell me?' about the cybercrosis, and it's a nice little ouch moment, for when you find out someone isn't as much your friend as you are their friend? Imagine that for other crew members, because Tailgate struggles with getting genuinely close to people much more than he does in canon Cyclonus's coping is much more self-contained than Tailgate's. But their hab suite is as private as their lives get, how long until he starts spotting the cracks in how well Tailgate is getting by? Whirl has some really nice insights into how people tick sometimes, and he gets Cyclonus in some really interesting ways. I just really, really, really want to see how he deals with this version of Tailgate. How would this affect that point in early season 2, when Tailgate points a gun at Megatron? Because it's... not really an idealistic, inexperienced Youth pointing a gun at Megatron anymore, it's got all these extra layers of nuance driving it. God, just... everything to do with Getaway. That would be so fascinating, having Tailgate being able to spot emotional manipulation. And hiding it from Cyclonus, because Tailgate has spent long enough watching Galvatron and Jhiaxus and company at work, that sometimes it's hard to not be emotionally manipulative. Cyclonus doesn't seem like he'd be a fan of big crowds in the first place, but after so many million years of semi-isolation in the dead universe, it seems like crowds might be even harder. So... how would Tailgate deal? He's all about those dance parties now, but his would this history affect that? I'm seeing like... something where he craves that social contact, but it also exhausts him, and there's only so long he can sustain it. How many external observers would be able to spot the cracks in Tailgate's coping mechanisms? Rung, probably. Ratchet. Maybe Drift would have a clue. OR. According to his spotlight, Blaster was also doing that thing where he puts on an aggressively happy face even when he's starting to crumble inside. I want to see the interact. Also... this Tailgate and Ten. I want it so bad And finally, imagine this Tailgate and that scene where he asks Chromedome what's up with Trailcutter, and Chromedome says there's only so long you can plaster a smile over a broken soul. That is all :3c
Heh, I could see tailgate accidently getting stuck on the Arc, his life is blessed that way. Yeah, I was trying to come up with headcanons for the dead universe, and there's so many unanswered questions... My in-progress headcanons for the dead universe: The whole reason they survived, where all other transformers crumble away, was because that Anti Matrix-of-authority energy sensed Nova as soon as he entered and claimed them. Nova and co spent six million years mucking around in there, I don't know why it took them so long to enact their big plan. Other characters can get in an out of the Dead Universe relatively easily. The concept is very cool and mythic, but it's hard to suss out. I think Nova voluntarily chose to stay there in order to unlock the secrets of the negative-stigma energy and the rest of his army was influenced by its will to obey him unquestioningly. Tailgate wouldn't necessarily need to get cybercrosis? He would have almost had to be revived in the same way as Cyclonus, which means that he would have been given a new lease on life by Vector Sigma.
In head canon, I like to see dark universe stuff manifesting as simultaneously both a physical and psychological/spiritual spark rot - the entropy wiggles into all the cracks in your psyche and finds the trauma, and slowly you start to cough up nasty black ooze and your head explodes because your spark is all clogged up with death gunk on both a physical and metaphysical level. You survived four million years of brutal civil war and genocide? That is unfortunate for you, buddy, because the dead universe is ready to infest your spark and drag it all back up to kill you. People who haven't gone through the civil war last longer, but they still rot away on the inside Spock, you have caused me physical pain and I like it. Just. Me, all the time:
Oh yes, I definitely agree!! Originally I meant to play with the ideas both ways, but then I fell down this rabbit hole and there was no way back up @_@ Depending how much energy I have after finishing my ladystuck, I may be back to play with the concept from more directions!
...oh man, I'd love that. One direction I can see is Cyclonus covering for Tailgate, not for Tailgate, but because he knows Nova Prime is going to get really worked up over this and it'll make everyone miserable and sour the whole start of the trip, and that's how Tailgate ended up working for Cyclonus.
