I mean yes :P v sleek, v white. More handsome than Macho Pixel Soldier posing dramatically with a gun in front of them.
I have napped and I have woken up as still kind of an asshole. Behind a spoiler, because I'm anticipating some length :P Spoiler The usage of “frag”, “slag”, and “scrap” as cuss words Werlll, if I'm going to split hairs (I am), I think the issue with Slag/Slug's name was that Arcee told him it was offensive. Which I'm assuming is because depending on region, slag is a slur. To talk about promiscuous women. That's not the same as a curse word. And scrap and frag [you] are cuss words like... in the extent that 'crap' and 'screw [you]' counts as cussing. It's kind of a stretch. Potentially they could translate stronger than that, but the comic really doesn't frame it that way. Lovers (conjunx endurae) being called “sparkmates” If I recallllll correctly (I will be saying that a lot, I'm too lazy to go look most of this up), only Sentinel said that. So there's no guarantee people still do the thing, it could be outdated like whoa. Queer-platonic relationships (amica endurae) Okay, first, who the heck is saying this is only fanon. Second, it's not just limited to queer-platonic relationships. Especially since I have one heckuva time getting a single consistent definition for what that even means. This can cover all kinds of things, right up to the edge of romantic!love marriage, since Nautica mentions some people wanting to be a conjunx and then being an amica and the ceremony being kind of bittersweet. It's a complicated alien social construct, and palerom is the only single-word parallel I've seen that comes close to doing it justice, which only works because it's a different alien social construct. While Megatron and Optimus are seen as very old, they are not. Megatron is five million years old, and OP stated that Megatron is a little older than him. Bots older than them include but are certainly not limited to: Rung, Whirl, Ironhide, Kup, Ratchet, Cyclonus, Tailgate, Rewind, Red Alert and Minimus Ambus/Ultra Magnus So like... Five million years is still pretty darn old, my dude. Just because there are SOME people older doesn't mean all that much. It would be weird if these were Literally The Two Oldest Men Alive. Consider the number of fatalities during the war, and the average life expectancy of anyone born during the war. In the grand scheme of things, this is pretty darn old. (also, the arc-1 records were old enough that it was a cool, rare thing that Rewind had a copy of the crew manifest and such. That's six million years ago. If six million years is super old, five million is still pretty old) Starscream was a representative in the Senate Ummm. Starscream killed the Senate. When he was arrested and faking like he was going to spill the beans on Megatron's plans. Camiens laud those who have carried the Matrix as gods; they would view Rodimus just as they do Optimus Ehhh, I'm not looking this up. It gets me kinda with the treatment of optimus thing. But just in general, their culture is not a religious monolith, we see camiens treating matrix-bearers as PEOPLE, or in the case of pyra magna, swinging all the way around to a negative view of a matrix bearer because of her religion. Or was Nautica treating Rodimus like a god and I just didn't notice? Young Cybertronians being called “sparklings” Source? I don't remember this at all. Unless it came up in Anode's dialogue or something? But the holiday special had a babby and none of them ever called her a sparkling. Rodimus spent three days trying to program his holomatter avatar to have a sweatband Yep, tru Before becoming Optimus Prime, Orion Pax was close friends with Megatron. He read and quoted Megatron’s Towards Peace and was even unsure if he was on “the right side” Close friends is a stretch. They were familiar with each other, yes. Orion read his publicly available writing, sure. And quoted it. But the one time they talked in the time travel arc, they didn't seem CLOSE, Megatron never mentions that they were ever close, and there's nothing else on the page that says SUPER 5EVER BESTIES. Whirl likes French films Tru. French art films particularly, iirc, which is a bit more evocative than just saying french films. Rodimus is 4.2 million years old - only 800k years younger than Megatron "Only" 800k is a weird thing to say. *I* sure can't properly conceptualize 800,000 years. Rodimus is about 5/6 as old as Megatron, which isn't that remarkably large or small a gap. And again, this was right on the page in issue 29 or so. Are people really questioning this? Mecha from Caminus have different spark frequencies than that of normal Cybertronians, causing their energon to be blue rather than pink Yyyyyees the spark frequency is a thing. Which was also a starscream's-life-saving plot point, so who is questioning this? I'd forgotten about the energon color, but the spark frequency thing was pretty in your face. Megatron and Impactor worked together in the mines and were best friends Were they best friends? They worked together, they were friends, they were close, but where does it say best friends? I have a hard time seeing either present day or past Impactor or Megatron using that phrase period. This person seems to slip pretty easily into stretching a canon connection out into something stronger than the material actually says :T Cyclonus was on the Ark-1 Yes, but this is also, like. His entire backstory. Are people honestly not thinking this is canon? Alcoholic beverages (engex) ONE OF THE MAIN MTMTE SETTINGS IS A BAR. WHERE PEOPLE GET DRUNK. OFTEN. Show me who is saying there's no cybertronian booze. Rodimus, Whirl, Skids, Swerve, Tailgate, and Ultra Magnus have all customized their holomatter avatars Nooooooo, Rodimus and Ultra Magnus have customized theirs. The others had holomatter appearances that varied between issues. It could be a deliberate change, but it is also a lot of work to change these things, and considering they're designed to intuitively reflect who you are, I'm not at all surprised they were a bit different. Especially because Whirl's and Tailgate's looked a big older than the first time, which maybe reflects positive character growth. And Skids was a flipping doctor who reference, don't try to tell me he did that all on his own. Soundwave and Drift both grew up in the gutters of Rodion and were taken in by Megatron Hmmmmmmmm. Growing up is a term I dislike for robots pretty much born as adults. And okay. Drift? Gutters? I'll tentatively buy that, though when he was in a gang, I thought it kinda carried the tone of success, just underworld success, so. I would've thought that at some point he'd get a place to stay. And Ravage and company found Soundwave in the gutters, okay. But by the time Ratbat came to hire him, he was successful enough for Ratbat to have heard of him. He was homeless, but that's just... It's not the same 'barely scraping by, living on the edge of death' connotations that 'gutters' has. WAIT, also, I went to the wiki, and the wiki doesn't actually mention Rodion for Soundwave. It could come up somewhere, but I am extremely Skeptical. There’s a mech on the Lost Light named Toaster, who turns into a toaster I forget where this came up, but it sounds familiar. Whirl was alt-mode exempt and a watchmaker of sorts. After the Empurata procedure, he changed his name (Whirl was not his original name), frame, and started hanging out in Rodion’s gutters, where Drift and Soundwave lived. He then became a prison guard and beat up Megatron, causing the latter to be pushed over the edge and start the war 'Alt mode exempt' is a very particular word usually applied with the connotations of like, a reward. Like the janitor got labeled alt mode exempt for figuring out Rung, but he didn't get a new job. And Whirl changed professions, he got permission to change professions, but this term was never used directly. I think/hope, or I sure look like an idiot now :V At some point Whirl was known as Jetstream. The wiki places his time teaching at the aerial academy as... after Optimus dumped him in prison for beating up Megatron. So Whirl was being called Whirl before the IAA. He was called Jetstream at the IAA. And he was called Whirl after the IAA. After his shop was destroyed, Whirl was left broke and homeless. He didn't choose to start "hanging out" in Rodion's gutters with Drift and (not necessarily) Soundwave. He was homeless. And the empurata happened somewhere after that becoming-homeless point, implied to be punishment for resisting when the senate tried to press-gang him as a corrupt cop. Also, he was a cop. NOT A PRISON GUARD. And oh my god, saying this pushed Megatron over the edge and started the war is disingenuous framing. It was when Megatron decided that pure pacifism wouldn't work and violence was going to be a necessary step of effecting change. Which started with gradually escalating terrorism, not a war. A war resulted, but Megatron was still an innocent, shaken babby when this happened, he didn't go straight from hiding under a table during a bar fight to WELP, GUESS IT'S TIME FOR TOTAL WAR. Nautica is the exact picture of Pipes’ Dream Conjunx, but he died before getting the chance to meet her Pipes likes short partners with an aquatic alt modes, who are triple changers, with big chest plates, and minimal kibble. I'd expect this is meant to be deliberately silly and unlikely, because if you want someone to be a triple changer but without much kibble, I mean. HOW. I guess it can happen, but. Not likely. Nautica is aquatic and has a big(ish) chest plate, she's not TALL but she's not short, she's not a triple changer, and she has big old propeller wing kibble. Does that count as minimal? Mmmaybe? That's like... 2.5/5, which is more than most cybertronians score on his list. It's not a deal-breaker, if Pipes was maybe kinda crushing on Tailgate, who also only hit a few categories. But it's not exact. Rodimus, formerly Hot Rod, grew up in the streets of Nyon and took care of other homeless people, and was approached directly by Megatron, who was hoping to recruit Where does it say homeless? If Nyon is a decrepit/dying city, I'm kinda guessing there are LOTS of buildings to set up shop in. Poor and exploited =/= homeless, you can't have an entire city of homeless people. And they were looking up to him and chose to let him be the only survivor, if the whole city was THAT attached to him, I seriously doubt he was just living on the streets. Before becoming Rodimus, Hot Rod was about Rung’s size Mmmmmmaybe. kinda sorta. I'm not rejecting this outright, but the artists did not have him down all that consistent for a while. I'm not sure which sizes to trust, and I don't recall people really saying much about 'wow! you sure are a lot taller than you used to be!' Also, in the Nyon flashback miniseries thing, I thought he was about his modern size in relation to Megatron and Optimus. Certain Decepticons in high standing with Megatron had special ceremonies performed by one of the Warriors Elite or Megatron himself in which the chosen Decepticon would have a piece of their spark casing removed and forged into their Badge Noooooooo, it is said that anyone becoming a decepticon has to have Megatron or one of the "conclave" presiding over the ceremony, which will involve taking a chunk of your spark chamber to make your badge. On both sides of the war, some mecha had real, physical badges, while others were simply painted on I'd believe this, but also I forget where this came up at all Megatron is a forged spark in a cold-constructed body Who is forgetting this is a canon detail, it was a major point of an entire plot arc Shockwave was a senator, and ran an academy for outliers (which Skids, Trailbreaker/Trailcutter, and Damus/Glitch, who would later become Tarn). He and Orion Pax (who was later to become Optimus Prime) were close friends Shockwave was ENROLLED in an academy. Shockwave TAUGHT (i think) at that academy later. Shockwave also had like.... five outliers that we saw that he took under his wing to protect them from the functionist government. Five people under your wing is not the same as an academy. This is an irritating as heck connection between two unrelated pieces of backstory, and it makes no. sense. Mecha saying “I could hug you!” Who is saying it's not canon, and why is it significant enough to be on here Drift is filthy rich for a reason undisclosed Well, it's undisclosed. But it's almost definitely gotta be murder. That was the whole deadlock thing. He didn't do much else besides murder, and he got pissy when he thought he wasn't doing enough murder. Rodimus and Swerve are both religious, just not obnoxiously so Most of the cast is religious, to varying degrees. Skids is notable as an atheist. LOADS of the others debate theology, Cyclonus's religion comes up multiple times, the Camien religious views came up earlier in this list. Alpha Trion is still bopping about as a kinda sorta artifact of that ancient religion, it's a little hard to be like NOPE, ALL FAKE when one of the original Thirteen is still very much a public figure. People can debate whether it's religious or just historical revision or what, but most of the cast is religious. Orion Pax had his insides rearranged by Shockwave’s techs to make a hole in his chassis - unbeknownst to him, Shockwave was doing this to MANY mechs to make it possible for them to carry the Matrix of Leadership. Had it not been for the hole created by Shockwave, Orion Pax would have never been able to become Optimus Prime Also a pretty major plot point. This comes up in a lot of places. Are people really doubting it? Even then, it hurt Orion Pax when the Matrix bonded with him and made him into Optimus Prime - when the Matrix bonded with Hot Rod and made him into Rodimus Prime, it felt good and right Also a pretty major plot point. Maybe not a plot point, but the story put some real OOMPH into this detail. Even by Cybertronian standards, Prowl is considered “heavy” This sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't remember where it came up :T I want more Prowl facts, I want to absorb all the Prowl information into my head until I am become the Prowl. Chromedome was still able to lift him over his head and throw him off a cliff Not that significant. Chromedome is a largeish guy. He's not weak or anything. We see him riding/wrangling a dinosaur robot earlier in the series. It'ssss.... not a huge deal. Rodimus (Hot Rod at the time) broke into Styx, one of the most high-security Decepticon-owned prisons to ever exist, to break out Dealer, a former member of his unit (who then promptly betrayed him) This was literally the plot of two whole spotlights. Who is saying this isn't real. Chromedome and Brainstorm worked for The Institute, which was responsible for mind-wiping, Shadowplay, and Empurata .......also something that is a major, repeated element of these stories. It comes up, like, so many times. I want new factoids on lists like this :< Drift joined the Decepticons at the very beginning of the war and only became an Autobot near the tail end of the war, less than a century before its close (He became an Autobot after meeting Wing, and then pretty quickly became a Wrecker and went to Earth in a time period likely to be the 80s or 90s). For nearly all of the 4 million years the war went on, he was Deadlock, amongst the most horrifying Decepticons out there, and was favored by Megatron enough that the warlord sent his most notorious bounty hunter out to go find him even after Deadlock had betrayed his superior officer’s orders and went rogue Yes, okay, fairly accurate. Not sure whether Megatron sent Lockdown or Turmoil did, too lazy to look it up. But this is literally Drift's entire backstory. This is. His ENTIRE. BACKSTORY. Whyyyyyyyy is this something that needs to be on here. Also, 'amongst'. This could be new and accurate and something I legit didn't realize, and that would still bother me. Megatron never got an Autobot badge of his own; he still wears Bumblebee’s Source? He's had a lot of time offscreen. I don't recall him mentioning still having Bumblebee's badge post-DC, though it could be something I did legit miss/forget. But at this point, I am side-eyeing anything in here that I can't confirm from my own memory :T tl;dr, Spock is an asshat with nitpicky sperg rage issues, more news tonight at ten!
Minor point, technically the janitor was labelled 'alt mode exalted.' Alt mode exemption DOES let you skip out on your functionist role - that one senator who found overlord got to become a senator because he got exempted. Also I believe JRo did confirm Drift's cash was blood money from his Deadlock days.
Actually, you know what, Tailgate has had an even rougher ride with romance than I'd thought. Because there's Cyclonus. Who knows when a crush started happening, but Tailgate was all about outreach and being friendly from the start, and Cyclonus was kind of a huge ass. And even now, Cyclonus is like 'I would give my life to keep him safe. But also I am not going to do a romance with him, because I am Not Good Enough, so keep your big whirl mouth shut.' Which os a situation that has lots of hope flavoring it, from Tailgate's point of view, but it's also kinda sad-alarming-upsetting when you already have some issues with social disconnects, and you're being left hanging over something that you care about so much, where you think you're on the same page, you think you're reading the signs right, and-- just left hanging. There's Getaway, and the damage from that whole mess. Which is so intense, it still gets me all kinds of worked up. And there's also the time travel ghost flashback thing where Tailgate saw Drift talking to Pipes and offering to introduce him to Tailgate, since Tailgate sounds like he lines up for some of what Pipes wants in a romantic partner. And Pipes died, tragically, without Tailgate ever having a clue that his friend might have felt that way about him. And at a point where Tailgate knows how it hurts to care about a person and feel like they're refusing/ignoring you. Just... dang. That makes for a sad whole :( Tailgate didn't do anything wrong in any of these situations, he's just acting in a genuine, open way and trusting people and treating them nicely. And these are three different flavors of not-relationship, and three distinct flavors of pain. Every time he turns around, he's getting burned. And whatever happens in LL, he's about to get burned again. And all through it, he's only trying to do his best by people. I don't know what to do with all that information, but it makes me really sad.
First, Ravage gossiping all friendly at a bar with a bowl of engex. Second. Swerve consumed ALL the human media. All of it. 30,000 years of it. He references sitcoms more than anything else, but he has consumed EVERYTHING. Third, Swerve thinks that life is inherently tragic. That is... an upsetting, depressing worldview. And he thinks that people dive so hard into fiction because it helps people make sense of themselves when they're adrift. Which is what he says people do right after he finished taking a solid month to mainline every piece of human media from all recorded history. But he finishes on a joke!!! So everything is okay, everything is totally fine, just go out on a humorous note, and that's what sticks with anyone listening. Or reading. Which is good! Because nothing is wrong. Nope, nothing wrong at all. Everything is completely fine. This character hurts me so much I can't breathe :(
OH The two handsy guard girlfriends from Carcer? They're legacy characters!! I never knew! From way, way back in G1! Though it took them, uh. Only about 25 years to get names. But! Greenlight and Lancer. It makes me extra happy that they're super affectionate girlfriends now.
I'm still wondering about that posts claims about sparklings. Them being canon in idw goes against other things established? Like the fact that protoforms presumably form into complete robots in a short amount of time and they don't seem to have the concept of childhood, or subadulthood. The most we get is disparaging terms for less experienced/weaker cybertronians (or whatever the heck 'poppet valve' means in robot slang)
It would make sense for a society even without a concept of childhood to have allowances for less experienced adults even if they still have adult responsibilities, but on the other hand, Cybertron has kind of been a varying type of hellhole for over 6 million years, so that's a bit idealistic.
Exactly, what I meant was that you don't find evidence of childhood by listening to the way they talk to each other. There's no equivilent 'don't be a baby' or 'stop acting like a sparkling' in their language to indicate that someone is being dramatic and overly emotional. There's also no equivilent of "hand holding" or other language that would mean 'walk someone through a task or concept slowly like you would do when teaching a child'. Though to be fair they only time anyone calls anyone a coward, or chicken or implies that they aren't brave or valued because they won't do x thing was Hardhead during dark cybertron. Which also says something about the quality of the Lost Light crew.
Yeah. And I'd suspect the only one of the crew still in an 'allowances are made due to age' period would be Tailgate, which... not like everyone knew that right away. And given the brutality of war and how fast MTOs had to 'grow up', any leeway Tailgate gets is probably more due to people knowing Tailgate in specific, not people giving leeway just due to age.
Like I definitely think extremely young cybertronians might be prone to emotional reactions just because they don't have millenia of life experiences to compare stuff too. Like everything would be more intense?
I think that's true to some extent, but cybertronians are weird about it... I really want to go back and analyze conversations, but that'll absorb me for the rest of the day.. Anthropological nerdiness ahead: Newly onlined bots are definitely seen as vulnerable and unfinished, but it's hard to say if older bots are supposed to protect them by default. The crew didn't seem particularly protective of Tailgate until after he saved everyone in the Tyrest arc, they did cut him slack because he didn't know anything, but all the affectionate nicknames and talk of him being the mascot didn't happen til season 2. It could be that it was important that he prove his worth before he was really accepted by the others. I had a theory that cybertronians were more protective and affectionate when it came to the minibots? I don't know if that holds water. All of the minis on LL were well liked and somewhat important to the others, but there are solid reasons for this beyond "they are short, so we treat them slightly differently". The only character who does treat the smalls differently (with head pats and talking down to them) was Nautica, but I think the camians might just be weird. In human society, people who look a certain way and are short have to fight through the perception that short = childlike = not dangerous and must be protected (+ whatever traits culture associates with childhood, like innocence, impressionable, emotional etc). Alot of things are related to our species instincts about children (such as being drawn to animals with big eyes and small faces because human baby) and the Idea of a culture that is fairly human but with the complete absence of all those things is fascinating.
Hi my name is spock and my hobbies include hurting starscream, hurting starscream, annnnnd hurting starscream (nsfw) But tread with lots of care and mind the tags, because this is about starscream's thing where the killswitch went off and he started dying, and his immediate reaction was that this must be megatron. There’s past abuse, past sexual abuse, past sexual violence, with sexual injuries both referenced and (mildly) occurring, some nonsexual body horror, and present actions that could arguably qualify as self-harm.
There are a surprising number of Starscream clones in the chorus line. Like, however many fairly large jets you thought could reasonably fit on one stage, you're gravely underestimating the creativity and sheer dedication that went into this.
Triple post ftw because I read the story and fuck damn. That hurts so much. It's also extremely interesting, as a state of mind I've never experienced but find totally plausible under the circumstances. This is the blessed combination of feels. Thank you for invoking it.
