TFs: DARE TO BE STUPID

For extra fun, it's a Chromia/Prowl baby. That won't go excitingly wrong at ALL, i swear!

 

I had this abomination of science child with my other husband but then I had my side piece kill him, so... here you go, your baby now, no takebacks

 

Part one of... something, who knows :V

So I read that long megatron meta, which was pretty intense and hard to get through. And I feel like a total ass, given that it was so intensely personal, but… I disagree really strongly with some of their conclusions and some of the canon quote-unquote facts they pin their arguments on. I’m not so much of an ass that I’d do this on tumblr, but. I really, really strongly disagree with some of this stuff, and it upsets me when legit points get buried in unsupportable arguments.

I’m going to try to be brief, but this is going to get super long, sorry. I’m going to try to acknowledge the good points the writer makes along the way, but also decouple it from the personal abuse history that makes this a really rough read.

Spoiler

Just preemptively, I have nothing at all against projection as a tool in fandom-type things. Pretty much everything I do comes back to projection. But it’s… this person says that this explains their personal views. But they also present every point they make as FACT. I don’t argue at all with them personally holding these views, I object to them telling other people that these are the facts, this is absolutely 100% for sure the way all these things are in canon.

This author’s thesis seems to be that what Megatron is doing here is deliberate, considered abuse. Not the accidental toxic patterns that turn into an abusive relationship, but Megatron playing the long game and on purpose getting Rodimus under his control via abuse. I disagree so, so strongly. A lot of this will show up below, but this conclusion is so D: to me that I wanted to give their bottom line up front.

First, saying that abuse is cyclical and that things aren’t always maximum badness is a very good point.

Now, I don’t like using the honeymoon phase as justification for why Megatron can be cutting in one panel and pleasant in the next, that’s too short for the phase thing. And I’d also say that Megatron shows considerable improvement over time, just in general. He’s much more cold and demanding towards the beginning of season 2, much less pleasant. Saying that he’s pleasant near the end COULD be a honeymoon phase thing, but we don’t see anything significant on the page to show the cycle side of things, if that makes sense.

DEGRADATION

First, I think this is one of the strongest points to be made in labeling Megatron’s behavior as toxic. Megatron is super cutting, super demanding, super impatient with things he considers unimportant and frivolous. It’s a logical extension of his history in the war, and I’d argue that Optimus is similar in a quieter way, fewer cutting remarks and more weaponized disappointment, but it isn’t good of either of them.

The author draws a comparison between Megatron critiquing the Rodpod as a vanity project and their being an adult with a collection of stuffed animals, both nominally possessions with sentimental value to the owners, even if they’re silly. There is a valid point in the idea of not shaming people out of liking the things they like. A lot of school-age bullying comes back around to picking out the person with the WEIRD interest and bullying them out of it.

However, comma. Rodimus is not a young adult with a collection of stuffed animals. He’s one of the highest ranking autobot officers, with hundreds of people under his command. Consider if Lord Dampnut wanted to have a presidential limo with his face on the hood. I’m sure he’d LOVE that car, I’m sure it would matter to him, I’m even sure he could pay for the stupid thing out of pocket if he wanted. And I’m still sure folks would be horrified that THIS is what our president is prioritizing, a vehicle with his face on it.

Rodimus isn’t in quite such an extreme position. But the narrative and characters draw attention multiple times to the fact that no matter if his heart is in the right place, he is NOT a naturally responsible leader, and he tries to dodge the responsibility that comes with the position. Post-tyrest, Ultra Magnus mentions that Rodimus has given more orders in the last day than in the last few months. Rodimus feels awful over the fact that he’s spent his time painting flames on his doorway when crewmembers have died under his command, because of the decisions he’s made. He is trying to change these things, but there are a lot of DDDDD: things about Rodimus’s leadership style, and to say that Megatron has to be super nice and understanding about Rodimus’s priorities when those priorities need to include being a responsible captain is very unfair. A comparison to a single solo person’s stuffed animals is looking at this thing under real-life human parameters, not in terms of the comic’s universe.

Also, everything Megatron is saying here is an… “uncharitable lie”? And Megatron criticizing the rodpod is the reason Getaway brings it up like two years later during the mutiny?? What???? Nothing Megatron says here is a lie. It’s when their ship is quantum-evaporating and Megatron is laying out the difficulties of their situation and trying to figure out how to contact Thunderclash and save what’s left of the crew. Nothing here is a LIE. Words mean things.

This is a reasonable point, but completely unrelated to the previous arguments about Megatron criticizing the rodpod. Is Ratchet Rodimus’s abuser too, because he’s been critical of Rodimus’s behavior, multiple times? I would say this is silly, but…. it does legit come up later :/

I don’t want to just quote giant chunks of the original, but like. Megatron criticizing the rodpod is unfair and cruel -> Megatron is deliberately laying groundwork to turn Rodimus’s crew against him. There’s a paragraph for ‘everything megatron says here is a lie’, then these are the next two paragraphs. This is a massive, massive leap in reading his emotions. A reasonable leap for HEADCANONS, or for personal interpretations. But in laying out canon fact, this just. It’s unmanageable, it’s such a non sequitur that it’s hard to refute. A, B, C-- Q. Obviously.

Then they say that Megatron is usually aiming these critical comments at Rodimus personally, trying to work at his self-esteem and feed his self-hatred. I’m not going to argue at all that Rodimus has low self-esteem and self-hate. This is my beautiful boy who is vain and proud and also neither of those things at all. Both at once.

Sidebar: Rodimus self-harmed by carving the vote numbers into his palm, “explicitly so he would always know how many people didn’t want him there.” This is a great example of how they argue. Taking a canon point, and taking the emotional conclusion and jumping JUST far enough that you’re like oh-- I mean. Okay, I guess that makes sense? But it doesn’t really. Inasmuch as we hear about Rodimus’s motivations, it’s so he’d know how badly he’d let down his crew, and how many people didn’t think he was responsible enough to be the captain. You… can phrase that as ‘how many people don’t want him there,’ but that’s not really honest framing for a factual description of canon. It’s an emotional twist that goes past the facts and presents a conclusion that canon doesn’t exactly support.

But that Ratchet thing.



They say this is a direct cry for help that is shot down with an insult. Plain and simple, that’s it. Because they’ve experienced that thing. And they say that their personal experiences made this deeply upsetting to read.

On the other hand, Rodimus and cries for help? I’d say the closest we get for that is him reaching out to Optimus in DC. And getting shut down. But this, I’ve had practically this same exchange. Because it’s possible to hold ridiculous, preening vanity, and nasty self-loathing together in the same brain, simultaneously. Something like ‘And then I did X, because I am the biggest, stupidest idiot you’ve ever met’ ‘stop, you’re plenty smart’ ‘hahaha yeah, I am pretty brilliant.’ Both of those statements are true! This is a hat it exists, it is my hat, and it is not a hat I see all that often in fiction. We see plenty to support Rodimus’s low self-esteem. And we see WAY, WAY MORE to support his genuine vanity.

Hgghhhhh. It’s a decent conclusion. But the points that got them there are just… so not-solid. Who says Rodimus was accepting anything as literally actually for-real true? He derailed the conversation that was going to an awkward emotional place, he acknowledged that Ratchet was right about the vanity, their interpretation of the scene is not fact, and it’s not even that well supported. I’d accept it as an interpretation. But that’s not how it’s presented.

And I’d say that Rodimus is more vulnerable to people withholding affection, and that having someone who will bring those criticisms into the open instead of just running face-first into a wall of vague, undefined disappointment is taking him in a healthier direction than he was going before, but hey.

DO THEY TELL YOU YOUR OPINIONS AND FEELINGS ARE WRONG?

So this starts off with the point right after DC where they show Rodimus his corpse and Megatron rags on him when he’s kinda rattled by the experience. Which is definitely not nice of Megatron! When Rodimus doesn’t find his footing again right away, Megatron calls his reaction “tiresome”. Dude, come on, lay off for two seconds.

Okay, so that’s a good point. Now. What do they do with it?

Annnnd what. None of this is about Megatron’s feelings. You can define impatience as a feeling if you want, but not EVERY challenge to someone else’s feelings is abuse. If, I dunno, if your friend was supposed to pick you up from the airport, and they hadn’t come out to get you because they were upset over something, their feelings are valid, okay. But you’re also allowed to be annoyed at them, and you’re allowed to snap at them that you’ve been waiting at the airport for two hours, and that doesn’t just automatically check the abuse box.

The writer draws a parallel between their mother demanding things from them. Which is a family dynamic with a clear power differential. As opposed to a professional dynamic between two equals. So their personal history casts some light on their own feelings, but honestly makes me reject their interpretation of canon a little more strongly, given that it is a pretty dang poor match for the actual interpersonal dynamics.

Also, as far as patterns of behavior go, this was the only example they listed here, and a large portion of the text was about their personal history.

DO THEY BELITTLE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS, YOUR ASPIRATIONS, YOUR PLANS, OR EVEN WHO YOU ARE?

This is about the co-captain versus captain rank thing. Again, a legit criticism, though I actually think this reflects way worse on Optimus than it does on Megatron. Rodimus didn’t want Megatron on board, it’s a private vessel, and Optimus still pushed it through. Super sketchy! Especially after Overlord. And that part of events isn’t Megatron’s fault, but still. Super sketchy!

Oh, also Ratchet is bad for telling Rodimus that fool’s energon was a thing. Even though Rodimus has been being an irresponsible officer, Ratchet just voted no-confidence for him in the shipboard thing, I wouldn’t really trust him with state secrets, and if you start telling everyone but Megatron that fool’s energon isn’t real, it isn’t going to actually work. Especially with Ravage lurking around, now that I think of it. Ratchet did the responsible thing here. Secrets are safer when people don't know the secret.

And-- urghhh, More jumps, hold on.

This is the kind of thing that upsets me about this meta. It presupposes that Megatron is doing this on purpose. There aren’t arguments to SUPPORT that this is deliberate, conscious abuse. It’s just assumed that Megatron is trying to be an abuser, trying to break down Rodimus, and then wiggles the canon around until there’s an emotional twist to line it up with those thoughts. The thing about Rodimus being insightful is nice. It lines up with his ‘heart before head’ thing, and gives him a leadership skill that most of the other big leaders don’t have. And apart from that first sentence, this paragraph is laid out as solid and supposedly-factual as the rest of the meta. I can’t tell where the conjecture stops, but I’m pretty sure the last three sentences aren’t conjecture.

Also saying that Megatron’s power is unchecked is just…. what. Nobody on that ship would be there if it was only Megatron in charge. Nobody on there trusts Megatron, nobody wants to follow Megatron, nobody even wants him around, and we sure do learn that people on the ship are even willing to turn against their old friends to get Megatron removed. Where the heck does this nearly-unchecked-power thing come from? It is really, really hard to interact with this meta when about once a paragraph I’m like wait, hold on, where did that information come from? You just blew by it like you were restating an everyday fact everybody knows, hold on, where did that information come from?

Like, for example

I am so confused. I am genuinely so, so confused.

Also because Megatron doesn’t believe co-captain is a real rank, that means he doesn’t believe Rodimus has any genuine authority. Not that ‘co-captain’ isn’t a real rank, like the dialogue flat-out says. It means he’s trying to assert himself as the one true captain and Rodimus needs to learn his place.

Now again, there is a good point hidden in here, even though the author didn’t actually really touch on it. First, I think this reflects worse on Optimus than Megatron. Because Optimus was the one who was like ‘ummm make up some flimsy stupid story that the kid will believe long enough to get him out of my hair.’ But Megatron is a… pretty darn entitled guy. He doesn’t so much demand authority as he just EXPECTS it. He’s on a ship that is 99% full of his old enemies, and he still tries to slip right into charge. Even though he knows he’s been given a made-up rank. That is impressively entitled. Hilariously entitled. You do see some of this back when he was in charge of the decepticons, but it really stands out more in this setting. And it’s not very pleasant behavior.

But that’s not the writer’s point. The point is something about how the autobots must have known how badly Megatron abused Starscream (they must have seen footage? for some reason?), so Rodimus is afraid of Megatron being angry at him and redirects. Not that Rodimus doesn’t like getting into conversational corners, not that his attention is naturally all over the place, not that he has PLENTY of things to argue with Megatron about without fixating on this single point. Just that Rodimus is afraid of Megatron being angry at him, which is so very much in character with everything else we’ve seen from him :T

To be continued, I just don't want to fight character limits with the copy and paste tool at the end of this.

 

Part two

Spoiler

DO THEY REGULARLY RIDICULE, DISMISS, OR DISREGARD YOUR OPINIONS, THOUGHTS, SUGGESTIONS, AND FEELINGS?

This starts off with Megatron and Rodimus and Megatron getting impatient with him over the asked-to-identify-my-own-corpse thing. Which is still fairly demanding of Megatron. But this is particularly about Megatron saying the thing about ‘something to shake you out of your self-indulgent malaise.’

So some of these details are unnecessary. They don’t think the complaints are justifiable, period. But also, if you’re in charge of people, especially if it’s a 24/7 thing like ship captain, you are by nature opening yourself up to criticisms of your behavior because it reflects on your leadership, where you are responsible for other people’s well-being and safety. Heck, at my work, we just got done giving my boss his workplace culture review. And even though he’s great and the whole department likes him, and also this is just about our day jobs, it was still pretty brutal. If you’re a ship captain, and you spend significant periods of time holed up, sulking, and not-leading, people are allowed to criticize that.

But something about the writer having acne and their mother not letting it go and being constantly critical about it. Which is exactly comparable to being a pseudo-military, sorta-private, off-in-deep-spare ship captain, on a mission where crew members have legit died because of your decisions in the past.

I feel bad for this author and their experiences, but matching it up against this science fiction canon about ancient, militarized giant robots, it just… most of the time, it does not fit.

Also because Megatron is tall and because comic panels work best when the two people talking are both visible, Megatron is deliberately being physically intimidating. We’ve seen Megatron loom. We’ve seen Optimus loom. We’ve seen Ultra Magnus loom. This is just somewhat heated conversation. Megatron isn’t being nice, but it isn’t abusive just because it isn’t nice. AUGH.

Oh wait, I finished typing too soon.

I guess the only person Megatron is allowed to talk to anymore is Ultra Magnus. Or maybe Megatron is only allowed to talk to people if he’s on his knees? We’ve SEEN Megatron loom. This isn’t the same thing. Something something, Megatron is failing to respect Rodimus’s personal space. There is some legitimate stuff in here about the words Megatron is saying to Rodimus, how critical and demanding he’s being, but it gets buried when you start getting hung up on the logistics of giant robots talking to each other.

WHEN YOU COMPLAIN DO THEY SAY THAT “IT WAS JUST A JOKE” AND THAT YOU ARE TOO SENSITIVE?

This is what I’m trying to say about jumps. So the writer just said “Rodimus turns back to look at his own corpse.” Which is lying in a coffin. So… down. And Rodimus’s face is PRETTY GOSHDARN NEUTRAL here. He doesn’t look nearly so distressed as he did before, he looks… neutral. Not happy, but he’s trying to come to terms with seeing his own corpse. This is just. So unsupported. Headcanon? Sure. But actually, I’m going to interpret this one picture of one person’s barely-visible body language and his expression (sans eyebrows or irises, two of the main facial emotion indicators).

And none of this is about it being a joke. Megatron was being critical. He stands by being critical. He’s still pushing Rodimus in the same direction as he was before, he isn’t trying to play any of it off as a joke or not being serious. This is completely irrelevant. And most of the other text under this is about the writer’s personal history.

DO THEY GIVE DISAPPROVING, DISMISSIVE, CONTEMPTUOUS, OR CONDESCENDING LOOKS, COMMENTS, AND BEHAVIOR?

One, I’m pretty sure we’ve got two co-captains on this ship who have similar fricking pattern of treating the people they deal with like this. Rodimus lived in the land of dismissive leadership before Overlord and Tyrest, and he’s still not the best about it. When people try to get him to deal with serious, boring, unpleasant junk, he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t exactly treat his officers great, in a lot of ways. Is he their abuser now? No? Didn’t think so.

But anyways.

The narrative calls attention to how bad Megatron is at banter and joking and all that. Which is actually a receipt that comes up later in the meta. But all things considered, this is still critical of Megatron, but it’s honestly pretty friendly. I’m sure Megatron could have shut him down hard with something about how he’s failed to do the thing in the past. Or even he could have dropped the ‘maybe’. It’s really, really easy to shut someone down hard if you want to be mean. Once when my brother and I were younger and he was being annoying, I said something like ‘if you think you are being smart or funny right now, you are incredibly wrong.’ And that was just me as a kid (I might have made my brother cry, and my mom got very angry with me). This is not a terribly unkind response, and for Megatron? Pretty banter-flavored.

And then something about how doodling actually helps people focus, so Megatron was wrong to criticize him. Counterpoint: If I don’t balance my doodling or attention, I will zone out completely, fail to concentrate on boring, important things, I’ll miss chunks of meeting, or I’ll lose an hour to thinking about the thing I’m doodling pictures from. This is not a faccccccttttttt, it’s got provable exceptions, and criticizing someone for doodling when they should be working is not the most terrible thing out there.

Oh, also Rodimus was doodling the map to cyberutopia (not 100% true, the map is on his desk and he ran out of space months ago), and because this person has OCD, they’re ‘qualified to make the call’ that this might have been a compulsion for Rodimus. (after three paragraphs of talking about compulsions, then they say that it’s conjecture, and they say maybe the doodling just increased his focus, that not-necessarily-true thing they’re treating as fact).

But-- But they just said that Megatron wasn’t bantering. Is he not-bantering, or is he disguising verbal abuse as jokes? Jokes are part of bantering, this was just a few paragraphs ago.

DO THEY TEASE YOU, USE SARCASM AS A WAY TO PUT YOU DOWN, OR DEGRADE YOU?

I’d say something about Ratchet being an abuser, but it looks like they don’t like him much either :T But speaking of that joke:



Okay, this… starts out with this weird detour where robots are expected to process physical trauma or damage in the exact same way as a human experiencing the same thing.

Now, canon does say this is an incredibly painful thing! And it is legitimately a mental violation. Less of a violation than, say… sticking your needles into someone’s brain, maybe. Which is a thing that one of our protagonists sure does a lot, and I don’t see him being labeled as an abuser or anything. Even when Prowl tries to call him out on that, Chromedome ignores that criticism, other characters shut Prowl down, and the narrative doesn’t linger. And nobody is saying that Froid and Sunder are in the right here, but hey. What’s important is that Megatron is literally the worst.

But right, physical trauma.

You can’t-- Painful-looking from a human perspective doesn’t have any proper bearing on how much pain these robots feel. I’m sure the body-falling-apart thing hurts. But once your brain is detached? I mean…. I don’t imagine your body is going to be hurting you all that much once you aren’t attached to it any longer. We see these characters being disassembled constantly. We see missing limbs, ridiculous amounts of trauma and damage. Sideswipe was missing an arm for a few years, I think? He sure didn’t react like a human whose arm got torn off than left untreated for years. Because he’s a robot.

Anyways.



Megatron is barely even criticizing Rodimus here. Ragging on him for this little comment is just. Gh. This is about where I started finding it actively unpleasant to read the meta. I was uncomfortable before, but Megatron is being judged by such incredibly harsh standards compared to everyone else. This isn’t even mean, it’s explaining what fricking happened.

Oh, and Megatron is also the worst for not using violence against Sunder. Yeah, this is where I started finding the meta super super unpleasant.

Anyways, Rodimus may or may not have heard this comment, they say (he doesn’t have a body, so he doesn’t have ears, I’d assume). But Megatron making that joke up above is-- Hold on, I’m just going to copy over a chunk because I can’t do this justice.

You were just criticizing Megatron for not bantering. Where does Rodimus act traumatized here? Or look traumatized? Or even act upset over the joke?

….what????

Megatron is an incredibly humorless old man. How many times has he successfully made a joke? Most of the time when he’s connected to a laugh, he’s playing the straight man, like in the christmas special with the hugs. So it’s wrong if he doesn’t banter. It’s wrong if he does try to banter. He’s very, very much like Ultra Magnus in terms of temperament, and this is perfectly in line with both of them when they try to joke. And they both received a not-laughing, was-that-an-attempt-at-a-joke response from Rung and Rodimus.



Oh, but when Rodimus laughs at Megatron’s social misstep, it’s still Megatron’s fault.

And this all comes back around to this person’s ex making jokes about things that they found traumatic, making non-apologies when they were upset, and telling them that nobody cared about their issues. Which sucks! I feel really bad about what this writer went through. And I can get feeling this way about the canon. But the canon includes no actual evidence that Megatron wasn’t trying to interact on a more friendly, genuine social level here. Him gradually working towards a less cold, more friendly, more healthy dynamic with EVERYONE is at the center of his character development. This interpretation makes no sense unless you start from a point of deliberate malice, and just… GHHH.

Every person in this cast is traumatized on some level. Literally every person. Rodimus has reacted to trauma-type things before by withdrawing and shutting down. Instead of getting more engaged and grinning and laughing. Also, before, wasn’t he supposed to be reacting to Megatron with resignation and submission? If we assume that every time he seems to be acting in good spirits, he isn’t actually in good spirits, it’s going to make it really hard to draw any real conclusions about the text.

DO THEY MAKE FUN OF YOU OR PUT YOU DOWN IN FRONT OF OTHERS?

Ooh, it’s a genuine point again. Megatron is extremely dismissive and cutting, that continues to be true.

On the other hand, they’re sticking with the thing where Megatron is the “true captain” and is framing Rodimus as the “immature usurper”. As opposed to the more straightforward explanation of ‘I think your captain is immature, irresponsible, and unfit to lead.’ That’s entirely a different connotation! And it’s honestly a criticism very in line with how people tend to criticize leaders. ‘You’re my leader, but I disapprove of you because X.’ It’s not exactly the same, because Rodimus and Megatron are at the same supposed level of authority. But it’s not as weird and manipulative as this person is framing it :/

Also, the words Megatron criticizes him with, that this writer disagrees with (I offer counterarguments):

Lazy: Rodimus dodged giving any orders period as much as he could for the first few months of the quest. He’s willing to go on exciting missions and to the frontline of conflicts because those are things he finds fun. Of course he has energy for things he finds exciting. And he’s good about putting himself at risk in those intense situations. But if you want him to do the boring office work that comes with being a captain? Or anything else he doesn’t enjoy? GOOD LUCK. (also something about megatron hiding his mass-shift abilities so other people could volunteer to go float through the explosive quantum foam maze, which they even say isn’t the same thing as laziness, but hey, look at what an awful person megatron is)

Petulant: Let’s just go back before Megatron was even a thing. Rodimus wrecked his entire office after Overlord got loose. And when Rung tried to call him out on his motivations, and him feeling upset because he wasn’t the hero, etc., Rodimus got super angry and almost lashed out at the tiny, fragile psychiatrist. Rodimus is immature. This word has connotations of childishness, but it’s a pretty dang accurate adjective when it comes to Rodimus.

Pathologically Ill-Suited To Command: Rodimus is not a leader in the mold of Megatron or Optimus. And he doesn’t have a natural grasp of how he needs to adapt his style to lead effectively. He says in phase one that he prefers working solo and not being responsible for other people. But no, something something gaslighting. I don’t know how that word got pulled into this, but it sure did get pulled in.

Megatron is being super cutting and not entirely fair, but these are descriptors that apply pretty well to Rodimus! Especially for that last one, if you consider in-character bias. After four million years, of course Megatron is going to think his leadership style is the best one. Just because he’s being unfair doesn’t mean this is gaslighting, oh my god.

Probably the entire cast has PTSD at this point. What the fuck does ADHD have to do with this. And ‘we saw him self-harm this one time over the entire course of canon’ has very different connotations from ‘rodimus is a self-harmer’. I guess this is all about the use of the word ‘pathologize’? Which seems like a silly hill to die on, because that SURE IS A WORD THAT EXISTS, that has a colloquial sense as well as a strict medical sense.

What??? Since when is Ultra Magnus the only semi-friend that Rodimus has on the entire ship?

And this is about Megatron criticizing the Rodimus Stars, by the way. Oh my god, Megatron is absolutely allowed to criticize the Rodimus Stars. I’m not even going to type a paragraph about this. He is absolutely allowed to criticize Rodimus making a reward system of his FACE.

And oh sweet merciful jesus, there is so much meta left ;u;

I am bailing for now, my poor hands. MY POOR LIMITED LIFETIME. But one last ridiculous thing.

No. Comment.[/quote]

So yes, I think I’m bailing there for the moment. Maybe returning at some point. But this is pretty representative of what I think of the quality of the analysis, that last screencap/quote especially. There are good points in there! Some good points! But the conclusions depend on very personal history that doesn’t relate to canon, some of the jumps are ridiculous, and I’m not sure what the word “fact” means anymore.

 

Oops, I tell a lie, I can’t let things go. But this is actually it, and this is the SUPER abbreviated version this time. And with abbreviation comes increased sarcasm and paraphrasing and decreased patience. They don't raise too many new points that didn't already come up in the other sections, but hey.

Spoiler

‘Rodimus stars are good because people liked them – see spotlight: trailcutter’. Well I mean maybe it was about Rodimus’s arbitrary reward system making a struggling mech with his own mental health problems feel even worse and more isolated, and that same struggling mech was the PUNCHLINE at the end, as Rodimus invented bigger, better rewards and gave them to everyone else. But sure. Rodimus stars are gr8.

Megatron and Minimus Ambus ragging on Rodimus going off to surf meteors for a weekend while they took care of the ship means Megatron has subverted Minimus Ambus and made him think Rodimus is incompetent. Not that Minimus Ambus was already critical of him, and this just means that he finally has a FRIEND who happens to share his views who he can have casual conversations with. Nope. Something something gaslighting.

ISOLATION

‘Rodimus is isolated because we don’t see him spending downtime with people’ um I’m sorry but a MASSIVE chunk of the cast is isolated. Also, we have limited screentime for our massive cast. This proves nothing. Also he doesn’t have a positive scene with Drift because Drift was the only friend who hasn’t been exposed to “months of Megatron’s unending degradation and insults,” like… what? And Rodimus and Drift had an uncomfortable scene, because Rodimus did badly by his good friend. This person’s reading of the text is biased so hard in this one direction that it’s hard to even respond.

…..what? Whirl barely has friends period, and that’s only a brand new development. Cyclonus only has a friend because literally the sweetest, most forgiving marshmallow in existence fell in love with him, and in an emotional way, Cyclonus has not done great by Tailgate (tangent: I’d originally been thinking this was unintentional-abuse meta, because I have Thoughts about cyclonus and tailgate and cyclonus being accidentally emotionally withholding, and how that would hurt tailgate. that is… not what this is). Swerve didn’t have friends, it was repeatedly brought to our attention how he doesn’t have friends, he almost DIED because there weren’t any friends to notice him dying. He was barely making a friendship with Skids, which seemed to be more pity-flavored on Skids’s end than anything else. And now Skids is dead. So. No. Swerve doesn’t have strong friendships and support networks, what the fuck.

Because we don’t see Rodimus receiving external validation on the page, that means Megatron is deliberately blocking him from receiving it. ok.png

Because Megatron wrote the ‘attack, isolate, withdraw’ script for the DJD and military engagements, that means that it’s totally how he’s treating Rodimus. ok2.png

RAGE

This starts saying that Megatron hasn’t really done this thing. Then many many paragraphs of personal history with abusers, which has nothing to do with this comic.

Then they mention something about sometimes Megatron has hit people!! Super different from literally every other character in this action comic that deals with a war lasting four thousand millennia.

But ohhh. This one time he YELLED at Rodimus :O I mean, it’s because Ravage was dying, and Megatron was yelling at Rodimus to get him back to Ratchet. And maybe the whole dying of the light battle was intense and fast and confusing and emotional and loud, but still. Megatron yelled at Rodimus this one time. UNFORGIVABLE,

And another thing about how Megatron’s size makes him abusive, because he naturally looms.

Umm, lessee, after Megatron just confronted his past mistakes in a very intimate way, was prepared to die before getting unexpectedly saved (and letting himself be saved only with some reluctance), and watching his only friend on the Lost Light die, who has been his friend for millions of years, where one of his last actions was trying to save that friend…. Well, he points a broken gun at a person. Extra unforgivable. What an ass. How could any person ever do that thing? I’m sure nobody in this comic has ever pointed a gun at another person.

DO THEY ACCUSE YOU OF SOMETHING CONTRIVED IN THEIR OWN MINDS WHEN YOU KNOW IT ISN’T TRUE

This is about the fight Megatron and Rodimus have in LL # whatever, where I went into some detail when the issue dropped about the tension of the dying of the light finally snapping, and everyone being in an emotionally fragile place, and going right for each other’s weak spots. But mainly I’m mentioning this because this writer gets incredibly condescending towards JRO and his skill as a writer, and it irritates me. Dude… this barely even fits this bullet on the list. It can be an unfair attack without it being this. Like:

Jesus christ. ~instead of pinning writing that terrible on jro~

I don’t think Rodimus had any plan for saving these people, for the record. He isn’t a big tactical thinker, oh my god. Just lay off. Rodimus makes mistakes too, and makes bad decisions. ~I’m going to give jro the benefit of the doubt hurr hurr hurr~

GASLIGHTING

Oh, good :/

THEY DENY THEY EVER SAID SOMETHING, EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE PROOF

Umm, a lot of personal history, first

Plus another panel (from ages later, over a whole story arc later) of Ultra Magnus saying he’s barely left his room. First, we SEE him out and about. Otherwise how could Whirl have attacked him? They keep his food in the medbay. And he’s been out sometimes and presumably periodically, just because I’m holed up in my apartment most of the time doesn’t mean I never venture forth. Also COMMUNICATORS. This is the year of our lord two thousand fucking seventeen, people have plenty of ways to communicate remotely.

But no, because Rodimus says he’s been holed up and Megatron mentions weeks later that Megatron has been holed up since the time travel arc, this means Megatron has absolutely positively 100% definitely been lying.

God, this is so hard to respond to. There are so many leaps of logic that are little on their own, but add up to SUCH an unrepresentative whole. Also presenting screncaps out of chronological sync presents a dishonest picture, almost as if…. you were trying to make me doubt my own perception of past events :OOOOO

THEY TELL BLATANT LIES

No, they stopped so Ratchet could visit Pharma and hand off being chief medical officer. They STUMBLED ONTO A PLAGUE BY SURPRISE, this is basic plot, oh my god

Almost as if you’re telling me……. a blatant lie :OOOOOOOOOOOOO

THEIR ACTIONS DO NOT MATCH THEIR WORDS

“Megatron’s bullshit redemption arc” no really, tell us how you honestly feel about this character. Tbh, though, this is… one of the main characters. And I’m pretty sure that his character arc is being presented in a genuine way. We’ve spent too much time on it, if it’s all for a LOL, J/K reveal, that’s bad writing on JRO’s part. I sincerely doubt that’s going to happen.

Also, the entire point of the overarching plot is about disassembling black and white morality, that’s all that’s been happening from the very, very start.

But anyways, lots of holding Megatron to stricter standards than anyone else, taking his words at the strictest literal value, criticizing every single thing he does, ever.

THEY KNOW CONFUSION WEAKENS PEOPLE

Apparently Rodimus is acting increasingly erratic. Who knew? Not me, that’s for sure.

THEY WEAR YOU DOWN OVER TIME

If you’re going to start from the presupposition that Megatron is deliberately, consciously abusive, and has been working from the start to break Rodimus down from the inside out, then sure, yeah, whatever.

If you’re not starting from that presupposition, then I can’t help you

(not strictly true, there’s a lot to be said about the cumulative effect of bad habits, and Megatron focusing on the LARGE problems he needs to fix, and missing the issues stemming from the little problems that the large ones eclipse. It comes back around to him saying stuff like ‘I should pay starscream a visit’ (NO) and not realizing the effects of his actions on a personal level. After the necrobot’s planet, he has the big picture. But I doubt he has any clue how badly he’s damaged overlord, or starscream, or any other number of highly personal things)

THEY TELL YOU OR OTHERS THAT YOU ARE CRAZY

Well, one time, Megatron used the word ‘pathologized’, so. I mean.

THEY TRY TO ALIGN PEOPLE AGAINST YOU

If there was evidence that Megatron was trying to isolate an extrovert and cut him off from external validation, then there might be a point.

Too bad we don’t have that evidence.

THEY THROW IN POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT TO CONFUSE YOU

None of the positive things Megatron said mean anything anymore, because they COULD have been said in an abusive way.

In the dying of the light, in the middle of his own personal crisis, Megatron calls Rodimus “the better captain”, but this isn’t the result of a slow, quiet character arc, showing how far he’s come since criticizing Rodimus at every single turn. This is just EVIDENCE of abuse.

PROJECTION

Is that the summary statement, or…?

That’s mean of me. But this is supposed to be about Megatron projecting his issues onto Rodimus, which is such a confusing claim that I don’t even know what to say :T

Again, character development is imaginary. Megatron started being a fan of detours, because ever since he saw the SCOPE of how much death and destruction he caused, he’s reluctant (frightened?) to face his final trial and be judged. You know, like he outright says to Ravage. But actually it’s something about Rodimus. Secretly. Honestly, this is super confusing.

No genuine smiles allowed, only smugness now. And the next panel is Megatron looking down with a sad-to-neutral face. Are you sure that he isn’t just reacting to abuse and being resigned? Because that sure is what it supposedly meant before, for comparable artwork.

More of character development not counting when it’s a character you don’t like.

“Megatron set them off-course as quickly as he could”

I can put whatever time modifiers into this multi-year story that I want, and declare anything to be fact, I guess. I declare that a month passed between issue one and issue two, where the crew just sat around and listened to the sirens blaring before they did anything. There is as much evidence in the text to support that time statement as there is to support this one.

Also, characters aren’t allowed to have vulnerabilities if they’re characters you don’t like.

Rodimus disagreeing with Megatron (as he so rarely does) is Rodimus trying to assert his own reality in the face of abuse.

TWISTING

Megatron doesn’t apologize, and the only time he apologized was after he punched Minimus Ambus and didn’t immediately try to get him to a medic???? THE WORST. Because Minimus definitely needed a medic, definitely needed help getting there, and definitely wanted to be helped by the person who just surprise-attacked him, as opposed to all the other mechs in the room. Also, THE SCENE CUT AWAY, for all we know, Megatron could have personally escorted him there and made more detailed apologies off-screen. You can’t-- You can’t just assert a factual negative like that. It’s not how facts WORK.

More about their fight in LL and how Megatron is totally the only person at all in the wrong, because Rodimus has never done a wrong, selfish, or poorly-considered thing in his life.

“This eleven word snippet of dialogue says to me that Megatron has repeatedly dismissed Rodimus over other issues and does this as a personal attack”

“Because people will assert that a person who was assaulted isn’t actually a victim, you can’t say that I’m wrong and Rodimus isn’t being abused.”

I’m barely doing any sarcastic exaggeration there at all. This is why I get so upset over all the factual assertions here. They’ve boxed me out from disagreeing because oops now you’re an abuse apologist, I don’t make the rules.

DO THEY MAKE EXCUSES FOR THEIR BEHAVIOR OR TEND TO BLAME OTHERS OR CIRCUMSTANCES FOR THEIR MISTAKES

Megatron is responsible for all his own actions, regardless of external factors. But when he’s influenced other people’s actions, he’s entirely responsible for those too.

Dying of the light has plenty of Megatron recognizing his own role in creating and shaping the DJD, and trying to do something about it, and trying to sacrifice his own life to kill them, but there’s this one panel where he talks about their motivations, so he’s dodging all responsibility, those are the rules.

Also, Megatron and Optimus are both intensely self-centered, yes thank you that is part of their characters, it is an intentional flaw, good job for noticing that

Also, these several paragraphs about the quantum lost light aren’t at all about Rodimus, but it supports that he’s being abused. For some reason.

MANIPULATION

DO THEY CONTINUALLY HAVE “BOUNDARY VIOLATIONS” AND DISRESPECT YOUR VALID REQUESTS

Oh hey, it’s another repeat of that one panel of Megatron arguing and being large at the same time. Unforgivable.

Annnd more panels of him being large.

“If I listed every panel where Megatron was shown leaning physically over Rodimus, I’d be including almost every panel they share.”

YES HE IS TALL THANK YOU FOR THAT OBSERVATION

But wait, there’s this one panel (the one where Tailgate is pointing a gun at him) where he isn’t bending in close. And it’s a ludicrous upshot, emphasizing his height, because Tailgate comes up to about his knees, and he physically can’t lean in that far without tipping over. But this means he doesn’t have to lean (and he’s not snarling or angry, because tailgate is hilariously not-intimidating, oh my god)

Rodimus is “visibly cowed” while he’s looking down at his own corpse ok.ong

Oh, and this one panel of fairly civil touching between them in LL (and Megatron being large, a development nobody could have seen coming) makes the writer feel “sick”.

I feel bad for them, but? There’s literally no way for this character to exist without hitting their buttons for physical intimidation. Which isn’t the same as that physical intimidation being FACT.

Also, Rodimus ‘didn’t have any friends’ to shove Megatron away when this civil touching happened, which means Megatron isolating him is #CONFIRMED

“Even if Megatron hasn’t hurt him–and I haven’t got enough proof to conclusively say one way or another “

………………………...'Even if barack obama hasn’t hurt michelle obama-and I haven’t got enough proof to conclusively say one way or another--'

Okay, if you don’t have any evidence to support physical abuse and violence, it is in REALLY POOR TASTE to put it like that.

Probably some hypocrisy in there, because I do like me some headcanons, even if I don’t tend to start daydreaming about physical abuse situations. But considering all the other supposedly-factual leaps this analysis makes, I am uncomfortable.

VICTIM CARD

Yes, Megatron is self-centered, believes most everything he’s done has been totally justified, makes excuses for his behavior, etc. That is part of his character, good job.

DO THEY BLAME YOU FOR PROBLEMS ABOUT THEIR UNHAPPINESS

Right after going on a surprise adventure where our ship evaporated and we found a quantum duplicate ship full of corpses, also turns out one of our scientists invented time travel! But if you get loud over what a ridiculous shitshow this party bus is, that’s COMPLETELY unreasonable.

Also when you find out someone is traveling back in time to kill you as a baby and you get worked up, that’s also completely unreasonable, how dare you not stay perfectly calm and collected.

INTENTIONALITY

This one time Ravage said Megatron plans ahead, so he’s definitely planning ahead on this #CANON abuse too, this is a fact.

Annnd conclusion. The end. This meta BOTHERS me. I don’t want to be an asshole to the writer, but this is… a deceptive product. There’s a sentence about this being an ‘interpretation’, but that makes like two sentences acknowledging that this isn’t plain canon fact in this whole massive document. And the fact-facts are mixed in super tight with emotional interpretations and speculation, and the text rarely differentiates between these things. I don’t agree with these conclusions, but it’s the quality of the meta that bothers me. It’s not well done, and it’s emotionally loaded in just the right way to make it impossible to engage without personally attacking the creator.

The end. I am filled with regrets. My fingers are SO TIRED. Why don’t I have any self-control.

 

Ahh, first, yep, that's Ratchet speaking to him there! Sorry, I wasn't too clear about that.

And that's a fair interpretation! "Cry for help" were the literal words that OP used, and that's the thing I disagree strongly about. Once that's taken out of the equation, I've got room in my heart for all kinds of interpretations, but what OP was talking about isn't one of them.

In terms of individual interpretations, I actually think Rodimus might be winning on the true vanity front compared to me :P Secretly, the insecurity/imposter syndrome weigh WAY heavier on me than I'd ever let show through in a social setting, because something something then people will realize The Secret Truth and hate me 5ever. And irl especially, I can't let a compliment go by without saying 'haha, but see, it doesn't ACTUALLY count because--' Agh, my brain is fried after all that, how do words work. I think Rodimus ends up closer to the accept-praise, reject-criticism side of things, and I'm awfully dang far into the reject-praise, internalize-criticism side, though of course that isn't an absolute for me or the character. I act more like a Tailgate on that front than a Rodimus, but it does mean I still hold the character very close to my heart.

Oof, yeah, I was going to write another paragraph or so about Rodimus and imposter syndrome and his strengths in terms of small groups especially, and the impression that Megatron and Optimus made on him as the two charismatic leaders he personally dealt with right as he was deciding what to do about Nyon. But my brain is mush, I can't do any better than that summary sentence right now :P

 

Oooh, yes, very much this! I think he wants to improve, but he does struggle because that means having to know the ways you've messed up and no no no that's gonna hurt, I'm not going to let it touch me. My personal read is that he falls back a lot on the stuff he's confident about, like leading the anti-decepticon raid innnn issue 12(?) or so, or when they landed on Luna I and got swarmed, anything that comes down to the fighting and adventuring. He knows he can do all that stuff, so he'd like it if being a large-scale leader can revolve around the things he's confident about. But he doesn't know about the minutiae of handling a large crew and he doesn't want to know about it, so he's not even that fast to organically absorb the information. He can connect and lead well on a small scale, and I got the impression he was pretty good at it prior to the spotlight: dealer stuff and the way he got burned there. But large-scale logistics are a different thing altogether.

(and honestly, especially given the character growth that's happened on both sides, I adore him and Megatron as a command team. Because Megatron is effortlessly skilled at the large-scale management of people, and is very good at head over heart and figuring out the bottom line that they can manage without getting tangled in emotions. But Rodimus has history with these people, he knows fun, he knows how to make friends and is better at connecting on a personal level, and he's got that heart over head line I referenced a couple dozen times. It's still a balancing act of Megatron not just taking FULL charge and overwhelming him just will sheer strength of personality, and Rodimus being willing to admit when he doesn't know what to do and it's better to bow to someone else's expertise. But I really adore the ways they've both grown and worked together)