I gotcha friendo also here's the reading order I'm using right now plowing my way through that part of the comics (it's going slow, exrid.... isn't as good as MTMTE just as a headsup warning) tho i'm sure spock has managed a better one by now xP
Those three I linked are all longer ones, all with sex, but not just pornfests. For the mllemusketeer fics, the sex is pretty skippable, but it's written in nicely character-centric ways. TGWP is PRETTY dang epic, and has more sex than the others, but it's also getting into the complicated world of transformers xeno. HOKAY, SO. The most common flavor of xeno you see around these days is valveplug (sometimes also called sticky) where usually errybody's got all the same bits. Then you've also got plug and play, which is basically data transfer as sex, where characters connect hardline cables and get up in each other's minds. You've got wireplay, which is a robotic erogenous zone free for all, where a lot of times it'll involve things like playing with the other person's wires, which is where the name comes from. Those last two are also sometimes referred to as non-sticky. And there's also sparkplay and/or spark merges, which can bridge all these flavors, and basically involves touching your partner's robot alien heart/soul (the spark, big glowy energy ball stored in your chest), either with your hands or with your own spark. Spark-to-spark gets you into the land of spark merges, where people are up in each other's heads without plug and play to make a physical connection. Gah, so many words @_@ But basically, transformers porn comes in a lot of degrees of how porny it is. Mllemusketeer's TBSHTC has moments of explicit valveplug sex, but spark merges play a huge role in the plot. I thiiiiink her other series has valveplug, but it's way less explicit, and plug and play and spark merges play a major role. TGWP is laced through with sex (there's still plenty of plot around it, but the sex is gr8 for both character and plot reasons, not just for the sex), but the fic itself is still rated T because it's only wireplay and there are zero genitals involved. I like all of everything, but I know some people have varying degrees of comfort with the different flavors of xeno and how closely they parallel human sexual experiences, and some people prefer staying as far away from the human-like stuff as they can. Another factor to make your reading experience even more complicated :V But valveplug, plug and play, and wireplay are the most common words to look for or avoid, depending how you want to tailor your fic consumption I don't have links at hand now, but I can pull it together later! Basically, that list is solid up through exRiD 55. The series does continue directly, they're just cutting off that title so issues 1-55 of the comic stand on their own as a manageable, semi-contained piece of story. Then there's a weird Hasbro crossover event (Revolution) with Transformers (x3), GI Joe, Rom, and Micronauts. Six-way crossover. No me gusta. I have read the MTMTE issue because it stands on its own and ignores most of the crossover and is about one of the dorks from MTMTE getting an online boyfriend. I haven't read most of the others, have no idea what happened, and it hasn't hurt my reading experience. Then exRiD is reborn! As Optimus Prime. Because why the hell would we want our series to have a searchable name that takes us to the actual comic. That started at issue one and is... somewhere around eight or nine, it's chugging away. And some of the exRiD characters got split off into another series. Basically, Optimus Prime follows the characters on earth, Till All Are One follows the characters on Cybertron (and it is much more fresh as a story and involves zero stupid humans). That's a miniseries running from issue 1-12, and we're partway through that now. Presumably there will be another attempt at a series soon, because there are some cash cow characters languishing on Cybertron without a proper ongoing once that's over.
;-;7 It gets easier with time! I have ZERO organizing skills whatsoever, the attention span of a toddler, and somehow this has all percolated into my brain. Ping me later, after I have a chance to get home, and I can pull together reading orders for easy entry, for favorite characters, or any of that. (my recommendation is Transformers Prime for the Good Bumblebee Content. It's a nice balance of sass and what a good boy and pathos, and it's the first thing I consumed that made me properly care for him) (also TFP might be the most gentle entry point for the franchise, generally speaking. I have a hard time slowing down enough to watch TV, but it's a solid story and fairly easy to follow)
"Megatron had some valid points," I said last night, accidentally riffing on Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men's "Magneto made some valid points." Because they both did make some good points about stuff like systemic discrimination. Then both eventually arrived at a plan of action that involved killing all humans. I really wanna see Megatron and Magneto have a discussion! I mean, if anything I'd almost be worried about Megatron's safety more if he weren't so fucking canny and didn't have a tendency to survive absolutely everything one way or another. Though honestly you could say the same for both of them. Hey, Magneto could even bring his silly looking anti-telepathy helmet to protect him from Soundwave! Holy shit, I wanna see a conversation between Soundwave and Emma Frost!!! I don't know if they'd have anything to say to each other. I don't care. I love them both to pieces and I think even just them wordlessly staring at each other would be fucking hilarious somehow. I wonder if she'd remind him of Starscream at all.
Oh noooooo what if he reminded her of Cyclops? Highly competent, strong believer in the cause but also loyal to a fault to the leader of that cause, picks up the slack whenever the leader is incapacitated. Also there's the red visor thing.
Yeah, he learned the hard way that taking your small children to battles works much less well for humans. If Soundwave were allowed to get anywhere near as emotionally unstable as Scott he probably would die, or take down half the Decepticon forces by accident and then maybe also die.
Ooh, I don't know, there's all sorts of interesting fanon ground to play with wrt tfp Soundwave and why he only has a single cassette :3c
See the thing is I'm just not sure how to bring that up in a fanfic. Soundwave doesn't talk to ANYONE, most of the decepticons would probably already know, and I doubt that he's the sort to tell anyone if they didn't. Maybe have always-mission-first Soundwave actually hold a grudge against some bot and when the kids ask it turns out they killed his cassettes?
OKAY OKAY SO THIS WOULD NEED TO BE A SOUNDWAVE POV and (im done yelling) really complicated to frame right, but I've been turning this over in my head trying to figure out how to write it. So, imagine a Soundwave who starts out more like your standard issue G1 Soundwave, restrained and sparing with his words, and with a gaggle of cassettes. And as the war drags on and gets more brutal, he starts to lose cassettes. He already doesn't talk that much, so people outside his family don't notice so much when he starts talking even less. But as cassettes die, he goes further and further nonverbal. And he's a loyal soldier, his cassettes are loyal soldiers. When he's ordered to send his cassettes out on dangerous missions, he does it. But every time one of them dies, he pulls into himself a little further. Now Laserbeak is the only one he has left, and she's one of the only people out there who even remembers what his actual voice sounds like. Imagine Soundwave sitting at a console, working, but every so often he reaches up to touch his chest, just reassuring himself that she's still there. She's there. She's there. (also imagine all the emotions he would have been feeling when Laserbeak got wired up with a bomb in the series) (also also, some of this informs the way I'm planning to ship him with Bumblebee and Smokescreen. As part of my quest to ship him with absolutely everybody :V But both of those bots punch him right in the caretaking instincts. Bumblebee is so young compared to the others, and obviously he carries himself fine, but Soundwave knows very well how short on resources the autobots are, and he can SEE all the maintenance Bumblebee is skimping on and no, no, nope, not okay, this is not allowed-- And he hates seeing Bumblebee cut off without a voice. Because he knows the difficulties that can cause, but he chose it, and Bumblebee was so young and it was taken from him (and yes okay it was megatron and soundwave is quietly conflicted, because he's so, so loyal, but this was unnecessary and it was wrong). Or with Smokescreen, he's bothered in a similar way. But it's more that he's like 'you are going to get yourself killed, boy.' He's inexperienced and in the middle of a bunch of fighters and doesn't even know enough to see how little he knows. I have full-on Stories planned for both these ships, and it killlllls me that all my ideas are exploding everywhere these days while I can't manage to make serious progress on all my wips, never mind new stories)
Hello hi it is me with a friendly reminder that senator you-know-who ended his original life in a sketchy medical facility, where the workers referred to him as a "screamer." We see his frame being torn apart and rebuilt, and we see his head sitting on a counter, with the entire top sliced off, bleeding from the eyes and mouth. So not only did he effectively die, but if he was a screamer, he almost definitely died in immense pain, and he didn't die quickly.
My sister just sent a snap of a character from the movie Cars sorta leering. She had captioned it "Ya like jazz?" which I think is a Bee Movie meme involving a leering bee. (Oh no, now I'm trying to imagine Transformers Bumblebee leering and it's not going well for me.) So I had to explain to her that that car was not Jazz. Much confusion ensued. It was great. Next time I find a panel of Jazz doing anything that might remotely be interpreted as leering I am flooding snapchat.
Also consider that when Blast Off shouts at Onslaught, he says that Onslaught isn't the only person Starscream hurt, or the only person the war hurt. Onslaught doesn't argue with the idea that he's been hurt by both those things. I spy with my little eye something beginning with an opening to emotionally vulnerable spots. We've seen Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, and Shockwave hurt. Give me more of the most brutal war leaders showing off their damage, please. Give me Onslaught who is the PERFECT soldier, the perfect tactician, an unstoppable wartime force. Then give me a peacetime where his reputation and the performance record that served him well as a decepticon poison his peacetime prospects. Give me him seeing one of the very, very few openings where he can fit not just himself, but his entire team into the peacetime paradigm, with something that could be called 'success'. Give me him being promised that by Starscream, and feeling some measure of relief and security. And having that rug yanked from under his feet, and instead of being secure and mildly prosperous, they're struggling to make ends meet in a shitty apartment with so little work to be found. And it's his fault for not seeing this coming, he should have known better, he could have negotiated better, maneuvered better. He got careless, and he lost them this rare and valuable opportunity. They're a team of hyperspecialized soldiers, they've gotten positive reinforcement for millions of years for every act of violence and brutality. And then they're dumped into the middle of peace, and they're expected to adapt without any help, they're expected to adapt after thinking they had a position secured and having that yanked away at the last moment. They don't have any way to the top, they don't have any way off the bottom, and it's his fault.
