Spoiler: tangentially Also also if the Thirteen are the Hand's kids in general and not just... shit Primus why you gotta name yourself after yourself.... Primus the Second's who descended from who I'd lay solid money on Megatronus as Mortilus's and Amalgamous as Adaptus's, but the others? I am... loathe to lump all the Evil Dudes under Mortilus, but also if Liege is to Unicron as Prime is to Primus, Maximo being in Unicron's court via Mortilus would make a lot of sense... Optimus 1 being Primus 2's would be obvious, but considering how Optimus has the whole wisdom schtick he might actually be Solomus's...
I wonder if the authors for lost light and taao had any crossover plans, and if JRo might continue to use them, if they're built into the plot.
Spoiler Ah but The Knights Of Cybertron are the children of the Hand who left to spread the gifts. The only one of the Hand who stayed behind on cybertron was Primus, who, well, fused into the planet. Soooooo presumably The Thirteen are actually Primus' kids, since according to the wiki the Thirteen Tribes only happened after the Knights left. EITHERWAY HOWEVER... there's more First-Thirteen-Primes-Level mechs out there, who presumably head the Knights Of Cybetrron Factions we saw the sigils of >:3c (slight edit to make my thoughts make more sense)
Spoiler: LL08, Hand speculation I'd actually guess that the Guiding Hand mythos was made up by the Knights of Cybertron, similarly to how the very-much-mortal Primes got deified by later generations. What I'd guess is that "Mortilus" was rather just the leader of a tribe that got defeated by the other four after some shenanigans.
Not very important spoilers...ish through Dark Cybertron... 3? Spoiler: I'm a huge nerd Okay, I just realized ancient Cybertronian is a substitution cipher. Thanks, whoever did that scene of Cyclonus and Tailgate singing in the bar, for making the letters big enough that I really looked at them. It made me notice that the characters on Scoop's datapad were familiar, then notice that the patterns were what English looks like if you run it through a substitution cipher. And then that the thing that looked like an apostrophe in the bar song was almost certainly an actual apostrophe since there's nothing else like it in any of the text. So I had three letters already: I, V, and E. Which conveniently appeared right at the top of the datapad in ?E?IEVE, which gave me two more letters to make BELIEVE. There was fortunately an ?LL with no apostrophe on the datapad, giving me the A to make ALL. And I BELIEVE I? I? ??E was a pretty straightforward guess for I BELIEVE IT IS THE. Which, if correct, seemed to give a reasonably high frequency for the letter T in a small text sample. I probably could have looked this up, but that's cheating until after you've had a fair go at it. Bar song, I think: I'VE GOT MY OWN Datapad, I think: I BELIEVE IT IS THE DUTY OF ALL ADVANCED RACES TO SPREAD FREEDOM? SPREAD PEACE? The question marks are probably a punctuation character because I can't place them. I doubt it's a question mark though. I like to imagine an exclamation point because that sounds silliest to me. Man are those tiny letters though, and H and O look nearly identical, as do P and I. I wish to file a complaint. There's more on the datapad but it's even smaller and harder to read. I have this feeling modern Cybertronian is probably a different substitution cipher. :P
Modern Cybertronian is indeed just relexed English, the Autobot and Decepticon alphabets have been officially released at various points in time :P it makes my little nerd heart sad, How Very Dare they not have made different alien languages for their aliens on top of all the writing and art and other effort that goes into a comic
Oooh, thanks for links! Neat! I had that very problem with Daedric until Homestuck taught me to read it upside down and glory in the silliness of what I was doing. It was a lot of fun noticing that I recognized those first three characters (mentally labeled "Wolverine with minor complication", "halfhearted traditional Chinese country king", and "yay") appearing again, then doing the really simple cipher for half an hour, so there's pros and cons. To make up for it, I just pretend that every alien/mystical language ought to be pronounced like Klingon as far as possible until informed otherwise. It brings me joy. So far I feel like Transformers has been rather supportive of this assumption.
I'm sad about Stardrive from the ROM vs. Transformers comic. Especially since it seems to be implied she was rescued from a Camien ship wreckage as a protoform, and thus neither she nor the other transformers on that ship had anything to do with the 4 million year Cybertronian war that spread out and caused so much genocide, but she still gets shit for being 'Cybertronian' and everyone else still died for it. Like jesus christ I'm fairly certain Caminus was, by and large, far too resource-poor to oppress any other species even if they had wanted to.
TO BE FAIR, I'm pretty sure the Decepticons were too busy genociding any organic that got near them and the Autobots were too busy not doing that, but shooting Decepticons and dragging their fight to other planets for many organic species currently extant to like... Have been able to talk to Cybertronians long enough to actually fucking distinguish between factions, much less between colonies. Earth is the exception, and even THEN transformers tend to get lumped into the group of 'those giant scary aliens that invaded us and killed my mom/uncle/cousin/friend'. What happened was undoubtedly cruel, but transformers are big enough and hard enough to kill that I can see the logic in a pre-emptive strike in accidental contact.
Pardon me for spamming up the TF thread, but I accidentally the whole Dark Cybertron last night. And I really enjoyed it! But I'm here because the lady robots almost make me want to cry. With pure joy. I absolutely love that they introduced several ladies at once who were already friendly with each other, instead of introducing them one at a time. I feel like that happens a lot with older media. They decide they ought to add more female characters, but new character additions to existing casts often end up feeling like auditions, both in context and in meta. The character has to work to win over the cast and the audience. It's a totally normal thing that happens to most new characters, but it just ends up feeling a little bad when combined with tokenism issues and clumsy diversification attempts that make it happen over and over again to women characters in male-dominated canons. Even when Nautica was literally going through an audition here, she had a supportive friend with her. It really changes that dynamic, and I'm so happy about it. I could get right down to loving these characters instead of having to go through the process of eyeing each newcomer suspiciously for a while.
https://www.seibertron.com/transfor...r-idw-transformers-till-all-are-one-12/39194/ taao 12 full preview is out and ive been screaming for the entire past 24 hrs over it Spoiler: taao 12 spoilers on one hand im actually a little surprised that vigilem took the shape of g1 megs? i'd gone into that FULLY bracing myself for a throwback to spotlight megatron (ofc thats not to say there might NOT BE) but like, oh. man. the fact that starscream is even DOING THIS is huge. and like, it hurts a little more knowing that as SOON as he decided he was going to help someone else (because he needs her help, but? this is still a big step for him), old trauma gets thrown in his face, and now hes made excruciatingly vulnerable too. i really, REALLY can't wait to see how this plays out. as worried as i am about how this'll effect starscream, i'm super excited for it. and i get the feeling vigilem will like poking at him more, hes got loads of deep-rooted trauma waiting to be dug up and played with. one thing i find p interesting is the fact that the books that megatron isnt even in are the ones outright talking about how much of a dickbag he was? im glad its happening though, that its actually being discussed. i was scared no one would touch it, in the wake of megatron's arc being wrapped up. anyways im going to go back into my hole and continue screaming
I really love the things MTMTE was doing with Megatron's development, but it really only works if the facts of what he did aren't lost. Which is so cool, cross-series, because MTMTE did a good job showing the scope of it, with Necroworld and all, but then you've also got Megatron RIGHT front and center, doing sympathetic things, and it's can be hard to hold both those things in your head together. And when Getaway is the only one really calling it out, that's not a great situation :P You saw a little bit of the personal side of things with Overlord and Tarn, but Megatron affected Tarn in ways that Tarn sees as positive. And even if he abused Overlord in some nasty ways, and Overlord did take damage from it, he's still... how to words. Overlord isn't reacting to this all in the same way as Starscream, and I'm actually wondering now about like, how much damage he even admits to having taken in the process. HM. That's actually really interesting. I want to go back through the Overlord parts again, because the abuse narrative is there but the abuse damage is pretty buried, and if Overlord's vain+confident public face isn't completely reflective of his own self-image, that's even more buried. The time travel bit with Whirl and the heavies, where he totally snaps and talks about how 'they killed me first', that's actually reminding me a lot of Overlord at the end of LSOTW where he melts (HA! double meanings) down and starts talking about how would I face him if he were to come now, and the way he totally shuts down when Verity is like haha sooo he's dead and also never cared. I really, really love being able to dig out the sympathetic corners of the nastiest characters, and challenge mode characters like Overlord and Getaway are such a fun puzzle. But ANYWAYS I have been living for the Starscream moments in TAAO where he talks about Megatron. It's such a perfect flip side to seeing Megatron legit trying to change, because okay, countless deaths, inciting violence, etc., etc. Well a lot of that was in the distant past and it wasn't ONLY him escalating the war and other people did lots of killing too. Yes, but he was being truly dreadful to Starscream on a very personal level, as recently as just a few years ago. Spotlight: Megatron might have been a notable low, but he never really stopped being cruel, the closest he got was not engaging directly during his trial. Which is still when Prowl specifically called out 'pay no attention to the terrified decepticon' when Starscream started freaking out about Megatron maybe going free. And also, I have done a truly ridiculous amount of flailing over the degree of openness we're getting from Starscream here... because he thinks Bumblebee isn't real and he's going crazy. Because if he's dealing with a real person, then boy howdy, there he goes exposing all of the weakest points in his defenses. Let's just go ahead and undermine all his own efforts to put up a solid front and point at every single spot you can use to take him down. He's suspicious enough that it's pretty darn self-sabotaging, like the business with Windblade (though I love the thing he said about windblade showing up wearing an autobrand and picking a side and then trying to pretend like there aren't sides. there's some really cool stuff to be said in there about thunderclash and the negative impacts of that sort of inhuman perfection and charisma). He doesn't trust the colonial representatives, and is shocked when they offer their support to whatever decision he makes, and DANG is that a panel that makes me go all flappy. And I love that he recognizes it is self-sabotaging, and I even more love that he recognizes it does get self-sabotaging and still can't stop himself from doing it. (oh my god, swindle when he woke up, i just!!! he's so happy and grateful, and imagine what starscream might have been able to win without setting him up to rampage with menasor and killing him, and risking that poisonous history being uncovered no matter what positive developments happen in the present. agony of the best kind) But like!!! I'm going to flail about some vague fic things, because apparently all I do lately is pull Starscream into situations where I can play with that whole I-think-I'm-not-confiding-in-a-real-person setup. Or just being vulnerable with a real person. Because when he's already struggling a lot and still trying to keep it together and thinks he's going crazy on top of that, what an intense, exhausting mask to maintain! Lemme just.... crack that mask a little and make you stumble into some legitimate emotional support in the bargain :DDD (in another post, because oops, character limits. i sure do like to talk. why am i Like This)
Spoiler: I can already tell I'm going to talk so much I died when I saw the Megatron thing in the preview, because I flail a lot about potential future plot developments without much hope of EVER being right because I am seriously seriously not good at predicting things. But I just wrote the windblade+vigilem+starscream brain infection fic where Vigilem plays the role of Megatron for Starscream and?? I was right???? That legit does not happen, oh my god, just look at my piles and piles of tgwp speculation that never panned out XD That fic was partly just an excuse to lean hard on spotlight: megatron emotions, because that isn't something he's going to want to voluntarily bring up, and bringing him to that kind of despairing low isn't easy to do either. I'm torn on how deep into the Megatron thing the comic is going to get, because limited pages, end of miniseries, etc. I really... hope they don't completely resolve the Vigilem thing, because it's going to be hard without it feeling rushed. But MAN did I have a good time editing down spotlight: megatron for fic form, and tweaking the dialogue just enough to be basically a nightmare about Megatron crashing Starscream's inauguration and rubbing his face in all his old failures, just when Starscream thinks he's gotten a win. Especially with the whole leadership thing that keeps getting poked at in the comic, where Starscream was elected and chosen (murdered competitors aside >_>), but then he's still endlessly suspicious of everyone he deals with, he's defensive, he keeps people like Rattrap around, he keeps making dishonest moves that risk undermining the goodwill he legit has.... but he doesn't really seem to believe he has that goodwill. He'll roll in it, emotionally, but his actions don't seem to reflect that he has it. If that makes sense. But the Bumblebee business. I'm in love, just from the start. But I'm even more in love with something to break their current steady state, something to shove them in a forward direction, however that goes. Windblade is the easiest player to bring in there (and the ghost!windblade fic was all sorts of fun to write, even if it's not a setup that pings me for further writing. yessss just be honest and bitter-vulnerable right to her face because she's not real, do it). Like, okay. I wrote the brain ghost virus vigilem thing, with Starscream getting infected and him and Vigilem mucking up their brains and there being cross-contamination while he tries to jump ship to Starscream's mind, and they manage to break out of the dream before he can completely take over, but there's still residual vigilem and residual cross-contamination with their memories and emotions and such. There is so! much!!! potential!!!!!! I'm just dying over how many things there are to write with this. And I'm going to talk about it ALL right here so it's in a convenient location that I can actually find again later :V First of all, Bumblebee. But especially, the thing Starscream and Bumblebee had going on in issue eleven. Something I'm dyyyyying to dig into is the emotions underlying that whole silent treatment thing, because wow! Starscream is totally difficult to deal with, and he can be stubborn in some super self-sabotaging directions, and especially if he thinks he's being misunderstood he'll start digging his heels in EVERYWHERE. But that silent treatment... Starscream is so isolated. He doesn't have anyone he can lean on. Windblade tried to be his ally and he didn't treat her very well. Onslaught tried to get his team a job to get their position secured in the new world, and Starscream dicked them over (kinda understandably, but also... augh.......). He hasn't been really trusting the colonial representatives, he'll kinda... trust them to be steered, not to support him even once things get difficult. He picks personal assistants like Rattrap. And I'm not even going to talk about Wheeljack right now, but boy is that Complicated and I'm pretty sure Starscream sat down hard on that desire for a personal connection after he chilled out after Wheeljack woke up. So as far as people he can talk to? I mean..... Bumblebee. That's pretty much it. And Bumblebee isn't real, as far as he thinks. And then because it's not bad enough that his mind is pulling itself to pieces, that hallucination tries to bully him into doing something he doesn't want to do. Even though he has reasons for not doing the thing. And then when he doesn't change his mind and agree, this only semi-sorta-friend completely ditches him. Ignores him for who knows how long, after he's been so omnipresent for ages and ages. Starscream jolting awake at his desk, exhausted, and saying 'bee?' Like if u cry everytiem :') So that's hard. But also, what a NICE growing field for some bitter, bitter resentment. Thanks for rubbing in my face that I need you more than you need me. Has this been an entertaining show? Are you happy now that you've gotten to exert your power that way? Good job, I am miserable, you've made your point already, is the humiliation over yet? And then, in this fic setting.... mashing his and windblade's minds together. The fic focuses on the spotlight: megatron thing. Because that is PLENTY. And I'm only writing the two of them recognizing the changes when they actually encounter them, because otherwise oh god this is an unmanageable monster. But someone else SEEING the ways he's struggling, and someone who's able to do more to influence him than a brain ghost bumblebee can. Bumblebee can talk and he can do the silent treatment. That's... pretty much it. It's easy for Starscream to refuse to listen. Windblade is there in person, she's seen the essence of spotlight: megatron play out, she's got vague images of the history, and the memories and emotions that go with that history, and she knows more about how he ticks than he's ever wanted a person to know. It's hard to even hate her for it, because she didn't do it, and he's getting a front row seat to her genuine good intentions, and her complete unawareness of how, say, showing up wearing a fresh autobrand was going to make it extra hard for him to trust her to work with him. Blarrr, I'm not being terribly coherent, but I'm excited. So Windblade getting a surprise shortcut past all of Starscream's defenses and violating his privacy in a major way, even though she didn't choose to do the thing, and wouldn't have chosen to do it. And Starscream knowing she did the thing and hating it. And Windblade knowing he hates it and all the particulars of why he would especially hate that kind of violation and being very sympathetic and apologetic. And Starscream being angry because I don't want your pity. But also he has her memories that she wouldn't have chosen to give him, and a better understanding of her than before, including that she legitimately did have those good intentions he refused to trust in before. And he can feel her being horrified by the bad memories. The spotlight: megatron stuff especially, probably a lot of mechs on both sides would have been like 'eh.... it's starscream, so..... he probably deserved it'. Which, ow. Especially when a lot of the beatdown and humiliation really did have an audience. Him especially resenting a violation that exposes his vulnerabilities re: leadership, but also with her not thinking less of him for it, as a person or leader. There are SO MANY conflicted emotions to play with here, and all the exposure is on the table already, all either of them can do is try to process it. And also windblade being aware of bumblebee, probably being able to see bumblebee, being aware of starscream's feelings about bumblebee being a hallucination and resenting his own emotional dependence on a hallucination (especially fresh, given the silent treatment). But with her own feelings about this new revelation, and like... the idea of a brain ghost that you can see having fights and arguments with you, that's a bit much to take on face value. Especially if you can see bumblebee and he's not just limited to interacting with only one singular person ever, and he can make a case for his own personhood, because someone insisting that no you aren't a real person has to be pretty exhausting. Windblade can feel the certainty over the guilt -> ghost logic that Starscream has fixed on, but... Bumblebee seems really nice? And he was a person who died. And more #conflicted feelings for Starscream, because of course this isn't real, he... supposes she can see his hallucination if they're sharing brains, but how can she NOT agree that he's definitely fake, why can he see her interacting with his hallucination, etc., etc., etc. Something something eventual realization that oh noooooo he said/did all these honest emotion things to someone who was definitely real this whole time. (also, this means bumblebee can help mediate the fighty conflict business between them. because i love starblade, and this is a more stable starblade setup than usual, but god do they rock off-center easily without a third person to help balance things) Plus!!! The sharing isn't a one-way street. Oh my god, there are SO MANY fun things to do with brain sharing. Windblade's memories bled over too. And I write her very young, but I'm sure that whatever the case is, she has to be significantly younger than Starscream, with a pretty quiet history. She doesn't have many intense memories for him to be aware of. But she does have an extensive education about Titans, how they work, how to merge with them, all kinds of private information that really probably shouldn't go to someone who hasn't proven they can be trusted with it. Especially since Starscream has been making a habit of collecting super big, powerful mechs to add to his defenses. But Windblade and Metroplex adore each other, and she doesn't understand how you can know a Titan in that way and still want to kill or use them. And with the cityspeaking knowledge, she's also bled over a lot of emotion. In some ways it's reassuring for her, because how can Starscream even consider hurting Metroplex if he feels even some of what she feels? Now... I'm fairly sure that if there is leftover Vigilem bopping around anywhere, especially in her own head, Windblade is going to tell Metroplex about it. If she's compromised, it's important that someone trustworthy can know that she's compromised and that there's a hazard. Chromia's not around. I'm pretty sure the Carcer crew would be like welp, sorry, but.... better to kill the leftover vigilem :P Metroplex is aware of the truth of Vigilem and Windblade trusts him. And she's going to be honest with him, even if Starscream would rather hold information back. And this is a long setup to get to my point, BUT. Metroplex learns that Starscream went into a dangerous situation to save his Wind-Voice. Metroplex didn't kill Vigilem back in the day, and that led to Wind-Voice being hurt. And then Starscream was damaged going to save his Wind-Voice. Metroplex loves Star-Voice now (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) Ahh, this is complicated to talk about, but also super complicated to write. The love of a Titan is such a fascinating thing to think about. Titans don't really interact with their people for the most part, but they can still love and shelter them. They can be aware of individuals and communicate with them, even if it's in a slow, ponderous way. Starscream is suspicious, untrusting, and painfully alone. Even when people try to befriend him, he tends to push them away. Now, how well is that going to work with a Titan? It's so precious to think about. Metroplex loves you? Go ahead, spend an afternoon making constant snippy asides. Too bad, Metroplex still loves you. And given the whole city nature of the Titans, I have a hard time visualizing Titan love without shelter and protection being key elements. Starscream has spent ages trying to control combiners and the like, to build up his defenses. It's really, really rewarding imagining him winning the love and protection of a Titan through an act of kindness. Also, getting double extra speculative, but imagine how awesome it would be to have a city where you've got your Titan, and you've got your cityspeaker. But the Titan also cares for and supports the ruler of that city on a personal level. I doubt he would have tried to undermine Starscream or anything before, but just imagine him Windblade and Starscream all working together with some degree of trust. Starscream has spent most of his time in power scrabbling for ways to build his defenses and establish a secure position. This would just be... so cool in the context of Starscream's whole character. But okay okay the most, MOST self-indulgent thing. Which is saying a lot. Star-Voice. Metroplex calling Windblade Wind-Voice is really cool and cute, and there are some nice visuals in that name to tie back into her personality. Star-Voice is a cute little parallel name for Metroplex to give them as a matched pair, and it's got some relevance in terms of Windblade is the voice of Metroplex, Starscream is the voice of Cybertron's people. BUT. At first, with Vigilem, all connections are going to be off the table. No hardline, definitely no merges with Metroplex, because that's exactly what Vigilem wants from them, another pathway to a body. Windblade has some idea of what Metroplex is saying when he says Star-Voice, because she knows better than most people how he thinks, she can read his lights to follow what he's saying. Imagine a time after Vigilem is purged from their systems, where she can do a partial merge with Metroplex again. And Starscream doesn't have the hardware that cityspeakers have, but he can at least somewhat meet Metroplex if he has a hardline with Windblade, and she hooks into Metroplex. He's kind of whatever over the whole thing, doesn't exactly see the point, even if he's still got those leftover feelings and memories from Windblade. But then he hooks in and it isn't just Windblade saying 'Star-Voice.' It's the WEIGHT of Titan thought and emotion, with the visual of a flat black starscape with a few sharp little points of light. But the more you look at it, the less flat it is, it has depth and stretches back forever, and there aren't just a few stars, the sky is full of stars if you know how to look. And the whole time you're taking in this infinity, you're aware that most people who glance at it will only get that cold, unapproachable first view, and you know how much they're missing, and everything that you're getting to experience that they'll never know. Basically, I want someone acknowledging both Starscream and the way most people see Starscream, acknowledging that depth, acknowledging the way most people miss that depth, seeing all the light and stars he has if you know how to look for them, and valuing and loving him for it all. I want him being hit with that knowledge, straight to the brain, delivered with all the weight of Titan thought and in a way he can't just brush off as words. I want to see how prettily he breaks when it's kindness breaking him instead of cruelty. I want to see him fighting so hard to hold himself up, alone, because that's how he is, and being swept away by so much love/affection/understanding. I'm dying to see that happen to him. It's been so long seeing him defensive and holding himself away from other people, because people will hurt you if you give them an opening, that's what they do, but when the unstoppable emotional blow finally comes, it's made of love and the desire to protect. I can't even imagine how much work I'd have to do to get to that point, but GOD is that a point I'd love to write to. The Bumblebee stuff, that's great. Starscream and Windblade being forced to need each other by Vigilem, and fighting the push and working out their own balance in the bargain, that's great. Figuring out how to push out Vigilem together, also great. But the Metroplex stuff... this is the kind of thing I live for. Or, on a humorous note, while Vigilem is busy going NOW KISSSSSS with starscream and windblade, also imagine him being like 'why are we short why would anyone want to be short WHY CAN'T WE BE TALL--' Windblade standing on tables to argue with Starscream from a position of greater height. Starscream getting a frame update and coming in with heels and refusing to acknowledge Windblade when she tries to call him out on that's so petty why are you playing these games starscream are you listening to me-- Windblade demanding that Metroplex pick her up and hold her in the air. Why? BECAUSE, that's why. Vigilem nudging them both to at LEAST use the enigma of combination because okay maybe a two-mech combiner wouldn't be that tall but they would be a LITTLE tall and oh my god ANY amount taller would help-- Wow, just imagine the fic I could have written if I spent my time writing fic instead of writing about fic :V CRAZY. Time to see if I've hit the character limit here too (maybe not?)
HEY WHAT UP I drew my first serious fanart in forever and it's super exciting?? Art is the most frustrating thing in the universe but MAN do I miss it. And I even managed to power through two discarded false starts without ragequitting. I'm so stoked. I'm waaaaaay more confident about my writing than my art, but I've been drawing like a maniac ever since I can remember, and it's weird to not be doing regular art. TBSHTC fanart, windblade/slipstream with that sweet, sweet tfa height difference, sfw Spoiler: large probably Also me@me reminder that if I don't do it tonight before I pass out, I have some thoughts about Megatron and forgiveness and the composition of the marooned crew and OP casually dumping a prisoner onto a civilian ship without so much as a how do you do, and also reactions in the wake of LL06 and how other miscellaneous Events affected the way things played out. And Terminus. Because fuck that guy. I'm about to go off for a few days at a house where my wonderful grandparents have been letting a neighborhood cat chill inside on the regular, and I am 1) hella allergic, 2) asthmatic, and 3) I have no bedroom, I sleep in the open loft area and this is maybe about to be literal hell. I might be about to spend a LOT of time distracting myself from lack-of-breathing on my computer (or amusing myself after having to bail to a hotel) and if things go that way, this thread is probably going to be my number one victim :')
It has been A Literal Month, but I finally got around to hanging these guys if anyone's interested Spoiler: bigpix
Re: Megatron: I just got to the Necrobot and the flowers and I am so strongly reminded of APC's The Noose. Recall the deeds as if they're all someone else's atrocious stories. It's important to me that he went to look. If it were me I'm not sure whether I would. I absolutely wouldn't bring a friend, even a cat-shaped one.
