okay okay I'm gonna pray viewcomic has these in order bc like hell I'm looking for them individually Spoiler: Revolution 0/Prelude ...the combination of font choice and "English guy" being right next to "adventure team" makes me think Jake English is also somehow involved in this crossover "ore-13 becomes energon" uh huh. suuuuuuuuure god do your research "america is done with gi joe" me too tbh, can we go back to space robots at least they have a good artist for this one, all these robots look gr8 comics continue to be bad at scale are you seriously telling me a city for giant robots is only twice the size of a rural Pennsylvania town philly is bigger than you metroplex Action Man is not Jake English and now I'm sad energon (or at least ore-13) confirmed for radioactive @sirsparklepants called it oh god is that skywarp even if it's not free h i m ivy ilu MTMTE/LL continues to be A Horrible Whirlpool Of Chromedome's Love Life and it's beautiful
viewcomic apparently has entirely lost Revolution 1, so it's time to read tfwiki and jump straight to 2 ...man from this synopsis I actually remember reading Rev1, it's a shame it vanished (even more a shame that their "report error" button leads to facebook... which I don't use...) Spoiler: Revolution 2 Oh boy this art style let's not okay Helix gets one (1) Snark Point oh my god ROM what stop scaring the poor cougar literally the only thing I know about dire wraiths is crankcase's bf sooooooo fuk u rom leave Cons4Eva alone oh my god when did jazz lose an arm I live for sassy narrator but jazz oh my god stop hurting soundwave okay it's blitzwing but still free him considering I was yelling about sapient AI morality this morning this feels oddly appropriate "only if there are survivors" boy are you overconfident "moved to another universe" so is Functionist!Earth full of ore13 now or this issue sure likes its double-page spreads... ...okay by 'microspace' I'm assuming this is a micronauts character but for a second there I was seriously scared it was onyx prime please don't be onyx, onyx deserves better
Spoiler: LL9 The Magnificence is actually an artifact from Hot Rod's spotlight! Hot Rod hid it somewhere after he was betrayed by Dealer - it's supposed to be a "complete database and map of the known universe, and every exploitable resource within it." Which means the absence of Roddy in this issue is even more suspect... And according to the TF wiki, the Grand Architect is actually Scorponok! Back in the day he woke up Trypticon (who is now incubating protoforms using his own body's metal post Transformers: Salvation). He also helped develop the Headmaster technology on Earth and had Sunstreaker and Hunter kidnapped to experiment on...Holy shit, actually, this dude has been around for a while and this is what I get for not reading Phase 1...
Spoiler: LL09 Spoiler: regarding that Mengele stuff (I...? know who Mengele is? I'm German. It's a pretty far reach imo tbh which is why I didn't bring that up at all >_> If that's indeed what the name references it's kind of tasteless?? Idk. Feels kinda unusually tone deaf for mtmte. 'Ha ha different-mechanoid-alien-from-our-protagonists who done an experiment concerning protagonist-aliens-and-their-bodies that's totally like concentration camps better imply she's German uwu' is kind of. Idk trivializing the actual pain and despair of the various procecuted groups that were affected by concentration camps? Tbh I expect better from JRO than 'cringeworthy Nazi Scientist Reference, iteration #2357885') HUH interesting. That has some cool implications for the like continued reach of MTMTE/LL!!! But yeah I haven't read phase 1 stuff either so at least there wasn't a way for me to know who this guy is :P
Spoiler: revolution 3 I still don't like whoever's doing the covers on this thing Rom (Rom) is still a gr8 intro "See micronauts: revolution #1" more like nope those are some impressively badly-placed ID bubbles but hey at least if they have robots they probably won't be jumping on the SPACE ROBOTS: BAD train okay so oziron is Generic White Dude with a fake pharaoh's beard, got it "this thing" the real question: prime or titan? "bigger than a planet" so I'm guessing one of the Thirteen? or maaaaaaaybe one of their titans? or micronauts are just Really Small as their name suggests MICRONUS AAAAAAAAAAAAA also microspace omg why did I not realise this sooner bless bless matthew oh my god what even are windblade's boobs wh y bless soundwave good boy good good boy oh neat so metrotitan/plex (god why are their names so similar someone save me) might have been Micronus's? ...but wasn't Prion...? did micronus steal another titan "see TAAO Revolution #1" will yall just have a decent publishing order and number system please please tell me she's not calling spike motherfucking witwicky "the embodiment of my darkest fears of becoming prime?" no buddy that's alllllllllll you "do you care who is harmed by your actions?" Do you, optimus? wat Spoiler: taao revolution 1, because apparently this is my life now yeaaaaah you probably shoulda gone back to bed, windblade also apparently my reading order lied to me, because this really looks like it shoulda happened before titangeddon okay so metrotitan is the one on earth, got it for now, anyway UH I mean micronus and optimus 1 were pretty buddy-buddy at least in Aligned, so it makes sense, but uH the animu is strong in this one thank you windblade ...yeaaaaah my reading order lied ah well Spoiler: revolution 4 at least jazz has his arm back but uuuuuuuuuuugh take these covers away oh my god everyone's so tiny I'm guessing these are the dire wraiths? WHY IS KARZA SPEAKING OLD CYBERTRONIAN ...on second thought, if they're descendants/creations of Micronus, that kinda makes sense Spoiler: revolution 5 oh my god optimus you can't just vore people shove more people into soundwave's tiddies aaaaaaaand I'm done with this godawful mismanaged disaster of a crossover I'd say farewell but honestly I don't like any of it that much soooo farebadly, Revolution :P okay back to stuff that isn't a disaster or at least is a fun disaster, because when is cybertron not a trashfire Spoiler: TAAO 7 there's still a city even with metroplex down! That's nice, rebuild more c: starscream don't verbally answer bee in public starscream stop answering bee in public literally the entire council thinks you're crazy dayum tf are carcerians made of?? nyooooooom Vigileeeeeeeeeem lore lore lore LORE LORE LORE LORE Spoiler: TAAO 8 :C hopeful is a good look on screamer but aaaaaAAAAA [nine pages of screaming] THIRTEEN LORE THIRTEEN LORE THIRTEEN LORE LORE LORE LORE LORE [NINE PAGES OF SCREAMING] oh scream Spoiler: TAAO 9 "cursed to be the supremely tired ruler of cybertron" rip starscream "You're not listening." <I'm not listening.> A++ "speaking of corpses" [single panel of probably windblade's hand] nO starscream wants nothing to do with the mistress of flame omg you petty fuck LORE LORE LORE LORE LORE okay I count fourteen, maybe fifteen figures in that panel. either we have some extra primes, or Some Of These Things Are Not Like The Others Huh. Carcer remembers Megatronus's name. That's... interesting. More interesting (or less) is that IDW is apparently going for Ebil Megatronus instead of someone who was just as manipulated as the rest of the Thirteen... if the Carcer legend is 100% true, tbf, which is unlikely. bless two incredibly different answers starscream looks so horrified and confused by people trusting him baby baby trashfire darling son in a world of table-flippers, one bot takes a stand starscream hits the table with his face u tried, bee gold star "also he won't be alive to destroy us all in a hail of vengeance" snarky scream screeeeeeeeeeam scream bb you're not a lost cause :c Spoiler: TAAO 10 oh no ohhhhhhh no I'm gonna cry over these boys aren't I get them off that cover this instant ur trying, bee "You sound like Windblade." "That's not an insult to me." "I didn't say I meant it as one." my heart scream likes windblade scream likes bee my heart they are just grabbing all the tfp characters they can, aren't they airachnid's a mnemosurgeon, what I need that scream face goodbye, smol cube robot avatar, I'm starscream now cheek kissies maskboops i'm cry ^me rn oh no oh no aaaaaaGH [takes mask off just to snarl] u go bb scream no scream noooo scream n o yep I'm crying over them fuk Spoiler: taao 11 is this the gay titans issue because that cover sure looks like gay titans (also the comments for taao 10 are basically "QUEERS???? in MY robots???? How Dare" and it's fuckign hilarious they're all queer fuk u) eeeeEEEEEEEEEEE HERE COMES THE THING SPOCK DID FIC ABOUT that poor doctor :c you tried, buddy scream you really need to stop answering bee in public canon abuse recognition go :c public is really not the place for your breakdown, sweetheart baby 8C B A B Y aw Spoiler: TAAO 12 "the cavalry's here" help I'm reading starscream in Tracer's voice now "you ungrateful prong" do I spy another canon word for dick coldcon dysphoria my heart you will pry queer starscream from my cold dead hands [nine pages of screaming] starscream! is! so! pretty!!!!!! I! Want! More! Of this!!!! fuck Optimus Prime, give me back cybertron politics!!!! Where's Maximo?? Where's my lore??? aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Spoiler Yeah, Scorponok is behind a bunch of the major pre-Phase 1 shenanigans, including blowing up Toraxxis (the last major energon refinery on Cybertron) which is what caused all the neutrals to leave, and selling Cybertronian weapons to other races (violating the Tyrest Accord, which is why he shows up in Spotlight: Ultra Magnus). And of course the Headmaster thing on Earth during Phase 1 itself. He's not as "grand master plan" as Shockwave, being more of a short-term schemer, but he did get up to some stuff. Fun fact: in G1, Scorponok was the evil counterpart to Fortress Maximus, which is what the whole Headmaster thing refers to.
Spoiler: LL9 Vriska Serket emerges fully formed from within the Magnificence (a magic-8 ball, if you will...) to clock Scorponok upside the head AG: THERE CAN BE ONLY! ONEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
Transformers on Whose line is it anyway https://connerkent.tumblr.com/post/164716588444/whose-lost-light-is-it-anyway https://connerkent.tumblr.com/post/165176028739/whose-lost-light-is-it-anyway-part-2
I finally managed to collect a few of my thoughts on how everyone in LL is simultaneously diving headfirst into an emotional garbage fire then I have thoughts about windblade and starscream and their mental cities and starscream's mental health I wrote Rung/Thunderclash, mildly nsfw and Chromedome/Rewind/Whirl, also mildly nsfw
I tried to just respond to an ask and accidentally wrote an essay, so I'm going to be lazy and copy the thing over here instead of rewriting it like it was a totally independent meta post in response to nothing but the initiative of my own brainmeats (regarding the deteriorating interpersonal bonds the mtmte cast is having fun with, and the way i said chromedome and rewind were doing pretty solid) me spock say: Oooh, so. First, thank you for reminding me!! This completely slipped my mind, and I edited a note back into the original post. But also. Issue 12. Apart from what the reveal is going to be about, I’ve been dead curious trying to figure out how the reveal might happen. Because Prowl’s mind got wiped, and Chromedome is pretty avoidant even at the best of times, and he’s already done some unpleasant stuff to cover his tracks here, so there’s sunk cost fallacy and all that. But check this out. After Rewind gets sploded, he’s getting medical care, and Chromedome and First Aid are standing over him and talking. Which we don’t just SEE. Instead, we get this And then like two panels later, we get this Just in case you forgot that his camera was on and recording. But that’s not a huge deal, right? It’s just tense, sad bedside stuff. No dirty secrets or anything like that. Right? Well there is a cut at a very interesting moment. Chromedome has a moment alone to say what may be his last words to Rewind. Which could be any number of innocent things. But… they could definitely be a confession he never quite managed to make before this. Especially since he and Rewind had their fight over ‘You promised you’d stop doing [unhealthy thing]!’ ‘Yeah, well you promised you’d stop doing [other unhealthy thing]!!’ I think odds of this being some ugly secret he never shared are pretty darn good. And given those two separate shots of his camera running, he absolutely has a record of whatever was said in that time alone. But the extra interesting thing is that… this Rewind is dead. He got sploded for real only a few short chapters later. Current Rewind is a quantum duplicate who never went on that adventure and never got caught in an explosion, and never got that private moment. I’m a little torn. Because we do get this moment Which implies that if Rewind dies, his files are lost with him. There’s possiblyyyy an intended connotation of the files maybe still existing, but Rewind being forged as a memory stick means he has a processor equipped to sort through a massive database very quickly. Or there’s the possibility that Rewind has tried to find ways to back the information up, so that if he does die, his records aren’t all destroyed. But this is interesting!!! Because he did die. Files could plausibly be backed up somewhere, but we haven’t seen any indicators of where it might be, and we don’t get told anything about why he’d back up this file, unless he’d already seen it (and he didn’t do anything to indicate that he had). We don’t know where exactly his anatomy has the bits that physically store the files, but it’s interesting that Overlord makes a point of telling Chromedome just how he killed Rewind, in a way that left his torso entirely intact (also, fuck, just parsed that overlord knowing about the ‘domey’ nickname means this almost definitely legit happened, and overlord wasn’t just being horrible and lying to get under chromedome’s skin) The explosion of the shuttles nearly killed Overlord, so it could easily have destroyed what was left of Rewind’s body. Buuuut if it was recovered, someone might have been able to strip his files. A bunch of aliens might not have known that Rewind was a memory stick specifically, but Overlord might have, or they could have just done it regardless. If Overlord has the information about what secret Chromedome is hiding, he’s still gallivanting around in space doing his own thing, or the galactic council is actively working against the cybertronians. Or, an outside option, Rewind II has already had some memory bleedover of a history that he never actually experienced. If the memory of an alternate universe was dumped in his head, he could plausibly have some of Rewind I’s memories bleed over. I’m not a huge fan of this option, though, because it weakens the thing he was telling Chromedome about how he isn’t the Rewind Chromedome just lost, he’s lived different experiences since the quantum jump and isn’t just the same person. So my money is on one of the other options, but also on Prowl. Prowl is nosey and pushy and tries to make a point of knowing all the things, and he’s aware that Chromedome erased something important out of his head, and fucked his brain up good in the process. If he has any way to maybe get that information back, he’s going to be all over it. I have no idea how things will play out after that, but I did totally forget this ticking time bomb lurking in the background of the story, and I’m super excited now to see where it goes and how it makes a dramatic reentry into the plot!
Hello hi I am here to fret about Swerve, as is my wont Spoiler: at considerable length, as is also my wont :V Okay, Swerve. I’m pretty sure I’ve said a things multiple times about how I’m very worried about him, but now I’m even more worried. I’m guessing people who were on the LL when he had his crisis are at least somewhat aware of the physical particulars. Mental particulars is more up in the air, because it comes down to the judgment of the mechs involved. Rung is familiar with patient confidentiality, Cyclonus is hella closed off, Skids is friendly but also doesn’t seem to be that much of a gossip, Tailgate is super friendly and talkative, and Bluestreak is very much about lots of talking. But even for those last two, if someone said a few words about respecting Swerve’s privacy, there’s a very real chance only the people in the room with him on swearth know the particulars of what’s been eating at him. And if they’re the only ones with that information, this is a problem. Right, let’s break this down. Five players. All of whom engaged with him directly to help save him here. And none of whom are in a good position to notice if he starts struggling again. Skids then Skids now HA, hilarious! No, though, this is super sad and for a double whammy of pain, Swerve talks about this as his best friend dying. Cyclonus then Cyclonus now He’s… a little bit distracted. Tailgate then Tailgate now Whoops, he’s even more unavailable than Cyclonus Rung then Rung now He already seemed to be struggling on his own even before DOTL, and now there’s the grief, the alt mode business, and there’s going to also be how he deals what Nautica’s been up to. I don’t know exactly how he’ll react, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be good. He’s got a lot on his plate. And finally, Bluestreak then And where is Bluestreak now? Oh. DICK But okay, so back on necroworld, we were already getting some signs that Swerve wasn’t doing so great. The guilt ray got him real good, he was one of the people who was actively shown having a hard, hard time coping with what they were facing. When Anode asked about his autobrand, he snapped at her about his best friend being dead. And after the adventure with Killmaster, there’s this. Nominally about Killmaster, but I’m pretty sure this applies in general too. And just look at Cyclonus!! He’s doing so well with people when he’s left in charge of the group. He’s great with Brainstorm, Ten, Whirl, Swerve, he’s classically struggled to people, but he steps up so well here. And here he is, actively expressing concern for Swerve’s wellbeing. Yeah, too bad about what followed :P Now, something that still nags at me in the swearth issue. Bluestreak. Why was he there? The others were all main characters, and just about everyone we see hanging around on the planet is also main characters. Bluestreak has been around, yes, and he’s had speaking parts once or twice. But he is firmly in the land of bit players. Even in the story, the role he played in helping Swerve didn’t have anything to do with him. Anybody else could have helped coordinate with Rodimus. Bluestreak has some passing familiarity with characteristics of human entertainment media, but so does a large portion of the cast. Why was he there? The last time I tried to figure this out, there was a moment a few issues earlier that jumped out at me. Bluestreak seems to have been one of the few characters aware that Swerve was having a rough time, even if he didn’t know the scope of it. But still, I couldn’t tell why he, specifically, was involved, because there didn’t seem to be anything driving it and there wasn’t any real emotional payoff revolving around his character. Oh, and apropos of nothing, we’re also told that Bluestreak is Rung’s oldest extant patient. We’re given the information that this specific person is familiar with mental health struggles, and presumably pretty severe ones, given that he’s still seeing Rung, even though Rung’s been helping him for a very, very long time. But right now, Bluestreak is the only one of the five who helped Swerve before who isn’t caught up in some kind of personal crisis (or… dead). Distance is an issue for sure, but only distance. And given that Getaway was told that the marooned crew would be spared and only Megatron would be killed, Bluestreak wasn’t aware that the others almost ended up dead. I’m sure loads of the crew will be horrified to learn about how the galactic council set them up to die and then tried to explode the survivors out of existence. But of the remaining crew, we have very few who have any reason to be personally invested in the survivors. Riptide was around, but fairly background. Blaster has mostly just done his job. Thunderclash is new. Perceptor is a mystery to me but he’d better feel bad. Getaway is a dick, but I hope he feels awful about Skids. It’s been 50+ issues since we saw Hoist do much of anything. Yeah, other than general guilt, I’m not seeing too many personal connections between the mutineers and the guys they ditched. So, all very speculative, and we still haven’t seen anything at all about how the LL reacts to the broadcast of those last messages (if getaway even lets them get through). But First Aid and company are about to bust in and get angry. There are so many pieces in motion that it’s hard to guess where things are going to go next, but I sincerely doubt that this is a crew of almost 200 completely unrepentant assholes. I don’t have much evidence to base this on, except that I’m pretty sure Swerve is heading for another crash unless someone can step in and help, and he’s… running awful short on people who can help. There’s nothing direct to suggest Bluestreak is going to be the answer, but he’s popped into the plot pretty much only when Swerve is involved, and plays his biggest part in the story when Swerve is struggling. The way he’s fit into the story has been… strange. There’s very little hard evidence, but there are a lot of little details lining up in interesting ways, that’s all I’m saying.
Spoiler But hey, we just learned that it's possible to remove grief and probably trauma, with no adverse side effects that we know of! Well, no adverse side effects that the patient will notice immediately, having had their ability to care about those side effects also removed.
Look you will pry "horrible pining bluestreak/swerve" out of my cold dead little shipping gremlin hands okay :p
I'm pleased to inform you all that I have created yet more High Quality masterpieces for your consumption...nothing will ever top this...enjoý Context:
Triple post combob: I come bearing Titan sadness, complete with Metroplex<>Caminus, Caminus/Vigilem, and Solus Prime being twice as tall and buff as Liege Maximo
I swear every time they say "sweet Solus Prime" in RiD I hear "sweet soulless prime" which is still a pretty good exclamation.