TFs: DARE TO BE STUPID

Whoops, more of this nonsense again. This was kind of nice, I've been a ball of pain and cramps all day, and I was able to at least accomplish a little bit of something. I was just curious about getting a comic of the Topspin/Twin Twist stuff, but then LSOTW was just packed with good material. Really dark material, but good stuff.

Spoiler: last stand of the wreckers spoilers, plus torture, blood, body horror, and suicide

 

AUGH. And just as I posted that, I got an incredibly awkward ask.



I disagree with practically every sentence in here, and I can't tell if I should respond or ignore it, but just. GHHHHHH

I'm sorry, did they somehow miss the other Prowl fics I posted before that one? The ones in, y'know, the same ao3 document? And let me tell you, I enjoyed the Jazz/Prowl, but I had a lot more emotional investment in the other two fics. Not to mention the Optimus/Prowl emotions I can't cleanly articulate in fic form, or the Arcee/Prowl feelings, OR HEY, how about the Tarantulas/Prowl emotions. Not to mention the fucked up Prowl/Kup, Prowl/Constructicons, and Prowl/Spike dynamics. Plus I'm sure there are a million other ships I could get behind given the right scenario or explanation. Who even says that there is literally only one good ship for a character in a canon like this, in the year of our lord 2016? I ship Chromedome/Rewind and Cyclonus/Tailgate with the passion of a thousand suns, and even then, those aren't my only ships for those characters. I do like Jazz/Prowl a lot, but this person makes me want to not like it. Tbh, my ideal Prowl ship would be healing into a sexy poly pile with Rewind and Chromedome.

????????? Of course it has inherent power imbalances. There's four million years of hierarchical military history between them, and Prowl is probably the character least capable of dealing with the loss of a clean hierarchy in the first place. Not to mention that there are power imbalances everywhere, even in a ship like Chromedome/Rewind. Even when they're both completely devoted to each other. The fact that Rewind has a spouse somewhere out there who could very well be alive, and that he's still a major part of Rewind's life, and that Chromedome is aware he's in second place, that is a power imbalance. That's part of what makes writing things so interesting, oh my god. And as far as me, personally, as an author, I don't have much interest in writing stories between two perfect equals. Even without overt d/s dynamics (which are one of my favorite things) I write Tailgate as the quietly dominant partner with Whirl and Cyclonus, because they're both devoted to him and bend to him way more than they assert themselves.

Even in this fic they're referencing, Jazz has the power. Prowl is a strung-out wreck who is literally incapable of relaxing, and Jazz quietly takes charge of him and makes the decisions, etc. Even in terms of whatever they're trying to say about Jazz resigning? That gives Jazz the power. Prowl obviously resents people who have been able to distance themselves from the war, because he was never able to do it, and after his ship was shot down, he went to the other extreme and poured his entire sense of self into supporting the Autobot cause. And after about the same amount of time in service, Jazz was able to cut ties, move on, and be healthy. Prowl? Yeah, not so much. Jazz absolutely has an advantage over Prowl here.

oh my godddddddddddddddddddddddd

shut uppppppppp

Prowl has toxic dynamics with nearly everyone he has significant interactions with. And in most of those, he's definitely acting in inexcusably shitty ways. Especially given Sins of the Wreckers, if you want to ship him with someone he hasn't "abused," you're going to be looking for a long time or diving into rarepair hell, that's all I'm saying. And for fuck's sake, look at the comic you're reading. If you're going to call one fistfight (after Prowl tried to, y'know, take steps that would have destroyed Cybertron) physical abuse, you need to take a step back and reevaluate your choices.

HAHAHA NO

Yeah, just look at those power imbalance paragraphs. Nope nope nope, there are plenty of hangups and that's why I ship it

I try not to let people's bad opinions affect me, but I think they kind of wanted to make me ship it harder? And they're sort of doing the opposite? I don't have a very long attention span, so I'm sure it won't stick, but for fuck's sake, anon, you make me not want to ship these two with all the things you're saying.

I'm pretty sure I shouldn't respond on my actual tumblr, but also, I really, really want to. this is not a pleasant message and it bothers the hell out of me.

Tl;dr:

 

Well you know those Cybertronians, they sure never stop talking about their exact sexual orientations and have a really, really strong investment in drawing distinctions between genders.

Actually, I was extra ticked when I got this, because I just finished listening to an episode of the Underbase podcast, where they'll go through the comic issues and discuss them (pretty much as they come out), and I listened to the one on MTMTE 12, where we find out about Rewind and Chromedome being conjunxes. Nowwwww, admittedly at the time, the comic itself hadn't gone into much detail about defining the term, or saying that yes, they are married, they are in love, and I guess there'd been some forum wank on the matter. But the people talking about it were like ummm, well, everyone's just been through a war, and people form strong emotional bonds, and why can't it just be platonic best friends???? And they were talking about Rewind trying to find Dominus Ambus, his old master. Which, okay, I was trying to be charitable, etc., but that was unbelievably grating. And then I got this ask, which was grating in the other direction, and it's like GAHHH WHY

I think I am going to reply to this person after all, because I need to talk myself back into being passionate about jazz/prowl, and talking about what a messy little ship it is sounds like a great way to do that. And now that I've gotten the irritated/annoyed out of my system, I'll hopefully be more coherent. And let's be real, I'd have virtually no interest in shipping Prowl at all if he wasn't packed full of so many wonderful, ugly issues. And even in jazz/prowl, arguably the healthiest of my Prowl ships, I had to really cut down the way I wanted to linger on how fucked up he was. I don't know what is even up with this person's reading comprehension. The only time I've written Prowl being a truly healthy flavor of happy was in the flashback fic where he was too young to have broken himself so thoroughly. :T

Fake edit: And yeesh, that other anon does sound like the same sort of person. I embrace all my problematic faves, man. If I'm going to say yes to Prowl, I don't want to say no to Optimus Prime! This really makes me want to write some Optimus/Prowl fic just out of pure spite, even though it's not a ship I'm that passionate about. Maybe I could tap into it if I take the approach that it's two people suffocating in unbelievable amounts of denial over how screwed up they are, and clinging to the memory of a healthier past.

 

Ooh, I could get behind that! But Jazz and Optimus are both going to be tricky fuckers, so until I've got a better grip on them, I'll tuck that away for future consideration. Also I'm spiteful and petty and want to avoid doing anything to make this anon happy >u>

I think this might actually be a good opportunity to pull an Optimus Prime voice out of my ass. Spite gives me strength, and as screwed up as he is, Optimus just doesn't grip me in the same way as a lot of my other faves, so I've been lacking in motivation. Maybe if I lock this down, I'll be able to round out my set of povs for the optimus/rodimus/megatron fun, which would be awesome.

 

oh my god, you're right

I'd like to know what sins I committed to bring these people down upon me. Also Prowl/OP is a go right now because kicking at people is more important to me than sleep

 

I just have a really hard time getting passionate about him in any continuity, so even when I try to pick him up, he doesn't stick with me :P I'm using something like my Zahhak voices, but with like, a lower center of gravity. It's not too different from my Megatron voice, but more tired, with fewer fancy descriptors.

 

Doot doot, I'm the melancholy porn fairy.

Though it's really interesting, the more I write for this fandom, so like, okay. I adore putting light d/s dynamics into just about everything I write, but like, in homestuck, my default settings were that 'everyone is a switch.' Which mostly worked out well, with a few exception characters, like Rose being dommy and Zahhaks being subby. Even the characters I didn't write much, I could see how to write them in varying degrees of dommy/subby without a problem.

But for transformers, I'm getting all these unexpected feelings about the roles characters would be most comfortable in. So, for example, I could write a frigging essay on why I love Chromedome as a super subby sub. And Rewind is bossy, but not necessarily dommy, so in contrast to how I write him with Dominus Ambus, as teasing equals, with Chromedome he's in the role of accidentally-a-dom-but-totally-loving-it. And I was already kind of idly thinking that Prowl has lots of natural inclinations towards being dommy, but it's liiiiiike... healthier for him when he ends up with someone who will take charge, which is what the Jazz/Prowl fic was about. Megatron is switchy, but only is willing to act subby if he really, really trusts his partner, so basically in the scenarios I've imagined, he'd only really end up doing that with Rodimus, and still tends to default to dom unless Rodimus is like 'no it's my turn.' And similarly, Rodimus sometimes switches, but only doms when he feels really secure, so he tends to default to playing a subby role, because it's like a constant reassurance that yes, he's wanted.

But um, before I went off on that tangent, my point was supposed to be that I found a really comfortable writing spot for Optimus. He feels like he should be taking charge and being assertive and confident and all that good stuff, but he'd rather be in a position where he can let someone else be in charge of things for a while and he can just relax and do what he's told. Which makes for an interesting setup with Prowl! There's all kinds of directions to take that dynamic, depending on when you catch them together. Also I'm feeling very pleased with myself because Big Important People who don't actually like having that authority and partly cope by being dominated in the bedroom is 110% my aesthetic and actually helps me connect with a character I've never cared for very much.