#and tf is frequently at its core a story of war. even in g1 it covered that fact. loss and coping and stuff | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

telesodalite · 2 months ago

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With Krok now on my mind, it's reminded me of like, the whole deal of him coping with the loss of his squad by believing they'd just become separated? Because that bit is such a fascinating aspect of his character to me.

It's vague in a way that doesn't totally confirm whether he truly 100% deluded himself, or if he just kept telling himself that to try and distract from the truth and memories he didn't want to face.

(Which, for some reason this pisses Misfire off? Which implies something really interesting there about Misfire and his own coping mechanisms and issues that we don't get much of a peer into unfortunately.)

Anyway, I spent way too long thinking about it when I was reading through the comics. And it's like, did studying battles and strategy play a part in this delusion/lie?

Like, you're a being that lives for millions of years, in the middle of a war spanning those millions of years. So, at some point, surely those battles are going to start to blur together. So you've got that, and then you go and face a frankly horrifically traumatic fight that quite literally rips the people you cared about most, and felt responsible for, apart.

Presumably, Decepticons aren't the greatest at handling shell shock and other such side effects of war. So they just take this freshly traumatized mess of a dude, take him off the front lines and plant him on a warworld to aid the fight from a more comfortable distance.

With all this, the mind is bound to be fickle when faced with such sudden loss and change. But Krok obviously did his job there, or at least he was very knowledgeable on history and tactics beforehand.

Either way, he studied battle after battle, went through records of fight after fight, planned for what's next and reconsidered what had already happened. Hundreds of wins and losses.

So did it get jumbled there? In having a head full of battles, did some of them blur and mix with the one that took everything away from him? In trying to solve the failures of past battles, did he try and find where a victory could've been had against the wreckers that day? Did he find a solution that would've had his squad still whole and alive?

From there, did it slip into delusion, or a desperate lie to keep himself going?

I feel like his "mental health matters" moment was an interesting insight into it and possibly the average soldier's rough outlook on trauma. But it was still very surface level I think, but I guess going too deep into the why's and how's wouldn't have been important until maybe the Scavenger centric comics that uh, never happened :/

#i'm probably reading too much into it. but im a sucker for war stories and such in fiction. esp sci fi.#i grew up military. so its like. i need to know the details within the media im reading. or else it feels poorly done or handled #and tf is frequently at its core a story of war. even in g1 it covered that fact. loss and coping and stuff #and idw1 is best in the post-war era. but it only sometimes dips into the real nitty gritty of what that all entails for ex-soldiers #the scavs are particularly interesting in that sense. since none of them were ''important''. they were tragically deemed disposable #and like. the bit where krok is explaining what happened during the war was just so good. just the disillusion and betrayal and hurt-#-towards megatron and the high command. like. argh. it was just *chefs kiss* when it comes to writing an interesting ex-soldier #fulcrums line about the war being over being comparable to the sky no longer being blue is also just. ough. esp since he wasn't a soldier #it just shows how ingrained the war was in every bot and cons life. and its so tragic and fascinating and augh #and like. the cons are awful. yeah. but they're also just an army chock full of random people with their own unique views and opinions #and the scavs are great vessels for telling that angle. that perspective. of just being someone swept up in it all #they're great comedy relief and all too. but theres so much fascinating story potential there too of hardships and disillusion #i mean. the whole deal with the djd?? the comparisons?? the hypocrisy bcs they're all bad people but for different reasons???#i could go on for hours about it. and i actually have and it's never coherent. but its like my fav thing about cons #which is probably a bit weird. i've been told having an interest in fictional wars and its effects is weird. but idk #its personal for me. you grow up hearing shit from vets and what they've been through. their own disillusions and it sticks with you #i'm gonna stop before i start to vent lol. but yeah. just krok and his ptsd and the greater untouched trauma within post-war cons

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