#and the autobots r actually good ppl and so are a lot of decepticons bUT NOT MEGATRON.

[joleneghoul]

i love terra so much already * please * tell me more about the decepticon lore you have, i'm super curious

i don’t have a lot sadly but uh the whole thing about Terra is like it takes place mostly on Earth and everything else is backstory.

The whole Decepticon conflict is basically Megatron scrambling to keep power in his grasp as it is slowly getting away from him ever since leaving cybertron (bc he lost a lot of loyalty when cybertron went dark, and now the “loyal” decepticons he has are mostly bot’s he’s convinced that they need him).  His whole driving force is just bitterness towards Optimus really bc Optimus getting the matrix is when that power started to slip away.

So like...Megatrons not a good guy and thats kinda the point of that. He just convinces bots that he can give them a better life then...doesnt..in fact makes their lives worse? So the war is sorta just over ngl, and slowly Megatron loses those he thought were most loyal to him bc they realize they could do better (save for like some bots like shockwave or pharma but those stories dont end well). The main decepticons in Terra are: Megatron, Shockwave, Soundwave, Pharma, the insecticons, and a few original characters lmao.  as for ex decepticons as of the start of terra: -Knockout defected from the decepticon medics ON cybertron and left for the autobots with his Neutral engineering partner, Breakdown.

-Starscream was originally a decepticon but! defected once they got to earth bc he found out jetfire was alive.

[monstrosibee]

Ppl keep reblogging that old post of mine I literally wrote when I'd had like three mixed drinks about transformers and the popularity of tf continuities and tones and how appealing to gritty faux realism-but-actually-fake-woke-cynical-jokermovie-liking-losers has actually been a big reason why modern tf content tends to not do as well, and I was right about that. However, I praised t//fa for tonal awareness and good writing for a kids show and past me was wrong and a little bitch for getting sucked up in the weird fandom worship of a show w a lot of terrible designs that tried to capitalize on the anime craze of the time. It also like. Was just so hamfisted of its "decepticons as an oppressed class" idea which isn't new in tf media but the way it did it w this weird like biological divide in which oh actually the bad guys are physically built for war and actually ARE inherently more big and strong but also are inherently more aggressive because of that biological difference. Also if one of them turns "good" then they get a new body that of course fits the societal norms. And of course we'll poke fun at the idea that the ruling structure on cybertron is a corrupt massive imperialist military system but don't worry the good guy Optimus is recognized as being right so that means it's fine because we know cybertron is ACTUALLY made up of good people because sentinel is ousted so it's really just tge few bad apples. We're going to continue upholding this weird robot biological essentialism we've established as actual worldbuilding tho

And like fine whatever it's a kid show but if it can't expound on these complicated issues like oppression dynamics and the evils of imperialism without like. Being so hideously tone deaf and bad about it then don't try to put them in a kids show. You can say it's for teens so obvi they'd wanna tackle difficult concepts as well but like. There r plenty of ideas u can approach that can be discussed in a nuanced manner that aren't gonna push some weird robo phrenologist agenda or something. Especially when the cartoon itself is usamerican and its like very obvious in its emphasis and incorporation of rigid military structures in its autobot society that are like. Obviously bad shit happened in the past and was done by individual bad ppl in this military structure but it Ain't Like That Anymore so were not gonna like. Tear down the institutionz that made all those war crimes possible because again. Bad apples

Tbh its just very clear that yeah the writers wanted to b deep and serious about the storyline so they used the veneer of criticizing an alien system that appears good at first but because of just this annoying fucking USAmerican idea that a government system on its own cannot be corrupt and its bad people that make it so (see the there r good cops falsehood) it falls disgustingly flat.

And I rly only say all this because so many vocally leftist tf fans are on this stupid shows dick all the time for being so subversive of the usual autobot decepticon dynamic and lmao look it makes some performative gestures towards suggesting oppression by a powerful minority of privileged individuals is real. But it fails on so many important like basic ideas that I personally think it actually deserves very little of the writing praise it gets. Like it's the same imperialist military propaganda tf has been pushing for ages its just dressed in an underdog narrative w a pretty fake anime reskin

Also I'd personally corner Derrick Wyatt in a dark alley for an actual bar room style brawl for the fucking atrocity that r the female designs in that show