#and then in canon he wrote in pharma just saying that he didn't want to be implicated in killing patients

[lord-squiggletits]

Answering that ask is a good reminder for me to remind everyone else that Pharma actually did nothing wrong in the way that he handled Tarn/the DJD and the t-cog blackmail, and the only reason he's villainized and seen as irredeemable scum is because the narrative wanted to have Pharma as a villain.

Literally every other time the DJD are shown attacking people on the page (or the aftermath of their attacks) it's constantly hammered in how brutal and unstoppable they are and how traumatizing it is to suffer even as a survivor who merely witnessed their methods so like LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON Pharma got singled out as selfish and cowardly is because JRO wanted him to be a villain.

And it sucks too because it's not like making the DJD terrifying was some retcon that happened 30 issues down the line. The DJD made their first on-page appearance in MTMTE #7, during which there's a whole page dedicated to the Scavengers describing every reason why it's impossible to stop the DJD-- including one person outright describing fighting the DJD as "suicide with delusions of survival."

There's no way JRO didn't know what he was going to write for #7 while he was writing the Delphi arc (#4-5, so only two issues beforehand more or less) so like. I'm sorry but there's no actual in-universe reason why Pharma should be considered evil for how he handled the DJD when every other person got to be seen as a victim/underdog hero defending themselves from horrible death. JRO just wanted there to be a mad doctor evil Autobot villain and that was that lmao

[soundwave-superior]

If you're interested to read the disjointed, rambling Ratchet mini analysis I wrote during my lunch break today, then buckle up kids:

Idk if this is canon or fanon but I love the idea that Ratchet, while a fantastic doctor, still struggled in establishing himself post residency bc of his attitude (and his superiors being intimidated by his skill and intellect), and that the reason he was made CMO of the Prime (Nova, I believe) was bc he didn't play politics and Nova wanted an excellent physician who would treat him without ulterior motives. Being the Prime's doctor is a big fucking deal, but Ratchet was still just a medic, he wasn't like... known for all of the things he became known for during the war. Folks knew he was picked bc he was a political nobody, but the general public didnt know how talented he was. Then Orion became a prime and chose Ratchet as his CMO (bc Optimus knew Ratchet wouldn't ever say no to him, as his friend, and he wanted to exploit that), and he was forced to become an Icon, he was supposed to represent all of what a medic could be, he was the miracle worker, the mech with the magic hands, the bot who could rip a mech's spark back from Mortillus himself. He stopped being his own person as soon as he took OP's "offer" to be the Autobot CMO, and thats a bit part of why he held onto the title so fiercely, even after the war was over: he didnt want/couldnt trust anyone else to live the way he did, to fill that impossible role. Least of all his apprentice!! First Aid was more than capable of being the CMO, but Ratchet didnt wanna put that on the kids shoulders. Plus, after 4 million years, Ratchet didnt have an identity outside of being Autobot CMO. He was nothing. A walking miracle worker, the best of the best, but he wasn't Ratchet, he was a walking Symbol that he and Optimus created.

Another reason why he was su1c1dal at the start of MTMTE. The war was over, they didnt need an Autobot CMO anymore, just a CMO to the Prime. And with his hands failing, that Symbol was shattered and he could no longer fill that role. He was nothing without his hands. He couldn't perform the same miracles as he did during the war, when he saved Optimus' spark again and again and again when the mech was barely more than a smudge on the tarmac.

He joined the Lost Light to find someone who would be willing and capable of being a new symbol. Not First Aid, not the kid (despite how insanely talented and ingenius he is), but... someone else. A fool's errand, maybe, but he was going to continue working until he literally couldn't anymore, regardless.

Im just! Thinking a lot about Ratchet and how much the war took from him. Not just the millions of mechs he couldn't save or who died anyway after he fixed them, but what it took from him personally.

and THEN, when he finally found happiness, JRO took one last fucking jab at him by having his body just. Stop. Like, as soon as he finds some inner peace and moves outside of the CMO role with someone who loves him for who he is, after he replaces his failing hands, after seemingly moving past all of the trauma that Pharma caused him, he fucking beefs it. So needless! So hurtful!

it further established for Drift that he's meant to be alone, that anyone close to him will get hurt: he's lost every single person he ever trusted or was close to??? And Ratchet never thought he'd see the end of the war, he acted as a reminder of how fucking hard the war was on old bots. He saw Cybertron in its Golden Age, saw it fall, saw the war through every stage, until it finally ended. He never thought hed make it that far! He survived, by some miracle. Even the LL was supposed to be his swan song, but he found??? Love??? Someone who saw past his gruff exterior and scaled his emotional walls and loved him for the mech he was, not the Infamous Miracle Worker with the magic hands. They both found happiness against all odds and it was ripped away!!! For nothing!! For shock value!!