#but! ...Optimus. so. it's fine

[snuggles-and-struggles]

Loveuary, Day 10 - Toys & Games

Spicyhoney, established relationship, 100% fluff

Word count: 1422

Before they'd started dating, Stretch had joking told Sylv Edge didn't have a weakness, not one. He hated drinking, couldn't care less about bets or dares, wouldn't even try anything, uh, 'recreational' – the only thing he indulged in seemed to be...taking a break in the evening from housework and homework alike to read or play with his cats.

After they started dating, well, nothing really changed in his perception, aside from realizing just how much Edge didn't not work. He'd bide any extra time not doing job work or chores at home by going out and volunteering, either at some organization or with friends and family that might need a hand.

Of course, he'd also started carving out specific 'partner time', but even that shrunk after Stretch moved in. With him there, it all got blurred together with chore time and kitchen time and cat time.

Edge needed a hobby. A real one, not just putting together a puzzle with Stretch on Saturday mornings once every month or two.

He'd been wracking his mind and scouring various message boards for weeks looking for something that might catch Edge's eye. Nothing he'd have to travel for. And he'd never shown any interest in Stretch's cameras or Rus's car magazines. Something like taekwondo bordered too closely to his usual sparring with Levi, which hardly counted as a relaxing pastime.

Then one day, completely unexpectedly, Edge hesitated as he set a fresh cup of coffee down on Stretch's desk. His thanks trailed off as he followed that line of sight to a monitor, open to some forum page currently mid-argument with someone about which prior one-offs counted as canon to the current iteration.

A flash of recognition there and gone again by the time Edge moved to place a kiss to his temple, which ended up his brow bone when he turned his head to ask, "are you into transformers?"

Edge quirked a brow bone, glancing back to the screen for a second. "Is that what those are?"

"yeah," he chuckled, "guess that's a no then?"

"No, I-" Edge straightened, resting his hands on his hips as he seemed to mentally puzzle something out. Stretch bemusedly rotated his chair out so he could face him more properly, interest piqued.

Haltingly, he explained, "back underground, my brother had found a box of...comics, at the dump. Mostly destroyed, of course, but…he salvaged what he could and brought it home.”

His brow bone furrowed and something complicated flit across his features, “I don’t remember them very well, I couldn’t have been older than ten at the time…” his eyes flickered back to then screen before settling on Stretch. “I haven't thought of them in years, but they featured that character, I remember that much."

Stretch eyed the header image, the makings of an idea beginning to kindle.

"optimus prime. he's the leader of the good guys." Stretch smiled up at him as innocuously as he could manage, "i actually have most of the comics, if you're up for a refresher. the shows're pretty good, too."

"Perhaps," said with no small amount of humoring. Alright, he could work with that.

Over the next week, Stretch watched reviews and read articles to deduce the best approach. Edge hadn't mentioned it again, probably already forgotten or filed under 'things my weird partner likes'.

He'd never been much of an action figure guy himself or he could've tested the waters before dropping a few hundred on toys, but eh, he'd made stupider purchases in his life. More than that, he hoped Edge liked them. It'd be nice to see that rare little sparkle in his eye over something all his own.

And hey, maybe he'd get extra lucky and it'd be a gateway into model building or something; the more hobbies the merrier.

The next part of his plan got derailed on Saturday morning. His fault, he should've known he'd be too tired to remember, and by the time he did Edge had already lured him into a very snuggly post-breakfast trap on the couch.

"teddybear?"

"Mm?" Edge hummed, purring low as he soothed circles into Stretch's scapula through his sweater.

"could you get me another cup of coffee?"

That got his attention. He glanced down to him, likely gauging if he was feeling alright given the somewhat unusual request, but Stretch only batted his nonexistent eyelashes back.

Deemed fine just lazy, if the way a faint smile appeared at the corners of his teeth meant anything. "Of course, love."

With a click of a kiss – that Stretch considered himself incredibly strong for not trying to deepen – Edge strolled to the kitchen and Stretch shortcut straight to the bedroom. By the time his love returned, Stretch had sat up from his prior spot, polite and definitely not nearly as suspicious as Edge's pause and once over implied.

"Should I ask what you're up to before or after I caffeinate you further?"

With a scoff, Stretch lounged back into an even more convincing position, "is it a crime to sit on a couch now?"

"No. It's not a crime to teleport in your own home, either, but it does warrant an amount of speculation when you're hiding it."

"has anyone ever told you how astute you are?"

"Has anyone ever told you how terrible you are at distractions?"

Fighting down his smile was a losing battle, but he still made his best effort to look annoyed, "please, i can distract you any day of the week." Sliding down, he parted his knees provocatively.

Edge's brow bone went higher, the very picture of 'unimpressed'.

"Your coffee is getting cold."

"okay, okay," he sat back up, holding his hands out to accept it, "i just wanted to do a little something for you. sit with me?"

Where his snark failed, his sincerity prevailed, Edge's expression softening immediately into a faint surprise. He handed off the mug and came around the table to sit, looking almost worried, and Stretch had to remind himself not to tease him for it.

"okay, so i know you don't really care about the comics, but i have a few friends that are super into these, and i thought you might really like them, too," retrieving a smallish box from his inventory, he set it on Edge's lap rather than risk him declining it if Stretch tried handing it off.

"i know you're not a big 'toys' guy either, but these are different, they're kinda like 3d puzzles, because they, ya know, transform..." his voice tapered off as Edge examined the box.

Normally, Edge received a straightforward gift with about as much grace as a newborn giraffe, so the quiet curiosity and completely unreadable expression had anxiety starting to trickle in. Still, Stretch waited.

Clearing his throat, Edge blinked back to himself, quirking a brow bone as he looked to him, "you got this for me?"

"yeah, i uh, you don't have a lot of stuff like this, just...'for fun' stuff, so i thought, maybe, since it's something to do, too, you might..."

As his eyelights drifted back to the box, Edge's expression shifted into a contemplative scowl. Then, he offered it back to Stretch, but before the disappointment could even start he added, "you'll have to show me. I don't think I've so much as seen one of these before and I don't want to damage him."

Him, not it, off to a good start already. Edge had a habit of personifying inanimate objects he got attached to, maybe getting him to watch one of the movies would cement it even more.

"i can do that. i think. to tell you the truth, i've never does this before either."

Opening the box, he started talking about what had initially gotten him hooked after they'd surfaced. Edge listened, eyes keenly following Stretch's hands once he'd gotten the figure out of the package and started fiddling with it.

The other two could wait, he decided, maybe for Gyftmas or something. Otherwise Edge might just reject it as too grand a gesture. And given how reverently he handled the toy when Stretch handed it back, instructing him between bits of lore or world building, he didn't wanna risk anything that might shake Edge off the trail to genuine interest.

Of all things, he shouldn't have been surprised Edge would be so enamored by something as simple as a toy. Bittersweet as the thought was, he couldn't be happier he got to be the one to teach him how to play.

[wolfythewitch]

My Watching Over Kids Hot Take a lot of kids just want someone to talk to them calmly without telling them what to feel. Or maybe they just want to talk and have someone listen

A kid at church today was sulking under a table blocked off by chairs that he couldn't get to play with this Optimus prime toy they had in a cabinet and when I asked him if he was willing to wait for it after the service or if maybe he had some toys at home he said he didn't and church was the only place he could play with one, and Optimus prime is his favorite character ever. I told him we couldn't let him play with it now, but if he was willing to wait until later when there were fewer kids he could take it for a spin. He was still sitting under the table but he wasn't frowning anymore. He told me about dinosaurs. His favorite is the allosaurus. He came out from under the table for a second just to mimic its roar. I said yooo that's sick my favorite is the pterodactyl. I mimed a screech (my dinosaur knowledge is very limited, alas). He crawled out from under the table and started clawing at the air, doing his best impression of a dinosaur. It was very cute. I think he likes dinosaurs almost as much as he likes Optimus prime. Then he ran off to play with the other kids

[hotarufutaba]

es megop i drew in my sister's sketchbook

[spashahoney]

Well-deserved shuteye for our fearless, gentle leader of the Autobots. Please make sure he gets his rest, heroes!

-

My piece for the To Be Gentle: an Optimus Prime Fanzine by @allsparkzines can now be viewed! Totally check out the fresh and funky zine about the hero of Cybertron! I had a whole lot of fun making it!

[quibbs126]

These have been my drawings since yesterday, more of the AU of mine

Eventually I realized “wait, I just want to draw Megatron and Optimus in this AU. And it’s my AU, I can just draw what I want”. So that’s why this is just these two

It’s not that I don’t want to expand the AU, and I know I should draw more characters for it, and I probably will at some point. But I had a moment of realization that I can just do what I want, and I’m being indulgent

But yeah, so we got some poses and weapons for Megatron and Optimus, plus a couple little tweaks and enhancements to their designs. I did forget the top line on Megatron’s buster in the top left though. And that axe of Optimus needs some tweaking, and I need to learn how to draw it better. And how people hold axes

But Optimus has his axe here, which is supposed to contrast with Elita’s axe. It hasn’t been drawn either but she’s supposed to have a large double-sided axe, while Optimus has a smaller, only one-sided axe. I’m thinking he shares some of X’s mentality in that he’s not the most fond of fighting the infected bots, and him having a smaller, more utilitarian axe is supposed to reflect that. Also I mean, it’s his typical weapon

Anyways, moving down to the bottom right since it’s also new stuff, I’ve been wondering for a bit on what these guys would look like without their helmets, so that’s what this was. Sketch only because it wasn’t supposed to be at the level of the other three

The page was supposed to be more sketches, but I liked the first one and two so much I fully colored them, and the third followed suit. I used the Syrup pen this time, I think it worked better than the marker in this instance

But back to the head things. With Megatron, I was debating whether I wanted to do cables or his solar panel things. But while attempting the cables, I realized they’d be a pain to draw, so solar panels it is. They too are not drawn well, but it was more to get the idea of them. They fold and such like the ones he has in IDW

Optimus meanwhile I have decided is bald. Well okay, it’s supposed to look more like the thing Cyborg has going on in Teen Titans, it just doesn’t come off as well in sketch form, with also a port for charging in the back

I did this partially because I like the Cyborg look, because it’s funny to me, and also because I genuinely don’t know if X, unlike Rock, has hair or not under his helmet. This is following my assumption that he does not

Also I drew them sleeping with their helmets on before, but this was before I considered if their helmets were removable or not, so ignore that

Oh and one last thing, with these helmet-less designs, I think I've given up on the idea of them having hair. It's just that most characters I can't see having visible hair under their helmets. I think I like the concept, but I just don't know how to give them hair

But also with the two heads, I feel like there’s supposed to be a difference in Megatron’s mechanics compared to other bots. I’m not sure I’ve gotten into it, but I think I’m going with the idea that since he takes some narrative inspiration from Zero, and Zero was built by Dr Wily, thus making him entirely different from the other Reploids, Megatron too has mechanics unique to himself compared to other bots

I’m thinking that in some ways, his body is more rudimentary seeming, such as how he has clunkier looking solar panels (even if that means he doesn’t need external charging sources), or how his arm cannon isn’t retractable, whereas other bots with transforming weapon limbs can retract them at will

I haven’t really gotten around to figuring out why he has different mechanics than the rest of the bots, or why the virus made him docile, or why he’s the source of the virus. I mean it’s most likely because whoever created him built him to be this way, but I don’t know who did. It’s just that I’m taking from Zero and Wily, despite Transformers not really working in that method. I mean, I did say here that Alpha Trion created both Optimus and Elita, but I don't know who fits for creating Megatron

But oh well, things to figure out another time

Moving on to the top left finally, yeah like I think I've said elsewhere, megop's definitely a thing here. It's my AU, I can do what I want

I do still need to work on posing with two characters, but I think it turned out pretty nice

They are both supposed to blush blue, since that's a thing Transformers do, and it was supposed to both be circle blush, but I didn't like how it looked on Megs, so he squiggle blushes now. I have elected that they just have various forms of blushing, between everyone. Optimus has circles, and also his nose blushes slightly too, because I don't know, he doesn't have ears. His antennae are also supposed to be flapping here as well

His gem is also supposed to be shining brighter in that moment, with me deciding their gems get shinier when they're happy, and duller when they're sad or otherwise filled with negative emotions. Because why not?

Oh yeah, I'm also not sure what I'm doing about faction symbols here. They don't have them because initially I didn't plan on there being Autobots and Decepticons, but they should probably have symbols, since they are part of an organization. But should it be the same Autobot symbol or should I switch it up? I'm not sure

And I think that's about it? I think I've gotten through everything relevant to this page of stuff

I've been planning on drawing full body refs for individual characters here, I just haven't done so yet, in part because I wanted to figure out Optimus' axe first. But yeah, hopefully I end up doing that, in my head they're all official and proper looking, like I actually made something of effort and not just sketches on a white canvas. We'll just see when I do

Other things I plan on drawing for the AU? I'm not sure entirely, just some ideas, like drawing Alpha Trion so I can figure out his whole deal with Optimus and Elita, and maybe also trying to figure out the Prime situation since I don't want Alpha Trion as one and I think I might just make them all their own things outside of the Thirteen Primes, at least of the ones I choose to use. But that also means trying to figure out his design. I also need to draw Elita more, because while I have some basics of her design, there's details that I've not settled on and need to get around to fixing. And also I should probably try my hands at the Decepticons again. No clue what to do for Shockwave though, since Reploids tend to have human faces

[singingcicadas]

Rodimus' "I Believe in You" speech that turned Orion back into Optimus restored Optimus' faith in himself

[kaontic]

Me: *Reading the Skybound Transformers run to my nephew*

OMG Roller is there!

He’s guarding Wheeljack like the good boy he is!

AND THE COMBAT DECK IS HELPING OUT AS A M.A.R.B. (Mobile Autobot Repair Bay) AAAAAAAAAH—

Ok not exactly like the M.A.R.B.s in the Marvel and IDW comics, but still. Let them cook.

⭐️ Bonus art of Roller and his holoform ⭐️

He’s wearing doggy boots for his itty bitty whittle paws. :3

Wait.

Oh no.

Ok this is just wishful thinking and speculation on my part, but maybe it's like EVA where there's this synchronization level fluctuation goin' on, which means there's a good chance that they don't actually feel anything that Optimus does during the fights.

The synchronization in EVA is based on the pilot's mental state, and I will never expect Optimus to have a good enough mental state in these kinds of stories, to warrant a “high sync ratio" with his other modules. If it's fluff, then synchronize away! Share that happiness!

I still demand a wellness check though.

[mychlapci]

Im here to beg for some synth-en megaratch because i dont havr any meaning in life besides stalking your blog <3

hgrhhh you are leaving me an open stage, i don’t know where to start… okay. The synth-en not only increasing both bloodlust and arousal, but mixing them together, which means that when Ratchet gets to Megatron he is, number one, filled with unbridled fury, number two, extremely horny after all the vehicons he knocked down on his way, and number three… Megatron can tell.

But you know, not a lot of people have the balls to just dominate Megatron himself like he’s just some piece of metal found on the street. So obviously, while Megatron is stronger than Ratchet, he lets him pin him down anyways, curious to see what the medic, seemingly unaware of the charge basically dancing across his plating, will do now. Spoiler: he doesn’t kill him. He fucks him. What a surprise.

mhmmm Megatron is so big that his valve doesn’t need to be prepared, all Ratchet has to do is shove his spike in and start pounding into him with more strength than he really should have in him, at any point. Megatron gasping in surprise, inner nodes assaulted carelessly, with no concern for whether he might try and point his fusion cannon at Ratchet’s head, or beat the shit out of him if Ratchet does something wrong, no, the autobot didn’t care about any consequences at the moment and Megatron enjoyed it tremendously. Maybe Ratchet degrades Megatron a little. Or a lot. Calls him all the things he’d normally call him, a monster, a maniac, an evil bastard, but this time he whispers it through grit denta as he nears his overload, each squeeze and punch and scratch delivered to Megatron’s plating that leaves a visible mark making him so much hornier.

hghhhh Ratchet’s transfluid being filtered out synthetic energon which means that everytime he overloads into Megatron, he gets him a little bit more high off the synth-en as well. By the time they’re found, Megatron is twitching and moaning through his Nth overload in the past half hour and Ratchet is still digging into him without breaking a beat in his pace, except to cum, but he recovers quickly and keeps going. I think Ratchet’s the one to tell Optimus to get the fuck out of here, this is between him and Megatron now. 

[beastofthewest]

I've been trying to draw them for so long. After tons of scrapped sketches I relized I'm just allergic to human noses 🫤

[they-hermes]

ok so here the deal between the autobots and decepticons in tf hyperlink:

originally orion goes from dock worker to archivist (well more of manual labour with his alt mode to justify his new line of work) by senator shockwaves sponsorship at the archives in iacom run by his sister codexa. and orion quickly realises the shit conditions he lived under back as a dock worker were not unique and in fact a system based problem due to uim facing the same problems as an archivist (with added on discrimination because of his alt mode, isolation from his peers etc) and just "oh fuck this functionism shit is hell for everyone. i hate this"

then he hears about gladiator megatron in kaon who delivers poetry and speeches denouncing funcionism and the gov, advocating for a new world where bots could choose their destinies beyond their alt mode, and reaches out to him. orion finds his writing extremely compelling and righteous due to himself suffering under the same conditions (with his current job and past dick worker experience) and megatron invites him to start the revolution with him (as one does) and orion accepts

they create the deceptobots, and quickly start to gain traction not only orally but also by extreme acts of violence. orion is pressured by megatron to believe that violence is necessary for their cause, and actually starts to believe and inciate this violence "for the greater good" although he carries massive guilt over it. they're not really friends, outside of their political views they have little in common yet stay together as like partners and figureheads of their movement. their movement gains a massive following and follow megatrons plan to take over cybertron by taking over each city state, starting with kaon.

the thing is orion and megatron have vastly different views on the end goal, megatron throughly believes functionism is wrong not because it infringes on a persons individual freedom but because it infringes on what he deems an inherit right to commit violence. megatrons worldview is very militaristic and "survival of the fittest", the senate is inheritly wrong because they are weak and holding back cybertronians from their potential, which is to be a conquering self sufficient species. otherwise, they're just tools to be conquered and enslaved like the quintessons did a long long time ago. so by that logic megatron should be leader of the world bc hes the strongest and he'll prove hes the strongest by killing sentinel prime

the longer it takes for the deceptobots revolution to take over, the more orion realises that this wasn't the future or freedom he wanted for his people. the nail in the coffin is when ariel and dion, civilians and unaware of orions involvement, are severely injured in a raid. he starts to push back against megatron and makes his own allies in the deceptobots to help him take over from megatron. he largely talks and offers aid to civilians who didnt join the deceptobots bc they did not fuck with megatrons vision and he just burries himself with more guilt and shame that he did not recognise sooner of megatrons true intentions. he was never going to free the cybertronians he was going to lead them into a cruel dog eat dog world and lock them in a more violent and destructive cycle than the one they were in.

then finally comes the take over of iacon, the last city state. megatron knows of orions planned mutiny and betrayal but bc hes a freak he still makes orion hold his gun form to finish off sentinel after he fights him. its this weird power play + control over orion bc he knows orion hates sentinel but needs to use megatron as a weapon to kill him, thus reinforcing megatrons view of "all cybertronians need to rely on strength only". jokes on him orion hates himself just enough to kill sentinel and then fight megatron. dramatic battle ensues and orion is killed, body thrown over sentinels body as a last "fuck you" from megatron.

but as megatron leaves to deal with the traitors in his faction a very not dead orion takes hold of the matrix from sentinels body and opens it. and thus is born optimus prime, who now comes back to beat megatrons ass in front of everyone else and is like "ok everyone who doesn't like megatron come with me" and thus i s split the autobots vs decepticons

ill do a part 2 on the autobots and decepticons specifically bc this was just orion/optimus vs megatron

[aggressivedaikons]

tfp oplita is literally just "me and the bad bitch i pulled by being autistic" change my mind

[just-absolutely-super]

DID OPTIMUS JUST FUCKING DIE?!

wow 3 episodes, i think that's a new record

[brobotsbro]

his legs are so fuckin skinny why do they look like that why are his shoulders so big and his thighs like toothpicks who did this and why. why did my jack up my boy like this

[random-kido]

Been watching some episodes of bw here and there and I find it incredibly funny how often dinobot insists Optimus is dead/dying every chance he gets but never in a "I'm going to take over as soon as you kick it" kind of way but in a stupid shakespearean "please die so I can murder for you. Please let me murder for you 🙏" kind of way

This dude has turned ride or die for Optimus and he's waiting for the die part to kick in so he can do dramatic revenge murders

[paradimeart]

Since you mostly draw TFA, idk about you but when I started watching TFA I never expected this wet cat college student version of Optimus to become my favourite Optimus. I just think he's a really cool interpretation of the character and I wish he was my dad tbh

SAME HES MY FAVORITE <3333 i grew up watching tfa but admittedly barely remembered any of it except for bee megatron prowl and blackarachnia b/c those were the ones i had toys of, i still have blackarachnia.. sadly the rest were lost in the Incident.......... i like tfa optimus a lot in part b/c how he contrasts w other versions of him (if ur wondering the other series ive seen is most of g1, beast wars, cyberverse, the bumblebee movie, earthspark and big chunks of tfp from when my dad was watching a couple years ago). i'd decided to watch tfa on a nostalgia fueled whim and went Whoa this is fucking Goord and well. now i have a nendoroid optimus prime and i've got legacy override and twitch on the way. but back to tfa op hes very fun to contrast w other versions bc hes just SO different. and hes like the last version of optimus that had a real personality ^_^ but the biggest thing i like abt tfa op is that hes just some fucking guy. he gets angry. he yells at people. the writers werent afraid of making him fall flat on his face. hes impulsive. hes a little crazy. hes a total bitch. hes petty. he has two of the worst exes possible. he talks stiff and formally around humans other than the sumdacs and i think its really cute. he told sentinel to shove it up his ass. when he gets really mad his fucking engine revs. hes perfect. he sucks. hes done nothing wrong. he is a chronic fuck up. hes a little bootlicker. he has a hero complex while also thinking of himself as a total loser. he died for 75 seconds once.

[lord-squiggletits]

I wish to love and appreciate idw optimus more too. But I also don’t want to read through the entirety of IDW 1.0. Can you please recommend me any specific issues/parts?

My best friend and fellow IDW Optimus lover made a post compiling all the comics with major story beats involving Optimus. Her list has a lot of the same things mine does, but also a lot more specific issues because she actually knows which specific issues of which series you can read specifically for ones focused on IDW Optimus. We don't agree on everything (I love some comics she dislikes and vice versa), but I would recommend her list simply because it's the most well-documented and thorough. Link I also have a lot of far less coherent but still genuine posts about IDW OP on my #idw op love tag.

As for specific parts I would recommend... since you don't want to read through all of IDW1, I'll go ahead and recommend you things based on in-universe chronological order rather than story release order, but if anything here interests you then I would recommend reading IDW1 in release order so that you get a better grasp of the story's context and how new lore was given out over time:

Chaos Theory and Police Action by James Roberts (The Transformers 2009 issues 22-23): I love love LOVE the way JRO writes Optimus talking to Megatron during the present day, it's very IDW-Optimus flavored because of how blunt, abrasive, and snappy Optimus is. There's a part in the comic where Megatron claims that he "knows [Optimus] better than anyone else," and he's right, but it's also true that Optimus knows Megatron well enough to see that he's bullshitting and it's very entertaining watching Optimus slowly lose his patience with him. I love the dialogue especially, no one (canon or fandom) has ever quite written the same IDW OP who's in this set of comics. It's also the most MegOP comic of all time because the sexual tension and the subliminal imagery of them doing BDSM together is unreal, plus it really captures their dynamic of two old soldiers who snap together with chemistry despite (or perhaps because of) being such long-time enemies. They just UNDERSTAND each other so well. Also, as a bonus point, Chaos Theory is where the pre-war lore for IDW1 began being published, so if you read Chaos Theory then the context for future pre-war lore makes a little more sense.

Shadowplay by James Roberts (More Than Meets the Eye issues 10-11): More pre-war lore that picks up where Chaos Theory/Police action left off. Important because it establishes a lot of IDW OP's character relationships, especially with "the Senator," Roller, and to a degree Ratchet and some minor side characters. I don't really know what to say about this besides it's just really fucking fun to read and features IDW OP getting to do cool shit like fight bad guys, investigate conspiracies, and do heists while also establishing one of his key character traits: being disastrously gay for suspicious men that he places entirely too much trust in to tell him what the right thing to do is.

Spotlight: Orion Pax by James Roberts: Okay, I'm really sorry for recommending JRO's stuff because it feels like favoritism and I don't even think JRO does the best version of IDW OP, it's just going in in-universe chronological order means that a lot of JRO stuff ends up first on the list. This one doesn't really have much of consequence in it and is honestly one of the weaker Spotlight issues, but like Shadowplay, it involves Orion Pax doing fun action shit and having way too much trust in a suspicious man (a new one from the suspicious man in Shadowplay).

The Autocracy Trilogy (Autocracy, Monstrosity, Primacy) by Chris Metzen: Oh my fucking god this is THE IDW Optimus to me, this trilogy is literally what made my ears perk up to even start liking IDW OP because it's what took me from "Optimus Prime, that's the guy who's the super awesome leader that everyone likes and is a paragron to everyone, yeah I know him" to "Oh.... holy shit this is such a good plot/worldbuilding, Optimus has so much CONFLICT and DRAMA with other people." It covers one of my favorite periods of the general Transformers formula, namely pre-war and early war plot events as conflicts come to a boiling point, there's political conflicts and personal conflicts, the planet is falling to shit and everyone is trying to escape and things are as depressing and scary as you would expect for a war that's literally about to consume a whole planet. I found the general plotlines to be gripping and intense (Autocracy is the weakest in this regard, but the writing gets better with each book) and I really like seeing how Optimus grapples with leadership. Especially the negative parts where people hate/fear him because of his association with Zeta's regime (the previous Prime, who Orion worked for), call his judgment into question, refuse his calls to action or waver in their faith in him, and so forth. I found it to be a really nuanced yet sympathetic view of IDW Optimus that made me fall in love with him. Because really, the thing that humanizes a character the most is making them flawed, and Autocracy trilogy Optimus is so incredibly flawed and conflicted. And also it shows him being shit on by other characters in a way that's well written in a plot that makes sense and doesn't feel like the entire plot is conspiring to shit all over him.

The Death of Optimus Prime by James Roberts and John Barber: This comic is basically the transition from phase 1 to phase 2, it establishes the branching plotlines of MTMTE and exRID, so this is another one of those comics that will help you understand IDW1 better if you want to read for more than just Optimus. Anyways, DoOP is great because it has a similar vibe to the Autocracy trilogy in that society is chaos and full of people who fucking hate Optimus' guts for the role he played in the war. You can also compare/contrast the way OP was before the war and early in the war versus the way he is after the war and see how much the war changed him (Chaos Theory also kind of is like this but it more shows bitchy Optimus specifically in his dynamic with Megatron). It also features a fair amount of Optimus Heroic Moments, Optimus Brooding, and Optimus being so fucking depressed he's literally sad when he wakes up and realizes he's not dead dude get some fucking therapy please I'm begging you--

Punishment by John Barber: This skips ahead quite a bit in the story but I think stands decently well on its own without having to understand the wider context. It's one of Barber's best-written stories and one of the only ones I've come back to reread for its own sake. It features Optimus trying to solve the murder-mystery of a bunch of Decepticons, featuring really cool plot conflicts like Optimus trying to navigate post-war society and the tensions that still linger from the Autobot-Decepticon war. I really like this one because it has that whole "not everyone loves OP and a lot of people hate him for justified reasons" thing that makes IDW OP a much more 3D character, PLUS it has some politics with the way Decepticons are treated post war. And I think it does really interesting things with Optimus in terms of showing how he DOES have this idealistic, merciful side that wants people to choose peace and letting go of vengeance, but of course it's not so easy to expect that of people after a 4 million year war. So when people inevitably choose violence, Optimus gets frustrated and angry and lashes out in a way that feels very real and understandable. It's a really good example of a comic that shows IDW OP in a nuanced way, showcasing both his virtues and flaws in a complicated situation that shows that there's no easy solution to these problems and no way for Optimus to escape without getting his hands dirty. Unlike future comics which involve OP being in complicated situations but instead the plot is super contrived and seems to overwhelmingly shit on OP without ever mentioning the very obvious ways that he could be defended, creating a story that's conceptually fascinating but incredibly mediocre in execution.

If I had to recommend any single one of these to read, I would recommend the Autocracy trilogy the most because it's literally the story that made me love IDW Optimus and made me realize "whoa, this guy is super nuanced and not what I expected of him." That's not to say that no other Optimi have depth and nuance, but I think the Autocracy trilogy was great for me personally as one of the first IDW1 comics I read. It struck a really good balance between "uh Optimus was part of some bad things that warrant being shit on" and "Optimus is struggling to overcome those bad associations he did, succeeding with some people and failing with others" and "Optimus is an optimist who has faith in others even when they don't have faith in themselves." Also, as a bonus, the Autocracy trilogy also features cunty murder-husband Megatron, an interesting character arc for Hot Rod, and the Dinobots as really interesting supporting characters (including their leader, Grimlock, having a cute veteran-rookie dynamic with Hot Rod that I wish we got more of).