#but i do try to have functioning furbies so i can turn them on and play with them that way

[cant-blink]

Favorite and Least Favorite Ghidorah Incarnations

Probably gonna regret making this post, but it’s been a long time coming, so let’s do it. I guess I should warn, not suitable for people sensitive to opinions that might be different from their own. Can’t believe I have to say that about a list of fav Ghidorahs, but alas...

Anyway, enjoy!

-

Let’s start with my Top 5 favorite Ghidorahs! Going from my most favorite down! All five of these are amazing and any one can easily become my #1 at any given time! :D But at the moment, my number 1 is...

Showa Ghidorah

Showa Ghidorah should come to nobody’s surprise, given how much I’ve been writing about him lately! I admit though, it wasn’t always like this. It took some time for him to grow on me, and he actually used to be one of my least favorite through design alone. But he has grown exponentially on me, and now I love everything about him! The manes are unique and I love the crescent moons on his heads too. His eyes are so big, and I feel they have more expression compared to other Ghidorahs. And the inspiration of the more traditional Eastern-style dragon is there in his face too. 

His backstory and personality, though, is what really got me to change my mind about the character. His personality is perfect as far as I’m concerned! Coming from space to destroy planets just for the lolz, cackling maniacally all the way! Even the fact he was mind-controlled was something for me to delve into in my stories, on how such a thing impacts the character. It really opened my eyes to the more subtle parts to his personality, like I realize that Ghiddy wants NOTHING to do with Earth. He tried to destroy it once and that failure is all he needed to know to stay away. The plot device of mind-control is used to keep him coming back in future movies! Even when he defeated Godzilla and Rodan, he chose to fly away back into space! There’s layers to his character if you look deep enough!

There’s just so much story-potential to this guy, I love it! Even in real life, he has an arc, going from one of my least favorites to being the top of this list! That’s definitely special!

Overall, a lot of love for this character, often wrestling with Legendary for the number 1 spot! Speaking of which...

Legendary Ghidorah

The one that started it all for me and they’re second on the list?! Blasphemy!! Nah, seriously though, Showa and Legendary really do often switch places for me all the time! Just right now, Showa has squeezed into the top spot. For now........

Anyway, Legendary Ghidorah needs no explanation for being a favorite incarnation of the character. Whilst Godzilla has always been a very vague presence in my life, KotM’s is what had me diving headfirst into the fandom, all because of Ghidorah. Their design is amazing, sleek and intimidating! The detail that they whip up storms just by flying creates an awesome menacing atmosphere everytime they’re on screen!

The personalities between the heads is unique, providing all sorts of material for my writer side to explore! Their backstory is left open for me to explore as well, like where they came from and how their species functions! It’s been a lot of fun! I may be slightly burnt out from how much I’ve written and posted about them, but make no mistake, I still ADORE this Ghidorah and I have them to thank for starting this whole page in the first place! 

Shin Ghidorah

That’s right, Shin Ghidorah exists in official TOHO canon and he needs more love!!

Shin Ghidorah was one I was introduced to not long after I learned Kamata-kun (oh, and Shin Godzilla) was a thing. With my obsession with Ghidorah, I wanted to know if there was a Ghidorah in the Shin universe and after some digging, I found that there was! Featured in a ride in Universal Studios Japan! And better yet, videos of it exists on youtube! I loved it the second I saw it! 

The design is amazing and surprisingly unique! This is because Shin Ghidorah was originally a scrapped concept for the original Showa Ghidorah! Like, Shin Ghidorah is basically an oversized three-headed Skullcrawler with wings! Because you see those “legs” he has? Those are actually ARMS!! Ghidorah could’ve been a giant Skullcrawler all this time!!

I also love his movements, oddly enough. He doesn’t just fly, he SWIMS though the air, something I don’t recall seeing in any other Ghidorah!

The only thing I don’t like about him... is the fact that he wasn’t around longer! A shame the ride is so short, I would’ve LOVED to see more of him in a movie. Oh well...

Grand/Cretaceous Ghidorah

Both are the same individual, so they’re both in this entry! I remember learning about him through a video talking about Ghidorah’s most sadistic moment and this was it. Grand Ghidorah kidnaps children with the sole intent to devour them, but he doesnt eat them right away, no. He holds them hostage to stew in their terror, returning to them every so often just to listen to their screams and cries. You know he’s enjoying every minute, knowing he’s torn families apart. Without a doubt, all this is just a game before he destroys the world as Ghiddys do. The way he toyed with Mothra Leo, leaving him to suffer after beating him to near-death. Or the way he possessed one of the Mothra twins to try to kill her own sister! It was great! He has such a regal design too! I can see why the fanbase have come to call him Grand King Ghidorah, he’s absolutely majestic. Shame he’s overshadowed, likely due to not being in a Godzilla movie.

Cretaceous Ghidorah has a more Western-dragon look to him and it works. He is basically a baby Ghidorah and he is so cute! His big eyes and squeaky roars, I love it! He also SOMEHOW made me feel sorry for my least favorite dinosaur! That's some true power right there!

The regeneration ability too, is amazing! This is likely where Legendary got the idea, but Grand does it better by regenning from just a small piece of tail left behind. Just badass, all around!

Void Ghidorah

A controversial pick, I know. I made a whole post about my detailed thoughts on Void Ghidorah, see here. Long story short: I think he has great potential, just suffered from piss poor execution. I love the idea of turning this alien dragon into an interdimensional GOD, with followers and everything. His full-body model looks amazing! He’s the biggest and most powerful Ghidorah yet, the biggest kaiju in the entire franchise in fact, and I don’t see him ever being topped. Granted, I dun really judge how much I like a kaiju based on how strong they are, but it’s a bonus here. He needs all the help he can get!

Adding more, his roars are insane, not just a combination of Showa and Heisei Ghidorah! But sounds that are truly otherworldly.

Void Ghidorah deserves love, and a better movie. Guess I’ll just settle on Godzilla: Star-eating Wings as the go-to Void Ghidorah video!

-

I have no real opinion on the new ride Ghidorah, as I have yet to watch the full "movie” and thus, can’t judge how well I’ll like it compared to the others. So for now, tis neutral.

-

Now I’m totally going to get hate for this list of “least favorite Ghidorahs”, but this is my opinion. I don’t like any of them, and they’re all outshined by my favorite non-Ghidorah kaijus, and some even being beaten by my “meh” kaijus! Anyway, this is gonna go from “best” least favorite to my “worst” least favorite. Here goes:

Heisei/Mecha-Ghidorah

Tis no secret that I don’t particularly like Heisei’s version of the character. I’ve mentioned it more than enough. Oddly though, I liked the design when I first looked through Ghidorahs from past movies, and I DISLIKED Showa Ghidorah’s design. How things have changed when I learned more about both of them... 

Now I’ve grown to not like Heisei very much. They took Ghidorah as an alien dragon that destroys planets for fun, and turned him into pets that I’m sure are meant to be cute, but just remind me of Furby’s in how creepy they are (tis not the good kind of creepy either!). I like the scrapped idea of him being an attempt to clone Showa Ghidorah from DNA left behind when he destroyed Venus, so I keep that canon in my head just for some attempt to like him more. Tis why I call him “Kitty Ghiddy” whenever I write him, I legit cannot take him seriously. Such a shame that he’s basically replaced Showa Ghiddy on merchandise, so it’s harder for me to find said Showa Ghiddy because of this thing. Oh, well.

Oh, and he replaced the BIDIBIDI of Showa with generic Rodan calls. And he also turns into a good guy at the end of the movie with Mecha-Ghidorah, and.... well, go down to the next entry for my thoughts on stuff like that.

GMK Ghidorah

He’s a good guy here. They nerfed the fuck out of him by having him be a juvenile (not even done well like Cretaceous Ghidorah), and turned him into a good guy. Granted, he was never meant to be in this movie in the first place and it shows. I’m a villain kind of person, and Ghidorah’s evilness is one of the biggest draws to his character for me. So taking that away... It just doesn’t work for me. It says something when I like GODZILLA more than Ghidorah in a movie. His design is okay, so at least he has that going. But...

Desghidorah

I really don’t like the design of the character. That’s literally it. I think four-legged Ghidorahs are very awkward looking; Ghidorah has a lot going on as is, three heads, two wings, two legs, two tails. Adding more legs... it’s just too much going on that tips the scales from ‘awesome’ to ‘messy’ in my mind. I can’t explain too well why I really don’t like the four-legged look to Ghidorahs, I just really don’t. But credit, he does pull off the look slightly better than the last one on my list.

AND MY LEAST FAVORITE GHIDORAH AND LIKELY TO GET A MOB ON ME IS.....

Keizer Ghidorah/Monster X

“An awkward horse” is what someone described him to me as, and I can’t help but agree. Again, that four-legged look breaks it for me but somehow, he looks EVEN MORE awkward than Des. I just can’t look passed it. Maybe it’s the front legs, or the wings looking too small for his body. Des just LOOKS a bit more natural in his four-legged-ness. 

Making it worse for me, Keizer has a second form that I REALLY don’t like: Monster X. They don’t even resemble each other. I can’t help but feel MX was supposed to be his own Kaiju, but they felt pressured to make Ghidorah the final boss so they combined them. Dunno if that’s the case, but it feels like that to me. Not even getting into the “how the hell does a dragon come out of THAT, where does it all GO when he changes back?”. And the biggest thing: I don’t like human-looking characters. I don’t care for human characters at all in any sort of media, or anything that resembles humans too closely. I skip human scenes entirely just to get to the monsters. Tis why I don’t really care for gijinkas either. As far as I’m concerned, I like the kaiju for being kaiju, and making them human just takes away all things interesting.

If Ghidorah kept everything intact about his personality, but you made him human... I wouldn’t even give his character a second glance, much less devote my Tumblr page to him! But yeah, tangent over. Monster X just looks too human for my tastes. 

Plus, tis hard to compete for my attention when you’re in the same movie as FW Gigan! It says something when Showa Gigan and Showa Ghidorah can share the screen and I love them both, but FW Gigan completely outshines FW Ghidorah...

-

So there we go, a complete list of my thoughts for every Ghidorah incarnation that I can think of. Hopefully I didn’t miss any. Again, these are my opinions and you’re free to like whatever Ghidorah. I’mma sleep now.

[ugosidatsukola]

A gay ass doodle of my nightguard n Springy to go w/ some writing because I’m too lazy to do a whole mini comic rn  vvvv

“Here, siddown and I’ll put something on TV.” Grimm mumbled, setting aside a tray that sported an assortment of tools it’d brought from the garage. 

The tall rabbit it was speaking to had no reason to object, instead settling down with a grunt on the brown leather sofa and immediately reclining. 

The ex-Fazbear’s Fright employee had since taken him into its home- well, their new home, actually. The decision had been hasty- after the fire, it didn’t seem safe to keep around the location, risking getting caught with the now-free animatronic. Grimm hadn’t caused the fire, it was more of a lucky break- but avoiding a lawsuit or blame falling on it was uh, the best outcome here. It posted a lease takeover ad and slipped away once the conditions aligned. 

They’d roadtripped home, back to where it’d grown up, a cozy mountain town where the houses were tucked along blue-tinted ridges, where you could choose to rent in-town, or slip away into the privacy of the peaks and forests to a more nature-immersed setting. Rent was nice, if you could manage to lease a place before the college students snapped them up. Of course, they’d settled on a little cabin-esque house that offered more privacy. 

Springtrap had to adjust to the kind of peace the Smokies had brought. There wasn’t the bustle of constant customers, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable quiet, as opposed to the decades alone in a backroom. He was on edge, unfamiliar with this kind of life and expecting things to take a turn for the worse once more, and Grimm saw that- but the tension subsided as the days passed, and the wildlife visited the house. 

Bird watching. He liked bird watching, and the little bird-identification book Grimm had given him, so he could spend days on the deck of the house watching the animals frequent the feeders he’d help hang and fill. He’d toss apple chunks to passing deer, and leave out dishes of leftover eggs, fruit, and fat trimmings from meals for the fox, raccoons and opossum. 

“Here, this belonged to my grandmother. We don’t talk anymore, but if she could meet you, I’m sure she’d want you to have it. She really gets people, stubborn as she is.” It had said, as he turned the bird watching book over and thumbed through it with interest, squinting at the letters with weakened eyes. “I’ll get you reading glasses, don’t worry.”

...

When he’d finally snapped out of his thoughts, there was the chatter of some video game streamer, cackling in the background. He also liked that, watching funny people play dumb games, listening to Grimm’s occasional laughs or snarky commentary over it. 

It was prepping some kind of rust-cleaning solution. This was the second tune-up session they’d had, the first having covered basics- cleaning him up, removing that... parasite. That parasite resided in a glass case on the coffee table now, which he took some humor in. This time, it was functionality, though. Making sure his joints could move comfortably, removing rust that threatened the inner workings, repairing wiring. 

“Mouth open, rusty.” It joked, reaching up to brush those sharp nails against his chin. He liked that feeling. 

“Okay, scruffy.” He quipped back with a chuckle, obliging the request with a creak as his jaw slid open. 

He tried to focus on the TV as it worked quietly, setting in rust remover on every exposed part of metal it could get to. It didn’t complain about the job, even though he could tell he posed some difficulty. It, however, just playfully swatted him and told him not to be weird when he had snorted idly as it worked at the more awkward parts of his frame, and poked its hands through the ragged holes in his body. 

It was while they let the rust remover sit that it was inspecting the rest of him, assessing what could be done. 

“I dunnnnnnnno, see... I guess we could probably douse you in fabric cleaner. I don’ know  how I feel about stripping off your suit n’ soaking it. You’re not like a Furby or somethin’... Would that hurt?” It was prodding at his broken ear, inspecting shredded and loose wiring. A finger touched a stray wire and he twitched, like a muscle spasm. Grimm winced. “-Shit, sorry bun.” 

“Uhh... not sure, if that... would hurt. Never tried.” He shrugged plainly. 

“Well, you’re not sun-bleached, obviously, but I don’t know if we’d be able to restore you to your original color even so... Not without me making new parts n’ patches. I can clean out the dust and dirt but you’re stained. What I can do for now is brush out these pills in your fleece and get those bloodstains out. You’ll be a fuzzy cuddly rabbit again.” 

Springtrap stiffened a little, an uncertain look on his face, the best he could manage. 

“Mmm, you didn’t like something I just said, what’s up?” It clued in immediately to his body language. 

“Th’ thing... about parts.” He mumbled, reaching up to touch the broken ear. He stopped short, trying not to get rust remover from his exposed fingers on the fabric, but the gesture was there. “I... dunno. If I want alla’ that.” 

“...I just... I think. That I like tha’ wear... Tha’ damage. It’s me. What he did t’ me, but it’s still th’ original... me.” The rabbit continued, voice rasping but still carried with emotion. Sentimental value. 

Grimm gave a humored huff and reached up to take his chin gently again. 

“I’m only doin’ all of this cuz’ you asked me to clean you up some more, not because I wanna change you or make you some sparkly new model you’re not. I’m not gonna do anything you don’t want. You call the shots here, Bonnie.” 

He didn’t have a heart to get racing, but he had those phantom memories of what it was like to be flustered, hot-faced, heart jittery. Those little traces of what it had been like to be alive weren’t his, but he took them gladly, as some kind of simulation of the real feeling. Those attributes, phantom feelings from memories of touch, taste, texture from William had merged with him- It was the little benefits from the bad. 

“I love you whatever way you choose to look, it doesn’t change anything for me. Mainly I just wanna make sure you’re comfortable and happy with yourself.” 

The rabbit tilted his head, grin seemingly wider than before as eyelids fluttered shut for a minute with a click. He gave a little, wheezy sigh and leaned forward to press his nose to its forehead. 

“Oh, you big gay lug.” It laughed, moving in turn to push a kiss to his own torn forehead. 

“...I’m... alright with th’ cleanin’, though. Like the sound’a bein’ a fuzzy cuddly rabbit again.” He chuckled. 

“Oh, good, because I love using this brush.” It was already in hand, ready to start teasing out the fabric pills. “Let’s get you lookin fuzzy again before I gotta scrub off that cleaner, bun.”

[themockingcrows]

Companionship Through Circuitry ch. 6: Setbacks

Bro/Hal cw: blood, violence, deathclaws, and a generally bad day in the wasteland

Journeys are never without their inherent dangers. When you're living in the wasteland, it's to be expected. Doesn't make them suck any less, though.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20942408/chapters/64071430

     I spy with my little eye-

     “Hal, pick a new game already.”

     I can assure you this is the best game to play out here.

     “Fine,” Bro said, exhausted. They’d been traveling for days on the remains of the highway by now and there was no sign of a proper township. He smelled, his back and legs hurt, and despite having plenty of food water was always a precious commodity. He also had at least four letters to send by now, including a few sketches and schematics he’d designed after toying with the Furby body some more, in case Dave wanted to get his hands on a little guardian bot of his own. The kid was smart, even he’d be able to handle basic scripting to make a functional system for it. Surely someone else he was buddies with could figure out an AI of sorts for it, too. 

     True, it would have been easier to follow another path by now, but following the main point of the highway just seemed the best, most direct route for him. Who’s to say it was brahmin who made the trodden paths that led further into the wastes, or humans? What if it was mutants, or worse, deathclaws stalking the wastelands? Scuttling parties of mole rats or vicious dogs.

     Would you like to know what I spy or not, Bro.

     “I don’t want to know, but I’ve got a feelin’ you’re gonna tell me anyway aren’t you.”

     Correct! I’ll give you a few hints.

     Bro groaned in irritation.

     “A bloatfly,” he guessed off the bat.

     No, though it is annoying.

     “As annoyin’ as you? Why isn’t there a fuckin’ mute option on these shades..”

     Your second hint is that it’s bipedal.

     That perked him up somewhat. Bro scanned the horizon further off for signs of a city or outpost, a wanderer, a courier. Anyone. Instead what he saw was the lanky, sharply pointed edges of a juvenile deathclaw. A definite pain in the ass, but nothing he couldn’t handle.

     “...And how long have we been in deathclaw territory for, Hal?”

     Uncertain, my saved map mentions shopping centers, not deathclaws.

     “Ooh, shopping centers?” he said. “Put a peg in it, if we find somewhere to trade soon we might do a run back to grab some more supplies for trade and keepin’.”

     The deathclaw is still nearby, you know.

     “I can avoid it if I want,” Bro said, taking out his sword. A juvenile would take some fast work, but he knew he was good for dispatching the monstrosities, and people paid good money for their clawed hands, even the small ones. Hell, even he wanted some bits off of one sometime, though mostly for show. How sick would a deathclaw fang necklace be, after all?

     You appear to be approaching the small one instead of fleeing.

     “Watch and learn, Hal,” Bro said as he shifted his weight and began to run. Aching feet or not, his boots cut into the crisp cooked layer of topsoil and sank ever so slightly with each step. The deathclaw noticed him and turned, beginning to awkwardly run towards him, long limbs ungainly but just as deadly as an adult. They met in the middle, Bro’s sword singing off the armored hide of the creature’s forearms, taking a chunk with it as he went. The deathclaw lunged for his middle with a shrill noise, catching a chunk of shirt on the end of one of its spiky hands, but just missing his tender vitals. He turned, and used the momentum to slice at the space where its behorned head connected to its body, the sword sliding against softer skin. Staggered, the small deathclaw stepped forward, then tottered back unsteadily as it began to bleed out.

     Bro lifted a foot and kicked the creature backwards to its spiny back, then followed with the sword to spear its chest, cranking the blade to the side once it glanced off a rib, forcing downwards till it stopped moving. Planting his boot on its chest, he yanked his sword free and swung it in the air a few times to rid it of blood, and smirked. Fuck, that felt good. Nothing like taking out a little nightmare to give a nice rush of adrenaline and dopamine. Hell, he wouldn’t even say no to a smoke or a drink right now, ride that high long as he could.

     Excellent, now how do you intend to deal with the mother?

     “Mother?” Bro asked, about a half second before he felt something plow into him like a freight train, sending him flying and pain searing through his right shoulder blade. He landed flat on his face and skidded before rolling over, hand on his sword raising it defensively and other hand reaching for his gun.

     Shit. Shit, shit, this was definitely a mother death claw, the hide was darker than usual. He must’ve just killed one of her brood. Not a good look for someone not interested in dying in the middle of nowhere. He fired a quick two shots, missing the first and nailing her in the left eye  with the second, though it only seemed to make her more enraged after a brief second of shaking her head. She raised a hand and slashed downwards where Bro was scooting backwards, forcing him to block with a weakened grip before the second slash sang home across his chest, blood spurting where her claws shredded flesh and fabric alike. One of the straps of Bro’s bags was severed, leaving him half dragging it as he continued to try crawling backwards, firing till his clip was empty.

     Hal was urgently trying to tell him something, but Bro couldn’t hear anymore, couldn’t think, could only focus on the burning in his chest and the taste of copper in his mouth. Things were flashing through his mind as he stared down the deathclaw, who was raising both of her hands for a double slash that he wouldn’t be able to block in the slightest. Things he still wanted to do, to say. Memories.

     Dave the day he left home to travel to the city, bag on his back and barely a look back as he wove past the traps. Dave as a lanky tween, perched by his side on the counter top as he cooked an omelette for them both, telling him a joke that he still didn’t think was funny but that he’d laughed at anyway. Dave at five, sitting on his lap as he fiddled with a new project that would eventually become a birthday present game for him, looking up at him with big red eyes almost full of tears when he refused to tell him what he was working on.

     Dave, still struggling to put weight on as an infant as Bro kept him warm on the sofa through a bout of fever, trying to coax him into eating just a bit more from the bottle, wondering if he should make the trek to find a doctor or keep hunkering down and hoping it would work itself out. Being scared out of his fucking mind about this tiny, sick thing in his arms and on his chest, worried he’d break if he moved wrong.

     This wasn’t fear he felt. It was acceptance. Dave being sick or hurt was fear, even when he’d been the one to hurt him in the preparations he’d run repeatedly over the years. A deathclaw? This was his just rewards for being cocky without backup. He wanted to have time to apologize to Dave, like he always really meant to.

     He wanted to apologize to Hal, too, for not managing to take him to get his body. For getting his hopes up about Dirk and then dying with him in the middle of nowhere. Maybe the shades would get crushed by the deathclaw after he died, spare him much misery. They’d both just go out like a candle in the breeze and nobody would be any the wiser.

     A shot rang out, and blood spurted from the side of the deathclaw’s head. She staggered, stomping her sharp feet on his abdomen and legs as she adjusted her balance and snarled in alarm at the new threat. More shots, each one more precise than the last, till finally one hit the same eye he’d shot earlier, and the beast went down on top of him. Though his ears were still ringing, Bro could feel his pulse slowing down and everything going darker as the feeling of faintness took over.

     Bro. Bro!

     “Sorry, Dave,” he mumbled, blood on his lips and eyes unfocusing as red eyes stared at him. No, wait, not Dave. “Hal..”

     AMBROSE.

     The last thing Bro was aware of was a high pitched repeated beeping pattern ringing out from the shades on his face, a signal he knew so well. Anyone out here could recognize SOS when they heard it, but Bro couldn’t care anymore who did hear it.

     Darkness claimed him.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     “...p. See? I think he’s waking up! Jake, push more fluids!”

     “I’m going as fast as I can, don’t you think he’d bl-........”

     “...ver if we don’t. Sometimes you have to do dangerous things in a time of crisis, just pu-...”

     “...rry chap, we’re doing our best. Why were you playing with a deathclaw mot-...”

     “...’s going under again, God damn it why don’t we have more gauze!”

     “...aid last time we wouldn’t need that many, let me check his ba-...”

     “....tting sick, stupid coat, ugh! Hand me a clo-...”

     “...ehozaphat he’s rolling in meds and chems! Lookit all this, it’s a kings ran-...”

     “...ab whatever you can, inject him with at least two, and hand the alcohol to me so I ca-...”

     “...nk he’ll make it? He’s in an awful way, Jade. We’re still at least a few miles out fro-...”

     “...re he’ll make it, we just need to hur-...”

     ...ve him. Please. Pulse is falling at an alarming ra-...

     “...re trying our best, believe me, it’s up to him if we ca-...”

     ...n’t lose him to-...

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

     When Ambrose woke, it was to clean sheets and a bright light coming from a window. He reached up to touch his face and panicked to realize the shades weren’t on him any longer, looking around as he tried to sit stark upright to look around. Tried being the correct term, considering when he got a few inches upright his abdomen and chest sang with burning pain and forced him to lay back on an aching shoulder. Sighing an exhale, Bro took the room and himself into account.

     The room itself looked to be a standard medical setup for a scap town, shelves of supplies and a few more beds shoved into the same room with him, a shabby gray curtain sectioning the space off from another area. He was laying on a cot with the aforementioned clean sheets, which were a hell of a commodity, and wrapped what felt like head to toe in bandages. His chest had padding underneath that seemed fresh enough, as well as his abdomen, and another bandage seemed to be wrapping his shoulder. His forearms had bandages, a shift of his legs revealed smaller areas of wrappings and-

     Bro snatched the sheets and lifted them upwards, looking down towards his groin in worry. Okay. Phew. Dick still there and in one piece, no need to panic. Thank fuck.

     Were you honestly more concerned for your dick than me? Came a voice from the top of the shelves, arms folded in and tucked at an angle to not get damaged or in the way.

     “To be fair, I’ve been attached to my dick longer than you,” Bro said, giving another try at this standing thing and getting as far as sitting upright before he had to stop, dizzy. He was also connected to an IV he realized, two bags half drained already and the tether attached to his arm carefully with another bandage and some tape to keep it from moving. One of the bags was unmistakably blood. “Where’s my stuff.”

     I’m fine, thank you for asking. I can really tell you were concerned for my safety after being nearly disemboweled. I can also tell you’re just dying to know how you went about not dying.

     “My stuff, Hal.”

     In the other room, safe and fucking sound.

     “Thank you. Gimme a second and I’ll come get you,” Bro said, running a hand through his hair. He realized with surprise that it was clean instead of gritty with sand and dust and blood, freshly washed like the rest of him. Someone had taken care to wash him thoroughly it seemed. Hell, even his fingernails were spotless. Shocking. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been this squeaky clean, it was almost a shame he didn’t remember it. “How long have I been out?”

     Almost a week.

     “Jesus,” Bro rasped as he finally stood up on shaky fawn legs, reaching for the IV stand for balance before making his way over to the shelf, naked as the day he was born save for the bandages. He groped for the shades hurriedly when he started feeling faint again, and had just grabbed them when the curtain pulled back.

     A tall girl with dark skin, shocking green eyes and long wild hair tied back into evenly sectioned ponytails stood owl eyed behind large round glasses with a single crack in the left lens, a stethoscope around her neck and familiar leftover military gear covering her from head to toe. She frowned, and immediately rushed forward to grab Bro by the elbow and middle of his back, steering him back to bed.

     “How long have you been awake!” she asked. “Why didn’t you wait till someone came to help you? Are you in pain? Do you need any water? Food?”

     “Few minutes,” Bro said, more than a little startled. He sat and covered himself soon as he could, but the young woman didn’t back off in the slightest, swooping close to shine a pocket light in his eyes, checking his pupils.

     “Has there been any bleeding? Any night terrors? Do you have any numbness or weaknesses?”

     “I feel like shit, but otherwise,” Bro said, grimacing and jerking his head back from her grasp as she turned the light off.

     “I’ll get Jake to bring some lunch in for you, I’m glad you’re not running on glucose anymore. Actually, I’m glad you’re running at all,” she said with a grin. Her canines were strangely sharp looking. “My name is Jade Harley, and I’m half of the reason you’re alive right now.”

     “Is the chap who tried to cuddle the wrong end of a mother deathclaw awake yet?” asked another voice from beyond the open curtain.

     “He is! Get some of those mirelurk cakes and mac and cheese, please?”

     “I’ll bring some of that slackjaw jerky too, I imagine he’s half starved for real food,” said the male out of sight, before Bro heard distant sounds of dishes and metal scraping metal.

     “...So what, you a doctor?” he guessed.

     “We both are, in our own right. My cousin, Jake English, is the one who spotted you first out there. The primary reason you’re alive, however, is because we’re both sharpshooters! There wouldn’t have been much left to save if we hadn’t pegged that bitch into the dirt,” she said enthusiastically.

     Bro’s lip twitched in amusement. This person couldn’t have been older than her early twenties, but she was a doctor? And a sharpshooter?

     “So who really saved me?”

     Jade’s smile sharpened somewhat, looking predatory. “I don’t think I’d tease like that when you’re still so weak. All it’d take is a cushion to take you out right now, I bet.”

     “Sorry, just. You’re so young…” he trailed off as another figure entered the room with a dinner tray. This person didn’t look much older than Jade if he was a day, face clean shaven and hair styled but messy, standing at about the same height. He looked much more solid, though, shoulders broad and chest straining a little at the fatigues shirt he wore, and his demeanor seemed much sweeter than his cousin at first glance. More innocent somehow, or somehow less aware of the intensity of their surroundings.

     “Here you are, I’ll get some juice for you as well in a few ticks. First time I’m seeing this much of your outside as opposed to your inside since we got you scrubbed down!” he laughed, setting the tray on Bro’s lap. The food smelled fresh and was warm on his thighs beneath the sheet, mirelurk cakes looking greasy and delicious, mac and cheese that smelled plenty creamy from the box, and some kind of soft looking jerky rubbed with spices that made his mouth water as much as the fresh stuff before him

     “Try to eat slow,” Jade warned him as Jake trotted back out of view for a moment and came back with juice as promised. “Hope apple’s okay! It’s what we’ve got.”

     “Apple’s fine,” Bro promised, tucking into the mac and cheese first, eyes closing in bliss. Salty, creamy, rich. He could feel it flooding his system already, a body starved for nutrients beyond the bare minimum of functioning and safety. Once he shoveled a second bite into his mouth, he slid the shades onto his face and grinned a bit when haughty red eyes looked at him. Hal was clearly annoyed, angry even, but those eyes were full of concern too.

     “We’ve got tea too, though not everyone enjoys what we brew,” Jake chuckled.

     “Their loss, it’s delicious,” said Jade with a shake of her head.

     Scans show temperature readings as normal. Pulse normal. Pupils overly reactive to light, but not abnormal.

     “I hope he didn’t talk your leg off,” Bro said. “He’s kind of annoyin’.”

     You have terminal stupidity, I propose an immediate lobotomy to put you out of my misery.

     “Will you knock it off for ten seconds and let me eat before rippin’ me a new one?”

     It’s true. The doctor said so. You’re just stupid.

     “You were snuck up on by a creature twice your size in the wasteland,” Jade pointed out with a smirk. “Though I’m glad Hal’s giving you a positive reading. He was quite useful while we were saving you.”

     “How much did he talk,” Bro wondered aloud.

     “A bit,” she admitted. “We discussed why you were traveling, though he wasn’t that talkative about details. He let us know about Dave when you kept saying his name, in case you didn’t make it. He wanted us to be sure to let him know, and to send your other letters.”

     “You’re a long way from home,” Jake chimed in, taking a seat on the nearest bed to talk while Bro shook his head and went back to eating. “But it’s all fine now. Er.. mostly.”

     “How much do I owe you,” Bro said almost immediately, breaking a mirelurk cake in half with his fork before stuffing it into his mouth. He’d worry about manners when he wasn’t sitting in a room with two strangers who’d apparently saved his life and seen him in more detail naked than anyone else had in years.

     “We’ll figure out caps in a little bit,” Jade said. “You’re going to need to stay here a while longer either way, and we had to use a lot of your medical supplies.”

     “Helped ourselves to a little bit of your food as well, but mostly it was the chems and supplies we needed at the moment. Lucky for us you were damn near carrying a medics inventory on your back!”

     “Yeah, I just got through a vault,” Bro said. “Place hadn’t been looted yet till I got there.”

     “A vault!” Jake interjected excitedly. “Was it like they say, all sterile and eerily perfect?”

     “It was full of the people who used to live there, and they weren’t human anymore,” Bro said simply.

     It was quite a show to see that many feral ghouls get put down in one go.

     “Oh, that doesn’t sound very dapper.”

     “Vaults rarely are. They’re either fulla deadly shit, full of a shit load’a nothin’, or fulla people who don’t want you to bother them because you’re all gross from bein’ outside and they know you just want the goodies they’ve got.”

     “My grandpa was from a vault,” Jade said with a grin. “He’s the one who raised both of us, taught us everything we know.”

     They traded conversation for a time while Bro continued to eat, though it waned when he finished and looked exhausted, surprised that the very act of eating took so much energy out of him. Jake took the tray away and Jade performed a followup examination as Bro settled back tiredly on the pillows. Before she left, he requested his belongings, or what was left of them.

     He had an important letter to write.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Bro’s head ached sickly by the time he finished writing the letter, nearly as much as his heart, and his eyes were wet. He didn’t dare to rub at them, nor to even draaw attention to them, but the fact he’d cried while pouring his fucking soul out onto the page wasn’t something he’d admit to anyone. Hal, bless him, remained quiet aside from occasionally offering a correction on a phrase to make it sound better. At first Bro had resented the dictation, but found the changes in wording to be a positive thing, eliminating double meanings. What he ended up with was the letter he’d envisioned sending Dave when the deathclaw was about to do the killing strike, and the fewer mistakes and misunderstandings that could arise from it was for the better.

     It took another few days of resting, eating, and conversing with the doctors before Bro was strong enough to go for walks around the town. First thing was first: he paid express for his letter bundle to be sent to Dave along with some money, the most recently written one marked URGENT in bright red stamped letters. Secondly, he got himself a cola and drank the entire thing in one go. The doctors had been kind enough to spot him some clothes, since his shirt was ruined and his pants were scrapped in the moment by bloodshed and emergency bandage use on top of their general wear and tear. The down side was he hated fatigues… but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

     He was settled with another soda at the little bar and grill early one morning, having shared breakfast with Jade and Jake once more (his own recipe this time, which only Jake seemed enthusiastic about once they’d tasted the product), but wanting to just sit outside and enjoy the early morning before the sun really got going on cooking everything in the wasteland to death. Hal was quiet, watching as well he presumed based on the little target viewers moving around every time someone moved.

     What do you plan to do if you don’t get a reply?

     “Keep goin’,” he said with a shrug, taking a sip. “I’m not expecting a reply to any of my letters, but he knows which way we’re headed if he wants to write back. Kid knows how to use a map of settlements to send ahead of the curb if he wants to.”

     ...I was worried I lost you too, back there. But you’ve never once apologized to me yet.

     “Apologized for what?”

     For nearly making me watch someone I care about die. At least the first one had the decency to not die while wearinng me on his fucking face.

     Bro was pensive and stretched his long legs out from his seat before tipping it back on its hind legs, balancing in place as he took another sip.

     “I promise I won’t die while wearin’ you, then.”

     You f-

     “I wouldn’t wanna hurt you at all.”

     … That is acceptable I guess.

[childrenoftheentity]

So like; how did everyone find out that they could "put buns in the oven"? I imagine that it was a surprise to everyone

Mod Pixel:

Each of our fan children lives in a different “area” of the Fog, separated by which one of us made them. Each place has its own set of rules for the people of the Fog. In my area? No one knows the what rules are for sure, but it seems likely that the Entity would react badly to learning about the interacting lifes of the Killers and Survivors, as well as the children that they may of found or created.

There seems to be two ways for children to be created in this area of the Fog; Biologically or Randomly. Biologically is exactly what it sounds like, when a man and woman falls in love and so forth. But Randomly means that the child may of just *appeared* in the Fog. In the outskirts where there is no trees, no trials, no nothing. Just emptiness, fog, bits of trash, and sometimes a baby.

Before both ways were known by the folks of the Fog, they were learning to live better lifes outside of the trials. At first, Killers and Survivors coexisted, not bothering one another and each staying in their own clearly separated group. But after some time some started interacting in non-violent ways. Passing by, a killer and survivor may nod, acknowledging one another. Or both chuckling at a silly situation happening in front of them. And soon, many were treating eachother like friends and neighbors, seeing through disturbing or “inferior” features.

But after some time learning, growning, existing, and sometimes, being together in the Fog passed, a child appeared.

Quite literally, a baby just appeared in the outskirts of the Fog, and the Entity was the first to find it. It’s curiosity was peaked by the child, how could a human be so small? And so loud being so small... it looked like a mixture of two others in this world...

After being shown and “gifted” the small “mixture”, Danny and Michael hid the baby from everyone else, they didn’t know how others would react, and if the Entity learned more about her, then it could surely bestow more chaos in this already chaotic world. (Although Michael didn’t care if that happened. He just didn’t want others to take the little girl more then anything. She was his.) But after a bit, the two showed the baby to a few Killers they trusted.

Although, Max didn’t know how to keep a secret.

After word got out, everyone went ballistic. They all wanted to see the little girl and protect her from everybody else, but after everyone got to see her, and all agreeing to banish Freddy far away before he even knew of her existence, it finally calmed down, no Entity involved.

Although, thanks to her, many had the thought of children in their heads. They thought, why? Then, how? And soon, people started to experiment.

Mod Furby:

As Pixel said, our fan children each exist in a different version of the fog. In my version they're not really "born" in a traditional sense but created by the Entity itself.

In my fog, the Entity figures out that it doesn't have to go out searching for new killers and survivors all the time. As an omnipresent being, it realizes it can use the ones that already exist to create new ones. So the Entity begins taking some of the strongest killers and survivors and combining their DNA and such to create even stronger killers and survivors.

Bodily functions such as periods don't work in this fog, meaning people can't give birth. So instead the Entity simply creates the child itself, almost being a surrogate for the two people it chooses. So once Entity has created the baby, it will be sent to the fog and it's parents/someone else will take care of the baby so it can survive, or it will die and Entity will have to start over.

Most of the killers either ignore the baby, leaving it to fend for itself, or if they do happen to have a heart, will try to care for it. It's the same for survivors, although they're more likely to take the baby in since they have stricter morals. The babies themselves will grow up, but once they turn 21 they stop aging, like everyone else in the fog. They also need food in order to grow until they're 21 and the only food to be found in the fog are crows, vultures, water etc. So it's not exactly pleasant growing up there.

Due to the children having to eat, they still have some bodily functions, or at least those that deal with digestion. Growing up in the Entity, many of the children are raised to be killers or survivors from a young age so that they remain useful to the Entity and aren't taken away.

Being "taken away" basically means that the Entity will murder "failed attempts" where the child is too weak or isn't useful in continuing sacrifices. Out of fear of this, almost all the children are forced to become killers or survivors as soon as possible in order to survive.

The killers and survivors were both surprised at the appearance of babies in the fog. The killers soon understood that it was part of Entity's will and did as they were told or were disobedient and punished for it. The survivors were startled at what seemed to be a new test, but warmed up to the idea of new life in the fog. In a way it reminds them of home.

Mod Dina:

Well, for my au it went a lil smth like this:

basically when the first child came into the fog, it was not a surprise, hence she was older than a child, an older teenager to be precise, around 17. But when the first biological child of two people was born, then people realized that it was possible to start a family in the fog. They were shocked, but they knew they had to be careful; where would the children stay in the fog? Who would care for them during trials? Even with all these questions, people begun families and took care of children, finding things out along the way.

[moonsfurbyden]

Before you read most of this, go check out the other full videos of Rizmo on my Instagram. It helps to see these in action, and with sound.(don’t worry, I don’t talk!) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6GdAwNglFb/?igshid=10iftw61w09cd here’s a handy dandy link for ya!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Moon bethian (@ofthemoonian) on Dec 15, 2019 at 9:06am PST

So. This is kinda my official review of Rizmo I guess. I got a lot to say about this little dude.

I suggest watching these with sound on btw, while I don’t talk it helps with what I’m about to explain.

Let me start this off with, I do not intend to throw Rizmo away, or break him. Ever. I treat him with just as much care as I treat my furby’s. I wouldn’t of bought Rizmo if I wasn’t at least interested in him visually and wanted him for that. I do like Rizmo visually and a little tiny bit interaction wise. I don’t hate him. Keep this in mind.

Now, onto the ups and downs.

I can at least say that he does do as the box suggests. Sings, evolves, etc etc. I think the biggest downfall about Rizmo as a whole is that other then the basic knowledge I had no way to know what I was in for. Hardly anyone has reviewed this toy that ISNT a child. Only one good video is what I could find with adults in it. And that’s it. So going into getting him I didn’t know how interactive he was or what he felt like or anything.

You get him, he’s a ball, with two little light up eyes. Over tune he grows a tail, and after that he evolves into what you see here. This whole function of evolving works amazingly well, the problem is that I don’t see a kid actually maintaining interest long enough. To evolve Rizmo you need to play minigames and sing(or talk in my case) to him. Which comes down to either rolling him around a lot for the mini game, or singing(or talking loudly) into his face. This took me about a hour and a half(or around that mark)to grind through. And that was me nonstop trying to evolve him. Most kids don’t have the patience for this, especially since the only true interaction you get from the toy is the minigames and singing and such. It’s bare bones basic. The only ‘interaction’ mechanically you get is he reacts to being bounced around. Nothing else. No tummy sensors, to head sensors.

And I will directly begin to compare him to Furby’s. Two generations in fact. The 1998 lines, and the 2005 lines. Both of these toys can interact in a multitude of ways. And learn over time. It’s a pet simulator to be honest and it keeps the kids interested cause it feels like they actually are interacting with you, as a person. Not just being there ready to be interacted with. Additionally it’s a small peeve but Rizmo hardly moves. His ears and tail are static. His front paws(hands?)are just fabric. And the only pieces that move are his feet, and his jaw. I friendly basic movements compared to something such as say, a 2016 furby. Who wiggles around at such break neck speeds sometimes they get unbalanced and tip over. Even something like the older 1998 furby’s are incredibly expressive, just with eyes, ears, and beak. And a slight shifting movement you can get a ton more expression. They don’t feel static. For the price of 40$, this is just... incredibly basic. Furby’s of the 1998 era were 20$ back then and very pricey, and still are today and are worth their money more.

As a extra extra side note, most people complained and still do, that original 1998 furby’s are LOUD. While I can agree some are incredibly loud, they have nothing on Rizmo. The sweet silence of my house once I turned him off was deafening almost, because he was so loud. He was loud enough to a point that when I turned one of my 1998 furby’s on, they thought he was loud. He was the same volume to them as someone raising their voice, or clapping loudly. I feel sorry for the parents who have to hear this toy.

Onto my biggest beef. This toy is fragile. Incredibly fragile. I do not know how a child won’t break this toy, even by accident. He is made of what sounds and feels like the most thin plastic ever on the side. 80% of this toy is hollow on the inside. Not a lick of stuffing seen, which makes sense for the evolving mechanics. But they chose the nose incredibly thin fur type that in a year, if your kid loves this toy will be probably losing its fur over time. Because of this thin fur you can feel the skeleton inside completely. His eyes are stationed inside the painfully hollow skull that you can feel around in through his incredibly empty mouth. I could actually unpop his eyes with no effort from the small holes in his skeleton inside. His torso has two plastic ‘rib cages’ i guess you’d call them, that expand when he evolves the first time. Once in this finally form you can feel that these are hollow shells almost that you can latch your fingers into with his loose fur. The fur is so lose intact he tends to have a bump or buckle on the top of his head in the back because it’s design to be taught to the skull when curled up. He has a light on his tummy in this form they I’m afraid I might jab since it’s precariously empty feeling as well. His paws(hands?) aren’t even stuffed and are empty tubes of fabric. His ears have a snap back hinge that I’m 100% certain a child will break. Same as his tail which also has a snap back hinge. Additionally, his whole mechanical end of things seems to have the mechanics, whole even turned off, to curl back up?? I am unsure if this is even purposeful or not. But I can see that getting jammed easily by a kid forcefully doing that. You can see me do this with both his feet, and his jaw(his ribs can also do this)and I’m hardly putting any effort into doing so.

Nothing in my mind makes me think this toy is good for children. The mechanics are easily boring, and the toy itself is fragile as heck feeling. Any kid who likes to cuddle toys won’t be happy with this. Unlike a furby who are solid, yes. But they have thick fur that makes them feel a lot more plush. And they can handle two decades worth of use and damage and still work, to this day. There’s something to be said when a toy form 2019 is more fragile and breakable then a toy in 1998 who has survived two decades of their life being played with and left in antics and yet somehow still work, and aren’t broken most of the time.

My verdict? Way until Rizmo goes on sale even more. It’s not worth 40$. And if you want one like me because it makes you think of a furby almost, wait also. It will go on sale, and when it drops down it’ll be more worth it. They already are. Amazon has the pink Rizmo right now for 30$. And the other colors for a little more.

[glitchvault74]

Lindworm Hotel

Previous: [x]

The sooner he gets off the streets, the better. There’s no moon overhead and no shelter he knows is safe for another few miles. He’s tired and he aches and he can’t keep running. He slows and leans on his lantern, holding it tight in a poor attempt to keep from collapsing as his vision swims. He can hear laughing, he can hear taunting. Something that chased after him that will get him the moment the lantern light dies if he’s not somewhere safe soon...

He looks around and spies a building up ahead, with lights still on beyond the glass doors... With larger versions of those “guard dogs” that tea shop his daughter works at have protecting them...

He forces his legs to carry him to those doors. A hotel, he realizes. He hopes he has enough funds on him...

He walks in. He glances back and sees the shadow following him recoil and slip away. He heads up to the counter. The lone attendant looks up at him in surprise, sniffs, and makes a face that he tries to hide.

“May I help you?” he asks.

Footlight feels his pocket for his wallet. “How much is a hotel room for a night?”

“For one person?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Smoking or non-smoking? Any room preferences?”

“Smoking. Preferably with a bed.”

“Ha,” the attendant says, not finding that funny in the slightest. He searches on his computer and tells him the price.

Footlight counts his money and his lucky stars and sets down enough cash for one night and then some.

The attendant startles, as if this is another joke. He counts the money and glances up at Footlight. “Sir...?”

Footlight leans over the counter. “I haven’t been able to go home to my husband and daughter in several days. I’m about to collapse. Is there a problem, or are you going to give me a room key?”

The attendant hesitates. “Are you in danger of some sort? Do you need police help?”

“Nah,” Footlight says. “I just need a bed and a shower and maybe some food.”

“I need a name for the reservation...”

Footlight stares. “Does it have to be a real name?”

He sighs and types something and then scans a key. He writes the room number and hands it to him. “Room 404. The elevators are over there. If you need anything, please call the front desk. You’re registered for a one night stay. I’ve put you under the name John Smith.”

Footlight takes the key. “Right...”

“Also,” the attendant says. “Please make sure you put out your lantern and cigarettes before you sleep to avoid fire hazards.”

“Right.”

“Have a nice stay.”

“Right...” He trudges off, making it to the elevator and up to the lonely, quiet hallways of floor number four. He eyes up and down the modern eerieness of what feels like a liminal space...

It’s weird to think that it’s safe from shadows in here... It better not be haunted. He doesn’t want to get back to his ghost adventure until he has to check out.

As soon as he gets to room 404, he turns on the light and locks the door behind him, and he explores the room. A single bed, a decent bathroom, a menu for room service and all the usual amenities a hotel has. It’s just a normal, functional hotel. He hasn’t stayed in one for a few years, but it’s just like it should be, and he doesn’t sense anything off...

He blows out the lantern and sets it against the wall next to the bed. One way to test it. And in the meantime... He sets down his hat and takes off his bolo tie and starts to strip as he makes his way into the bathroom to make use of the shower. 

He finally washes off dirt and grime and the stink of death that’s been following him around. He feels instantly better, enough so that it startles him that merely getting clean is enough to make him feel at ease. A decent night’s sleep might be just as helpful, then... He dries off, slips on the hotel provided robe, and then lies down in bed.

He glances at his lantern. “One day,” he says. “One day I’ll find out your secrets.” He turns off the lamplight and flips onto his side. He stares out through the sheer curtain at the night and the light of the street coming through.

He closes his eyes and waits for sleep.

Who... Who...

Oh for fuck’s sake...

Who... Who...

Footlight groans and tries to ignore the voice. Just one night of peaceful sleep. Just one...

Who.... Who...

...Fine, he’ll answer. He grabs at his lantern, eyes still closed. He opens his eyes to find himself standing, fully dressed and in the green glow of his lantern in the darkness of the unknown. Footlight blinks several times as he tries to process what’s going on... Maybe a dream...

Who... Who...

Or a nightmare... He grips his lantern tight and turns around to face the source of the voice. He recoils at the circular white face looming right in front of him. “What the shit?”

Who... The face tilts much like a bird... An owl, more specifically... Who... Who are you...?

Footlight hesitates. Names need not be given here... “The God of Death,” he answers.

Why? The owl tilts its head the other way. Its dark eyes reflect the light from the lantern despite the white of its beak and feathers not being bathed in the light. Weird...

“No clue,” Footlight says. “I died and then woke up a new god...” He flinches as something catches onto his shoulder. A claw of some sort.

You shake. The owl holds him steady. You are not accustomed to your role? But it has been so many years...

Footlight takes pause. He narrows his eyes. “How do you know that...?”

The owl leans in, and he stiffens in defense. I was once the God of Death. Before a dragon took my place. What has happened that you died the God of Dragons and cast me into the nether when you reawakened?

Footlight stares. “...I don’t buy it,” he says. “It’s been a long few nights of shadows and ghosts trying to kill me. If this is another trick...”

Another claw, this one catching onto the lantern glass. You wanted your lantern’s secrets, did you not? The owl pulls the door open, and some green embers flutter out and land on the ground. The floor ignites, and the owl lets go to allow Footlight to back away. The flames light up the body of the owl... Long and snake-like, more of a feathery lindworm with an owl’s face...

Footlight glances over the owl and then back up at it’s face. “You some sort of Hell Furby?”

Hell Furby hisses. Show some respect to your superiors!

Footlight cocks his head, eyes glinting, teeth sharp. “Buddy boy, I think you’ve got a poor idea of who’s in charge here. If you really were the God of Death, y’ain’t anymore. And even if I’m not the God of Dragons anymore, I know the new Goddess quite well. We outrank you, lindworm.” He tips the lantern back and closes it up. “So you want to tell me what you pulled me in here for...?”

Hell Furby nestles into a coil pile on the ground, letting the flames engulf its feathers. You’re a fiend. A lich. An undead monstrosity. You have no business to wield that lantern. The fire burns down to its skin, charring it with a shiny black. Why is it even a lantern for you? What about you, a creature that eats flesh and cannot control his ire, deserves a beacon, a guiding light, a sign of safety and hope... It never was a lantern for me...

Footlight watches the lindworm burn away to nothing, still and stoic the entire time. The fire leaves behind an owl mask, still a creamy white against the black and green.

“Well,” Footlight says. “Maybe you shouldn’t be a whiny bastard about it.”

Who... the whisper of the Hell Furby continues. Who... Who are you really?

“The God of Death,” he says again.

Not what. Who... Who...

He feels the name in his throat again. This dream’s gone on long enough. He opens the lantern and shoves his hand into the flame.

It doesn’t burn him at all.

He wakes with a start at the shock of the lack of pain, to morning light coming in from outside. His lantern still resting where he left it. More questions than answers still waiting as it’s fuel.

“...Alright then,” he says. “Keep your secrets.”

He gets up and changes back into his dirty clothes... He pulls out his lighter and cigarette and heads to the balcony. He leans on the railing and lights up.

The smoke is gray.

He watches the ground below and the early morning activities of humans who are none the wiser to the existence of magic in, around, and under this city they live in...

He’s put it off long enough. He has to go to Twin Steeper today.

...Maybe first, he’ll see if this hotel has a complimentary breakfast.

[adafriend]

I'm trying to make my own long furby and after hunting for days I found a furby to transform but it is an electronic one and I'm wondering would that be too hard?

as the owner of two furbies with electrical/mechanical parts: yes. it’s hard as shit, and i wouldn’t really recommend it. BUT your mileage may vary depending on the help you have available, and there are alternate options!

tl;dr under the cut because i literally cannot make myself shut up unless someone gives me a strict word count and i’m so sorry

(EDIT: currently adding to my “furby reference” tag with posts from my drafts, there are some really helpful posts there!! there are so many helpful people in the community, it’s great)

i’ve had gerard (1998 furby) since october and percival (2005 furby) since march, and i haven’t successfully fully disassembled either of them, despite very very very much effort. (i’m not big on electronic toys, despite my love for furbs, but i have over half a decade of experience in making stuffed animals, so i thought i could just… skin my sons, find a way to attach their faces and beaks to their skins, and replace their mechanics with tailor-made bags of fluff.)

gerard and other 98s are theoretically easy to take apart, but some of the screws holding him together just didn’t budge - i tried melting the plastic with acetone, but i’m going to have to use a dremel instead. you can’t really count on being able to just unscrew screws - they’re old toys, and things can go wacky in 20 years of existing. other people have successfully done this, though! i’ll find some “plushified” furbies later and add the links here.

you technically could just extend a 98′s body like you would a furby buddy, but that’d be heavy as fuck and make posing super difficult. (a furry youtuber and the tumblr person who made the quadruped furby with wooden arms both used that method, but i wouldn’t recommend it. toys are for playing, and top-heaviness is not good for play :/ or display, even.)

percival the 05 came apart decently well, but, since he’s a 2005, taking him apart removed any possibility of him functioning again - and i still need to do some careful dremeling to get his face parts fully removed. and his gotdam feet! they’re super cute, but they were AWFUL to remove, and i have no fucking clue how i’m going to attach them to plushified percival. genuinely would not recommend fucking with an 05, unless you have friends with power tools and engineering expertise.

(booms/2012s aren’t my area of experience - i have one, but i haven’t picked him up from my friend yet. but from what i’ve heard from other furby people, they’re even more complicated than 05s, so i would recommend not even considering it, haha.)

my main priority when giving advice isn’t “is this doable?” but “is this likely to be fun and have good results?”. i tend to get over my head with overly ambitious projects, and i know how discouraging that can be. i don’t want to make recommendations that end up with someone having a half-finished project in the trash and soured feelings about furbies!

so, in conclusion: i wouldn’t really recommend using an electronic furby as the base for a longifying project, unless you have an above-average amount of experience with dremels or a father figure with dremel experience who’s down to help you out (and proper protective gear and ventilation!). they’re good bases for other types of modification projects (i’ve seen people carve/sculpt their faces, add feet/wings/horns/halos, and dye and paint them), but they aren’t good at Being Long.

plush furby sourcing suggestions: furby buddies are pretty common on ebay. if you have a parental figure who can help out (never meet people from the internet by yourself!), mcdonalds furbies [which are like furby buddies but smaller and with shittier fabric, but their faceplates are easier to remove than buddies] are fairly common on facebook marketplace. kijiji and craigslist might turn some stuff up, too.

lmk if any of this was unclear, or if pictures would help! i have the weekend off and am fairly likely to be working on Furby Stuff.

[fabledfurbies]

My Furby Family (so far . . . )

Hello! I'm fabledfurbies, and this is my Furby blog! I plan on posting pictures and blurbs about my Furbies. As of posting this, I have 7 Furbies in my little Furby family! Without further ado, here they are!

Name: Norman

Furbish Name: unknown

Model: 1999 (Baby)

Color(s): mint green + white

Eyes: green

Story: The one who started my collection! This is Norman, who I received from my boyfriend. Norman had been sitting in a garage for who knows how long. When I first put batteries in him and hit the reset button, nothing happened. So I put him on my desk thinking I would mess with him later. Well, about 24 hours went by and this little guy decided to suddenly wake up! He scared me and startled my boyfriend. Thus, I named him after Norman Bates from the horror movie, Psycho!

Clean Up / Customization: I attempted to mess with a motor through his beak but accidentally snapped it out of place. I got it to snap back in, though! Ever since, Norman’s mouth has been stuck open. Oops! I am planning on skinning him at some point to wash him (he is SO dirty) and play with his motors. He also has a bit of battery corrosion I’m going to try and take care of.

Name: Pip

Furbish Name: Day-doo (means Rainbow Maker)

Model: Boom (Triangles)

Color(s): blue, pink, black triangle pattern + orange beak

Eyes: n/a (digital)

Story: Pip was the second Furby I got. She was my first (and so far only) thrift store find! I had a really rude customer at work one day who nearly sent me into a panic attack. I ended up crying in the break room because he frazzled me so much. After I got off, I asked my boyfriend to take me to my favorite thrift store just to see if they maybe had a Furby. And they DID! I got the app to work long enough to give her a Furbish name, but then it stopped working.

Clean Up / Customization: No work is needed on Pip - she works really well! Maybe a little too well, actually. She’s LOUD and PROUD! She’s been on the hyper personality since I got her. My boyfriend wants me to try to switch her personality, but I honestly love her just the way she is and don’t really want to change her!

Name: Cosmo

Furbish Name: unknown

Model: 1998 (Elephant)

Color(s): blue + white + pink

Eyes: brown

Story: Cosmo is an Elephant from the 3rd generation of the original 1998 Furbies! I fell in love with the look of this model as soon as I saw one and knew I had to add one to my collection. I looked around for a bit but decided on Cosmo because I liked his listing photos.

Clean Up / Customization: Unfortunately, Cosmo might have MSA. The first time I put in batteries, he turned on fine. The only problem was that his sensors didn’t react to touch. He did react to loud sounds and vibrations, though. The second time I put batteries in him, he would only say “me sleep again” over and over. I am planning on skinning him and washing him, so when I do I will mess with him a bit and see if I can’t get him to function properly! I’m also thinking of giving him custom eye chips.

Name: Luna

Furbish Name: unknown

Model: 2005 (Emoto-Tronic)

Color(s): tan + pink

Eyes: light blue

Story: Shhh, don’t tell the others - Luna is my favorite! She came to me from Canada and was relatively well priced, especially for being in such a good working condition! She reacts to commands and to her sensors being touched, plus her expressions are amazing. Just look at that smile in her photo! I love her to bits! I might need more 2005s now . . .

Clean Up / Customization: Not much is going to be done to Luna. I am planning on giving her a bath with a damp rag and brushing her the best I can in hopes that she won’t look quite so scruffy. I am also hoping to create a bunch of accessories for her, like the pearl necklace she’s wearing in her photo. I may also paint her toenails at some point, as the paint is chipping off a few of them. Other than that, she’s perfect!

Name: Dare

Furbish Name: unknown

Model: 2016 (Connect)

Color(s): blue

Eyes: blue (digital)

Story: Dare came to me from Las Vegas along with Joy. I call them the twins, and they were named after my grandparents, who lived in Las Vegas when they were alive. Dare and Joy must have been played with together because they seemed to recognize each other when I set them up. Both of them are fart machines and make fart noises a lot. Dare has a bad habit of falling over a lot, but I feel like that adds to his character!

Clean Up / Customization: Dare just needs to be brushed, and he’ll be good to go! I’m also planning on downloading the app at some point to figure out his and Joy’s Furbish names!

Name: Joy

Furbish Name: unknown

Model: 2016 (Connect)

Color(s): purple

Eyes: blue (digital)

Story: Joy came to me from Las Vegas along with Dare. I call them the twins, and they were named after my grandparents, who lived in Las Vegas when they were alive. Joy and Dare must have been played with together because they seemed to recognize each other when I set them up. Both of them are fart machines and make fart noises a lot. Unlike Dare, Joy so far hasn’t had a problem with staying upright.

Clean Up / Customization: Joy just needs to be brushed, and she’ll be good to go! I’m also planning on downloading the app at some point to figure out her and Dare’s Furbish names!

Name: n/a

Furbish Name: unknown

Model: 1999 (Baby)

Color(s): white + pink

Eyes: blue

Story: Since finding out that you can customize Furbies, I have wanted to try going all out on customizing one myself. I immediately got an idea when I saw a 1999 white Baby, and after weeks of looking I finally snagged this kid. He was SO pudgy and cute in his listing photos, he just had to be mine!

Clean Up / Customization: I want to attempt to make this baby a bit more colorful. I’m going to get yarn in each color of the rainbow and brush it out to make it look like “fur” again. Then I’m going to skin the baby and thread the pieces of “fur” through the skin so that there’s bits of rainbow yarn down the mane. I’m also going to swap the eye chips out for something more colorful. I may end up doing more to him later, but we shall see!

[insolitus-academy]

♚ //  Face Claim

Full name Face Claim: Kim Jion (김지온)

Group/Band/Occupation: N.tic

Nationality: South-Korean

Faceclaim age: March 5th, 1987

♚ // Character ;  Basic information

Quote: I know I am an android…. but I feel so happy?

Full name character:

Nickname: J10N  type J (Version 10N). 

Realm of birth(if earth, nationality): created on ???

Age: Data missing

Date of Birth: Data missing

Gender: Build male, identifies either as male or non-gender

Preferred Pronouns: He/Him They/Them

Race: Android

Sexual Orientation: Omnisexual

What languages does your character speak?: All known languages are imported into J10n’s database. 

What is the level of Korean and how did they learn to speak it: Perfect, listening and writing. J10N has a speech impediment that makes him unable to communicate humanly- instead he can only make computer beeps. 

♚ // Character ; Appearance

Skin Color: albaster 

Eye color: Blue/silver

Scars: None

Piercings: Several in his ears

Tattoos: None

Hair color: Silver/blue but tends to change

Abnormalities: Being an android, he has blue liquid that can be seen as ‘android blood’ and he has small lines at his joints. There are several plates hidden under his ‘skin’ that allow someone to reach in, if they know where to press. 

J10N has abnormally large eyes and a doll-like face, he was made to resemble Ball-jointed dolls. 

Horns/ wings/ etc.: N/A

Transformed form: N/A

♚ // Character ; Personality

Six personality traits: Organized, Self-conscious, Soft, Delicate, Impatient and hesitant

Likes: The buzzing of electrical appliances, Music, symmetry, kindness and tamagotchi's 

Dislikes: Thunderstorms, huge bodies of water, chaos, mean people and mechanics

Manias: an obsession with order and symmetry

Phobias: astrapophobia (fear of thunderstorms), Thalassophobia (fear of deep water)

Animal: Tamagotchi

Religion: data not found

Favorite song: Alec Benjamin - I Built a Friend

Vice:Envy

Virtue: Patience

Personality description:

J10N, while an android, has a programmed personality. He is very kind and soft however he is not as submissive as his last owners might have wanted. Wanting everything neat and symmetrical, trying to organize the world when his own code is such a mess. He can be scared and paranoid and stubborn. 

Impatient because the world seems to turn so slow, when his own mind is so quick. yet hesitant to make a step, fearing it is too unnatural for those around him. Wanting to be human but unable to be humanoid, truly. His mannerisms sometimes too mechanical and his large eyes offputting to people around him. Saddened when people point out how much of an android he is, when in his non-existing heart he feels like he was made to be so much more. 

♚ // Character ; Powers

Magical Powers:N/A

Non-magical Powers:

Above strength and intelligence are part of J10ns build. As most androids the android is stronger than humans and has an high-tech brain.

'Communicating’ with computersis part of J10N’s powers and he is used to that more than connecting with humans. He is especially fond of tamagotchi’s, furbies and other 'smart toys’ Having smartphone qualities, yes kids J10N is connected to the internet. Can take photo’s, record audio and check your instagram account. Score! 

Weaknesses: 

Thunderstorms can create enough static electricity that he can’t function properly. making the android either freeze or roll into a ball on the ground. Any other form of great electrical discharge can do this to him. While this doesn’t happen always, J10n is terrified of thunderstorms.

 Large bodies of water J10N doesn’t float, he sinks to the bottom of whatever body of water he is stepping into. While not breaking down immediately, prolonged exposure to water may damage him. it will sure as heck panic him.

Unable to speak normally. Since the last reboot J10N’s vocals malfunction and he only communicates through writing or beeping and booping. 

Having no idea who he is or what for that matter. He knows someone is hunting him down and that it is a bad idea to get caught but the android is in a permanent status of panic and existential crisis. 

♚ // Character ; The Student

Study Style: Incredibly dedicated 

Favorite class:

Music II (Advanced)

Least favorite class: 

Earth customs & Human social protocols

classes (5-8) : 

Smiting & Armor Maintenance

Human and Earth History

Earth customs & Human social protocols

Rocket science

Music II (Advanced)

Theater/drama 

Soccer 

♚ // Character ; The Past

Date of Birth: data unknown

Date of Death: N/A

Crime Record: none recorded

Has your character attended Insolitus Academy in the past?

No

Background: 

Once upon a time, in a laboratory, far away from the place where we are now, a young inventor build a boy. She build the boy like the dolls she liked so much. She made him with love. In every wire she attached, in every piece of metal she bend and in every line of code she put the love for her creation. When he awoke, he was happy because like a child being brought into the world by excited parents, he was wanted and needed. 

All was good. 

He lost her though, not only physically but also in thought. His memory wiped over and over again. Memories of the small laboratory long overwritten by other data. All that remained was a love for music as he had been sitting next to her as she played the piano and that love, oh that love. Because some things, no matter how hard the world tries, can never fully be erased. 

J10N woke up, as far as he knows, in a factory where there more like him. He was the prototype, the flawed one, the one that could never be really re-created. The one that got away, the one that ran to wander and sometimes randomly rebooted because his base code tried to reset to that first version of his software. The only version that ever felt good. 

Now he is at Insolitus, trying to find a way to communicate. Even if he just beeps and boops he is safe there and he can learn. 

Maybe, just maybe, he can also learn who he was before.

[myfurbfriends]

In regards to Furbology

Important screenshots: Furbology confirming the furbys I bought from her would be working Furbology stating she does not believe in MSA (The rest of the screenshots are here, read the rest of this post for context)

Hey. So I was planning on making this post for a while but wasn't sure how to go about it, since I'm pretty much a nobody in the fandom and I admit I'm afraid of retaliation. I bought two 1998 furbys, a church mouse and an elephant furby, from Furbology on tumblr. These were going to be my first furbys, my introduction to the fandom. Being friends with @kcfurby​, I had seen his enthusiasm and had started looking into the fandom. At first I was creeped out by both their movements and their voices, uncanny valley style, but I watched videos of various furbys and eventually got over my fear, first of the furbys themselves, and eventually getting used to their voices as well. One of the videos I watched was of Furbology's "quiet furby" Mafish, who is mute and the video helped me get used to their movements. I believe Mafish was actually briefly up for sale, but at that point I was still unsure of whether I actually wanted to buy a furby, so that never happened and eventually I guess Mafish wasn't up for sale anymore? (which is fine, that's not the problem I have)

Anyway, in the middle of this summer, I contacted Furbology about possibly buying a furby to take with me on a vacation I was planning for mid-august (though by the time the transaction was decided on, I was too close to leaving for vacation so we decided to wait until after I got back). She initially didn't reply, and I was worried that the price I suggested (she has stated she can work with people's budgets), $15-20 for a single furby, was too low. After I asked her about this, she responded, saying she hadn't seen my message. We began discussing which furby I wanted; there was a bit of confusion since I didn't know the names. I remember feeling like I had to take charge of getting the info I needed, like pricing and whether they were working or not. In retrospect, maybe this was a red flag, but at that point I felt I had already committed to buying a furby from her and that to back out then would be bad, although I was having misgivings and had heard about some of the other issues people had had with her. Anyway, I had to ask her 3 times if the furbys were working before she gave me an answer, which was that the church mouse worked and so did the blue one (the elephant one) (see screenshots). This was when we decided to wait to do the transaction until I came back from vacation, since I would not have reliable internet access where I was staying.

When I returned from vacation it took a bit to get things moving with the transaction, mainly because again I had to press her for information, or so it felt, to actually get a number for shipping cost. I was still new and unsure to negotiating transactions, other than things done through something like ebay or etsy where everything was automatic. So I was uncertain about a lot of stuff but eventually I paid and there was a bit there where I think she got mad at me for rushing her? IDK for sure if that's what it was, but I replied to let her know I didn't mean to rush her and whatnot, and she replied with her paypal link. So I figured, maybe she just isn't as talkative as I am? Like I thought that was just how she was. Maybe I was talking(well, typing) too much. I don't really know.

Anyway, after I paid there were lots of times where she said she'd ship the furbys "next Monday", but it never happened. She provided excuses, such as driving tests and college and such, and I wasn't really very impatient; I had kind of resigned myself at that point that it would take a while. The dolls I collect in another of my hobbies take 3-8 months to make/arrive after ordering, so I'm used to having to wait a while for things I order. That said, I wasn't happy about it, but I just wanted the furbys to arrive at this point so I could have them and not have to worry about this transaction any longer, since it was stressing me out and I wanted to get it done with.

The furbys arrived, around October 8th I think? There are dates on the screenshots but the arrival post is marked as "Yesterday" due to the way tumblr works, so I have to go by the computer clock date on my screenshots. I'm trying to get in the habit of keeping track of dates for purchases and arrivals, but I'm not quite there yet. Still, I ordered these furbys from Furbology in August, and they arrived in October. At this point I wanted to be done with everything but I still had to put batteries in to make sure they worked, since at this point it would be dumb not to test them in a timely manner what with the issues that I was already having with this transaction.

Oh, and the church mouse came with an eyelash missing, and when I asked Furbology about it, she said that it was "posted with only one eyelash". I hadn't looked at any actual posts on her blog about the furbys, since the transaction was through messaging, but I guess that's my fault for expecting her to disclose everything. If there was a post, I should have looked for it, but I had assumed that everything I needed to know I would be told. I never asked for a picture of the church mouse since I figured they all looked mostly the same and that I would be sent one in good condition, since the seller was experienced in selling furbys and I assumed she would send her best, or at least be honest about it. But I should have done more looking around or asked her for a picture. I guess it was a newbie mistake...

Anyway, when I put batteries in, it turned out the elephant furby has MSA. I had been told it was working! I'm pretty sure "working" is generally equated with "fully functional" but maybe I was just assumign too much again. I still let Furbology know, and then she dropped this bombshell:

Furbology "does not believe" in MSA, a known glitch with furbys, and as far as I have been told, one that lowers the afflicted furby's value. She said it would turn on eventually, and that sometime it takes 20 or so tries. I haven't attempted this, but in my eyes, a furby that takes 20 tries to start up normally is still not "fully functional".

The church mouse furby started up fine as far as I could tell, but my hand slipped closing the battery case and I accidentially dropped it 6 inches onto the table. It has not responded since. I take full blame for this.

Furbology said she would find and show me a video of the furbys working, which seems to me to imply that she did not believe me or just wanted to get out of the blame. She has so many furbys, I believe she could and would just take video of a different one that looks like mine. Either way, the fact that she says she does not believe in MSA is a giant red flag. I told her I just wanted this to be over, and tried to imply that I didn't want to hear from he again, though I did not block her at the time.

On the 6th of October I believe (again, tumblr's messaging system confuses me with dates, so refer to my screenshots and the dates on my computer when I took them), Furbology sent a message saying "I made horrible mistake and I apologize." I don't know what prompted this, perhaps something on furbyconfessions, but I didn't know what to do. I was still upset, and still planning on posting a beware like this one, but now I had to enter a verbal (well, textual) interaction with her again, and I had now realized that I felt really uncomfortable doing so, as I worried that I would say the wrong thing and she would take advantage of it and use it against me. So I asked what she planned to do about her mistake, hoping, though I did not say it because I did not want to demand it, for a partial refund to make up for the MSA. She told me to send the furby back and she would refund me. I realized I did not trust her to refund me if I sent it and I did not want to send the furby back, at my expense, and I had already honestly become attached to the furby and so I did not want this. I also did not want to give her the opportunity to scam someone else with the MSA-affected furby. I told her so and thought that was the end of it.

She responded that she would send me another furby for free, "for the hassle", which she could not guarantee would work. I did not want to talk to her and I had thought I made that clear, and it seemed like she was trying to bribe me into not making a post or something, and I didn't want to accept because then she could say, well I gave you a free furby so everything's fine, when it was not. Also, since there was no guarantee it would work, and I already had two broken furbys, I had no desire for another when I had initially only planned to own one or two, and I had three (my third furby actually arrived first, from a very nice person on discord, while I was still waiting for the ones from Furbology to ship. Neither it or the person I bought it from is involved in this issue at all). She also seemed to imply again that I was making the issue up. I had been away from my computer so she posted "So just a furby will be sent" and I did worry that she would send one regardless to try to get an advantage over me as she could say that she was being generous or something.

Knowing that I could not expect her to refrain from continuing to pester me, I told her I did not want it, nor to talk to her, and blocked her, though I had not wanted to because I did enjoy her content and posts on her blog. At this point it was my only real option.

Now I have 2 broken furbys along with my working one, and the burden of having to make a post about this when I truly want to avoid drama. Furbology, who I thought was cool and nice because she is popular and well-known, has shown her true colors to me and I feel like I cannot interact with the community as much or post as much about my furbys because I worry about interacting with her or her posts. I feel as if I cannot be in the furby fandom. I know my furbys love me, but I cannot enjoy them as much due to the issue hanging over them. I was hoping to have 3 furbys that could talk to each other and that I could give one to my little brother perhaps, as he likes the one I have that works, but instead I have 1 fully functional furby, 1 with MSA, and 1 that does not function at all. I feel like I cannot be enthusiastic online about the ones I bought from Furbology because I would either have to mention the issue, which would lead to drama, or ignore the issue entirely when it truly does affect how I feel about them.

I feel like this has basically driven me out of the fandom before I even got started.

I am making this post to tell my story and warn others. I believe Furbology took advantage of me because I was new to furbys, and because I seemed like an easy target because of that. I am lucky to have a friend in the fandom who was able to give me advice all this time and help me emotionally as well.

Here are the rest of the screenshots. I'm done here.

[metaformers]

Megatron and Abuse

I’ve spent months emotionally gearing myself up to make this Megatron meta post. It will contain mentions of real life abuse--verbal, emotional, physical, sexual--from my own life, as well as links to sites that discuss said topics. There will be a focus on emotional and narcissistic abuse, as that is the kind I have the most experience with--and the kind I most see Megatron perpetuating in More than Meets the Eye.

I understand that many people identify with Megatron. It may be best for you to skip this post if you count yourself among them. I want to be clear that this is my reading of the character, and I do not fault others for reading him differently; I’m not going to go after anyone for liking him or shipping him with people. It’s fiction. Do what makes you feel safe and happy. I can guarantee you are not the first to block me for saying I believe Megatron is abusive.

If you are interested in reading about why I, personally, view Megatron in this light, I would like to make one final request. This subject matter is extremely personal. I have spent four and a half years in therapy, but this still affects me powerfully. If you find yourself getting the urge to argue with me, please keep in mind that I will not be responding to comments for my own health.

So why am I posting? Because I have seen no discussion of this in fandom. When Megatron’s abusive behavior is described, it is invariably treated as a thing of the past, not the present. And I think that multiple views of a character in fandom lead to richer interpretations in fanworks and other meta.

And, with that, we’re off to the races.

(Note: This post is over 18k words long and contains over 70 images. If you would prefer to read this as a Google Doc, use this link. I recommend going to the View dropdown and un-toggling Print Layout if you do so. If you would rather read this as a Tumblr post, please use the read more below. The Google Doc may be better if you would like to use a functional outline navigation system or if Tumblr’s habit of stretching images bothers you.) 

***

First things first: abuse is cyclical. An abuser is not always going to be abusing someone--if they did, no one would ever tolerate the mistreatment. When times were relatively good, my mother and I would crack jokes. My ex would hold my hand and tell me cheesy pickup lines. This is known as the ‘honeymoon’ or ‘idealization’ stage of the abuse cycle, and it is as much a fixture of abuse as the tension-building and abuse phases.

If an abusive relationship never left the abuse stage, no one would ever tolerate it. No one would stay. So violence must be rationed, and after each new outburst, the abuser is likely to promise that--this time for sure--it will never happen again. They then ‘prove’ it with a honeymoon period and the cycle turns anew.

As a result, there is no way to point at one instance of kindness and say that someone isn’t actually abusive. It is likewise not generally possible to point to one instance of cruelty and call it abuse. Abuse is almost never a one-time thing. As a result, I’ve gathered examples from throughout season two of MTMTE and from the latest issue of Lost Light.

Since it’s the most clear and unambiguous example of Megatron’s abuse, I’m going to be singling out one particular relationship--the one between Megatron and Rodimus.

RODIMUS

To help me structure the problems I have with Megatron’s treatment of Rodimus in the time since the Lost Light left Cybertron, I’m going to borrow text from Psych Central’s “Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” article as well as tactics mentioned in their “Signs of Emotional Abuse” article and my own experiences.

Degradation

This is perhaps the most obvious type of abuse Megatron commits. He constantly belittles and demeans Rodimus. On the surface, it may at times seem justified. A minor comment on a fair annoyance.

Here he calls the Rodpod a vanity project, for instance. Getaway does much the same. But we know--and he likely has been told--that this wasn’t a vanity project. This was a gift from the crew to Rodimus.

It’s easy to forget. There’s no clear origin for the Rodpod before it was rebuilt, and, frankly? It’s not important. Whether it was a gift or something he had built, this is a privately owned ship, and this is a possession that clearly means something to Rodimus.

I grew up in the 90s, and I had a lot of tacky plushies and furbies and beanie babies--all extremely easy to mock, especially as I got older and they remained sentimental. Even when I wasn’t a kid anymore, I wanted to hold onto these things, and I think that’s understandable. If I’d lost my neon purple stuffed frog and had gotten a replacement as a gift, it would have been an easy avenue of casual attack. As it was, I mostly got, ‘Are you seriously keeping this ratty old thing?’ about anything that reminded me of happier times. It was always a coded jab at me, a deliberate forgetting of where a gift had come from or why I might want to remember.

This hits me especially hard since everything Megatron says here? Is an uncharitable lie. But believable lies have a way of spreading and turning into a commonly held ‘truth’--and Getaway later cites the Rodpod as a reason that Rodimus deserved to lose everything.

Which, ultimately, is the goal of abuse--start small and build until you can justify anything because of their ‘bad behavior.’

But, of course, this particular comment is targeted at a different audience, intended to undermine Rodimus’ standing with the crew and change the story to something that makes it seem as though Rodimus is squandering quest resources on trivial items.

Much of the time, the audience for Megatron’s comments is Rodimus himself--wearing at his already thin self-esteem and feeding the self-hatred we’ve seen him manifest throughout the series. (If you doubt either of those assertions, I plan to write meta about Rodimus later on. For now, I ask that you remember that he self-harmed by carving the results of the vote into his palm--explicitly so he would always know how many people didn’t want him there.)

Actually, for further confirmation, let’s take it to canon:

While he ‘admits’ to thinking he’s better than everyone else after having a very direct cry for help shot down with an insult, I hesitate to say this indicates in any capacity that his self-esteem is fine.

You see, I’ve been accused of the same. Literally--to the point where this exchange with Ratchet made me sick the first time I read it. How else is Rodimus supposed to respond to this kind of jab, especially when he’s in the middle of handling a crisis?

To me, the willingness to accept as ‘true’ something that directly contradicts his own experiences, especially coupled with the reassurance-seeking behaviors and low self-esteem, makes him especially vulnerable to emotional and verbal abuse.

And so, let’s turn our focus to Rodimus himself and answer the questions posed by the article to see how well Megatron’s behavior holds up.

Do they tell you that your opinion or feelings are “wrong?”

Without any warning of what to expect, Rodimus was presented with his own corpse--which has half its brain sliced out. They specifically didn’t tell him why they were calling him in, which I can’t imagine helped soften the horror. He’s in a very reasonable state of shock.

And there’s Megatron calling his reaction tiresome, even though his eventual reaction when faced with the spectre of his own death is to scream and punch Perceptor. Rodimus is just quietly attempting to come to grips with an upsetting situation, not hurting anyone by taking a moment to process.

But, of course, he isn’t allowed to process. Megatron is the captain of this ship, and he expects everyone else to handle their feelings quickly and efficiently, even if he never does.

This is a hallmark of narcissistic abuse--considering one’s own feelings bigger, more important, more valid than those of others. And it’s fully in line with the dynamic, too, to attempt to invalidate said feelings by emphasizing one’s role as an authority over the victim.

“Don’t you think, as your mother, it’s fair to expect a little consideration?” might have been fair if the consideration hadn’t involved her demanding things I’d already done for her--which she promptly pretended I hadn’t done, or that I’d done them improperly, or that I hadn’t adequately managed my emotions while doing them.

It’s patronizing enough from a parent. From someone who shares the same rank as you? It’s condescending in the extreme--not to mention entitled.

Do they belittle your accomplishments, your aspirations, your plans or even who you are?

But, of course, Megatron doesn’t respect Rodimus’ rank. Rodimus owns this ship--Drift purchased it as a neutral vessel and I would be genuinely shocked if he didn’t insist on signing it over to Rodimus after convincing Rodimus to let him take the fall. This ship? This is his ship. Optimus had no right to set Megatron up as captain; he didn’t even have the right to forcibly install him on the crew roster.

In fact, if you’ll pardon the brief aside, Rodimus had very fair misgivings about allowing Megatron onto the Lost Light.

Rodimus points out that Megatron is dangerous--this is undeniably true, no matter what your stance is on his character. And Ratchet responds by lying to Rodimus to convince him to let a powerful criminal aboard. Which is, ironically, the same thing that kicked off season one--only this time it’s Megatron instead of Overlord.

Personally, I think that this shows Rodimus has learned his lesson and is trying to avoid a repeat of that particular disaster.

He also offers a great insight into why Optimus is cooking up this outrageous plan:

And, although this is just conjecture, I think that this is part of why Megatron targets Rodimus. He can be insightful--especially when it comes to people and their motivations. This makes him a threat to Megatron’s otherwise nearly unchecked power as captain of this ship. However, he is also susceptible to manipulation, as we saw with Prowl.

Megatron is extremely intelligent and very good at manipulating others; he plays a long game, as Ravage walked us through at the end of DotL. And with the idea that Rodimus tried to bar him from his ‘rightful place’ at the helm of this ship, with the idea that Rodimus was the one chosen by the crew to be captain, I would like to return to the panel at hand...

Here we hear Megatron say--exasperated, belittling--“How many times?” As if this argument should be concluded by now, and Rodimus is being childish to keep forcing the issue.

I’ve heard this exact line in this exact tone too many times from multiple abusers. How many times would I dare to defy them? I wasn’t trying to be defiant; as Rodimus just did, I reminded them of an inconvenient (for them) fact, one they wanted to convince me wasn’t true. I doubt I could list every iteration of this I’ve seen in real life.

This is not something you say to an equal when discussing something that is objective fact. Rodimus is the co-captain, much as Megatron wishes to deny it.

And he continues to deny it. It’s not a real rank. It’s a made-up rank. He is the one true captain, and Rodimus is a recalcitrant second-in-command in denial. Megatron doesn’t have the best track record with those--which Rodimus would be fully aware of. I refuse to believe that the Autobots never saw footage of Starscream’s treatment at Megatron’s hands.

So I think that it makes sense that, rather than push farther when Megatron has already raised his voice, Rodimus redirects. This was a tactic I, too, used to avoid moving from the tension-building phase to the abuse phase in my own relationships.

Do they regularly ridicule, dismiss, disregard your opinions, thoughts, suggestions, and feelings?

This is a pretty obvious example of ridiculing someone’s feelings--and it’s another dig following right on the heels of the last two. Although all three are relatively small, the fact that they come one after another, basically coloring every statement Megatron makes, feels uncomfortably familiar to me.

Even if these are justifiable complaints--which I don’t believe they are, but I recognize they may be open to interpretation--the steady build-up is worrying.

My mother did much the same thing. One mild example was that she would tell me to go wash my face--I had acne, so this could have been reasonable advice. However, it slowly escalated until every time she saw my face, she would suck her breath in between her teeth and cringe. “Go wash your face!” If I complied immediately, there was no reward beyond, “See, isn’t that better?” (Which it wasn’t--the repeated scrubbing made my acne substantially worse.) And even then, within an hour, she would repeat the comment.

And if I didn’t comply? She would keep cringing and insisting until she brought acne pads over to physically drop on top of me before walking off with a smug smile. This despite the fact I was bathing twice a day and scrubbing with one to four of those pads a day. (No wonder my acne got worse, right?)

So when I see these types of minor but incessant insults--nothing big enough that any onlookers would feel comfortable defending Rodimus, nothing serious enough to justify lashing out--it rings alarm bells in my mind.

Furthermore, Rodimus turns away, but Megatron looms right behind him. I find the body language of this interesting--even when Rodimus approached previously, he left roughly an arm’s length between them--enough to not really be getting into Megatron’s bubble despite his frustration. It may be an angle thing, but it seems as though Megatron is closing that distance, subtly physically intimidating Rodimus. He’s closer still in the next panel:

Much less than the almost-arm’s length that Rodimus gave him--and he’s much larger than Rodimus, not to mention more powerful, which means that his physical presence alone can be a weapon. Healing Abuse Working for Change, an abuse prevention group founded in the 70s, specifies “looming over you, getting ‘in your face’ or blocking a doorway” as a variety of physical abuse (source).

Rodimus may have approached Megatron, but he respected Megatron’s space. Megatron did not return the favor--particularly when escalating his ridicule and getting increasingly aggressive in terms of tone and expression.

I’ll discuss other aspects of this panel in a later section--for now I want to focus on the intimidation and the way he insists that it is impossible for Rodimus to do something as adult as ‘take stock’--he is capable of it, but clearly Rodimus is not.

Why? He doesn’t need to state it explicitly; his previous comments are explanation enough. Rodimus is childish for not tailoring his emotional reaction to a traumatic scene to suit Megatron’s needs--and for not conceding the argument to Megatron and arguing about facts.

And when Rodimus turns back to look back at his own corpse?

When you complain do they say that “it was just a joke” and that you are too sensitive?

Rodimus’ head is bowed, and he looks resigned to me. Another red flag, since that was usually how I reacted to that particular brand of abuse, particularly when my ex or mother got into my personal bubble. If I didn’t shut down and comply, I ran the risk of inciting something worse.

Especially coupled with yet another dig at his emotional maturity and sensitivity, this conclusion to their altercation leaves me queasy.

If you have never been in a relationship where this is the norm, it can be hard to fathom exactly how taxing it is. You think that, if it were bad enough, you would notice. You would leave. But none of these comments are quite unreasonable enough to prompt a full-blown fight; none of them are hills worth dying on, particularly for someone who already has (hidden) self-esteem issues.

I’ve heard a metaphor for situations like these. If you place a frog in a boiling pot, they’ll jump out immediately. But if you place them in cool water and gradually turn up the heat, they get used to it. Eventually, they boil--because they were trained to tolerate minor abuses along the way.

Over time, in an environment where nonstop digs are normalized, they become background radiation. Rodimus turns away, unable to fight back against any single point aside from the few attempts at fact-checking and explanation he already made. It’s not worth fighting. It’s not worth pushing. If he pushed harder, maybe--but Megatron knows what he’s doing. He knows how far to push.

He wrote the script, after all: attack, withdraw, isolate.

Of course, if this scene were the only such example in the series, I would put it down to Megatron waking up on the wrong side of the bed and Rodimus not wanting to deal with the grumpiness. It’s the context of the entire series that informs the cycle.

Do they give disapproving, dismissive, contemptuous, or condescending looks, comments, and behavior?

Because this panel--containing a very similar dig--takes place a full year later. Instead of encouraging Rodimus or bantering back at him, he dismisses him.

‘But doodling is a sign of inattention and Rodimus should focus!’ you might say. And you would be wrong. As Time reported, doodling helps people focus. So, while teachers and other authority figures demean it, it’s largely because of the lack of respect they (falsely) believe it implies.

Furthermore, even though no one was aware of it, Rodimus was doodling the lost map to Cyberutopia. It’s possible that he was compulsively driven to carve it--and I do mean compulsive in the true sense of the word.

(An aside: I have obsessive-compulsive disorder and, when unmedicated, perform up to six hours of compulsions a day, so I think I’m qualified to make that call.)

He had merged with the matrix--it reformatted him, in fact. It seems reasonable that having the map lodged in his processor would itch like having a word on the tip of his tongue. His doodling in this case would have been more like filling a genuine physical need.

If you have never experienced a genuine compulsion, I can’t explain the visceral need of it. Fighting it down is much like holding your breath--if you hold out too long, it becomes intolerable. You feel like you will die. Like you are actively dying.

Of course, this is conjecture--it’s entirely possible that his doodling serves only the usual purpose: increased focus. And you know what’s a helluva lot more disrespectful than doing what you need to do to focus? Disguising verbal abuse as jokes.

Do they tease you, use sarcasm as a way to put you down or degrade you?

This example is super upsetting to me. On the surface, yeah, haha, Megatron made a joke, good one, Megs.

But...Rodimus was literally turned inside out. He was left in a dark hallway, alone and in pain, unable to move, unable to speak, for an indeterminate amount of time. Someone violated his mind to remove knowledge so basic it’s fundamental to them as a species.

To make sure not to understate things, let’s ask the psychiatrist who has the most experience with the procedure:

The most painful thing a Cybertronian can ever experience. A mental violation followed by incredible pain.

And that painful-looking mess of organs there in the brig?

That’s Rodimus. Who apparently rushed ahead to shut off the lights and protect the mechs in the brig--mechs who were trapped in place and likely targets for a criminal who likes to feast on ‘sin,’ wouldn’t you say?

Meanwhile Megatron and the others are far enough behind that Sunder has come and gone--turning Rodimus inside out, but not prisoners like Getaway, who were left safely in the dark. The timing, to me, makes it look like Rodimus barely got there in the nick of time.

Which, of course, only gets a disparaging comment from Megatron, who won’t even get off his moral high horse to fight back against Sunder and protect his crew.

Rodimus may or may not be able to hear this condescending comment, but when he comes back to work, fresh out of the medbay? Megatron kicks off by making fun of the experience. Rodimus counters humorlessly--clearly not digging this particular joke--and Megatron follows up with, oh, by the way, the only mech you probably count as a friend these days? Helped me come up with this terrible joke at your expense.

Making fun of your own trauma can be cathartic. Making light of someone else’s trauma, particularly when they’re literally leaving their hospital bed for the first time after the fact? No--that’s cruelty. That’s another example of convincing Rodimus that he’s too sensitive. Can’t he take a joke?

And he does take it--with only a minor dodge. Hence the barbed follow-up.

I would say that this is just an example of a tasteless and poorly thought out joke, but Megatron knows people. We see him manipulate the DJD masterfully--and those are mechs who know him, mechs who know the ins and outs of manipulation and abuse. So I’m inclined to believe that this is deliberate rather than a misstep, especially in light of his follow-up...

He cuts off Rodimus’ attempt to move away from the unpleasant subject by literally talking over him (note the overlap of the speech bubbles) in order to make a ‘joke’ about Rodimus resigning. Which--as we saw in the first scene, as we see in many scenes--is a continual point of contention between them.

Megatron is taking advantage of a moment of probable vulnerability by priming him with a ‘joke’ followed by a comment meant to make him feel alone, and then another ‘joke’ meant to indicate the desired behavior.

This is a pattern I’m familiar with, as you might expect by this point. In the case of my ex, he would use this pattern--making light of something traumatic that had happened to me, following up with a non-apology that referenced the fact that no one wanted to put up with my issues, and then bringing it home with an unsubtle joke about things he wanted to do to me to ‘make me feel better,’ no matter how I tried to indicate my own discomfort.

And I, personally, don’t think that this is any less bad here, even though that was really awful and--after enough rounds of it--inevitably succeeded in getting me to give him what he wanted to make it stop. Because, even if Rodimus seems to be in good spirits, trauma can present itself in different ways. And an experience like that, especially given the complete lack of emotional support he experienced before, during, and after? Yeah, no, I’m not prepared to believe that he's actually unbothered instead of coping by acting tough, not when he tries twice to dodge the ‘joke’.

And I’m also not prepared to believe that Megatron can't see right through that act, especially in light of the fact that he also makes a habit of making fun of Rodimus in front of everyone he can.

Do they make fun of you or put you down in front of others?

Megatron continually puts Rodimus down in front of the crew.

In case the screenshot ends up too small to read, he says, “I hope this puts paid to the notion that I ignore everything my ‘co-captain’ says on the grounds that he’s lazy, petulant, and pathologically ill-suited to command…”

From the air-quotes around ‘co-captain’ to the specific insults he uses, every word of this is supposed to cast himself as the responsible, capable captain and Rodimus as the immature usurper. He maintains a formal voice for his own actions--he’s being magnanimous by agreeing to Rodimus’ rendezvous plan on the planet below. Why, if he doesn’t, Rodimus will probably be petulant and whine about it, so really, any inconvenience is on Rodimus’ unstable emotional state.

Which seems over the top, but look at what he said. He starts by heavily implying that Rodimus shouldn’t be respected as a leader, then follows this assertion with three ‘reasons’ for this.

Lazy - Rodimus goes out of his way--literally--in season one to go on side-quests that help people. He’s always personally willing to go to the frontlines of any conflict he’s willing to risk his crew in. And when the co-captains are each presented with the opportunity to risk their lives for the sake of saving others (Rodimus in #21 and Megatron in #33), they have two very different reactions.

We are shown no panels of Rodimus balking; he immediately allows Perceptor to wire him to the anti-killswitch. When told it might kill him and will certainly destroy the matrix, he says, “There goes our map.” And after spending what might be his last moments telling Minimus the truth about Overlord, he says, “Self-sacrifice, Magnus--it’s cheap. It’s a cheap way out. I need to live so I can make amends and--” before the anti-killswitch cuts him off.

We go on an entire hunt while Megatron avoids coming clean about being able to mass-shift; it’s how we find out Brainstorm is a Decepticon. It takes five pages. And although Megatron agrees in the end, his quote on the matter is, “Oh, I could’ve said something earlier, but here’s a survival tip: when everyone’s lining up to make sacrifices...always get to the back of the queue.”

Which maybe doesn’t qualify as laziness--but it still paints a very different picture than Megatron is doing here.

Another point of fact is that even though Megatron has said in this arc that Rodimus has spent the time since launch hiding, Ravage points out later in the arc that he’s observed the same behavior in Megatron. More on that later--under Double Standards and Projection--but worth noting here to undermine the ‘honesty’ in the lazy point.

Petulant - This particular insult is set up to make Rodimus look emotional and childish. This is a pretty common tactic in abuse--it makes it hard to believe anything the person in question says. After all, they’re a child, do they really know what they’re talking about? Surely they just misremembered. Surely it’s safe to ignore their petulant demands unless you feel like indulging them.

Which is exactly what Megatron is implying he’s doing here. Indulging the whimsy of a child instead of working with the mech who shares his rank.

This particular brand of trivializing is a favorite when setting up for gaslighting, which I’ll talk about later. After all, if you can convince someone they’re immature--that they’re too inexperienced or emotional or downright crazy to trust their own perceptions--then they need to turn to someone with the authority to tell them what the truth is.

And if you can also convince those around the victim that this is true--as the villain does in Gaslight (1944), which gives us the technique’s name--by slandering the victim and undermining their authority, you have others who can ask, ‘Are you sure you didn’t imagine that?’ even when you aren’t around to enforce the reality you want.

The air-quotes around ‘co-captain’ are small, and words like ‘petulant’ are minor--but as Psychology Today’s article on Gaslighting points out, it always starts out slow. These words are weapons--and words have always been Megatron’s weapon of choice.

Pathologically Ill-Suited to Command - The final nail in this sentence’s coffin is this one. As I mentioned above, prepping for gaslighting is easier when you can convince your victim and their would-be support network that the victim is crazy--and here we see Megatron pull out that argument. Pathologically ill-suited to command.

It’s not poor baby Roddy’s fault, you see--his brain isn’t wired for command. He doesn’t have the intelligence of the True Captain. He doesn’t have the stability. He might like to pretend, but these are delusions.

As someone with several mental illnesses (primarily anxiety disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, but also depression), I heard this one a lot. A lot. I tried for years to take crazy as a point of pride; sometimes I still want to. But it’s been used as a weapon against me for years. “Are you insane?” prefaced a lot of furious dismissals of innocent requests I made when I was young, but it sometimes still happens when I try again to interact with my family. I also had panic attacks that got called ‘tantrums’ to trivialize them.

Rodimus likely has PTSD--he’s a veteran with a traumatic childhood, after all--and I’ve seen headcanons that he has ADHD. We also know for a fact that he self-harms--and so do all the people Megatron is addressing, since the cuts were visible all the way until the morning of the day this issue began. (It was even commented on when they were looking at Rodimus’ corpse.)

Casually pathologizing someone who visibly self-harms is an easy way of isolating them. Making it an indication that Rodimus is unfit for command? Easier still. It’s also a ready-made dismissal whenever someone doesn’t like your argument. I could offer examples, but this blurb has gone on long enough as it is--and I think every mentally ill person I know could likewise offer examples of it.

This is far from the only time Megatron publicly insults Rodimus in ways that undermine his credibility as a leader. In fact, he does it often enough to have become an in-joke among the crew between Dark Cybertron and the first arc of season 2:

This is the first arc in season 2. The first arc. And yet they’re already saying that Megatron always says this.

Which...isn’t really fair. Rodimus isn’t an engineer. If you review the scene in issue one, he gives the order to jump, and no one tells him that the engines aren’t ready until after they’ve malfunctioned, and even then they can’t tell him why. He immediately has them set down and refuses to take off until they’ve figured out exactly what went wrong--which seems responsible to me.

But, of course, anything that goes wrong can become Rodimus’ fault, even if he wasn’t the one responsible.

Megatron also deliberately insults Rodimus in front of Ultra Magnus, the mech who was, once Drift left, probably the closest thing to a friend Rodimus had on the ship:

Note the way he frames it: “a crisis in morale precipitated by his own woeful captaincy.”

We know people actually liked the Rodimus Stars, even though they were ridiculous. Maybe because they were ridiculous. We saw that in the Trailcutter Spotlight, where the entire story revolved around characters like Trailcutter and Swerve trying to get Rodimus Stars.

Yes, it’s silly. He doesn’t have a great system for passing them out. But that’s not what Megatron focuses on--instead he once again targets Rodimus’ supposed ineptitude.

Am I boring you to tears yet? It’s five hundred insults that all make the same point, one after another, to everyone he can get to listen, for over a year.

Until eventually…

Even the mechs that once supported him are instead convinced that Megatron is correct. Rodimus is incompetent, incapable of leadership--Minimus is comfortable joining Megatron in mocking Rodimus after he took a long weekend off to do something he enjoys.

Something I find interesting about this is that they accuse him of disappearing when there’s work to be done, but he has no idea whatsoever what the work they’re doing is.

In fact, he doesn’t know anything about the situation at all. He’s been gone three days, and they clearly hadn’t started decorating before he left. He even makes the reasonable suggestion of maybe just maybe avoiding the death zone, even if he goes with Megatron’s reasoning in the end.

This implies to me that he didn’t know there was work to be done. Either it came up after he left, or he wasn’t properly informed before he left.

As for the ‘not returning their calls’ bit--I suspect that meteor storms might interfere with comms. I’m fairly sure that’s a repeated subplot in most sci-fi I’ve seen, and the Lost Light’s comms aren’t especially robust at the best of times, let alone whatever handheld or internal unit Rodimus might’ve had.

Leaving things in the hands of Megatron and Minimus for three days--just a long weekend--isn’t irresponsible. Everyone deserves to be allowed to have hobbies. Everyone deserves to have a long weekend now and again, no matter their job. But Megatron has turned this--along with a laundry list of things he himself does--into a way to justify isolating Rodimus.

Isolation

How isolated is Rodimus? Since season two started, there have been no scenes of Rodimus spending downtime with anyone--until Drift returns, the one friend who hasn’t been exposed to months of Megatron’s unending degradation and insults.

It’s possible I missed a scene in my reread, but even though every other member of the group who ends up on the Necroplanet in Dying of the Light has at least a panel of casual or friendly interaction with others, the closest I found for Rodimus was the scene when he was fresh out of the medbay and Megatron made fun of him. Not promising, to say the least.

From all the available evidence, I’d say that Rodimus is an extrovert. He seems more energized in front of crowds, he was so charismatic he was partly responsible for short-circuiting the personality ticks, and he does things like naming his favorite crowd the Rod Squad. He likes people, clearly--and he’s shown repeatedly to care about protecting his crew, as well as total strangers.

He also habitually seeks external validation because of his low self-esteem. Without this kind of support, he resorts to self-harm (see the numbers he carved into his palm) and other unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Again--planning to do a Rodimus meta at some point. For now, let’s roll with the idea that he’s a social mech who craves being around others and needs external validation to function, which I don’t think is particularly difficult to believe.

The lack of interpersonal interaction in season two--alongside the belittling comments he faces when he does interact with others--indicate that he’s isolated. He’s a charismatic mech; that’s part of how he helped to kill off the personality ticks. And yet by the time they leave for the Necroplanet, he’s receiving no external validation, no interpersonal support, nothing. He’s alone.

He may not be the best at friendship--but neither are Whirl, Cyclonus, or Swerve, all of whom end up with strong friendships and support networks. Considering the previous section and Megatron’s clear attempts to isolate Rodimus, one can only surmise that he was ultimately successful in cutting him off even from Minimus.

So what does Megatron accomplish by shutting out all sources of external validation, anyone who might rebuild Rodimus after Megatron verbally tears him down?

In my experience, he’s setting himself up to have power over Rodimus. Remember--Rodimus is so full of self-doubt even before the beginning of the series that he reaches out to Ratchet, only to get shot down there. (“Beneath my cocksure exterior I have terribly low self-esteem.”) No longer able to lean heavily on Drift for emotional support and cut off from any positive reinforcement, he’s put in an extremely vulnerable place.

I, too, am an extrovert. Sometimes I’m fairly sure that it makes me intolerable to be around, especially since I do the same reassurance-seeking behavior as Rodimus. If I go too long without interacting with friends, my depression makes a bitter comeback.

Yes, it would be awfully nice if I could go without social interaction or reassurance or positive external feedback in general, and certainly no one is obligated to provide such things for me. But the fact of the matter remains that without these things, I’m left vulnerable and hungry for any scrap of affection I can find.

And, in my experience? My abusers have deliberately starved me from outside attention to put me in that vulnerable state. It was easiest for my mother, which isn’t surprising; she already had absolute power over where I went and who I saw. What she didn’t have--and what she wanted more than anything--was my undivided attention and affection.

So when I displeased her--and there were quite a lot of ways to upset her--one tactic she used was cutting me off from other sources of support. People who could verify that she’d said one thing on Tuesday morning and something radically different by Wednesday night. People who could help me cope with the nonstop insults, the micromanaging, the unbearable pressure.

Without them? I crumbled. I did anything my mother asked--and I apologized when I did it ‘wrong,’ or if I had ‘misunderstood’ the order she’d changed halfway through my obeying it, or if she’d simply forgotten that I had, in fact, obeyed her already. She was the only one who could arbitrate the Truth; I didn’t have anyone else to turn to.

My siblings and I banded together sometimes to stave this off, but at other times they behaved more like Minimus--going along with Mom to keep the peace, to keep her focused on me instead of them, or just because they actually agreed with her, I can’t quite be sure. In the end, I’m not sure that it matters.

For a specific example--I was required to hug my mother and tell her I loved her before I went to bed every night. One night, I could tell she was sleepy when I hugged her, but she said, “I love you, too,” so I thought I was safe.

No such luck--she woke up at two in the morning convinced that I hadn’t hugged her good night or said I loved her. She burst into my room, sobbing and shouting, and I had to stumble out of bed and try to calm her down.

I’m fairly confident that she didn’t cite that as the direct reason for the ensuing silent treatment and enforced ‘family time’ that meant I couldn’t see friends for a while, but the timing was suspicious.

We see this general pattern a few times with Megatron and Rodimus, as well, the most recent of which was in Lost Light #4. I’ll cover other aspects of that later, but, for now:

Transgression: Rodimus asked about teleporters.

Warning: “Hush.”

Withdrawal: “Not now, Rodimus.”

Isolation: Public humiliation.

And that pattern--do something ‘wrong’ to earn punishment, an initial outburst, pulling back with the silent treatment, and then isolating them from others as a way to build tension for a final blowout? Uh...

That’s a script Megatron wrote a long time ago, and he knows exactly how effective it can be.

Ultimately, what Megatron gets out of setting himself up as the only one to interact one-on-one with Rodimus is a lack of oversight, a lack of outside influence, and--if he presses hard enough, if he twists Rodimus around for long enough, if he sways the opinions of enough of the crew--eventually he might succeed in becoming sole captain of their merry band. With Minimus in his pocket? It’d be a recipe for total control over not just Rodimus, but the entire group.

Rage

“This is an intense, furious anger that comes out of nowhere… It startles and shocks the victim into compliance or silence.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

This is what most people think of when they picture abuse--the most violent of the symptoms. It’s also the one that Megatron has deliberately been keeping in check, pulling it out only when the long game he’s playing is at risk of being cut short.

I have said before that abuse can only be viewed in a pattern--one instance of shouting doesn’t necessarily make an abusive relationship. In the context of an abusive relationship, however, even one instance of rage is a powerful tool for controlling someone. Even if someone never again takes it ‘that far,’ the victim remembers. And they know that the threat is always going to be present.

When I was fifteen, I did something to upset my mother. To this day, I have no memory of exactly what I did wrong. What I do remember is my mother taking a book and slamming it against my temple so hard that it knocked me to the floor. She then grabbed me by the hair and dragged me up to scream in my face. I remember being held high enough that my knees weren’t on the floor, but my legs were still bent--the only point of contact I had with the world was my toes. I remember being so terrified that I had no idea what she was saying other than the tone, the way spit hit my face. She then stormed out of the house and blamed me for it.

The older of my two younger sisters tried to run away that night, and I nearly jumped off the roof of our house. I remember very clearly that the only reason I didn’t was because I was convinced that I would only break my legs, and she would use it as an excuse to trap me at home with her.

Beyond that, my memories blur. I remember that either that night--or perhaps another night--my littlest sister caught our mother’s attention. I remember making an attempt to distract our mother. Was that why she attacked me? I don’t remember. Did I make her more upset? I don’t remember, although I recall fearing I had. What I do remember is the moment that she grabbed my seven-year-old sister and threw her--physically threw her--out of the way. My sister landed wrong--on her wrist--and broke a bone. I remember her crying. I remember my mother telling her to shut up. I remember that it took a while before Mom took her to the hospital, and then that we were all ordered not to tell anyone how she’d broken the wrist.

Aside from these instances, my mother never laid a hand on any of us.

She never had to. It’s been twelve years--almost thirteen years--and I still feel it every time we interact. I remember that she’s capable of it. I remember that she was willing to shift her rage onto the more easily accessible target despite my best efforts. All the way until I moved out--and beyond then, and into the present--it’s kept me from being willing to confront her about some of the worse things she says and does.

It’s been over a decade and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that fear. For a while, I was so deeply afraid of even sharing the story--after being ordered to be silent about it--that I think I’ve only told a few of my closest friends and my therapist. The only reason I’m sharing it now is because I’m posting this anonymously. Because, at heart, I am still afraid.

Now, I could cover the handful of examples of Megatron hitting characters here. I could make conjectures about how Rodimus cares more about the wellbeing of others than his own, and threats of violence against characters like Trailcutter, Perceptor, and Minimus would be more likely to keep him in line than violence against his own person. I know that was true for me.

But none of those were done directly in front of Rodimus, even though he would have heard about them later. That makes it harder to draw conclusions about without wandering a bit too far off panel. So I’ll be discussing physical violence in those characters’ subsections--and for now, I’ll be looking at the times Megatron has threatened violence directly at Rodimus.

In context, Rodimus respectfully said that he and the others were reporting for duty; he even saluted. Megatron then ordered all of them to carry Ravage back to Ratchet, and Rodimus objected.

What was his objection? Was it, ‘but this is only half of Ravage, and even Ratchet probably needs both halves to repair him’? Was it, ‘but there are a lot of us, and probably we don’t all need to carry Ravage, so maybe some of us could stay and help’? We don’t get to find out, because Megatron doesn’t accept any objection to his orders, no matter how softly or respectfully put.

In this scene, with the DJD nearby, his long game is, as I said, at risk of being cut short. So he breaks out the rage to terrify Rodimus into unquestioning compliance.

What’s more, it worked. They all fled.

Maybe this doesn’t look like violence to some of you. But his expression and the way he towers over Rodimus as he screams? Looks almost identical to my mother’s face in the anecdote I shared above. And to me, that screaming was violence.

In fact, screaming like that was the only kind of violence my abusive ex-boyfriend perpetrated against me. He was physically larger than me; he would get me cornered in a bus seat and loom over me exactly like this while screaming insults. And I know for a fact that some people don’t think this counts, or believe this behavior can be justified--when I reached out to the older of my two younger sisters about how he kept doing this, she told me that I deserved it, and she wasn’t the only one.

As a result, in the context of Megatron’s treatment of Rodimus, and in the context of this being a tool that worked to control him, I would personally count it as an abusive tactic--one that I believe was deliberate. Especially since he never apologized.

And then, almost immediately after Rodimus risks his life to save Megatron…

Rodimus is standing directly behind Ratchet as they try to convince him to pretty please put down the gun, as we can see in the next panel:

And, of course, Megatron pulls the gun on them--all of them. And Rodimus, the one who brought him through the portal, the one who rescued him, is looking down the barrel of a fusion cannon over Ratchet’s shoulder. This group of mechs--the Rod Squad, his favorite people--are all being threatened.

And then Megatron says that it’s time he left, and it’s hard not to think, under the circumstances, that he means he’s done playing at being an Autobot, done being nice. He’s wearing Tarn’s mask as a deceptibrand, for goodness’ sake! For all intents and purposes, at this moment, it looks like Megatron is through with the quest and has no intention of going to trial.

A few days later--or however long it takes them to build the Den and end up on Functionist Cybertron--you can see that Rodimus is still thinking about this:

There are other potential explanations, of course, but--in context? I find it both telling and worrying that Rodimus’ instinctive reaction when Megatron shouts his name is a full-frame flinch. Not with battle prep or defensive stances or anything that would indicate he learned this response from being ordered around in battle. Just the same sort of flinch I still sometimes get when my mother raises her voice.

And, although it’s been a bit since I used this format, let’s answer another question from the checklist:

Do they accuse you of something contrived in their own minds when you know it isn’t true?

This is the last example I’m going to use for rage--and a tirade like this is an example of out-of-nowhere fury used to shock Rodimus into silence.

The thing is? Megatron pulled all of this out of his tin-plated ass.

In this scene, Rodimus did not once mention the Lost Light. He only tries to ask about the teleporters, and then Megatron derails him with this.

Now, I’m going to give JRo the benefit of the doubt, here. Instead of assuming he’s forgotten about Nyon--the core of Rodimus’ backstory--and abandoned Rodimus’ main driving force as a character by having him sacrifice others to get what he wants instead of, y’know, literally being willing to risk his life saving people at every single opportunity he’s ever had… Instead of pinning writing that terrible on JRo, I’m going to assume instead that Megatron cut off and then derailed Rodimus before he could suggest what he actually had in mind. Misunderstandings and assumptions being thwarted both play a role in JRo’s writing, after all.

And, with any thought at all, it actually makes perfect sense that Rodimus might need teleporters for a plan--for saving the people of this Cybertron, not for tracking down the Lost Light. These mechs aren’t safe on Cybertron, even in this supposed ‘sanctuary city’--and there’s no way to transport all of them offworld. There are too many of them--we see veritable thousands in the streets.

So how do you save everyone? Do you start another war to rise up against your oppressors--because the first one went so well--or do you get everyone the hell off the planet?

Sure, maybe Rodimus wants to use the teleporter after the fact. I’d be surprised if he didn’t--he left half the crew he still has on a distant planet with a bunch of potentially dangerous strangers.

As for why Rodimus responds to this accusation the way he does instead of by saying what he actually intended--have you ever been accused of the worst thing? Something that is so antithetical to your character that you feel like the person accusing you of it has never interacted with you? How could you have given this person the idea that you would ever, in a million years ever, consider doing what they’ve just accused you of?

Well, you see, that confusion? That disorientation? The scrambling to find any common ground to argue on and finding that you have no footing because you don’t even know what to expect--what’s real and what you’ve made up? Leaving you floundering to counter a point in a way that at least connects to their reality?

That’s another abuse tactic. And it’s called gaslighting.

Gaslighting

“Narcissistic mental abusers lie about the past, making their victim doubt her memory, perception, and sanity. They claim and give evidence of her past wrong behavior further causing doubt. She might even begin to question what she said a minute ago.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I have more experience with gaslighting than literally any other form of abuse, to the point that I still struggle to believe that my memory isn’t just faulty, that I’m not just overreacting, that these things really did happen, that I’m not the one making things up. That’s why I extensively cite every point I make: I feel as though no one will trust me or my word, but maybe if I bring in enough data points--enough hard facts--it’ll make up for the fact that I’m the one writing it.

Gaslighting seems so minor, and it is so hard to point to examples when you’re living in it. Even the extensive trauma I described above doesn’t hold a candle to the scars left by decades of gaslighting. I cannot overstate how deeply emotionally scarring it is, the way it can change the entire way you see the world, the way it makes trusting yourself and others almost impossible at times.

This is a hard section for me to write. Perhaps the hardest, in fact, and I say that despite the fact that writing the last section gave me flashback nightmares so intense I couldn’t sleep for three days. To get through the experience, I’m using the framework offered by the article linked in the above description and referencing other sections of this meta post. Any brevity in this section is a result not of a lack of evidence in canon but of an overabundance of my own trauma.

And with that disclaimer, let’s dig in.

They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.

“You know they said they would do something; you know you heard it. But they out and out deny it. It makes you start questioning your reality—maybe they never said that thing. And the more they do this, the more you question your reality and start accepting theirs.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I would personally amend this to say that they deny they ever said or did something, even if you have proof. This can range quite a lot:

“Mom, you said that you’d already picked up the stuff for my school project, but I can’t find it anywhere. Where is it?”

“You never even told me you had a project! This is what happens when you leave everything to the last minute.”

“But I have your text message right here?”

“Let me see that. No, no, that’s not what I meant at all, why would you think that was what I meant? Are you stupid?”

Which was a pretty staple ‘misunderstanding’ in our house, but less frustrating than the times my mother’s reaction to evidence was to say, “I swear to God that I never said that, and if I’m lying, may He strike me down where I stand!” Which was, unfortunately, at least as common--more common, actually, when we were in public. And when God didn’t smite her, she gave us a smug smile and considered herself proven right.

As this escalated--gradually, over the course of my entire childhood--eventually she built to a moment so big and so obvious that I actually realized what she was doing. That it wasn’t forgetfulness. That it wasn’t a case of repeated misunderstandings. That she was reconstructing reality as it suited her, and I was powerless to stop her.

What moment could possibly have been jarring enough to open my eyes to that? I talked in the rage section about the night my mother knocked me to the ground and hauled me up by my hair. What I didn’t tell you is that after she dropped me back to the floor again, I looked up at her and, still sobbing, asked her why she’d hit me in the head with her address book.

“I didn’t,” she said, still towering over me as I lay curled on the floor. “I would never.”

“Then--” Maybe it was her hand, I thought. Maybe I was confused. I felt so disoriented and terrified and I didn’t understand what was happening. “Then why did you pull my hair?”

“I didn’t,” and she looked angry enough to do it all over again. “It must have gotten caught in the zipper.”

The zipper, of course, being on the address book she’d just denied smacking me with.

When I tried to point out this logical flaw, she redirected--and then stormed out of the house, blaming me for the fact that she needed to abandon us. Even though she came home a few hours later, the guilt worked--and I was too afraid to bring up the incident ever again.

And here’s where I’ll be frank--I said that that incident opened my eyes. And it did--but not that night. That night, I was terrified I’d imagined the whole thing. I had no evidence. She’d hit me, but it hadn’t left a mark. She’d pulled me up by the hair to bellow in my face, but I couldn’t even remember what she’d said.

If my siblings hadn’t been there to question her with me--to reaffirm it had actually happened--to be honest? I might to this day believe it was a nightmare. That she’d never actually laid a hand on me. And that’s what long-term, slow-build gaslighting does.

So--a few small denials, a pointed redirection whenever holes get poked at, all of that seems trivial in comparison, I’m sure. But it builds. It has to start small if the abuser hopes to normalize it. Because, at first? You question them. You start hoarding evidence. But if it goes on long enough? You start to question yourself. You start to question any evidence that you, personally, collected. Eventually you’re left questioning yourself so often that you stop questioning them.

Which is why even minor instances of gaslighting--if they’re part of an abusive pattern--should be noted as soon as possible.

In this case, Megatron asserts he’s been saying something when Rodimus has proof that he hasn’t even been around to say it. He says it both to belittle Rodimus and to set up a reality where he’s been dutifully doing his job instead of secretly doing prep work for the ultimate supervillain device in his habsuite (I’m talking, of course, about the antimatter he spends months channeling, almost certainly in violation of his parole).

Before you doubt Rodimus--and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did, because another goal of gaslighting is to make others doubt the perception of the victim--I’ll point out that Ultra Magnus also comments on Megatron hiding himself away.

So Megatron was lying to begin with--he hasn’t been saying that for weeks. He hasn’t been in a position to say anything to Rodimus for weeks. And when called out on it, he neither apologizes for the lie nor even allows time to address the fact that he did so. Instead, he picks something we know to be a sore point--and therefore a good distraction.

Taking stock, not sulking. Because, as Rodimus clearly remembers:

And from the way Rodimus reacts? Especially given my own experiences? I would guess that this wasn’t the only time Megatron said it--just the only time caught on camera, so to speak.

Also, yes--in the next panel, Megatron claims that he’s been working, something that both Ultra Magnus and Rodimus have both confirmed isn’t true. The truth is that he’s channeling antimatter for his own purposes--regardless of whether he eventually uses them to benefit the others, with no one aware he’s setting this up, he has no oversight.

They tell blatant lies.

“You know it's an outright lie. Yet they are telling you this lie with a straight face. Why are they so blatant? Because they're setting up a precedent. Once they tell you a huge lie, you're not sure if anything they say is true. Keeping you unsteady and off-kilter is the goal.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

These lies, in my experience, can range from nearly inconsequential to the extreme. My mother would routinely tell me that I hadn’t said something that my siblings later confirmed I said, but that could be dismissed as forgetfulness or poor hearing. She would also tell me that I’d promised to do something when we’d never discussed the matter in the first place, then tell me that I was the one forgetting. That was a little harder to handle--my siblings didn’t listen to every conversation between me and Mom, so I had no one to back me up. It’s much more difficult to prove you never discussed something than to prove that you did.

But, like I said--minor. Hard to prove or disprove. These tiny lies make it hard to trust reality and harder to trust your memory or judgment. These are also almost impossible to point to when discussing abuse with those who have never experienced it, because they look like misunderstandings at worst. It’s insidious and frustrating and only when you get to a big lie--the kind you build up to over years (or after more than twenty issues)--that you can point to it and say, “See? I have proof. I can prove this time it isn’t true!”

Megatron is claiming--genuinely daring to claim--that he was the one to first suggest stopping to help people along the way. When he’s been complaining about Rodimus’ so-called “side-quests” since day one. In season one alone, we saw them stop on the DJD homeworld so Ratchet could help cure a plague, Temptoria to rescue prisoners being used as batteries, and, eventually, the Big Hero moment when Tailgate uses a semicolon to save them all.

Except something that nobody seems to talk about in season two--as far as I’ve found, at least--is the fact that Rodimus is actually the one who saved all the constructed cold mechs with the help of Perceptor. Tailgate shutting off the suggestion beam and shutting down the Legislators was also critical to the operation’s success, of course, and I’m hardly going to say that Tailgate doesn’t deserve his due credit, but Rodimus was also fully ready to die for a universe of strangers.

I covered this above when talking about how Megatron called him lazy, but let’s pull in the panels for comparison’s sake.

Here we see Rodimus getting hooked up without a single panel of hesitation. As soon as they were ready to wire him in, he went.

He asks if it’ll kill him and has no qualms when he’s given a decided maybe.

And when he does save the CC mechs, you would expect, wouldn’t you, that he would never let anyone else forget it. After all, everyone (especially Megatron) insists he’s a self-centered jerk. But he lets Tailgate take full credit, and the only mention of Rodimus’ role in the proceedings after the fact comes when Optimus gets angry at him for destroying the Matrix.

Meanwhile Megatron drags his feet for five pages as the foam gets progressively worse and more dangerous, hoping they’ll find Brainstorm’s shrink ray so that someone else can go in his place.

But it was Megatron--who stays on the ship, who sends mechs to do battle but spares himself from the dirty work that would strip him of his self-righteous high horse--who first had the idea to help people. Right. One hundred percent his idea, and Rodimus should have told him they were saving organics so he could leave them to die.

It’s a lie. It’s a big enough lie that anyone could point to it and objectively prove that it’s not true. But Megatron says it, and Rodimus placates him instead of fighting him on it. He’s just happy that lives are getting saved; he doesn’t try to take any of the credit.

I find it unpleasantly relatable that Rodimus’ first reaction is no longer to correct Megatron, as he once did--in fact, as he did in the last example where we caught Megatron out in an obvious lie--but instead to offer him something to calm him down. Something to mitigate fallout. Something I, myself, have done countless times.

Their actions do not match their words.

“When dealing with a person or entity that gaslights, look at what they are doing rather than what they are saying. What they are saying means nothing; it is just talk. What they are doing is the issue.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I want to write a separate meta post about Megatron’s bullshit redemption arc because I don’t want my opinions on that to distract from the primary point I’m trying to make with this meta. However, it also fits this point to an almost ludicrous degree.

Rather than break down Megatron’s entire character arc, I’ll focus on a few relevant points and save the rest for another post.

What Megatron says: “I am on this quest to make amends by finding a new world for our people after destroying our original planet.”

What Megatron does: never apologizes to the people he wronged using his own words, takes control of a privately owned neutral vessel with the help of a mech who holds no democratically appointed position nor has any kind of oversight, deliberately sends them three jumps off course to the necroplanet for the express purpose of derailing the quest.

What Megatron says: “I’ve renounced violence.”

What Megatron does: continues to send others into battles he’s not willing to fight, refuses to act even when it means that his crew will likely suffer casualties, orders acts of violence from behind the protective distance of a screen.

What Megatron says: “It’s not about me! I am taking a vow of pacifism because, if I were to pick up a weapon again, I would be unstoppable.”

What Megatron does: continues to reach for the dark matter that would make him unstoppable (even at the cost of shirking his duties--note that he missed Brainstorm’s trial), continues to risk the lives of others--apparently, by this logic, for their own good.

I could go into greater depth--I hope that someday I will get to tear this particular topic open--but, for now, I’ll leave it at this. What Megatron says can be very pretty, particularly if you ignore the overblown narcissism hidden in the message, but in practice it’s functionally worthless. He does virtually nothing to actually advance the honorable goals he’s espousing--only enough to make himself look good and noble.

This is something my mother and ex excel at. My mother can talk anyone into believing she’s a good and loving person who gives everything she has for us kids, tailoring how she frames her beliefs to most please whoever her audience is. Growing up, I heard a lot about how lucky I was to have such a loving and wonderful mom. My mom has even been able to talk me in circles--‘I only threatened you with a pray-away-the-gay camp because I wanted you to know you had other options! I didn’t want you to be bullied, so I had no choice but to completely isolate you from your DFAB friends any time your sexual orientation came up!’

Only, uh, of course I’m not framing that the way she did. That’s just what all the pretty talk amounted to. I only picked it apart years after moving out of the house.

Actions speak louder than words--because in situations with this brand of abuse, words are just tools to further the abuse, not tools for honest communication. With gaslighting, especially, words are meant to confuse.

They know confusion weakens people.

“Gaslighters know that people like having a sense of stability and normalcy. Their goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything. And humans' natural tendency is to look to the person or entity that will help you feel more stable—and that happens to be the gaslighter.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

Gaslighting has profound effects over time. In “Identifying Victims of Narcissistic Abuse” on Psych Central, the provided list offers some idea of the scope of the damage that victims endure.

What I find most interesting about that list in the context of this meta post, though, is that it increasingly describes Rodimus as season two of MTMTE and then Lost Light each progress. From second guessing and increasing difficulty concentrating and making decisions to being highly strung and irritable to fear responses when Megatron says his name, this all actually adds up to a potentially realistic picture of how trauma can affect someone.

It’s not pretty. In fact, it can leave people looking and feeling unstable, which adds further fuel to the gaslighting fire.

I can’t say for sure whether JRo intends Rodimus’ increasingly erratic (and, at times, desperate and out of character) behavior to be read as a response to this prolonged abuse. I hope he does--it makes more sense to me than the alternatives.

Especially since this particular article on gaslighting goes on to cover many of the points I’ve already addressed in this meta, which I think hammers home their severity.

They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.

“They know how important your kids are to you, and they know how important your identity is to you. So those may be one of the first things they attack. If you have kids, they tell you that you should not have had those children. They will tell you'd be a worthy person if only you didn't have a long list of negative traits. They attack the foundation of your being.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I could rehash this point--but I’ve already spent several thousand words on it. From mocking the Rod Pod to tearing down Rodimus’ identity as a leader and a hero to rattling off reason after reason why he’s worthless, the entire degradation section could fit under this bullet point.

They wear you down over time.

“This is one of the insidious things about gaslighting—it is done gradually, over time. A lie here, a lie there, a snide comment every so often...and then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self-aware people can be sucked into gaslighting—it is that effective. It's the "frog in the frying pan" analogy: The heat is turned up slowly, so the frog never realizes what's happening to it.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

Once again, a point I covered in previous sections. Abuse builds up bit by bit, allowing the abuser to skate by without being called out. What would have looked like a vicious and unfair tirade at the beginning of the abuse--uncalled for and baseless--eventually looks like a righteous ‘dressing down’ of a petulant child.

They tell you or others that you are crazy.

“This is one of the most effective tools of the gaslighter, because it's dismissive. The gaslighter knows if they question your sanity, people will not believe you when you tell them the gaslighter is abusive or out-of-control. It's a master technique.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

This is the reason I homed in on that particular choice of words by Megatron in the degradation section. It seems like it’s no big deal--all varieties of this abuse seem like they’re no big deal. Until they build and build and suddenly everyone believes--both in the comic and in the fandom--that Rodimus deserves the treatment he receives at Megatron’s hands and should not be trusted with any serious task. Everyone immediately believes the worst of him in every situation.

They try to align people against you.

“Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what—and they use these people against you. They will make comments such as, "This person knows that you're not right," or "This person knows you're useless too." Keep in mind it does not mean that these people actually said these things. A gaslighter is a constant liar. When the gaslighter uses this tactic it makes you feel like you don't know who to trust or turn to—and that leads you right back to the gaslighter. And that's exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

And here we have the final critical point I covered above--the result of all the dismissive comments, the intention behind the isolation. No one trusts Rodimus’ judgment. No one trusts Rodimus to even have good intentions anymore.

It’s a personal hell for someone as extroverted as Rodimus--and it could all end if he ceded power to Megatron. And wouldn’t that be easier?

They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.

“This person or entity that is cutting you down, telling you that you don't have value, is now praising you for something you did. This adds an additional sense of uneasiness. You think, "Well maybe they aren't so bad." Yes, they are. This is a calculated attempt to keep you off-kilter—and again, to question your reality. Also look at what you were praised for; it is probably something that served the gaslighter.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

This seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? If you’re spending months or years breaking someone down, why would you ever throw in a compliment?

The thing is, this particular brand of abuse--this variety of manipulation--makes the victim especially susceptible to praise as a weapon. When starved of praise, it’s natural to crave it. And in two rereads of season 2? I found exactly one instance of someone praising Rodimus. In issue 43, Rodimus says that Swerve called him the best dancer he’d ever seen. Other than that? Nothing. I reread twice specifically looking for positive comments about Rodimus, and there was absolutely nothing for him.

I was lucky enough to have friends who told me that I was worth something even when I was being abused. And even then, I craved praise from my mother more than anyone--both because she’d conditioned me to look to her above all the others, and because she was the one who was the hardest to please.

Of course, when she did praise me, it was either performative--‘look what a good mother I am’--or it was to get me to do something that I desperately did not want to do. “You’re such a good daughter, (name)--I know you actually do love us. That’s why you’re looking forward to this three month trip (where you’ll have no contact with any of your friends and no means of escape), right?”

And I went. So help me, once she pulled out that card, I honestly believed I had no choice but to go. Every summer, I fell in line.

If I’d been as starved of praise as Rodimus had--if my mother had succeeded in fully isolating me as she so often tried to do--I don’t think I could have pushed back on any subject at all.

At the start of Lost Light, the issue summary indicates it’s been five years since the ship first took off. Assuming half of that was during season two, that’s two and a half years--during which we only have evidence of a single, passing compliment. Especially for someone like Rodimus, that’s downright devastating.

And then Megatron drops this bomb during their most critical argument:

It works.

Rodimus stops pushing. Rodimus stops fighting him. Stops begging him to help them not die by standing with them instead of watching them fight from a screen, directing them in how to die. (Which he doesn’t do, by the way--he makes no contact with the group once they leave until he strides out onto the battlefield.)

This is the antithesis of everything Megatron has said for the last two-ish years. This is everything that Rodimus has wanted to hear.

It’s pure manipulation, of course--Megatron goes back to doubting Rodimus’ leadership and judgment without a single pause. He doesn’t hear Rodimus out on the battlefield or on functionist Cybertron. If this compliment had been genuine? He would have.

But no. It was a means to an end, and it worked. Rodimus did exactly as Megatron wanted. As Megatron knew he would.

The final point the article on gaslighting brings up is one I want to address separately--projection and double standards.

Projection

“They dump their issues onto their victim as if she were the one doing it. For instance, narcissistic mental abusers may accuse their spouse of lying when they have lied. Or they make her feel guilty when he is really guilty. This creates confusion.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

“They are a drug user or a cheater, yet they are constantly accusing you of that. This is done so often that you start trying to defend yourself, and are distracted from the gaslighter's own behavior.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

Megatron has claimed--first to Optimus and later to everyone who would listen--that he would find success where Rodimus found failure. It was part of his sales pitch to avoid imprisonment until his retrial.

So he said then, when they had no map and their only plan was to track down Thunderclash, who was having visions to guide him toward Cyberutopia. And, once they’d found him, the map he’d carved was destroyed in the fight with the personality ticks, leaving them rudderless once again.

Or so it seemed.

Up until this point, Megatron has disapproved of Rodimus taking supposedly pointless sidequests. However, as soon as Rodimus produces a hand-carved map to Cyberutopia, he changes his tune.

Rodimus has just very reasonably expressed that Cyberutopia is in the opposite direction and given his position as co-captain: they need to stay on task and find the Knights. Here, Megatron overrides him without even acknowledging that, technically speaking, he doesn’t have veto power. Of course he gets the final say even if they share the same rank. Why shouldn’t he? Co-captain is a position made up for Rodimus’ ego; if Megatron decides that it’s time for a literally pointless sidequest, then it’s time to start getting the quantum engine jumping.

He looks so smug as Rodimus arches an optic ridge in the background. No one questions Megatron’s authority to make the executive override here, though, including Ultra Magnus, who would be the one in the best position to point out that the captains share a rank and Megatron can’t just arbitrarily ignore the chain of command. Ultra Magnus is also probably the closest thing Rodimus has to a friend on the ship, and he still doesn’t speak in Rodimus’ support here.

Even though, by the terms of the quest and Megatron’s parole? Rodimus is the one clearly in the right.

Megatron has been accusing Rodimus of shirking responsibility, of laziness, and at one point of not having the steel to face his own death (in the form of his corpse). And yet, when they can finally actually get on the right path--when Rodimus has hand-delivered a map--his first action is specifically to derail the quest.

And for what possible reason?

Because of character flaws he’s been accusing Rodimus of since day one.

Of not facing his death quickly enough.

Of not even being able to start the quest--when, of the two of them, Megatron is the one who sent them deliberately off course as soon as he could.

Of vanishing when work needs to be done.

This is all par for the course with projection. It can look coincidental; it can even on occasion look well-intentioned. But it ultimately comes from a self-centered place where the one doing the projection can have a few possible motives.

Self-Centered Motive 1: Being unable to conceive of motives separate from those they would have.

Self-Centered Motive 2: Being unable to conceive of being wrong about someone’s internal motivations--or, indeed, about any assessment they make.

Self-Centered Motive 3: Deliberately using the projection to cover for one’s own behavior. (This isn’t necessarily indicative of shame or guilt; it can be done to draw attention away from behavior they believe they will face repercussions for when they would like to continue perpetrating said behavior.)

Self-Centered Motive 4: Deliberately using the project to confuse and disorient an abuse victim, putting them on the defensive. (After all, “No, you,” is an argument that could be regurgitated by a ‘petulant’ two-year-old and therefore easy to dismiss, particularly when you habitually tell others that your victim is just childish and overly sensitive.)

The first and second motives are unlikely to be the case for Megatron, who is a master-class strategist used to dealing with schemers. He wouldn’t be able to remain several steps ahead if he was unable to read intentions behind other people’s choices. He also wouldn’t have lasted particularly long as leader of the Decepticons if he couldn’t infer the motivations of others.

Meanwhile, motives three and four would serve him extremely well, particularly in this situation. If he spends sixteen issues convincing the crew that Rodimus is the irresponsible one holding back the quest, if Rodimus tries to counter by saying, “But you’re the one trying to keep us off course!”--well. Can you imagine anyone taking him seriously?

Oh wait. You don’t have to--they had that argument in Lost Light #4.

And, as Megatron knew would happen, even Minimus Ambus believed his lie. No one--no one at all--believed Rodimus or took his side.

Great bit of misdirection, isn’t it? It also has the benefit of leaving Rodimus doubting himself--questioning whether he actually is working hard enough. That’s the gaslighting aspect of the technique; it destabilizes your reality and makes it harder to question what your abuser says about you or asks of you. Because if you and you alone think that something is true? Peer pressure is likelier to silence you.

It won’t always--the Asch conformity experiments are an interesting place to begin for further research, if you’re interested--but in those experiments, even though it was clearly objective reality being described, only one in four participants consistently fought majority opinion. When it’s something more nebulous--personality traits, personal failings--it seems likely to be a little harder to fight.

And when you’re already being conditioned not to fight this particular person (with bouts of rage and the other abuse techniques I’ve described here), it can be hard to convince yourself that it would be worth fighting in the first place.

Mix this with Rodimus’ already present self-worth and guilt issues? And it’s frankly stunning to me that he contradicts Megatron as often as he actually does. I know that I didn’t have it in me that often--it’s almost unspeakably exhausting to have this kind of fight, particularly when you have no one on your side and no hard evidence to point to.

This is still relatively early into the abuse, admittedly--six months after the trial. But Rodimus is still trying to assert his own reality in the face of Megatron projecting.

And he is projecting. Need proof? Ask Ravage an hour or two later in this arc:

He’s been sitting in his room for six months, the same as Rodimus. But to distract others from that fact, he loudly accuses Rodimus of it--publicly, purposefully. “I ‘take stock.’ You sulk. You’re sulking now.”

As the second blurb says, it puts Rodimus in a position where he must defend himself against the accusations, distracting from the fact that Megatron is also doing this.

And it works: Rodimus goes on the defensive, and no one questions the narrative that Megatron is setting up.

This narrative allows Megatron to twist situations (and facts) to suit himself with relative impunity.

Twisting

“When narcissistic spouses are confronted, they will twist it around to blame their victims for their actions. They will not accept responsibility for their behavior and insist that their victim apologize to them.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

Megatron avoids apologizing like the plague. He apologizes exactly once in the series--and then leaves without trying to get the injured party to the medical bay or calling a medic, which makes it more than a bit hollow. Beyond that? He never apologizes for his actions during the war--for Grindcore, for setting up the DJD, etc--and he also never apologizes for things like decking Perceptor and nearly sending him through a computer screen. He certainly never apologizes for his behavior toward Rodimus.

Instead, he twists the situation so that he’s justified in his awful behavior or so that the blame falls on someone else. He does this, too, when something threatens the narrative he’s been building or Rodimus ‘disobeys’ him. For example, when Rodimus overrides his condescending hush command that Megatron had no place issuing...

Rodimus is offering a potential counter-strategy that Megatron hasn’t approved: evacuation and escape. It’s something they discussed while Megatron met the ‘troops’ instead of coming to the briefing:

A solution Rodimus brought up at the time, using the same language he describes the teleporter with above:

So he’s trying to work out, it seems, whether there’s a possibility of rescuing the mechs already teleported away--and whether there’s a chance they could get all of these civilians to safety.

I discussed this possibility in rage, but I’d like to look at a different panel for the lead-up to that, where Megatron twists the narrative:

See how he turns his controlling and dismissive behavior (“Hush, not now.”) into an attack that invents a sinister motive Rodimus is clearly supposed to apologize for? This being despite the fact that all Rodimus asked about was teleporters--something that would be absolutely vital in evacuating a civilian population off-planet.

It’s a successful twisting of the situation--successful enough that even I bought it on my first read-through. Despite everything, despite all logic and circumstance and evidence, Megatron convinced even me that his narrative was the right one.

But when I read again? It was groundless. Megatron describes Rodimus as being obsessed; if he’s referring to the paint job, then Drift pointed out it lends itself to multiple interpretations--including mourning. Other than that, all Rodimus has done is organize a plan to get them home. Nothing about his behavior reads as obsessive to me.

But let’s stick to these panels and break it down:

Rodimus attempts to participate in the conversation. Considering that he and Rodimus share a rank and the group is currently planning what to do, it’s perfectly appropriate for Rodimus to try to pitch in, especially since he was the one at the briefing while Megatron met the ‘troops’ in another area. He knows more about the situation than Megatron in some ways, and he’s trying to use that information to help.

But Megatron gets visibly angry and tries to shut the attempt down. Based on his behavior through the series as well as my own experiences, I think I can guess why.

Rodimus ‘disobeyed’ him, which undermines the vision Megatron has of himself as the ‘real’ captain. The image he’s been trying to sell the crew. If he can spin this as Rodimus being childish, he can salvage the situation and maintain his narrative. Scolding him like a child sets that up.

It’s technically also possible that he’s somehow forgetting Rodimus’ experiences with Nyon and nonstop heroism despite being present for both, although that seems like an awfully large and uncharitable lapse on his part.

This implies to me that this isn't the first time Megatron has dismissed Rodimus like this--but before Rodimus can call him out further, Megatron twists the narrative, and now it's not about teleporters or exit strategies. It's a personal attack on Rodimus.

This comes, frankly, out of nowhere. It's an unprovoked attack against someone who shares his rank and is trying to contribute to the planning process--you know, trying to do his job.

Here's the thing. I'm familiar with these derailing types of attacks--where anything I do can get twisted and turned into something that requires an apology when I'm (a) trying to help, (b) doing my job, and (c) trying to do it respectfully but also efficiently due to time crunches. And, like Rodimus, I've been baited into shouting back at my abusers.

It's a win-win for them. Sure, they derailed first--they shouted first--but since I fought back, it can't be abuse. Since I got distracted from the point I wanted to make, I proved them right. I'm too sensitive. I deserve to be ‘taken to task’ or ‘put in my place’ or whatever euphemism you care to use. Because I stop looking like a crying victim on the floor, it stops counting as abuse.

If you think I'm exaggerating, I can assure you I'm not. Read any comment thread about abuse or assault and see how long it takes for people to find reasons why this person wasn't really a victim. Why they deserved it.

I should have talked above--under almost every section--about my abusive ex-boyfriend. Really, it's painful how much is relevant. But I haven't, because… Fuck me, this is the sixth complete rewrite of this section, and I'm still tearing up. I haven't, and it's because experience has convinced me that no one will take my side because I wasn't a good enough victim.

I'll keep it simple and relevant--just a single example that I feel parallels the above scene. It happened within a week of when my mom hit me; I was 15. My ex was failing a writing class, and he showed me his homework. I thought he was asking for feedback, since, y'know, he was failing. But I only got as far as saying he'd misused a comma before he told me to shut up.

I say he told me. That sounds so mild. We were sitting near the front of the school bus together; I was trapped between him and the window. He had eight inches and fifty pounds on me, and he used it to loom over me like Megatron continually looms over Rodimus. I say he told me to shut up; he got in my face and screamed it in front of a bus full of our peers.

He then proceeded to scream insults at me until he was red in the face. I wasn't qualified to judge his commas, I was an idiot, on and on. He had a bad habit of yelling at me in 1337-sp34k--yes, out loud--because it made him feel intelligent when I couldn't understand it. To be honest, I think that parallels with Megatron’s consistent condescending use of ‘big words’--the point of communication is to communicate, not to feel smart about our superior vocabulary.

Like Megatron, he would get loud and condescending and demeaning and use speech I couldn't understand to prove that I wasn't as smart as he was. Like Megatron, he would loom over me, using his height and bulk to intimidate me when I started getting ‘uppity’ or otherwise ticked him off. Like Megatron, he mostly did this when we had an audience--it was other types of abuse he perpetrated in private.

And, like Rodimus, sometimes I backed down--but sometimes I shouted back.

Not often. Usually I kept it to a few incredulous statements. But there were times when he said something so shocking, so untrue, I had to defend myself--like Rodimus does in this scene. And--once again, like Rodimus--I got so ‘het up’ that I would lose my point, forget my words, and find it impossible to actually figure out how to fight his points. Partly because they were so groundless it felt like there was no evidence I could pull to counter them.

I told my sister about it, once. And she said that since I yelled back sometimes, I deserved it.

She wasn't the only one to say that, but it hurt the most coming from her. And it hurts again when I read posts about Megatron and Rodimus where people talk about how great it is that Megatron finally put Rodimus in his place, how much Rodimus deserved to be screamed at. It's just fiction, true, but in the back of my mind, I always think, ‘If I told you that this happened to me, would you say I deserved it, too?’

Because I've seen very little recognition of the fact that victims do sometimes fight back. They often pay for it, but when you're driven into a corner you don't lie down and take it every time.

No one looks like a Hollywood victim all the time--crying and ‘weak’ and only staying because of fear. Anyone of any personality type can be abused. And abusers are experts at seeming like good, upstanding people; they need to be able to build a narrative that casts them as the hero or anti-hero. You need to see a whole pattern to recognize them for what they are--and they're invested in hiding that pattern by any means necessary so they won't lose that control, that power over both their current victim and other future victims.

Some abusers apologize going into the honeymoon phase of the abuse cycle as part of perpetuating that narrative. Others avoid taking blame at any cost, refusing to take responsibility for their actions. Megatron makes excuses rather than apologies and never does the work to make amends; like my abusive ex, he thinks experiencing any guilt at all absolves him of the hard work of fixing things. It doesn't; feeling bad is meaningless. It accomplishes nothing. And excuses relieve that guilt--the false high of unearned absolution.

Do they make excuses for their behavior or tend to blame others or circumstances for their mistakes?

It’s not his fault, you see! This murder squad he personally trained massacred two hundred of his crew members (the theory at the time of this panel was a ‘near future’ scenario, not parallel quantum shenanigans), but really, he knew this would happen the moment Optimus made him say sorry. These are natural consequences of making him do something he didn’t want to do.

Now, it’s true that Megatron didn’t order them to do this, but immediately putting the blame on Optimus making him vocally renounce the cause he was already claiming he’d renounced… When, y’know, these are his hand-picked and hand-trained assassins who he used to terrify his troops into abject obedience to all Decepticon beliefs… It’s just mind-boggling to me.

To explain another way: he just entered a ship full of two hundred mutilated corpses, all but a few showing signs of extreme torture. And he makes it about him. And he does that while still trying to dodge all blame. It’s a natural consequence of him reading the speech Optimus wrote for him, but it’s not because he trained a team of murderers in the art of violent murdering, no, that part has nothing to do with anything. They didn’t answer to him, he says, when he’s the only one who has Tarn’s comm number. When Tarn personally credits him with shaping him into the person he became.

The DJD are responsible for their own actions, certainly, but that doesn’t mean that Megatron isn’t responsible for giving them a list of traitors and turning them loose on his troops--and on innocent bystanders.

This would be a good opportunity for a sparkfelt apology. We could have seen Megatron mourn these dead and regret training the DJD and tell the survivors that he’ll find a way to talk to the DJD and make sure this never happens again (something he could have done at any time--he does have Tarn’s number, after all). We could have seen him start making reparations six months after saying he’d changed.

Instead we see him give a self-righteous little speech about how he’s totally blameless.

This may not be directed at Rodimus, but Rodimus numbers among the dead--he was the first corpse they found. And he cares not one bit that his living co-captain and second in command have vanished, with only gray and disfigured corpses to replace them. No, the most important thing in this situation is to twist the narrative and make sure everyone knows it’s not his fault.

This is what happens when he’s made to do things he doesn’t want to do. There are consequences; he doesn’t need to make reparations because the consequences are natural and right.

Living for millions of years with the DJD as real boogeymen who could appear and wreak this kind of devastation without warning if Megatron gave a single word? It’d be hard not to see those natural consequences as a threat.

Manipulation

“A favorite manipulation tactic is for the narcissist to make their spouse fear the worst, such as abandonment, infidelity, or rejection. Then they refute it and ask her for something she normally would reply with ‘No.’ This is a control tactic to get her to agree to do something she wouldn’t.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

All of the above is manipulation, without question. But I’m including this as a separate bullet point because it allows me to address a particular tactic that doesn’t fit neatly under any of the other sections.

Do they continually have “boundary violations” and disrespect your valid requests?

Megatron has no respect for Rodimus’ personal space, particularly when he’s being ‘defiant’ in some way. Paring away text to focus on body language, it becomes even more abundantly clear.

From the beginning of season two, he towers over Rodimus, jabbing a finger less than a hand’s breadth from his face.

When he wants to be obeyed, he physically gets in Rodimus’ face--snarling and huge.

And as a new arc begins, he’s once again looming and jabbing fingers in Rodimus’ personal space.

If I listed every panel where Megatron was shown leaning physically over Rodimus, I’d be including almost every panel they share. And before anyone says it’s because of Megatron’s size, and he can’t help but loom--he doesn’t do it to other characters unless they, too, are ‘misbehaving.’ He’s perfectly capable of keeping a straight back and relatively professional distance with most mechs, even when being threatened, even with extreme height differences:

Straight back, no leaning over Tailgate, no snarl. It’s the same with other crew members. With Rodimus, however, his nonverbal cues are constantly screaming dominance fight.

Now, I’m a small person, so maybe I’m especially sensitive to this--I’m just barely five feet tall and not muscular in the slightest. When much-bigger people get in my space the way Megatron gets in Rodimus’ space, it’s terrifying. Respectful people don’t do those things, and you can’t convince me that it’s merely a product of his size. My boyfriend of almost ten years now is eleven inches taller than I am, and he’s never once loomed over me or used his size to intimidate me.

I might be willing to call it thoughtless rather than an abuse tactic, since it is possible to loom unintentionally--except he singles Rodimus out for this treatment.

And it works.

After the first example above, Rodimus is visibly cowed while Megatron practically presses himself against his back:

Note the lowered spoilers on Rodimus’ back, the lowered head, the expression on his face.

And after the second panel, he literally transforms and obeys Megatron without further question.

Constant physical intimidation has unfortunate effects on a person, particularly when used alongside verbal and emotional abuse tactics like the ones I’ve been describing. This is a documented aspect of physical abuse--of which physical intimidation is a part--but I also know it intimately.

My abusive ex boyfriend never hit me, but he used physical intimidation tactics like these on a daily basis. He sat between me and the aisle on the bus and got in my face and snarled at the least provocation, but he also just--loomed. He was always--always--in my bubble, to the point that sometimes my friends would literally push him out of it. He would stand behind me like that, and when I have nightmares I can still feel his hard-on pressed against my lower back, his hands on on my hips or shoulders to keep me where he wanted me, the heat of his breath on me as he curled above me, around me, cutting off every exit until he was physically my entire world.

Which brings me to the panel that finally set me off enough to write the meta post I’d been mentally composing for over a year:

I feel sick when I look at this panel. When I look at the hand on his back and the way Megatron curls around him and the way the hand that’s always jabbing fingers in his face is caging him in. When I look at the way Rodimus is hugging himself, pulling in and away from Megatron--because in is his only escape route, because Megatron has cut off everything else. Verbally isolating him, then emotionally, then physically.

Rodimus doesn’t have any friends here to shove Megatron out of his bubble. Rodimus has the certainty that Megatron could be screaming at him (again), could be threatening him with hands in his face (that we can see are the size of Rodimus’ torso), could actually be injuring him--which we haven’t seen, but, honestly? “Whenever you shout my name I expect to get shot,” uh, isn’t a ringing endorsement of what might be happening behind closed doors, where most actual violence plays out.

Even if Megatron hasn’t hurt him--and I haven’t got enough proof to conclusively say one way or another--the threat is still there. As I said, my abusive ex never hit me. But I knew--every time he screamed, every time he got in my face--that he could. That he was capable of it.

He didn’t have to hit me. Like Rodimus, my defiance never lasted--without support, with too much fear, I decided that I needed to pick my battles. And, one by one, he pushed through my boundaries. Because if it wasn’t worth picking a battle over him stroking my inner thigh outside my shorts, was it worth fighting him on stroking the inside of my waistband? With that boundary demolished, was it really so unexpected--really worth challenging--when he went past the waistband?

After all, it was my fault he was so riled up. I’d done this to him. Didn’t I owe it to him to fix the problems I’d caused? But I guess that particular bit of nastiness comes from the next section--the victim card.

Victim Card

“When all else fails, the narcissist resorts to playing the victim card. This is designed to gain sympathy and further control behavior.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

At every point in Megatron’s “redemption” arc, he casts himself as a tragic figure. Poor Megatron, made to stand trial! Poor Megatron, asked to provide evidence to expedite the trial! (optional; he didn't consent to mnemosurgery and they immediately left) Poor Megatron, asked to read a speech renouncing the cause he already said he'd renounced! (optional; purely a get-out-of-jail-free card) Poor Megatron, surrounded by incompetence on this privately owned neutral ship he was given captaincy of in place of his prison stay! Poor Megatron, forced to drink ‘poison’! (optional; again, he made the choice himself) Poor Megatron, having to share the ship with the mech who owns it! Poor Megatron, faced with the knowledge that some people wish the war had never happened! Possibly even the knowledge of how many mechs he killed! What terrible knowledge.

Poor Megatron, indeed.

All of these situations are fair and reasonable for him to encounter. He's not a tragic figure for facing any of these things; in fact, the last two are hardly even about him. Billions died, and we're supposed to feel sorry for him surveying the field of flowers? For having to face the facts of what he did when he still doesn't face any negative repercussions for his choices?

This is entitlement, but it's also an abuse tactic. My ex used this trick to guilt me into roleplaying sexual situations I was really, really not comfortable with, while my mother used it to get me to do...well, in retrospect, basically anything she felt like I owed her.

Used on the wrong party, this tactic is just grating--case in point, Getaway and his mutineers. He specifically cited this overall strategy in his last call with the crew on the Necroplanet. But on someone who already has a guilt complex--someone who's easily manipulated by authority figures telling him it's his duty to do one thing or another, insisting nothing he does is enough and he owes more than he can give--the sort of person who carves into his hand the number of people who wanted him gone? Yeah, that's a different story.

Do they blame you for their problems or unhappiness?

Prior to this panel, Rodimus just informed Megatron that Brainstorm seemed to have jumped through time. Rodimus specifically gives him time to process the info, too.

He's beings downright nice about it.

And, yes, it's absolutely fine to need time to process or to freak about things not going according to plan. That's natural! I say this despite the fact that Megatron--a mech made of black holes--isn't exactly unfamiliar with weird science. In fact, one of the thirteen ores seeded by Shockwave had time properties, and they literally just met quantum doubles of their entire ship. I'm a little dubious about his claims of a minor breakdown here, but the freak-out itself isn't the real problem here.

What's not fine is taking that as an excuse to once again lean in over Rodimus (note the angle Megatron shifts to once he starts yelling), jab a finger in his face, and personally insult him. What's he done to warrant the “You are ridiculous” line and accusatory tone, other than tell Megatron something he didn't want to hear? How does keeping him briefed and patiently waiting for him to process lead to the conclusion that Rodimus is his own, personal punishment?

Well, keeping a level head while publicly briefing Megatron means undermining some of that narrative he’s so carefully constructing, where Rodimus is rash and rude and impulsive and irresponsible. Unsuited to command. Because in this scene? Rodimus looks and acts like a capable and considerate commander.

There's also the fact that Rodimus is treating him like a peer rather than a superior here.

Now, that might not be why Megatron lashes out. He might genuinely be disturbed by the idea of time travel and instinctively target his current favorite (emotional) punching bag. But I think it's telling that he immediately turns something going wrong into being Rodimus’ fault when he's actually doing his job quite well in this scene, not to mention respecting Megatron as co-captain. It's also telling that he breaks out the same physical intimidation tactics I described in the last subsection the moment he gets agitated.

So why do I think this is an abuse tactic and not poorly-handled panic, aside from Megatron's extensive experience with various types of weird science? Because Rodimus doesn't try to contradict him. He doesn't fight the point or defend himself. And, sure, that could be a sign of maturity--but it can also be a sign that he's beginning to internalize Megatron's message, especially when looked at in the context of everything else I mentioned in this post.

In fact, let’s cover his motivations and intentions a bit more directly.

INTENTIONALITY

Assessing whether abusive behavior is deliberate can be nearly impossible when you’re living in it. For example, I highly doubt that my mom is any kind of mastermind with an ultimate end goal of control over me. I’m not actually sure what she was thinking for any of that--she insists most of it never happened and has a different justification every time I ask about the parts she doesn’t deny (although she sometimes denies those, too, depending on her mood).

Even if Megatron’s behavior wasn’t intentional, it would still be unacceptable, dangerous, and traumatic. But I do genuinely believe it’s deliberate--partly because of the following scene:

This is coming from Ravage--a spy with extensive experience that goes all the way back to the day of the Senate. He’s seen a lot. And he makes a compelling argument:

Ravage points out numerous occasions where Megatron played the long game--planning ahead, setting up for what he might want someday as well as what he wants today. Reaching for the dark matter, delaying his trial with sidequests as soon as the opportunity presented itself--those, too, are examples of this.

So it stands to reason that all of this manipulation could serve the fairly straightforward goal of setting himself up to be sole captain of the Lost Light--or some other goal we haven’t yet worked out that requires tearing down Rodimus’ reputation and isolating him from the rest of the crew.

IN CONCLUSION

Megatron is abusing Rodimus. Emotionally and verbally at the very least, but possibly other forms of abuse. He’s certainly threatening physical abuse with his nonverbal cues--and, by some definitions, is in fact perpetrating physical abuse by bodily intimidating Rodimus.

The evidence is overwhelming, and I think that this interpretation gives greater depth and meaning to JRo’s characterizations of both Rodimus and Megatron. Through this lens, Rodimus’ increasingly erratic and seemingly out-of-character behavior as the series progresses can be viewed as a response to gaslighting and other abuse. Meanwhile, for Megatron, this interpretation serves to connect his current behavior to his wartime behavior in a way that feels more in line with IDW’s past version of him instead of a sudden and hollow change.

Ultimately, though, this interpretation is important to me as an abuse survivor. I don't fault those who want to write their own version of Megatron, but, if I'm being honest? I never again want to see another post insisting that Megatron can't be written as abusive. (and if you think this is vagueblogging about someone in particular, I swear it's not. I've seen multiple posts and tweets echoing this sentiment. This isn't some vague callout post; it's an alternative interpretation that runs counter to the dominant fandom narrative as I've encountered it.)

You can keep your interpretation of Megatron. He is a fictional character who has been written by dozens of different people in numerous canons. If you don't want to write about him as an abusive and manipulative jerk, by all means, don't. The only request I make is that you not condemn those who do.

Multiple interpretations of canon lead to more varied and interesting fan works. And I think that's good for everyone.

Additional Reading

In case you want to do further reading, here are some links to other articles I looked at while making this post. I may add to this if I find any others that feel relevant.

15 Types of Verbal Abuse in Relationships

10 Signs You Are in a Relationship with a Narcissist (first part in a series)

[understandishable]

The Rabbit Died (in a less detailed way)

(An ERF commenter mentioned they would like to continue reading the series but they were not sure about reading something with an animal death warning. So I figured I would make a version of the chapter with that passage summarized without the details. The non-redacted chapter is here.)

Goin’ on a Holiday, chapter 6: The Rabbit Died

So much for Grace letting Steve know everything that was going on. He fought his way up from drugged sleep, through a feeling like muddy water. He didn’t open his eyes. He was lying down—well, he thought he was, from his sense of his head and shoulders. He couldn’t feel the rest of his body, of course, but it felt like he was on a hard surface.

There was no point in letting her know he was awake. Bucky had mentioned that Steve healed twice as fast as him—Steve didn’t know how he knew that, but Bucky was always thinking about things. With any luck—not that he had a lot of luck, but hey, it could happen—Grace’s calculations for drugging him would be based on how much she needed to knock out Bucky.

It made him a little sick to think of it. It didn’t matter, it was over, and Bucky would have scowled at him for being upset, especially when Steve’s own life was on the line. But it was hard to know that everything she did to him she’d done to Bucky first, and probably worse.

But he hoped that he’d find some advantage in the space between what each of their bodies could handle. So he pretended to be unconscious and listened to Grace move around the room, followed by the scraping of the arms and the banging of several heavy things being lugged across the floor. Grace was humming.

After what seemed like a long time Grace said, “I know you’re awake, Captain,” and after what seemed like a long time again, Steve opened his eyes. He was indeed lying on a table, and on tables around him were several large metal boxes. Inside them were a lot of wires, but also what looked like flesh and blood.

“Captain, meet your recipients,” Grace said. “They’ll keep your body parts working until I find the best machine or person for them to go to. I’m thinking of giving myself your liver—mine’s about to give out on me, I think. Too much fun when I was your age. And I know a great agent who could use your heart.” She tapped his chest, which was when he noticed he was nearly naked.

“Polite of you to leave my shorts on,” he said.

“Oh, that’s a new pair,” said Grace. “I washed you up. Well, my arms did. But there’s no reason to make things undignified, since I don’t need your genitals for anything.”

“What, nobody wants that transplant?”

“That would just be for novelty,” Grace said; “there’s no real use for it. What am I supposed to do, attach it to one of the spider-bots as a joke? And there’s no point harvesting your sperm, since there’s nothing special in your genes. They’re awful, in fact.”

“Don’t I know it,” Steve said.

“Well, your body’s perfect,” Grace said. Steve lifted his head and tried to watch her as she moved around, looking through the different boxes. She cocked her head to the side and one box, pulled by the arms, made its way to the table closest to Steve. It wasn’t as big as the other boxes. “It’s convenient, not having to test the function of anything, since I know every part of you is the gold standard,” Grace continued. “It’s great. Even though I can’t believe you gave up your life for the equivalent of a Furby.”

“What’s a Furby?” Steve asked. Sometimes it seemed like modern people would stop at nothing to explain pop culture references to him.

“Oh,” Grace said, “it was this toy for kids, in the nineties? My son had about four. They had these cute faces and they would make sounds and say ‘I love you’ and stuff like that.”

The arms were moving around Steve’s torso, pulling some kind of long instrument across his skin, but he didn’t feel it and could barely see it given the angle. Grace stood where Steve could see her, but she was watching the arms.

“I’d be up trying to get a glass of water and the damn things would start talking at me because they have motion sensors. Always startled the crap of me—just like the Winter Soldier coming out of cryo.”

Steve glanced down at his body—the arms had moved down to his legs and were sweeping back and forth across the surface. “Excuse me?” he said. “So that’s—those fur things? That’s what you’re comparing Bucky to?”

“Bucky,” Grace repeated, shaking her head. “Sounds like a name you’d give a guinea pig. Well, I don’t blame you for being taken in. Even agents I never really blamed—they’re not scientists, and he’s such a chatterbox if you don’t take steps to curb it. It’s disorienting. But it did annoy me when the techs would complain about it. They should have known better. Well, I set them straight.” She jerked her chin in the direction of Steve’s head, and the arms started climbing back up his body. They stopped on his chest, just laying themselves across it.

Well, wait. There was only one arm on his chest. Steve hoped it was the right one. “What did you tell them when they complained?” he asked.

“I’d just use lab animals to show them,” Grace said. She leaned back against the table behind her, bracing herself with her arms, looking down at him. “This one tech—forget his name—just too inexperienced, I think, we shouldn’t have put him on the job. His brother was in a motorcycle accident, and he was telling me about it while we were operating on the Soldier. Several months later, we’re unthawing him, and it happens that this kid is the one to sit the Soldier in the chair. The Soldier looks up, fixes his eyes on the tech—”

“—and asked how his brother was.”

“And that’s something that the most basic AI can remember to ask you!” she exclaimed. “I tried to tell him, he’s not really having a conversation with you, any more than you can have a conversation with a Magic 8-Ball. But he’d just snapped. He clearly thought the thing was a friend of his, just like—well, just like you do. So I had to bring in one of the lab rabbits.”

“I’m not following,” Steve said.

“Bear in mind, I wouldn’t normally kill an animal for no reason, but sometimes people just didn’t get it. ‘Oh, he’s so friendly! He understands everything I’m saying!’ So I’d [make him kill a rabbit in front of them].”

Steve realized that this had the rhythm of a story she’d told many times. Grace had fine-tuned the dialogue over many tellings, and she was happily coming up to the punchline.

“[And then, he wouldn’t show much emotion about it and everyone was creeped out.]” Grace looked expectantly at Steve.

“That’s your story?” he said. She looked confused. Jesus. “Okay, you must have had underlings up your ass all your life, because that’s the dumbest story I’ve ever heard.”

Grace looked so surprised at this that Steve couldn’t help laughing. He tried to get ahold of himself—his shoulders were shaking as much as they could, and he didn’t want to throw the arm off if it was Bucky.

“Okay, seriously,” he said. “You could make him kill an animal when you all had enough control over him to make him kill people! That’s supposed to impress me? How could that impress anyone?”

“A normal human couldn’t do that,” Grace said.

“Uh, you did,” Steve said. “You made him do it!”

He lay there laughing. It wasn’t like he thought Grace was going to drop a bombshell that would convince him Bucky wasn’t really a person—after all, Bucky had been trying and failing at the very same game for months—but she could have committed a little more.

Grace actually looked a little pissed off that Steve wasn’t appreciating her story. But she didn’t argue with him anymore. She leaned over him and took something out of her pocket—a felt-tip marker. She uncapped it and started drawing something on Steve’s jaw with her human hand. She moved her head and the arm on Steve’s chest scuttled to attention. But she turned and squinted at it, so Steve jerked his head up quickly and bit her hand.

He didn’t have especially sharp teeth, but he’d learned at a young age that most people don’t expect to be bitten. Grace yelled and jerked her hand away and the next thing Steve knew, the arm that had been on his chest was wrapped around her neck and squeezing tight.

Grace staggered, trying to pull it off her neck; she moved out of Steve’s sightline, but he heard her gasping. He saw an arm on his thigh twitch and reach up helplessly; blood sprayed on the side of his neck, and there was a thud as Grace’s body hit the ground. There was a brief silence.

“There we go,” Bucky said. “Here, Sam—talk into my elbow, like so—”

Sam’s voice came out of the arm. “Hey there, Steve. How’re you doing?”

“Great,” Steve said.

“What?” There was a pause. “Bucky said you were paralyzed.”

“Well, obviously, I’m paralyzed,” Steve said. “I thought you meant compared to being dead.”

There was another pause, during which he was pretty sure he heard them laughing at him. “Well, you keep not being dead,” Sam said, “Bucky’s gonna keep you company while I get in the building, and I should be there in a few minutes. You’re lucky I still do weight training.”

on to chapter 7

[gaiatheorist]

Humbug.

(3am on Sunday morning, I’ve skimmed the headlines, social mobility department walk-out, concerns about the long-term functionality of multi-academy trusts, and mental health support ‘available in all schools by 2020.’ I have opinions, but they’re too close to the bone.)

Merry Christmas Theresa-Ebeneezer.

The Facebook friend who always posts that she finishes her Christmas shopping and wrapping by the end of November has put up her usual “BOOM! Done!” status, other people are posting putting up trees. My inconsiderate, bin-stealing neighbours put up their blue-flashing outdoor lights last weekend, it’s a month-long migraine. Another former colleague Facebook-posted her shock at seeing a shoplifter ‘tackled’ by security, and then expressed her concern that the woman was stealing Christmas presents, socks and toiletry gift-sets. I’m not shoplifting, because I don’t ‘do’ Christmas.

“I don’t celebrate Christmas.” is enough to close-down most of the superficial “What are you doing for...?” and “Would you like to come...?”, when the initial “Nothing.” and “No, thank you.” responses aren’t accepted. Tell people you don’t celebrate Christmas, and they tend to assume you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, they bugger off before you start trying to ‘convert’ them. There was a tongue-in-cheek Guardian article a couple of days ago, about turning down invitations, and how to sneak away from parties you didn’t want to go to in the first place.

I’ve never liked Christmas. Aside from my ranting that it’s a sterilised bastardisation of a pagan festival, claimed by Christianity, to suit their calendar, the commercialisation and the compulsion are what really irk me. (Side-rage about a former colleague, who had a Christmas spreadsheet shared with her husband. “I’ve put this ring on, but I don’t really want it, what if he buys me that? Is £300 too much for a ring, do you think?” That’s how they choose to live their lives, it’s none of my business, it only irritated me so much because she kept squawking on about it when I was trying to work.) Most people are more materialistic than I am, nobody’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The ‘expectation’ among some children and adults infuriates me, whether that’s adults ‘hinting’ to partners on Facebook, or the inevitable slew of sulky children posting “Worst Christmas ever, my life is ruined!” when they open the ‘wrong’ iPhone. 

For the better part of 2 decades, I told the in-laws not to buy me anything for Christmas. 17 or 18 years later, they were still giving me a jumper two sizes too big, and two pairs of tights. I don’t wear tights, and I loathe jumpers that touch my throat. “The bill’s in the bag, if you want to swap it!” One year, I swapped the jumper for a slow-cooker. It genuinely would have been easier for all concerned if they paid any attention at all to me saying I didn’t want anything, because I REALLY didn’t want tights and a jumper. I wonder if, now my son is 19, they’ve stopped pestering him, from September, to tell them what he wants for Christmas? He’s cut from the same cloth as me, he doesn’t ‘want’ much, and when he decides he really needs something, he buys it himself. Thank the Gods for Steam vouchers.

The ex was quite materialistic, and hideously susceptible to advertising. The bastard ‘Furby’ ended up in the shed after a while, the batteries ran down, and it started making random spooky noises. The ex played with the ‘Robosapien’ more than the kid did, after I’d been scouring the internet for weeks to find one. I shudder to think what assorted tat he’ll present the boy with this year, last year he bought him a £100 coat, a scarf, and I think the camping-filtration water bottle. “Thanks, Dad, now I can have clean drinking water wherever I am!” (The water bottle might actually have been the previous Christmas, either way, it’s at the back of one of my cupboards, because it’s of no real practical use, and the kid sees no point in buying replacement filters for it.)

I was absorbed into that family, with the “You’ve GOT TO, it’s Christmas!” mentality. I don’t have to do anything, I especially don’t-have-to sit at a table where people chew with their mouths open, eat food from each other’s plates, and that one unfortunate nephew tries to eat all of the mashed potato. Seriously, I’ve seen hungry dogs eat more slowly, and with fewer sound-effects. “Have a bit more!”, no thank you, it’s quite uncomfortable enough just being here, without entering into an eating competition, I don’t need to stuff myself until I’m distended, and I know which serving dishes you’ve touched with your eating utensils. 

I don’t have to go there this year, but I’ve probably complicated my own life by appearing in public, at my brother’s wedding party, I was productively invisible until I did that. I’ve had more contact with my family in the last month than I did over the last 20 years. I’ll be politely declining well-meaning invitations soon enough, because of the ingrained assumption that nobody should be alone at Christmas. I do see the point for people who don’t want to be alone, and it’s heartwarming to see initiatives popping up for people who want to share food and company, I’m just not one of those people. 

I imagine my sister-in-law will be the most forceful, and I will have to play the brain damage card with her, because she simply won’t understand the don’t-want-to explanation. The sensory overload with my brain injuries is a constant background-battle, lights, sounds, smells, ‘normal’ environments are exceptionally stressful and painful for me now. My maternal half-sister might be difficult, but I think she’ll eventually accept my reasoning. I’m not expecting either of my parents to push the point too far, they both know why I cut contact with them. The paternal half-sister probably doesn’t know the back-story, again, I’ll use the medical angle when she suggests a pub-lunch over the holiday period, which I suspect she will. I’m not sure whether Porsche-man will have another go at ‘involving’ me with his version of Christmas, I think I was direct enough with him that doing ‘nothing’ for Christmas didn’t mean there was a gap he was obligated to fill. 

The boy will most probably go to his Dad’s for Christmas Eve, and to the in-laws for Christmas day lunch. I’ve already ‘spoiled’ his Yule-box, by telling him he’s essentially getting a food-parcel, and a recent text message, asking me if I liked Bombay Sapphire gin will probably have been his Dad, or Grandparents, ‘stuck’ on what to buy me. (Absolute CRINGE at the year the ex sent me into every shop in the village to look for ‘proper’ Bailey’s, saying it was for his Grandma, and then presented the Bailey’s, wrapped in a carrier-bag and Gaffa-tape to me. I don’t like Bailey’s, and could have bought multiple bottles of wine with the £16 that came out of my bank account anyway.) I’ll chuck a bit more rubbish in amongst the noodles and canned goods, slightly smirking at the year he asked “Mother, did you just ram-raid the pound shop for all of this?”, and the year he was disproportionately excited about a pound-shop version of the ‘JML bobble-off.’ Rubbish is ‘our’ tradition, and I’ll probably put that tin of Moose soup in again, I think he’s had that about four years in a row, now, oh, and that football I found in the garden, that’s still mostly wrapped from last year, he peeled back a bit of the paper, and said something quite rude to me. 

The kid and I aren’t Christian, so there’ll be no midnight mass, or church-related activity of any kind. We’re not particularly consumerist, he’ll see the practicality of the food-parcel, because he cocked up his student finance application, so has less disposable income this year. What we’re both going to have to deal with in our own way is the compulsion, with other people telling us what we have to do, “because it’s Christmas.” He likes his grandparents, even though they’re both a bit deaf, and both refuse to wear their hearing aids, they’re both a bit dim-racist, and very old-fashioned in their perspectives on a lot of other things, too. I’ll support him in whatever he wants to do, even if that means he stays here with me, coating the furniture in popcorn, and slurping his tea. (Yes, he does, and I do want to cause him physical harm when he does it.) 

No tinsel, no fairy-lights, no plastic tree. With both of my parents now knowing where I live, there’s a chance they might send Christmas cards, I hope they’re not glittery ones, I hate glitter. The kid finishes his university term on the 15th of this month, so he’ll probably be back with me some time between then and the 17th, until his next term starts on January 15th. ‘Probably’ because he’s dependent on the ex for transport with his multiple bags of stuff, and the ex does what he wants, when he wants to, regardless of any plans other people might have. I’ll sacrifice the relative order of the house for a month, and probably do a fair bit of leaving-the-room when the kid slurps tea, or puts that tedious Dungeons and Dragons role-play thing on TV. (Seriously, some of the broadcasts are five hours long, he’ll sit, for five hours, watching other people play Dungeons and Dragons.) I’ve been stock-piling food for months, we won’t starve, but we might end up eating a lot of potatoes. I’ll schedule a ‘big shop’ just before he’s due back, and have the ‘difficult conversation’ with him that I have very limited funds available for top-up shopping, so, if we do re-watch any of our box-sets, we can’t really play the drinking games any more. (It did get a bit dangerous at one point, when we were watching GoT, and decided that ‘horse’, and ‘legs’ were rules, as well as ‘naked’, ‘death’, and ‘full title.’)  

I don’t ‘have to’ put decorations up, I don’t ‘have to’ attend any gatherings or events, as much as some family members might want to take pity on the poor spinster aunt. I know they’ll only make the invitations because they care, and because they worry, but that’s their world, not mine. I’ll goof about with the boy in my world, we’ll try not to get on each other’s nerves too much, with me falling asleep in the evenings, and him not going to bed until the early hours of the morning. We’re both very bad at eating, and both have a tendency to ‘save’ the best of the food for the other, I’ll have to steer on that, there’s a lobster in the freezer, and I might put a frozen chicken in the next grocery order, if I can condense-down the un-labelled containers of ‘brown stuff’ to make enough room. It’s not the biggest goose in the butcher’s window, and “You, boy, what day is this?” has no meaning any more. I don’t need to play Bob Cratchitt, and ask Mr Scrooge for another lump of coal, because I’m wearing four jumpers, the kid doesn’t feel the cold as much as I do, but, if I catch him wearing his dressing-gown over his clothes, I’ll turn the electric heaters on.

My family can take the roles of ‘Christmas Past’, and stay there, the kid is my ‘Christmas Present’, I don’t know what ‘Christmas Future’ will play out to be, I wouldn’t want to, as much as I hate not-knowing, there are some things I’d rather not know.