#he can’t handle the possibility that Rodimus is doing actual things with people

[ask-uts-earthspark-au]

Hey Megatron, have you ever heard of a ship called the Lost Light?

Megatron: Yes, indeed I have.

Megatron: It happens to be my youngest nibling’s ship-

Megatron: -or rather, his amica’s, but he’s the captain of it, though he does share his captaincy with a mech I’m quite confident he’s developed feelings for. What was his name, again?

Optimus: My baby boy is having feelings?! For people!? D:<

Elita: Oh, I think you mean that ‘Thunderclash’ mech. He’s talked a lot about him, calls him a himbo too. Sounds like a sweet mech, honestly.

Op: Why are you not more concerned?!

Megs: Pardon Optimus, he’s having his world imploded, at the idea of his youngest possibly thinking of relationships.

Op: HE’S TOO YOUNG.

Elita: he’s 26.

Op: Too. Young!

Megs: 26 is too young for Rodimus to even consider dating, but 22 is perfectly fine for Magnus to get married to a Decepticon, and 19 is fine for Arcee to, a month after moving out.

Op: Rodimus is a different story, he’s just a sensitive little baby!

Megs: ‘sensitive little baby’ - he’s your pathetic little meow meow, hm?

Op: yes. >:(

Elita: XD

Megs: Regardless, yes Anon, I am very aware of the Lost Light.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #30 - The Cybertronian Judicial System is a Friggin’ Joke

Have I mentioned that I’m not a huge fan of court case stories? I think they’re pretty boring, on average, so the last couple of issues have been slightly dragging for me.

Anyway, back to Megatron’s trial. 

Our issue opens up with a full back shot of Ultra Magnus.

Artists take note, he really is built like a capital T.

As Magnus reads out Megatron’s statement retracting his “guilty” plea, we get some decent points as to why. See, telling a guy that you’ll stab him in the brain, so his trial can be over as quickly as possible, maybe isn’t such a hot idea. Megatron wasn’t a huge fan of that, or of how those memories they would’ve yanked outta him would have been used to fuel the Autobot propaganda machine. Why, you may ask?

Well, I don’t know if you knew this or not, but Megatron… doesn’t particularly care for the Autobots, nor the rhetoric they uphold.

I know, I was surprised too!

There’s also the fact that Optimus Prime is the judge on this whole thing. You know. Optimus Prime. Off and on leader of the Autobots, whenever it suits him. The guy who fucked off into space for a year after the war. The guy who threw a hissy fit when someone pointed out that he was compromised the last time they did something like this with Megatron. This guy:

Yeah, there might be a slight conflict of interests here. Remind me again why this had to be a military trial?

Anyway, enough of that, it’s time for a fight scene.

A swarm of Decepticons storm the arena, going after Megatron so they can help him escape. Magnus, though acting as Megatron’s defense, cannot abide by this disorder in the court.

Wild to think there’s a tiny little Pringles man with anxiety in there, isn’t it?

Optimus joins the fray, because there really are, just, so many guys to deal with here. A dude goes to collect Megatron, stating that they brought teleport packs for this little shindig. Megatron isn’t super jazzed about that though, not bothering to grab on before the dude gets shot to death. There’s a brief recess, I guess so the janitorial staff can deal with the mess of corpses littering the courtroom.

Meanwhile, in the present day, Rung’s building a model spaceship in Swerve’s, which is a very brave thing to be doing, seeing how sticky and gross bars can be. Brainstorm’s brought a flask to the bar, and proceeds to pour the contents into a funnel sticking out of his arm.

Our bartender for the evening- I’m assuming it’s evening, but I doubt the concept of time has any real weight in space- is Bluestreak. Bluestreak was stationed on Earth for a while, which is some Phase One stuff, and took a liking to human media while he was there. He’s the guy who handles movie night these days, seeing as Rewind’s too busy being dead to do it, and I doubt Chromedome has the emotional bandwidth to take over for his late spouse.

Bluestreak’s favorite movie is Zulu, a film glorifying the colonialism of the English over the native populace of an African kingdom. Make of that what you will.

Whirl wants to watch À Bout de Soufflé, or Breathless, as it was translated for the English-speaking world, which is a French New Wave film about a criminal who shoots a cop, hides from the police in a journalist’s home, who he seduces and likely impregnates. She eventually finds out what he did, reports him to the police, but then has a change of heart and lets him know what she’s done. He runs, but is shot, and dies in the street. The film is notable for its final scene, in which the following dialogue happens, between the dying criminal Michael, his lover Patricia, and an officer.

Of course, any poignancy would almost certainly be lost on the average comic book reader, and is also somewhat nullified by Whirl praising the film with internet lingo.

Then again, I suppose Whirl would be the type to dismantle any deeper reading of his interest in such a film, lest he be subjected to the horrifying ordeal of being known.

Over with Skids and Riptide, it’s revealed that Megatron’s been teaching classes on the Lost Light, specifically on the Knights of Cybertron. Riptide’s getting an education, because he’s been feeling pretty lost since the war ended- we’ll get to the potential whys of that later on. Swerve isn’t a fan of this community college thing that’s going on, stating that Megatron’s using it as a distraction, so he can devise plots most foul.

Back in the past, Autobot high command is having a talk about what Megatron’s demanding, and man is it a doozy— turns out, since the trial’s happening on Luna 2, the trial proceedings are subject to the laws of the moon. One of these moon laws is the right to request being judged by the Knights of Cybertron. Now, this is a problem, seeing as the Knights of Cybertron have been AWOL for the last several million years, but the law is the law, and you can’t just go ignoring it when someone’s pointed it out.

Bro, your SIC just suggested y’all pull the trial so you could slap it on Cybertron, thus negating any need to pay attention to the Knight law. That’s such a gross miscarrying of justice, it’s genuinely baffling. You’ve got bigger issues going on than flouting. My god, Optimus, you were a cop—

Oh wait, that’s right. Carry on, then.

Back on the Lost Light, First Aid’s checking to make sure that the coffin Rodimus they revealed last issue is true and proper dead. Now, this may seem like a given, but you’ve got to remember that Brainstorm was mostly dead for over a year and a half, and nobody fucking noticed, so it’s probably for the best that they’re checking.

First Aid’s been pretty withdrawn since Ambulon died, so this autopsy is really good for him, since it got him out of his room. Pretty fucked up that it would take a dead body to get him out and about. Has Rung checked in on his poor son of a gun, or has he been spending the last six months getting his professional rocks off psychoanalyzing a genocidal warlord?

Our coffin Rodimus died from having parts of his brain removed, and potentially died screaming.

Yes, that is a Furmanism, thank you peanut gallery, moving on—

Ratchet hands the phone over to Ultra Magnus, saying that a call has to be made, and it can’t be by him, because the callee is mighty upset with Ratchet at the moment.

Oh, I guess he’s fine after all. This must be where the sci-fi bullshit really starts kicking in for the series.

Because seeing your own dead body is likely very traumatic and awful, Rodimus is taking a while to string together his thoughts on the matter. Megatron doesn’t particularly care, because he’s not terribly sympathetic to this sort of thing, and the two get into a spat, where it’s revealed that they’re co-captaining the Lost Light.

Because things weren’t chaotic enough on this fucking ship. Need to mix in some peacocking between the McDonalds twunk and the man who killed half of Beijing.

Back in the past, Optimus Prime visited Megatron in prison to have a little chat. It’s not about that little rescue attempt, though the fact that those Decepticons may have been released from the Lost Light’s brig is certainly interesting. No, Optimus is here to sit way too close to his mortal nemesis on the floor of his room and talk about how Megatron is a sneaky bastard.

You remember the Hellraiser puzzle box from a couple issues back? Yeah, that was a communicube, one that was passed to Optimus to suggest that the trial be held on the moon, so the arena there would be able to hold all the people wronged by Megatron. This seems pretty damn convenient in hindsight, but Megatron swears that the legal loophole wasn’t his only intent when he sent the cube.

Because it’s all about you, isn’t it, Megatron? It’s all about how you’re perceived by future generations. Fuck the guys who had to actually deal with what your personal choices caused to happen.

Megatron wants to make amends with all those who were wronged by him. This doesn’t include being acquitted of his crimes, which, y’know, good- at least he’s being slightly realistic about how this is going to turn out for him.

What he wants to do is find Cyberutopia, so the Cybertronians have a replacement planet, since Cybertron kind of sucks now.

Oh, sorry, did I say realistic? I take it back.

In the present, Rodimus is still bummed out about being dead. Still, the day doesn’t stop just because it’s a bad one, and he calls in the experts.

CHROMEDOME YOU PROMISED TO STOP THIS SHIT

Yeah, no, Chromedome’s fallen off the wagon again, and does his thing on the coffin Rodimus. As he does, Megatron suddenly gets squeamish, Brainstorm pulls out his early early-warning device to lean on the fourth wall, and it’s revealed that the coffin that coffin Rodimus was in was built in the fashion of the Spectralist faith.

All Chromedome can suss out of coffin Rodimus’ memories is the really big important stuff, which includes the speech at Rivet’s Field inviting folks to come join the Knight Quest. Aww, that’s sweet.

With the analysis of the innermost energon complete, the results are in— the coffin Rodimus is a Rodimus. A real one, from the near future. Bummer.

I suppose denial is one of the seven stages of grief, isn’t it?

As everyone argues over whether or not Rodimus is going to die, Nightbeat brings up a good point— there aren’t any numbers carved into the coffin Rodimus’ hand. Rodimus is about to reveal some Ratchet-original wisdom, when things start getting really weird; whole sections of the Lost Light are disappearing.

Over at Swerve’s, Tailgate is regaling his peers with the story of his derring-do against Chief Justice Tyrest. Everyone is very impressed, and this includes our good buddy Getaway.

Jeez, think you’ve got enough antagonist shadows on this guy? It’s almost as if the art’s trying to tell us something about him.

Getaway lays it on real thick, saying that Tailgate could totally be the next Prime, with how courageous and awesome he is, all while completely ignoring Tailgate’s personal space and having a weirdly tiny hand. This seems to seriously bother Cyclonus, who is watching this shit go down from the doorway. Our purple space jet leaves once the drinks start being poured and conversation starts happening. God knows he hates talking about his insecurities.

Then the Pipes is Friggin’ Dead alarm goes off. But Pipes has been dead for a while now, so that must mean something else awful is happening.

Back during the trial, I guess because Optimus has a soft spot for Megatron, he allows him to join the Lost Light’s Knight Quest… even as he says that he could keep the guy locked up until Rodimus and pals find the Knights. However, there are rules to this, and one of the rules is that Megatron must publicly denounce the Decepticon cause.

It is a slow and painful experience for everyone involved, as he reads the statement he was given. It’s an immediate call to action- or rather, inaction.

Geez, think they could’ve made it any more obvious that this was being ghostwritten? I can’t wait to see how long it takes for “Megatron was blackmailed into saying this by the Autobots” to be a plotpoint.

Outside the prison, Ratchet and Rodimus are taking in the brand new Rod Pod, which is genuinely ridiculous in how large it is. Rodimus admits to having taken Atomizer’s list, though he knows that trying to use it to keep those who voted him off would be a pretty shitty thing to do.

Also, no one’s told him about Megatron coming along on the trip. As captain.

Or you could, I dunno, lock him up from the start. Or, if you want to give him a chance to prove himself, slap him into a bottom-rung role, like bilge cleaner, or sewage mucker, or whatever the equivalent would be on a spaceship full of giant gay robots. We don’t have to give the guy any power to hold him to scrutiny— any minimum wage worker will tell you that scrutiny comes far harsher for those who actually carry out orders than those who give them.

But what do I know? I’ve never fought in a several million year war, and I don’t plan to.

Getting back to the list, it seems as if Ratchet and Rodimus are on the same wavelength, in that both agree it’s only going to cause trouble and hurt feelings to keep the thing around. Rodimus destroys it with his usual flare, only to be blindsided by the fact that it was fake this entire time. How does Ratchet know this?

Because his name wasn’t on it.

...Man, that’s gotta sting. No wonder Rodimus was upset enough to not take his calls.

In the present, everyone’s in a panic, as they all bolt for the shuttle bay and start pouring into shuttles. The Lost Light is disintegrating around them, which is sort of a problem. Despite this nightmare scenario happening, Rodimus and Megatron still find the time to be assholes to each other. That’s dedication right there.

As the two bicker, multiple shuttles zip away from the rapidly disappearing ship, including the Rod Pod.

Man, now it really is the Lost Light.

[shikai-the-storyteller]

CYBERVERSE WATCH: S3 Episode 13, 14, 15, 16

Episode 13

MACCADAM IS MY GRANDPA NOW

Jetfire!!! And Skybite!!! Skybite’s got a great laugh

Oh wow the cloaking still protects them? Nice!

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE FIX PERCY’S EYES, WHERE THE FRICK IS RATCHET

A MULTIVERSE DRIVE???

PLEASE...PLEASE LET US SEE OTHER UNIVERSES??? OTHER UNIVERSES PLEASE????

SPARE SOME MULTIVERSE STUFF FOR A POOR SOUL???

I mean as it stands, the fact that Cyberverse is talking about this stuff is more than satisfying, man I frickin love this show

“We can launch those squiggly things into a whole ‘nother universe!” his delivery of that line was so good and also Wheeljack pls, then it’ll be another version of you’s problem

MEGATRON REALLY *IS* POUTING, MEGATRON YOU BIG BABY

Maccadam fondly but watching them talk about their battle plans makes me feel so bad for him...

AW MAN IS MEGATRON GONNA CHUCK OPTIMUS INTO A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE

About time you showed up you big pouting pansy

Man these two totally were ex boyfriends

LMAO ARCEE AND SHADOW-STRIKER’S EVIL LAUGHS, THAT”S SO DELIGHTFUL

That Titan should just smack them out of the sky tbh

SKULLCRUNCHER THE CROC...NICE

I love that Soundwave and Roddy are manning the controls

“Commanders command. And you forget, we have backup” CUTE...CUTE....CUTE!!!

I’M SO PROUD OF MY BOYS!!!!!!

BEE!!!It’s been so long since I’ve seen you! I love my little yellow boy!!! Please take care of your dad Bee

OH NO IT”S CREEPY TENTACLE DOCTOR

GOTH GIRL AND PREP GIRL!!! 

MAN I JUST KNOW SOMETHING’S GOING TO GO HORRIFICALLY WRONG HERE

FRICK NOT THIS DUDE AGAIN

AW MAN NOT A WHOLE BUNCH AT ONCE

YEAAAHHHHH WHEELJACK AND MEGATRON WORKING TOGETHER!!! NICE

Two Decepticons and one Autobot...not a good sign

Oh shoot it’s the DECEPTICONS who wanna universe-jump, MEGATRON COME ON DUDE YOU DIDN’T EVEN TAKE YOUR ARMY WITH YOU DUMMY

OH NO!!!!!!

“It’s time for the commanders to join the battle” MAN YOU’RE SO COOL RODDY (YOU TOO SOUNDWAVE)

OH SHOOT THERE GOES THE TOWER

WELL FRICK

DON”T “WE DID IT” HOT ROD YOUR DAD IS IN THAT WRECKAGE

“Quintessons: Inferior. Cybertronians: Superior” MAN I”LL NEVER GET TIRED OF THAT

HE”S SO COOL!!!!! FIST BUMP BUDDIES!!! Man I’m so over the moon that these two wound up getting along

You know I’m suddenly having a revelation: I wonder if they could somehow re-activate all those other Soundwaves to help them against the (inevitable) final battle I’m sure they’re gonna have

WHAT THE FRICK

ARE YOU FRICKIN KIDDING ME

Starscream: CANCELED, CANCELED, YOU”RE ALL CANCELED

Well, Megatron certainly got the heck out of dodge at the right time lmao

Episode 14

I legit thought they were going to do an ATLA ref for half a second

Oh my gosh is this an Autobot recruitment video???

“The universe. You ever thought about it?” GOSH THIS VIDEO....

I’m frickin cackling, the Quintessons were like “Hmm, what’s the worst thing we could possibly inflict on this planet?” then went “Oh, of course, Starscream”

WHY DIDN”T YOU JUST LET GO STARSCREAM

Wow Starscream really did just sell out his entire planet huh

SOUNDWAVE NO!!!!! JEEZ HE GOT EVERYONE

Jeez and Starscream has to share with two other faces, that sucks

Lmao Starscream is just like “Nah judging people is what I was born for”

UNSPACE??? UH OK

WAIT isn’t that what Wheeljack made a few episodes ago????

LMAO HE’S GONNA WAIT TIL HE CAN GET OPTIMUS AND MEGATRON TOO bless Starscream and his pettiness

“First I must witness their humiliation!” STARSCREAM PLEASE the Quintessons really got the worst Judge

OHHH WHAT’S HE GONNA DO

SOUNDWAVE YOU’RE SO POWERFUL!!!!!

OH NO HE GOT THEM AGAIN....

GOSH I ACTUALLY GASPED WHEN THEY BROKE SOUNDWAVE’S AUDIO THING, NO!!!

“Well, it did for one of us, and it only takes one Autobot to make a difference” Bee? Whirl??? Wheeljack???

WINDBLADE!!! EVEN BETTER!!! The person with the braincell!!!

I love that Rodimus doesn’t even look worried, he just sighs like “aw man not this loser again”

On the one hand: Worried about my boys On the other: Man I love these two being buds

Also: Not To Be That Guy But it looks like Soundwave’s wearing white thigh-highs with little orange hearts on them and it’s VERY distracting

“You two work so well together!!!” OH NO OH NO OH NO ARE THEY GONNA FUSE THEM TOGETHER OR SOMETHING

THOSE HEAD MASKS ARE SO DISTURBING

uh oh what kind of loop is this

THE PLAGUE OF RUST OH NO

oh my gosh STARSCREAM’S MAKING THEM DO A BUFFING LOOP...THAT’S REALLY THE WORST THING YOU COULD THINK OF STARSCREAM....

“WHERE ARE MEGATRON AND OPTIMUS PRIME” well Optimus is under a pile of concrete, so

Lmao thank you for your peanut-gallery commentary Kup

OH SHOOT THEY DID JUMP THROUGH THE MULTIVERSE BRIDGE

MAN THAT LOOKS SO FRICKIN COOL???? YO SHOUTOUT TO THE BACKGROUND ARTISTS WHO WORKED ON THIS SHOW, YOU ROCK

SERIOUSLY IM IN LOVE WITH THAT I hope whoever did the background art shares their work online sometime, I’ll be ALL over that

AHH I ALWAYS FORGET HOW SHORT THESE EPISODES ARE

Excuse me, Jeremy Levy as WHO???

Episode 15

Kup you are an...interesting commentator choice lmao

MACCADAM..... :(

Windblade please save our favorite Grandpa

wINDBLADE!

HOW’S IT FEEL BEING THE COOLEST KID ON THE BLOCK WINDBLADE

Wait I *JUST* noticed the title calls this “Bumblebee: Cyberverse Adventures” ???? IS THAT NEW

CALL ME A SUCKER BUT WINDBLADE CRACKING HER NECK AND TELLING THE LITTLE SHARK DUDES TO BRING IT ON WAS QUITE POSSIBLY ONE OF THE BEST MOMENTS OF THE SERIES SO FAR

Windblade: *does anything* Me: IM GAY

“I don’t do fear” GOSH I LOVE MY TALENTED GIRL

OH NO!!! OH NO!!!! WINDBLADE NO!!!!!

AND HER WINGS TOO??? WHY!!!!

MACCADAM HELP HER OUT COME ON DUDE WHAT HAPPENED TO NO FIGHTING

lmao rip at the dude crushed by the juke box

Wait I thought they already woke up Iaconus??

YEAH!!!!!!!! MACCADAM AND WINDBLADE TEAMING UP

“UNFORGIVABLE CRIMES AGAINST ME!” LMAO I LOVE THAT LITERALLY EVERYONE IS TUNING OUT STARSCREAM get rekt Starscream.

Not to rag on people who like Starscream because I like him too but me @ Starscream stans tbh 

You guys just need to hold hands! I mean seriously, come on you guys!

STARSCREAM QUINTESSONS OMG I just noticed they’re all wearing Starscream’s colors pffft

AW.....MACCADAM’S FIRST HIGH-FIVE....:’) I bet Windblade and Maccadam both give the best hugs and best high-fives 

They’re so cute MAN I love Cyberverse!!!! I love how sweet these characters are!!!

A psychic trap??? Hoo boy

Windblade: How do I defeat this psychic trap? Maccadam: Well, it would help if you had any bug or dark-type Pokemon on you.

“Or you could just tell me!” I JUST SAID THAT TOO LMAO gosh I love the writing on this show

OHHH I LOVE THE CONTRAST OF IACONUS’ BRAIN WITH BEE’S BRAIN IN SEASON ONE, THAT”S SO GOOD

OH LMAO HE MEANT HER SWORD I thought he meant like “your inner-strength” or “your wisdom” NO HE MEANT “USE YOUR SWORD WINDBLADE” LOL

OHHH SPOOKY VOICE, I DIG IT

Wow Starscream’s really reading out his 1000 page long call-out post to a captive audience

LMAO THEY”RE JUST LISTING OUT DATE LOCATIONS

CHROMIA IS SO CUTE!!!!!!!! AHHH

OH NO ARCEE!!!!

I LOVE ARCEE, “HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT YOU BASTARD”

OH SHOOT JK I GUESS THEY REALLY DIDN”T TOTALLY WAKE HIM  UP LAST TIME I was wondering why he was just an arm

TITAN TIME!!!

Episode 16

To toast the flares off a neutron star....cute....

Wouldn’t it be cute if Kup was telling this story to a bunch of baby Cybertronians

Awh....Maccadam I’m sorry your old Titan had to re-awaken :(

“Too bad I won’t know how it ends” OH NO ARE YOU GUYS GONNA KILL OFF MACCADAM???? NO!!!!

Iaconus looks frickin RAD I’m sure Hasbro will make a killing off his toys

Speaking of I really hope they release Cyberverse on DVD in a bundle-pack

“War Titan, do NOT ignore me!” YEAH USE YOUR MOM VOICE ON HIM WINDBLADE!!!

LOVE THAT ROCK MUSIC

“This has never happened before” now THERE’S an interesting tidbit

OH NO....ITS THE OTHER TITAN....CROATON....

on the one hand, I’m SO glad we’re getting the Titan battle I crave, but on the other, CROATON NO!!!

TRIFORCE BEAM!!!

I love that Windblade is Jaeger-ing this frickin Titan solo

WHOOPS THERE GOES THE STADIUM

“Optimus had a fight of his own...with gravity!” oh how the mighty have fallen Optimus lmao

I wonder how this wonky universe would handle a flier

JUST THROW A BUILDING AT A TITAN, NBD

SOMEONE PLEASE CATCH ARCEE

THANKS GRIMLOCK

THERE’S RATCHET Finally, I was wondering where he was

“Well it’s not my fault this won’t be a fair fight” OH SHOOT THERE IT IS!!! THERE IT IS

I can’t believe Starscream is trying to back-seat drive this fight lmao

SOUNDWAVE NO!!!! Oh thank goodness they’re ok

OH NO OH NO

IS THIS IT IS HE GONNA DIE?? MAC DONT GIVE IN TO FATE!!!  NO!!!

MAC NO!!!!!!!!!! MAC YOU DIDN”T HAVE TO DIE NO!!! YOU LITERALLY DID NOT HAVE TO STAND THERE AND GET BLASTED WHY DID YOU DO THAT!!!!!!!

“My last citizen...he is gone” FRICK IM GONNA START CRYING

Quints > Murdered Croaton's citizens most likely > Enslave Croaton > Inadvertently kill Iaconus' last citizen (WHICH HURT BECAUSE WE'RE MADE TO ASSUME IACONUS ONLY CARES ABOUT WAR BUT NO, HE LOVES HIS CITIZENS DEEP DOWN) > BEHEAD IACONUS LIKE, WHY YOU GOTTA STAB ME IN THE HEART LIKE THIS

Wheeljack you’re so smart but ALSO IM STILL CRYING OVER MACCADAM

“Hehe, you’re a nasty little fella” NICE JOB COWBOY

OH NO ALL THE SOUNDWAVES DANGIT I KNEW IT

AND HE”S A BIG LIAR HE DID HAVE SOME BLUE SOUNDWAVES

OH NO WHAT ABOUT WINDBLADE

HECK THAT”S SUCH A BAD PLACE TO STOP BUT I CANT WATCH ANY MORE EPISODES RN I GOTTA STAGGER THIS SERIES

[of-fire-and-light]

“Most likely to...”

[Questions found here. Decided to do these for the OT3+1 just for fun. Picture human versions where the questions obviously require it, of course.]

1. most likely to clean up everybody’s crap without asking - Cyclonus. His sense of discipline gets the better of him sometimes.

2. most likely to get in a fight - GALVATRON. ALWAYS.

3. most likely to fall asleep literally anywhere - Cyclonus, on account of being permanently exhausted.

4. most likely to get a crap-ton of tattoos - honestly probably Galvatron. He’d enjoy the endurance challenge and he likes to look shiny.

5. most likely to get a really crappy tattoo and immediately regret it - Rodimus, because bad impulse control. (Though I’m now picturing him with a really scrappy heart-and-dagger tattoo with Galvatron’s name on it and honestly that’s adorable.)

6. most likely to survive the zombie apocalypse - all four, because they would absolutely not leave each other behind and they have enough brains and enough firepower between them to handle anything. But based on canon, Galvatron, who has been last-mech-standing of his faction in a zombie apocalypse equivalent scenario not once but twice. (Dweller in the Depths and Return of Optimus Prime, though admittedly he did get caught by the end of the latter.)

7. most likely to be two hours late to their own event - Rodimus for sure.

8. most likely to flirt to get what they want - with people in general, actually Galvatron. Rodimus will but only with his lovers, Cyclonus usually doesn’t flirt full stop and Scourge is too self-conscious.

9. most likely to laugh at a funeral - deliberately, Galvatron. Accidentally because he’s upset and anxious and overwrought, Rodimus.

10. most likely to look really good in a kilt - Galvatron, honestly. Have you seen his legs?

11. most likely to steal free samples - Scourge

12. most likely to take selfies at inappropriate times - Scourge, though he’s more likely to get a Sweep to take it for him.

13. most likely to ruin everything - [everyone looks at each other] Scourge: Me. Rodimus: [points at Galvatron] Him.

14. most likely to have a shotgun wedding - If Galvatron and Rodimus ever get hitched for real that is definitely the phrase that will be used by literally everyone, regardless of how they actually go about it.

15. most likely to laugh until they cry - Rodimus

16. most likely to get into an argument with an animal - Galvatron, or possibly Cyclonus if he’s trying to give it the benefit of the doubt for sapience.

17. most likely to use any and all excuses to take off articles of clothing - Galvatron, because wearing clothes is horrible and he’s the one of them least likely to feel self-conscious about stripping in public.

18. most likely to prank call people - Scourge. Though his idea of a prank call is probably creepier than most people’s.

19. most likely to binge-watch Netflix for absurd lengths of time - Scourge. He gets sucked into watching things easily. Although Rodimus would probably join him.

20. most likely to sing better than expected - probably Galvatron.

21. most likely to get attacked by a bird - Scourge, he has that kind of low-grade bad luck.

22. most likely to sleepwalk/talk - I think all of them are a bit prone to this because of all having PTSD from here to Alpha Centauri.

23. most likely to drop obscure references nobody understands - Rodimus, who has a vast library of Earth pop culture trivia to draw on.

24. most likely to go to a party just for the food - any of the Unicronians would do this without thinking twice.

25. most likely to make questionable fashion decisions - Galvatron, but he’d make it look so good people would wonder why they’d ever thought that was questionable. Actually embarrassing fashion decisions, probably Scourge.

26. most likely to be talented in surprising ways - Scourge. Everyone expects Cyclonus to be good at everything, but Scourge gets underestimated by comparison.

27. most likely to listen to one song for four days in a row - Rodimus.

28. most likely to eat cake for breakfast - honestly all of them.

29. most likely to go bridge/cliff-jumping - Galvatron and Rodimus, probably together and considering it a date. Though it’s kinda more impressive coming from the one of them who can’t fly.

30. most likely to have had an embarrassing middle-school emo phase - Cyclonus.

[rawmerobotman]

separate pls but can I have nsfw and fluff HCs of nautica, whirl and nickel?

SFW

Nickel

Has a hard time going to sleep, mostly because she’ll stay up late scrolling through a data pad, but the best spot to do so is curled up in your arms and the more snug you hold her the more liable she is to fall asleep.

Though she loves being held, she also likes to spoon you. Depending on your size there’ll be mornings where you’ll wake to find her attached to your butt.

It is a requirement that the two of you spend lunch together. She will go absolutely feral if someone tries to get between you and your short break together.

She sends at least one long text message to you each day, telling how you much she loves you and that she can’t comprehend how lucky she is to have found you when she’s missing you at work.

She’s lowkey looking for potential places to take vacations with you in her spare time. It’s not that she’s tired of medical work, but she wants to take time to get away with you where it’s just the two of you spending time together and relaxing. She’s the type of person who’ll spend their free time planning and back logging multiple files filled with different locations and events to consider attending.

Nautica

She has a particular love for couples activities! Always on the look out for things the two of you can do together, whether it’s hands on learning or something more trivial. If there’s ever a trivia night on the Lost Light, you can expect her to mop the floor with everyone else while also crediting you when it’s mostly her factual knowledge winning you the rounds.

She’ll sit in your lap over an actual seat any day if you let her. 

Since she doesn’t necessarily enjoy parties and club scenes, spending the night with you is all she needs to be happy. She’ll love it when you plan quiet outings, even if it’s simply just finding a new location to sit and talk about your interests together. 

Whenever the Lost Light goes planet side she’ll always want to be partnered with you if shore leave isn’t necessarily a given. She’ll turn a reconnaissance mission into a romantic outing and get lost in the woods if only to spend more time with you exploring the wilderness. 

Will attempt to steal any and all moments she can with you if the two of you are on shift. She can make a convincing excuse so that she can sneak out to visit you. Your coworkers will jokingly call her out if they see her in their division and ask when she’s going to officially be transferred. Meanwhile, Rodimus and Megatron actually believe that’s where she’s stationed, and you certainly don’t help the matter either when you make up an excuse as to why she isn’t there at the moment. 

Whirl

You are always at risk when roaming the ship. The two of you could be minding your business, going about your own days, but the moment this man sees you down the hall it’s over. Especially if your work schedules don’t line up and he hasn’t seen you all day, this man is dropping whatever he’s doing the moment he sees you to just run at you. The only warning you might get is the broken off cries of those caught in his path before you’re tangled in limbs and bearing the full brunt of his weight as he tries to wrap himself around you. 

He’s not afraid to just drape himself all over you. You’ll find yourself trap underneath his cockpit while he holds you and attempts to haul you around with him. He’ll be able to get away with it because people will simply think he’s trying to annoy you when in reality he definitely just wants to hold you and keep you tucked close.

If he knows that you’ll be stuck doing menial and mundane work he’ll call just to distract you and keep you company. He’s also known for dropping by your workplace unannounced, whether to bring lunch or just to see how you’re doing. 

He’s definitely the type of person who’ll wait up for you. Whether you’re working late or just out with friends, you can expect him to still be up waiting for you to return to your habsuite. Does not like going to bed without knowing you’ve made it home first.

He’s a constant companion wherever you go. Pretends that he’s something of a bodyguard looking out for you, but he certainly doesn’t trust easy knowing just how much peril is stored in the Lost Light. Hairpin trigger- if he sees even the slightest threat to your being he’s going to destroy it with extreme prejudice. 

NSFW

Nickel

She is guilty of eating you out and than immediately wanting to make out with you, with a heavy amount of tongue.

On a similar note, nothing gets her engine revving like watching you suck on her fingers after she’s done fingering you. 

An oral (and cum) fixation in general because she honestly can’t get enough of you or your mouth.

If she’s particularly cross, whether it’s from a meaningless argument or her simply noticing some unwanted advances someone’s made towards you, she’ll wrap her arms tight around you to keep you seated in her lap while she fucks you from below. She’ll hold you close to her chest and mutter darkly in your ear.

On more than one occasion you’ll have to come up with an adequate excuse to explain away the black marks on your face. If you offer to have her sit on your face there is the always the possibility that her wheels will spin in her excitement and you’ll receive tire marks along your cheeks. Though this is the cause of some embarrassment on her part, she is not apologetic in the slightest.

You’ll earn her undying love and affection if you’re able to get both her valve and spike off simultaneously. Though considerably more difficult, it’s easily accomplished with patience and dedication, and the reaction you’ll receive is well worth it: she’ll be near incomprehensible with her vocal delight, servos holding you fast against her. You might be able to parse the occasional cuss or declaration of love, but she is especially noisy and jovial when she overloads like this. 

Doesn’t typically like making a mess when she cums. There’s only two places it belongs, and both of them are inside you ( ͡° ل͜ ͡°)

On that note: Cream pies *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *･ﾟ

Nautica

Under no circumstance can she handle dirty talk. Sure she’ll be able to be sultry, but if you’re going to vividly describe something to her thinking it’s going to help get her in the mood you’ll be sorrily mistaken. If it’s super raunchy, she’ll just burst out laughing and than you’ll have to deal with her while she’s almost in tears. It’s one of the easiest ways to get her to laugh. She would rather you just be upfront and genuine with her about your needs instead because this is ridiculous. 

Call her naughty and she will straight up bite you.

Speaking of which, she loves being able to laugh during interface!

Loves nothing better than being able to truly relax around another person and not have to adhere to a strict and serious view towards sex. Back in the sororities on Caminus, there was a lot of judgement passed on her because of her values that lead to a few unnecessary expectations, so most of her experiences were stiff and guarded. Just being able to laugh freely during sex without the other person taking offence is a weight off her shoulders.

If she’s bored she’s going to blow up your phone until you go back to your habsuite and fuck her. 

Real into the idea of turning off the gravity in your room to fool around. Put the lights down low and throw on a glittery lava lamp for that starry effect and she’ll spend the entire evening wrapped around you, holding you close. On more than one occasion you’ve both been frantically trying to catch a string of transfluid before it hits something it’s not supposed to. It’s probably the funniest problem she’s ever had to deal with.

Enjoys the feeling of claws/nails dragging across her frame. Particularly fond of desperate clawing down her abdominal platting as she straddles you, though scratches along her back are just as nice. She’ll want your hands on her frame at all times.

When nobody’s looking, she’ll have her hands on you. Will try and get away with giving you a handy/finger you in public if you let her.

Whirl

If you’re a study bot get ready because this man is just going to hop into your lap whenever he pleases. Actually, he’ll just launch himself full tilt at you if he’s in the mood. He won’t care if you’re ready to catch him- it’s honestly part of the charm of jumping you when you least expect it. If you topple over, he wins, but if you catch him than you get to top.

Once he’s been seated in your lap there’s no removing him. He’s an aggressive rider and you’re dick is going to be sore by the time he’s finished. The same thing goes for your pussy; he’s absolutely insatiable when it’s comes to pussy grinding and frankly, it’s one of his favourite things.

As previously stated if he sees you wandering around by yourself he is coming for you. However, when he’s horny as hell and in need of a good smash? It’s an absolute scramble and you may or may not be hunted through the halls of the Lost Light until you concede to him.

Enjoys having his legs thrown over your shoulders. He’s actually pretty flexible, so he likes having his legs bent back and stretched as far as they can go. 

It shouldn’t turn him on as much as it does, but having his claws clamped and being restrained is pretty high on the list of things that can get him going real quick. He’s certainly into the idea of you doing whatever you’d like to him and there not being a single thing he can do to stop you.

Oddly enough, he has an interest in the old plug and play technique. Though it’s become something of an obsolete form of intimacy, he loves nothing better than being hooked up and spending the night grinding against you. He won’t bring it up until later into your relationship when he’s comfortable and knows he can trust you.

Is actually quite partial to being stuffed with vibrators and simply having you hold him while he gets worked up. Doesn’t necessarily care if he gets off, but reclining against you might just be his favourite place.

[diceforanaltmode]

Team Fire: Session 3, Egg?!; Part 3: Whirl? And: Egg?!

The adventures of Session 3 continue! TEAM FIRE Rodimus by Frosty (tiefling sorcerer) Drift by Space (earth genasi rogue) Ratchet by Hawke (firbolg cleric) Magnus | Minimus by Tuna (half-orc paladin | human/tethyrian wizard) Megatron by Briar (goliath paladin) Rewind by Robin (high elf wizard) (out for this week, but back soon) First Session | Second Session | Third Session: Part 1 | Third Session: Part 2

The party heads towards the castle. Based on the construction plans they found in Zeta’s office, they know where they will find the entrance to the secret lab in the courtyard. 

When they reach the courtyard, they find Whirl, kicking around some stones. He got bored hanging out at Swerve’s and dealing with all the politics there, so he came here to find some… more stuff to kick around.

He looks up as the party shows up. “Hello, everyone, so how are you? You look awfully suspicious.”

“We do have the Scourge of Kaon in our midst.” Ratchet notes. “You’re kinda right to be suspicious.”

“Yeaaah…” Whirl says. He’s standing right in their way, arms extended. “You’re not going to keep going until you tell me what the fuck you’re doing.”

Drift responds. “We’re looking for a kid.”

“We’re here for the search and rescue,” Ratchet says.

“The what?” Whirl asks.

Drift starts to explain. “Someone took a kid,”

Ratchet continues. “We’re here to get the kid out of Zeta’s super secret, secret room.”

“Son of a bitch. Okay. You want some help?” Whirl offers.

“You’re from the AVL?” Ratchet asks.

“We would appreciate it…” Magnus adds.

“Alright, let’s fuck some shit up,” Whirl says.

The party hits the stone that triggers the entrance to the lab and heads down a set of stairs to find two stone trolls, much like the one that stood in front of the entrance to the dungeon, both in front of doors. The door on the left is narrower than the one on the right. All the doors are short enough that the majority of the party - Magnus, Megatron, and Ratchet - is going to have to duck to get through (“We are a party of huge people.” -Hawke)

The party approaches the door on the left. The troll recites its riddle. “I am light as a feather, yet no human can hold me for long.”

The answer: Breath

The narrow door opens, sliding apart like supermarket sliding doors. The door is narrow enough that the whole party can’t go through at once, but looking through, the party sees a rough and rocky ledge on the other side of the door that extends a few feet. Then there is a crevice, though they cannot tell how deep it is from the door, but they can see it’s roughly 12 or 13 feet wide. On the other side of it, there is some sort of round alcove in the wall. The party can’t really tell if it’s a door or not just by looking. 

Drift pokes his head inside the door to investigate, just to make sure he doesn’t plunge through the floor or anything. Everything looks fine to him.

Ratchet checks as well, and concludes the crevice may not look friendly but the door itself and the ground around it looks fine. 

Drift goes to look inside the crevice. He sees the bottom, guessing it to be 20-25 ft. deep and would be an unpleasant fall but not kill someone.

Rodimus, not noticing much else, follows Drift in - of course. The others are wary to follow, but Whirl heads right in and is just sitting on the edge of the crevice, legs swinging. He does not care. It’s truly very Whirly. 

“Imma chuck a rock in,” Drift says. The others are largely fine with the idea. Except

“God, yes!” Ratchet replies, before changing his mind and adding, “No, actually, lemme see if I-”

Drift cackles. “Too late, I did it!”

“Fuck!”

Said chucked rock hits the bottom in the time the party would expect it to - no infinite free fall or landing too quickly - so the crevice seems to actually be what it looks like.

“Jump in, ya cowards,” Whirl offers snidely. “Should we try to open the other door? Because I don’t have a good feeling about this…” Ratchet says.

Drift takes a closer look around and notices Everything. When Drift looks straight across the crevasse, everything looks empty save for the alcove, which has what looks more like a mock-up for an actual door than an actual door. When Drift investigates the crevasse, going so far as to stick his entire head upside down into the crevasse, he notes that there looks to be something at the bottom of the crevasse, on the wall, but he can’t tell what it is. As he’s scanning the area, he sees a patch of ground on the side we’re on that looks like it’s made of a slightly different material compared to the rest of the stone around it. Drift immediately points that out to everyone in warning.

Drift puts a rock on the floor panel that looked weird, and a set of stairs appears, going down into the crevasse. The stairs seem to be made of light, magical in some way. It’s not certain if the stairs are actually solid.

Ratchet whispers, “Put another rock on it.”

Rodimus decides to throw a rock onto the staircase. It lands on the staircase, bouncing down a few steps, but behaves like it was tossed onto a normal non-magical staircase. The staircase is real.

“If someone takes away the rock- if someone follows us and takes away the rock… then we’re fucked,” Ratchet voices to the group before amending, “Could be fucked. I don’t know if there could be another entrance.”

“Someone can just stand up here. Is there anything even down there?” Drift responds.

“Someone should go check and then someone should stay up here,” Rodimus suggests.

“What about the rogue with the good stealth?” Ratchet says, none too sneakily implying Drift should be the one to check.

“Okay, yeah, I’m going down the stairs. I guess.” Drift agrees, somewhat reluctantly.

“You look sneaky.” Ratchet is lowkey worried.

“This is true.” Drift is sneaky.

Drift goes down the stairs by himself - though Rodimus offers to go with him, Drift insists this is his job, as the rogue. As he gets to the bottom he can see the part of the wall that was made of different materials is actually a door. Kinda an odd door made entirely of a slab of black stone with a single keyhole. There is no handle. Drift decides to try and lockpick the door but gets shocked by the door, injuring him a little. It does not open, either.

Faced with this setback, Drift shrugs nonchalantly. “That happens.” 

“How’s it going!?” Ratchet shouts down at the rogue.

“I think we need to find a key, this isn’t working!” 

“Alright!”

“Should we go in the other door?” Megatron asks. 

The party lets out a resounding “yeah” in agreement.

“On the plus side, we’ll all fit through that,” Ratchet notes. 

Drift heads back up the stairs and they all head to the other door and its troll. It’s riddle is:

I am a venerable relative, whose hands do not hold and whose face cannot see, but I can always tell you when you are late. Who am I? 

Answer: A Grandfather Clock

The door slides open across the entire width of the room beyond.

Everyone investigates before going into the room. Rodimus doesn't even notice that the door has opened. Magnus, Megatron, and Ratchet are able to see a 4x4 pattern of tiles with numbers on them and a small alcove. Megatron and Ratchet are able to see a spiral pattern engraved into the wall by the alcove. It's a Fibonacci spiral.

“So we need to probably go across the tiles in the Fibonacci role…” Ratchet observes.

“The what?” Rodimus asks. He has not heard of a “Fibonacci” whatever before. He does know what numbers are but doesn't know how these two things are related.

“The Fibonacci Sequence, it’s a-” Ratchet doesn't bother to finish explaining seeing the blank look on Rod’s face. 

Magnus looks warily at the puzzle. “Does anyone want to test it out?” 

“Nah-” Ratchet makes a bunch of noncommittal noises.

“Like, not even step on it?”

Ratchet makes more noises generally meaning no.

“So what is it tiles? Can they be pressed?” Drift pipes up.

“Like we need- we obviously need to go across it in the sequence and it would be easiest to test it…” Ratchet explains.

The tiles don't necessarily look like they could be pressed or sink down in any way, but it’s not unreasonable to assume they would react to being stepped on.

Drift points out that “I mean they're a pretty clear path from the first one to 13 and if we need to hit 21 we can do that too…”

“I don't think we need to because the sequence is like 1,1, 2, 3, 5, 13…”

“Five, eight, thirteen,” Dirt corrects.

“Five- oh, yeah it is.” 

Drift laughs a bit before announcing, “I’m gonna go for it, screw it, let's not waste time.”

He steps across the tiles in the order: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13. Nothing happens and Drift is able to walk across just fine. In the alcove, there is a small key that looks like it would fit into the door.

“Mine now.”

Drift quickly gives the rest of the room a once over just to make sure he hasn’t missed anything. He doesn't see anything new and crosses the tiles once more in reverse tile order. Again, nothing happens. He flashes the key and heads back to the other room

Ratchet is muttering to himself in the back as they head out. “Fibonacci spiral,” he scoffs. “How tasteless!”

“He really didn’t have any good ideas, did he?” Drift said, referring to Zeta.

“Nope!” Rod chirped back. “Not a single good idea!”

(The DM as Zeta’s Ghost is Offended)

“Classless,” Mags agreed.

Ratchet snorts and Drift cackles again. 

(The DM feels Judged)

Drift reins in his laughter before saying, “Honestly, if we’re gonna build an evil citadel, I think you’d- I would do it differently.” He turns to Megatron, and in the smuggest way possible- “Wouldn’t you do it differently Megs?”

“...do I have to answer that?”

“Fair.”

“But, yes, this is very poorly designed,” Megs shrugs. 

(We assure the DM we love them)

The party heads back to the other set of doors and back down the magical stairs to the door at the bottom of the crevasse. After using the key from the other room to unlock the door, Ratchet makes the suggestion that someone sturdy should enter first. Drift laughs and replies you send the rogue in first. Megatron sighs at him, of course. 

Drift cautiously goes to open the door… or at least tries to. He fails, very badly. As he moves it, the door squeaks, getting a visible cringe from everybody, and alerting something quite large on the other side. And, whatever it is - it’s moving. 

Our cleric is, of course, backing back up the stairs.

“Coward!” Drift laughs, again. “Well, no, he is the cleric; he needs to stay in one piece.” 

“I’m squishy! And old!” Ratchet shouts back.

“I am not at my strongest right now, don’t at me!”

“Same,” Rod adds

“Cowaaaard!” Whirl screams, from his place on the ledge above the crevasse. And continues screaming.

Ratchet glares back at the rogue. “I’m literally the only one who can fix your legs.”

“Unless anyone has any better ideas, I’m opening the door,” Drift replies once more, exasperated. 

The rest of the party lets out a variety of ‘yeah, just open it.’

“Weaklings and cowards!” Whirl is still shouting. “Open it!”

“The door is open!” the rogue shouts back.

“Whirl, you are not helping!” Mags snaps.

And that was true. With as much noise as Whirl was making, the beast behind the door is now fully awake. 

Oh, fun.

As Drift pulls open the door, the beast behind it is revealed to be a giant snake! It lashes out at Drift, but misses as Drift dodges. 

Ratchet raises his hands, mumbling to himself for a moment, and from his hands descends a flame. A flame with a holy aura. You could even say a sacred flame. The party groans at the pun, and unfortunately the snake dodges the flame.

Ratchet notices the snake doesn’t appear to be venomous, thankfully, and looks to be a constrictor. Based on size it looks female -- because these are fantasy snakes, so who needs real-world biology? 

Upon realizing that the snake is a constrictor, Ratchet yells out, “Watch out, that thing’s gonna choke you!” 

And all he hears is a quiet, “Great,” from Rodimus. The tiefling casts firebolt, hitting the snake and causing a fair amount of damage. 

Drift draws his rapier and attacks as well, stabbing the snake and quickly ducking back to avoid another attack.

Next, the snake takes its turn to strike. It turns it’s aim towards Magnus, managing to pierce through Mag’s armor. She doesn’t look so good after that. The half-orc is wary now but chooses to attack anyway. She swings, but the hammer glances off the snake’s scales.

Megatron (being cheered on by Ratchet with a quiet, “Hit the snake, hit the snake!”) strikes the snake next, bloodying it severely.  

Now it’s Ratchet’s turn again (also being cheered on, now by Drift with “Do your job, do your job!”) and casts healing words on the wounded paladin. Mags is in much better shape now.

Rod… does not even get a full bolt of flame cast out. A puny little ember putts across the air and leaves a little blister on the snake. Rest assured, everyone’s laughing. To which Rod loudly exclaims, “FUCK!”

Being the amazing partner that he is, Drift avenges Rodimus by stabbing the snake yet again. And he hits! After that he doesn’t move back again, not seeming to care about the risk of attack because of how wounded the snake is now. Ratchet is panicking in the back, and so Drift backs up a little to appease him. Drift tries to get a better look at the room beyond, but he sees is Snek.

Still in snake range, Megatron gets attacked now, but the fangs just scrape against his armor. The snake retreats. 

Magnus, still wary of the snake, takes a look around the area to see there’s a door on the other side of the room the snake, and something next to the door, although she cannot make out what it is with all that snake in her way. Eager to get this over with, Magnus slams her hammer into the snake's nose. A stiff breeze could take this thing out now. But, rather than a stiff breeze, Megatron takes it out with one last blow of his great sword. The snake is now unconscious and bleeding out.

The party has solved the Snake Puzzle.

Now not having to fend for her life, Magnus points out the door on the other side of the room the snake was in. Everyone makes their way over to it not only to find the door but what looks like a cage next to it. Inside is a giant egg. A giant egg that probably belonged to the snake that was just knocked out.

Ratchet crouches down to look at it and does, in fact, conclude this is the big snake’s egg. It’s not close to hatching, but it’s well on its way.

This is when the party realizes that oh god, they just almost killed a mom. Hysteria and discussion of raising the snild (snake child) ensue.

“I think we’re obligated to adopt the snake,” Megatron says.

“Let’s steal a baby,” Rod says.

Megs nods. “Let’s steal a baby.”

Drift is silent for a moment. Contemplative even. “Why is the egg in the caaaage?”

“Because! A giant fucking snake will hatch out of it!” Ratchet exclaims. “It’s not that difficult!” 

Besides the party panicking (again) over this egg, it can be guessed that Zeta was keeping the snake egg to motivate the mama snake to guard his office. Well, his secret-er office. Which happens to be in front of our heroes.

Ratchet clears his throat. No one hears him, so he throws his arms into the air and shouts, “Maybe! Before we contemplate stealing a giant snake -- Magnus, Megatron I can’t believe you’re doing this -- maybe we should investigate the fucking office, of the vampyric overlord we killed yesterday!?”

“No, yeah that does sound like a good idea, we should do that first,” Megs concludes.

“Perhaps!”

“I’m not saying- I never agreed to steal it!” Mags protests.

“It’s not really stealing! I mean, it’s not likely to survive in this particular condition anyway,” Megatron notes, gesturing to the environment around them. “It kinda needs to either be taken out and released into the wild or given to someone.”

“True.”

Ratchet looks kinda in pain because holy fuck they are looking for a child in danger.

With Ratchet’s urging, the party goes to open the door to the office... ---

Continue to Part 4!

[imababblekat]

Fitting In: MTMTE Swerve X Reader

(S/N):

-Summary: Being a mechanical being with a love for organic life, namely botany, it’s no wonder you feel like you don’t fit in amongst your kind. Swerve isn’t about to let you feel like an outsider though for having such a unique occupation. 

Author: Imababblekat

A/N: This is my first time writing Swerve or for the MTMTE verse, so ye. . .fair warning if its not up to par

~

Swerve made his way down one of the many long corridors of the Lost Light; a giddy smile plastered to his face and small box in metal hands. He hummed excitedly taking a turn down another hall, feeling his spark pick up when he recognized the familiar door ahead. The mini bot had been waiting all day for this moment; practically jumping up and down eagerly from behind the bar counter. The patrons didn't figure anything different about it, used to the mechs chipperness that sometimes became over bearing. . .okay a lot of times over bearing. He didn't care though, Swerve was too pre-occupied with seeing one of the few people who actually didn't mind him. Not even bothering to knock on the habsuit, he just waltzed right in, right in time to see his dear crush singing to 60's music blaring through the stereos.

His steps faltering as her body moved about. It was so rare to see her relaxed like this, and just being herself. Gosh, he just loved the way she moved; so free and lose. And her voice too. It carried with the loud vocals and was like sweet candy to his audio receptors. Swerve wished he could see this side of her everyday. As the song got to a high point and the lovely mech before him swung her helm back and forth, performing a very fluid dance move, Swerve let out a cheering whistle and clapped; gift tucked safely under his arm.

"Hey! Not bad!", Swerve yelled over the music.

(Y,n) screeched, jumping and nearly knocking over the pot on the nearby shelf. Fumbling to turn down the loud music she sharply turned to face her friend with a deep blush.

"Swerve!"

"Yeah?!"

"What did I tell you about knocking?!"

"To do it before walking in, but you see I was just so excited to see you! Plus if I knocked I would have never been able to witness such a grand performance! You sure you grew up on an energon farming planet, and not on Caminus?! Cause-"

At this point you had just tuned him out, turning back to your small bonsai to finish trimming. It wasn't that you were doing it on purpose, usually you loved hearing him go on, but with how you'd been feeling lately, something that he had said triggered your ever mounting insecurities.

Caminus, shit you wish you were born there. Then maybe you'd actually fit in with your mechanical race. You could be like Nautica! Oh how you wish you could be like her. The femme was so incredibly smart and talented, and even if she claimed not to be great in the arts, she was in fact an amazing dancer. Yeah, the girl could be a little shy every now and then, but she always managed to get past that and go on as her normal preppy, upbeat self. You though? Primus, you'd use to take a different route from your destination if it meant you could avoid walking by another mech completely; no matter if that direction would take longer or went the opposite direction of point B. Deep in your self depreciating thoughts, you hadn't noticed Swerve calling your name.

He was just joking about how you, Nautica, Chromia, and Windblade probably had a secret band, and should play at his bar. When you hadn't even giggled slightly in embarrassment from the idea, Swerve got a feeling that you weren't even listening. Directing his optics to you he noticed how you had ceased trimming as well, the sharp scissors paused over one of the side branches. His optic ridges furrowed as he scanned your still form. You'd been acting really strange lately. Normally very open and comfortable around him, you had suddenly just seemed to close off. It worried Swerve greatly. Being one of the few bots on this ship he was sure of that considered him a friend, it was terrifying to think that you were finally tired of him. But that also wasn't like you. You were nice to everyone, albeit in a shy and respecting manner, but none the less still very kind!

"Hey, your joints rusted into place or somethin'?", Swerve chuckled, trying to seem as cool as possible.

When his cervo had just lightly graced over your shoulder plate, you jumped with a light gasp and cut off some of the bonsai leaves. It was a strange awkward cut, and Swerve quickly felt bad.

"O-oh, I'm so sorry-"

"Don't worry, it wasn't your fault. I should have been paying attention is all. . .," you quickly dismissed him with a reassuring smile.

What did he do to deserve someone like you? Swerve shook his helm to keep from daydreaming any further, and smiled wide when presenting the box in his cervos. Perhaps this will help lighten the mood.

"I got you a gift!", he announced proudly; gently handing the box over to you.

You gasped, optics going wide as you pulled out a tiny container," Swerve you didn't?! H-how did you even get this?!"

The small mech scratched the side of his blushing cheeks, watching you cutely examine the organic thing," What can I say?! Owning a bar you know how to get the hook ups!"

You chuckled, walking over to your desk with a smirk," What? Did you sell your chassis or something?"

"Pssh, they wish I offered it~!", Swerve gave a sharp grin and attempted a sexy pose, but ended up looking just ridiculous, causing you to giggle.

Joining your side at the desk, he rested on his bent elbows to watch you lightly and very gently squeeze the ball in a different cup. He watched the once clear water slowly start to turn a bit mucky; probably from the thing you carefully handled in your cervo.

"Sooooo. . .what is it?", he asked curiously.

"You mean to tell me you brought something on board and don't even know what it is? Does Rodimus or Ultra Magnus even know about it?", you questioned with a gaped mouth and slightly panicked expression.

The male bot just lazily waved his cervo," Eh, people bring stuff on the ship all the time and never tell them. . .its uh. . .its not dangerous is it?"

You giggled watching your small friend inch slightly away from the gift he got you," No, I was just messing with you. It's a Marimo ball, a form of algae; completely harmless!"

"A Marimo ball, huh?", Swerve mumbled, his gaze following the plant to its new little home.

"You're so amazing (y,n)."

You froze just before putting the creature into its new habitat. Sensing your hesitation, Swerve peered up to see your optics wide and focused in on nothing. His ridges quickly furrowed, and he stood straight with a concerned voice.

"(Y,n), what's wrong?"

Softly letting the ball slip from your metal fingers, your shoulders stiffened as those harmful insecurities returned.

"Am I really that amazing Swerve?", you enquired, your vocals slightly wavering.

Swerve leaned back some, confused and slightly put off by your question. "Well yeah, why do you ask?"

You clenched the edges of your desk, slightly shaking trying not to break down.

"Oh I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that I'm a cybernetic being who's profession is in a field around organics. Where has that ever played a role in our species history? How does that contribute or help out our species. We can't eat plants. We don't breath, and our means of medicine and curing illness are re wiring a few circuits. I-I don't fit in here. Not on this ship, and certainly not in the Cybertronian race! I'm hardly even smart or talented by Cybertronian standards. It took me forever just to understand your occupation Swerve! Could you imagine how long it would take me to understand or do something of Nautica's level?! I only know the science of botany; I'm a 'botanist'. What place does a botanist have in a machine oriented species?"

By this point, you were practically quivering on the very edge of having a break down. All of your insecurities just pushed through your built up wall and came floading out to your friend; more than likely your only friend you felt. And soon you began to feel embarrassed, but mostly guilty for just having dumped everything onto him. You felt even more anxiousness build up at the growing silence from his end, and you tried desperately to keep the panic from shouting through your running fans. He was most definitely annoyed now right? Since when have your problems ever meant or mattered to anyone else?

It was the complete opposite though. Swerve didn't feel that way at all; in fact he was on the verge of losing it himself. How long have you felt this way? How could he let it get this bad?! You were his friend, his crush! He should have noticed the signs as soon as you started to feel like this. As a very insecure bot himself, he didn't want anyone to feel the same way. You especially; the one person who actually cared for him and actually helped to make him feel more confident in himself, even if just by a little bit! Grabbing you firmly by the shoulders, Swerve moved you to face him, catching you off guard by the saddened, hurt look in his visor.

"(Y,n) don't you ever think that you don't belong. You are incredibly amazing, and what you do is just as incredible. Perhaps you have a hard time grasping something like quantum mechanics or metallurgist, but we all have trouble understanding some things. You may not know this, but the other day Nautica was telling me how amazing it was that you were able to grow something organic. She told me she tried it once and it just wasn't working out for her. And don't feel bad if you don't get or can do anything that would be considered normal in our race. Take a look at Rodimus; that guy thinks more than half of the sciences out there are some form of magical witchcraft!"

Swerve made a sigh, calming his tone and speed of talk before placing one of his red cervos on your cheek plate.

"My point is. . .you do belong (y,n). You do fit in. As a Cybertronian and a member of this ship. This space craft is made up of some of the strangest, and craziest bots you'll ever meet. We're all unique and our own, no one is one in the same. You helped me to not be so insecure, by teaching me that it's not always bad to be different. Different is good, and if we were all the same then life would just be so bland. I don't want you to ever feel like your alone (y,n). What you do is so special and unique to you. And if anyone wants to be a piece of scrap, just because you work with organic life, than frag them! I'll always be here with you, (y,n)! I'll always see you as someone special, and nothing less!"

"Swerve. . .", your optics darted across his face, taking note of every give away to his truthful emotions about you.

Seeing your optics filled with much surprise and perhaps a bit of shock, the bartender started to feel his spark clench. Oh no, did he say too much again? Did he talk more than he should have once more? He started to question of what he did helped at all or just upset you further, when two metal arms had wrapped around him and pulled him forward. Resting in the crook of your neck, Swerve felt his fans kick in and was left in a bit of a trance before quickly returning the embrace.

The botanical habsuit was left in silence save for the speakers that played over head. ‘Ain't No Mountain High Enough’ started to fade through, and you couldn't help but notice Swerves grip tighten ever so slightly. Of course, this was the song that kick started your close relationship. Swerve was getting ready to close up the bar one night when he noticed you humming it in the corner. Upon inquiring how you knew it with much excitement, you told him you'd picked up on a little bit of Earths culture when studying its plant life. From then on, he was constantly teaching you about all sorts of human pop culture, and in turn would listen to your fascination over the planets greenery. Now, you both sat in your habsuit, the same song that ultimately joined you together, while holding each other close with much care and support.

~xXx~

[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)

[thanksjro]

MTMTE #21:  The Sound of Breaking Glass, a prose story- James Did, in Fact, Put That Baby in That Robot

It’s after the fight with Tyrest and his goons, but before Cyclonus stabs Tailgate with a sword for medical purposes. The portal has stopped working, Skids isn’t making any sense, and Rodimus is about to do one of the scariest things you can do as an adult person.

He’s going to make several business-related phone calls.

Perceptor trying to be funny is the oddest take I’ve seen in a bit. I was completely unaware that he had a sense of humor.

Rodimus is looking pretty rough from that nonsense he pulled in the space-crucifix, but he doesn’t want to bother Ratchet, since Tailgate’s still looking like he’s gonna bite it at this point. Besides he’s still got work to do- he fully intends on getting the space bridge back in working order.

The bridge, unfortunately, isn’t making it easy for him; thing’s falling apart and bursting into flames at random intervals.

Rodimus wants to make the last few days at least somewhat worthwhile, a sentiment that Minimus catches onto, and doesn’t seem to agree with. What would it mean, if they were able to say “well, Tailgate, half a religious order, and the concept of trust in the law are dead, but at least we got to finish off our road trip in record time!”? Food for thought, Minimus, I’ll give you that.

Brainstorm runs through the room like a maniac, over the metaphorical moon about something, as he interrupts the conversation. Once he’s gone, Minimus asks about his outer shell, I guess because he feels naked without it. As he collects his belongings, Rodimus brings up their earlier conversation, and reaffirms that he wants to make up for what’s happened. Minimus acknowledges his words, but doesn’t really offer anything in return.

Back over on the Lost Light, we get subjected to a title drop.

Rung is meeting Fort Max in the hollowed-out remains of Swerve’s, because his office is full of corpses. This is a sort-of continuation of their conversation in the brig, where Rung forgave Fort Max for being a big part of why he got shot. They have a brief discussion about where Max’s head is at, and whether or not he’s ready to get back into the workforce after the nightmare hellscape that was Garrus-9. Rung seems to think that the fact that Fort Max is considering his mental health in the first place is a good sign, and offers his services should he be needed.

Too bad they’re going to have to tele-con, since Fort Max is being sent off the ship for his new job.

Over at Rodimus’ office, Rodimus considers hiring Atomizer to redecorate his pad- even though they seem to have very similar tastes when it comes to paintjobs- because he just isn’t feeling the sick flames and hot pink interior anymore.

I see Rodimus is taking the “no fun allowed” route to personal growth. Wonder how long that’ll last.

He has a think about the last conversation he had with Drift before he threw him off the ship, the memory laced with “Overlord murdered a lot of people because of me” guilt. Drift hadn’t been thrilled about the prospect of Rodimus’ inquiry, and made that much known, then volunteered to be the scapegoat. Rodimus hated this idea, horrified by the idea of letting Drift take the fall for him, after all the work he’d put in to try and be liked by people after the whole “Deadlock” thing.

Then Drift revealed that he’s got another reason for not letting Rodimus get kicked off the ship.

Back at Swerve’s, the man himself has made an appearance, interrupting the meeting between Rung and Fort Max, and proceeding to make a fool of himself by way of slapstick. It’s okay though, because he’s too high on actually feeling good about himself for once in his miserable life to feel physical pain.

Rodimus more or less insinuated this exact idea back in issue #17, and it made him so upset he was about to close his bar completely down over it. Good to see our robot Pagliacci bouncing back so nicely.

Brainstorm enters the scene like a vengeful spirit, and I guess Rung and Fort Max just disappear into the aether as he has a little chat with Swerve. Turns out that someone went and took a peek inside the super-secret, possibly-sun-destroying briefcase Brainstorm keeps on his person at all times, and he wants to know who. It was probably a little easier to swing than usual, given that Brainstorm had given up the springs on the clasps of the thing to help break everyone out of moon jail, and he probably had to take at least a little time to recover from his soul halfway evaporating out of his eyes.

Swerve makes a joke, because he has a lot of trouble handling serious situations, then we get confirmation that Brainstorm kidnapped a fucking zygote from the moon.

Brainstorm has a baby inside him.

James, I’m begging you, we can’t keep doing this.

Later, Ratchet’s checking on Tailgate after his stabbing/stabbing repair/cybercrosis cure injection.

Swerve what the FUCK do you think you’re doing with that medical biowaste?

Minimus comes in, looking very silly, as he’s having a heck of a time putting the Magnus Armor back on.

Minimus would like some help getting dressed, and, because clothes for space robots seem to skew more towards body parts than anything else, he’s come to the best doctor on the Lost Light.

(Nobody tell First Aid I said that. I fear his wrath.)

Ratchet is surprisingly handy with the Armor, and it’s revealed that he’s known about Ultra Magnus actually being a completely different, much smaller guy, since the very start.

As in, when Tyrest first started pulling this nonsense.

He didn’t say anything to anyone because he didn’t see the point, then lets Minimus know that he’s his favorite, which gives him a much-needed ego-boost. Minimus wanders off to go put the rest of his clothes on, leaving Ratchet to pull a body out of the morgue that isn’t dead.

Later, on Luna 1, we get to see Rodimus get bummed out about the baby moon not flaring back up. It’s not for lack of trying- he’s crawling around on the ground, rubbing his face in the dirt, all while Getaway watches- but it doesn’t seem like the babies are coming back. Getaway thinks it’s weird that it just kinda turned off, but then again this wasn’t exactly a typical situation, now was it? He tries igniting the Hot Spot himself, planting the first seed of his primus apotheosis diagnosis years from now, then asks our dear captain what’s next on the agenda.

Rodimus, saddened by the loss of literally a billion lives, shakes out his pocket onto the ground.

Don’t worry, the Matrix was in there, so it was totally respectful of the dead. Fort Max rides up, playfully threatening to arrest Rodimus for littering, and we finally get to know what his new career path is.

Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord.

Also, he brought a friend.

Red Alert, jumping right back into his work, has decided to stay with Fort Max on Luna 1, to chase bad guys and help the Circle of Light recover/prepare for attack. Then he tells Rodimus to turn his phone back on, because Perceptor’s been trying to call him for a while now.

Back at Tyrest’s sweet digs, Perceptor’s gotten the communications system working, and is ready to call Cybertron. Cybertron, who probably thinks they all died back in issue #1, despite Blaster’s best efforts in issue #13 and #15. Blaster did not help with this project, probably because he was busy getting his tiddy compartment fixed.

Perceptor dials, everyone wonders what Bumblebee’s been up to, they get their hopes up, and we get one hell of a reveal for anyone who hasn’t been following along with the sister series up to this point.

Ah, that’s right, I’ve got to do a lightning round for RID, don’t I?

In the Postscript of this prose story, we meet Outrigger, a member of the Circle of Light who will be established as a big honkin’ dork the more we learn about him. He’s just run into Red Alert’s office to tell him about Tyrest having moved. This is a very odd occurrence indeed, as Tyrest was shot in the spine, and should not be able to move. 

The two of them head over to where Tyrest is being held, only to find he’s disappeared from a locked room.

Well, shit.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #6- Rung Has a Friggin’ Day

It’s time for therapy.

Finally.

It turns out that Ratchet didn’t forget about Fortress Maximus’ acts of extreme violence in all the chaos that was last issue, and requested that Fort Max get set up with some mandatory counseling. Of course, because it’s been about a week in Fort Max-time since Garrus 9 went down, he’s not exactly thrilled to talk about what happened. And who can blame him? Garrus 9 sucked big time for everyone involved, even Overlord.

Fort Max claims to not remember what happened- he’s lying, and we’re treated to a flashback that sort of justifies his fib- and Rung suggests they get Chromedome involved, which seems perhaps a bit unethical? To just rip traumatic memories that may or may not be repressed out of a guy’s head? Like, I’m not super well-versed in psychiatry, but that seems a little off.

Rung, in an attempt to make Fort Max feel a little safer, tells him that Overlord- though he doesn’t say his name, because triggering Fort Max could literally get people killed- was neutralized about as efficiently as possible for their species.

I can’t believe Cybertron has a better veteran healthcare system than the United States.

Enough of Fortress Maximus’ impending implosion, it’s time for bar shenanigans!

Over at Swerve’s, Trailbreaker is proving to be completely incapable of keeping his drink in his glass, as Chromedome participates in a game where he has to guess who’s transforming into their alt-mode, based purely on the sound. He gets it in one, and everyone loses their shit. Chromedome, never one to hype himself, takes the opportunity to instead build Rewind up, because he just loves him that much.

Fortress Maximus gets brought up, and while Trailbreaker thinks the guy’s a little overrated, the others have heard about what happened on Delphi, and proceed to learn the wrong lesson from the whole thing. Tailgate enters the scene, after a rousing study session with everyone’s favorite giant neurotic.

Tailgate, you fool! It’ll be another 41 issues before Cyclonus is ready to even acknowledge his feelings!

It’s good to know that Tailgate doesn’t hold any grudges over the info dump Rewind gave him the other day. Also, that table looks like a nightmare to clean.

Ultra Magnus walks in, looking about as cheery as he possibly can considering who he is, promptly arrests Swerve for running the bar without taking bureaucracy into account, and whisks the little jabber jaw away in handcuffs, practically carrying him off by the scruff like a kitten.

Fort Max enters the room, having decided to grab a drink after the ordeal that is mandatory therapy.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a day on the Lost Light without something going just a little screwy.

This is a typical Wednesday for Pipes.

Fort Max proceeds to wreck several robots, seemingly at random, though he somehow manages to not actually kill any of them. Intentional or not? We still have several pages of this issue to get through, hold your horses! All will be revealed in time.

Which brings us to now. Fort Max has locked himself in Rung’s office, alongside Rung and the poor sap who was unlucky enough to have had an appointment when the big guy showed up. Rodimus and Drift are trying to figure out just what the hell to do with this current situation. Magnus enters, having just set Swerve up with his punishment, and berates Rodimus for letting Fort Max run around with a gun, as if 90% of the crew doesn’t also have massive weapons literally built into their bodies.

Blaster gets a video feed from one of the surveillance cameras going, and we get a good look at just how fucked this whole thing has become, because as it turns out, Rung’s appointment for this time slot was none other than Whirl, instigator extraordinaire, and being stabbed by some ship piping has done absolutely nothing to slow his suicidal roll.

That gun is positively ridiculous. Where were you even KEEPING that thing, Max?

It only takes a couple of face-mashings with the barrel of the BFG to get Whirl to back off, accomplishing what Rung simply cannot, because Whirl doesn’t play by the rules of anyone who values their life in any capacity. You’d think it’d take more than that to shut him up, but Whirl’s head is made of plot, so it’s a bit delicate.

Rung spots the camera, and decides to make himself useful by providing audio to this whole debacle, by way of his microphone thumb.

Now, a hostage situation just isn’t complete without some sort of demand in exchange for the safety of said hostages, and Fort Max has quite the doozy for Rodimus: he wants to go back to Cybertron, so he can confront Prowl on the slow response to the hell that was Garrus 9. Max was trapped there for over three years before the Wreckers came along, and it’s still pretty fresh for him because of the coma letting him skip a lot of time he could have spent healing.

Pro-tip: when handling a hostage situation, don’t get into a screaming match with the dude who’s about to shoot the only mental health specialist your race has ever managed to produce. Blaster gets it.

Rung is many things, but is no actor, as is made apparent by him holding his microphone thumb-bound hand in the most fucking conspicuous way possible. Fort Max notices- because how could he not?- and relieves Rung of this terrible burden.

Rung is really regretting not minoring in theatre right about now.

Hours later in the medibay, First Aid is proving to have gone mad with power, as he maintains some dangerously high snark levels while keeping the victims of Fort Max’s spree stable. Ratchet, whose hands are still Pharma-blue, is starting to piece together the reasoning behind who got shot.

That’s right, Fort Max was embarrassed that he showed up with the same color paint as all these guys, and tried to kill them to keep his fashion faux pas to a minimum.

Back in Rung’s office, Whirl’s dropped all pretense due to sheer boredom, and straight-up asks Fort Max to just get it over with and shoot them both. Having his thumb ripped off has made Rung a bit snippy, and he snaps at Whirl for the quip, before Max decides that he’s actually rather interested in just what Whirl’s appointment was going to cover. Rung tries to stymie this line of questioning, but he really ought to know not to get in the way of the plot progression at this point.

Whirl does decide to spill his beans, if only after Rung gets the obscenely large barrel of Max’s obscenely large gun pressed to one whole side of his face.

It turns out Whirl has depths to him, or at least he did, once upon a time. Before he got booted out of the Wreckers, before he was even in the Wreckers, he created as opposed to destroyed. More specifically, he was a watchmaker, good enough to find an audience in the time of Functionist Cybertron. Now, because he’s a helicopter, the guys up top weren’t too jazzed about Whirl not doing what he’d “been born to do,” on top of not giving them any of his sweet watch money, and decided to start fucking up his life to get him back in line. They started with tearing his shop to the ground.

But we’ll get to what the hell empurata is in a few issues.

Also, while Whirl’s been sharing his backstory, Rung managed to grab his model ship from off the floor.

I’m not sure how he managed to get ahold of his model without making a giant clumsy scene either, considering that’s his thumbless hand.

Rung, because he’s a clever man, is staring super hard at the camera and making kind of a weird face as he taps on the little windows of his model ship, signaling to Rodimus and crew to see what they can do with the windows outside of his office. He’s got three real big ones that let you see out- or in- the whole room. Rodimus makes a call, and we get a proper understanding of what Chromedome meant when he said Rewind was outside.

No kidding.

Rewind and Swerve are on rivet replacement duty, using rivet guns nearly as big as they are. Swerve’s passing the time idly chatting, because that’s his whole deal.

Knowing Swerve, that’s probably a joke, but given what we learn a few issues after this, on how exactly Cybertron handles those who don’t fall in line, I can’t help but wonder…

Okay, we know why Swerve’s out here, but what’s Rewind’s deal?

You remember those data discs Red Alert mentioned last issue, the ones Rewind was begging Chromedome to help him find? The ones he got from Swindle at the start of the series? Yeah, turns out those were chock-full of video footage of people dying.

Rodimus didn’t like the fact that Rewind had brought snuff films onto the Lost Light, and now here he is. We don’t get an explanation as to why he wanted the films in the first place, though he does integrate that it isn’t a pleasurable thing to watch. Rodimus calls, interrupting the conversation, and asks Rewind to take a walk.

Returning to the office, we find that Whirl’s really pouring it out now, giving us his whole life story.

Rung’s reaction here is equal parts sweet and sad. It’s like he’s never had a fucking friend in his entire life. Rung seems terribly lonely.

We also get the answer as to what exactly Whirl did to get kicked out of the Wreckers- he tried to mercy-kill Springer. After the events of Last Stand, Fort Max wasn’t the only one in a coma, and Whirl saw the writing on the wall in terms of Springer’s chances of recovery. He tried to put the guy out of his misery, but was caught and kicked to the curb before that could happen.

And that’s about where he stops. You know, if it weren’t for the whole “being held at gunpoint” thing, this would have been an amazing therapy session! Whirl really opened himself up today, I’m proud of him.

Fort Max realizes that the ship hasn’t turned around to head back to Cybertron, and that’s about the point where he decides it’s time to make good on his threat. Whirl volunteers as tribute, as Swerve and Rewind peek through the window, ready to enact the next phase of Rodimus’ plan.

Rung tries to deescalate, with Whirl reescalating in equal measures, because he is actively and violently suicidal at this point, bringing us to a standstill in negotiations as Ratchet finally gets ahold of Rodimus to tell him something very important.

Ratchet’s sussed out the central pin in this pegboard of PTSD, and it’s Overlord. Every guy Fort Max put in the ICU looked at least somewhat like that lippy bastard. Rung comes to a similar conclusion on his end, claiming that Fort Max is acting out because he went through hell at Overlord’s hand, and wants payback.

Outside the office, Rewind is lining up to shoot Fort Max with his rivet gun, though he has his reservations.

It’s a special kind of love that makes you want your husband to support you through sniping a guy five times bigger than you.

Rewind’s lining up the shot, when Fort Max moves behind a pillar. Time for Plan B.

Rodimus, you can’t just SAY that to him, he’s a married man.

Whirl’s egging Fort Max on, his eye flaring out in a way that one might consider to be crying, though if you asked him he’d absolutely deny it. Then Garrus 9 pays everyone a little visit, by way of Rewind’s camera projecting on the wall. This freezes Fort Max in his tracks, because of course it would. That shit’s terrifying. He breaks down, falling to the floor in a heap.

I suppose this is one way to handle a hostage situation. Rodimus, not wanting to take any chances, orders Swerve to take the shot anyway.

Safe to say, Swerve wasn’t top of his class at the military academy.

As Fort Max mourns the loss of Rung, Whirl yanks that pipe that’s been stabbed into his belly for the last several hours out, and returns the favor, getting Max right in the chest.

Shit.

All those fucking therapy appointments are going to have to be rescheduled. There are over 200 robots on this ship.

I sure hope Rung had a secretary to handle all that.

Later on, after the messy stuff’s been dealt with, Rodimus and Drift have a chat about Red Alert, and how he’s developing a potential to be a liability. As they talk, Red Alert is shown to be ripping the drill arm off that guy who got eaten by the quantum engine and using it to dig into the floor where he heard that super-slow voice. What does he find? I hope it’s treasure!

...That’s not treasure.

Hey, Rung?

Rung?

Buddy, I think someone might’ve been fibbing when they said that.

Nobody tell Fort Max about this.