#he is very much a decepticon

[mallowsstufftm]

Okay this is my first non reblog on this account but I wanna share my TFP oc Cricket, I couldn’t decide on if I wanted him as a seeker or a grounder so I made both :P

[blighted-lights]

the way that ravage clearly loves and idolizes megatron genuinely makes me ill you have no idea. like this is someone who clearly still adores megatron despite being betrayed by him. and on the other side, the way megatron interacts with ravage in this entire scene is so,,, he's tired. he isn't at all what ravage idolizes and he knows that. he doesn't know what he is anymore but he's not the valiant savior ravage needs and wants him to be, and he Knows it.

ravage is clinging to a version of megatron that no longer exists (or maybe never did in the first place, and only existed in ravage's mind) and megatron no longer has anything to cling to so he rejects his past completely. these two make me ill.

[mrmeepsmadmind]

cliffjumper wip. still need to draw his bestie bee bcs i refuse to pit two queens against each other

rip my wife. killed bcs her smokey cat eyed slay was TOO loud 🤫 !!

[lord-squiggletits]

The thing about Prowl is I don't really think canon was ever trying to frame him as a "necessary evil" or anything along the lines of "he's a shitty person but his work was necessary" like mmm.... That feels very much like something Prowl wants to believe about himself, not something that's actually factually true in reality.

I can't really make a good argument about it because I only remember like a handful of standout Prowl Moments in IDW1 but like... Prowl dropping a bomb on a neutral city and blaming it on the Decepticons is not "a necessary evil," that's a war crime. Prowl trying to destroy the space bridge to Caminus to keep Starscream from getting power over it, dooming the entire planet and its inhabitants to extinction by starvation, is not "a necessary evil," it's a fucking war crime. I feel like trying to frame such drastic measures as him "doing the dirty work of the Autobots" feels way too much like an excuse for actions that actually aren't justifiable. Especially since Prowl himself is far from being the 100% rational guy he thinks he is, considering how often he bases his decisions on things like his anti-Decepticon bias and his general refusal to follow any orders that contradict what he thinks is The Right Thing To Do (TM).

But also I think this is kind of the fault of the narrative of IDW1, since very few Autobots besides Prowl are given the chance to actually be morally gray even when the worldbuilding implicates them in some very morally gray things. Like, for example, JRO adding in the existence of MTOs which implies that the normally squeaky-clean leader Optimus was willing to approve the creation of new soldiers just to throw them into combat (and even the attempts to humanize the MTOs by giving them "an education" were eventually cut down to nothing but combat optimizations). And there's also the fact that Optimus knows about the Wreckers and has been known to call them on missions at least once (Stormbringer), meaning he's very much aware of the Wreckers and their tactics and is willing to call them in for fights when it's necessary.

I don't think you need to use Prowl as a crutch to make the Autobots morally gray. I think the Autobot leadership (or at least, Optimus, since few people besides him or Prowl seem to have major tactical command over the army as a whole) is plenty morally gray enough on its own, because the nature of war is inherently morally gray no matter how righteous your cause is. Reducing the lives of your own people into numbers on maps, harvesting resources, bringing MTOs to life just to die in a war they practically have no stake in, those things are enough.

And tbh it kind of bothers me when people try to saddle Prowl with the "dirty work of the Autobots", not just because it frames Prowl's blatantly evil actions as some sort of savior act taking the blame from the rest of the Autobots (which isn't even accurate, because the blame for war crimes falls on the entire army as an institution rather than one person), but because it downplays the moral grayness of the Autobots and pretends that no Autobot BESIDES Prowl ever participated in morally gray actions, which simply isn't true.

TLDR: Prowl isn't as much of a hero as he thinks he is because committing atrocities in the name of your cause doesn't change the fact that they're atrocities (and may not have even been justified). However, painting Prowl as the "token evil teammate" of sorts also places too much blame for the atrocities of war on him in particular, when in reality that's a burden shared by Optimus Prime and any other members of the Autobot military command structure.

[krytus]

how could you not do anything with the inherently parasitic nature of BOTH the blood of unicron and the blessing of primus.... literally its right there... 😩

[th3e-m4ng0]

an old, retired warrior

[whatudottu]

The funny thing about a TFP Humanformers AU is that if you’re changing the bots to humans, that leave the question of if the humans are bots or the humans are not, because if the Autobot Decepticon faction division still exists and the war is ongoing you’d kinda just… be left with random robot children that got involved somehow.

I mean, cybertronian Fowler makes sense given he’s a military man and primary human liaison for the Autobots already, flipping him around potentially means that he’s a military ranked bot hiding on Earth under the protection of the Autobots. The cybertronian version of MECH too makes sense as the ‘Decepticons’ of this switched universe, probably being Shockwave wannabes and dissecting human cadavers or vivisecting live subjects in the pursuit of alien interests; stereotypical alien behaviour according to Earth media. Heck, robo Fowler and mecha Silas can have PERSONAL beef or at least a history of knowing each other to the point that the Autobots are warned of a more insidious alien curiousity.

But the kids being on Earth is like… harder? Aside from explaining why they’re on a completely different planet (if it even IS based on Earth) you also gotta consider the gimmick that these kids get themselves into danger mostly thanks to the headstrong enthusiast and overeager Miko dragging the others along, and idk about you but if I saw a giant robot kid come across a fresh battlefield and say anything remotely positive about it, I’d probably just give up and turn the other direction.

[transingthoseformers]

unpopular opinion: I want tfe ratchet to be based off tfa ratchet not tfp

I like tfas design and personality better ok

Considering what I've seen, and how Ratchet was (I think?) in the little g1 comic blurb in the first or second episode, that his design is gonna be primarily based on his g1 one, perhaps somewhat off of his IDW design (me saying I'm pretty sure he's getting the gray chevron), and his personality is probably gonna be closer to his IDW one in my opinion considering the heavy influences in the show and how he's quite an important character in IDW05

Like

I feel like if he appears, it's gonna be a ~thing~ considering if he was easily accessible at the moment they would've brought him in the several times that someone has gotten hurt or to check them over as a checkup. He's probably not dead, and I feel like earthspark won't pass the opportunity up, so my main theory is that he's defected thanks to some of the pressures we see in the series with GHOST, Megatron working with the autobots, and the frankly awful treatment of a lot of the decepticons post war.

[cosmics-beings]

an au where megatron and optimus come to an agreement and restore cybertron and get together, but then starscream comes back in the picture and they both fall in love with him, and he gets in their relationship and they spoil him and treat him like a queen is kinda what i need right now. the two brave, strong and courageous leaders of new cybertron and their pretty war criminal husband. they are all in love and happy.

[miniconsuffrage]

what’s wrong with tarn!

well aside from being a terrible terrible terrible person. nothing. it's just funny bc tarn Wears A Mask like scourge did in the movie and is the only character I can think of whose thing is Wearing A Mask. but they didn't use him for the movie they used scourge 😔

tf media is very interesting bc there are sooooo many versions and iterations of characters that can often be wildly different from each other, so the question of 'who do you pick' when you need a character to fill a certain role in your new story inevitably has a lot of options to choose from. scourge makes sense bc he was originally one of unicorn's dudes (he was the guy with the beard in the 1986 movie) but he wasn't the main one and they didn't give him his iconic beard. they gave him tarn's mask. making him kinda like a weird galvatron/scourge/tarn mashup. which is not unusual it's just funny

mirage was not the obvious choice to make the main robot guy. there was already a guy named tracks that would have been the obvious choice. same personality, same story (got stolen by a human dude, became gay best friends with him). but I guess they wanted to use the hologram powers that mirage has so they took tracks and gave him mirage's name and now he's mirage.

anyway ty for letting me tell you about robots so much ilu 🥺🥺🥺

[beastwars-transformers]

the more I think about it. like yknow in bayverse Megatron and Optimus being ACTUAL related brothers could mean just as much as a usual romantic relationship but they just. didn't do anything with it. they're not even brothers.

[tabslabs]

Ok 7 episodes into Earthspark and I REALLY like it so far. I know I’m several eps away from my half a season marker but I’m fairly confident I’ll stick with this one idk

[blighted-lights]

someone needs to grab me by my neck and stop me from making a meta post about idw soundwave and the cassettes and about how his insistence that they are equals (or at least some of them are equals) is in direct contradictory with how he actually interacts with them/how their dynamic is written throughout idw. because as much as i do think they are generally a group that cares and relies on each other (minus ratbat, who has 0 reason to gaf about any of them and vice versa), i,,, ough. its messy.

i do not think this is a weird character writing moment, i actually think it's SUPER interesting to think and talk about. but i can't,, i shan't,,, unless ✍️👀

[lord-squiggletits]

I have an incredible love-hate relationship with Barber's writing because I literally do think the themes of his writing and the way he keeps the lore tight-knit is better than JRO, but at the same time the actual experience of reading his comics was so average/boring that I struggle to actually recommend that anyone read them.

Like holy shit so many of the things Barber wrote are conceptually good and are literally vital to a good read on IDW1 as a whole, but are his stories actually interesting or fun to read? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[the-one-and-only-elita]

One thing that I absolutely love about TFOne's writing is that it manages to avoid a lot of the heavier criticism I've seen regarding MegOp's hero/villain dynamic over the years (trust me, the mid-2010s TF discourse was crazy)

*Spoilers Below*

First of all, the narrative benefits so much from the main 4 cast members all being a part of the same exploited mining class. So many takes on MegOp have Orion being of a higher status (an archivist, a cop, etc) while Megatron is much lower down on the social latter (a miner, a gladiator, often in the context of being a slave).

I've seen many people be put off by this, because it feels as if Megs is being villianized for being rightfully angry at the system that deeply harmed and exploited him, while Orion/Optimus is praised for taking a more pacifistic stance despite him not suffering as much from or in some ways even benefiting from the system he claims to oppose. I don't find their dynamic to be as simple as that, and I do find these takes to be a bit reductive, but I do very much see where they are coming from.

I am definitely one of those people who's very frustrated with the way pacifism is hailed as the one true path of morality, and the inherent implication that taking any sort of revenge on the people who abused/exploited you makes you just as bad as them. Also, Marvel's particular brand of demonizing any form of radical political action, despite the system clearly being broken and corrupt, but being completely unwilling to offer any other alternatives to meaningfully change things for the better.

When looking at what I described above its pretty easy to see how a lot of versions of MegOp's hero/villain dynamic unfortunately fits into that trope. Bringing it back to TFOne, you can see how Op and Meg coming from the same political/social status subverts this. The existence of Elita and Bee only further illustrates that out of the 4 people of the mining class who were all deceived, exploited, and literally mutilated in the same way it is only D-16 that completely loses himself to his rage, even to the point where he loses compassion for his own companions and disregarding the safety of the other miners (when he decides to "tears everything down" and Elita exclaims he's going to "kill everyone").

What I think I love most about the characterization in TFOne is that Orion is the radical one. Not only that, but he is praised by Elita and by extension the narrative for it. He is constantly challenging authority, and is the first to have the suspicion that their society is structured in an unjust way.

Meanwhile D-16, to be frank, is kind of a bootlicker. He fully believed in the system and that Sentinal Prime, as someone with power, had the right to decided "what was best" for those who are weaker/lesser (I wish I had the specific quote from D-16 to support this, but the movie's still in theaters). It illustrate that D-16 already held certain fascistic ideals, and that he and Orion already have fundamentally opposing moral/political values, it simply hasn't been of any consequence yet. It shows that their eventual falling out was inevitable, even if they had decided to rebuild Cybertron together.

It should also be noted that D-16's feelings of anger and betrayal do not necessarily have anything to do with the unjust system itself, but that said unjust system was predicated on a lie. Hence his fixation on deception in the post-credits scene and him naming his faction the Decepticons. Meanwhile, when Orion learns the truth he's just sort of like "yeah, I always kinda knew something was up" because again, he understood on some level that their system was predicated on injustice.

Even D-16's obsession with Megatronus Prime, while initially an endearing aspect of his character, is also an indicator of the questionably large amount of value he puts on one's strength. It foreshadows the "might makes right" ideology that the decepticons follow, and is a key part of their ideological characterization across continuities.

Instead of the narrative we often see in Transformers media were Optimus is idolized by the narrative for being more moderate and Megatron is villiainized for being radical (or so people often claim), it is instead Optimus who is rewarded and praised by the narrative for being radical, and Megatron who is villainized and punished by the narrative for holding potentially fascistic values.

I do agree with some criticism I've seen that the whole thing with killing Sentinel and D-16's final turn into villainy felt a bit rushed and more than a little cliche, but I also understand it both had a limited runtime and that it is ultimately a family film meant to be accessible to children. More importantly though, I think the movie set the groundwork early on that, no matter how this final act played out, D-16 was always going to turn to darkness, and Orion would not have been able to stop him.

Its perfectly tragic, the way all MegOp should be, while also feeling really well thought out from a thematic standpoint. I love it.

[tokay-blog]

Sg Breakdown, unlike its original version, is a very aggressive personality, which the decepticons prefer not to meet unnecessarily. However, he was a medic who helped in the rescue of the vehicons, albeit a little. And despite his grumblings, he did provide medical assistance, as much as was possible in their position and amount of resources.

And in this he was completely different from Knockout, who on the contrary didn't know how to fix bots (and in this case permanent operations were needed), but boasted that he was better at it. Breakdown was insulted by this, and quite often chased Knockout out of the medical bay like an annoying dog. After his death, Knockout was happy about it and immediately took the lab for himself... and cons were actually deprived of medical care.

With Airachnid, I think it's not hard to guess that such a delicate violet would reach for a scary boogeyman :D

A small explanation to this sketch. Laserbeak's main task, as in the original, is scouting. But, being a therapy pigeon, he also provided psychological support (mostly to the vehicons). Medical operations also relates to this, which Breakdown wasn't too happy about.

But Laserbeak has a knack for determining which bots he's allowed to approach and which ones he's not (He never comes close to Knockout, Megatron, or autobots in that regard). The bird often flies separately from its owner and is able to perform some tasks on its own. But this also means increased caution. _________________________ You can try to guess what made Breakdown lose his eye, by the way (¬‿¬ ) Given that the events of the sg only took place on Cybertron.

Sg Knockout

Sg Soundwave

Sg Starscream