#i kinda absolutely hate it when people automatically assume ptsd is about flashbacks and Only flashbacks

[transingthoseformers]

I will Not Stand for bayverse Optimus Prime slander in this house not one bit.

That mech has all the signs of what I call "ugly PTSD" and he's most definitely not being treated for it and exactly nobody around him acknowledges it.

It's rather easy to see exactly why he gets more violent as the pentology goes on, because time and time again people are pushing his moral boundaries. More and more of his friends die, and he's gradually becoming more and more desensitized to death. Hell, he legitimately died for almost an entire movie and was resurrected in the middle of a major battle. The human government, which does at first present as a threat, afterwards consistently needles the autobots and makes it rather clear that "hey yeah we will betray you the very second we consider you not useful enough". And he goddamn tries to be at least polite to them, even in Darkside of the moon where they not only keep very important secrets for them but at the end decide to go on a full ass hunt. Most of the damage to the human cities is honestly because that's where the Decepticons decided to drag the autobots to, and something something purposeful choosing of battlefield because Megatron knew that would fuck with Optimus and that that's where he could cause the most damage. It's why in the real world military leaders choose to hit the most populated areas in enemy territory, because it's tearing into vital places. The great Cybertronian war we see in the bayverse films is a dirty and rough war that's clearly caused so much horrors on every front, and Optimus tries (and fails) to play damage control.

In the beginning of AoE? There's a reason that the instant he wakes up, he goes full fight mode because he can't run. He's absolutely fucking terrified that he'll die like his friends, and he's trapped in a very small space. Even as the movie progresses and he's become attached to these three humans, the other autobots we meet deride him for this because they have very good reason to mistrust the humans the same way they mistrusted the Decepticons. Hell, I'd argue he has less reason because of how we see the humans straight up torture and experiment on the Cybertronians they get a hold of. They quite literally bring back one of there greatest enemies and nearly end up destroying the whole planet with the cyberforming seed.

Nemesis Prime we see in the last knight? That shit was inevitable. He wasn't just manipulated by Quintessa or tortured by Quintessa. She straight up psychologically broke him down to his core and rebuilt him to her liking for her goal. Now being honest that last movie was fairly ehhhhh and the quest in it was pretty human based, but when we see Optimus broke out of his Nemesis persona I'd argue that he's not the same Optimus we see in the first movie, hell not even the same mech we saw in AoE. At the end of the movie, he has been through hell and back several times and just. Doesn't know what to do. The ending of that movie is messy as hell and leaves us on a major cliffhanger and the earth is irrevocably changed. But, just because he isn't Nemesis anymore doesn't mean he's magically fixed.