#mtmte critical

[problems-with-botsandcons]

Finally gonna say my piece on how feel about a certain character from IDW 1, mainly for MTMTE and TLL.

It’s not okay the treatment of Getaway and how his character is now treated by the whole fandom/fanon to the point where it becomes uncomfortable for me to share that I like them.

This may be a long post so all my thoughts will be down below.

Warning for mentions of NSFW content and mentions of abuse/trauma

So right off the bat, the fandom’s treatment honestly makes me mad and so fucking uncomfortable that it has made me question if I should even bring this all up. How Getaway went from an MTO, which is basically a cybertronian's version of a child soldier, who struggled with the fact that the person responsible for his creation and trauma was not only NOT punished for their crimes, aka Megatron the genocidal warlord who nearly wiped out his whole race, with a slap on the wrist. A mech who was angry, a mech who was hurting, and not everyone on the ship agreed on giving Megatron a chance. Some of the mechs fought against Megatron’s army, most likely losing people they cared about or just the fact they may also have trauma but nothing as serious because they’re much older then Getaway.

But then his character was turned into a one-note, blood crazy, villain because of two things:

- shipping (tailgate/getaway and cyclonus/tailgate)

- because people agreed that Getawat was right about Megatron, with not only a majority of The Lost Light agreeing but the audience as well

The shipping is obviously a major point of how people view Getaway for manipulating Tailgate into trying to get Megs to nearly kill him. I can protest that it was indeed wrong but giving him small slide, a very tiny one, he might have thought that Tailgate could survive but even then he would’ve been in trouble. I get it, Tailgate is a sweet but naive character that people can't see him with an abusive character like Getaway.

Now to state, I came late into MTMTE and haven't read issues 40 and onwards.

But I can state wholeheartedly that what Getaway got as a punishment was fucking extreme that one would think he was a war criminal. He had his arms, legs, jaw, and voice box removed and was put into a device similar to what Overlord was placed in earlier in the comic’s run.

Sure, he nearly got Tailgate killed but one has to think that MAYBE the punishment was a bit too far.

Now then the shipping can sometimes be the toxic part of a fandom, I get it. I want to state I have no problems with the fandoms’ shipping of Cyclonus/Tailgate since it’s one of the popular ships. Shipping is usually one of the main forces for drama and this is one of them.

But now comes the part that makes my blood boil:

Getaway has his character assassinated then has said character reanimated into a zombie for their creator to control.

Now his character is portrayed as an abuser, a manipulator, or a straight up the most evilest being in IDW, and now Transformers in general, when there are more characters that are deserving of that. Can’t even look towards ao3 for him because it always one or more of these things below:

- abusive and manipulative partner

- rapist

- just pure evil

Getaway had depth to him just like every other character but as soon as it was hinted that Tailgate, whose a fan favorite during MTMTE and TLL, was in danger people were unsure how to feel about Getaway.

I’m also aware that the deal with IDW and Hasbro was slowly ending so the stories had to be wrapped up. So they just had to make him one note. They didn’t have enough time but they could have tired.

I’m gonna end this all off here.

I just want to see content that isn’t just ‘GeTaWaY iS pUrE eViL’ or ‘GeTaWaY tHe AbUsIvE PaRtNeR’ or some other crap.

Because people avoid talking about Getaway after his character was assassinated. People who are fans of him I don’t see speak about him or if they do it can rarely find them.

But I’ve been aware that a of lot people are starting to speak out about Getaway’s mistreatment in the fandom. Which is better than having to stay quiet.

[elfdragon12]

Truly, one of the biggest issues with MIMTE/LL I have is how much character "work" is done away from the actual narrative.

Skids and Swerve are best friends! Where? Chromedome develops and isn't so jealous of Rewind's past (that he knew of from the very beginning)! Where? Megatron changes and is a better/more responsible captain than Rodimus! Where? Prowl convinced Rodimus to take Overlord onto the ship! Where (and when and how?!)? Fort Max and Red Alert get better! Where?

So much happened away from the audience and, as someone who thought that the series was going to be really character driven because of the way the fandom portrayed it and likes that kind of thing, it's incredibly frustrating.

[quetzalpapalotl]

It's really funny that JRo is the guy with the (very valid) fixation on inserting birth imagery everywhere, but it was actually Barber who wrote about parenthood. Like, once the allegorical birth happens, JRo doesn't care.

[transingthoseformers]

oh skids, sweetheart, that's in no way your fault.

Right now we're seeing the memories Sunder oh so helpfully unrepressed /s, which. Do you know why deep divers aren't allowed to ascend too quickly? Nitrogen Narcosis, the nitrogen in their blood expands too fast and a lot of bad shit can happen. Why did I bring this up? Froid and Rung have said that with mnemosurgery there's a memory version of this issue, and it's a serious possibility for Skids. It's not exactly pleasant when memories unrepress on their own, so I can't imagine what it feels like when they're forcefully dragged out of the depths via mnemosurgery.

So Skids was forced to work for Tarn in the past, and he was way mega guilty that it was starting to get to him. This isssss not his fault whatsoever, a nice amount of people would call it Stockholm syndrome (which if we can recall Rung said the tf universe equivalent to explain how Froid cares for Sunder).

[icyrambles]

hi hope it's okay to reblog this, but i wanted to ask some questions out of genuine curiosity on some of the stuff mentioned in this post. and before i started i wanted to say that i agree with the general sentiment of your post; fandom has, and continues to have a very bad racism issue in terms of both actual poc and coded poc characters, something that is often brushed aside and ignored by the majourity of fandom. i believe it's important to address these issues and call them out, less they fester and become prevalent in the background, as well as the fact that fandom comfort in terms of tropes should come second to the safety and wellbeing of poc members.

however i did want to ask why some of the tropes mentioned in this post would be considered racist. specifically in regards to making jazz a decepticon, either former or an undercover spy. i could understand if it was just jazz who was getting this sort of treatment from the fanbase (because if it was just jazz then having one of the few explicitly coded black characters in fandom being on the team that regularly enslaves/colonizes other planets is really gross) but i've stumbled across "what if x character was a decepticon" in pretty much every corner of the fandom; ratchet, prowl, optimus, ironhide, the list goes on. it's generally just a really popular idea to ask the question of what if this autobot was on the other team, so i don't really understand why it's specifically racist if it's done to jazz.

and in terms of hyper violent jazz, i don't think i've personally stumbled across that version of jazz but considering in a lot of continuities he's head of special operations and a literal spy, i don't really consider it that big of a stretch to assume that jazz is willing to commit violent acts. then again i could just be misinterpreting the term hyper violence. if it's about jazz being like, blood thirsty i guess, then yeah that seems really far out of left field considering his appearances within most continuities as being a generally kind and caring individual.

again it seems like a lot of your issues seem to be with really popular fandom tropes that are often applied to most transformers characters, not just jazz. and that's totally valid, sometimes shit just isn't someone's cup of tea. but i think it's somewhat disingenuous to say that people are racist for writing jazz with very popular, and very prevalent fandom tropes that exist all over the internet. like do i think that people could do a little bit more thinking in regards to writing a black coded character with those tropes, yeah, absolutely, biases are everywhere and no author/artist is without them and writers should 100% try to research and check their biases if they're attempting to write about coded characters or really any character who experiences something that the writer themself has not experienced before

but considering jazz is a spy/head of special operations in a lot of continuities, having him be a spy for the opposite team or have him come from darker origins (like being a former criminal) doesn't seem too far a stretch for a fan creator to make and generally from what i know from my experience in fandom, a lot of the fun of playing in the sandbox with characters is asking questions of "what if x character did this" or "what if y character acted like that".

anyways i really hope this doesn't sound like i'm trying to pick a fight, i'm honestly curious how jazz being put into these common fandom tropes and/or experiences (like character traits getting flanderized) is an example of racism even if it happens to every other character within the franchise. and additionally do you have any thoughts on how people could realistically do these tropes? or if people simply shouldn't write jazz into any different stories that don't portray him as a direct 1 to 1 in whatever canon they're trying to write.

I think I've reached my last nerve with how TF fans treat Jazz on here and on AO3, and I feel the need to rant about it. Obligatory "not all Jazz fans" and "not all JazzProwl fans" disclaimer here... if this doesn't sound like it's describing the content you make or enjoy, then it's not. Honestly, I don't think this angry rant is going to convince anybody of anything, but I'm posting it because I want to make it clear that people see this and are aware it's racist.

Never let it be said that racism isn't thriving in the TF fandom on Tumblr and AO3, because so much Jazz fan content is the most blatantly racist shit. And it's nowhere near as bad on other sites that people here usually claim are more racist—I've never seen what I'm about to describe on r/transformers, for example. TF fans on here often claim to love Jazz so much and say he's one of the best, most unhateable TF characters along with Soundwave, but do they ACTUALLY love Jazz?

Tumblr and AO3 users when they see this great, heavily Black-coded hero: We love Jazz! Ooh, what if he was a slave? What if he was hyper-violent? What if he was a disruptive chaos gremlin? What if he was hypersexual? What if he was lazy and never did his work? What if he was a drug addict? What if he was a prostitute? What if he had an evil alter? What if he used to be/was secretly a Decepticon? What if he was a notorious criminal? What if he was literally some kind of bestial monster?

I've actually seen people on Tumblr asking if Jazz being a Decepticon or having an evil alter was ever canon. Well, let this be a PSA: none of this shit is fucking real! I've seen almost all the media Jazz is in, and none of this reflects how he's been portrayed, ever! Apparently people posting links and screenshots and GIFs showing what Jazz has actually been like in canon hasn't caused people to self-reflect, because this shit is still somehow super popular and even filtering doesn't screen even close to all of it! And I've seen in real-time people who are newer to the fandom getting tricked by all this racist fanon and then being drawn into it, thinking it reflects something when it doesn't! That's one of the things that bothers me most!

And then there's the other half of this, which is the immense popularity of JazzProwl. Putting aside how ridiculous it is that a ship between characters who haven't had a positive interaction in fifteen years is somehow the most popular ship in this fandom, half of all the Jazz content I see on sites like Tumblr also stars Prowl, as if Jazz isn't an arguably more prominent character with tons of unexplored stuff of his own going on. But that's the least of it. How the hell do I constantly see people uncritically post shit with this ship like Prowl trying to arrest or pull over a chaotic criminal Jazz? Or shooting at him? Or white savior, copaganda, anti-sex work garbage like Prowl as a cop rescuing prostitute/stripper Jazz from exploitative working conditions (I'm not making this shit up)? (Also, @ people who make content in which Prowl is Jazz's slave—I see you too, and you're not woke. You are still linking Black people to slavery as your first thought and then assuming it's subversive to flip the dynamic you'd expect to see. You're getting off on slavery and still including a Black-coded hero in your shit.)

Even the majority of the much milder content I see is still ridiculously OOC and plays into racist tropes in its own ways. Like how 90% of JazzProwl content shows a lazy, distractible Jazz endlessly trying to get Prowl to relax by disrupting his work or playing pranks or some shit. What media does that come from? Oh yeah, it comes from nowhere, because it's just old fanon that's been endlessly regurgitated by people who aren't realizing how making this up plays into offensive stereotypes about Black men and boys. Hey, if you people love this boring dynamic so much, maybe look at the canon relationships that are similar to it instead of forcing characters who don't fit it whatsoever into these roles without thinking about the implications!

And guess what? I've repeatedly seen literal proof that basically everyone who thinks they like this ship hasn't ever seen the characters interact in canon, too—every so often somebody on here will ask why JazzProwl is popular and ask for fans to share the canon media that made them ship it... and inevitably nobody can share anything, which is hilarious every time. Sometimes people will admit it's all fanon. In fact, the other day I saw a link to a fic from the very early 2000s that claims to be the super-influential, first JazzProwl fic ever making the rounds on Tumblr, and guess what? I looked at it and it was already super fucking racist, with Jazz being described as chaotic and not a hard worker and it had Prowl angrily shooting at him!!!

Jazz is one of my favorite characters and I'm so sick of this shit! Normally I love transformative works and new interpretations of characters, but in this case the fanon is so horrid and has always been horrid, so either try to examine Jazz in canon and portray him based on it, or be a fan of a different character! And fucking REMEMBER that this is a Black-coded hero, damn it! I saw a fic the other day that made me literally choke on my drink because it had Blaster (also a Black-coded hero) describing Jazz as a "spook!" THAT DOES NOT JUST MEAN SPY, THAT'S A RACIST, ANTI-BLACK SLUR!!! And this isn't even getting into how people in fic have Jazz talk! Jazz in all the media I've seen speaks very clearly and rarely has any kind of accent, but I constantly see white people attempting to write his dialogue phonetically in a way that feels straight out of Uncle Tom's Cabin. What the fuck is this?!

Also, petty, but the fans who make and consume this kind of content in my opinion don't then get to relentlessly criticize something like Earthspark, which has a cast and crew of people of color, by claiming it undermined its themes and is racist!

[decepti-thots]

🔥

Oooh, dealer's choice. Okay. Hmmm.

I think that MTMTE does not ever really manage to coherently bring together its ideas around things like functionism or the cold construct/forged idea, tbh. As ideas, it's very easy to latch onto in transformative fandom and try and do something with them- but on the flip side, I think that when you really try and just look at what the comic does with them in the text, they do not ever come together in a way that has a clear narrative goal, or is always well executed.

This feels weird to say when both concepts are incredibly necessary to the comic itself. They aren't superfluous elements you can take out and the comic is still what it is! Despite that, if you try and do a close read of the comic itself, it quickly feels apparent to me that a) in universe, diagetically, they are not very consistent and you often find yourself going 'wait, what?', and b) non-diagetically, in the realm of 'is this a stand in doing real world social commentary', it's straight up a mess much of the time. As worldbuilding, it's wishy-washy and inconsistent; as allegory or anything like it, you often wind up going 'hm. well. that doesn't really work'.

Is cold construction supposed to be a commentary on classism? Maybe- but the degree to which the text reinforces that a degree of real physical difference exists makes that touchy, frankly. Is it then using that to talk about class and disability as it relates to class? This would be an interesting angle- but the comic has too many issues around its treatment of the latter to invite uncritical use of that lens, in my opinion. Sometimes, racism gets invoked, but of that I can only say I think it is an ill-advised approach the comic does not explore well! Functionism, meanwhile, gestures at a lot of stuff, but never really convinces me the comic is quite sure what it's getting at there. Again, the question of classism comes to mind, and it's all clearly a response to the stuff set up early on in IDW1 by Megatron: Origin, which invites such commentary and critique. But there's just too many holes in its treatment of certain characters to make a lot of sense. The inconsistency means trying to do an actual read across the whole comic winds up maddening. (Source: I've tried.)

And if we justify this by saying 'not everything is allegory, sometimes worldbuilding is just worldbuilding'... well. It just still doesn't add up! In the moment, it seems to make sense, but attempting to extrapolate out into an actual consistent sense of how that world works, or worked pre-war, quickly falls apart for me. Which brings us back to the idea it's not literally consistent but is Doing Thematic Work, which... see above! We run into The Issues again!

This is not to say I think there's nothing interesting to be gained from engaging with this element, to be clear. But I find it's most productive for me when I engage with it from the baseline that it's a fairly muddled, inconsistent, and ultimately difficult to pin down element that, while very important to the comic, is not one of its narrative strengths. Very much a part of the comic where I think admitting the meat is in doing work as a reader to make it work for whatever reading you want to do is a good way to approach it, rather than assuming the comic itself has done that leg work. (And sometimes, that will mean being critical of it; I really do think there's stuff in there that deserves unpacking in how it's handled.)

[singingcicadas]

Rodimus and making Necessary Sacrifices

The most famous one: blowing up Nyon

Btw Megatron could totally have saved the people in Nyon if he wanted to; he knew about Zeta's plan beforehand. All he needed to do was give Hot Rod and the citizens an evacuation alert. But he didn't because he wanted to give Optimus a good emotional impact with all the deaths and who cares about the common lowlife anyway, all they're good for is getting bodily thrown at Zeta until his weapon overloads from draining too many people.

Kimia station in Chaos Theory:

Red text bubble is Optimus. He doesn't wait for Optimus to agree before directly giving Omega Supreme orders to shoot Kimia down.

Reaction after confirming that Doubledealer is a traitor:

Using Rung as bait for the sparkeater:

The last two panels also gives us something on how he views (his own) authority. Because while he's always held a position of authority in high command, the high command is still a council. On the ship his authority is absolute.

The next three scenarios form a pattern. It always starts with Rodimus telling someone to kill a comrade, the person tasked with the killing goes 'what I don't want to do that', and Rodimus tones down the order from death to wound.

Ordering Rewind and Swerve to shoot at Fort Max:

Ordering Swerve to hurt Ore:

Ordering Cyclonus to shoot Brainstorm:

Each of these scenarios is in response to a critical situation. Rodimus' first orders of 'aim to kill' are, while extreme, not disproportionate to the level of threat presented. They're within reason and authority. And ceding from kill to wound when protested is proof that he doesn't not care. But it also shows that his first instinctual reaction towards threats is to kill first ask questions later, even if the threat used to be his friend, comrade, or compatriot, he's able to weigh the lives on a scale and make that hard decision. He's also the type of person who's very comfortable with taking the fates other people into his own hands and deciding whether they should live or die (which is why him choosing to spare Getaway after retaking the Lost Light is a sign of character growth).

His characterization is fairly consistent throughout the comics, except for this:

Everything in Spotlight Hot Rod goes against his later presentations. In his spotlight he's said to repeatedly beat himself up over one failed mission and is averse to taking responsibility towards other people for fear that he'd get them killed but in later issues he has No Problems doing exactly that. He displays no preferences for 'going solo' aside from the mission to retrieve the matrix and that's because everyone else kicked him out. When he wanted to leave on the Lost Light he made speeches to convince other people to join him despite the fact the Autobots were already outnumbered on Cybertron and taking people away would make their situation worse. Whenever he went anywhere in mtmte he assembled a team to accompany him.

This scene especially contradicts Spotlight Hot Rod in every single way. The only consistent aspect of his character is the recklessness. He forces Optimus to authorize a rescue mission, of which he declares himself the team leader, ignores Optimus' caution about keeping it clandestine and tells everyone to barge through the front door, shuts Ironhide's objections down by pulling rank, then falls into a trap and gets Ironhide killed. Mission failed too obviously, they only got Prowl out. Optimus takes responsibility for the failure and surrenders to the humans, of which Rodimus' response is: "he freaked out because he couldn't hack it" and promptly also proceeds to drop everything and leave because yay there's no one to keep me on this stupid planet anymore and whoever wants to can come with. Where. is the guilt.

That and the whole fiasco with Swindle and Menasor were probably Rodimus' worst moments lol. Overall he's the type of leader good with stressful trolley problems but bad at considering the larger or long-term implications of his actions. His flippancy towards life and death and tendency to solve problems with the bluntest approach bleeds heavily into his leadership decisions and... just how his character is in general. Thank goodness there's only one of Drift and he's gone for most of the Lost Light voyage, Rodimus really doesn't work well with too many yes-men hanging around.

[robot-thighs]

hello maccadams fans,

so! i kept stumbling across mentions of the short story "Bullets" on tfwiki, because it had important lore about Kimia and some characters who would later appear in MTMTE. but because it was an exclusive that was only published in the TPB for "Last Stand of the Wreckers," not many people have probably read it. it's a prequel story to LSOTW and DOES contain some spoilers if you haven't read that series, but it's also interesting how much jro is obviously setting up for MTMTE, even tho this was written about 2 years before MTMTE started coming out. pretty sure this is the first canonical appearance of Rung.

anyway, because this was so hard to track down, I took the time to find a scan of the LSOTW trade paperback and used an ocr scanner to transcribe it so that I could share it and make it more accessible. I've only ever found a few transcriptions of the first chapter, but not the whole thing. it's very interestingly written, and also contains some interesting criticism of Furmanisms. I highly recommend anyone who is a fan of MTMTE/LL or LSOTW give it a read. The ending still has me shook.

Disclaimer: I didn't change the writing at all, but i did omit a couple very obvious typos that were printed in the TPB, and I fixed some of the formatting issues where chapter breaks were missing or put in the wrong place. otherwise, this writing is completely unaltered. Also, I did read this over like 3 separate times as I was working to transcribe and format it, but because ocr scans can be unpredictable, it's very possible I missed a few minor things.

Anyway please read and enjoy!

-day

edit: fixed the title for the link

[searchingforatrail]

I think while a portion of the fandom has issues with Megatron's redemption, it's not actually a very bad redemption. He never excuses what he does, he dies/is imprisoned at the end, he's a prisoner on the LL, he introspects on the messed up crap he does, and strives to be better, even that the expense of sacrificing his own life if necessary (and he tries to).

A lot of his redemptions is considered bad because we see it done off screen in the functionalist Universe, but even with what I've read of the LL/MTMTE , he does a shit ton of work while away from the functionalist universe.

His redemption arc is often a criticism of his character, and it's not perfect, but it's also not at all terrible.

He takes accountability, serious accountability. He could kill absolutely everyone on the ship if he wanted to, and he doesn't. He makes amends to the people he's able to (even apologizes to tailgate for no reason lol), and continues to strive to put others before himself.

It's not as shitty as people try to make it. And I often wonder if people hate Megatrons' redemption arc, or if they just hate Megatron. Because if their fave was given the redemption arc megatron was, I doubt they'd be complaining.

Because his crimes were never forgiven, he never got a slap on the wrist. He understood what would happen to him, and eventually accepted it. He also worked to make the strong relationships he had, and while people consider the LL just openly accepting him, they really didn't. He had to work his ass off.

Eventually, it just becomes, "well my fave didn't get this ending so Megatron's actually sucked"

And not all the time, there are some valid criticism, even some I've made. But it's not the scum of the earth like people make it out to be. And I love that it was received well enough to be adapted in to ES.

Just thoughts.

[elfdragon12]

Regarding MTMTE/Lost Light: I kind of wished they didn’t add Megatron in the mix because it really felt like it took away a lot of potential character development.

They could have kept Fortress Maximus and Red Alert in the batch instead of dropping them off to wherever.

Another thing is, there were TOO MANY Characters and every character had a story to tell but didn’t have time.

If the crew was smaller, then it would be easier to track down everything.

Megatron basically became the main character... Well, except for when he disappeared from the narrative to spend 800 years in another dimension where he conveniently got all his character development done. 😐

To be fair, nearly everyone on the Lost Light is at least a little bit toxic, so it's better for at least Red's mental health to be elsewhere... But let's drop them off from the narrative almost entirely and handwave them better! (Fort Max was definitely not ready to deal with Megatron and I will say it would have been interesting to see that conflict. Have someone lead the mutiny that you cannot argue with for just not getting to know Megs better.)

That is the full truth! The core group of characters on the Lost Light was at least 20 characters! Not counting the Scavengers or the characters that got added along the way! Heck! The Lug and Anode arc was speed run so fast and they contributed so little afterwards that I forget they exist most of the time! James Roberts even admitted this was a problem in a Q&A.

I definitely think the Chromedome and Rewind arc suffered a *ton* from this as that relationship was so gross and toxic with the creepiest love-bombing scene that I can't forgive Chromedome for. However, because James Roberts didn't have time to actually address it--nah, let's just act like it never happened!

[robotclownindulgence]

Man i want physical copie of mtmte so bad! I hate comic fans why would you sell them for these ridiculous prices now😭

I mean i'm happy for everyone in need of money who was able to make a quick buck with their funny robot comics, but it just kind of hurts that a critically acclaimed piece of media and tf culture has become so inaccessible to casual comic book fans now

[sagethegaywitch]

Just my opinion, but prove me wrong.

ARES ♈: Starscream (any)

- competitive by insecure

TAURUS ♉: Tailgate (MTMTE)

- loyal but stubborn

GEMINI ♊: Whirl (MTMTE)

- versatile but impatient

CANCER ♋: Optimus Prime (Prime)

- passionate but uncommunicative

LEO ♌: Hot Rod/Rodimis Prime (MTMTE)

- confident by dominating

VIRGO ♍: Ultra Magnus (any)

- perfectionist by self-critical

LIBRA ♎: Smokescreen (Prime)

- empathetic but indecisive

SCORPIO ♏: Cyclonus (MTMTE)

- intense but secretive

SAGITTARIUS ♐: Swerve (MTMTE)

- spontaneous but flightly

CAPRICORN ♑: Megatron (any)

- goal-orientated but unforgiving

AQUARIUS ♒: Ratchet (any)

- physiological but detached

PISCES ♓: Rewind (MTMTE)

- whimsical but over-sensitive

As you can see, someone's been reading way too much MTMTE and crying. I did not know what I was getting myself into when I started reading it. Hope you enjoyed this little post and me being a Transformer nerd!

Got my zodiac information from this link: https://www.vogue.in/culture-and-living/content/the-zodiac-signs-biggest-strengths-and-weaknesses

[whispers-from-the-night]

you already know im gonna be cringe and ask for hcs about Potential Interactions between ravage and riptide 🫡

Ravage and Riptide Headcanons (2005 IDW, He/She pronouns for Ravage!)

(🫡, I actually have a lot of thoughts about these two, considering Riptide is one of the most notable characters Ravage interacts with in MTMTE. These two talk three times in MTMTE, which considering most of the rest of Rav's interactions are with Megatron, is actually pretty notable!)

The Lost Light was not the first place Ravage and Riptide met. Or rather, it was not the first time where Ravage saw Riptide personally. While the two have never properly fought each other, Ravage was present during the battle for which Riptide was made; the Simanzi Massacre. Ravage was on the field where Riptide made his first appearance and could tell Riptide was freshly made by his scent. Riptide was struggling against the overwhelming current of the Forced Flood when Ravage found him. While equipped with an aquatic alt-mode, his T-Cog was malfunctioning, leading to him not being able to transform. Hit with a rare twinge of sympathy (or perhaps pity, or something even crueler), Ravage leaves Riptide be. He could have killed Riptide there and rid the Autobots of one more soldier, but whatever his reasons, he chose not to.

Ravage does not see Riptide again until after the war ends and he is assigned to spy on Megatron by Soundwave. Before he is revealed to be a stowaway, Ravage does not spend much time watching or even considering Riptide. There were far bigger characters in play; such as Rodimus, Magnus, Ratchet, and Megatron himself. That does not mean he did not "check-in" on Riptide every once in a while, however. To sate his own curiosity and as a needed reprieve from the stuffy, tense atmosphere made by his assignment, Ravage occasionally sought Riptide out in secret. Watching him from the vents or in the shadows of other mechs, Riptide became Ravage's personal source of entertainment... not that Riptide knew about that. Riptide reminded him of Rumble and Frenzy in a way, and after spending so much time away from the twins, Riptide's similarities to them became a comfort.

Their "first" impressions of each other were not as pleasant, however. They do not meet properly until Ravage is revealed to be spying on the Lost Light crew and, once discovered, Ravage becomes aggressive out of self-defense. After he is shot and the crew board the split Lost Light, Riptide insults Ravage; criticizing his tracking skills when Ravage sniffed out Minimus Ambus after claiming to smell Ultra Magnus. When Ravage is proven to be correct in the end, as Minimus is Magnus, he does not let go of Riptide's quick dismissal of him easily. He insults Riptide later on ("I hate to spell out the obvious- though I am sure it happens to you a lot..."), and this bickering continues between them long after they have returned to their Lost Light.

Surprising them both, Ravage and Riptide's bickering turns into a tentative bond. Neither of them are entirely sure how or when it happens, but their bickering towards each other slowly morphs into a genuine bond. They start spending more time snarking at other people together, rather than at each other, and Ravage finds himself both confused and intrigued by Riptide's interest in him. Riptide is the only person onboard the Lost Light, save for perhaps Nautica, to show any interest in talking with him. Not only that, but Riptide is the only one who approaches him casually, without fear. He'd be insulted if he weren't starved of connection with other people. After four million years of being in constant close contact with other people, being removed from them has its consequences. With his dynamic with Megatron being strained and every other mech on the Lost Light regarding him with open distrust, Ravage finds connection where he can. Riptide becomes a source of comfort for Ravage, and he often seeks the mech out when the silence begins to sink in too deep and his ache for physical contact becomes too great. Riptide is genuine in the way he interacts with others, and Ravage, who has spent the last several months spinning his own cat's cradle of contingency plans, finds comfort in that genuineness. When life onboard the Lost Light becomes too much for either of them, Riptide sometimes takes Ravage to the oil reservoir and does laps in his alt-mode with Ravage on top. Both menaces at spark, they often end up pushing each other in on purpose.

Riptide values Ravage's patience in return. Despite Ravage's initial picking, she is patient with Riptide- more patient than a considerable portion of the Autobots, at the very least. She does not rush him to get out a thought or roll her optics when he does not catch onto something as fast as someone else. Ravage has spent her entire life being patient; waiting and observing for things to fall into place. She's not going to get huffy because she has to wait a few extra minutes for Riptide to get his thoughts together. As they get closer, Ravage begins to start snapping at others when they attempt to rush Riptide. She cites her own annoyance with the 'bots in question for it, but anyone paying attention can see she's got a soft spot.

When Riptide expresses his distrust of Megatron, Ravage is supportive. Not only is it good for her if the crew does not trust Megatron, as they are more likely to push against him and potentially tempt Megatron to leave, but she likes that Riptide has doubts. Ravage believes more 'bots should doubt their superiors. Doubt leads to knowledge-seeking, which is a quick slope into rebellion. When Riptide makes a throw-away comment about betting shanix against Megatron being truthful about being "reformed", Ravage praises him for being doubtful and being prepared for betrayal. She tells him that he should always question things around him, no matter how trusted or well-known they are. Ravage knew Megatron for over four million years, after all, and she never expected him to take up the red badge. Anything can happen, and Riptide needs to be ready for that.

Bitter irony. Ravage praises Riptide for being cautious, unknowing that Riptide himself was aligned with Getaway. Riptide wars between duty and guilt for a long time after, caught between telling Ravage of Getaway's plans and remaining silent. In the end, it is his own curiosity that makes the decision for him.

This friendship was not meant to last. Friendship is what Riptide believed it to be, though Ravage's feelings on the matter are much more complex. Eventually, Riptide breaks their fragile bond by asking if Ravage trusts him. The conversation did not start with that; he danced around it at first, asking about Megatron and Soundwave and the rest of the Lost Light. Riptide brings up a time when Ravage told him never to trust anyone fully, and that even those closest to you can turn. He asks if Ravage trusts anyone on the Lost Light, if she trusts Megatron, if she trusts Soundwave. Eventually, he asks if she trusts him. His being truthful about Getaway was dependent on her answer, but what he wasn't expecting was for Ravage to ask him if he trusted her. A moment of silence passes between them. Neither could bring themselves to answer, which was enough of an answer in itself. Ravage is the one who ultimately ends the conversation; turning her back to Riptide and walking away with little more than, "… It is best if we leave it at that, then." This is the last time Riptide and Ravage see each other, and the last time they speak before the DotL.

[transingthoseformers]

This is when I mention that I actually don't believe Pharma in this fic has been shadowplayed.

Like the percentage of him having been shadowplayed imo in this fic is 11-16%, just considering what I've seen of his marriage with Ratchet, what I know of him in this fic, and his words after he hit Ratchet. See, shadowplay is an evil evil process but often it's pretty goddamn obvious if you knew the mech beforehand. If Pharma had been shadowplayed, I feel like we would've seen that part of him suddenly turned up a hundred fold and he wouldn't just. Immediately go back to how things were before. Nahhhh the "I don't know what came over me" sounds like blatant denial to me rather than not knowing what happened.

Ratchet's latching onto the shadowplay suggestion as his own form of deep seated denial and because shadowplay has been on his mind since he met Megs. We've seen how mecha who have been shadowplayed act time and time again both in canon and in this fic, and this isn't it chief.

This is Pharma being an abusive POS that he very well could've been this entire time. This might have been the first time that he hit Ratchet, sure, but don't think I forgot the sly little remarks and the tone of this probably toxic marriage. After all, emotional abuse is insidious as fuck.

[lord-squiggletits]

I actually disagree with the idea that IDW1 villainized the Decepticons and I'm genuinely not sure where people got this from. Especially when they claim "the Autobots get to be treated as heroes always" when if you read a shred of exRID you know that they are literally not.

There are so many Cons that are treated as people and humanized, especially if you recognize that even some of the pure evil/antagonistic Decepticons still got written as having trauma, being wronged by other characters, having emotions, etc etc.

Decepticons that get to be protagonists/heroes/good guys: Soundwave, Thundercracker, MEGATRON, Barricade, Grimlock and Drift (ex-Decepticons if you count them), Soundwave's cassettes...

Decepticons that are antagonists/villains but still get treated like people, have sad moments, or sometimes do good things with the bad: STARSCREAM, the Scavengers, Tarn, Deathsaurus, Nickel, Shockwave, Ravage...

And I know for sure that I'm probably missing at least half a dozen others. And I didn't even get into the categories of neutrals who are evil, Autobots who are evil, or the entire Senate and Functionist Council who are enemies of the Decepticons but very clearly depicted as evil.

TLDR:

"Autobots don't get criticized--" Not true, read exRID

"Decepticons are always villainized and don't get to be heroic--" Not true, read exRID and also reread MTMTE

[decepti-thots]

🔥 on IDW

People like to blame IDW2's lackluster fan reception among enthusiasts for them losing the license. I think this is bullshit, and that they would have lost it whether or not they continued the IDW1 continuity instead. At the end of the day, IDW as a license holder never had amazing sales figures for the Transformers comics after the original launch post-Dreamwave- I know Roberts and Barber have both confirmed that MTMTE was doing better than the official sales figures indicated (as it was selling unusually well on digital platforms due to its demographic appeal, which are not counted because Comics Industry Bullshit), and I believe them when they say that helped there. But even by the overall dismal standards of USAmerican monthly comic sales (and they are dismal), by 2018 every single comic they were selling for Transformers was not looking good figures wise, and nothing they tried was boosting them for long. Hasbro didn't take it away because critical reception was poor; they took it away because they saw a better offer, and IDW as a company is just often... not... great at getting their comics the kind of publicity that is needed to keep your longterm serialised monthly comic out of the cancellation-figure graveyards. It's sad as hell it got cut short and I really wish it hadn't been. But I think attributing it to anything but sadly mundane comics industry problems- that unless you are Literally Batman, the market is tiny and highly spread out and keeping comics profitable is a losing game- is grasping at straws. Certainly I think laying all the blame at Ruckley's feet because not everyone loved IDW2 is unfair. (It sold better than the LL and OP runs in phase three!) (That relaunch was, of course, also comics industry BS, and not their fault.)

By contrast, Skybound is as of the latest sales figures outselling EVERY SINGLE DC COMIC. This is so incredibly rare among non-big-two comics. It won two Eisners. That is near unthinkable for a licensed comic. It's clear that Hasbro took that offer when the license was being renewed because Skybound had a plan to make TF comics explosively popular again, one which has self evidently worked to date, and there's really no need to get conspiratorial about why this happened when that explains the decision perfectly well. Shrug.