#or like miner megs/mtmte megs

[lord-squiggletits]

yes cross continuity megop shipping almost always leaves things to be desired but have you considered cross continuity Optimi shipping? it's like when you make two toys of the same character kiss and i think that's a good shitpost idea

Me slapping together IDW Optimus/SG Optimus as the ultimate "I wouldn't fuck my clone because what if my clone was evil" selfcest where IDW OP has to deal with SG OP being his id and going "aren't you tired of being nice? don't you just want to go apeshit"

[transingthoseformers]

Thinking more about D-16 and if course it's angst related

Of course of course

Exploring his dynamic with Terminus, a -pinch- of his Long Nights backstory, possibly including mnemosurgery stuff* in this, your typical living in the mines angst,

*you know a topic I like to think about is the possibility of TFP Megatron having been successfully shadowplayed, and that's part of why he turned out the way he did. It also is an interesting play on how he manages to get back into the revolutionary rhythm even though the Senate thought they snuffed that out.

I've thought similar for Oppy being shadowplayed as part of the becoming a Prime part (typically as a "shortly after he got the matrix" part on behalf of the Senate/Council)

helllll I've thought about BOTH Orion Pax and Megatronus having been shadowplayed as a plot to turn them against each other (did whoever do this plan for a war? Probably not. But did they intend to tear them away from each other and make it seem like it was those two's decision? Yes.)

I have also decided to blame the Quintessons in some plotlines and suggest "what if the Quintessons invented mnemosurgery and shadowplay?" After all I can entirely see how the necessary needles could be modified into a Quintesson. Which in hindsight is one hell of a horrific image.

Also also also the cortical patch and how that might relate to mnemosurgery! Because, from what I can see? There are similarities here. I've thought about Shockwave inventing it without Megatron's knowledge and upon showing it to Megs Meggsie flips the fuck out on him about it. Also usually coming with that scenario: alternate turn of events of the Plague episode with Megatron being on a pinpoint mission to figure out why the fuck they hooked him up to the mnemosurgery 2.0 table. I think a lot about that episode.

[witchofthesouls]

I love these little Dad Megatron headcanons.

Assuming that his kid begged enough to go to a human school (private or public but I think Megs would go for a highly secure and advanced private school, not boarding school, I highly doubt Megs would allow it) due to how busy Megs often is, who’s the kids emergency contact besides Megs? I’d imagine Soundwave and worst case scenario, Knockout.

But let’s imagine that something does happen to the kid (whether an incident at the school or the kid is being harassed/stalked by another student or the kid got hurt) RIP to the person at the school and the person on the Nemesis who has to tell Megs what happens to his child.

Megatron doesn’t use his holoform often, but it’s an absolute intimidating and terrifying human copy of his true form. Imagine his holoform marching through the doors pissed demanding to see his child and to know the full details of what happened and the staff is like “Susan! Death is here and he is not happy!”

Ohhhhhhhh, as much I want Megs with his MTMTE holomatter, he's in touch with his miner days. He would be an absolute bear in human form, packed with muscle under the fat. Megatron would bend pipes with his bare hands. He's a well-learned and eloquent bear as well, so any principal, no matter their alignment, would get cold sweats from being in his presence.

If the school gets lucky, they get the holomatters of a covered cryptid Soundwave (think of Slenderman with a face obscured by a mask and dark sunglasses) or Breakdown (hefty and fit as well as fitted with something out of magazine courtesy of Knockout's tastes). Knockout absolutely refuses to go because other meatbags can't keep their dirty paws off his hood.

If it's Megatron, oh boy. This mech knows the school's policies, the local district's ordinances, and the state laws. He also dug deep into everything: all the incriminating history, sordid details, hush cases, and settlements. (Megatron thinks your history and English teacher has solid ball-bearings for tiny squishies since they have ties to underground activist groups.) Don't even try to pull a fast one on him. He gives no shits how much pull a snot-nosed, soft-handed brat from a prestigious family has, he'll gun after the kid, the family, and the damn reputation.

At this point, the staff doesn't know what terrifies them more: Megan Travis coming through the doors in work gear that's heavily stained in soot and drenched in sweat or Megan Travis coming through the doors in a well-dressed, fitted suit with a politician's cold smile.

Megatron isn't invited to school events because things tend to escalate to bat-shit-crazy levels when he's there. Including but limited to: a riot during a basketball home game, several cars fire-bombed and the security system locked everyone inside at prom, and a massive fist fight that broke out in the 25th annual baking fund-raiser event.

The staff has a new rating of "On a scale of shit to a one-on-one grudge match with Megan Travis, how bad is it?"

[popculturebuffet]

Transformers Cyberverse: Megatron is My Hero Review (Patreon Review for Brotoman.exe)

Hello all you happy autobots. If you've been missing my look at more than meets the eye, don't worry as we're back with some robots in disguise. Transformers ONE is here and it is incredible and while i'll gladly review it next week for now we're looking at something related, another look at Megatron as he broke bad, the Transformers Cyberverse episode, Megatron is My Hero.

Transformers Cyberverse is a series I tried but could not get into. I loved animated, tried prime but fell behind on it, and fresh off getting into MTMTE I very much wanted more Transformers. I tried the first ep.. but it's just bumblbee using the radio gimmick and Windblade being the straight man.

Cyberse's problems, as I expected and tv tropes helpfully confirmed come from executive mandates: exceutive swanted Bumblbeee to have his car gimmick from the movies, which dosen't work nearly as well when you can't lisence songs or car commericals for it, the heavy flashbacks. These were ditched with season 2 and apparently the show picke dup from there so i'm more than happy to give it a full look at some point, as it does seem to get genuinely better and has an arc focusing on my boy hot rod. That alone is enough.

For now we're looking at an early episode under the cut as Bumblbee makes friends, gets throat crushed and otherwise is kind of an accesory in his own memories

We begein with Bumblebee is in his mind palace , which I suspect was a way to let bee talk normally before doing away with the voice box gimmick the second they could in season 2. He's reliving his past memories of Megatron and opens with Bee in the past chilling with Shockwave of all bots as they watch Megatron easily win as a gladiator.

Megatron as a gladiator happens in way more continuties than I realized which I found out thanks to reddit, starting wtih the UK G1 comics and continuing into both IDW continuties , the alligned continuity and more. I mostly associate it with IDW where he went from miner to gladiator hero. It's a backstory I like, that he was a hero of the people.. but in a way that still kept him down as like gladiators of old he has little choice

Here it's santized slightly being more like pro wrestling, though Megatron still beats the crap out of his opponent, gladly working the crowd. Bumblbee also high fives Shockwave, an image I will never forget and will treasure forever.

So Bumblebee declares Megaton is his Hero and this annoys his mind palace roomate Windblade. Windblade is a recent addition to the franchise, being added in the idw comics but quickly appearing in cyberverse and elsewhere. She's a cityspeaker, who can talk to city sized transformers and is generally pretty goo din the comics. In this season she's more an overprotective big sister and gets mad at an amnesiac for not remembering his greatest foe sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms. So she gestures him to a ... memory of Megatron holding a rally.

Rather than talking about his good friend hanniballectertron, Megatron is a good politican with an actual point: that cybertron needs to be better and optimus and co are all behind him.. literally and figuratively.

So to help the next memory... abrubtly skips to Megatron being awful.

Yeah this is what happen when you DEMAND the writers make every episode self contained yet also part of a larger story.. in 11 minutes. Hasbro.. thought none of this through and as such the crew kinda had to speed run his origin, which means the key pieces that make Megatrons origins in IDW and One so intresting.. are missing. We don't know WHY he went from a beloved politican to having his minons torture people and a tense conversation with optimus. Marc Thompson does a good job as Megs, easily.. but he dosen't really get filled out. He just goes from seeming genuine and helpful to

He COULD have been faking, true.. but we never get that. Or any sense at least in this episode WHY he's like this. I get it's from Bee's perspective, but we know Bee looked up to him, genuinely idolzied him and we could've gotten some insight into who megs is and why he became the monster he did thorugh how he handled bumblbee's disllusionment. Instead by the time we catch up Bee's already mildly scared of the guy. We miss a whole chapter of Megs life that explains why shit is this bad for him just in his villian later chilling and vaugely threatning optimus and bee.

That said the crew still did their best and the final scene.. is genuinely chilling. It's also one Windblade is TRYING to keep from Bee, wanting him to stop digging as she apparently just realized "Shit he'll probably relive the worst moment of his life" as it involves megatron.. and thus Bee directly looks for it.l

Bee was on a mission for the autobots early in the war when , despite his best efforts he was captured and taken directly to Megatron. Megatron is at his best all episode here: he offers bee a choice, making a case for how the strong must rule and all that jazz. Well okay maybe not that Jazz he's on the Autobots but Megatron is working on him. Bee refuses.. and Megatron shifts, revealing his evil plan and i'ts chilling: to make EVERY cybertronian a decepticon wether they want it or not. Peace through Tyranny. It works well.. and it makes what he does next chilling.. so Bee dosen't tell anyone.. he crushes his throat. And while we don't SEE most of it, we hear it and it.. is chilling

Bee takes it in stride, restored in who megatron was.. and okay with it. He can talk in his brain at least.. and talk and talk and.. maybe shut up now please?

Megatron is my hero is .. okay. That last scene does most of the lifting, but i'ts a hint at what the show COULD be and apparently is after this point. It's very much a one sccene an done high five episode but at 11 minutes it wasn't painful either. It was just kinda there. Still it does have me curious about the rest of the series at least so that's.. something. Thanks for reading

[my-own-oracle]

Hey for the valentines ask can you do MTMTE Megatron giving the reader an anonymous Valentines poem and maybe reader gives megs one too?

I really enjoyed writing this one; I hope you like it as well. (ask box is still open for valentines asks till the last 3 days of February)

Megatron couldn't help himself, not when it came to you. No matter what he did, you held a piece of his processor captive. 

You and your team had been assigned as ambassadors of sorts. Your job was to put a good impression of the human race out into the galaxy, Keep tabs on the "cybertronians of interest," as your government called him and a few others, and report once a week to your home planet and leading government officials. 

A whole crew of humans and you had snagged his optic from the beginning. It had been little things, like saying good morning to everyone you saw. Over time larger items caught his eye as well, like taking the time to learn nearly every designation of every cybertronian on board (he still had no idea how you did that, but he was impressed). But the thing that stood out most of all was this little storytelling session.

 Once a week, you came to the observation deck and told stories. It has started with just a handful of bots you had grown close to, but thanks to "word of mouth," that little group has grown—eventually, the news settled into the audials of Megatron, who came to listen. The large silver-grey mech stood in shadows, out of sight, listening to the history of your planet, personal life stories, human fiction, and folk tales. You explained everything you could to anyone who wanted to attend. 

"Let me get this straight," a young bot closer to the back interrupted. Megatron watched as you paused your story with a smile. "There's a holiday all about love on your planet. And it's celebrated because a human man was killed?"

You laughed. It was bright and soft, are too precious of a sound to Megatron's ears. "that is an extremely simplified version of the events, but yes. At least that's how the stories go."

Another bot sat up straighter "you mean there's more than one story?"

"Yes, like I was saying." You smiled, scanning the little audience you had. " There are two stories about St. Valentine's death. There's no real answer to which one is right or if there was more than one man named Valentine. But the most common one follows a simple storyline." 

Megatron watched as you got lost in the short story recalling the harsh laws of ancient Rome and the outlaw of marriage for young men meant to be soldiers. 

He was captivated by how your eyes shined, how you played with your fingers when you came to the romantic part of the story- you talked about the man who married young lovers. Risking his own life to spread love in his homeland and his murder for defying his leader. 

"overtime the day of remembrance,  it morphed into a holiday about spreading love. Sharing poems and cards and other sweet mementos" You paused. Then hurried to a small bag on the floor near you. 

"I have a few that I've gotten over the years." You pulled out paper cards, handing them out to be seen by the bots closer to you. "I've never gotten any real romantic ones or any from a secret admirer, but these kinds of cards are often given to family and friends." Your smile had vanished for a moment. Causing the ex-warlords spark to sink. 

No one had ever given you a romantic gift? That seemed impossible. You were a beautiful and kind person. So patient and understanding. The ideal specimen of your species. And no one had taken a romantic interest in you?

Megatron silently left his dark back corner. Making the long trek back to his hab-unit. He would have to fix that. 

*****

Eyes that shine brighter than the stars above. 

So foreign yet so familiar to me.

And inferno of kindness and of love.

Showing this mech what it means to be free.

I wish I knew how to speak to your heart,

Instead, I hide from you, suddenly mute. 

My mind, fixated when we are apart. 

In a way, my silver tongue can't compute.

A feeling stronger than any other,

I hide these feelings deep within my spark.

Knowing you are better with another.

I do not belong in your human heart.

A mech once born as a humble miner,

Transformed, your secret admirer.

Megatron read over his work a final time. It wasn't his best work due to the format being so foreign to him. The style was called a 'Shakespearean sonnet' and, according to his research, was considered romantic on earth. 

He had taken a few hours to compose the piece. Studying the style's intricacy and finding the right words to what he needed to say to you. 

The datapad was the third and final draft. The only thing left to do would be to deliver it. You hadn't been in your hab-unit all day, according to your unit mates. He had overheard them talking about you and took that as his cue to leave the datapad for you there. Leaving before anyone could know, he has stepped into your little home away from earth. 

It gave him a feeling of pride. Knowing he was the first to express such feelings to you in your culture's romantic way of expression. And in a form, he had only briefly studied. 

*****

A purple datapad sat on his desk. He had no clue how it got there. All of the ones he currently possessed were blue, and Ravage refused to do anything other than laugh when he asked. 

It held only a single document. 

Three little lines of text. 

He reached for the datapad he had on human poetry forms. It looked familiar to the Hiku he had briefly thought about looking deeper into. 

  Towering giant,

  You stole my heart at first glance,

  I wish you were mine.

Megatron felt his spark hum for a moment.

"Keep smiling like that, and someone's going to think you're losing your mind." Megatron glared at the Felicon, who chuckled in response. 

"Are you sure, my small friend, you don't want to share any knowledge on this poet?"

"You already know who sent it." Megatron looked back to the simple poem, yes. And it made his spark him, knowing it was from you.

.

[artsy-hobbitses]

for the record im not the anon who originally asked abt grindcore, and i fully understand you not having read all the comics, but i think the reason people are asking is bc they're concerned with creators downplaying the shit megatron did (which sadly includes james roberts) and that tends to happen a lot. his "redemption arc" is controversial in the fandom for a reason. i guess the reason they're asking about getaway and skids is, well, they kinda play a role in all of this later on and it's quite poorly handled in the comics. but i won't spoil anything you haven't gotten to.

I get that! I’m not in any way saying the stuff Megatron did was OK, like there’s a whole thing I wrote back then where I said that his arc is not a redemption arc because that’s implying he can somehow make up for the stuff that he did, that whole field of flowers (which he cannot, it’s really more of him trying to do SOMETHING decent in his life before he invariably dies) and I have no qualms about accepting that he very likely died alone and is still remembered as a murderous warlord by the masses as a result of that hanging, unspoken judgment at the end of Lost Light. Even in character, he says he deserves worse and that he didn’t do enough, which is tbh is correct, even if I love his characterization.

(Note that I also think the shift from “Low-class Miner we can rally behind fighting for literal human rights when no one else would” to “gladiator” all the way to “warlord who runs death camps” is also kind of a haphazard turn as it is. I’m not saying MTMTE handles everything particularly well, just that they give us the most material to work with.)

I’m just not fond of the idea of having death camps to that extent in a human setting for obvious reasons; his villainy and abuse can be detailed in another manner, maybe more personal, and I like to make it personal. It also just doesn’t follow his characterization as a human here with his fleshed-out background and the very different timeline I have planned for it. 

I’m aware that JRO also seems to have written Megs with communism strongly in mind so if anything, you’ll sees lots and lots of dead everyone above a certain class (not race or faction) and very likely some form of gulags (which make more sense than killing people for no/arbitrary reasons in this verse because rebuilding after the Quintesson invasion and the death of 1/3rd of the population is an ongoing process. TLDR Human!Megs needs workers and they’re more useful alive) 

[tf-reconciliation]

Prime Megatron vs. IDW1 Megatron analysis that no one asked for

This is really slapdash and was done in like an hour and a half this morning so there’s probably some incorrectness about timeline stuff (especially with IDW1 Megs), but this is pretty much all opinion. This is also really long, so I put it under a read more.

There’s some things to think about regarding Prime Megs vs other Megses with similar backstory (thinking primarily IDW1 [and this is all my interpretation based on what we get in MTMTE] Megs).

In Exodus, it’s implied early on that while Megs does want to reform the government of Cybertron he wants to do it with him at the top as “Prime.” My impression of this is that he has a thought process of “the government sucks, I could do it better, and I deserve to be the one in charge of doing it.”

Here’s Megatron’s speech to the Council in Chapter Thirteen of Exodus, without the narration unless it’s crucial for context:

“In the beginning I had not name. None of us did. We spoke to each other, down in the mines and the smelters, by electronic signature. We indicated each other by function. We assigned each other nicknames. I was D-16, named for the sector of mine where I conducted demolition operations. And then I saw my first match in the gladiator pits. That is where I first learned how life was for the lower castes that none of you ever take a nanoclick to consider. Each Cybertronian in that balcony has seen more Cybertronians die himself than the total of you in the rest of the gallery. Our lives are worthless!

Until--Until we decided we had worth. We, the lower castes. We, the bots who die in subsurface mills and factories creating all of the things that you up here take for granted. We learned that we were individuals by facing off against each other in the gladiator pits in Slaughter City and Kaon, and how did we know we were individuals?” He waited for a moment to let the question sink in. “We knew we were individuals because as we killed our opponents in the ring, we saw in their deaths the realization that they were individuals. And so we knew we were, too. In killing, we understood life. In being the most disposable of commodities--a gladiator, whose remains are thrown into the junkpile to be picked over and scavenged, the healthy pieces sold off to brokers in Iacon and Crystal City--in being disposable, we discovered that we had value. Someone would pay us for what we did. Someone would cheer when we killed, and roar in anger when we died.

So if our lives had worth--even to others just as worthless as we were--then we had the right to names. And that is how the sequence of events started that led to me being here before you today. My friend Orion Pax, I thank you for helping our cause gain this platform; and to the High Council, I express my thanks for your time and attention.”

This is your usual fare for miner-cum-gladiator-cum-revolutionary-cum-tyrant Megatron. The Council goes on to ask him about the bombings at Six Lasers (among others), and he says that he had nothing to do with it and that he “disavow[s] any act that does not ultimately herald a new and better era on Cybertron.” The Council then asks, “Are you not responsible if your rhetoric excites those unfortunates without your willpower, though? Do you not have the same kind of responsiblity that this Council and its members have, if your leadership position is to be taken seriously?”

Megatron does not directly answer the question. Instead he says, “What you have to worry about is what will happen if my leadership is not taken seriously.” I kind of see this response as a thinly veiled threat to the Council.

Now, this chapter is ultimately from Orion Pax’s point of view, so we get his views on things: “Orion Pax couldn’t decide whether to admire him or be scandalized that he could stand up in front of the High Council and ignore the truth.” Orion believes that Megatron is ultimately responsible for these bombings because of his rhetoric.

The plot moves on with Halogen, the main dude on the Council, calling for the Guilds to speak . Orion then gets up to speak, first insulting the Guild representative and subtly blaming the Guilds for loosing contact with the colony worlds. It is Orion who calls for the Council to choose a new prime: “Choose well, for a Prime might either lead Cybertron to a new golden era in history, or stand by as the dark energies of anger and resentment explode into planetwide chaose and war.”

We then move into chapter fourteen.

Halogen then goes on to say that these two have a point the caste system has already begun to be upended. Most of this is just plot and talking about Sentinel Prime and how he’s missing.

Orion has an epiphany: “We cannot count on anything. No existing structure can handle the problems we have raised.” And he realizes that Megatron has realized it as well, but has had a different reaction:

“Megatron looked as if he could gleefully have presided over the permanent and total destruction of every institution of Cybertronian civilization. Orion Pax wanted to be free. But if there were no Cybertron, if there were no Iacon or Hydrax or Sonic Canyons...then what good would freedom do?”

The Council goes on and on about the Matrix of Leadership, culminating with Halogen saying that it has bee lost for billions of cycles and according to Alpha Trion it might be found “in these turbulent times.” Megatron says, very softly, “yes” at this point. He thinks that Halogen is talking about him; he thinks that the council is going to choose him to be the next Prime.

And Megatron starts projecting, in my opinion. He’s angry, which he is allowed to be seeing as things didn’t go his way and anger is a natural reaction to that, he feels betrayed, though he hasn’t actually been betrayed. He accuses Orion of just wanting power. He begins to mock him: “Does Cybertron not call out in its hour of need and find...a data clerk?”

Its at this point that we get back to my earlier point of Megatron thinking that he should be in charge. He reminds Orion that he didn’t know the plights of the lower castes until he met Megatron. He learned from Megatron. I believe at this point that Megatron is having a moment of “Why should the student surpass the master? Why should this more privileged ‘bot be the Prime when I have lived this injustice first hand?” These are fair questions, and I do think that a good portion of why the Council chose Orion as the next Prime has to do with him simply being less confrontational in his speech.

To me, it seems that Prime Megatron wanted the power to change Cybertron himself, and when he was denied it, he resorted to violence. While he was a miner at the start, he is primarily a gladiator. He says it himself that he didn’t truly learn what life was like for the lower castes until he first saw, and began participating in, gladiatorial matches. He knows violent solutions to violent problems first and foremost. He also spends a lot of time in later chapters thinking about “when i’m prime…” and while some of that might be to blame on Dark Energon, I think it’s also a lot of his own thoughts. He first aspired to be the leader of the gladiators, which he became. What’s to stop him aspiring to be Prime?

Now, IDW1 Megatron is an entirely different beast (at least re: early early on ala “Births, Deaths, and Interventions” and Elegant Chaos). I’m not as familiar with him between the events of BD&I and basically the rest of anything. I don’t know how exactly he gets from miner to tyrant.

What I do know is that at the beginning, he does not want to be in charge. Terminus tells him that he has two weapons, his brain and his fists, and he must be prepared to use both of them. Megatron rejects being a figurehead. His job “is to articulate the injustice at the heart of the system in the hope that others might be inspired as one, to push against it.” Terminus is almost pushing him to be this figurehead that he doesn’t want to be.

M: “I’m not a figurehead.”

T: “But you may yet become one—and that’s why you need to listen to me. Never back down. Never compromise. Never bend. The moment you try to accommodate a rival set of interests, you subordinate your own. When your enemies realize they can’t corrupt you, or contain you, or appease you…that’s when you’ll have their attention—because that’s when you become a genuine threat.”

M: “You’re focusing too much on the individual. Lasting power rests with the collective.”

T: “Of course—but the masses need someone to rally behind. Someone to take point. And even after that, even after you’ve forced the world to be fair…the top table is set for one. You must be prepared to sit alone.”

Now. I have opinions about Terminus that aren’t…positive. But here he’s pushing—he’s pushing for Megatron to take control, to lead almost singularly; he’s pushing against what Megatron wants. I think it’s important to realize that at some point you might have to resort to violence of some sort, but I think it’s also important to encourage peacefulness until you get to the point where it is literally impossible to do otherwise.

In Elegant Chaos part 1, present day Megs has a conversation with Orion Pax (we love time travel shenanigans) and he asks, “Why rely on someone else coming along and doing your job for you—someone who may not actually want the job?” This question implies that at some point before the war properly started, he still didn’t want to be the one in charge. I believe that he was somewhat content writing and inspiring people to change the system.  As evidenced in Elegant Chaos pt. 2 when Megatron is talking with Impactor: “Because the revolution will be about ideas. Taking a new step, uttering a new word…That’s what the ruling elite fears the most. Violence solves nothing.” Also, if I remember correctly he hides under the table during the fight in the bar.

[mincedliveblog]

Alrighty lads

Earthrise time

Ep1

Shut UP that Megatron is going to have a crisis of faith… if that’s where they’re going to take unutilized miner backstory I’m gonna lose it. mtmte couldn’t even really pull this off and it was one of the greatest tf continuities of all time bro

Oh Megs thinks OP is dead huh… I’m 👀

OH HE’S TALKING TO MANGUS’ HEAD HUH…

Ok I’m actually kinda into depressed and beaten down Megs… my weakness for put-upon characters

Jetfire being like “Oh are we sure we should be freeing Deceptions” like he wasn’t running around as one and ripping dudes arms off last miniseries

Man I love Elita… real time MVP. I love her so much she dropped the “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” line and I didn’t even roll my eyes at the reference!

Steeljaw name drop??

Oh he’s dead and disassembled haha. Furries too much for wfc.

Hey remember last season the focus on that fact that there were neutrals? The mercenaries or whatever they were called? But no, Megatron is imprisoning his own to show how evil he can be and to set him up for more internal moral conflict… alright.

This guy giving Megatron the tour of the sector has literal Tiny Tim limp going on, is kissing Megs ass about his gladiator glory days, and is going on happily about their 22% operating capacity, all blissfully unaware that Megs wants to shut down the sector… Megs are your heart strings being pulled yet.

OKAY Red Alert looking at the camera after Elita says to “Stay alert” and going “I’m always alert” that got me.

Ooooh Megatron took Sector 12 offline… honestly wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Actually compelling stuff.

MEGATRON GIVING ELITA ONE SOME PROPS… SAYING PERHAPS SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE LEADER OF THE AUTOBOTS… HE’S RIGHT TO SAY IT.

For some reason I wasn’t thinking that the Ark was in Cyro where it needed someone else to wake them up… Optimus really DID screw the pooch didn’t he. God.

This was a pretty good opener actually… I’m interested. I’m compelled. Let’s see where it goes.

[transingthoseformers]

I've been toying with an IDW au in which pretty much everything is the same, except Megatron was originally a beastformer and has become one once again in his last body. As we know from Ravage, beastformers can be cold constructed as well.

I imagine his beastmode would be a bit like a flightless dragon/crocodile fusion? A creature dapted for digging and living at great depths beneath the surface. Miners hate accidentally disturbing one of their nests because even if they're the equivalent of herbivores, they're fiercely temperamental and possessive of their territory. Whenever it's mating season, they show off to each other, and the biggest one gets to carry this season's clutch. Very protective parents, until it's time for the cubs to become independent.

So now Megatron has to deal with the instincts he hasn't had for a very long time. Like wanting to dig into the floor and make a nest. Dig around and look for deposits. But worst of all, go into heat. There's nothing Megatron hates more than losing control.

Ooo that'd be interesting, especially since given how uncommon his altmode has to be it had to have been an Experience in order for his last frame to be rebuilt with it (I remember Ratchet rebuilding / repairing him into his mtmte frame?)

Also THAT IS A COOL FUCKING ALTMODE YES YES YES YES I'm biased YES.

This somehow got lost in my drafts

Anyway this sounds interesting, and since it's IDW Megs he's gotta be having interesting emotional responses to it all (meaning: he's not taking it well and we're grateful he doesn't have a fusion cannon anymore)

Does this mean monster!Megatron again?

[sternerstufftoys]

As in electron

So I guess before Bludgeon and Thunderwing and Galvatron and Scorponok and Overlord and Ratbat and Soundwave and Straxus and Shockwave there was this guy in charge of the Decepticons called Megatron? And it turns out there's been a couple of toys of him? Who knew?

Oh, I'm such a wag. But to be honest, I don't really have a huge amount to say about Megatron as a character. He was pretty much before my time, y'see. I was born in 1984, and by the time I was old enough to understand Transformers the era of Megatron was long, long gone. I've already spoken about how Rodimus was 'my' Prime, and even though Optimus Prime had been thoroughly returned in Powermaster form in 1988, and Megatron did make appearances in the Marvel comic throughout it's run even after death (a sort of clone, a body swap, an actual resurrection all clown-carred together into a fantastically convoluted mess) I always tended to see the original Optimus/Megatron years as a sort of prehistory, the Before-Times when the older kids were into Transformers and I was more into wearing nappies. It's in our nature as children to want to take ownership of the things we like, and a previous generation's toys can have something of an off-putting nature to them. Child me would have killed for a Galvatron toy, but turned his nose up at a Megatron.

So, roughly 4 million years later I'm an adult collector putting in a preorder for MMC Tyrannotron, confident that this will be The One Megatron that I can keep forever. See, the other problem with Optimus Prime and Megatron is that these days they receive so many new toys that I'm worried about being tempted to keep upgrading to a newer model. But this one was a keeper, a high-end third-party toy from Mastermind Creations, based on his latest iteration in the IDW comics. Yes, I thought to myself, this is a keeper. And then it was announced that the IDW universe would be ending. Hnnng.

Still a great Megatron. A great look. And while it's both unofficial and twice the price of the recent Flame Toys model kit, it does at least transform. Sort of. The problem is of course that during the entire run where Megatron took this shape, he never once actually transformed, not once. So it was pretty much down to MMC to decide what form that big hunky dadbod should turn into. And they came up with... a thing. Sort of a thing. It's not entirely clear.

It's got treads rather than wheels, an elongated nosecone which doubles as an absurdly oversized fusion cannon (hard to have a go at Tarn's double cannon any more when yours is the size of an entire other person) and tiny little wings near the back. Is it a tank? A jet? It's impossible to properly categorise it, because it looks like it was made up as they went along. Like, they put a bunch of transforming joints in, folded it up a few times, and took what they ended up with and slapped a few vehicle mode bits on. Yeah, as a transforming transformer, this is not a highlight. But even so, it does have a hell of a lot of presence, able to trundle down a motorway taking up all three lanes at once before kerblamming a path through anything that happened to be in its way. Lorries, cars, Little Chefs, that sort of thing.

I feel considerably more attachment for the IDW version of G1 Megs than anything coming from the cartoon. This was a character with an incredibly well-defined arc, far more so than Optimus Prime's, even if that arc was largely retrofitted in after the fact. The social-revolutionary-poet-turned-murderous-warlord became a far more identifiable character than the designated bad guy that filled TV screens back in 1984, and aspects of this characterisation quickly became absorbed into the mainstream, in Prime and now Cyberverse. Megatron's time in the pages of More Than Meets the Eye / Lost Light shone a spotlight on the dualistic nature of his character, and put him onto a path of... well not exactly redemption, though many people are quick to label it as such. More a journey of rediscovery, of being able to find the person you once were before things went wrong, and bring that person back. And even by the end, Megatron's 4 million years of warmongering still outweigh his 800 years of good deeds. But at least Megatron ended his time in the comic as the person he wanted to be. That's powerful stuff. Most other Megatrons go out screaming incoherently and blowing up, so it's a definite step forward.

Or, if you want to take a step back, MMC put in another surprise, because with a few swapped-out pieces you can go from his final form to the very first one he was seen in, way back in Megatron Origin. Lest we forget, this was so early in IDW's tenure with the Transformers franchise that it had originally been pitched to Dreamwave, which today looks a bit like a first draft of many of the things IDW went on to do.

The alt mode makes a lot more sense now, since the front-facing fusion cannon has been replaced with a massive mining drill, and the wings swapped out for safety-striped panels. The drill can still be fastened to his arm in robot mode, but if you want to give him a more warmongering look you can swap out the drill bit itself for another, rounder fusion cannon barrel. Again, this one is ridiculously oversized, but I actually prefer it to the modern-look cannon. Unfortunately the yellow safety stripes are still there, which does look a bit out of place if you're looking to fit the Origin cannon on the MTMTE body. You also get a new head, mixing the miner and gladiator looks from the comic, and a new chest piece. It's not a perfect reproduction, but it's nice to have bonus options to represent the beginning and end of Megatron's life.

Still though, I can't help but feel that the effort would have been better spent making the MTMTE alt mode more attractive than dual-purposing the whole thing for a different look. It's a figure first, and a transformer second, which is a real shame. You also get, rather predictably, a lightsaber based on the 1986 movie and a purple energy flail-mace-whatever-thingy because Prime and Megatron will never escape that once scene where they briefly pull melee weapons out of their sleeves. You do a party trick one time and your mates will never forget it. Anyway, the mace is crap, having a real metal chain which makes it impossible to do action poses, and I've found the lightsaber far more useful given to other characters in need of a power-up. Blitzwing likes it a lot, for example.

I mean really, I bought this bastard so that I'd never need to buy another Megatron again, and so far it's worked out. But as time goes on and the original IDW 'verse fades into history he becomes more and more of a relic of past times. Alas, etc.

[kamostaza]

@akaritamishii ok depending the universe too, i can’t give a correct summary but i’ll try [with bad english and all xd

bayverse is one of the many universes on this franchise,[i’m still considering it bayverse until they give us a continuation of the ‘reboot]

but yes, most of the the time exist a pattern, optimus prime and megatron were very close in the past,and in that past op’s name was Orion Pax and meg’s name was Megatronus, op portrayed usually as a librarian/historian/archivist, megs for the other usually is miner and poet/gladiator in shatered glass megs was mathematician.

 first they were really “close friends” until political opinion and war rise. and depending the serie , the war ended  with one them death, megs in prision, shattered glass is the swap[in this case op in prission or death], or like mtmte ;megs with another opportunity, in tfa Orion pax doesn’t exist or do not talk about it.

[panthalass]

Like, he’s adorable, but this is NOT a mech who is prepared to give an inch in the fight against oppressors. As it is, by LL6, he knows three things: 1) there was a war in their universe, a successful one (depending on who you ask), 2) this is not their own universe - it’s arguably worse, and 3) Megatron, the great hope of the revolution, is faltering. And it’s been at most a couple of days since Terminus woke up. He missed the war–its not REAL to him the way it is to everyone else. He’s in the same position Tailgate was in back in MTMTE #1–except Terminus was Megatron’s fucking proofreader. Of everyone left alive, he’s almost certainly the only person left who remembers how Megatron started out. Probably better than Megatron himself, given Trepan’s dig into Megs’ head. And he’s seeing with his own eyes how the Functionist Council have disenfranchised and torn apart their own world to a greater degree than even the Senate did back home, and seeing that those left to fight the Functionists have fewer resources and one spindly little figurehead–who just died, by the way– and for him it’s been like two days since Censere plucked him from that berth in the Mines where he was basically just waiting to die. As far as Terminus is concerned, this IS their war. And he’d already long since determined to fight this war, whatever the cost.

I think JRo is casting him from the same mild as Getaway, to be honest, and probably Prowl – the Cause above all else. Before the Tarn reveal I was legit convinced it was going to be Terminus behind that mask. Getaway, though, he’s the really interesting comparison. I am pretty certain that Megatron and Terminus, the Functionist Universe, will return, because that ending brought up several very big questions and JRo is too good a writer to let them go unanswered. Going forward, therefore, I’m going to be watching both Terminus and Getaway very closely.

[unrepentantauthor]

Do Transformers for the meme!

Righto.

my favourite female character: Nautica. I mean, I’m not choosing from anything like as large a pool, here, but I really do love Nautica. She’s a wholesome polymathic autodidact, and I love that her response to looming doom is to get friendmarried en masse. Plus she’s got a neat design. We don’t see enough naval bots.

my favourite male character: Tougher! Much tougher. Competition is steep. But it’s gotta be Megatron. MTMTE/LL Megs is a brilliant character, weighed down by unfathomable remorse, and I really enjoyed all that stuff about him trying to be better, return to his youthful idealism, renouncing all his achievements, teaching history lessons. Megatron the war criminal. The poet. The miner. The revolutionary. The penitent. Plus he makes some really great faces, usually at Minimus or Rodimus. “This conversation is ridiculous.”

Ton of others I like, though.

my favourite book/season/etc: The last stretch of MTMTE, with Megs as captain. Mostly because of what I just said up there. But also, I feel like the comic was mature at this point, with decent pacing. We had my other favourites by this point - pretty much Team Nautica.

my favourite episode: When they find the duplicate Lost Light, probably. That was pretty rich in good Megs content, and it’s one of the more horrifying stories in some ways.

my favourite ship: Megsmags, of course. But CDRW is up there too. So’s Ratchet/Drift. Cripes, I just like these gay robots.

a character i’d die defending: You kidding me? These guys are giant robots. Jokes aside, I don’t think I have a particular “hill to die on” character.

a character i just can’t sympathise with: Probably Getaway. I know he has his supporters, but I appreciate Getaway as a complete piece of shit who got what was coming to him. I think it’s amazing that such an awful person can get such sympathy.

a character i grew to love: Drift comes to mind first. He seemed a little absurd at first - cool and powerful samurai on the path of redemption and all that. After he took the heat for Rodimus’ mistakes, I realised the guy had a little more to him than the surface mysticism. Now, I think he’s genuinely lovely. And I love how easily he gets under Ratchet’s skin.

my anti otp: The first thing I thought of that brought me genuine distress was Skids/Getaway. I mean, Getaway/anyone to be honest, but I think I heard some people shipped them as former secret agent buddies. It’s not for me, I’m afraid. Skids is a good dude, deserves a million times better.