#smth smth. the scavs and their road to recovery in many forms

[telesodalite]

This is a bit random, but I've been thinking about Misfire a lot lately, and it struck me, that with his adhd, the whole implied/hc'd substance use is only sometimes considered as a form of self-medicating? And, idk, I find the concept interesting.

Like, yeah sure, within the canon implications it's just stereotypical stuff, so it can be interpreted as wholly recreational, and whatever one might call accidentally catching a high from blood you've taken from a corpse.

But like, his adhd is emphasized as an important aspect of his character, so surely it's impacted his millions of years worth of life with its symptoms? Both good and bad?

The Decepticons in idw1 are weird, in many ways lol, but in the sense that they're the faction defined by their oddballs and rejects. They're the unwanted, the belittled, the different, the oppressed, the strange, the mad. But at the same time, any deviance from their impossible and ever-changing standards is punishable and looked down upon.

It's a classic, almost frustratingly stereotypical case of a system built against oppression becoming the oppressors. But that's not the point here.

The point is that they opened their arms and offered the idea of freedom to those who felt different from the pre-war standards, who felt belittled by it, or betrayed by it, and promptly went and turned around on these people to make them feel belittled and betrayed and made different from their own new standards.

Abuse, in many forms, runs rampant within Decepticon ranks. From the very top, to the very bottom. Any deviation or perceived weakness is an open invitation for such actions. Throw in the DJD, and there's no escape from it. No way to get out, only fit in and keep your head low, or become the very thing you originally wanted to fight against and be free from.

Substance abuse is mentioned in canon enough to assume that certain amounts of it were almost expected across both Decepticon and Autobot ranks and contingents. But considering the condition of Decepticon standards and communities, it can be assumed to be a bit more rampant in their case.

So, Misfire. We don't have much context for his background and what all he's seen and done.

It's implied he did some spywork, or at least made some cross faction connections during the war with Brainstorm, which might've been a big enough deal that it caught the attention of Skids, because he's aware of Misfire of all people, knows he changed his name right at the end of the war, and considers Misfire somewhat as a nemesis, which, might I remind thee that Skids was part of a secret special operations unit, a secret special operations unit under fucking Prowl!? So uh, possible big interesting stuff that never got explained there.

(The possible spy bit keeps me up at night I swear to god, bcs wtf were all those tiny implications supposed to mean?!? I need to know all the details of that possible spy drama so bad, omg)

Then, we know he "accidentally" killed "a dozen" other cons towards the end of the war, and that he was going to be jailed for it.

So Misfire's life obviously went down the drain before the murdering a dozen fellow soldiers bit, but considering every awful and challenging factor of being a sub-par soldier in the Decepticon army/air force, what kept him from doing something like that earlier on?

More important, what got someone like him through the war? What kept him going? What kept him alive? Well uh... the same thing that kept a lot of Decepticons going I guess. Substance abuse.

Ok so where does the self-medication angle of this whole thing come in Teles?? My answer to that would be, uh, inherently ig.

Because think about it, you're just some kinda weird guy, caught in the middle of one long ass war. You're never good enough, can't achieve the one thing you've been gunning(lol) for, and are just sorta flying by the seat of your metaphorical pants through life. You're a solider, and a victim of systematic abuse because of that, and at some point, you're possibly a perpetrator of that abuse*. On top of all that, you've also got raging adhd during all this stress and trauma, and man, quieting those racing thoughts and numbing that constant buzzing itch in your body probably feels really good when you're escaping your extremely stressful situation for just a bit.

It feels better to be more detached, to be "calmer", less caught up in a hundred thoughts at once, more focused, more in control. Eventually this becomes the subconscious focus of his using to ease the stress. It "fixes" something. Makes things "right". So casual escapist substance use tumbles into substance abuse and addiction.

How this factors into his post-war life, idk, you decide ig.

I figure the scavs being broke and cut-off from others could play a part in Misfire having to wean himself off of whatever substances were most common among his ranks, but he's also probably creative enough to make stuff from whatever they pick up. Anything considered to be "hard stuff" would likely be frowned upon or policed by Krok tho, because of the whole traumatic experience with Roadbuster and his extreme brutality due to perceived Syk abuse.

But then again, the scavs are all still very much cons with vices, and 100% constant sobriety is apprently a challenge or punishment for cons and bots alike post war.

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*(Expanding on that bit via another ramble I had lying around that i thought i'd include)

When considering Misfire's adhd, most things emphasize the hyperactivity and impulsiveness in general without also emphasizing the negative sides.

That moment where he almost punches Grimlock comes to mind a lot.

It could be viewed as just a side-effect of perpetuated Decepticon abuse, a knee-jerk reaction that may have been turned on him during the war for his mistakes, that he in turn expresses towards others "mistakes".

Something to also consider here though, is how the impulsivity of adhd can make violent reactions worse, anger and/or frustration harder to control, and harder to hold back from expressing outwardly or physically, especially if left unchecked or untreated for a long time.

But Misfire stops and takes a second to collect himself before becoming somber as he considers Grimlock's perspective.

This instinctually violent reaction is not something he wants, or likes, and judging by how much time has passed by that point in the comic, this has been something he's been working on and is still working on.

But what about while he was still an active solider? When holding back was seen as a weak or foolish response? How did the impulsivity play into it? After being treated like that himself, struck or beaten for mistakes, at what point did it snap and he found himself standing over another solider as they stared up at him with that same fear and shock and hurt he had felt. How did that affect him to know he was capable of doing that without thought?

Because, ya know, he's done bad things too...