#there is a duplicate megatron going around

[cosmics-beings]

I put this in the tags first but Im just gonna put it here.

I think the biggest flaw with IDW i'm starting to see, is the writer's effort to give megatron a long, fleshed out, emotional and indepth redemption arc, but not give others a redemption arc with the same attention and love who deserved it. Who deserved it as much or more than he did

This is what im starting to see with characters like prowl and starscream. but specifically to prowl so i won't get off topic.

i am not that familiar with prowl because ive been reading idw outta order lmao, but from what i've seen of him people just flat out hate him and say he deserves the awful things he got.

like the time optimus punched him and op is all like 'you made me do this' and to me that sounds like a lotta shit megatron would say. and it's no surprise that people excused it because people tend to excuse when megatron acted like that, which is why his redemption just ended up going so smoothly.

i don't have a problem with megs getting a redemption arc, in fact i didn't hate it in idw and think that he deserved happiness. but there is certainly a double standard with how fans treat characters that are indirectly impacted by him or his warm, and their ideals/beliefs/moralities are twisted because of shit that happened during the war HE started. and i can't act like prowl's behavior is 100% connected to megatron and he isn't some innocent bot.

but neither is megatron. neither are a lot of characters but the writing and the fandom have done a great job at ignoring that in favor of the characters they like.

tl:dr i agree with you. i liked megatron's redemption but i wish other people could've gotten those types of redemptions , but instead they were hated by the fandom AND by the narrative.

Time for another Unpopular Opinion. Let’s say you have two mechs from IDW. They are similar in a lot of ways: both have trauma around mental violation, have directly opposed multiple Primes, desired to create super soldiers, committed war crimes, yet had no initial interest in war. They’re both manipulative and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. There are also some notable differences between them: One is charismatic and physically powerful, the other is blunt and unimposing. One had soldiers created specifically to serve as cannon fodder, the other found needless deaths frustrating. One took pleasure in killing, the other just wanted to win the war.

One is Megatron, the other is Prowl.

Now, I see a lot of people argue that Prowl deserves everything that happens to him. They enjoy him getting punched, they make jokes about it, etc. But I have rarely, if ever, seen someone claim that Megatron deserves anything bad that happens to him. Therein lies my question: why is Megatron, the genocidal warlord, so beloved by the fandom when Prowl, an objectively better person, is reviled?

And no, “Megatron became a better person” is not an acceptable answer. Megatron got therapy and a support system, even if that support was sometimes just being called out when he fell back on old behaviors. Prowl was never even permitted an ally who stuck by him. Additionally, Megatron’s environment wasn’t compatible with his old way of thinking: no one trusted or liked him at first and conquering had no appeal anymore, so he couldn’t do whatever he wanted without retaliation and there was less motivation to act out. But Prowl remained stuck in the same situation. No matter what he wanted for himself, the war still needed to be fought, and he could only change his approach so much before the costs outweighed the benefits.

Becoming a better person when you have no support and your environment doesn’t allow for change is almost impossible. So no, moral growth is not an acceptable answer.

“I like Megatron and I don’t like Prowl” is an honest answer, and I can respect that. But it also implies that the hated character is being judged more harshly and “deserves” worse than the preferred character, regardless of whose crimes were actually worse. So this answer isn’t ideal either.

Perhaps it’s about real-world politics, then: Prowl was a cop and Megatron was a victim of police brutality. I rather doubt it, though, because many people favor Optimus or Chromedome - both ex-enforcers - over Prowl. And while you could argue that’s a case of them being better people, I’m not going to give Optimus Annexation Prime the benefit of doubt on that one.

At the end of the day, though, I think the answer is pretty obvious: people like Megatron and hate Prowl because the narrative told them to. The narrative promised an adventure-filled redemption arc for the Leader of the Decepticons himself, and fans ate it right up. The narrative said that Prowl is a jerk and even his allies hate him, and the fans jumped right on board the bandwagon. The narrative gave Megatron every chance to succeed and took everything Prowl had to lose, and the fans decided nothing was wrong with this state of affairs.

I’ll grant that the concept of a Megatron redemption was interesting the first time. I rather disliked it, but I can’t fault anyone for enjoying the change of pace. But all things being equal, I would much rather have seen Prowl in the therapist’s chair.

Also, if you’re someone who thinks they both did horrible things and they both deserved to be punished, I appreciate your fairness.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #52 — The DJD Once Again Prove to Be an HR Nightmare

Ratchet and Drift, looking fresh as hell in their matching paint jobs, stand on the cliff they made their cool entrance on last issue, as they snipe at each other over whether or not Drift personally knows the DJD. Considering how Tarn and Friends had a space-cocaine induced freakout over seeing Drift on the quantum duplicate Lost Light, they may want to talk a little quieter, especially with the face Helex is making.

You better watch out, Ratchet— this man's going to do Sakamoto-got-all-the-way-to-pencils shit to you!

The Pet takes the opportunity presented by our recently returned newlyweds being too busy flirting to pay attention to the fight at hand, leaping to chew on Ratchet's head. Luckily, Ten is an ally, even when he’s been beat to shit, and punches the shitty little Pomeranian into the air. Kaon, card-carrying freak and dog dad, takes this abject display of animal abuse about as well as he can.

Ratchet, having his gun eaten by the mouth pervert, is beginning to worry that he, his rich boytoy, and a mostly out of commission Ten might be sliiiiiiiiightly outnumbered against a dozen Decepticons, two of whom belong to the Super Murder Death Squad. Drift, after a bit of needling, heelies a dude’s face off, jumps into the air, does a bunch of sick flips, blocks a laser with a sword in such a way that it looks like he got shot in the dick, and then lands, like, 70 feet away to scoop up the Pet and threaten to chop its head off if Helex doesn’t stop trying to vore his boyfriend.

Kaon, #1 dog dad, orders everyone to fall back. Helex, who has Ratchet like 70% inside his smelting chamber by this point, can’t believe that Kaon’s ruining the fun. Helex releases Ratchet, letting him crowd onto Drama Point with Drift and most of Ten, as the Decepticons circle them. Drift, unfortunately, didn’t think past doing sweet flips to show off after his sabbatical from the comic run, and they’re back in the same situation they arrived to, but now one of them is holding a crusty little dog.

Then a platform descends from the sky, and we see what Ravage has been up to.

Grand theft auto!

Yes, it turns out that this cat can drive, and well enough to get the boys up and out of danger, though Ten’s size means that the lovebirds have to dangle off of his remaining arm. Drift still hasn’t put down the Pet. Sure hope that thing’s been socialized to cats.

Oh, who am I kidding? Kaon wouldn’t have bothered.

Speaking of Kaon, he looks like he’s about to cry, because someone’s kidnapped his princess baby angel, and Helex doesn’t even CARE, the heartless bastard, as he orders the other Decepticons to fire on the shuttle. They, of course, hit it, as there’s at least ten of these guys firing, and they’re all decently tall. The shuttle begins to lose altitude, and Ravage, who does not have traditional hands and is currently using his tail to man the control stick, attempts to crash as close to the “fortress” as possible.

Meanwhile, over at Megatron’s plinth, we get back to that whole thing where he surrendered himself to Tarn. Tarn, feeling an excuse to monologue coming on, says that he’s well aware of Megatron’s new schtick, and he’s not a huge fan of it. Megatron clarifies that he wishes to give himself up so that the rest of the Lost Light crew stranded on this planet might live, because this is his fault to begin with. Tarn agrees, reminding him that he paid for Tarn’s plastic surgery. Megatron states that he only brought Tarn to his side to hurt “someone”.

Three guesses who Megatron could have possibly hurting by bringing Tarn over to the Decepticons, and the first two don’t count.

Megatron thinks that by bumming around space on a borderline vacation, he’s returned to who he used to be (maybe he got his teaching license, who knows) and that the war was a waste of time. Tarn gets kind of intense here, because if Megatron wasted his life, what does that make Tarn? Tarn, who has decorated his home with nothing but Decepticon symbols? Tarn, who has had corpses nailed to his wall for the last couple million years? Tarn, who wears a fuckoff stupid mask every single day of his life, even while eating and trying to kill himself with space meth cut with time travel and gas station dick pills? Also, what about all the other guys who died trying to realize Megatron's ideals? What about the little guys, the cogs that made the machine run? What about Steve from accounting, whose husband left him, because he was too busy trying to balance the budget on Megatron's body remodels and Optimus Prime punching bags that also doubled as body pillows to come home? What about Steve, huh?

Megatron basically regrets everything he’s ever done, not that Tarn cares. Megatron then reveals that whole thing where Rewind tried to retroactively kill him as an infant, and how he sort of wished it had worked.

Tarn starts beating the shit out of Megatron before the guy can start going on about how his parents are Brainstorm and Whirl, though Tarn promises that this is just a healthy dose of tough love, as surely the wimp before him isn’t actually who Megatron is. Megatron doesn’t fight back, instead just staring sadly at the Autobot badge Tarn slapped off of him. This is really starting to piss Tarn off, as he was really hoping to beat some of the fire back into his former mentor and idol. This is when he starts trying to choke Megatron, even though their species doesn’t breathe. Still, I’m sure Tarn’s stiletto nails hurt something fierce.

Megatron then recalls his conversation with Velocity, and states that if the fool’s energon DID alter his personality, it was probably for the best, and he wouldn’t want to go back. Tarn, who has based his entire selfhood on the thing that Megatron threw away to live out his probation on a cruise ship, takes this statement with all the tact and level-headedness we’ve come to know him for.

Tarn is just one more double fusion cannon blast to the chest away from smiting Megatron utterly, and he’s fully committed to doing so. However, he gets distracted by the sound of Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back” coming from across the field.

WHO LET THIS MOTHERFUCKER OUT OF HELL

Anyway, it looks like Ravage can, in fact, drive pretty well, as the shuttle did crash pretty close to the “fortress”. Swerve, who still really wants to make up for his shitty boss behaviors and also accidentally dragging Ten into a microcosm of hell, lets Ten know that they saw his floor graffiti, and that it might actually work. Magnus, who still has his arm off, does his best to not kick Swerve across the room as he scurries underfoot, as he drags Ten inside the building.

Skids intercepts Ratchet to welcome him back, and also ask how the hell he knew to come to Necroworld. Apparently he and Drift had received a call from the handy dandy phone that he had given First Aid, who First Aid had then regifted to Velocity, just in case some bullshit happened. Velocity’s introduction to Ratchet is rough, as she manages to call him grumpy, old, and stubborn as a mule in the span of about fifteen seconds. Ratchet is mostly concerned with the fact that the Lost Light replaced him so soon after his return. Nobody tell him about Velocity’s track record with the medical exams, he might just shoot off into space to beat First Aid to a pulp for leaving her by herself.

Over in what might be a closet, Rodimus runs across Drift sitting in the dark and sharpening one of his swords. Drift seems to have used his exile to remember that he does, in fact, have some semblance of self-respect, as he doesn’t immediately forgive Rodimus for throwing him off the ship that he paid for, only to have given himself up as the real culprit behind the Overlordening, like, a week later, thus negating Drift’s sacrifice, and then never coming to find him, despite the fact that they’re supposedly friends, and, again, the ship is in Drift’s name, as was the crew’s allowance money. How the Lost Light has survived financially without Drift is unknown.

Rodimus knows that he sucks and is the worst, but he was really worried that Drift wouldn’t like him anymore, so he’d sort of been kicking the issue of “finding my ex-TIC to tell him he got publicly humiliated for nothing” down the road, to the point where Ratchet had gotten sick of it and went to solve the problem himself.

Of course, the meta reason for Drift not being found was so that Shane McCarthy could have his OC back, as well as Ratchet, for the miniseries Transformers: Drift— Empire of Stone, well known for being sort of silly and introducing the phrase “be shoosh” to Drift’s lexicon. In it, Ratchet found Drift traipsing around the edge of the galaxy being a neutral (in terms of war) hero to organic species affected by Decepticon aggressions, before crashing on a planet where Drift, back when he was “Deadlock”, had found a mystical stone army, one that Gigatron (a dude who totally isn’t anime Megatron) wanted to harness the power of, so that the Decepticons might claim victory over their enemies. Hellbat, Gigatron’s second in command, had gone mad doing nothing but killing over millions of years, and had been modifying the stone army in secret to do his bidding so he could "kill everything". Then the stone army woke up, Hellbat died, Gigatron died, and Ratchet went to take Drift to get detailed, because he looked like he'd been ridden hard and put away wet.

Also, if you think about it, having two former high-ranking Decepticons turning to the Autobot side being on the Lost Light’s high command might have been too many redundancies to make Megatron’s arc stand out. Perhaps, had Megatron not been added to MTMTE’s roster so late in the game, Rodimus WOULD have gone looking for Drift, finding him just in time for the DJD to catch wind that they hadn’t actually super nightmare death murdered Deadlock after all.

Drift, who can’t say no to Rodimus's puppydog face, lets Rodimus sit with him on the floor, as he apologizes for the fact that by coming here, Drift and Ratchet have unwittingly signed up for Tarn’s Political Theory and Dismemberment Slam Poetry Night, but he mega-promises that they’ll come up with something together to get through this. Drift appreciates the sentiment, but knows that Rodimus is just saying this to make him feel better.

Back at the worst fan club meetup in the galaxy, Tarn elbows Overlord in the throat and tells him to fuck off. Overlord tells him that he knows Tarn never finished his degree and only acts like an academic for the aesthetic. Tarn transforms to shoot him while reminding Overlord that at least Megatron’s spoken to him in the last few thousand years. The two duke it out with their tank modes, Overlord KRUMPing all over Tarn, before the theatre kid kicks him off and questions why exactly Overlord is even alive, given that he chainsawed his head off last year. No word on if he’s bothered to ask this same question about 75% of the people he’s here to super murder.

Overlord simply states that someone found him floating out in space and fixed him up, because it turns out that they both wanted to go after Megatron and kill his ass dead, because Overlord is sort of sick of not getting the attention he so obviously deserves. When Tarn, ever the opportunist, attempts to make a team up deal, Overlord tells him to shut up.

And then they realize they lost the old man they were fighting over.

Great work, fellas.

Over with the Autobots (and Cyclonus), Rewind’s outside, looking at that memorial to the disappeared and trying to figure out why the Necrobot laid out the names in the way that he did. He’s currently near the top, where you can see most of Roller’s name, someone whose name ends in “gator”, and Dreamwave Production’s smoldering corpse, which makes me wonder if Alex Milne ever did get all the money he was owed from his work with them. Rewind, who last dealt with the DJD not even a year ago, is trying really, really hard to not think about how many needles they’re going to jam into Chromedome’s eyes this go around.

Of course, Nautica, who has come out to find Rewind, doesn’t give a shit about Rewind’s PTSD. She wants relationship advice! She’d ask Chromedome, but apparently he’s taking a nap, still worn out from stabbing Tailgate in the brain after he rainbow-exploded all over the ship. Which happened months ago.

You know, at the rate he’s been going, Chromedome probably wouldn’t have lived too far past sunset anyhow.

Anyway, Nautica wants to know if, on Cybertron, you have to be besties before you can get hitched, because that’s how it works on some of the other colonies. She specifies that this ISN'T how it works on Caminus, which is good, given how problematic that would be, considering you need to be best friends with someone by the time you're five weeks old, and there's no telling if they're cool with platonic polyamory. Rewind informs her that it’s either one or the other on Cybertron, no double-dipping, and god help you if it’s a situationship. Nautica is asking this because she’s realized that she can’t waffle about on committing anymore, seeing as she’s probably going to die in the next hour or so, and she’d rather use that time to enter a queer-platonic partnership than get her face fixed.

Back at the Peaceful Tyranny, Tarn has, in fact, managed to bring Overlord to reason, much to Deathsaurus’s confusion and derision, if his squiggle face is anything to go by. Overlord, smug as fuck, informs Deathsaurus that in exchange for his compliance, Tarn has agreed to let him personally murder Megatron while everyone watches, because surely Tarn couldn’t actually kill his idealogical idol, because he’s a pussy. Tarn is being very brave about this, only letting the spot blacking on his linework show on his face, as his fists shake with rage.

Then Kaon shows up, begging they pull back their forces until the Pet has been returned, and the spot blacking gets a little heavier.

Tarn, who has had a very long day of tactical meetings, phone calls, facing his fallen idol, having a very unsatisfying beatdown with said idol, and dealing with known freak Overlord, handles Kaon’s inability to be a big boy about misplacing his shitty little dog with all of the tact and decorum we’ve come to know him for— he gives Kaon a big, beefy hug, acknowledges just how much Kaon loves that shitty little dog, and then makes sure that Kaon never has to worry about a thing ever again.

That’s a series wrap on Kaon! Let’s give him a hand, folks!

Tarn, who has had just about enough of Overlord in the last half hour, smashes Kaon’s head onto Overlord’s tits, covering him in viscera, as he demands he be treated with respect, because this is HIS house, where HE’S paying the bills and calling the shots, so help him god. Nickel is very displeased that Tarn’s killed one of the Twinksome Twosome. No word on how Deathsaurus feels about this, considering that a big reason he’s working with Tarn is because he refused to kill the rest of the DJD when demanded to do so, thus showing his dedication to his men. Also no word on how the rest of the DJD are going to handle Tarn decapitating their weed man.

Tarn tells everyone to pony up, as they’re about to go over and handle all the silly little bastards hiding out in the Necrobot’s “fortress”.

Speaking of which, it looks like Megatron made it home, despite Tarn blowing his tits clean off with that cannon blast. Rodimus and Ratchet carry him inside, as Magnus is probably too busy not getting his arm put back on to help, and Megatron is using the last of his energy to hold the Autobot badge Tarn slapped off his chest earlier.

Sure hope Ratchet didn’t forget to tell Drift about his old boss being co-captain of the ship, or else this is going to be a very nasty surprise for both of them— we've already seen that Drift loves to freak out and kill sick people.

[kaontic]

Sleepin’ snitches get stitches…for their camera straps. 😑

Seriously, what would he have used that for? Ain’t no way he’s gon hitchhike on a human photographer and get away with it (unless the human’s been living under a rock lol).

That was foul, Soundwave.

Ok…

Megatron: (Calm down!)

Reflector: 金が欲しい 。(I want money.)

Megatron: いいえ ! (*Direct* NO!)

Reflector: *Sad noises* (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

Megatron: *Hisses* どうして　あなたは（いつも）そうなの ？ (Why are you [always] like that?)

Reflector: Well it’s not like I always have to do everything around here because they “go on patrol” (goof-off).

Rumble/Frenzy: NUH-UH!

Megatron: Reflector, go to your quarters before you start a fight I’m not interested in breaking up.

Reflector: This was high-quality leather… :(

Megatron: I can’t bring myself to care. Go.

Soundwave: *Stops playing music*

Rumble/Frenzy: (Phew…) *Try scooting away*

Megatron: It doesn’t take Soundwave’s telepathy to conclude that since Skywarp’s servos are too big—

Rumble/Frenzy: B-But you and Soundwave said it looked stupid and ugly!

Megatron: *Launches their afts up to the fraggin’ ceiling*

馬鹿者達 ! (YOU FOOLS!)

Soundwave: *Bows* My apologies, Lord Megatron.

Megatron: Now he and his photons are going to spend the next several cycles emotionally dysregulated.

And what a waste of a cow! Shockwave will be displeased.

/ Well, assuming it was a cow, cuz leather can also be made out of…nevermind. The point is, Reflector didn’t make it, and he doesn’t know.

Note to yourselves:

If a coworker and his seemingly endless amount of duplicates do like 75%—99% of the “boring” grunt work everyday—ya know, the kind of work that keeps the Nemesis, or the Victory, or whatever your current BoO is functional—your opinions regarding his fashion choices, hobbies or quirks ain’t gonna be worth scrap lmao.

So you two should probably go and get that other leather piece, that you hopefully didn’t dump into the ocean for a shark to chew on asap.

Oh…frag. Have fun fishin’ guys. ✌️

[cosmics-beings]

i have this au of megatron actually meeting starscream in the functionalist universe and he falls in love with him and vice versa (because the starscream's are the same in personality, functionalist starscream has a bit more of an attitude problem). but he never actually gets with functionalist starscream because of the guilt he feels. as megatron makes a whole life in the functionalist universe, he and functionalist starscream love one another, but he just won't let it progress past that. megatron however remains single and never gets into a romantic relationship with anyone. he only loves one person that he refuses to enter a relationship with.

anyway when he leaves and returns to his universe, a couple of things happen. when he is about to be executed or face solitary confinement, that is when the lost light makes a jump and duplicates itself. one megatron stays, but the other lost light is made (per canon). Duplicate megatron continues on with the lost light but unbeknowst to him, functionalist starscream finds him ( i have a whole hc on how he can jump universes, and it's connected to normal starscream stuck in intraspace). at that point, since functionalist starscream has jumped dimensions looking for him, and megatron realizes that a.) he is a duplicate due to the quantumn jump and b.) given a second chance, he decides to finally get with functionalist starscream and he stays with him on the lost light. they go on adventures together with the rest of the crew.

now, normal megatron does get executed. but he survives the execution and magnus + rodimus end up him to a secluded planet to live his life peacefully and he becomes a writer. somehow, even though he was floating around in intraspace, starscream who was killed ends up coming back to the world of the living (with cool ghost like - space witch powers). he finds megatron and he and megatron forgive each other for their pasts and decide to be friends, but they both end up getting together. and they are happy.

tl:dr - wouldn't be cool if regardless all the megatrons ended up with a starscream. they all four meet and the megatrons actually get along well. the starscreams on the other hand....

[moonlight-tmd]

I want to learn more about bee's twin sibling! oh, what would be the team prime's reaction that bee has a sibling? or bee himself for that matter! I'm guessing that they got separated when they were forged so he probably doesn't remember 'em.

as well as the au where bee turn into a 'con! that's like so cool, and with him meeting the team again later would make such good angst lmao

Yeah those are ideas that are temporary- there's not much in-depth lore about them. (i lie as i write this post)

For the lost-sibbling this i imagine her name would be Mantis- she looks exactly like Bumblebee except she has lashes and ever-so-slightly more feminine figure. Really hard to spot the difference. Even their voices sound very similar. I had two ideas about this- she's either just like Bee but more mean and " i will fight you no matter what", or a total opposite- she seems too nice to be a 'con, she's relaxed and laid back- sleepy in mannerism almost. Still she's smarter than Bee- most of the time.

They got separated when they got forged and Bee had the whole story with the bad carequarters, Mantis was the lucky one. Since Bee is an autobot, it's obvious she's a Decepticon. She's a secret scout/in-terrain spy, unlike Bee she did pass and got into higher con ranks. She matches Blitzwing in rank even. barely anyone knows about her existace- since she is so small similar to an autobot it's easier for her to blend in. I imagine she has blue glass to attach to her optics, like contacts, and a magnetic autobot logo to stick on top of her Decepticon one to really get in ther autobot act.

As for the reactions: Bee met her when he was investigating some suspicious activity. They look at each other before saying lines like "you look like me" and "who are you?" before Mantis says time and place and the he has to come alone and runs off. Bee doesn't tell them about the weird bot and meets her in the spot- thru sharing their sparkling hood experiences, few of the facts match up and they come to a conclusion they are family. From then on Mantis and Bee pull pranks on the autobots. It's hilarious.

I imagine it's heckton of trouble if BlitzBee takes place. Mantis is stuck with this Switcharoo following her with puppy-love optics and Bee is constantly dealing with drama cuz 'he' did something. Then later i imagine she joins the autobot repair crew cuz they're nice and ooh boy it's Sentinel's worst nightmare. Bee has duplicated- well not really, i imagine she would get a deep blue paint with white stripes to contrast her brother. and that this big love-fool stops going after her by accident.

I imagine if anyone would know about Mantis when she's Decepticon from the Autobots it would be Jettwins- they're also twins, and they do mess around behind Jazz's back so they get it. Those 4 are absolute menaces together. Speaking of- Bee and Mantis got the 'twin powers' like the jets. They can finish each other sentences, guess what the other is thinking perfectly, etc.

For the Bee becomes Decepticon- it's basically after a few of "do this - but i don't wanna plus it's dangerous - don't care, do as i say" missions and learning that 'cons are not so bad and just want eqality he finally snaps and runs away, joining the Decepticons. And so, he helps them get the Allspark and win the war- the repair crew stays just a repair crew, unknown to them Bee has made Megatron not kill them and leave them to their actual job instead cuz they are good at it.

Sari steps in Bee's place and Prowl doesn't die and they're all traveling from place to place doing their thing and getting paid. Until one time they get assigned to a project and travel to some secluded part of Cybertron where there is a new colony building and they have to build a space bridge from scratch. Then they recognize their missing's friend voice coiming from a black-colored mech with yellow accents and slightly orange gradient to them. it is Bumblebee, rocking that Decepticon insignia with deep lavender optics to match. His horns are bigger and he got heels along with those shoulder-guards he had in his cybertron alt mode.

And so he is their boss for the entire time they are in the area- he was chosen to monitor the construction of this building, which is really massive. They have some beef along the way, but they learn Bee hasn't become a tyrant- they learn from a long-time guard about how Bee has chimed his 5 cents to the new work regulations- higher pays, better temporary-quarters and treatment. Anyone who'll treat the workers poorly or talk down to them will be send to his office and most likely be stripped of a job. It's a strict code but it's very good- the situation in the ranks has changed drastically for good since he got in charge. He is both feared and respected. They also learn that the building will be the future Carequarters- they know Bee was raised in a very bad Carequarters, they are surprised but they can't help but smile at the fact Bee is trying his best for the better future.

One time there was an accident on the site and Bee rushed to get Ratchet cuz their actual medic was off to do something in the one of the major cities. Ratchet got assigned to be the medic til the end of the project. Bulkhead also gets a side offer to paint the play area and Prowl helps him and there's just a beautiful colorful flower-field pattern, it also helps that the center play-area is stylized to mimic earth's tree. It's truly amazing. But of course, something has to go wrong- there's the final meeting with all of the workers with Bee giving a really good speech about how he's glad they managed to pull this off and give the next generation a better future then all of a sudden the walls crumble-

A raid of Autobot escapees led by Sentinel breaks in and steal what they can. The workers are injured, guards are killed and Sentinel is surprised to see Optimus there and tries to pull him into the rebellion- Sentinel gets his aft handed back to him by Bee with his electrocuting staff (all the training paid off finally) and the group is arrested, the ones who managed to run are stopped by other Decepticons. Now Bee is devastated, so much work down the drain, he unintentionally snaps at Sari and others as he goes back to his office to cry. He contacts Megatron about it and his Conjunx Blitzwing is sent to aid with the security while the workers are basically starting over with the building. Only then the earth autobots learn that Bee is with Blitzwing. So the construction is being complete again, Bee is anxious something is gonna happen again but Blitz is there to reassure him about everything.

Again, he gives the speech and then Megatron himself comes to look everything over before the grand opening and Bee compliments how good of a job his workers have done- the space bridge crew especially. The place is open and everyone goes home. Not before Bee goes over to talk with his old team tho- he thanks them and they don't have to reffer to him as 'sir' anymore. When they get on their ship they are surprised to see gifts for each of them with a note saying "Bonus for the fast work!" I imagine they meet for few other projects and then regain contact as friends. Bee helps them out whenever he can and invites them to major events.

Geez this is a text wall, good job if you made it this far.

[dontpetmeibite]

"You're the one who said you wrote bad poetry." Ravage shrugs. "And I wouldn't have expected any Megatron who knew who I am to lie to me. What was my counterpart like?"

Of course he came to see her directly, she thinks--so she can hear his vents and his sighs. In that sense, her Megatron and this one are very similar, and it's fine, because with both of them, the boundaries have been set.

"Do you know, I don't even remember what that was about, with Shockwave?" Ravage says after a moment, before producing two cubes. "You're allowed to have the real thing now, right? I hope so, because after I saved your alternate we had to chelate his entire fuel system."

She sits back down to crack open her own. "Shockwave was Soundwave's brother. Maybe you didn't know that, or maybe it was different where you came from. I don't usually bother people about the language they use, or the jokes they tell--but I care very much about Soundwave's feelings. They were brothers, the heirs of House Kymatos-in-Kalis; like Dominus and Minimus Ambus were once."

She shrugs and drinks the energon. "I can't really apologise for defending my husband's feelings, but I can say I didn't mean to hurt yours in the process, if that will do. If anything, I feel like I should apologise to you on behalf of that other cat. But I don't know how hard your world used her, or how well she and Soundwave loved one another..."

Ravage shakes her head. "I went from being part of a pile of six very specially trained black ops cats in a postnatal centre, to being Senator Ratbat's 'assistant', which was the first time I ever had my own room, and it wasn't for my benefit. The first thing I did when I got to Rodion was move in with Gasket and Drift, and the birds soon followed. And then Soundwave came, after his House disowned him, and we've been together ever since."

She swallows a large gulp of energon. "The half-year I spent hiding in the vents of the Lost Light was the longest time I had ever been alone since escaping from Skywatch. Of course I fell right back into Megatron's bed like an idiot. I am not meant to be alone. I just pretend I am. I'm glad I could give you hope. And I know about quantum duplication. I came out of the shadows in the Lost Light because the ship was disappearing around me. Nautica outed me as a femme--she still says she just knew--and tried to pet me, and they locked us in a closet and I scratched up Megatron's face, and then he volunteered to go fix the quantum whatever, which should have been my first clue."

She frowns. "I've heard ot the Functionist Universe, though. I thought it didn't happen, because Brainstorm was stopped. I almost died on Ratchet's operating table while they were all out chasing him down. Nobody told Ratchet they were fucking with the timeline or he wouldn't have been doing elective surgery. Ratchet says all my brain function stopped, my spark did a thing, and then they all heard Soundwave's voice, because he was blowing himself up four million years ago in order to protest my summary execution. Then my spark did another thing and I woke back up. Does even a little of this sound familiar?"

She drinks more energon.

"Anyhow, stop saying you deserve to be killed. Dying's the easy way out when you've fucked as much up as we have. Then you don't have to fix it."

Great, let's hang out! I mean it.

I like to think I'd know it if you were propositioning me, but words on a screen don't come with olfactory and vomeronasal triggers that tell me whether or not someone's into me, even if they hate themselves for it. I'm relieved to be right that you didn't know what that meant.

I'm happy not to compromise the fact that you're alive in your universe as long as I know who not to talk to. I don't think I've ever been there, so now, I worry that I might meet someone from there and not know it.

To be fair, I would also characterise many of our previous conversations as contentious and I frequently feel vaguely insulted when we're talking. If I knew why, I would tell you at once. It feels sometimes like you don't think I'm terribly bright, and it stings. Yet I still want to be friends. Perhaps that's just because I'm cussed like that.

I almost deleted the following paragraphs until I realised what I was trying to do was give you a picture of what my own history with Megatron is (aside the disastrous affair), and I want you to understand that I do not think that you are this Megatron.

It was obvious the minute you said you were a terrible poet, because he wasn't, and he wouldn't have said so even if he had been.

That was the first time I felt vaguely insulted, to be fair, because my relationships with everyone in High Command were not so shallow that I can't tell them apart and at no point was I ever trying to say that the two of you were alike.

I was Megatron's confidante until I realised that he cared more for his own guilt than for anyone else's welfare, jumped ship and got Misfire to take me home. We'd been conversing in prose and poetry since he was at Messatine and I was Senator Ratbat's favourite chew toy.

We argued a lot and he usually won, even when he was wrong, because he knew how to manipulate me until the day he didn't any more, but he let me slap him twice and never raised a hand to me.

(Not that I'm proud of that. That's just how we were back then. I think that Soundwave and I were the only people Megatron never hit.)

Soundwave and I have been together since before the war and before my cassettification. We merged sparks for the first time before we were twenty years old, in Rodion, during my brief period of freedom before Ratbat caught up to us.

During the war, when Megatron had taken leave of his senses, I did a whole lot of Soundwave's job so he could do everyone else's.

Megatron's abdication gutted us both and ended our triad, at which point Soundwave was mad at me, too, because I didn't get mad at Megatron as quickly and deeply as he did.

Galvatron goaded him into ordering me to kill Megatron if he were serious. Frankly I probably would have if not for the order, because that was fucked up. Then I saw how serious Megatron was about being an Autobot and understood he really did believe that I should defect, leave my conjunx and my family, in order to quietly sit there and watch him die. And then I was done.

Galvatron and Soundwave fell out. I will never understand why Megatron and OP thought abdicating without naming a successor would make the Decepticons stop fighting. I told Soundwave if he needed to swear allegiance to someone that badly, he should swear allegiance to me, and he did, and so did the Scavengers.

Tarn and I got into a philosophical slapfight on the Big Conversation where everyone knew who we were, even though it's against the terms of service to dox anyone, even yourself, and then other people started swearing allegiance to me. Tarn didn't like my Concordian Ethics or the gloss I wrote on the revision of Towards Peace, because it took a long time to get back to the Sol System, and I spent most of that time writing. Until Starscream decided he'd let me use his spacebridge if I promised to take his malcontents with me. (Tarn eventually died, multiple times, because he tried to fuck over Deathsaurus and forgot about Esmeral.)

Unfortunately for Soundwave that meant he had to let me kill Galvatron in single combat all by myself, but I did it, and after the slag that Galvatron had been pulling, it was a pleasure. After Strika and Deathsaurus swore to me, everyone else either accepted me or fucked off somewhere else. I am Vox Destron.

I actually did end up saving Megatron, which was one of the funny parts. I sentenced him to eight million years of community service for killing all of the people on all of the planets we'd already taken over (which was something I'd always been mad about) on the grounds that he'd killed even more Decepticons than Autobots.

Prowl is going to die mad about it someday, but OP actually signed off on that, especially after he heard about the part where I put Glit in charge of him as head of the Committee for Truth and Reconciliation.

One of the other funny parts was that Rung gave Soundwave a big piece of jewellery to keep where his tape deck used to be. I dearly wish Star Saber could have been there when that happened just so I could see his big stupid face, but overall I'm glad he's dead.

Please understand that I know you are not this person. I am glad you are not this person. Having to deal with one of them is enough. I still care for him, and I also still have days when I'd like to put his spark in a blender, which I say with all the love in my heart.

Now tell me why you faked your own death and who I have got to keep mum around, and let's be friends.

[prime-wars]

going thru a phase rn where i become mildly obsessed with a random nobody character and create an entire au in my head centered around them... learned thru a tf iceberg video i watched with my friends that theres a tf named crosscut who can store all of his "data and memories" (not sure what data is if not memories - maybe baseline personality components?) inside of a actual literal scooter. like its a drone that is just also a scooter.

anyways as we were watching i was like whyyy does that name sound SO familiar to me so i looked him up and turns out he was in mtmte! he's the playwright whose opening night gets interrupted by djd murderfest on the duplicate lost light. this guy vv

[image id: a screenshot from dark cybertron, showing blurr and crosscut in conversation. /end id]

(putting the rest of this under a readmore cuz its probably gonna be long as hell)

so THEN i got to thinking and like. i know that they probably were just like ok yea the scooter's fucking stupid and so they just put him in mtmte without his little scooter buddy but what if. What If They Hadnt.

what if there was One Guy on the lost light who, over the course of the war, had gotten into the habit of backing up every single one of his memories into a drone that he carried with him everywhere he went. maybe it's a bad habit, depending on who you ask, but it's a habit that's hard to break, and one that he decides to keep up with after the end of the war. just in case. people might look at him weird for it, since he performs mnemosurgery on himself regulary (and i do think it's some form of mnemosurgery; he's dumping huge amounts of his own memories straight from his processor into a drone, that's gotta be some kind of mnemosurgery technique (and who knows, maybe the "data" that he's storing on clutch (the scooter, the scooter has a name its named clutch) is emotional data, tied together with his memories, so when he goes back and looks thru clutch's archives he can feel exactly what he was feeling in each memory, or maybe it's just notes he keeps for himself to add additional context to individual memories - but im getting sidetracked)) but he's done it for so long he's not stopping now. after all, you never know when you might need it.

and then you get to getaway.

[image id: a screenshot from more than meets the eye issue #50, depicting getaway's mutineers. crosscut stands in the background. /end id]

maybe crosscut only checks clutch's archives once every couple years, or maybe he likes sifting through his old memories and indulges himself often. who knows, we know next to nothing about him. but what if, a couple months into getaway's mutiny, after sunder's already altered all of the crew's memories, he decides to take a peek. maybe it's on a whim, just a gut instinct that he's learned better than to ignore. maybe he decided to entertain himself with happier memories for a night. either way, he opens up clutch's databanks and discovers Everything.

he'd still been dumping his memories into clutch after sunder's manipulation; he has memories of remembering rodimus and megatron and everyone else leaving the lost light voluntarily, but that memory itself is nowhere to be found. instead, there's getaway, and his plan to turn megatron over to the galactic council, and his stranding of rodimus and the rest of the "rodsquad" on necroworld, and his promises that they would remain safe and unharmed. promises that are sounding much emptier, with the hollowed out memory of rodimus and the crew's departure months earlier rattling around in his head.

idk where it would go from there. maybe when first aid and mirage and everyone return to the lost light crosscut is there to warn them of getaway's treachery ahead of time, and they manage to escape the lost light before getaway can get to them. idk. im just losing my mind a little bit thinking about this.

[elindae-writes]

What’s Unburied Megatron’s views on the other Decepticons and the Autobots? (Including Starscream in the Autobots category)

Airachnid

Entertainment who is also vaguely useful. Maybe she’ll be of use, maybe not. Until Megatron figures that out she’s somewhat worth having around in the meantime. Her manipulative qualities help kind of fill in the gap Starscream left behind a bit. She also really unnerves everybody on the ship which is a bonus. Megatron isn’t the kind of commander who wants there to be morale boosters, he’s the kind of commander who wants there to be morale depressors.

Knock Out

It’s important to keep an optic on this one. He seems more concerned about his polish and his conjunx than the grand Decepticon cause. He is very likely to defect and therefore must be reigned in somehow. Perhaps he needs to have the superiority of the Decepticons proven to him. Were it not for his usefulness Megatron would be a lot rougher with him. Since he’s the only medic though he is unfortunately necessary to the cause. If a replacement for him were to ever be found his worth would plummet drastically.

Breakdown

The strong are meant to oppress the weak and the weak must stand beside their oppressors as a way of acknowledging their place in the hierarchy. Breakdown, the sickening bot who Megatron thought had left behind the hypocritical ways of the Autobots but who seems to be getting drawn back into their ways again. He’s like Orion in that he is compassionate and does not want power--which is why he’s the perfect person to have power burdened onto him. He’ll inevitably look to find somebody who can help him bear this burden and the only one who suitably can help him is the one who burdened him in the first place.

Soundwave

Him. The former face of the Decepticon cause who is now so shameful that even the mere sight of his face is offensive. The fallen son who rose so close to helping Megatron craft a new world order and who will now only be just barely afforded the privilege of being able to witness it. But maybe he can be reigned in. He has the right qualities befitting a second-in-command--deference, self-awareness of his own inferiority, and an acknowledgment of himself as just another piece in the Decepticon war machine. He can be rescued, though. Starscream himself had many brief lapses of panic and “enlightenment” in which he tried to flee the cause only to return to it in the end. Unfortunately Starscream has been permanently blinded by Prime and is now unable to ever see the guiding light of the Nemesis ever again. Soundwave can be saved, though. He’s not blind yet.

Optimus

The usurper, liar, thief, and grand manipulator. The “brother” who set himself up as Megatronus’s prop just to make him reliant on him all so that he could rip the prop away from Megatronus all at once. Were the feelings of brotherhood ever real? Maybe at first. He let Megatron walk up before the Senate and was in reality in league with them the whole time. He manipulated poor Megatronus into rising up and failing. Orion did all this so that he could then be presented as Plan B, the better option, the superior option. Perhaps he had the Matrix stored in his chestplates all along. There’s no way the tale about him receiving it from Primus could be true. Perhaps Orion Pax never existed and Optimus Prime always did. That thought hurts for some reason.

Arcee

Who?

Bulkhead

He’s large, he’s loud, he’ll die soon, not too much to say here. His relationship with Starscream is... intriguing. He seems to have developed an affection for the Seeker and is naïve to the fact that he’s being pulled in and manipulated. Or perhaps it’s the other way around? Maybe Bulkhead is the manipulator and Starscream the manipulated. More testing required.

Bumblebee

Perhaps mutilating his vocalizer was not the best course of action. It’s only seemed to make Optimus Prime 3.0 more angry. He used to just be Optimus’s black and yellow duplicate, nothing more, but Megatron sees clearly now: Starscream is now meant to be the true new Prime. Bumblebee was clearly cast off and discarded by Optimus because Prime saw that Starscream would be easier to sculpt and mold than Bumblebee. If you’re going to remake somebody into the perfect weapon in order to fight your enemy you’re going to choose to sculpt the person who has been most hurt by that enemy. This has Starscream as the obvious choice due to his having suffered more at Megatron’s servo than Bumblebee’s. Poor Bumblebee still thinks he’s the heir to Optimus’s throne of lies when in reality all he’ll ever be is just another servant to it at best.

Ratchet

The delusional mech who realized the true grandness of Megatron’s designs but who instead of rightfully embracing them instead chose to reject them due to being unable to handle them. Ratchet is... confusing. He recognized Megatronus’s true plans for Cybertron early on, yet confusedly denounced them. Ratchet always claimed to want order and Megatronus was going to bring exactly that, so why Ratchet rejected Megatronus is perplexing. He chose to support the corrupt Senate and Orion, their archivist servant. He saw Orion as his nephew and was unable to see him for the manipulative backstabber he truly was and still is. Ratchet followed his adoptee down into darkness. Ratchet tried to attack Megatron in a mine, a mine, the exact same kind of dusty and dirty one Megatron was born in. He tried to beat Megatron up and make him suffer in the exact same kind of dirty place Ratchet had insisted nobody deserved to be beaten in and suffer in.

Starscream

The privileged and spoiled bot who had the grand honor and privilege of being the right-hand of the future warlord, but who was unable to accept his rightful and inferior place in the universe. He couldn’t rise up the Decepticon ladder so he chose to climb up the Autobot one instead (which Megatron will gladly pull out from underneath him). If he wants to be Optimus’s new brother, fine, let him. If he wants to wither away and be manipulated as Megatronus was, fine, let him. If he wants to sit on the armrest of Prime’s throne of lies, then fine, let him.

Megatron will let Starscream waste himself away. But will Starscream let himself waste away? What even happened to seduce him over to the Autobot’s side? One moment he was on a mission with Airachnid, then he didn’t return, and then he’s joined at the hip with Optimus all of a sudden. So what happened? Starscream has a grand and terrible fate ahead of him. He could become the duplicate Prime, the mouthpiece, the alternate version of Optimus who Optimus can control and send out as he pleases so that he can be in two places at once. Perhaps the duplication process will be too successful and Starscream will become far too like Prime for anybody’s good. Starscream will be content to play second-fiddle and just be the Prime’s silver winged facsimile for some reason. Maybe pretending to be someone else makes him feel loved.

But here is the real question: why could Optimus do what Megatron couldn’t? How could he obtain the true and ultimate loyalty of Starscream in the span of a few days even though Megatron spent thousands of years trying to obtain that loyalty? There’s something deeper going on here and Megatron must unbury it.

Further observation and testing is required.

[polyhexian]

Hey okay shower thought

So when brainstorm is on the ground after he's decided not to shoot Megatron, rewind comes up to him and he's like hey thanks for helping chromedome while I wasn't here, right? Now brainstorm has a line here I always thought was weird. He says congrats on coming back from the dead (we should compare notes sometimes.) Offhandedly this is a reference to how brainstorm was technically dead for awhile. But rewind was never dead? Not this rewind. Or at least. Rewind never came back from the dead.

But I was just thinking about it. And the timeline after the quantum duplicate lost light is a little funky. We see chromedome and rewind are sleeping in different rooms but when brainstorm goes to Swerve's everyone is still celebrating returning to existence after disappearing for a hot minute. Rewind went to sleep long enough to have a nightmare so it's been like a day at least? But people are coming back slowly in the order they vanished, but they all vanished in like a matter of minutes so I assumed they were coming back as quickly

But what if. What if they weren't. What if the implication here is that rewind and chromedome go to bed and people are still popping back in. Brainstorm pops back in and immediately launches into the time travel plan, and between the time he reappears and the time he leaves, he does not see chromedome. He does not get filled in on what happened. Because they found out he was a Decepticon on the other ll so surely if he had time to wander around someone would have stopped him right

So. So is the implication here. Is the implication of that line. That at this moment brainstorm has no fucking idea how rewind is alive again?

Is the implication brainstorm does not KNOW rewind is rewind2 and all he knows is yesterday rewind was dead and now suddenly what the fuck, why is rewind here???

He goes to shoot Megatron in the past and he's going to do it for chromedome because rewind died and then chromedome shows up to stop him and- hang on is that rewind. What the fuck. What the fuck

Is the implication here he genuinely is like hey how the FUCK did you come back from the dead dude?????

[effectingsomedragons]

Finally figured out how I'm going to work this fic, and it's basically going to be "there's time between the escape from Mederi and the whole mess with Solomus/Tyrest, Adaptus/Pharma, etc" and it's that mess that Shepard gets dumped into, just kind of like "OH GOOD GIANT ROBOT NEAR APOCALYPSES AGAIN?!"

I'm still working out the end since this will technically be AU, ending with Cybertronians having a presence in Council space, seeing as how I don't want Megatron to wind up sentenced or Rung to be out of the picture.

But I have a feeling I can have Shepard do some string pulling and play around with it. It does away with the duplicate Lost Light, but I've got ideas for that too.

Also me trying to figure out what characters would really get along best but also, at the same time, realizing I haven't quite figured out if Shepard and Rodimus are going to get along like a house on fire or hate each other from the word go.

(Dr. Chakwas and Ratchet, though, ABSOLUTELY get on like they've known each other for ages. A couple of old military physicians who've seen Too Much Shit.)

[forgedcold]

‘Fate, the ironic bitch,’ he thinks while slumped in the captain’s chair, tired optics staring daggers through the windows of the Last Light’s bridge. A half-finished vial of engex sits neglected on the arm, Megatron too absorbed in considering how entirely disappointing the end of everything, once again, turned out to be. He survived it, for one, and by Prowl’s word, outlived Optimus. Optimus. Ugh. He presses a hand to his forehelm, dragging it down his face. Disbelief, infuriation, brokenness — Megatron didn’t care to relive the emotions that withered his spark and psyche at the knowledge of the Prime’s sacrifice; he’d ached to be executed then, to find his old enemy in whatever hell awaited them. 

It was then that Rodimus had approached him, and despite however bleak their ability to cooperate, the co-captain knew him well enough to realize the extent of his grief, urging him to go to Earth and do what he needed to say goodbye. Do it for yourself. One last hurrah. Don’t listen to Prowl. Rodimus had tried to assure him, but it was the pain and hopelessness of the Prime’s loss that served as the trigger. Forsaking his punishment and the Lost Light crew as they debated an experiment in quantum duplication, Megatron left, boarding the Last Light and quantum jumping — recklessly testing the frailty of his ship — to the periphery of the blackhole left in Unicron’s wake. 

Earth, like a star, twinkled in the distance, a glimmering survivor of his ambition. 

Megatron didn’t log the hours and days he spent staring silently and forlorn from the observation decks, watching as debris floated aimlessly around the gaping maw of the blackhole, wondering how in God’s name to reconcile such a loss; to go on without. 

It only became more despairing as weeks-old news reports from New Cybertron trickled in on the data-feeds, celebrating his purported death. The Last Light had exploded as he, warlord turned coward, tried to flee, Prowl had gloated, his mangled corpse found among the wreckage. His death certificate had become a prized trophy, signed in ceremony. With his ship’s engines not being as powerful as the Lost Light’s, no one had bothered to check for the possibility of quantum duplication, or, Prowl simply didn’t care to hear Rodimus’ explanation of ‘magic.’ 

Days later, Hubble reported the debris around the blackhole wasn’t debris and rather bodies, likely spat out by the blackhole. Perhaps it was honorable of him to decide to bury the dead, to turn Earth’s moon into a tomb for the unknown. It’d taken weeks to teleport them one-by-one to the dusty, gray rock, stinking and bloated organics and rusted mechanicals alike. 

Malicious grief seared his frame when the corpse of Optimus Prime materialized before him, his body gray and partially calcified to what he could only theorize to be what remained of Unicron’s gullet. Had he been wide-eyed, petrified, as mesh was eaten by rust, as he fossilized in a stupor of painful decay, left to die helplessly alone? ‘I am fine,’ he would have said. But the knot in his throat was too agonizing to swallow as nausea rose violently from his tanks; Megatron had to turn away to retch. 

Heaving, trembling, cold — he drew a vial of his innermost energon, turning back to his fallen enemy. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself say as he set the energon at Optimus’ feet, sinking to his knees. “I hope you found the peace I could never give you — we did not deserve you.” Numb, he watched the debris devour the vial and energon alike, the pink blood absorbing visibly through Optimus’ frame. In the silence that followed, Megatron heard the unfathomable — a sparkbeat. 

Megatron shakes his helm, letting his hand fall to his side to retrieve the lonely vial of engex and raise it to his lips, drinking it in a swallow. “Hubble, notify me when Optimus is awake. I have a feeling he won’t be pleased.”

The AI pinged its acknowledgement, the former warlord settling once more into the silence.

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 35

ooooh baby functionist universe time

the cover with the neon ‘everything is fine’ sign is rlly good but also the pile of dead data stick bots makes me so sad omg noooo they're so cute leave them alone :( 

minimus and rewind...! its so cool seeing them interact

also I just love the crowd shot, and you can immediately see that there are a ton of data stick bots like rewind around - which isn't what we’re used to at all

also some good ole totalitarian govt stuff like the ‘you are our eyes’ sign (which, in retrospect, is fucking evil damnnnn)

also I'm so [eyezoom] on this functionist universe stuff bc like, this is basically the only time we ever see dominus be a character (rather than hearing abt him thru other characters), and even so he remains pretty ambiguous 

like, minimus clearly isn't thrilled that dominus didn't show up to see him at the space airport or w/e when they've been apart for two million years - and even tho we later see why he didn't show up, it still shows that there's some tension there

the amount of crowd shots in this issue is insane 

oooof, the fact that they sold luna 2 - and to the black box consortia, who we just heard about last chapter when they previously got into a space battle w/the galactic council and the djd

fu!minimus being part of the primal vanguard is interesting, I wanna see more about that. what was he doing w/them for 2 million years?

rewind just casually saying this completely fucked stuff, like that the govt ‘outlawed the intellectual class’ and ‘deported the knock-offs’ (which I'm assuming is cold constructed bots?)

I really like the sense we get thru minimus and rewind’s convo that all of this fucked up stuff has happened slowly enough that its become almost normal - like, they talk about it casually, even though its clear they don't necessarily agree with any of it 

plus the sense of ‘even if things get really bad ill be okay’ that both rewind and minimus seem to adhere to - rewind having been upgraded from being in the disposable class due to his connection w/dominus, and minimus saying ‘I like to think that obsolescence is something that happens to other people’ 

I love all the fucked up signage this issue. ‘take pride in being a means to an end,’ yikes

god and the fact that there isn't MORE data sticks, there's just LESS of other alt modes bc of how many alt modes the govt has wiped out completely...

oof, and continuing the whole ‘slow change’ thing - minimus saying that ‘the council never touches the astro class,’ and maybe that used to be true, but the govt will keep pushing that line, clearly...

and we get to see minimus’s alt mode! altho we the readers know that this isn't minimus’s true form...

‘amazing, the lengths some people will go to cross class boundaries,’ minimus says, as if he isn't doing exactly what rewinds describing, but even moreso as a loadbearer wearing an entire suit of armor

and then the casual public execution of the last lunabot...oof.

love the ‘cybertron. the present day’ text overlay...I was so confused about this when I first read it lmao. I figured it had to be some sort of au/quantum nonsense but STILL

back on the lost light, chromedome is going full kool-aid man on rewinds door

mannnnn I absolutely love the plotline of rewind 2 and chromedome 1...im so glad the story acknowledges that they ARE different, they did experience different stuff on their own lost lights, and rewind 2 being a quantum duplicate doesn't mean he had the same experiences as rewind 1...

and I love so much that chromedome just Doesn't Get It, bc of course he wouldn't - he’s too relieved that rewind is back to even consider that its not quite the same, that the rewind he was forced to blow up is still dead (which is a fucked up thought, so of course chromedome, the master of pushing the past away and moving right along, would want to avoid thinking about that in favor of continuing his relationship w/rewind 2)

it also makes a lot of sense that rewind, who records everything and puts a huge emphasis on history/the past, would be hyperaware of all the differences between him and rewind 1, and his chromedome and this chromedome

AUGHHHH and chromedome referring to an offer he made to rewind that was pretty clearly ‘if your memories of the djd slaughter are too much, I can remove them for you’ ooooof...I love these two so much, like...their absolute opposite approaches to trauma is fascinating

oooh mannnnn and then rewind starts ‘remembering’ stuff from the functionist universe...the plot thickens...!

I really like how one of the main ‘things’ in a lot of tf universes is energon/energy shortages, its interesting when the angle is kinda like, ‘energon is a finite resource and the methods to obtain more often involve destroying other planets,’ that's a pretty unique, alien problem for the tfs to have

it also makes sense that the functionists would form partially in response to that (perceived) shortage, and any sort of scarcity would push them further into their extremist views

I like how expressive the characters with visors are...its cute...

poor rewind has to go thru So Much

WHY can just anyone go into the morgue and touch the dead bodies. I mean I guess megatron being one of the captains explains why he’s in there, but that still shouldn't be allowed 

‘megatron mountain’ vhbjdkshfbjskfbhhk that's so fucking funnyyyyy I love rodimus....I quote that line a lot, especially when watching g1 lmao

the fact that swerve diluting his engex bc he’s a cheapskate saved everyone's s lives is amazing lmao

also like...damn brainstorm sure tried to murder Literally Everyone huh. like I guess the logic would be that if he succeeded in changing the past it wouldn't matter that they had died there cause the timeline wouldn't exist, but STILL. I guess that shows how confident brainstorm was in his plan

it makes so much sense somehow that rung doesn't drink. and we’ve seen firsthand why magnus doesn't lol

mannnn that panel of brainstorm shooting magnus with some wacky beam and causing the magnus armor to fall off in vehicle mode...Super Cool, just peak mad scientist vibes there

ok but if minimus switches to alt mode when ultra magnus does - as we see here, where minesweeper-minimus is inside big-ole-car-magnus - does that mean that inside the minesweeper is turbofox-minimus?? I want to seeeee

ghsdufjkbvksadfbhjs the panels of rodimus telling megatron that brainstorm time travelled are so fucking funny

and megatrons rant about how absolutely bonkers the lost light is....hvbhjdskfbasjh that's so funny oh my god. like yeah dude you're right and you gotta roll w/it sorry 

'on this ship, a minor breakdown is practically a rite of passage’ vbjdsnfbkasdfn its true and I love it

goddddddd it kills me how at this point in the story its So Obvious to everyone that brainstorm travelled back in time to do evil decepticon double agent stuff - and we as the reader can even buy that bc brainstorm has been so sketchy until now, and nothing he’s done contradicts what rodimus suggests - but it turns out in the end, it was all just for love. AUGHHHHHHHH its about the LOVE!!!! that's why I love this arc so much.

back in the functionist universe - god I cant believe rewind waited until Now to reveal to minimus that dominus has a tv face...like I get that that's a difficult topic to bring up in conversation but like, a little sooner might've been good hbvhjkdhnfbjaksl

oh man it hurts...rewind saying that they're in a ‘blind spot...’ oh man :(

rebel rewind, tho!! I love it sm

oh man and rewind never even broke the news about dominus to minimus oof. that's a tough reveal 

MANNN I really like the whole ‘flathead’ thing, its so awful and brutal. its such a logical extension of empurata, and as dominus says, once people get used to seeing empurata’d bots, it loses its punch...and the flatheads thing is even more invasive 

and writing wise, both empurata and the tv-heads are such good devices to show evil govt bs. I talk abt it a lot but I like all the ways jro gets creative with the ‘alien robots’ thing; a lot of these concepts wouldn't work at all with humans or other organic aliens

GODDD and dominus’s chilling speech being interrupted by the functionist propaganda....fucking horrifying I love it

also seeing dominus here is fascinating - clearly the council managed to pin him down enough to turn him into a flathead, but they never discovered his true alt mode...same with minimus, actually 

the cog is so fucking ominous. just floating there...

and the council is scary too! their names, and the fact that they all look the same...seems about right for an evil alien governing body

mannnnnnn and then the reveal that the data slug alt-modes will be ‘recalled’ next...rewind noooooo...and the one council guy even admitted that they still served some purpose in society, BUT that their ability to mass store data made them dangerous to the goverment...evil!!

meanwhile, rodimus doesn't know enough about science to be appropriately frightened about their timeline being wiped from existence, so he’s having a grand ole time

‘no one’s nodding, perceptor’ bvhjdbfasdfhbk their expressions....the lost light command crew are all clearly team ‘leave the science to the scientists’ lmao

I do love the paradox stuff, and brainstorm’s way around it all 

‘so I'm not allowed to take an interest in magic?’ hvbjhsdkfbjhkdf ily sm rodimus

but also like....rodimus suggests a parallel universe could've formed and perceptor is like ‘no way, that's not scientifically possible,’ as if brainstorm didn't basically defy science by time travelling at all...and more to the point, functionist cybertron DID get created, so rodimus was actually RIGHT this time

love that we’re already seeing perceptor’s admiration for brainstorm and his invention even here....sapiosexual mfer

a time travel chase....so beautiful...I love sci-fi so much

seriously time travel is one of my favorite tropes ever, this arc was inevitably gonna be my fav 

‘he’s going to kill orion pax.’ DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN

meanwhile, on functionist cybertron...aw, is that bulkhead? great cameo! oh wait what's going on with all the data sticks...? uh oh!

the fact that their heads just EXPLODE....soooo fucked!! 

god and then the council picks up their dead bodies, for...probably something evil, I’d assume

god and then dominus got even more fucked....

‘there are certain words you cant afford to lose’ ;_; REWIND....GODDD IM SAD 

GOD GOD GOD the reveal that minimus has CAMERAS in his EYES GODDDDDDDDDDDD that's so FUCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and rewinds reaction...ME TOO BITCH TF!!!!!!

all the ‘you are our eyes’ messages are even worse now huh!!

they did it while minimus was asleep...that's so fuckedddd

FUCKKKK and then rewind’s impassioned rebel speech, which I adore.....rewind ily sm...he’s such a good revolutionary, I wish we could've seen him leading an anti-funtionist rebellion....BUT THEN ‘oh? what about the back up?’ and its just like HHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and then his head starts smoking and we see another billboard, but this time it says ‘WE are your eyes’ - is the implication that everyone is now a surveilling spy, whether they like it or now, so now it’s ‘we?’ like, we’re all in it together, spying on each other! ooooof

also. this is like the third time rewind has died on-screen in this series lmao (well, if you count the fake-out death where he thought he’d be cancelled out during slaughterhouse)...he ALMOST died in issue 12 too....poor rewind

‘the custom-made now’ is such a great title. jro always killin it w/the titles

plus ‘elegant chaos’ is such a cool arc name. fucking epic 

M A N NNNNNNNN THIS ISSUE WAS BALLER...this ARC is baller....I talked a lot hvbhdjkhfndsak lmao but there's so much to talk abt!!! I love the look into the functionist universe, I love seeing alternate versions of characters and settings so much, and I love time travel, so this issue is basically made for me

plus I fuckign love alien robot politics and seeing the absolute control the govt has over cybertronian society in the functionist universe is fascinating - plus from a storytelling standpoint, I think it was brilliant to show the ‘other side,’ aka what things would've been like without the war...which is something ill talk about later when its more directly addressed in the story but man do I enjoy that 

basically I love this arccccc I cant wait to read more hhhhhhh

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #33: In Which I Write the Word ‘Quantum‘ 19 Times

Dang, I forgot what happened at the end of the last issue. It was pretty important, too, but I don’t have time to reread. Maybe the establishing shot can help me out?

Oh, that’s right, Rewind happened!

Everyone’s pretty jazzed that Rewind is here, non-exploded, and supposedly alive. Megatron carries this ridiculously small man over to a table, while Skids is busy admonishing Nightbeat for trying to put the pieces of this mystery together.

That’s one of the two first canonically, openly gay Transformers, Megatron. You bet your ass he’s important.

Nightbeat’s dragged Nautica over to look at that poster for Crosscut’s play they saw last issue. Together, they discover something interesting, and it’s not that Nightbeat’s chin has elongated to the point of absurdity. On this future ship, the play was completed and produced a mere few weeks after the initial launch of the Lost Light.

While this is going on, Rewind wakes up and asks Skids what the hell is going on. Skids, likely not wanting to poke at farm-fresh trauma, glosses over the fact that everyone on this ship was violently murdered, and that they found Rewind blacked out inside the hollowed torso of his brother-in-law.

…This is a dark story line.

You see, the joke here is that “Dark Cybertron” sucked major chrome.

Megatron reminds everyone that they’re still in grave danger every moment they stay aboard this ship, but Skids is more concerned with Rewind’s mental health. Which is sweet, but maybe not the thing to prioritize in such a precarious situation.

Rewind takes the fact that Megatron is an Autobot now pretty friggin’ well, as well as the introduction of gender into his species. That is, until Nightbeat, the king of social graces, saunters up to the scene to ask Rewind what the hell happened to the ship. He does get his answers, despite Rewind being horrified to the point of speechlessness.

Over at the hole in the wall, Nautica and Riptide are taking a gander at the quantum drums, which house the quantum foam for the quantum engines so quantum jumps can happen.

As Nautica explains the process by which quantum travel works, she realizes that the answer to what happened to everyone who disappeared was right in front of them this whole time.

Quantum, quantum, quantum- doesn’t even sound like a word anymore, does it?

The data slug Rewind made corroborates this theory, showing a series of events that definitely didn’t happen to the Lost Light we’ve been following throughout this story so far. The data slug contains this Rewind’s version of dead Rewind’s “Little Victories”, the travelogue that was never completed, where the question “are you happy?” revealed just how emotionally unhealthy most of the crew is. I’d like to imagine this Rewind’s film is called “Small Achievements”, or perhaps “Dear Fucking Lord, We’ve Been on this Trip for Three Hours and the Captain Has Been Killed by a Goddamned Soul-Vampire”, or maybe even “Where the FUCK is Our Therapist”.

The DJD came into the equation by way of someone having led them to the Lost Light. We get a flashback panel of the gorefest, in which Tarn appears to have learned how to fly, given the angle he’s coming from.

Because Rewind’s big thing in this series is being the guy who records stuff, the DJD take the opportunity to make some movies of their visit to the space yacht.

James, why do you keep getting Rewind involved with snuff films? I’m starting to get concerned.

Now, the thing about Rewind is that he’s almost always accompanied by his other half. Where is Chromedome, anyway?

He’s dead, that’s where.

Turns out, when you tell the DJD that you won’t do the thing they want you to do, they have a habit of doing nasty things in retaliation. Chromedome got stabbed in the friggin’ visor with his own finger needles, because Vos enjoys ironic deaths, I suppose. There’s some other stuff that’s implied to have happened, but we’ll get to that once we learn a little more about the DJD themselves.

While Rewind recounts the grisly tale of his husband’s demise, Riptide notes that the quantum foam has begun to spread at a remarkable rate. This is a bad thing, because that shit can and will explode, given half the chance, and this wreck is floating right above a potentially-inhabited planet.

Though I could have sworn we established that this planet was a Smartplanet, and therefore very much populated by students and staff. I don’t know. Maybe we conveniently forgot that, so we could make this a learning moment for Megatron.

Jiminy Christmas, Megs, do you even listen to yourself?

Skids, who has had a very long day of finding corpses and learning about quantum theory, snaps at Megatron, telling him that in order to actually be an Autobot, you have to have a little frickin’ compassion for those outside of your peer group.

Which is sort of contradictory to the Aequitas trials, the Killswitch debacle, the POW situation back on Cybertron, and whatever the fuck Prowl’s whole deal is, but maybe Skids is speaking about his own, personal relationship with being an Autobot. Hopefully so, otherwise he needs a class on critical thinking, STAT.

Never mind all of that though, because the problem just got a lot worse- the quantum foam has expanded to a point where any holes in the stuff are too small for the Rod Pod to get through. We’re going to have to get creative if we want to save the day.

Luckily, we’ve got a quantum duplicate of just about the tiniest little dude in the franchise here to do the job. Now we just need another, equally tiny little man, so the quantum drums can be shut off at the same time. Nautica commits more microaggressions, and this gives Getaway inspiration for a witty quip, which in turn gives Skids a brilliant idea.

The gang heads down to Brainstorm’s lab, to look for the mass displacement gun that was used for treating Ultra Magnus’s nanocon infestation back in the 2012 Annual. While they search, Nautica explains just why the hell the Lost Light disappeared in the first place. You see, quantum duplication acts on the Cain Instinct— it’s fine, as long as the duplicates don’t perceive each other. However, the moment contact is made, it says “oh man, guess I’m gonna have to end you” to one of the duplicates. The contact in this case happened when the Coffin Rodimus was brought aboard the ship.

Anything that wasn’t aboard the Lost Light at the point of the takeoff/explosion was never duplicated, and thus wasn’t erased from reality once shit started going to hell. This is why the Rod Pod is still around, and why the remaining cast are— well, the remaining cast.

While this conversation is going on, Nautica and Nightbeat uncover yet another dead body; it’s Brainstorm, and he’s a little underdressed.

…Someone run a paternity test, I think Cyclonus might be the father.

Also, Brainstorm’s a double agent.

Fucked up.

Getaway is furious that a Decepticon has been living on the same ship as him for the last six months, right under his proverbial nose. Even Megatron’s surprised, stating that Brainstorm isn’t usually who the recruiters aim for.

So, no mass displacement gun, and now they’re aware of the fact that there’s a traitor on the ship who’s had access to a LOT of weapon tech. It’s at this point that Megatron decides to stop lying by omission and tells everyone that he can mass-displace, since he used to turn into a handgun.

Smashcut to Megatron and Rewind floating out in space, the former now not much taller than the latter, as they traverse the web of quantum foam to get to the drums. Nautica instructs them from the Rod Pod. If this works, anything produced or connected to the quantum engine will be neutralized, and maybe we’ll even get the other Lost Light back! YAAAAAY!!!

Y’all really let this man go out there to fuckin’ kill himself for the greater good, didn’t you?

Rewind is honestly pretty chill with ceasing to be, seeing as he watched 200/+ people die today, including his long-time spouse.

Jesus. I’d say get him a therapist, but in order to do that, we’re going to have to wipe him off the map anyway.

Rewind asks Megatron if the Chromedome that isn’t his and his duplicate are still together. And I mean…

Luckily, Megatron has the good sense to lie.

With that, they flip the switches, and deactivate the drums.

And that’s a series wrap on Rewind! Congrats to Mr. James Roberts for the esteemed honor of burying the same gay twice!

Later on, everyone is back inside the Rod Pod, as their disappeared shipmates return from being nonexistent. Chromedome pops back in, and Skids is on him like a shark, telling him to go on the roof. Skids doesn’t even try to explain why. Which, fair. How the hell do you explain to someone that their dead husband’s quantum duplicate survived both a terrorist splinter cell attack, and the laws of quantum sci-fi bullshit crashing down on his tiny, tiny body, and that he’s right there on the roof waiting for them?

Welp, there goes the Chromedome/Dominus endgame. Shame, that.

Looks like Chromedome finally hit the threshold for having earned Roberts’ pity, and won’t be directly targeted by the plot for a little while. This isn’t something you see very often, so let’s really soak this in.

…Someone had to have told Rewind what happened to the other Rewind, right? I wonder what that conversation was like.

Back inside the ship, Blaster gets word that the Lost Light has reappeared. As they navigate towards it, Megatron requests that an encrypted call be made to Rodimus, to discuss the Brainstorm problem.

In the interim, Ravage is offered the opportunity to be a part of the crew, so he doesn’t have to keep skulking around in the shadows. We don’t get an answer from him, as our focus shifts over to Nightbeat and Nautica.

Nightbeaaaaaaaaaat, stop stating the themes of the comic verbatim! People are going to start thinking you’re a shonen anime protagonist!

Nightbeat’s somehow managed to keep ahold of the briefcase that they found on the other Lost Light. Unless Brainstorm’s boyfriend is in there, I don’t think this one was the work of Huey Lewis and the News’ hit single from the Back to the Future soundtrack.

Over on the Lost Light, specifically in Swerve’s, Brainstorm’s making his way through the crowd, briefcase held gentle like hamburger as he goes. He makes it to the bar, where Atomizer tells him he can’t have his briefcase in here. Brainstorm has what most would accept to be a healthy response to being told “no.”

It’s what I would do.

[sunnymegatron]

Sex-Positive Community Post-COVID w/Justine Cross - Ep 161

On Ep 161 of American Sex Podcast, Justine Cross helps us navigate our emotions around getting back to dating, traveling, and attending sex parties in a post(ish)-COVID world. Although many of us are vaccinated and the CDC has relaxed social distancing guidelines, we’re having unexpected mixed feelings about integrating back into our real-life sex-positive communities. Introverts that thrived online are anxious about their newfound virtual communities disappearing. Visually stunning live online performance has become its own art form that we just can’t duplicate in a real-life setting. Which in-person events do we go to? When? How do we throw our own vaccinated-only gatherings? Justine gives us the pep talk we all need plus lays out practical tips for event planning & navigating post-quarantine uncertainty.

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[legendsofthegffa]

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

A Satisfying Conclusion to the Sequel Trilogy, But an Underwhelming Finale to the Skywalker Saga

**SPOILERS!**

Well folks, here we are; four years ago, Episode VII came out and, despite leaning very heavily on nostalgia, still proved to be an exciting new beginning for Star Wars on the big screen. Three years ago, we saw Rogue One, which has proven to be a film that I enjoy more with each viewing. Two years ago, Episode VIII divided the fan base in a way not seen since Episode I, and proved to be an emotionally trying film for me personally. A year ago, we were without a Star Wars film, as Solo had already come out, and unfortunately had been caught up in the backlash against The Last Jedi, despite being a solid film in its own right. And now here we are with Episode IX; an exciting and enjoyable film, but one that stumbles to deliver on forty years worth of films and storytelling.

Rather than go into the plot, I want to touch on various aspects kind of like I did with my review of The Last Jedi; in this way, I can address some of my thoughts, critiques and predictions from that film as well as about the Sequel trilogy as a whole. First and foremost, let’s look at the biggest and probably most controversial aspect of the film: Palpatine. Making Darth Sidious the final villain was an excellent choice as a means of tying all nine films together; where it stumbles in his sudden and inexplicable return. As a hardcore Star Wars fan who liked the original story of the Emperor’s return in Legends, I was fine with them doing the same thing in the movies; while I do wish Snoke had returned instead (would have really been that hard to hand-wave Snoke’s return? It would have established him as having powers that Sidious didn’t, would have turned him from the joke that he became back into a serious villain, and would have given this trilogy its own unique feel, rather than the post-script that it ultimately was). Unfortunately, one of the core tenets of this film seems to be doing damage control for Episode VIII, rather than allowing it to tell its own story. While I appreciate that in other aspects, Snoke and Sidious is one place where I wish they had stayed the course rather than appeasing the really-sour fans that take their dislike of the film to new levels. 

So with that spiel out of the way, let’s get into Palpatine proper. We don’t get any definitive answer to how he returned, but the body he’s inhabiting his decrepit and corpse-like, suspended from a mechanical arm (which, in all of the reviews I have seen of the movie, have yet to mention that it looks like Megatron’s setup from Beast Machines), and missing fingers. My guess, and we’ll get into this more when we look at the quote-unquote “build-up” for his return in the EU, is that he managed to transfer his spirit into a clone body, but the body can’t handle Sidious’ dark side power and is wasting away. When Kylo comes to confront him, we learn that Sidious has been manipulating Ben for years, including creating and using Snoke as a puppet to train Kylo Ren and speaking to him as his grandfather, Darth Vader. His plan (such as it is), is to either get Kylo to kill Rey, before I can only presume draining his life-force after proving he was the stronger Force-user, or getting Rey to kill him so that his power will pass into her and she will take his place as Sith Empress of the galaxy. Ultimately, neither of those things happens, and he ends up draining the life of both Ben and Rey to regenerate himself, but even for Palpatine this seems like a messy and convoluted “plan”. 

Speaking of the “plan”, lets look at the hints that were laid since 2015, now that we know what it’s all been “leading towards”. We know that Palpatine was looking to expand into the Unknown Regions due to sensing a strong dark side-presence there; while at first we all believed this to be Snoke, but now it seems to be the planet of Exogal. What comes next is a muddled and uncertain, but at some point Sidious seems to have found this planet and set up his ultimate fail safes: a duplicate body for him to inhabit should he die, and a cult of ultra-loyal and dedicated Sith adherents to serve as his attendants, instruments and Final Order. The events of the Original Trilogy occur, and after Palpatine is killed by Vader, he puts some of his other contingency orders into effect: Operation: Cinder, and laying the groundwork for the First Order (which we now know has just been a front for the Final Order). The Emperor believed that if he was killed, then the Empire and the rest of the galaxy deserved to burn; had this gone on without a hitch, its likely Palpatine would have returned with his combined forces of ultra-loyal followers once he had regained his power and swept up the remnants of the galaxy beneath him. However, the New Republic and some of the Imperials interfered in his plans and prevented Operation: Cinder from being carried out, as well as forcing the Empire’s surrender at the Battle of Jakku.

Now, its likely that as with in Legends, Palpatine’s clone body couldn’t handle so much dark side power, and this is why he looked like a corpse in the film: if this is his one-and-only perfect clone body, then its probably been wasting away since day one, and even if he’s been able to keep transferring his body, its clear that this is not a long-term solution, unlike in Legends, where Palpatine was fine with transferring his essence to fresh clones until that plan was sabotaged by his supposedly-loyal underlings. Either way, with his body wasting away, Sidious needs to either transfer his power to his chosen vessel i.e. his granddaughter, Rey, or he needs both Rey and Kylo Ren so he can draw on their Force-bond (which is a whole other thing that I’m not even sure how to address in this review) to regenerate himself. Ultimately, he winds up nearly killing Rey and Ben Solo before Rey is able to redirect his Force Lightning back at him and cause him to destroy himself; his final defeat is one of the weaker aspects of the film, but I’ll get into that more in a bit. While Palpatine’s return was great, and can be made to fit with everything that has been leading up to Episode IX, there is no denying that at the end of the day Sidious’ inclusion will always feel like a messy addition at best, and empty fan service at worst.

Now, with that long-winded look at Palpatine out of the way, let’s move on to… a…different…Palpatine….who’s also a Skywalker…Rey, I mean Rey. Rey Palpatine is one of those base-breaking decisions that seem to be ever-present in Star Wars these days: some people feel that the evidence supports it, others feel that it’s a random pull for the sake of “subverting expectations”. Where do I stand? I think there is juuuust enough wiggle room within Episodes VII and VIII to leave it ambiguous enough for me to accept the answer. The biggest question I’ve seen is where the heck Palpatine’s son was this entire time, and I definitely think that that is an interesting story to be told, especially in regards as to whether or not he (and his wife, for that matter) were Force-sensitive. Me personally, I would have preferred it if Rey was the reincarnation of Anakin – being sent back to complete their task and bring balance to the Force. Some people also have issues with her rejecting her name and choosing to call herself a Skywalker but 1) at first, I honestly thought she was going to call herself Solo, just because Han was the first of the three she met and he seemed to have had the most influence on her (along with Luke) 2) I think the Hitler parallel is perfectly app here, most especially because Hitler was one of Lucas’ inspirations for Palpatine, and no one in their right mind would go around the galaxy with the last name that was equivalent to Hitler, regardless of how much good she did (for crying out loud, Leia was forced out of politics because the galaxy found out who her father was), so I don’t really have a problem with her changing it, and 3) with the Skywalker bloodline now (most likely) extinct, I think it’s good to have someone to carry that torch forward, along with the Jedi. As for her ultimate ending, well, that still remains to be seen. Rey Skywalker now has her own, orange lightsaber, and a brand-new galaxy to explore and rebuild. I’ve heard that Daisy Ridely is done with Star Wars, and while that makes me incredibly sad to hear since I really like the character, I can understand her decision to walk away from so much toxicity. Besides, I never thought that I would ever see an Episode VII, let alone be writing a review for Episode IX so who knows? All ways in motion is the future.

Now, lets move from one Skywalker to another, or rather, a Solo. I believed that Kylo Ren was irredeemable, after murdering his father and clearly trying to kill his uncle. I believed that the Skywalker legacy would be one of failure, and it was another problem that I had with the Sequel Trilogy as a whole, which flew in the face of both in the belief in redemption as well as Skywalker legacy of Legends. Thankfully, I can say that I was completely mistaken; while Kylo does have to pay with his life, he ultimately redeems both himself and his family in a very beautiful way. It starts after he and Rey engage in yet another battle, only for her to impale him with her lightsaber; Rey quickly uses the Force to heal and save Kylo, who is left stunned at both his brush with death and his salvation coming from someone he has been trying to kill for months. Kylo then has an internal discussion with a mental projection of Han where they repeat the dialogue leading up to Han’s death only this time, Ben does reject the darkness and discards his Sith saber. After rushing to aid Rey in her confrontation with the Emperor (which involves Ben completely destroying the Knights of Ren), Ben is unable to prevent Rey from dying while defeating Sidious, but after tapping into the Force, he is able to bring Rey back long enough for them to share a kiss before becoming one with the Force himself. 

Ben’s sacrifice is one of the best moments of the film and one of the extremely few ways it ties into the wider saga. Anakin fell to the dark side because he was afraid of losing Padme, which ultimately he did because of his anger and lust for power. His grandson, despite making many of the same mistakes as him, is able to do what Anakin wanted most in the entire galaxy: to save the one’s he loves. It does come at a price, namely that to bring someone back, someone else has to give up their own life-force, but it still brings us full circle in a very nice way that parallels Anakin’s journey. It also helps that in doing so, he helps redeem the Skywalker name by passing the torch so to speak and helping undo some of the damage he caused by aiding the Sith and the First Order. Ben’s redemption is one of the strongest moments of Episode IX, and it makes me a little sad that we wont get to see more of him in the future.

  So, now that we’ve gotten most of the important stuff covered, lets move on to some nitpicks before we look at the film as a whole as well as the Sequel Trilogy. The biggest wasted potential in this film to me was the Knights of Ren and, by extension, Luke’s Jedi Order. Ever since Episode VII, we’ve had only the most tantalizing hints about this dark side order, and when they finally appear on the big screen, it’s to stand around looking intimidating before getting slaughtered by Ben on his way to join Rey in confronting Palpatine. We no exactly zero about them, what their philosophy is, how they differ from Sith or why they decided to join Ben when he fell and turned against his uncle; maybe those that joined him were so appalled by Luke’s attempted murder that they cast off the identity of Jedi completely. The point is we don’t know anything about them, nor do we ever learn anything about Luke’s Order and how it differed from the old Jedi Order; from what I can gather it seems that Luke recreated the old Order nearly exactly rather than improving on it like he did in Legends, and I can’t exactly blame some people from going nuts after joining a religious extremist group.

 Just like with Phasma and Snoke, the Knights of Ren and Luke’s Jedi are treated as an afterthought, an interesting idea that other media can talk about, but the movies cant be bothered with, and that is not only frustrating, but poor writing as well; and I know that all of these have a parallels with stuff from the Original Trilogy and the Prequels as well, but that just leads me to the jagged bedrock of my complaint: not learning from past mistakes, and just shrugging shoulders and saying “good enough, let someone else fill in the details.” The same also holds true for the final battle of the film; compared to the space battles of Episode III and VI, the one here is again, treated as almost an afterthought – something that needs to be there, but only serves as a backdrop to what’s going on with Palpatine. This battle includes fleets, ships and troops in almost never before seen numbers, and yet we only get a few snippets of action and shots here and there; when the reinforcements arrive, they fill out the screen, but none of them do anything special, or memorable or impressive. They go through all that trouble of having such an immense fleet, only for 95-99% of the action take place off screen. As with Palpatine’s defeat, the massive fleet had great build-up and potential, but fizzled out rather than concluding with a bang. 

Speaking of the final battle, lets talk about the other half of that coin and its own lackluster finish. We’ve already gone over how Palpatine is defeated, but what I and so many other fans lamented was that no Force ghosts appeared, only spoke to Rey, and that the one appearance that would have really worked and helped give the film that sense of finality that it’s been claiming to represent, would have been an appearance by Anakin Skywalker. Seeing Anakin again after a decade-and-a-half since Episode III would have been incredible, given hardcore fans something special, and made sense within the story. We do hear him speak directly to Rey, but I have to wonder if either J.J. didn’t want to do it so as to keep the focus on Rey and her purpose/identity as All-the-Jedi-In-One, or maybe Hayden decided he didn’t want do it (and I cant say I blame him, after how toxic members of this Fandom treated him), but having three actors and characters from each of the three eras would have been a treat for everyone, and it’s yet another misstep that the film made.

So, overall, how do I feel about Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker? While I can appreciate everything that we got and how much it seems like they really wanted to repair the damage The Last Jedi did to the fanbase, I cant help but wonder at what could have been: what if the trilogy had been planned out from the start, or at least handled by one unifying creative director? Either way, it seems like what really hurt this trilogy was lack of direction and having to play catch-up when you only have half the pieces of the puzzle. In turns of the grand culmination of the Skywalker Saga…it’s not; it’s a satisfying conclusion to its own trilogy of stories, but in terms of being the grand culmination of forty years worth of stories, it just isn’t. If it was, it would have been treated that way and actually tied more of the three trilogies together instead of relying on nostalgia to round out the story the same way it began with Episode VII. I know this sounds like I didn’t like the movie, but I did: when I left the theater I was pleased with what I had just seen, and excited to see where the future was going to take these characters (well, mostly Rey, but that’s because Poe is barely involved in the story and poor Finn gets almost nothing to do – I heard how his entire character has been distilled into “the guy who shouts ‘whoo!’”, which is entirely apt and correct and yet another major misstep with this series since we finally have a character that was a former stormtooper, and they do nothing with him). While there are currently no plans for future films with these characters, there was a time when we all thought we would never, ever ever, ever see an Episode VII either, so I hold out hope that someday, these characters will return to pass the torch off to the next generation someday. 

Final Score: 7.5/10

*Bonus*

My Star Wars 11 Films Rankings

Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope

Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars: Rogue One

Star Wars: Solo

Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace

[autobot-ratchet]

Cyberverse season 2 episode 18!!!!!!!!

oH A SPACE BRIDGE???? JUST OUT HERE FLOATING AROUND

QUINTESSON?????? EXCUSE ME????? #1 ARE WE BRINGING THOSE BACK AND #2 THAT’S NOT HOW YOU PRONOUNCE IT

CHROMIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I WAS WONDERING WHERE YOU’D GONE

unspace???? are we fucking with spacetime now hell yeah let’s get convoluted lmAO

SHATTERED GLASS??!??!?!?? IS THIS WHERE WE’RE GOING WITH THIS

omg or are we doing yet another mtmte-reminiscent thing like the duplicate Lost Light made by a quantum fuckup??? whatever this is I love it I’m so in lmAO

IT REALLY IS LIKE THE DUPLICATE LOST LIGHT HOLY SHIT ...there’s not a DJD in this continuity is there lmAO

I love this, I love how brain-fucky this is 

HOT ROD FLIRTS WITH HIMSELF I’M GONNA DIE OF COURSE HE DOES

I fucking love this lmAO just hearing “alternate universes” makes my heart soar this really is like the closest thing to a mtmte cartoon there is lmAO

THERE’S A THIRD???? ARE WE JUST GONNA GET OVERRUN WITH ALTERNATE UNIVERSE DUPLICATES

omg that’s freaky oh NO

OH GOD I WAS RIGHT THERE ARE SO MANY MORE DUPLICATES

I like how there’s just. one singular universe where Rack n’ Ruin are the captains. just the one

we’re all going to our respective Cybertrons right okay yeah lmAO ten whole Optimus Primes show up at cybertron and Megatron has a heart attack

oh nO THEY HAVE HER CAPTURED???? OH NO

what, did Megatron just get bored of waiting like “Optimus’s road trip is taking too long we need to blackmail him into getting here faster I need to gloat NOW”

aww, Optimus’s smile was cute, too bad we already know shit’s about to go down

oh god lmAO THE CREDITS LIST ALL THE VERSIONS OF THE CHARACTERS BEING PLAYED “Jacob Tillman as Optimus Prime, Optimus Prime 2, Optimus Prime 3, Optimus Prime 4, Optimus Pri”

yoooOOOOO I CAN’T WAIT FOR SEASON 3!!! (I assume this is the end of season 2 since season 1 was 18 episodes) HELL YEAH