Leo frowns at his phone.
Or more specifically, at the test on his phone.
Around him, he hears the sound of his brothers tapping their own devices, much faster than he is. Looking up just makes Leo feel worse about his own progress - or lack-thereof.
Mikey’s the fastest, speeding through the test like nobody’s business. He’d been the one to make them all do this stupid test in the first place, so it makes sense that he’s having a blast.
Raph’s slower than Mikey is, but he’s still clearly answering the questions at a steady pace. Sometimes he looks unsure, but he powers through anyway.
Donnie often looks frustrated, which relieves Leo somewhat because at least someone is struggling like him. But that “struggle” isn’t nearly as big as his own, considering that Donnie is answering about as fast as Raph is.
Leo turns his gaze back down to his own test. He’s still near the beginning, he thinks.
He’d put the same answer for the past seven questions - the middle of the road answer, neither a “yes” or a “no.” Then, whenever he does come across one that is more one direction than the other, he second guesses himself and restarts the test!
Sure, there are a few he could definitely give a yes or a no to, but…never the “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” that the test seemed to want from him.
He eyes his twin sitting nearby, the softshell absorbed in the test. Maybe Leo should copy what Donnie put for some of these…
“DONE!” Mikey’s shout makes Leo freeze in place just as he started to lean over.
“What?” Donnie squawks, “No way you’re already finished, you must’ve been cheating!”
“It’s a personality test, Dee!” Mikey stuck his tongue out, “You can’t cheat at those!”
…
Leo settles back into his seat.
Ignoring Donnie’s mutterings about how it was “just because it’s not an academic test” that he didn’t finish first, Raph smiles encouragingly at Mikey.
“Hey, good job! So what’d you get, Mike?”
Mikey looks back down at his test, reading aloud, “Says that I got the “Campaigner”!”
“What’s that mean?” Leo asks, his phone screen going dark.
“Apparently, I’m an “enthusiastic, creative, and sociable free-spirit”.” Mikey reads, smiling at them, “You think it fits?”
“Oh, to a T, bro!” Leo laughs, giving Mikey a thumbs up, making Mikey’s smile grow larger.
Inside, Leo was feeling a lot more mixed about this. He has no idea how Mikey knew himself so well. Maybe Donnie was right and Mikey did cheat, because how could he answer those questions so easily?
Leo’s phone burns in his hand. He keeps it locked.
“Wow, that really is you.” Raph says, his eyes flitting back and forth between his own test and Mikey, “Do you think it fits?”
“I guess? It’s fun to see at least!” Mikey shrugs with a grin.
“Hold on, I think…” Raph makes a noise of satisfaction, “Okay, done!”
“Sigh, now I’m relegated to the straggler group.” Donnie grumbles, his thumbs moving faster as he tries rushing through the questions.
“Ooh, what’d you get Raph?” Mikey asks, practically bouncing in curiosity.
“Says, uh…I got something called the “Consul”?” He squints his eyes to read more, “Uh, “caring, social, and community-minded.””
“Sounds about right to me.” Leo nods. Can’t be more “community-minded” than being a hero.
“Yeah, no one’s more caring than you, Raphie!” Mikey says, moving to lean across Raph’s shell.
“You do put the community in mind, that’s for sure.” Donnie states, not looking up.
Raph chuckles, a bit embarrassed, “Aw, thanks. It’s just some test, but it feels kinda good to hear that.”
Just a test. Right.
Leo unlocks his screen.
The test stares back at him.
Right. Okay. He can do this. He can.
The screen ends up going dark again.
Frustration builds up in Leo. Was he even halfway done with the test? At this rate, soon even Donnie will-
“FINISHED.”
Leo unlocks his phone.
“What’d you get, DonTon?” Leo asks as his thumb taps the top right of the screen.
Donnie puffs up proudly, a self sure grin on his face, “I got the result “Logician” which states that I, obviously, am an “innovative inventor with a thirst for knowledge.” Truly could not have described me better, if I do say so myself.”
“It is pretty accurate.” Raph agrees with a nod, “Even calls you an inventor, so extra accurate.”
“Super accurate.” Mikey jumps in, eyes shining.
“Yes, yes, almost like reading my own character synopsis.” Donnie’s grin had not dwindled since the word “innovative” had left his mouth.
Leo just nods along, eyes on his own screen as he skims the words. “Yeah, kinda creepy how close it got. Could have called you a nerd for extra accuracy, though.”
Donnie turns to him, eyes narrowing, “Have you even finished your test? I can think of a few words that’d describe you fairly well.”
“Test-y, huh?”
Before Donnie can strangle Leo, Raph cuts in.
“Ok, ok, calm it down, guys.” He rolls his eyes before turning to Leo. “But really, you’re not done yet?”
“Leo’s taking this self reflection seriously.” Mikey sports a faux intellectual expression as he gives a jokingly serious nod. “Maybe we all should’ve taken our time.”
“Says the one who sped through the whole thing in a record time.” Donnie mutters.
Leo waves them all off, “Nah, I finished it ages ago.”
He grins when Donnie immediately shoots him a suspicious glare. “Oh, you did, did you? Then what could you have possibly gotten, Nardo?”
“I’m glad you asked!” Leo clears his throat, “Neon Leon just so happens to be an “Entertainer.””
“Ah. That confirms it. This test is meaningless.” Donnie drones.
“Hey-“
“What’s an Entertainer like?” Mikey asks with a tilt of his head, still hanging off of Raph’s shell.
“Glad you asked, Miguel!” Leo exclaims, “It says that “life is never boring” around yours truly~”
He emphasizes this “result” of his by waving his phone with said “result” on screen.
It’s just an image he found of his chosen personality result, but they don’t need to know that.
Raph nods slowly, “Well, I guess that’s true…”
“”Never boring” is one way to put it.” Donnie hums.
“You are pretty fun, Leo!” Mikey says emphatically, because he’s great like that.
“Thank you, thank you, life of the party, right here.” Leo grins, pointing both thumbs at himself.
He’s careful not to go too overboard with it, or else it might tip someone off.
Not that it…really matters. It’s just a test. Like Raph said.
As the topic around him shifts to something else, jumping away from this brief activity as fast as any other among them, Leo finds himself unlocking his phone and pulling up the test again.
Unanswered questions stare at him. He knows what answers Lou Jitsu would pick. He knows what answers Jupiter Jim would pick. Hell, he knows exactly what answers his brothers would pick.
He doesn’t know what answers Leonardo would pick.
Leo stares at the test for a second longer, before he exits the site and throws himself into the conversation happening around him.
It’s just a stupid test, nothing to worry about.
Just a test…
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I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.
I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.
The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...
Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.
I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.
And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?
It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.
To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.
In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.
Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.
So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.
What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.
Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?
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my favourite headcanon when dealing with whatever the hell mcyt’s names are is that everyone just has a fucking universe assigned string of characters (the username) which everyone knows and is what the universe calls you by, but serves no actual functional purpose by itself
in society, the username is used as the legal name because its convenient - at any given point a username is unique to one person and you can easily identify someone by username
but obviously, the username is random and as a casual name it may not work - “Grian” is a fine name but “BdoubleO100” is a nightmare to say, so people develop nicknames based off these. some people go as far to have nicknames completely divorced from their username - e.g. “Jimmy” for “SolidarityGaming”
usernames probably bring up a lot of questions. they seem random, not affected by environmental or genetic factors in any discernible way. they’re more likely to contain words - or things that are kind of like words - than a truly random string of letters. I imagine there being a lot of meaning ascribed to them - like certain numbers symbolising certain things or certain words detailing something for your future. example: people with “7” in their name are more serious (supposedly. it’s kind of equivalent to our zodiac signs. belief varies)
I like to think about all the implications of this naming system. xB off-handedly said that Joel’s username is “SmallishBeans” so he’ll only be calling him “Beans” and not “Joel”, does this imply that some people believe your nickname must be derived by your username and consider nicknames that aren’t illegitimate? what about people that want to change their username? there’d be less name changes than our world (since names aren’t family or gender related) but it’s certainly possible (as you change the username of your minecraft account), but is there a stigma against it? rejecting the very name the universe gave you? are “rare” names (such as with small character count or palindrome etc) considered lucky or unusual?
(using the term “nickname” for ease of understanding because that’s our closest equivalent but in-universe this isn’t really what they are. better term “casual name”? “nickname” implies it isn’t your real name or is a cute shortening, whilst this would definitely be considered your name, just one of two types)
i just have… thoughts.
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