wifeguycyclonus

[wifeguycyclonus]

Guys.

Cybertron, but the surface and the buildings are shaped like bismuth crystals...

Look at how pretty it is please!!!!!

#worldbuilding

[wifeguycyclonus]

(227) Following a non-critical data breach in the Victory (caused by Rumble and Frenzy), the local humans discover and disseminate Megatron's polemic poetry and it strikes a chord with broad swathes of the population.

This brings the struggle of the Cybertronian civil war into the limelight and exposes both Autobot and Decepticon policy to more aggressive interrogation from human sources than previously. Now, instead of simply accepting that the Decepticons are just assholes who are attacking power sources and the Autobots are the staunch protectors of humanity, the humans have loud, passionate, violent opinions of their own about who has the right of things.

The humans can accomplish much in short periods and can provide the Decepticons with terrain and resource advantages. So Megatron, initially dismissive of the human factor, pivots with the ballerina-like grace of someone who has been manipulating crowds for longer than humans have existed. (Not all Decepticons are as adaptive.)

Optimus Prime, on the other hand, slowly feels like he's descending into some Dali-esque surrealist nightmare. "Do you understand," he asks, giving each word its due deliberation before he syntheises it, "that Megatron's literary accomplishments — though tremendous — will not prevent him from killing you all when he cyberforms your planet?"

#scvsjsjdkdl #ya i feel like this matches with fans too lol #just cuz maybe megatron preached about equality or whatever at one point doesnt mean he ever believed it himself #or that he’ll stick to it even if he did believe it once #like yeah its neat if hes also moral basis but also he’s crazy and genocidal so :/ #sorry that feels off topic #ideas

[wifeguycyclonus]

I think naive, inexperienced Orion Pax (aligned verse) works better if you lean into Alpha Trion (intentionally or otherwise) grooming him into being Like That. Cuz in aligned, Orion was taken in by Alpha Trion after living in the wild for awhile to become a middle class archivist and that’s a whole bucket of weirdness already, so I would imagine Alpha Trion would want Orion to keep his head down. He can look, he can question, but he cannot step outside his station and actually do anything.

maybe Trion does it maliciously, maybe he’s just trying to protect Orion until the day he becomes Prime, but either way I think it’s safe to say Orion and later Optimus is a weird, stunted guy because of it. I think that’s part of why Optimus is so locked by indecision and reaction rather than being proactive, especially when you recall the last (or rather, the first) time he was proactive, he made friends with the guy who ended up destroying their planet :/

also I think naive, inexperienced Orion Pax works better when you remember introverts and sheltered ppl are fucking weird, not uwu

#now of course a lot of orion’s backstory is not in tfp and really who has read any of the extra stuff #i myself have only read the exodus novel #so i dont blame or accuse anyone who writes uwu orion #its just not to my taste #rin.talks #orion pax

[wifeguycyclonus]

(223) It's pre-war Cybertron. Newly admitted lawyer, Ultra Magnus, has been called upon to offer a legal defence to Orion Pax, a wrongly appointed Prime — which Ultra Magnus didn't even know could happen, as there's no precedent. He has been accused of incitement to violence, sedition and, worst of all, stealing the primacy. This last carries the death sentence.

"It's a formality," the primal guards assure him, when Ultra Magnus is assigned the case. At the time, he believes them. "He's definitely guilty. It'll be an easy first case for you. High profile, too."

"I am," says the former Orion Pax serenely, when Ultra Magnus finally gets to meets him after three denied requests. He seems like a gentle sort, despite his heavy new frame. Ultra Magnus believes him when he pauses and says: "At least I'm guilty of sedition, anyway."

"It is the right of a Prime to guide the state — or to seek to redress the wrongs of government, when it errs," growls Megatronus of Kaon, whose enormous spiky shape emerges from the shadows when Ultra Magnus is driving home too late at night. (He does not seem a gentle sort.) And, unfortunately, Ultra Magnus believes him, too, when he says: "Know this: if you fail, it will be war."

#wait does megs want orion to be prime? or no? #either way is interesting #ideas

[wifeguycyclonus]

im curious about tf one’s choice to have bots unable to transform if they’re a low enough caste. what gave them that idea? what other implications does it have? do the quintessons factor into it at all? are they built without t-cogs or are the t-cogs taken from them sometime after they’re “born”? many questions….

#tf one #rin.talks

[wifeguycyclonus]

i havent seen a cap of it yet but im thinking about Shockwave’s torso in the tf one trailer. looks like a corset or smth….

#man. #rin.talks

[wifeguycyclonus]

I argue that if you take the silliness out of transformers then it’d lose its charm cause transformers has always been know to get a bit goofy and you really cant ignore that facet of the franchise

#I'd even argue that robots who turn into cars is an inherently silly idea #so any attempt at making a fully serious dark n gritty tf story just isn't going to work #the concepts clash too hard #it's got to have some humour in order to work #<- prev tags #tf one #untagged #(reblogged to the wrong blog rip)

[wifeguycyclonus]

(222) Orion Pax meets Megatron at an estate sale, where they're both trying to find something of value in the late Grindgear's enormous — and largely worthless — collection of datapads.

Orion has no notion that he's bickering over the literary value of a half-corrupted verse journal with the Scourge of Kaon, and, in a fit of wild romantic whimsy, Megatron simply... does not tell him. I mean, why would it even be relevant, really?

They've agreed to meet up next week, and this little moment of whimsy is about to cause Megatron no end of trouble...

#megop #ideas

[wifeguycyclonus]

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I'VE WANTED A TRANSFORMERS STORY LIKE THIS!!!!

i feel like we've been getting Young Dumb Optimus origin stories a lot lately which is great, love to see it, but I've been longing for a Young Dumb Megatron origin too. It's like Hasbro thinks he always has to be presented as a highly skilled and experienced warlord right from the start or he won't be cool enough, but imo it's equally if not more fun and interesting to actually see the journey that takes him from Some Guy to the Megatron. I can't wait to see and the shenanigans these idiots (affectionate) get up to!

#mood same #tf one

[wifeguycyclonus]

#!!! #tf one

[wifeguycyclonus]

lots to be said about the tf one trailer but we have the waves and seekers

#oh i missed all of them rip #thank u for the caps 🙏 #tf one

[wifeguycyclonus]

okay so one of the things i really like about tf one already is that there is distinctly an underground city type thing going on. they can see the underside of the surface above them and that’s so neat imo. Cybertron is shown to have big hollows in it all the way back to g1 so it’s cool to see that coming into play, ppl seem to forget about it

#tf one #rin.talks

[wifeguycyclonus]

Behold…

✨WORLDBUILDING✨

Excuse me as I go insane over the fact that Cybertron is an inorganic-organic hybrid planet

#gonna fuckin chew on this #tf one #worldbuilding

[wifeguycyclonus]

hi? the tf one trailer?? oh my god??? it looks so cool, the animation is smooth and the colors are vibrant, i’m excited? a little wary about what they might’ve done with the story BUT i will give it the benefit of the doubt until I see it for myself. the only thing that’s kinda got me on edge is the marvel-esque humor? that’s kinda… eh. but again, benefit of the doubt. the trailer made me laugh so i dont wanna hate it yet lol totally gonna go see it for my birthday

#tf one #rin.talks

[wifeguycyclonus]

(221) Canon divergence: Knock Out defects a hot second earlier, which allows the Autobots to turn HIM into the guy who's left supervising Jack, Miko and Raf while they run off to get into highly dangerous combat scenarios. Knock Out's finish is preserved but his dignity is in tatters.

#lol #ideas

[wifeguycyclonus]

(219) Today's fic idea is: envision a scenario in which June Darby meets and teams up with your choice of Decepticon situational ally, before she knows Jack is involved with the Autobots.

#ideas

[wifeguycyclonus]

People are raving about Skybound Transformers and I'm just sitting here like "This comic is so committed to being G1 But Edgy that it's not actually bothering to develop its characters before they get killed off."

Optimus and to a lesser extent Cliffjumper are the only ones who feel at all more three-dimensional than their G1 toy bios. I feel like I know more about fucking G.I. Joe Man than I do about this version of Starscream, who was the main villain of the comic until last issue.

Like, what do we know about Skybound Starscream's personality? He likes killing people and he was allegedly friends with Jetfire. I say 'allegedly' because he lasts all of a page before killing Jetfire for not immediately throwing in with the Decepticons. There's not even a token attempt at manipulation, the fucking cartoon did more with this idea than Skybound did.

The badly-animated 23-minute toy commercial with the budget of two coffee beans and some pocket lint is not a high bar to clear.

And hey, how about a different example? How about Skywarp's sorta-death?

Skywarp gets ripped apart in Issue 4, and used to repair Teletraan 1 so the Decepticons can revive more of their guys. But... why? They're currently surrounded by dozens of corpses they could cannibalise instead, many of whom are much less useful to the cause than the teleporting fighter jet. Like fuck, you've got three of Reflector and he's nearly always useless. The only reason this doesn't immediately backfire on Soundwave is that when the Autobots retake the Ark, Wheeljack accidentally reactivates what's left of Skywarp's brain and he starts blocking their efforts to revive more Autobots. Congratulates my guy, you turned the teleporting fighter jet into a minor software bug, and him being anything besides a corpse wasn't even intentional.

But you can make this work. Let's say that there's a reason Soundwave needs Skywarp gone. Maybe Skywarp, as a Seeker, is ultra-loyal to Starscream, and being as powerful as he is, makes Screamer's position as the leader of the Decepticons basically unassailable. The only way Soundwave can depose Starscream is to first trick him into helping eliminate Skywarp.

And like that, all three Decepticons get some extra character. Soundwave's manipulative side is put on display, an aspect of his character that often gets left out. Starscream's cruelty and ineptitude as leader is elaborated on by demonstrating that he doesn't reward loyalty, being more likely to backstab even someone who has always had his back if he's convinced it will benefit him. Skywarp gets a personality trait before he's violently killed, and now him dying means something other than another demonstration of weirdly organic robo-gore.

Instead we get "Starscream, we need to kill one of our most dangerous soldiers instead of literally any of these other assholes we've got lying around. I am a better leader because this worked out for me accidentally."

#havent read any of the skybound stuff yet so this is kinda disappointing to hear :/ #writers can have aggressive violence if they really want it but yeah it just gets boring and desensitized if not done well #transformers skybound #skybound spoilers #criticisms