anarchomando

[anarchomando]

For the haunted au I had an devilish little thought. Has Optimus ever had a really bad time and when the primes try to give him advice he just shouts "you guy's FAILED!" Like for all their wisdom they couldn't beat the quintisons or see Sentinels betrayal coming?

He feels bad but in his spark he wishes HE didn't have to do what THEY couldn't.

absolutely evil thought that was inflicted upon me months ago and that i finally get to inflict upon the rest of y'all OTL

i can see it happening with the caveat that he immediately regrets saying it. but it's too late. it's the kind of thing you say in the heat of the moment and then feel the ground drop under your feet because you never meant to say it out loud. but now it's out there and you can never unsay it.

it's just. a bad situation all around :(

haunted au

[anarchomando]

Hmmm in the haunted au does Optimus pick up any of the Primes mannerisms/quirks?

I feel like the Decepticons would slowly piece together that Op can communicate with the primes via the matrix. They can see glimpses of the primes in how he acts because Optimus is pretty much with them 24/7.

yeah <33 at best it makes him sound like an old man. at worst, it makes people see ghosts :)

haunted au

[anarchomando]

Loss of faith.

However, can it really be called loss of faith when Optimus was not a believer to begin with?

Optimus Prime has never been really religious. What also factors in is that when he took the Matrix, he had a very revealing experience. (Autocracy #9)

One of the main things that can escape people in Optimus’ dialogue as he takes the Matrix is that he doesn’t feel any higher precense. He feels every other Cybertronians, those on the planet and those who are at the lost colonies. He knows them all, their feelings, and can even pick up the individuals when they are one of the few that think differently and have hope searing through them.

It is with that clarity and perspective that Optimus decides to stop fighting in the name of a dying government and outdated ideals, and start fighting for a better tomorrow, for a better future.

Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.

That’s the first time he says that. Those are the ideals that he stand behind over and over again. He protects the Earth from the Decepticons despite the fact that Earth tried to destroy the Autobots and Decepticons alike.

And that’s the ideal he stands behind all the time. With the Matrix in him he knows everyone. And even for that, he never professes knowing of an higher power. He never calls out Primus or the Allspark.

And then it happens.

Megatron deals a near-fatal blow to Optimus Prime and tears the Matrix of Leadership out of him in triumph. As Optimus then risks what remains of his life to save the rest of the Autobots, he’s near death.

And Kup summarizes Optimus Prime’s position in the war.

And what role the Matrix has in the war as well. The war has evolved to the point where the “Wisdom” of the Matrix is taken as absolute and is one of the two points of cohesion among the Autobots.

And then Optimus Prime is fixed up by Kup’s orders, sacrificing their spaceship in the meantime only so that the Autobots will not fracture. He leads the Autobots in a battle with the Swarm, and then after an improbable rescue by Omega Surpreme, he and the Autobots make battle at the Megatron and the Decepticons back on Earth.

As near defeat, unseen sniper distracts Megatron by shooting him in the face, allowing Optimus to defeat Megatron handily. This is what Optimus says is the end of the four million year war. It wasn’t the wisdom from the Matrix, Megatron could be defeated even though he had the Matrix, there was no divine intervention, just a small organic using Cybertronian technology to merely distract Megatron so that Optimus could gather himself and deal the final blow in the war.

The rest of the war becomes mere skirmish as Optimus has to deal with the fact that he and the Autobots nearly made war on the humans while the Decepticons were nearly cannibalizing each other as Megatron’s disappearance as a leader hit them hard. There we saw what could have happened to the Autobots had Optimus expired.

And then we have Hot Rod.

Hot Rod has always been a believer. From Nyon, the home of the Acropolex which has a shrine to the Matrix of Leadership and the Knights of Cybertron.

And not once does his faith waver. He claims the Matrix from Starscream, only to be blasted away into space by Megatron.His injuries would have been fatal if the Matrix hadn’t bonded with him and acted as life support.

Even if he had bonded with the Matrix, he still returned it to Optimus Prime.

And he was the one who made Optimus Prime have faith.

What happens first is that Optimus asks Rodimus a question, if only to have a frame of reference.

Which is far from what Optimus expected, given that his own experience was vastly different.

Because if Optimus’ own interpretation of the pain was not right, given that Rodimus was not given the same “warning”, then why did it hurt?

Optimus has to face the fact that he’s not supposed to have Matrix Affinity. Which further cements the Matrix as a tool rather than a holy relic. Because if Optimus could carry it and still feel the whole of Cybertron and Cybertronians, then what is the Matrix really?

An object. A piece of technology.

Something that despite Rodimus’ urging and faith shouldn’t be able to restore Vector Sigma and Cybertron.

And Optimus takes the plunge regardless of that, given that they were all going to die anyway if it didn’t work. And he emerges whole, Vector Sigma and Cybertron not destroyed yet not unscathed as it appears as an alien world.

And the Matrix of Leadership, the Creation Matrix, split in two, inert. And a half of it then later destroyed.

Because which is more comfortable to believe? That you destroyed some ancient technology no one could understand, or you destroyed the last vestiges of the legacy of the past?

[anarchomando]

The Villains of Transformers.

This seems like a basic non-question. We got Unicron as the world-ending threat, and various incarnations of Megatron doing the rest of the job to keep the threat going. However, there is another angle to it.

Often we hear the phrase “write what you know”. Which seems simple enough, that you got experience with something that you can write it pretty true. But what does one know about mechanical aliens that have been fighting a war for 4 million years?

But the various writers of the Transformers franchise throughout the years have written what they know. There is an overarching threat in each one of the transformers incarnations that is different from the Megatron the Tyrant or the Planet-eating Unicron. It’s more like background noise, providing the constant that is happening, a crutch when writing.

Unfortunately I won’t be touching on Japanese produced media, I haven’t studied the history of Japan to know the nuanced details of culture background noise or incidental historic events to comment on Headmaster, Victory, RID2001, Unicron Trilogy and any other that I have missed.

I will also skip the Marvel, Dreamwave and FunPub comics/media as I’ve not read them. Cyberverse and the second IDW release are skipped as they are pretty recent additions. Rescue Bots and Rescue Bots Academy is skipped as well due to simplicity.

The main theme of the G1 cartoon is energy shortage. Cybertron is out of Energon, they flee Cybertron to find more energy. The Decepticons set up base on Earth because the humans have begun to harness the energy of their planet, allowing easy access to said energy and to ship it home.

This doesn’t come out of nowhere. In fact, most people have heard of the precursor in passing. The time when cars were lined up at the gas stations.

1979 was a bad shock for the oil market. Iran revolted, causing oil production to shrink a bit and caused panic, which in turned caused the prices of oil to rise dramatically. This was also the year where the Three Mile Island Accident happened, so people got vary of nuclear power. Gas rationing was discussed, and in some states actually implemented. Then recession hit in the wake of this.

The effects of the oil crisis and the following recession were still felt, so a cartoon about an energy crisis was very easy to write.

Beast Wars is an odd one to analyse. It came as the Transformers franchise was dying, and Hasbro was desperate to reinvent Transformers for the new kids. The appeal of cars turning into robots was no longer around, but making them animals was the push Hasbro needed to refresh the Transformers.

So we end up with the beginning basically rehashing the Transformers cartoon, but when the overarching plot hits, when the threads get revealed after a whole season of basically filler, we find the inspiration that the writers had. This time, it is not energy crisis, in 1996 we had put that behind us.

We have Megatron leading a team trying to restore the Decepticons as rightful rulers via time travel. We then discover he had actually gone against the so-called Tripredacus Council, the fractured Predacon Alliance who were biding their time and see the usefulness of what Megatron is trying to accomplish. In order to gain more power without breaking the peace made with the Pax Cybertronia, they use secret agents and secret police.

This is very familiar to a lot of people who haven’t seen Beast Wars or heard of it. This is Russia.

In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and with that the Cold War ended. Peace was had. But as Russia threw off the communism ties from them, the ruling body still needed to exert control over the nation, and to broaden their influence beyond their borders. Russia went from Communism to Mafia-like control, using secret police, subtle threats and various other shady things. People saw what was going on, and with the new fear they were facing, they made it known in the media.

Beast Machines is a bit easier to figure out compared to its predecessor. It’s mostly because the message of Beast Machines resonates strongly today. 

Beast Machines came shortly after Beast Wars, as the toyline was trying to go away from the purely animal transformers and going for more mechanical look. But how do you really bridge those together?

At the tail end of the 80ies, environmentalism was on the rise. There was an undercurrent of that happening in Beast Wars, but in Beast Machines it had much more weight to it. With Megatron wanting to stamp out any biological influences from Cybertron, ready to eradicate any traces of it and mass-producing purely mechanical beings to repopulate Cybertron. While Optimus Primal was embracing the biological side of it, becoming sort of a guru through the Oracle.

The rise of industrialism is frightening prospect, seeing the nature retreat into near nothingness, and seeing the callousness of the industry just ignore it completely in favour for profits. But there was no denying that industrialism was there to stay, so while it is the main fear of the series, the message of the series was not to abolish it but to tame it, not let it out of control and make sure that the environment was put on equal grounds to it.

Animated is a strong reboot like Beast Wars was, coming at the same time as the Michael Bay films. Japanese production had taken over after Beast Machines finished, but Hasbro sought to retake the American market with media that they controlled. Importing Anime and dubbing it was all and good, but if they had complete control, they would have better chance to make it appeal to the market they wanted, the Western one.

It’s 2007. Following 9/11 the USA goes to war. And it is still going, with a certain hopelessness attached to it as people are getting more and more jaded by it. But most people never really felt the impact, only heard about it. There was no draft, there was no conscription. People joined the military, and those who came back came back either just a little bit off, or really suffering, and couldn’t get proper help.

Transformers Animated touches on civilians being basically forced into the war, against foes that were thought to be defeated long ago. It touches on the hardship of those civilians as they are part of it, feeling both the elation of being thought as heroes, and feeling the terror of the situation that they are in. A highlight of this is the episode Thrill of the Hunt, which came rather early, and touched on themes that are not common to see in media aimed at children, looking at Ratchet going too far, and suffering from some form of PTSD as well.

While the actual war had never visited the US or the spacebridge repair crew, the impact of it was felt on them, with all the horrors that entails.

Transformers Animated and first Michael Bay Transformers film came out on the same year. Yet the themes of the film series is far from what Animated did. One part of it is that Hollywood movies are more constricted as they have to appeal to a whole lot of audience in order to gain any return from the production cost. So everything is analysed in detail, making sure that nothing would alienate the vast majority of the Western World. We are in fact seeing it more obviously as China is growing stronger as a consumer market for Hollywood movies, and we see how the movies are made to appeal to that market as well.

So doing a commentary on the Afghanistan war like Transformers Animated did was out of the question. But it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a fear in the movie like in anything else.

Technology is on rapid rise. The rule of CPU power doubling every 18 months was still holding. New technology comes before anyone can really adapt to what had been introduced not so long ago.

The fear in the Michael Bay films is the rampancy of technology. We have severely advanced alien race make contact, and in fact made most of the technology based on one of them, found at the turn of the previous century. Technology that wasn’t even fully understood, that people thought they could easily control. But it goes out of control.

This concept is called Technological Singularity, where technology eventually becomes uncontrollable and we get swept up in the wake of it, having to deal with the new reality that we are no longer the masters of the world we are in. Grey Goo is one of the better known representation of this idea. Another is the idea of an overlord AI that either seeks to exterminate humanity, rule it with iron fist, or simply think of humans as we think of ants, insignificant.

IDW Publishing was on the scene two years earlier, in 2005. However given how long the first G1 iteration of it ran it gets mentioned after TFA and the movies due to that, allowing for Aligned continuity to come after it.

While TFA showed how the Afghanistan War impacted US citizens, who had not really experienced being at war while being so interconnected with the world and able to receive so much information, the IDW comics went for the other angle, the other fear that ruled in the USA at that time.

9/11. The fear of terrorism happening, the fear of foreign infiltration. The Decepticons had a plan on how the infiltration happened, every step of it planned, making sure that they could make the residents of the planet do most of the work of disrupting the peace, making it easy for them to swoop in and destroy the rest.

While things didn’t go as planned as the Autobots intervened pretty early, the Decepticons went public on full force, taking over New York City and almost dropped an atomic bomb on it. The connection to 9/11 is pretty hard to miss.

And then Phase 2 hits. James Roberts becomes one of the more interesting writers in the series. And this is where things go slightly off. James Roberts is more of a writer that knows what he’s writing about, instead of being influenced by current events.

And James Roberts has made known he has major interest in politics as he worked with politicians before picking up the pen for IDW Publishing. Write what you know, and James Roberts know politics, and political history.

In Phase 2 there is increased focus on the actual motivations behind the war. While Megatron Origins did go into how Megatron became the leader of the Deceptioncs, it was James Roberts that made it into the communism reflection that it became in the comics. It isn’t really some overarching fear in the background of the comics, it’s known quantity woven into the narrative of the comic.

Transformers Prime came in 2010, after Transformers Animated, seeking to remove the stylised aesthetics of the former toyline and try to be more like the movies.

And it wasn’t the only thing it changed. What was changed as well was the work that was actually put behind the actual lore of the series, making a true production bible that was used not for just the TV series but the accompanying video games as well, War For Cybertron and Fall Of Cybertron. And there was also a clear message along with that, this was a new continuity, new setting. Aligned, seeking to mesh together all the good from the various franchises into one good package.

But with all that background done on it, it’s easy to point out how Megatron went from a revolutionary to a tyrant and that would be about that. But it is not that simple.

What colors Transformers Prime is subtle and easily overlooked. In 2007 we experienced a dire financial crisis. Unemployment shot up, investments plummeted, there was no good safety net for people and a lot of them fell through the cracks. But these things are hard to really put into a show like this without it being explicitly about it. But there is another side effect of the recession that wasn’t that apparent in 2010, is more obvious now, but with the Transformers lore from the 1984 cartoon being similar, it blends into the usual Transformers noise.

Refugees.

Optimus Prime and his small team are simply refugees. Cybertron did run out of fuel, but the plots of harvesting energon and fighting over resources is more rehashing of the old cartoon plots. The focus is more on the Autobot team as they deal with being literal aliens in the US, escaping the tyranny that they fled. How they are treated by the locals, how they deal with the isolation of being in a culture different from theirs. They simply try to survive. Like how most people hit by the recession felt.

Robots in Disguise was released after Transformers Prime, going away from the expensive production and to more cheaper look. But with the so-called Aligned continuty having been a strong reboot of the “TV cartoons” series, Hasbro was in no hurry to abandon it, making Robots in Disguise a sequel to Transformers Prime.

Though with the war over, a new kind of threat had to be made. And Steeljaw steps into the role, not only as the main antagonist of the series, but as the representation of the fear theme of the series.

What isn’t really that obvious in Robots in Disguise is just how powerful Steeljaw is. Steeljaw isn’t just some generic Decepticon villain who escapes just so they can reuse his model instead of having to create even more Decepticons. He has fighting prowess, he is able to outwit the Bumblebee team. And the most dangerous weapons he has are his personality and voice.

Steeljaw is able to talk himself out of trouble. He has major ambitions, he knows what to do in order to recruit others. He wants power and respect, and if left unchecked, he will have it. And he knows that if there is some that he can’t convince, he can fight, and he will fight dirty.

Steeljaw represents a fear that people have experienced for a long time, but it wasn’t until recently that it really put into the spotlight. He is the abuser, the person in power that will make your life miserable. He antagonises Bumblebee and his team by causing them trouble, drive them off their safe haven of Earth and later drives them from their safe space, forcing them to go on the run. He finds power by leading a pack of Decepticons, then later by allying himself to the new council until he realises that he will not achieve his goals with him.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this massive post of mine.

[anarchomando]

the hoard

[anarchomando]

Generations of locking the fuck in.

[anarchomando]

i provide more transfem chat noire

im so hilarious

[anarchomando]

just remember, one day you're going to open tumblr and the crabs will be raving like they never have before

[anarchomando]

“I don’t do math because I’m gay” “the gays can’t do math” “If I explain math on tumblr I’ll lose my gay card” all of you apologize to Alan Turing right now 

[anarchomando]

Add realism to your fantasy stories by having characters from different backgrounds struggle to pronounce each others' names.

"My name is [low guttural sound] but I don't want to hear you butcher it. So you may call me She Who Arises With The Cold Mountain Sun."

"...Is that what your name really means? All that in just one word?"

"Yes. If you stress the wrong syllable it comes out as 'She Who Coldly Wakes Up The Mountain Sun', or 'The Cold Woman Who Wakes The Mountain Sun', and you will not call me that."

"Oh, huh. Could we just call you Mountain Sun, for short?"

"Hmh. It's boastful, almost bordering on blasphemy, but it is flattering. I accept it."

[anarchomando]

every ad is a personal insult to everyone who sees it and i’m not kidding

[anarchomando]

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neve and davrin about setting up a shop together after everything is done

[anarchomando]

when gerard way sings "the broken, the beaten, and the damned" and when kermit the frog sings "the lovers, the dreamers, and me" they're talking about the same people btw

[anarchomando]

Well!

So first, let's clear a common misconception: no, President Abraham Lincoln did not love Black people nor see them as human equals. At best he was centrist about it (though, even his implication that 'exceptional' Black men ought to vote got him assassinated).

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do, it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union...I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."

The "freeing of slaves" after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 was meant to kneecap the economic and military powers of the seceded South. Lettuce stop making a white savior figure out of Lincoln, or thinking that my people's shackles were unchained via anything other than desperate war strategy and extreme violence. Think on that, for a moment.

That being said!

But not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as "Juneteenth," by the newly freed people in Texas.

Consider going through the Smithsonian website to learn about Juneteenth! Recognize why it's an actual day of freedom, versus July 4th and the independence of a select few.

[anarchomando]

Yknow how Apollo is the god of truth; what if he had his very own lasso of truth. He’d be so upset that Wonder Women, a character based off his sister, would possess it. Any Demigod he comes by would point it out and say “omg like wonder women!” with stars in their eyes and he’d be like “NO! Like me😠”

I headcanon that he gives it to one of his kids once a generation to “spread truth” and the most resent Apollo kid to get it is Will.

Usually it takes a while for his kids to understand how to use it and Apollo was prepared to teach him but all of a sudden Will just lassos one of his siblings like a professional cowboy and asks “who left the syringes out yesterday in the infirmary?” and they are confessing instantly. Apollo is shocked at how fast he picked it up and Will with a straight face says “you remember I’m from Texas right”

Apollo in fact forgot and confessed after Will lassoed him (“Your mom and I hooked up while she was on tour! How am I supposed to remember?!” He confessed still lassoed to a disgusted Will who gives him hay fever.) Camp half blood was never the same and Will Solace was more feared than ever.

[anarchomando]

they should invent a bus that never gets stuck in traffic because it's on its own path separated from the roads. and then chain multiple of them together and put it on rails. has anyone had this idea before.

[anarchomando]

victorian trans guy who goes to beloved local barber sweeney todd and presses half a crown in his hand and says “begging your pardon sir, i know it ain’t much but i was hoping you might tell my employer i get me shaves from you should he ever come around. only he’s been asking me how i keep my chin so smooth and i haven’t the heart to tell him i can’t grow a beard, so i might have told him a little lie, sir, and said it’s all due to your wonderful skill, sir” and sweeney todd goes “no problem. by the way would you say your employer deserves to die”