#season 1 ratchet in a nutshell

[antenanotaic3]

[starry-skies-116]

There’s several differences between my Jack and canon Miko that I feel like highlighting just so people don’t mistake them for ‘the same personality:’

They’re both reckless idiots, but while Miko puts herself and others in danger to get in on the action and try to prove herself, Jack does so because he feels personally responsible for the wellbeing of other people- especially those he cares about. It’s basically a situation of acting on an inferiority complex vs a hero complex.

Jack makes way more absurd and borderline idiotic decisions than Miko: jumping off of speeding motorcycles, licking spilled chemical samples off the floor to try and identify its properties without a scanner, trying to ingest laundry detergent to build immunity, digging through the trash for spare parts, throwing himself into danger multiple times just to try and do the jobs of the other Autobots- he puts himself in harm’s way a LOT.

You know that ‘exaggerated swagger of a black teen’ meme? Yeah- that’s season 1 Jack in a nutshell. Bro’s an unchecked theater kid on top of being a mad scientist- if Ratchet thought Miko was bad, this Jack would be enough to give him an aneurysm.

“Oh, you look like you’re having fun! What are you doing?” “eating laundry detergent” *panicking “NOW WHY IN THE NAME OF PRIMUS WOULD YOU EVEN-”

He’d definitely insult Miko’s hair, too. Like- he’d take one look at the pigtail and rat-tail combo coupled with the razor-cut scene bangs and instantly think: “That is the most ghetto sh█t I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” He’d be acting like he didn’t try to cut his hair with a cosplay sword on his own back when he was twelve.

Their definitions of punk are very different, too. Wild outfits, speed metal, loud music and American pop culture are primarily what Miko thinks of punk culture. Jack holds a philosophy similar to Hobie- that being punk is doing whatever you like to do and doing right by what you believe, even if it irritates other people. He takes the sentence ‘freedom is the right of all sentient beings’ and makes it a creed that he lives by.

He applies this trait to the other Autobots as well- he doesn’t ‘other’ them into separate categories and solely think of them as war machines. He recognizes their capabilities and their strength, sure- but he also recognizes how much pain they’ve been through, all the mistakes they’ve made, and still chooses to see them as people worthy of being loved. That’s one of the main reasons why the Autobots develop such strong emotional connections with him.

The death of Jack’s father absolutely destroyed him to the point where he doesn’t really value his life anymore. Like- at all. He’s so willing to throw away his own livelihood, compress himself into a box and try to cover every single one of his insecurities and shortcomings entirely on his own just so he can feel secure about the fact that people don’t have to worry about him anymore.

The worst part is- by the time Season 3 rolls around, Jack is so critical of his own flaws and mistakes that he genuinely believes that every bad thing that has ever happened to the Autobots is his fault and that it would be better if he never existed.

This one’s a no-brainer: Miko’s terrified of spiders- Jack thinks they’re cute.

If he was present during the ‘band practice’ scene, once Miko starts shredding on the guitar he’d start singing all of his favorite Celestial Odyssey OST’s to his little heart’s content. No doubt about it.

[keef-a-corn]

Dat’s right, People, it’s time for ‘Keef watches TFP and you just get the notes!’

This is for season 1, episode 18: Metal Attraction.

I write down the timestamps, but I watch Transformers Prime on Stan (an Australian streaming service) so they may be slightly off.

ALSO! I try my best to note points for every character, but tend to get a little caught up by Bee (although I think I do a pretty good job with the notes regardless) so do be warned.

These are going to be the most useless episode notes I will ever create. If you liked Metal Attraction these are not the notes for you.

~~~~Transition~~~~

00:07 - starting off strong with dialogue from Ratchet.

00:31 - this is such an incredibly slow episode. There’s so many moments of awkward silence and moments that take too long.

00:37 - Glad that June’s so respectful when addressing Ratchet.

00:45 - I want that story, are you kidding? Optimus and Bee scouting together. Would probably be similar to Masters and Students but that doesn’t matter… ugh.. If Optimus doesn’t say anything this is a filler.

00:49 - AYO-

00:51 - She wants Optimus to be your new Father, Jack. Be grateful!

00:53 - not really. One thing you’ll find, Ratchet is that humans will thirst over any and everything.

00:56 - Sometimes I’m dumb and need to search up words. I’m adding in a new part where I put in the definition for any word/words I had to search up.

Flux (noun): the action or process of flowing or flowing out.

01:14 - Megatron has a weird floaty turn.

01:26 - Angst potential, Breakdown feeling an overwhelming need to prove himself useful (an overworked and overwhelmed character angst prompt.)

~intro~

02:17 - The backgrounds are gorgeous.

02:46 - This episode’s really trying to subvert itself from the usual points. Miko and June are heavily animated, but they obviously don’t have stronger emotions.

03:08 - What a mild reaction to a pathetic reaction… what is going on? Is it this episode? Why is everything so slow..?

03:16 - That’s what it’s like having a dog.

03:26 - It’s obviously a different thing! One is just testing out a feature, the other is field work!!

03:35 - O H MY G A W D Sometimes I question if these notes are worth it. It’s not like I can even hold out hope for Bumblebee.

03:41 - what did you say?. Arcee was going to go with Jack to test out a feature, when she got frustrated by the situation she decided to go on the more dangerous mission. Nothing June said is relevant aside from asking if they had to, to which Arcee neither confirmed nor denied that at that moment it was a necessary task!

04:22 - why are there two handles?

04:36 - If you know, you know.

04:41 - The animation and camera angle make her look like one of those really good quality Batman video games.

04:42 - for like a full second there’s something wrong with the colouring on her eye as it bleeds out.

05:00 - Those rocks are made of rubber apparently. How else would you explain why they bounced so much?. I have a theory as to where the other parts of the budget were cut to make this a filler episode. Normally errors like these are easy to ignore because you’re invested in the story, but I’m so bored that I’m picking apart other things.

05:20 - isn’t there an actual type of spider that does that? Creepy af.

05:40 - as much as her walk cycle reminds me that I’m a lesbian, it was highly unnecessary. Airachnid had no reason the walk, she should’ve just flown away when she had the relic.

06:23 - Arcee choosing not to send Miko back proves that June had every right to be concerned about Jack.

06:38 - as much as it’s something they bond over, Bulkhead should’ve said no. They’re still in the field.

06:41 - exactly.

06:49 - I’m gonna be honest I laughed a bit too hard at that. I was going to say ‘Bumblebee in a nutshell’ but I couldn’t do that to him.

07:05 - *sigh* That line was unnecessary. She moved out of the way. She fell behind. If she believes she should take point then she should’ve started walking instead of moving.

07:07 - Honestly, I really like Bulkhead’s character. He knows how to talk to characters and I love it. He’s got a bit of that ‘older sibling that treats you the way you didn’t realise you wanted to be treated’ energy to him. + I meant to point out how the camera angle is weird.

07:14 - HAH, because she’s a two wheeler-

+ I’VE WORKED IT OUT. There was something wrong with the way Arcee looks, I’ve been trying to work out what. It’s the paint. It’s too pale and the lighting’s off. That’s why they don’t have Optimus and Bumblebee. They made the budget smaller in the animation department so they could bring in more Voice Actors. Bee’s not in it because he has more moving parts and relys on animation to bring his character together and Optimus is Optimus. You make him look good out of respect for his awesomeness, also because his design has that slight glitter in bright areas as well as the metal having a reflection in it.

09:09 - ahah.. what?.

12:23 - may have started crying after seeing Ratchet. Finally some good fraggin animation.

12:25 - Ratchet >>>>> anyone else that has shown up in this episode

12:34 - I won’t stop talking about him. It’s not that big a deal, but I like the way he’s standing there with his arm over the railing as if he was recently talking to the other humans.

12:48 - he really said madam

13:11 - Glad they called for help. Boy wouldn’t their jobs have been so much easier if this wasn’t a filler so they could’ve called Optimus and Bumblebee-

13:42 - I laughed a bit too hard.

14:30 - *cri* Bulkhead deserves the world ohmygawd

14:39 - Let’s be clear.. Arcee and June are both in the right for their protectiveness over Jack. June would only be overprotective if it had been a longer stretch of time since she first met the bots.

16:52 - OF FOR FRAG’S SAKE! AIRACHNID ACTUALLY PROPERLY DODGES BULKHEAD’S ATTACK, SHE WASN’T GOING TO FIGHT BACK IN THE WAY SHE WOULD FOR ARCEE.

18:06 - I see.. Airachnid’s into the ladies-

18:25 - This angle is so confusing. It makes the sizes look so strange.

19:28 - that was visually so funny.

20:14 - please no.. this is so pretty, why must they transition away so quickly?

20:20 - Mmm budget, makes them look so beautiful.

20:36 - Okay, this is very genuine and respectful and I love it.

———————

Oh thank Primus it’s over!

Safe to say I did not enjoy that episode. Genuinely had an easier time watching Predatory than I did this episode.

If you liked it, that’s great! I’m so glad!

But I couldn’t take it.

Arcee and Airachnid’s ‘rivalry’ makes me so unbelievably frustrated. There’s no respect. In a good rivalry characters need two things. They need to have some level of respect for one another and they need to be able to put aside their differences when the time calls for it. Megatron and Optimus have those traits, so do Breakdown and Bulkhead, but Airachnid and Arcee do not. I get why Arcee doesn’t like Airachnid! But why doesn’t Airachnid like Arcee? What because the one time she (Airachnid) captured her (Arcee), Arcee escaped? Oh wait. No. Arcee didn’t escape. She was rescued.

The episode did a great job bringing light to just how in tune Bulkhead is to Arcee, but that’s about it.