geartrain-prime

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Just finished Disco Elysium, and the idea that this would be a novel way to express Optimus Prime experiencing the wisdom of previous Primes struck me as something to explore, so I found This Website and pulled something together.

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I post one non shitpost art and I come back with this

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I love that he's like this, and that he's kinda never forced to compromise his morals, so he's got this faintly holier-than-thou attitude during the war which is... Partially deserved? Like, I don't think I ever see him put in a position where he has to compromise his position or his work to protest, say, Prowl using it to build a biological weapon, but we know what he'd do in that eventuality.

He is genuinely a good person, and maybe that makes him a little insufferable to everyone else, because he is that good and he is that noble, but he's also been more than a little lucky in where he's ended up.

It's Ratchet loving hours tonight

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cyclonus is nursing political and religious beefs that nobody else alive has even been aware of in millions of years and that's very sexy of him

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So, who was responsible for telling everyone that this one guy's name was "Swindle"?

None of the Transformers cartoons that I've seen so far (G1, Beast Wars, TFA, most of TFP, some of the live-action movies years ago) have brought up the fact that the Cybertronians have to be offering humans the English translations of their original names / designations. (I assume one of the comics has explored something like this at some point?) I have generally assumed that Cybertronian languages are probably utterly unpronounceable by human vocal chords and possibly also going at at least 10x speed or something.

I think it would be fun to write a fic for pretty much any continuity in which the Autobots begin their time on Earth choosing their "Earth names". Some Cybertronians may have VERY different designations and designation styles in their own languages, depending on their origins, AND THEN based on their individual personalities, they may choose a very literal translation of their original designation, a more artistic interpretation of their designation, a translation of a nickname, or they might straight-up take the opportunity to choose something entirely new. Or have their new human friends choose for them!

Which is all very cute and has the potential to be heartfelt and bittersweet! And then I started thinking about Earth names for Decepticons, which is VERY FUNNY to me, in part because I don't think every version of Megatron would care to introduce himself to Earth. Humans aren't worth talking to. In which case, when the humans ask for information on which Decepticon is which, the AUTOBOTS are probably the ones who first have to come up with Earth names for the Decepticons.

Like, can you imagine Starscream, 1-3 months or so into being on Earth, turning towards the humans to gloat about how he's going to rule this planet, going into a long introduction with an extremely lengthy and flowery interpretation of what he thinks humans should call him? ("Your Glorious Celestial Majesty" or something at the shortest.) Only for Optimus Prime or someone to say semi-apologetically: "We've already told them that an acceptable translation of your name is 'Starscream'."

Starscream: "WHAT."

Optimus Prime: "YOU weren't talking to them before. We had to call you something besides 'the red and blue plane'."

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Imagine you got turned into a mech and teleported to the middle of the Quintesson attack on Cybertron. But the catch is - all the characters whose Transformers toys/figures you own are in your squad and they are on your side.

If you have two Megatrons or like three Ratchets you can have all of them. Can't wait to see if someone's squad is just them and their 200 Bumblebees

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Which Prowl?

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the thing is some fictional relationships simply do not work without that third guy there. it doesn’t even have to be romantic but they have to be there

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One of the many layers of Cybertronian's hatred of Arcee as a crazy ultra-violent murder lady is that at this point they have all been shaped by the war and desensitized to violence and capable of terrible acts, but they can all reassure themselves that hey, at least they're not as bad as that freak.

Which is why Aileron's perspective as a Caminen removed from all this conflict is so important. She thinks are the veterans are equally messed up, but hey, Arcee is actually trying to change herself.

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🔥combiners/gestalts

My unpopular opinion here is probably that I think the best way to reconcile the difficulty in dealing with the fact it's hard to do combiners in fiction given that they are So Many Characters is to lean into how Animated did it and... reduce the number of characters needed for combiners! On the one hand, combiners are very iconically a Bunch Of Characters who become a bigger character. On the other hand, it's hard to do that justice in fiction, because now you need to characterize five characters or whatever for every combiner you have. People complained Barber made the Constructicons a functional hivemind who was one single character, but like, you see why he did it, you end up with rapidly ballooning casts. I liked that approach in that he worked to make it a part of how combiners worked (and there's truly some untapped potential in the 'willing hivemind' vs 'unwilling horror' approach IDW1 never quite realized, I think), but ultimately, I think the easiest way to make it work in fiction is to simply. Reduce how many characters are needed to make a combiner. It pains me to say, as someone with real fondness for some obscure combiner teams (technobot stans unite), but honestly. TFA making it a two-person deal made total sense when working with the fiction. Maybe making it three people would still work, even. But I do think the reasons combiner teams don't tend to make it to tie-in fiction in a dedicated way is you have so many characters, especially if you have more than one combiner, and it becomes unwieldy. Trimming them down makes sense. You can hone in then.

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welcome new transformers fans from tf: one, i hope you're ready to not understand anything in the fanfiction until you've read a dictionary on terminology

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Did Stardrive commit a war crime, or was she just reasonably accused of one?

"in tf fandom EVERYONE'S fave is a war criminal"

false and i can prove it:

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I think Ratchet's life advice is going to be affected by the fact that he's kinda unchallenged in the "what do I do with my life" field. His perscribed-from-forging Function is exactly what he wants to do with his life, his empathy for others provides him with obvious paths that are, yeah, risky (I don't think the Senate liked the idea of their best man running a free clinic for their "lessers") but is clearly the obvious choice for him, and throughout the war he never seems to be part of the cold-hearted calculus of victory. He heals people and he fights bad guys when he needs to, but he isn't the one deciding who dies on any given day.

So yeah, probably not great for advice in that department, probably a bit preachy (and a little hypocritical in some departments, considering how much he seems to stress himself out to deal with things), but definitely good at telling people "don't do this thing that's going to hurt you" and less good at telling people "here's how to make decisions about your life in general."

Seconding the other anon's message about Ratchet's hugs, it feels like Ratchet would give the absolute best life advice. You could go to him with literally any problem and he'd plonk your head back on your shoulders in record time. He'd be kind about it too. Prowl would be... The opposite of that.

I'd have to do a reread of the comics, but the only life advice I can recall Ratchet canonically giving is when he tells Drift to see the Functionists for a job back in the Dead End. Was that good advice? Perhaps it might have been. There's a lot we don't know about how stuck Drift was in his situation, or how exactly a scenario like that would have played out. Ratchet's advice might have been eminently sensible, hopelessly insensitive, or even dangerous.

Perhaps it's safe to stick with the assessment that Ratchet would give the absolute best medical advice. He will tell you not to stick that there, or to stop bending that thing that way, and you darn well better listen.

Prowl does not give advice, he gives orders, and he's rarely kind about it.

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Consider: Shockwave will occasionally mention or allude to a former partner, and Megatron just assumes it's some aide he had a relationship with that died or disappeared during his empurata. He doesn't realize it was Optimus until after Dark Cybertron

cannot decide which is funnier, tbh

post-shadowplay shockwave has zero reasons not to mention optimus is his ex so megatron spends the whole war having to listen to him say this and pretend he doesn't care

megatron did not ever find out until after dark cybertron and had a minor bluescreen moment like 'fucking excuse me'

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Brainstorm takes off the mask to kiss and forgets that Rewind can't remove his mask.

I think that rewind and brainstorm should kiss

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I like the backstory! There's a lot of ways to get off Cybertron and just get lost even pre-war (the large number of spaceships being one of them), and the character stuff is neat! Can't wait to hear/see more of them.

For your OC, what's their altmode like, and what do you have about their personality?

THANK U SO SO MUCH answer below <3

ALT MODE for the alt mode its. this silly rhing. very small jet. very briefly inspired by Stealth Fighters (in my mind . maybe this doesnt make sense). the body retracts into the back, the feet stick out (rocket heels) and the arms fold onto the sides (the hands are also rockets). very vague doodle i did. im not good with vehicles

PERSONALITY-wise i think theyre relatively....quirky. people find their hobby odd (xenobiology, and very knowledgable about organics too). since theyd been exploring other planets by themselves for many many years they sort of got socially alienated. they like to keep to themselves most often and observe from afar (hence the alt-mode -> can avoid detection, so they can observe without being noticed). they also use chirolinguistics sometimes if they find that communicating verbally is hard. they are so kind and love to learn/very curious. they really love decapods and everyone finds it very abnormal and bothersome (funny)

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finalized reference for my tf OC/sona :) didnt know what to do for the name. its just irony because their paint is black.