#surgery and some ideas about it definitely inspired by the voice of stanix

[camp-mithril-lake]

In Seeds of the Past, Ravage actually started out as a more traditional Beastformer with an animal alt-mode and a more humanoid alt-mode that sort of resembles Beast Wars Ravage slightly. She went through cassettification pre-war as the only way she could get legal standing as Soundwave's kin as his Cassette, which required her to give up one of her modes, and she chose the more humanoid one.

Beastformers couldn't legally marry as Conjunx and elective kinship was spotty about being recognized. There incident where her and Soundwave's common law marriage, generally recognized for important decisions in their home polity, wasn't recognized, and she couldn't make medical decisions for him. His frame brother, who he wasn't in contact with, was contacted and had her thrown out and made decisions almost letting him die.

After this, and with laws being more strictly enforced replacing common law handling of things, it was becoming more dangerous, especially with the legal status of Beastformers up in the air.

They decided to do Cassettification as the best solution. It had several drawbacks, not just the expense and giving up of one form. Legally, it erased Ravage's already spotty legal identity (that did grant her some protections against basic mistreatment and allow her to own property and her own wages) as an individual and made her legally one person with Soundwave and granted him full authority over her person and all possessions. But it also meant that as she was treated as him, actions against her would be an attack on him, and she could act in his stead for medical decisions as legally being him.

It is an incredibly vulnerable position to be in.

In this some are born Cassettes but you can become one or become not one. It requires extensive surgery, though.