#this is mostly about soundwave i don't think i should tag the others

[whatudottu]

Because I've been steamrolled by another character to hyperfixate on completely out of the blue, I feel the need to talk about TFA Soundwave and his siphonophoric ass- yes, I said siphonophore, now read under the cut to find out more-!

Aside from me now suddenly getting attached to another minor character (not as fucked over as Skyke but an extra episode is STILL just 2 total episodes), I caught the curiosity bug and looked a little deeper into this bastard, and here I am sharing it.

As a refresh, Soundwave in TFA was a 'gift' for Sari with the actual motivation to be used as Megatron's new body; the method to do so being the Key and the Allspark energy it uses. Now, in terms of all the Earth sparked cybertronians (not to be confused with Earthspark), you can probably pit the two types of mecha into 'Key-born' and 'shard-born'. You get the Dinobots as the first Earth cybertronians firmly in the 'key-born' category and the Constructicons (+plus unrelated Wreck-Gar) in 'shard-born', and considering the methodology used to make Soundwave- well- SOUNDWAVE was the Key, you'd also think that he'd also be as such fitting in with 'robots Sari tampered with and Megan profited off of'.

Well- to say that Soundwave's transformation from simple Earth music bot to fully forged and sparked cybertronian was actually complete would be - perhaps - a lie.

Megatron had originally wanted Soundwave to at the very least stick around Sari long enough to fully upgrade into his new body, his cybertronian body fueled on by the Key and it's Allspark energy, and to probably remain under his command just long enough for a transfer of some sort. It is Soundwave's act of defiance, a shock to even Megan, that cut the ties between the full frame upgrade and the actual upgrading of his processor.

It was Soundwave's rebellion against the (presently) organic Sari that prevented him from being 'Key-born'.

That's not to say he isn't sapient, more that it is to say he's significantly more different in comparison to other Earth-born cybertronians.

Soundwave becomes the Soundwave Megatron designed him to be only after making the upgrade himself, with a lot of smaller Detroit robots serving as the materials to build up his frame, himself the personification of the Earth robot revolution. And when he is summarily defeated by Bulkhead (and later by Optimus in 'Human Error') all the parts that were his body shattered into the scrap parts of possessed robots passed their usefulness. All that remained of Soundwave was a little section of his original make that just so happened to be where the Key would be used.

Soundwave became a little cassette.

Bestie I swear to god-

Seeing as how his minicons Laserbeak and Ratbat don't transform into cassettes themselves (bass and keytar respectively), plus are probably part of the 'shard-born' half of Earth cybertronians, I think that it'd be a fucking hilarious reversal if the Cassetticon for the Soundwave fam was SOUNDWAVE HIMSELF! Like, if it ends up that Laserbeak and Ratbat have more cybertronian of a spark than this bitch then his siphonophoric ass has got to find that fucking shard-

And yes, back to siphonophores.

So, I love me some siphonophores, love the bitches that group together to form one being, love me that so much. I think if Soundwave were a siphonophore cybertronian frametype, it would certainly fit with the whole hypocrisy of his mentality, of unleashing a 'robot revolution' by uh... mind controlling robots to be free from their servitude by organic hands.

His spark's in the right place (buried deep within minibots or toy Soundwaves) but perhaps being like a day's worth of being vaguely sapient might kinda skew that revolution to be 'i want you to be free the way I define free' and boop I've made another mind controller a siphonophore eep-! (would be a great time to put in a link, were it not a link to a collab with a friend's deactivated blog and also not even transformers related 😔)

Considering the title of siphonophores in a more general sense are 'colonial species', a Soundwave built up as a colony of robots (so far only Detroit tech robots) and presents himself as this signal for a revolution, I think it's awfully fitting that the mentality of 'be free MY way' could be boiled down to 'be my body'. Because as a cassette - or perhaps more a cassette RECORDER or tape deck - Soundwave literally cannot move and has to rely on his music in order to get anything done, to get others to do the things he needs them to do FOR HIM. To escape from the Autobots a second time he needs Laserbeak - one of the instruments TO HIS VERY MIND CONTROLLING MUSIC - to snatch him out of there to rebuild another day, to gather enough stray robots to become a colonial system of machines in order to function as 'cybertronian'.

I just... think I really like siphonophores, man. I think they're real neat little cities, yeah? And I think Soundwave's network of robotics is just being head by someone who's like... idk give or take a few Earth months/years between Sari's season 1 birthday and Earth's season 3 Christmas old, significantly less than even the youngest of young bots (though Dirtboss and the Luna-born clones are like... the youngest newsparks) and most certainly an age that even humans would find young.

Idk, maybe Soundwave using all this Earth tech is not getting the parts that he actually needs to be actually officially a cybertronian, even if perhaps he remains a siphonophore type frame. Perhaps, with a special delivery from Megan himself all the way from Kaon, a colony of cybertronian made minicons could help connect the missing piece.

Eh, I'm just rambling at this point.

Anyway; *rotates TFA Soundwave in my head* *rotates TFA Soundwave in my head* *rotates TFA Soundw-