I’m not going to make this long because I would need to delve deeper into the show, but this has been something I’ve wanted to discuss for a while. Names in Transformers Animated is a minor, but curiously reoccurring element throughout the show. Here are a few of the things off the top of my head that TFA did concerning names…
*In Autobot culture, names seem to be given based on where you are and by who. In “Autoboot Camp”, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, and a slew of rookies got their names from drill sergeant Sentinel Minor based on their characteristics (the good and the bad if Bee’s name is anything to go by.) Not only does this add to Cybertron culture, but it brilliantly explains why their names conveniently connect to their specific skills and personality. Optimus mentions in the second Allspark Almanac that he was named by his Minor Kup (for his cheerful personality) and subsequently named Elita and Sentinel because she was a bit of a snob and he was ever vigilant. It also indicates the Autobots (and possibly Cybertronians in general) do not necessary get their names the minute they’re born; it’s something they earn based on their traits and likely where they were at the time (the ones I listed for example strictly comes from military camps.)
There are other episodes where Bots gain names in different ways: Scrapper and Mixmaster improvised and named themselves because no one else did. Wreck-Gar got his through an insult due to his reckless nature, only to have Angry Archer shorten it down for him. Grimlock got his name while Megatron laments to himself, more or less working it out for his own. And so on and on.
*Y’all know Sumdac’s last name is Cadmus backwards, ‘nuff said.
*In layman’s term, “Omega” means the end. Project Omega can be taken in as a literal last step in the Great War. It was considered a final desperate measure for the Autobots against the Decepticon war (and ultimately ended it), hence the name Project Omega., hence the name Project Omega. One can only wonder what would have happened if this plan failed. This may be why Omega Supreme got his name because despite being the first to be built; he’s the last resort of an ever increasingly desperate war. Omega Supreme was also utilized as kind of a “last step” measure in a number of other places, too. He was activated by Ratchet (somewhat) to stop Blitzwing and Lugnut in “Lost and Found” because there was literally no other way to get rid of those two. He was the bot who sacrificed himself so the other Autobots wouldn’t get sucked in the Space Bridge into the middle of nowhere in the Season 2 finale. And of course, he was the catalyst for Megatron’s final plan in the Season 3 finale.
*Another interesting thing from the Allspark Almanac II; during Project Omega, there are identical worker bots that helped to built the Omega Sentinels. Blitzwing stated they have no individuality or names. He states this in disgust, saying it’s part of the Autobot’s “blind conformity”. Another keen look at the politics and culture between Autobots and Decepticons. Hmm…
*If you’re used to other TF franchises, there might be some of you questioning why Optimus’ crew often calls him “Prime” instead of just “Optimus Prime” or just “Optimus” like most of the franchise does. I mean, the TFA crew does occasionally spout an “Optimus” or the more endearing “Boss Bot”, but more often than not, they’ll address him as “Prime.” They do this a lot. It may sound like a weird quirk, but then you realize in Animated, “Prime” is a military rank. Optimus’ crew is literally calling him their Captain (or whatever equivalent rank “Prime” is); they are acknowledging him as their official leader.
*Megatron and Optimus are usually worthy rivals to each other in other incarnations; connected through a shared history. This is not the case in Transformers Animated where the two are total strangers at the start of the show. Optimus only knows Megatron through history vids and Bee even goes as far as spouting urban myths about the big guy to indicate unfamiliarity with the actual Con. In fact, Megatron views Optimus as just a tiny Autobot speck and disregards him as a pest more than anything. Megatron doesn’t know who Optimus is nor his name – he’s just an Autobot. It isn’t until the final episode when Megatron finally spouts Optimus’ name for the first time, indicating that yes, this “pest” has finally pissed him off enough that he simply cannot be ignored anymore. Now Optimus carries some sort of significance for Megatron. It’s a really subtle way of showing how much Optimus has grown; he started out as an unknown washout and eventually became a hero of both worlds.
There probably is a lot more, but these are all I can think about for now, but I hope you see where I’m going with this. They’re often minor and don’t draw much attention to the overall plot, but it’s a tremendously good use of world-building and adds to the overall TFAverse. The show has always been good adding these little touches. Welp, I hope you enjoyed the analysis I did over a show that ended like four years ago. This ended up a lot longer than I expected and I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. O_O
I see your funny idea, and YES, I like that! I also want to make it serious because that’s how I roll.
Because yeah, this is sort of true, the beauty and the beast motif fits them, and yes, in a sense that Megatron is both sides of the masculinity, the destructive side as well as the civilized side.
Let me elaborate more on the history of this motif and its variation, then I’ll move on Optimus and Megatron, mostly in the TF: Prime verse but also a bit in general.
The motif of the Beauty and the Beast is a popular one with a long history in fairy tales and folklore, and it kind of mixes with the animal spouse motif. ((If you’d like to read more on fairy tale troupes and types, I recommend reading here about
Aarne–Thompson–Uther classification system, which is basically a neat list of troupes.)) There are many version and different takes, and also several thoughts upon what they really are about. The Disney one is actually something of an outlier, because in that it’s the Beast who goes through transformation, not the beauty. In many fairy tale versions that you can find the Beast is a kindhearted, civilized gentleman from the very beginning, and it’s the Beauty who has to learn to see through his monstrosity, accept him, and then he can transform into a human again.
Some have read this as a girl growing up and coming to terms with her sexuality and marriage by leaving her childhood home and learning to see a man through what at first seems like a monster to her. Your kid probably takes a lesson about inner beauty out of the story though, which is just as valid.
You will also note that most of these version lack a Gaston. Disney made a dramatic movie and thus added an antagonist – a good call – and made their own version of the classic story altogether. Personally I think the Disney version is more of a reconstruction and critique of traditional masculinity, as Belle is already the kind and understanding Beauty her predecessors transform into at the end of their story arcs, and the Beast is the one learning about his feelings, learning to be gentle and selfless and earning his form as a man again. And of course there’s Gaston, the loud, self-obsessed man who wants to possess, and doesn’t take no for an answer.
Another the Beauty and the Beast version with comments more on masculinity than the female Beauty maturing is King Kong. Yes, I would argue this, the Peter Jackson version even makes textual references. The Beast is the untamed masculinity of Kong, and the Beauty the pure femininity who tames him. Also in King Kong movies (yes, I have seen four different ones, including the original) there’s often a human man acting as the “right” love interest, whether the Beauty gets with him in the end or not, and the important part is that the roles of a “beastly masculinity” and “civilized masculinity” are split into two characters, just like in the Disney movie.
But how does this motif fit Megatron and Optimus, and especially into Megatron/Optimus with a slash?
Interestingly, I’d say. Well, Optimus is obviously the Beauty, the kind and brave one, but I think he’s already done plenty of maturing, being a seasoned warrior and Commander and all. Also being technically a man he also represents a type of masculinity, a type I find very interesting since he’s depicted as an almost maternal figure: Someone who preserves, protects, resolves and watches over other younger ones. He obviously has the powerful warrior side of him and it comes first, he is Megatron’s match and not only a skilled soldier but the leader of the entire Autobot army too, but a key factor to his warrior side is preserving and obtaining peace, with as little force as possible.
As for Megatron, he is an evil and destructive person, but in TFP I find him to be a masculine ideal in a strangely positive sense: Everything from his design and voice to his character and actions is just so grand, strong and dominating, he’s always in control and super confident in himself, yet he doesn’t have the aspects of toxic masculinity such as fragile ego, secretly insecure or needing to put down others in order to build his own ego. He is genuinely confident, not a secretly weak bully. Yes, he is emotionally unavailable but this is more of an ideal since he doesn’t seem to be suffering from it, and we’re not touching the special abusive thing he has going on with Starscream here since it’s way too serious on singular to go under a bully category. He is violent, ruthless and sometimes even cruel, but he’s also kind of cool while at it.
Where I’m going with this is that in some ways Optimus and Megatron have the beauty and the beast thing going on, if not anything else then at least as a caricature-like, aesthetic thing. But it’s more in the subtext: a kind and protective one meeting an evil destructive one, and the shipping is the part that makes the motif actually fit.
It’s the shipper who decides how this conflict, this meeting of these two beings very at odds, goes and what it amounts to.
Personally I’d like to take this troupe and twist it a little. I take the route of transforming together and accepting the other. I like to think that through their conflict they transform together and ultimately meet in the middle, accepting each other as they are. For example Angela Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride is a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast, and features a beast wearing a human mask, and in the end the heroine transforms into a tiger in order to be with him. She leaves behind the traditional female role and the oppression that comes with it, sends a dolls back home to her father in her place and assumes her true form as a beast to join her love who accepts her, accepting him too in return. This version really speaks to me.
Um. Yeah. It’s an interesting troupe, and your insight prompted me to write this. You could also write your fun Beauty and the Beast AU, complete with the ballroom dance scene with pretty paintjobs if you’d like. It might be more what you, my dear Anon, were going for, but I’m the most boring and serious of all the shippers and thus had to take this troupe along with your insight and set it against the canon.
I don’t really know what this adds up to. I love Megatron/Optimus? I love Megatron/Optimus.
This is a really interesting perspective on both Beauty and the Beast and on Megatron/Optimus; I actually had never thought of the original transformation being Beauty’s, not so much because of Disney’s version (ubiquitous though it is) but because all the other versions I’d read had Beauty’s sisters as models of vanity and pettiness while Beauty herself was The Good One, and the only change she evidenced was becoming less afraid as the Beast became less monstrous. Are there versions in which Beauty is vain and needs to learn humility? Because frankly that sounds a lot more interesting than the trope “love of a good woman saves a dude of questionable past decisions.”
(Also, searching for “the Tiger’s Bride” on Amazon turns up a wide variety of bodice-rippers, but no Angela Carter. Looks like that story is in her collection, “The Bloody Chamber,“ the arrival of which I am now eagerly anticipating.)
… also, I refuse to pick up any more story ideas until I’ve at least finished the damn cave fic. I mean it.
Okay, I’m going to take a little bit of a left turn here, but I wanted to comment since one of my longest TFP MegOp fics is in fact at Beauty and the Beast AU and I have a number of Thoughts on the matter (Read: yes I am going to take a few minutes to bang on about how I think TFP Optimus = the Lady of Shalott some more, sue me).
One could make the argument that the Lady actually parallels Disney’s version of the Beast (she’s shut away in a castle with a mirror as her only window to the outside world, flowers are a recurring motif, doomed love is an idea that’s floated around). And while I’ve not discussed it in that much detail, TFP Orion/Optimus’s character arc parallels the Lady’s in a number of pertinent ways [he’s introduced as part of a cloistered caste (archivist), his given task is to search the DataNet to “weave” a picture of Megatronus, and it’s Megatronus’s voice (not just his words, hearing his voice) that draws him out of his stagnation and frustration and pushes him to step outside his constraints (just as Lancelot’s song sets the events of the poem in motion)]. And don’t even get me started on that whole bit in the Covenant about Megatron “waking him with the movement of his own heart” and the recurring “journey’s end in lover’s meeting” line. So they’ve got the “potentially or entirely doomed love” bit down pat. And if we operate under the assumption introduced by the Covenant, that Optimus has actually been hanging around almost alone for thousands of years, it starts to look more like Megatron is the weird singing village girl who shows up in Optimus’s house and starts making the cutlery dance.
So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, as weird as it sounds, I do see TFP Megop as already an inverted Beauty and the Beast trope rather than one played straight. Not in the sense that the character types are flipped, Megatron still has the aggressive, bestial streak and Optimus is still kind and brave, but more that their roles in the story are inverted. It’s the “Beauty” character who undergoes the most profound transformation. Hell if you broaden your thinking, it’s Optimus who takes on the burden (or curse) of the Matrix in order to match Megatron in battle. And while he never loses his nobility, this is an Optimus who is repeatedly remade into a more efficient weapon, an Optimus who kills, and the blood on his hands weighs on him. And Megatron would just as soon see them be beasts together.
But perhaps most interestingly, Optimus’s final moments in the movie do involve him shedding that curse of war and opening himself up for a new transformation via transcendence of his physical body (just as the Beast does). While it’s Megatron’s perspective (as the Beauty character’s) which is altered. So I suppose you could argue that they’re both transformed by the end of things, and well, if they didn’t get an exactly happy ending, that’s what fanfic is for.
This is a lot of words and I’m not sure I made a point at all but basically yes I also love Megatron/Optimus, in all its strange and beautiful iterations.
It’s no secret that I’m a Megatron fan. Hell, if you look at my tumblr for more than half a breath, you’ll see that. But there’s things that niggle at my brain, and trickle down my spine like fingers of frost. The most important saying of Megatron, that rings true in every continuity is not that he’ll beat Prime, not that he’ll be back, or that he retreats.
But that he still functions.
Pushed beyond all limitations and expectations, he’s kept going no matter what. There was never any rest for him, never any excuses to stop, or to not keep going.
Simply because those were never options for him.
Getting up time, and time again- devastation after devastation, ruination after ruination- because you have to, because there IS no other recourse. I think that’s what truly terrified the Autocratic bots the most.
No matter what is thrown at him, he still functions and he will continue to do so until he decides to do so no longer.
But, I would think after eon after eon, there is exhaustion that is strut deep, and so vast that not even a Prime would understand. Imagine being so paraonoid, so alert for all of your life- simply because resting was never an option. What everyone sees as arrogance is the knowledge of that he can go past their limitations. What everyone sees as cold indifference is the shield he’s always had around him.
And what is seen as inexhaustible stamina and simple unbeatable victory… is the tired knowledge that there is no other recourse. In the mines, as long as you functioned- you worked. In the gladiatorial pits, as long as you functioned- you fought.
And as a Decepticon, as long as you functioned – you survived.
But PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read the tags. I know my writing tagline is p much “Ok but it’s Rosey so you know it will have a happy ending” BUT that is not the case for this fic. It’s a bad sad time, y’all. So please read the tags and make sure you only read if you’re up for it. Don’t force yourself lmao.
Title: Empty
Series: Pre-TFP but altered so there are more members of Team Prime that I picked kinda at random.
Ship(s): Up to you if it’s OP/Ratch or OP&Ratch. It’s written v vaguely in that regard.
Tags/warnings: Aims to be horror (somewhere between Alien and Until Dawn in inspiration), starving, robot body-horror, robot gore, loss of self, brief mention of suicide, and major character death. Also it’s written in present tense, the spookiest tense of them all. Also I cried while writing this.
“We have visual confirmation,” Perceptor announces, his tone
giving little of his own emotions away. Bulkhead and Bumblebee are huddled
behind him, peeking at his screen. However, when Perceptor looks up from the
screen, his optics seek out Optimus. “It’s Ratchet’s vessel.”
A hope that Optimus had not let himself entertain when the
craft was first spotted now blooms unbidden in his chest.
Nearly two years have passed. Two years since the team had been
formed. Two years since he had been forced to split the team into two small
vessels to make the trek. Two years
since Ratchet assured Optimus that he could keep the second vessel’s crew in
line and they would converge on Earth.
Two years since he had scoffed at Optimus’s concern.
“I’ll just be a call away.”
Two years since the Decepticon attack separated the twin
vessels and no attempts at communication could reveal the location or fate of
their companions.
Two years that now stain the new hope with long-held dread.
“Still no answer to our comms?”
“No,” Perceptor confirms. His digits race across his control
panel. “Scans indicate that there is extensive damage to the hull where the
communication hub is located, which I would suspect to be the cause. I would further
hypothesize that the emergency beacon is the only component that was repaired.”
“So that means they’re alive, right?” Bulkhead asks
hopefully. “Ratchet had to have fixed it up, so he and the rest of them gotta
be alright.”
Bumblebee looks up at Optimus, more torn in his optimism and
looking to the Prime for any indication of how he should feel.
The rapid beeping of the emergency beacon makes Optimus’s
digits twitch.
“Perceptor, get us alongside their ship so we can board
immediately.”
Riffing on that “Prowl was really a stripper cop” reblog earlier, I kind of want the AU where the surviving Cybertronians are explicitly just that, whoever happens to be left alive. Which is mostly not any kind of prewar elite, because most of everyone is dead, and being really good at one specialized thing isn’t particularly a survival skill, and anyway by definition there weren’t all that many elites to start with.
Ratchet is the CMO, sure, but he’s a jumped up field medic; he’s got no formal training for three-quarters of what he does, he’s just the closest thing to a physician left, because the Decepticons aren’t exactly party to the Geneva Convention and think hospitals make great targets. Prowl was the Cybertronian equivalent of a meter maid. Wheeljack never finished his PhD and was an adjunct professor teaching non-majors engineering courses at a bunch of different community colleges. Orion Pax was just an office intern when the war started, but the whole dying all the time thing really does come with being Prime, so after five or six of them were taken out the Matrix of Leadership eventually worked its way down to him (and boy is it getting pissy about having to move so often).
I love this. I love this so much.
It’s like a better story of the Murphy’s Law. A ragtag bunch who have to make it work. And they do. Not by being cartoonish-awesome, either.
The Rise of the Functionist Cybertron, and the rise of Megatron’s Decepticons.
Survive and Thrive, the main mantra of Cybertronian Religion. Given that those words are associated with Primus, The Primus that birthed the Guiding hand, it is safe to assume that several Cybertronian religions use that phrase in one way or another.
And these are words to literally life and die by in the Functionist universe. These three words are what makes up the Functionist Cybertron and how it operates.
The problem is that it circling the drain, the whole race and culture dying off. We have in fact seen it before.
However, despite it’s outward appearances, the Functionist Cybertron is surviving and thriving, if you stretch that meaning of the word. They deal in absolutes and rule with an iron fist without mass-scale violence on Cybertron. They compromise and give in outside of Cybertron. They pay for peace, to be left alone.
Because that’s the only option that they have.
The rest of space was ready for them. They knew how to deal with mechanicals, they had formed entire bureaucracies in response to mechanicals that could spill over. So even if the Functionist Cybertron wanted to stretch out to gain more resources or bigger borders around them in space, they were slapped down.
But if that fate befell the Functionist Cybertron, why is it exactly Megatron that elevates the Cybertronian race to a force to be fearful of and respect?
It comes from the flawed way that the Functionists fight dissent.
By removing words.
It is a very effective way to fight. The ability to listen to others is very easy to use and accept. The ability to speak and convey ideas is very important when it comes to going against someone, to have the right words, which is a very effective tool. The Functionists believe that by attacking words they are attacking the root of the problem, crumbling down the foundation of something bigger that can overcome them.
The attack on words has even evolved and been made both better and more efficient in the millions of years that has passed. Going after the words is their main method of fighting.
And trying to do the same to alien species isn’t going to work. So there are compromises, the wish to be left alone, to be isolated. Because there is no way to fight against the words of aliens.
The fundamental flaw of this kind of fighting is the failure to acknowledge what lies beneath the words. Because words is not what comes first. It is the meaning of them, what lies beneath.
Because even when Functionist Cybertron Rewind loses hope, the concept behind the words is still there.
And that is what the Functionists overlooked.
Because when Megatron loses his words, but his conviction and the knowledge of the unjust world is still in his mind, he has one tool left for disposal, one thing he can use when words are lacking. Violence. Direct physical violence.
However the use of violence is very hard to direct. In fact others can easily use it and manipulate it for themselves. But what Ratbat failed to account for is whom he sent to manipulate the violence and direct it for his own gain.
Soundwave with his ability to read emotions and know how hard life is in the underground seems like an ideal candidate to negotiate with Megatron, to supply him with the weapons while knowing exactly what to say to him by reading his emotions. But by doing that, the words are stripped away and the underlying meaning stands bare for Soundwave.
Meaning and gestures is also a very powerful tool. It’s subtle, hard to use compared to the written word or to the sharpened sword, but it is still a way to show empathy, even if it is shown in small doses because it is hard to do something stirring emotions in millions of beings. But it is still a viable tactic to use.
Especially when the words are gone.
And from Cybertron arose a new type of Cybertronian species. Someone that does not manipulate words, but uses force first and foremost. Cybertron exploded into space in violence, and continued to use said violence as a default interaction with anything.
Megatron even does not allow anyone to be able to use words or violence against them as he strikes before anyone would even have the chance.
And yet, both Cybertron worlds are going by the words, Survive and Thrive. Functionist Cybertron does it by paying for peace while keeping the energon shortage at bay by reducing the demand for Energon. Megatron’s Cybertron does it by rapid expansion, making sure that nothing will be able to stand in their way or to rise up against them. Nothing can slap them down with a simple gesture, a single battle or with law, the Cybertronians are too great of a force to be just pushed aside and be forgotten.
Now, you guys know all about Knock Out and Breakdown and how they’re all married in the comics, right? And how on Velocitron, speed is everything?
So that sucks for Breakdown from a societal point of view. But from a practical point of view, speed is important to the Velocitronians for other reasons.
And why was that a big deal again?
Right, that.
So if you aren’t super hella fast, you run a significant risk of burning to death in the intense heat of the Velocitronian sun. Now in the comic, the only two Velocitronian bots we ever see chilling outside their city period are Moonracer and Knock Out.
And by virtue of the things we see them talking about, and their high social standing, we can probably assume they’re two of the fastest bots on the planet.
Now… the holiday special issue. We only get a tiny bit of Knock Out and Breakdown, but what do we see them doing?
Awww, he and Breakdown went on a honeymoon out in the Acid Wastes! That’s adorable!
But also, consider. Leaving the city on Velocitron is dangerous. If you’re not naturally fast, you stand a very good chance of dying a fiery death. Moonracer is the first bot to race outside the city in seventy years, and keeping pace with Navitas for a day was an impressive enough feat to get her a position as an interplanetary diplomat.
Breakdown… is not a fast bot. He’s so very not-fast that some people treat him “like a cripple.” Has he ever driven outside? Has he ever even had his wheels on natural ground? From what we hear about Velocitron, it doesn’t seem that likely.
And Knock Out took him to the Acid Wastes. Undeveloped land, stretching for miles and miles, no buildings even in sight, no reason to rush back or worry, no natural hazards that come anywhere near the danger of suddenly burning to death because you couldn’t outrun the sun. Just wide open spaces, and all the time in the world to drive it. I’m pretty sure Knock Out just gave his husband the most romantic present he could ever have imagined.
Cybertronian Database 