A 26 year-old bi diaster aspiring to be a writer, with random knowledge on various subjects and fandoms. I have a page for commissions, check out my side blog AP97commissions.
Should I do a TFA MegaProwl one shot or a TFA SentiProwl one Shot? Or I can do a TFA JazzBlaster where they ask Prowl to be their third or should Prowl get setup on a blind date or all of the above
The mind link plotline with Kup from AHM 15 marks the beginning of Prowl's character assassination in the IDW1 comics. It's the first morally dubious thing he's shown doing and he's portrayed very differently from how he was before this. When examining it as a continuation of Spotlight: Kup and the related plot threads, the underlying problems with how Prowl was written become very apparent.
Spotlight: Kup
In Spotlight: Kup, Springer sent the crew of the Ark 17 to rescue Kup. Despite not being equipped to handle the complicated situation, Springer pushed to do the mission anyway and got all but one of them killed.
Springer is pretty callous about the situation. He shows up angry that Kup hasn't been rescued yet and acts like what he's doing matters more when the sole survivor of a mission he ordered calls him out on his mismanagement. Siren is rightfully mad at him over this.
Something that doesn't really come up much after this is Kup basically mentoring everyone and being well liked for it. This only really stuck around for Springer, but it's why Siren finds dying to him especially bad. Springer emphasizes this as part of why they have to keep trying to save him, as well as why anyone who thinks they should stop just doesn't care enough.
Springer's insults to Prowl aren't actually true. He's just lashing out because he doesn't want to let Kup go. Prowl got the worst of it because he's pushing the most. Prowl's not saying those things because he doesn't care about Kup, he's saying it because the lives of the Autobots Springer is throwing away should matter enough to stop. Kup's life shouldn't be worth more than anyone else's.
Springer's lack of respect for Prowl's authority is because Prowl doesn't have any. He's not part of Autobot High Command, he's only in charge of the team on Earth. Springer likely outranks him, same as Hot Rod. Prowl can't actually do anything about Springer besides talk him down or report him to Optimus. He only knows what Springer's doing because Optimus set up stuff to keep commanding the Autobots on Earth. Prowl might be overreaching by using it unless Optimus asked him to check on things for him.
Springer's assumption that Optimus would support him is wishful thinking and doesn't fit with the characterization he had at the time. Prowl's reluctance is probably because he'd rather Springer came to his senses on his own. He was reluctant to call Optimus to Earth before he was sure the situation warranted it. Getting him personally involved in Springer's botched mission would take his attention away from the situation on Earth even if he didn't support Springer.
Perceptor manages to get through to Springer, who calms down and is ready to let Kup go. So of course this is when Trailbreaker shows up and pretty much singlehandedly rescues Kup.
'Oops, I guess I shouldn't have sent all those people to die and been such a rude jerk earlier. A bit of patience would've saved Kup without any casualties.' He thankfully has some awareness that he messed up, but that's not enough. The least he can do is apologize for how he acted.
The whole story makes it very, very clear that Springer is in the wrong. Multiple people call him out on what he did, he himself admits he was wrong and the story ends with him feeling regret about his actions. The plot hook wasn't just what would happen with Kup, but also Springer answering for what he did.
AHM 15
Springer punched Prowl before even asking why Kup and Perceptor weren't where he thought they'd be. He's jumping to violence before he even has a clear idea of what's going on, which is a bad way to respond to situations. It's immediate, unnecessary escalation that can easily cause problems that could've been avoided. When applied to the war, this is the kind of thing that gets people killed. We even get an example of this earlier in AHM. Ironhide was convinced that Mirage betrayed the Autobots. He decked Prowl for trying to talk him down, and then beat up Mirage.
Prowl doing shady things behind the scenes doesn't retroactively justify Springer physically assaulting him. What would Springer have done if Prowl didn't know where Kup was or didn't have anything to do with what was going on? Despite the Prowl bashing, the way Springer is shown looming menacingly over Prowl with his energon soaked fist is at least letting Prowl have a point about Springer's violence. He's a thug in that moment, not a hero.
This story is where Prowl first gets retconned into being part of Autobot High Command, or something to that effect. As covered in Spotlight: Kup, his authority was pretty limited up to this point. Prowl doesn't seem to be in charge of Kimia, so much as he now has the authority to move people around bases and assign missions.
Prowl has to ask Springer how familiar he is with Kimia, and Springer has to explain all the weird stuff the Wreckers had to test from there. This means that Prowl isn't involved enough with Kimia or the Wreckers to know all the details of what they do together. Prowl's later comparison of keeping the mind link secret from Springer to Springer not sharing the unpleasant details about the Wreckers also comes off like Prowl doesn't know the full details of what goes on with them.
Prowl's new characterization appears to be based on Springer's insults to him back in Spotlight: Kup. There are several moments where Prowl's narration basically goes 'Springer was right' either in response to comments Springer is making about Prowl or about things he said back in Spotlight: Kup. Stuff like Springer characterizing him as an uncaring jerk, Prowl considering getting Kimia to weaponize Kup's radiation sickness and the idea that Prowl carefully calculates even the things he says to people.
It's not just Prowl but also the idea that Optimus would've supported Springer's mission to rescue Kup, even with all the deaths. The narrative is turning itself inside out trying to make Springer right about things when he really shouldn't be. Even the High Command Prowl thing is like a misreading of Springer's sarcastic comment about Prowl not being in High Command. The narrative 180 completely misses the point of the story it's supposed to be continuing.
This is the start of the trend of painting Prowl as obsessed with winning the war, but it's pretty clear in context that "winning" means getting as many people to survive until it comes to an end. The Decepticons are trying to systematically wipe out life on every planet they take over and fully intend to do the same to the Autobots. AHM is all about the Decepticons trying to do this.
The reasoning for the mind link is that too many Autobots like Springer are going off to do things that are getting people killed. Prowl can't get them to listen and follow strategies meant to keep people alive, so he's taking drastic measures to fix the problem. The problem he's trying to fix needs to be fixed or else everyone will die.
Springer can't even take sole responsibility for his actions even after Prowl corrects him about it. This is worse than where he was at the end of Spotlight: Kup, where he at least admitted to it when talking to Trailbreaker. Seems a bit hypocritical to give Prowl so much trouble and then just refuse to acknowledge a mistake he already knows about. The payoff to scenes like this should've been for Springer to have to confront the flaws and mistakes he's been denying as part of a character arc. We never really get that.
This is also the beginning of a dichotomy where the "real" Autobots are reckless and driven by emotion, while people like Prowl are bad because they're logical and therefore emotionless. Prowl's narration as a whole pushes this idea with how hard it tries to make Prowl seem cold and unfeeling about what he does.
Due to Prowl getting set up as a strawman, the implication seems to be that there is something unethical and evil about following logic over emotion, in addition to the idea that reason and having emotions are somehow mutually exclusive. After all, that's what sets the heroes apart from the villains. Not just the Autobots and Decepticons, but also characters like Prowl and Springer.
This becomes more overt in later stories, where characters outright question Prowl's status as an Autobot or claim he'd fit better as a Decepticon because his logic driven actions are unethical. Narratives like that are anti intellectual, as well as ableist. Being the strategist or the guy that hits things doesn't determine a character's morality. The dynamics at play here fall into stereotypes where the often autistic or otherwise neurodivergent coded characters are somehow less empathetic and moral because of those traits.
The part claiming the Decepticons are more logical and organized than the Autobots doesn't really match what we're shown, either. Aside from the ones already referenced, there's Starscream's coup in the Furman run, all those Decepticons who supported him even after it failed, his coup in AHM with a different set of Decepticons, Sixshot, Thundercracker and Ramjet in his spotlight. It gets even more ridiculous when you look past AHM, where there's a whole plotline where Megatron has to manipulate the Decepticons into supporting him again and some of them still don't. Then there's Shockwave, Overlord and the mess on the asteroid. Megatron rules through fear and created an environment where all but his more fervent loyalists want to ditch him either for a power grab or because they're fed up with how he treats them.
Megatron has been pretty hot headed up to this point and even says this earlier in AHM:
In AHM, the Decepticons primarily define themselves as warriors who take what they want. Megatron encouraged this mindset and leads them through force, not logic. That's a tool for people like Starscream, who disagrees with Megatron's methods and is trying to usurp him over it. This conflict continues into RID, where Starscream doesn't want the war to restart and is trying to gain leadership of Cybertron through cunning instead of the force Megatron relied on.
This is similar to part of Prowl's narration shortly before his comment about the Decepticons:
From this point on, both Megatron and Optimus have similar flaws of driving the war through their unwillingness to do things any way other than their own, even when it makes no strategic sense. The Decepticons aren't really doing any better on this.
The setup around the mind link doesn't even make sense. Prowl is getting retconned into having more authority so he has the resources to do this, but more authority would mean he should have an easier time disciplining the people who don't follow his orders. That would get in the way of making Prowl the bad guy, so the story just ignores that.
Autobots in the Furman run weren't facing appropriate consequences for their actions because other things kept taking priority, the narrative wasn't fully acknowledging the problem with their actions and they somehow didn't get anyone killed. It also toned down on that, doing a better job with Hot Rod and Grimlock than it did with Ratchet and Ironhide.
Instead of improving past weak points in the writing, the entire Autobot chain of command gets retroactively broken by establishing that they're actively sabotaging themselves on a regular basis. Optimus is now an enabler of these problems instead of a good leader who reigns people in when he can and the few people with enough sense to notice the problem are being ignored.
Why would Optimus appoint someone to a job they're prevented from doing? Why is it not a problem that Optimus can't enforce his own chain of command so that the people in charge of giving competent strategies can keep people alive? Why are those people the bad guys and not the ones actually getting people killed by not listening?
Another problem with this is how inconsistent it is with the rest of AHM. This version of Prowl makes no sense when directly compared to the one talking to Kup in AHM 6:
The Autobots and Optimus recklessly getting people killed on a regular basis with no thought to the consequences also conflicts with AHM 13, where Ironhide's friendship with Optimus began when Optimus was willing to listen to and learn from Ironhide's criticisms about how to better lead people to avoid unnecessary deaths.
The Autobots were a lot more conscious and remorseful about that sort of thing when they were stranded on Cybertron, but now suddenly they don't care how many people die on a poorly planned rescue mission? How is that supposed to be more ethical than using Kup as a mouthpiece to convince Autobots to stop getting people killed?
Infestation
Infestation was one of the generally disliked crossover comics. It's easy to ignore but it's also one of the few times the Kup mind link came up.
The gist of the plot is that there's a zombie plague hivemind that can infect both humans and Cybertronians. Its main representative and the villain of the crossover is Britt. Galvatron's ship ran afoul of them and crashed on Earth. It's not a good look for Galvatron and Optimus fights him. Skywatch is also there because this is during their alliance with the Autobots. The conflict with Galvatron in the midst of a zombie apocalypse takes a lot more page time than it really should.
Kup starts to remember the zombies from Tsiehchi, drops his cygar in his panic and starts spiraling. AHM 15 established that the cygar contained a synthetic version of the radiation he'd been exposed to and would help keep him from regressing to the state he was in when they rescued him. Kup gives away Britt's disguise, causing her to stab and infect him. The information Britt gains from this allows her to create a portal to past Cybertron. The Autobots initially try to destroy it with missiles, but she creates a forcefield based on the one they used to quarantine the area. That's when Prowl uses the mind link to contact Kup, since he's the only chance they have left.
It's easy to say Prowl just used Kup and threw him away when recounting the events in SOTW, but that's just not how it happened. Prowl used the mind link to restore Kup's mind and communicate with him, not control him. He explained what he was doing to Kup, what was happening to him and what they needed him to do. Optimus, Galvatron and Bumblebee were all there and participating in this too.
Circumstances didn't really give Kup much of an option besides what he did if he wanted to do something about the zombie situation, especially since he was a zombie himself. Still, he was clearly aware of himself and acted on his own power when he did it.
Prowl is the most visibly distraught over what happened to Kup. You can infer Optimus is too, but no one else really gets a reaction shot. Infestation isn't exactly a good story, but Kup's part is worth reworking into something better. It's about as good of a resolution to the mind link plotline as could be expected. The explanation and use for it are better than the original premise and Prowl is allowed to care about people. There really wasn't any reason to bring it back or erase Kup's memories so he could re-experience his trauma. It was handled better here than in SOTW.
Sins of the Wreckers
In Sins of the Wreckers, the mind link is first hinted at with Kup experiencing blackouts. Arcee is immediately suspicious this is connected to Prowl, but it comes off more like she's drawing on the writer's knowledge of the plot. She doesn't have any reason to suspect Prowl has anything to do with it until Kup figures out the code to Prowl's office.
The mind link ends up being revealed when Prowl takes over Kup to contact the Wreckers directly. This involves a visual effect with glowing eyes and a laser chevron to make it clear that Prowl is in control. Prowl's voice is presumably also in effect. It was probably supposed to look cool and dramatic but just ends up highlighting how absurd and inconsistent the mind link plotline really is.
This whole scene comes off like it's designed to make Prowl look as unsympathetic as possible to justify hating on him. Making it sound like he used Kup and doesn't care about the cost because he saved the world. When you have context for what actually happened, the inaccuracies and the way the story tries to retcon away any sign that Prowl isn't as bad as it wants you to think he is just feels disingenuous.
Erasing Kup's agency in his sacrifice, Prowl's grief over it and that Kup was basically as good as dead before he did it only really serves the narrative that's been character assassinating Prowl since AHM 15. Springer and Arcee being the ones to moralize about this makes it even worse with how the terrible things they've done pretty much get glossed over.
This is Sins of the Wreckers and yet all the people Springer killed to save Kup are just a footnote. It's completely buried under the mind link plotline and the story's fixation on making Prowl the Worst Autobot Ever. This whole plot thread started with Springer getting mad at Prowl for trying to talk him down from getting more people killed. The most that's given is that it's what Springer feels guilty about when put through Impetus. Springer feeling guilty isn't a resolution, especially when he keeps dodging responsibility when it comes up. The narrative seemingly just brings it up to remind people that it's choosing not to actually address it.
Kup's trauma and recovery is just a footnote too. Just compare this to Infestation. Kup just gets a brief moment to cope with the revelation and then it's back to hating on Prowl. All he gets after this is telling Prowl how much everyone hates him in his message later. This whole story arc isn't really about him.
It doesn't really make sense for Prowl to bring up the people Kup killed when it wasn't necessary. He covered it up before Springer even asked because they both felt that it was best he never find out. Kup shouldn't even be aware of that conversation.
The rules around the mind link make no sense. The other uses within Sins of the Wreckers establish that Kup needs to black out for it, but he's aware in this case so he can hear the conversation. The last use after this also has him message Prowl while knocked unconscious, which shouldn't be possible either. The only part that makes sense is when Kup knew the code to Prowl's office.
Aside from that, nothing we see the mind link do in SOTW is consistent with what it was allegedly for. How exactly is Prowl supposed to get people to listen to his strategies through Kup if Kup keeps passing out or noticeably isn't acting like himself? No one is supposed to notice, including Kup. The super showy talking through Kup effect shouldn't be there either.
Guzzle
The other thread stemming from Spotlight: Kup is Guzzle. His backstory establishes that most of his old platoon died trying to save Kup. Despite the coverup, he's aware of how they died.
By the end of LSOTW, he's extremely violent to the point that Impactor tries to reign him in. That's why he starts SOTW locked up. For SOTW, he's little more than a violent loose canon everyone else is trying to steer in a useful direction. The payoff to his storyline is that he holds Prowl and Kup at gunpoint once they get out of the noisemaze.
Prowl is basically just lumped into Guzzle's grudge for narrative tension around his rescue and another chance to go on about how terrible he is. Despite Springer being the reason all those people died trying to save Kup, he doesn't get mentioned at all. He's busy heroically sacrificing himself to stop Tarantulas and getting praised as a beloved hero. There's no room in the story to criticize him.
Guzzle gets some compassion from Verity and that's it. He doesn't get to finish talking before Impactor kills him. Springer's terrible mission planning got his friends killed, joining the Wreckers caused him to spiral into violence, they bring him on the mission despite clearly being a liability and then he gets killed when he inevitably becomes a problem.
Guzzle is a pretty clear example of the issues with Springer and the Wreckers, but the story doesn't really do anything with that. He's one of the few living characters harmed by Springer's rescue mission, which should've led to confronting Springer with the consequences of his actions. Springer recruiting him into the Wreckers and the effect that had on him was also an opportunity to discuss the toxic culture the Wreckers have that turns people into war criminals.
Siren survived the mission and was pretty mad at Springer back in Spotlight: Kup. He easily could've been brought back as part of this plotline, which would've opened up more options on what to do with Guzzle.
Conclusion
The mind link plotline is just a mess of bad writing. It's inconsistent, vilifies Prowl for bad reasons and undermines the narrative themes of the story it's supposed to be continuing.
Springer started out as a high ranking Autobot who got people under his command killed because he couldn't put their lives ahead of Kup. By the end of the Wreckers trilogy, he's an untouchable paragon whose heroic qualities are meant to inspire people to do better, and yet he never had to get any character development to address his own flaws. They just matter less and less until all that's left is people's idolization of him.
For all the hate Prowl gets, he's the only one who seems to care about what Springer did, and he seems to care more about saving lives than the other Autobots. The whole premise of the mind link is that Autobots are so entrenched in self-destructive ideals that they apparently don't reflect on the deaths their actions cause, the preventability of those deaths or the value in listening to strategies meant to avoid them.
The Autobots that died trying to rescue Kup didn't want to die in that mission. They didn't need to die to save him and dying didn't get the mission any closer to succeeding. Why is it more heroic to send all those people to die out of negligent mission planning over one person than to refuse to put more lives in danger? Why is Prowl somehow less empathetic for quantifying the potential death toll and trying to avoid it, when everyone else apparently doesn't care how many people die as long as they get to feel good and heroic in the short term? Why is Prowl the only one blamed for deaths attributed to his actions and not people like Springer or Arcee?
Instead of bashing Prowl, the followup could've had Springer try to get Kup's mind rebuilt. If it's pretender tech you can still do a mind link plotline without it being some nefarious way to use Kup. Pretenders already had a mind link feature built in, and the link could be what's holding Kup's mind together. What makes the most sense here would be for Springer to do it, which could invite existential questions of how much of Kup is the real him and how much is Springer's idealized memory of him.
If you really want Prowl to be linked to Kup, it can be with Springer's knowledge, maybe because he was worried being a Wrecker put him in too much danger. Prowl cared about Kup too, he just had the sense not to get people killed over it. Without making it a secret mastermind thing, you could explore how Prowl getting shadowplayed, mindcontrolled and shoved into a combiner would affect Kup.
Overall, it should be more about what serves bringing Kup back in a state that continues the original plot thread about Springer having to deal with what he did. That means giving Kup agency in confronting what happened to him and how he feels about it. Prowl's not really necessary for that.
As part of the plot for Last Stand of the Wreckers, Fort Max was tortured by Overlord for multiple years when Garrus 9 was taken. Most of his role in MTMTE's plot is centered around dealing with his trauma, but it wasn't done very well.
Due to the plotline being discussed, there will be mention of bad therapy, mishandling of PTSD, victim blaming and ableism.
Waking up in Delphi
Fort Max's role throughout MTMTE largely revolves around violence. He's woken up from his coma to beat up some Decepticons, which is treated like a badass moment. First Aid gets to show off his new medical technique and save the day, while Fort Max gets a speech about how traumatized he is and why that puts the Decepticons in a bad situation.
The graphic violence with which Fort Max kills the Decepticons isn't treated like a good thing, but Ratchet's concerns about it feel like an afterthought to MTMTE's fixation with taking every opportunity it can to make a spectacle out of gore and violence. There wasn't any need for a detailed sequence of exactly what Fort Max did to convey this was going beyond self-defense and that Fort Max's mental health should be treated seriously.
A better way of handling this would've been to have Ratchet raise concerns about the mental health effects of waking Fort Max up in this way. Do away with the action movie tone and focus on the desperation driving them to resort to this. No pre ass-kicking speech, just Fort Max waking up in terror and fury from his memories of G9 and Ratchet calming him down once the danger's over. If gore is still shown, there are more tasteful ways of doing so.
Rung's Bad Therapy
Rung repeatedly pressed Fort Max about G9 and seems to have repeatedly claimed he'd only ask one more question while going beyond that. Instead of hearing out Fort Max's own train of thought, he cut off what he was willing to talk about to keep pressing about G9.
Fort Max was in a coma up until Delphi, which was only 1 issue ago. He hasn't really had time to process his trauma and shouldn't be rushed into talking about it before he's ready. Fort Max asked about Rung's combat experience because he felt Rung wouldn't really understand what he went through. It wasn't just some irrelevant tangent detracting from the therapy session. Why would Fort Max want to talk about his trauma with someone who's forcing him to and cuts off what he actually chooses to bring up on his own?
When Fort Max lies about not remembering what happened so he can avoid talking about it, Rung suggests using mnemosurgery to restore his memories. Rung knows that those memories are traumatic and should know that what Overlord did to Fort Max would probably make him uncomfortable with mnemosurgery. He was in a coma because his brain was used as a glorified calculator in an attempt to reach Aequitas. Rung is presumably meant to be qualified to give therapy to deal with PTSD. He should know better than to suggest an invasive and likely retraumatizing method of dealing with repressed memories, especially on the first session.
This is made worse a few issues from now when Skids tries to get Chromedome to help him with his amnesia. It turns out that using mnemosurgery to force someone to remember traumatic memories can not only put them into shock, but it's potentially lethal. Rung casually suggested to Fort Max that he could undergo a procedure that would retraumatize him at best and kill him at worst.
Fort Max is clearly uncomfortable with the therapy session and has good reason to be. Not only is he forced to be there, but he doesn't really have any control over what they talk about and isn't really being listened to. The lack of agency and being forced to think about what was done to him is making his trauma worse. Rung's duty of care line ends up coming off like the Lost Light's command are more concerned with the appearance of fulfilling their responsibilities than actually ensuring Fort Max's well-being. It's not especially surprising that Fort Max ended up latching onto that line, feeling like his superiors failed their responsibilities towards him and let him get hurt out of incompetence. That's basically what's happening with the therapy session.
The Hostage Incident
Fort Max isn't thinking rationally here. He's externalizing his trauma as aggression, which in Overlord's absence, means lashing out at anyone he can blame for his trauma. People who look like Overlord and people he deems as having a responsibility towards him that they failed to uphold. Rung's bad therapy is clearly a major contributing factor to Fort Max acting this way, as well as taking Rung hostage.
Rodimus ends up dealing with the situation by having Rewind project footage of G9, using his trauma as a distraction to shoot him. Despite this being enough to incapacitate Fort Max, Rodimus goes ahead with having Swerve shoot him, which is what leads to Rung getting injured.
This is an overall dehumanizing way of depicting PTSD. Fort Max's trauma is basically just a plot device used to turn him into an arc villain and then again to "fix" the problem. The story apparently cares more about making Rewind's snuff film subplot relevant in a beneficial way than about acknowledging that Fort Max was re-traumatized multiple times because of Rodimus and Rung's incompetence. They had a responsibility to ensure his safety and well-being and instead put him in a situation where he became a danger to himself and the people around him.
Why did Fort Max's trauma have to make him the bad guy, even if only temporarily? Was it really necessary to solve this situation by weaponizing Fort Max's trauma against him? Why is it not a plot point that Rung's bad therapy drove him into a mental health crisis? Why are problems only raised about this as a footnote to Ultra Magmus' grievances over Rodimus' leadership in the Tyrest arc and then never brought up again?
Accountability
While it makes sense for Fort Max to feel remorse about what happened, Rung should be apologizing too. Fort Max didn't just randomly get overwhelmed by his trauma. That was because Rung kept poking at it and making it worse until Fort Max couldn't take it anymore. Rung was deeply irresponsible with the mental health of someone under his care, which put them and other people on the ship in danger.
Not only does Rung's lack of accountability undermine what's meant to be a heartwarming moment, but it also undermines their apparent friendship and continued therapy sessions. Rung's therapy has canonically been demonstrated to cause harm to Fort Max. That should have an effect on Fort Max's trust in Rung as a therapist. Allowing other therapists to exist and for Fort Max to get therapy from someone other than Rung would've been better than just having him continue to get therapy from someone whose therapy is worse than nothing.
This is all we really get about Rodimus' accountability for what happened with Fort Max. That part of the plot is more about his general failings as a leader and taking responsibility for allowing Overlord onto the ship. It doesn't really seem like Fort Max and Rodimus talked about it before the Lost Light left Luna 1 and the whole thing was considered resolved past that point.
Rodimus knew that Fort Max was overly violent when fighting Decepticons on Delphi and was responsible for putting him in mandatory therapy sessions with Rung. Ultra Magnus clearly had reservations about not disarming him, which implies that Rodimus ignored his concerns about it. There's no mention of Drift, so it's unclear what role he played in this. Rodimus neglected his responsibilities as captain by letting someone with known violent tendencies remain armed, making him a potential danger to the rest of the crew.
Disarming Fort Max would be for his own safety too. The lower risk of harm by being unarmed also means less extreme methods would be required to deescalate the situation if he has a violent outburst. Swerve was aiming for Fort Max, not Rung. The hostage situation easily could've ended with Fort Max fatally shot while cowering at the sight of Overlord. Would people be as remorseful about that outcome as they were about Rung? Would Ultra Magnus still have grievances with Rodimus' way of handling the situation if Swerve accidentally killed the hostage taker rather than nearly killing the hostage?
Fort Max's departure from the Lost Light could've been about the way Rodimus and Rung mishandled his trauma and finding that leaving is better for his mental health. Instead, it's just a necessary consequence of becoming the new enforcer of the Tyrest Accords.
Fort Max's Rescue
The situation around Garrus 9 is mostly filtered through Fort Max's perspective. Despite clearly taking out his frustrations wherever he can, the story doesn't really do much to correct the misunderstandings around who's to blame for how long it took to rescue him.
This is how the rescue mission is explained in Bullets:
With his latest communiqué, Agent 113 had relayed concerns within the DJD that nothing had been heard from Garrus 9 since the Autobot prison had been overrun by Sky Quake's Predators during the early stages of the Surge. The DJD had dispatched an exploratory force to investigate. They'd never come back.
Springer had shared this information with High Command, who - on the basis of an earlier report from Agent 113 - had originally concluded that G-9 had been utterly destroyed. They were now faced with the possibility that Fortress Maximus and Co. had not only survived the Surge, but were repelling Decepticon invasion parties while waiting to be rescued. All of which had led Prowl to contact Springer to discuss plans for Operation: Retrieval.
And this is what Springer says in LSOTW:
Autobot High Command didn't rescue Fort Max sooner because the intel they initially got suggested there was no one left to rescue. They got to work organizing a rescue mission as soon as they had evidence otherwise. This was the aftermath of the Surge, where pretty much all Autobot bases got attacked simultaneously. The Earth team was stranded on Cybertron after a failed execution attempt, almost died and then had to stop the Decepticons from taking over Earth. They lost most of their resources, communication and travel ability, severely impacting their ability to take stock of who's still alive and help them in a timely manner.
High Command isn't just Prowl. The decisions around this were made by multiple people based on the information and resources available to them at the time. Prowl is just the guy that got put in charge of the rescue mission once they had reason to do one. They didn't even know about Overlord until Impactor warned the Wreckers on their way there. They didn't know about the torture and everything else Overlord did.
The Timeline
AHM took place in 2008. The specific date given later on is May 29. LSOTW appears to have originally been intended to take place in 2009, with some of the time references involved being artifacts of this. The timespan given between the mission prep and the mission itself is 8 months, which means they would have started preparations in late 2008 within months of AHM. Instead of this, LSOTW was synched to the Costa run, which was set in 2011. The 3 year timeskip between this and AHM didn’t really serve any story purpose and just left the Autobots and Decepticons to do almost nothing in between plotlines.
What we’re told/shown of what happened in the timeskip basically amounts to the Decepticons cannibalizing eachother on an asteroid they somehow got stranded on and the Autobots watching humans develop weapons to hunt and kill Cybertronians while choosing to stay on Earth. The vague time references make it unclear exactly how long the Costa run was intended to last but time seems to have been padded out again to make it 2013 by the time the Delphi arc takes place.
What we get canonically is Fort Max getting tortured for 3 years and then in a coma for 2. What would make sense once removing the retcon induced filler time would be 8 – 12 months spent captured and then around 1 – 6 months in a coma depending on where you set LSOTW relative to Costa. The 8 month mission prep time seems to be because of limited resources reducing the Autobots' ability to quickly travel through space and having things actually take time to prepare.
It's a bit absurd that MTMTE stresses the amount of time it took to rescue Fort Max when a lot of that time was inserted through retcons. No one is actually at fault for how long it took and it happened as fast as it could within the means the Autobots were established to have. Rung did psych screenings for the Wreckers candidates that were recruited for the mission. He knows this and should've corrected Fort Max's misconceptions about it.
Space Cop Fort Max
Fort Max becoming the new enforcer of the Tyrest Accords is meant to be a good ending for him, but all it really does is entrench him into a role of enacting violence on "acceptable" targets. He apparently thinks Ultra Magnus was too rigid for only arresting people after they commit crimes and decides to go after people he suspects will commit one. That's profiling. You can't just pre-emptively arrest people you think are shady.
Then there's the extra-judicial killing. Fort Max was more than capable of arresting Damus without killing him. The Scavengers even call him out on this, to which he simply responds that Damus had a gun. That's police brutality. He later goes on describing Damus' crimes in detail, seemingly to justify killing him. It's not outright stated, but Fort Max's trauma from G9 likely played a role in his actions.
Fort Max is apparently also blaming Grimlock for his trauma for running away from G9, using similar, if less overtly violent phrasing than when he blamed Prowl. He's going after Grimlock for associating with the Scavengers, who he's also pursuing on suspicion of crimes rather than concrete proof. Going after Grimlock over being an escaped convict is flimsy too, since Grimlock went missing after Overlord took over. Impactor ended up in G9 over worse crimes than Grimlock and was still allowed to stay with the Wreckers.
Fort Max is treated as in the wrong, but the way the story goes about this is pretty terrible. It's framed as an arc about learning to give Decepticons a chance, even though most Decepticons don't really do much to address their wrongdoings and genocidal ideology. The Scavengers themselves haven't really renounced the genocidal aspects of Decepticon ideology and nearly sold Grimlock into slavery. Fort Max does have reason to be wary of Decepticons. The problem is that the rules Ultra Magnus followed that Fort Max finds too rigid exist for a reason. You need evidence of crimes in order to arrest someone and it's not his job to execute criminals no matter how terrible they are. The other problem is that Fort Max is still in the habit of blaming people for things he's angry about so he can justify attacking them. Neither of these things are adequately addressed.
Someone getting appointed as the new enforcer of the Tyrest accords after the Tyrest arc already raises several questions, but doing it with Fort Max raises even more. If the Tyrest Accords are basically the Cybertronian Geneva convention, then how applicable are they now that the war is over? Even if treated as applicable post-war, shouldn't that affect how they're handled? What's the jurisdiction and who is Fort Max accountable to? Optimus? Starscream? Isn't that something people should be paying attention to after what Tyrest did? Does no one have problems with the guy who projects his trauma to commit violence being in charge of policing Cybertronians throughout space? What about Red Alert? Why is he ok with the way Fort Max is treating criminals? What exactly is his role in enforcement of the Tyrest Accords and Fort Max's accountability?
Blaming Prowl
When Prowl comes to warn the moon base about Sentinel, Fort Max physically assaults him on sight without explanation. The whole thing is treated like a joke, even though Fort Max has previously expressed a strong desire to kill Prowl. This is in poor taste, as Prowl is being misblamed for something that wasn't really his fault. Attacking him wouldn't really be ok even if it was, and disliking him doesn't justify this kind of violence. While Fort Max later credits Rung for getting him to a point that he'd stop before causing serious harm, it's pretty clear that Rung failed to address the critical issue of Fort Max blaming people for things so he can take out his anger on them. If Rung was actually doing his job properly, Fort Max wouldn't even be blaming Prowl anymore.
Prowl is very out of character throughout this plotline, but this scene is one of the more egregious examples of it. Prowl's thing as a strategist depends on him paying attention to and planning for things other people don't. His next appearance after this makes a point of him being the only one to remember to track down and rescue a group of MIA Autobots, saying he never forgets anything. The version of Prowl we see here is just a caricature meant to serve as a literal and figurative punching bag for the sake of ableist jokes.
It speaks to the story's contempt for Prowl that instead of straightforwardly correcting a longtime misunderstanding about something that isn't his fault, the story presents Prowl's confusion over Fort Max's anger as not caring enough to remember why people are mad at him. It further undermines Prowl with a joke where he assumes Fort Max was talking about apologizing to him when he comments on Prowl's lack of apology. These are ableist stereotypes commonly used to dehumanize autistic people.
Prowl has no reason to intuitively know what Fort Max is mad about, since he has no context for it. Why would he think Fort Max blamed him for how long it took to rescue him when that had nothing to do with him? He doesn't know anything about Fort Max's therapy sessions, the hostage incident or how Fort Max is dealing with his trauma. Why would Prowl need to apologize to someone who physically assaulted him for something that genuinely wasn't his fault? It's actually pretty reasonable for Prowl to think Fort Max might apologize for his violence over the misunderstanding. The story just hates Prowl too much to present the situation for what it is.
Mixed Signals
Fort Max and Prowl have a conversation which among other things, seems to convey that Fort Max no longer holds a grudge against him. Prowl talks about how Fort Max stopped attacking him, Fort Max credits Rung's therapy for helping him work through it and they share a vulnerable moment about their reactions to the Lost Light crew's death message.
Despite this, Fort Max casually insinuates he wants to shoot Prowl in a later scene, as if he still holds a grudge. That doesn't really make sense, since the whole thing was explained as a misunderstanding and Fort Max never mentioned any other reasons for his animosity. It ends up coming off as this weird inconsistency that only really exists for the sake of Prowl bashing. A lot of the characterization in this storyline is off, especially for the sake of jokes.
The joke is pretty inappropriate too. It reinforces dangerous ableist attitudes towards Prowl and makes light of Fort Max's violence. It's basically saying that it's ok to beat someone up and openly fantasize about killing them if it's an acceptable target, and that acceptable targets include autistic coded characters who were flanderized and vilified for the sake of justifying ableism towards them.
When Prowl later decides to stay on the base for a while, it's like that scene never happened. Fort Max doesn't have a problem with it and includes Prowl in the weirdly domestic "dishwashing".
Conclusion
The writing around Fort Max is pretty ableist. Not just the stuff with Prowl, but the way his PTSD is handled. IDW1 is already saturated with characters going crazy from trauma that reinforces negative stereotypes around PTSD, but Fort Max stands out because of the pretense of wanting to treat his trauma seriously.
From start to finish, he's treated more like a tool for violence than a person. He wakes up to beat up some Decepticons, the therapy session is just a pretense for a gory flashback and hostage plotline and then he only gets out of the brig when it's time to beat up Overlord. While fighting the person who tortured him might offer some catharsis, it doesn't exactly do anything to resolve Fort Max's struggles with violence. This problem just further entrenches itself when Fort Max becomes a space cop and continues to beat people up.
Where's the arc about accepting that you shouldn't deal with trauma by killing people and that sometimes, something isn't really anyone's fault? Where's the discussion about the responsibility and accountability people have in properly dealing with someone's mental health and the harm that can be caused when it's done improperly? What abut Fort Max socializing with people and discovering hobbies unrelated to fighting? There's so much Luna 1 could've been other than a base for enforcing the Tyrest Accords.
Jazz is by hands is gonna be the hardest character i write for in the Birth of spring au because I want to do his character justice.
I don’t like how he’s portrayed in certain fics especially when it comes to certain Jazzprowl fics. This a character that has a lot of importance and impact on the franchise itself so I want to make sure I do him and his relationship with everyone as a whole.
In the birth of spring au, Jazz is Jazz of Staniz like his IDW counterpart but he will be twin brother with ricochet.
In the au similar to IDW 1 Jazz will be a forged born in Staniz who has a love of music and culture. But doesn’t quite know what he wants to do with his existence quite yet but does want to do something with the arts similar to Ricochet.
The brother would eventually travel around cybertron and its two moons doing odd jobs that sorta make him a jack of all trades type guy. Most of his odd jobs are related to music and the arts. But he did do some hard labor jobs which is how he ends up befriending a lot of familiar future faces between the Autobots and Decepticons pre war. Especially Orion Pax who shared his love of learning.
Blaster and Skybyte where they play together in various clubs.
And Prowl. On multiple different occasions. He assumes the reason why Prowl has so many different jobs because he a free spirit at heart like Jazz is.
Prowl doesn’t correct but he will eventually tell him about his situation much later but they become decent enough friends. Which Prowl gets to experience his first healthy age appropriate crush. Prowl pines hard for Jazz. Jazz thinks Prowl is cute but isn’t really interested in any type relationship now. They don’t really start dating until thousands of years later when they’re both in university.(I assume dating is not like our dating and is a little more flexible with cybertronians since it’s more common to have a amica(semi romantic/platonic soul mate depending on the person then an actual spouse).
And eventually meets the Constructicons, Soundwave, Megatron and Impactor as well in his travels. I have not quite decided how the Constructicons and Jazz relationship will actually be individually but they’re willing to give Jazz a chance and like him for the most part.
I imagine Jazz and Impactor don’t really get along that well at first. Putting up with eachother since their friends groups intersect. I do think in my au they learn to tolerate eachother and eventually learn to love eachother. (They raise a kid together it was bound to happen.)
Eventually during a big festival in Iacon where cultural investigators plus merchants, artists musicians and such come together to explore and exchange ideas. He meets a cultural investigator Punch who sees potential in Jazz and Ricochet.
Punch takes them under his wing and eventually help them go down the path they want in life. Jazz and Ricocheted will eventually become a cultural investigators themselves. Jazz more with would lean more into musics and dance. While Ricochet would lean more into the arts. Not to say they both don’t excel at every aspect of being a CI but they have their specific interests. Eventually this would lead Ricochet into going into a business where he would help create many tools and items that help facilitate the everyday tasks of different cultures while simultaneously persevering the methods to create certain cuisines, instruments and even agricultural.
Punch didn’t necessarily take them under his wing for altruistic reasons he’s technically a member of the Primal vanguards Spec Ops group and he’s always looking for new recruits.
And he’s looking for Successor and Jazz is unfortunately checking all the boxes.
But unlike all his other recruits he genuinely does care for the Brothers. Even sees them as family.
Jazz doesn’t not find this out until much later and obviously feels betrayed.
Pinpointing the timeline as a whole is tricky for Jazz because it will be Jazz doing odd jobs, being inspired to be a cultural investigator, university, becoming a CI. He gets the opportunity to visit the various colonies and excels at learning from them compared to others. He doesn’t realize this was technically a test.
The colony wars happens and Jazz is drafted into the Primal Vanguard spec ops team much to his anger and is put to work to be taught to be an actual Spec ops agents and use his CI skills to spy on the other colonies. Watching the very thing he wished to study begin to be destroyed so he uses his new found skills to help stop the war.
Jazz is a key player in bringing an end to the colony wars and allowing peace talks to be facilitated. After the war and the peace treaties are signed. Jazz would go on and become a university Professor in Iacon.
Jazz enjoys some peace for a few centuries a Professor and doing some music gigs on the side for fun. It up lifts people around him who are still recovering from the war. Only to be drafted back to war against the Quintessons. He only joins the Spec ops again to keep his Brother out of Spec Ops hands. He also pulls a favor with Prowl and Impactor and Ricochet joins them in the Wreckers.
Quintesson wars are over and Jazz and many others have no job to return to. Both his University Job and CI jobs has been filled in by others.
With no real choice he eventually joins the security forces begrudgingly raising in the ranks all the way to Sentinels personal Vanguard while hopefully trying to find an opening for his old job.
His only solace his he’s with old friends and meeting new friends.
And he gets serious about courting Prowl while having friendly competition with Impactor who’s also trying to court with Prowl. Also technically the Constructicons because their Prowls Amica and their a Package deal.
Until one day Prowl gets in too deep with a secret sciencist to Sentinel Prime and Jazz eventually get forced into Prowl job as Sentinel’s lieutenant while Prowl is whisked away to be locked within the Primal Basicilla as the Primal consort.
Jazz fed up with how everything is eventually joins Alpha Trion and the Trion Sages secret revolutionary army and uses his position and his skills as a spec ops agent and Cultural investigator.
Working with and helping lay down ground work for the future Decepticons and Autobots.
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I might change stuff as I right the story but I’m still trying to figure out how to write some characters because the beginning of the birth of spring au is very Prowl centric in the beginning.
Where the end goal is Prowl, Impactor, Jazz and the Constructicons coming together to raise baby springer.
The idea of transformer Sparklings getting their names not because of something deeply personal but because the Carrier has general vibe about the baby can lead to some hilarious scenarios.
Tarantulas: “We shall call him, Ostaros! It is a very elegant name!”
Tarantulas holding baby Springer in the air like Simba from the lion king.
Prowl signing the birth certificate.
Prowl: No his name is Springer.
Tarantulas: Why?
Prowl: Idk he felt very springy in the forge. So Springer. Also Impactor said it was stupid aft name.
Impactor: He’s right! It is stupid aft name! Your kid is gonna get bullied.
Tarantulas: The frag you mean he felt Springy in the forge? Why the frag are you even here!?
Impactor: Moral support and I wanted to witnesses the miracle of child birth.
Ratchet: I don’t get paid enough for this! Here sign the birth certificate and read these phamplets!
Tarantulas even more annoyed turns to Kup.
Tarantulas: Tell me you didn’t name your creations based off a vibe like these phamplets say it would?!
Kup shrugs.
Kup: He felt like a Prowler so I named him Prowl. Ironhide and Chromia wanted to name Prowl after some great warrior from caminus. Idk mech. Bluestreak felt blue. Smoke screen felt Smokey. X-Brawn felt Brawny. Side burn felt like a Burner. And Baricade felt like well a Baricade.
Impactor: Terminus said I felt Impactful.
Sentinel Prime: Megatronus said I felt like a Sentry.
Jazz: Punch said I felt musical.
Tarantulas: Why are you two here!?
Orion Pax: Alpha Trion said I felt Orrery.
Orion Pax, Sentinel Prime & Jazz: Moral support and I wanted to witnesses the miracle of child birth.
Sentinel Prime: Also religious prime stuff I have to do every time theirs a new spark born. Mostly moral support and to drop off a get well basket and drop off grand carrier I mean Doctor Rungs card for any emergency mental health support.
Tarantulas begins to questioning everything about Cybertron society as a whole.
In most continuities I head canon Prowl is Springers parent but TFA and TFone. Springer is Prowls parent. Idk why my brain thinks this but it has allowed me to think of some fun ideas.
Y’all I think I found away to make another horrifying au for cold constructs.
Springer and the MTOs from IDW kinda got me thinking about the concept of designer babies.
Ok so the idea is that those of upper classes who want kids but don’t want to deal with the concept of carrying because of how dangerous it could be. So using the same technology that creates the cold constructs. Except they make them baby size and use donated materials from the parents to make them genetically related to them.
Sky bound introduced the idea of spark fragments being used to create new spark. So the people who makes the designer sparkling take one the cold storage sparks and slice them up and use the embers of the donated parents to make them genetically related to the noble families.
So they take multiple sparks take the desired traits from each one and blend it together to make something new.
Mind you the designer babies are still cold constructs so they’re fucked up in the head. Like normal cold constructs.
Eventually nobles use this method to make spare heirs to serve their families for political reasons and more prominent military or first responder or scientific families are given the opportunity to have designer babies for the family business and to contribute to society as whole.
Technically they have the same privileges as their forged and sparked family members but they always have the threat of being sent to obedience school or to be used for spare parts for more important family members. This idea will probably have a lot of forced marriages between the designer babies so the actual heirs are not taken away from their families.
Yes I thought of this au to find a new way to torture Prowl.
I just haven’t figured out how yet. But it also has Senator Proteus be the one torturing Prowl.
Every day I try to picture what clothes and jewelry would look like for Transformers outside of capes and crowns but I think the clothing and accessories of the Zora, Rito and Gorons from Legends of Zelda Breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom is the best route to go for inspiration.
My toxic trait is believing TFA Prowl is the result of a teen pregnancy from Springer and First Aid. They gave him up for adoption thinking they were giving him a better life only for Prowl to grow up under terrible conditions.
First Aid ended up in medical school and became a doctor while Springer joined the cyber ninja Dojo to heal from giving up his kid.
Eventually the war happened and Springaid reunited but didn’t really feel comfortable enough to seek out Prowl until they worked out their own relationship issues. They figured he had to have a loving family so why disturb it.
Until a certain chill Cyber Ninja started telling the other Cyber Ninjas about who Yoketron successor would be. Springer was curious and discovered that Prowl was his long lost kid and took at as a sign that he should reach out after the Decepticon threat was handled.
Months later Springaid are watching their child come home as hero in a casket.
Chapter updates, Sentinel Prime, Prowl, Sentiprowl obsession in the Birth of Spring au!
As I’m writing the current chapters for act of devotion and the prelude of spring I had a fun idea for Sentinel and Prowl.
Prowl is gonna have a unique abilities. It will be a weird hybrid ability because of his unique origin and modification because of the Tacnet. The ability to form Mind links/ City speaker powers. I figured since his Tacnet mod is designed to hook him up into computers he can use his little attena to intercept information. This kinda intertwines with his outlier ability that will allow him to establish mind links with those he’s close to(essentially his brothers/mentors/ Amica/ Conjux and child) combining this with city speaker abilities he’s able to communicate with almost any form of battle station or combiner. He becomes very crucial during a few wars and helping the first combiners that are made when the enigma of combination is rediscovered. (Devastator and Ruination). This ability will come into a lot of conflicts with Prowl. Essentially he will nearly deactivate himself multiple times because of this ability and make him very valuable for whoever wants to use him.
Enter Sentinel Prime! I am making Sentinel Prime be the child of the Titan Master Infuntus and the one of the OG 13 primes Nexus Prime the creator of the Engima of Combination. Sentinel will have Titan Master abilities like his Carrier Infuntus but not at the true scale like true titan masters. I would like to have him be closer to his Sire Nexus Prime then Infuntus. Infuntus being very strict with Sentinel because of his status as the first child of the 13. Also have this headcanon that since Sparklings souls lived within the souls of their carriers they have a very unique bond. Essentially they see eachother as extension of eachother almost. That’s not to say they don’t have a close bond with other family members or their sires. It’s something akin to a survival instinct. To make sure they are cared for by eachother and others. Which would establish the ancient clan system. To ensure the young ones are cared for properly as well as the carriers and the sires aren’t getting burnt out on taken care for eachother.
But since Sentinel was one of the very first Sparklings it led to him feeling very isolated and felt like he could only go to his sire for anything. Since Infuntus was very over bearing and Nexus was always busy with his duties it sowed the seeds for something darker.
Sentinel growing up and watching his family be torn apart then see the various Primes over the years not live up to 13 in his eyes(Not entirely sure how I want to depict all of them and I’m very tempted for them to all technically be Sentinels Sire in some shape or form. With Sentinel technically being closest to Nexus and Solus but his primary care giver is Infuntus. Maybe an interesting parallel to how I’m writing springer in this story). So he starts a plan on that allows him to change cybertron to how it was supposed to be. He’s basically hell is paved with good intentions type person.
Enter Prowl who he can sense is a child of the primes like he is. Plus his unique abilities and intelligence endeared Prowl to him. But after hearing his story and actually falling in love with him he becomes obsessed with Prowl and believes he’s the only one who can save Prowl and Cybertron as a whole and pulls prowl down a dark and twisted road.
He would probably see Prowl as a gift from Primus because the miraculous child of two primes essentially being reborn, with abilities that are within his creators domains.
Prowl follows sentinel down the path to hell thinking he’s going to save him and protect him from his more violent tendencies not truly recognizing the danger for what it is.
And as Sentinel leads Prowl down the dark tunnel it’s Springer’s existence who pulls Prowl towards the light.
The birth of spring au tidbits that make me laugh.
Arcees back story an homage to Artemis and Apollo. Galvatron accidentally absorbed his own twin uses the matrix of leadership to extract them from his spark to give them a proper body and life. Accidentally leaves the baby in status lock pod for god knows how long until Grimlock and the Dinobots find her.
Springers back story we’re doing some Dionysus/Athena rebirth stuff. (Prowl mercy kills him and ends up pregnant with him)
Hot Rod backstory basically Jesus Christ(idk Orion fell through a crack in the planet went through the core of Cybertron and now is pregnant. Ultra Magnus, Elita and Megatron are the dads that stepped up and donated the material to properly grow him.
Blur’s Back story child of divorce with some Hermes inspiration. He finds a way to constantly out wit swindle at every chance and charms everyone with his charisma. Devacorn and Override try to make it work but both of them never really sign up to have a kid. Override ends up becoming a dead beat and Devacorn tries his best.
Somehow Arcee is the most well rounded of the four.
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