phipthere my love, best of all phipthere, i come to you with an ask game...
I simply HAVE to ask. for the ship bingo: ShockOP?
HELLO MOTH BEST OF ALL MOTHS. IT IS TIME TO TALK ABOUT THEM!!!
ANALYSIS UNDER THE CUT!!!
Okay so here’s the deal. Shockop as a ship is very based off of a single continuity, with two very specific versions of the characters, and it’s not something that is easily transplanted into other Transformers stories. Like in order to make it work elsewhere you kind of have to transplant elements of the characters in idw1 elsewhere (most specifically empurata, which does not work in every continuity as an idea, and sometimes shockwave is better if he doesn’t have that backstory). This is a ship that needs elements of idw1 to work, which is great if whatever canon soup you’re cooking up has it, but if not i don’t think it’s the same ship at all.
I also think this is a ship that has a very common pitfall, which is people look at Senator Shockwave and are like “he’s so nice, he would be horrified at what he’s become” and so then endgame shockop has him reverting back to his pre-shadowplayed state with some angst involved. THAT’S BORING, and more importantly THAT’S NOT SENATOR SHOCKWAVE! Senator Shockwave is so insane. He’s generally on the right side of things, politically, I guess, but he’s not afraid to do morally dubious things to achieve his goals (LIKE PHYSICALLY MODIFYING ORION PAX TO HOLD THE MATRIX OF LEADERSHIP WITHOUT HIS PERMISSION). I think the number one thing about Senator Shockwave is he’s just Decepticon Shockwave, but he cares about things like “being liked” and “being a moral member of society”. Decepticon Shockwave is just Senator Shockwave but now he has no pesky feelings telling him he shouldn’t be doing batshit insane things all the time for the love of the game.
Post-shadowplay Shockwave, in my opinion, is canonically someone who felt badly briefly about his actions (for one panel) and then decided to even more insane things because his motivations are not tied to his emotions. Shockwave is an obsessive, dramatic person who is able to see crises (primarily resource shortages) that can harm Cybertronians as a whole, and then decides to manipulate time and space around his will because obviously that’s the solution here. He’s ultimately always the same person, the only thing that changes is how unhinged he is when enacting his goals. Any fan continuity that doesn’t understand this makes me sad, because they’re missing out on one of the funniest characters ever created. I love him.
Optimus, in idw1, on the other hand has his own thing going with his relationship to authority, and the insane things he does for the love of the game that are probably well intentioned but still insane (like annexing Earth). His story is very intentionally done in the RiD series where it’s kind of deconstructing what it means to be a prime, and whether he is doing good, etc. etc. It works very well for the story, and thematically is great, but also it’s not my #1 Optimus depiction (which would probably go to Skybound Optimus).
But phipthere! If Shockop is your favorite ship, and it requires idw1 to work, but idw1 Optimus isn’t your favorite Optimus, then what do you do?
Again, I still think it’s possible to pull off some variety of continuity soup shockop, but it needs these core tenets:
1. You absolutely need the empurata and shadowplay storyline, and probably need Shockwave to be a senator. The empurata and shadowplay does add a really good layer of angst, but also there’s nothing like Orion finding Shockwave soon after its done and having his heart ripped out as Shockwave doesn’t even want to talk to him any more. Having zero recognition from one of the most important people in his life is just such a good emotional beat and you can’t get that feeling anywhere else. And also the senator thing is important bc of the weird power dynamic thing they’ve got going on, trust. It adds extra seasoning to the sauce.
2. I don’t think you necessarily need the coptimus backstory, but you do absolutely need Orion going along with Shockwave’s… Shockwaveness. Like again, idw1 Orion was pretty okay with the non-consensual body modification Shockwave did to him. That’s crazy, and also something like that is needed bc u need to establish that Optimus is kind of in to that to establish why he still might want to be with Shockwave, even as he does increasingly terrible things for the love of the game.
3. The real sauce is in the post-shadowplay, as they both kind of realize the other person is a massive freak. Smthng smthng theyre both characters who have gone through dramatic changes, but also are still fundamentally the same people they were at the start. Ideal post war shockop for me is Shockwave keeps trying to get away with things that Optimus would probably disapprove of (he does care about what optimus thinks, but also Optimus cant tell him to cut it out if he doesnt know whats going on) while Optimus finds it mildly distressing how much he is into Shockwave (he is aroace to me) and also being very happy that they’re in love again. and also shockwave is really obnoxiously smug whenever they’re around anyone else (everyone else disapproves of whatever they’ve got going on).
all these bitches on facebook marketplace have committment issues fr. ghosting the SECOND things start to get real. heal your attachment and get back to me.
