Tarn The Djd Mf

Tarn the djd mf

Tarn practice sketches done with a Pilot G2 pen in the tiny 3.5"x5" sketchbook because I like drawing on small pieces of paper. (My tiny sketchbook is almost filled! I don't know when the last time I filled a sketchbook was. Probably high school?)

(pulling up a fold up chair and sitting down) thoughts on the Skids-Damus/Tarn animosity in canon?

(Jumps off the roof and onto the porch)

I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS (aka I’m going to attempt to make this as legible & understandable as possible lol and I’ll also include various panels from MTMTE #11 & #36)

Okay so when taking into account how Skids really doesn’t seem to be a bad dude whatsoever, he’s just like a nice guy, although that’s a bit of a simplification of him but I think it fits for intents and purposes here, I feel like it more of anything comes down to Damus’s warped perspective in how the further he goes along in life the more and more he has the mentality of “everyone is out to get me”/me against the world. This is probably going to be a ‘Damus & the outliers’ analysis, but Skids fits into that dynamic as well so here we go-

By the time he meets Skids at Senator Shockwave’s academy he’s gone through the full round of Empurata while also still having issues with his powers. He’s been hurt, cast out by his own society for what he was built/born as so that’s not a great start for him and definitely impacts his mindset. He seems to still work in a group and be good with that (ref. The matrix heist scene from MTMTE’s shadowplay arc/#11) however his newfound attempts to try and be “in” and feeling as if part of the group seem to fall flat and simply further his sense of alienation. Particularly I’m thinking of that scene where he actually seems pretty excited and happy and congratulates Skids on a job well done with a pat on his shoulder which unfortunately results in Skid’s shoulder mechanism locking up and nearly causing Ratchet who is hanging from his grappling hook to drop the matrix. Yikes.

Even though this is just one small interaction I feel like it’s pretty accurate to how things end up being between most of Orion/Shockwave’s outliers and Damus. It’s not even that the others are being overly rude or mean to him, it’s just that with the unfortunate effect of his powers being rather destructive and a pain in the ass that quite literally just messes stuff up at times it’s no wonder there was likely a bit of isolation between him and the others. No doubt Skids still tried to be nice to him and I bet all the others did the same however in Damus’s warped perspective as I mentioned earlier I think his mind reallllly fixated on the few bad bits and interactions to a frankly ridiculous and delusional degree to where he almost made up in his mind that “oh no one likes me” and that they were all actively trying to keep him ‘out’ of the group. Which of course isn’t the truth, but from a mindset that isn’t exactly functioning at 100% in seeing things as they are especially when it comes to trust and general relations with others (due to past and especially being an outcast as an outlier as well as between the Empurata too) it’s unfortunately likely how he begins to view it.

Then later in the time travel arc we see Damus, Orion, and the band of outliers again. Yay!

Damus didn’t say much to start with but we actually see him talk here and frankly he doesn’t have a whole lot of positive to say:

- he makes a sideways comment about how much Trailbreaker recharges and how it’s basically a lot of his time, seeming rather short with the others here.

- he actively seems pretty dissatisfied with Orion’s plan to wait until the enemy strikes again

- and also in the middle of the fight he A) makes a crappy one liner which gets a comment from Orion how bad it is although in context Orion is talking about the entire groups series of one liners rather than just Damus’s (although with his mindset/perspective he may have taken that personally as well…) and B) Orion cuts off Damus’s report back and as he gives him an order which can also be taken as yet another wham as Damus likely already doesn’t seem to be the most ‘no-questions’ kind of devotee of Orion at this point namely due to how he seems to get shut down whenever he has other thoughts or ideas besides Orion’s plans.

In all honesty I always thought Damus was more loyal to Senator Shockwave than Orion so once Shockwave was out of the picture, Damus was rather disconnected with the group even more as his main ‘glue’ to the group was now gone. Perhaps this was just another thing that resulted in Megatron being able to get into his head and convince him to so vehemently follow his cause.

Anyway this was just the main setup and breakdown of Damus/the outlier group’s dynamic for context but now back to Skids in particular:

Skids is a dork. He’s a joker, which results in some very entertaining moments however for someone as insecure and already afflicted by the mentality that they’re alienated from the group, even if this is all more in his head than what’s actually reality, this can definitely be taken negatively by Damus. I imagine Skids, as we see him do in MTMTE, gets up to things including pranks and other shenanigans such as that however I feel like there must have been something that occurred between them (prank gone wrong or another) that resulted in a very serious animosity that Damus had towards Skids. Perhaps this was one big thing or many smaller things that added up such as maybe Damus being the butt of the joke one too many times.

Whichever it was I believe this sort of carefree, slightly oblivious nature to how Damus was really taking his actions was completely unintentional as Skids would have never wanted to actively be mean to Damus. Ultimately I think it really comes down to the super bad combination of a jokester who was unintentionally offending or earning the animosity of another after not knowing the boundaries, and since Damus is very self conscious and doesn’t have a lot of confidence, he takes everything personally (which checks out because let’s be real even as Tarn and as much as a baddie he tries to be he’s still very insecure) and they just ends up being a bad duo that’s a mess waiting to happen…

and well….Grindcore ends up offering Damus that perfect, although wildly misplaced and distorted sense of revenge Damus wants to enact towards Skids after all those years. It’s a case of delusional thinking, the sense of over spinning on meager acts that meant no harm, at its finest.

Pharma & Damus deserve a nice day off or two <3

Renderings＆objects😵

A guy