♡ KOBD's Husband ♡

firstly, i would like to talk about breakdown a little bit as a character. he presents himself as a very tough, mean, brutish person. hes a bully, to put it plainly.

over time, and directly through dialogue however, we learn that hes a very sweet person *acting* like a brute. he enjoys caring for his partner, casual conversation, and appreciates the work others do around him. hes very honest, and can be very easily swayed by people. this establishes a couple things to know about him: breakdown feels he has to put on a facade, but tends to be very respectful and trusting underneath. he puts his masculinity front n center and absolutely hates being viewed as weak or not capable. now cut to operation: breakdown.

someone found him in particular appealing, and decided to wait and watch for an opportunity to kidnap and, to put it bluntly, violate him. he tries to be as strong as possible through the entire thing, but its obvious hes terrified. he keeps repeating the sentiment that once he successfully gets free, hes going to kill them. the decepticons are going to find him and kill them. that he'll be okay. that hes stronger than being hurt by this while being *literally* taken apart while conscious. even after having a part of his body ripped out, he HAS to be strong. thats what hes meant to do. "decepticons dont break that easy."

so what do you do when you have to accept you think you werent strong enough, even if you survived? breakdown trusts bulkhead with his life in the moment after being rescued, but doesnt even understand... why bulkhead cares about him. he asks if he has a plan, is willing to follow him, and actively risks his life for bulkhead afterwards. only for starscream to waltz in and tell him to attack his rescuer while severely injured, half-blinded, and traumatized. starscream goes on to blackmail breakdown with his own survival. saying that breakdown wouldnt want megatron to find out the extent of everything, right? that he couldnt handle those "puny humans" on his own? that breakdown has to side with starscream, or else megatron will know. and theres something to be said about how silas acted during it all, too. it wasnt just a scientific endeavor, he was amused by the whole thing. taunting and insulting his victim while hes violently pulled apart, experiencing sick amusement as he "breaks down" his victim. from both sides, they wanted to use breakdowns trauma as a way of gaining power.

breakdown lost a physical part of himself that night, yet he still has to never quite say what happened. its an open secret that is mocked. he states that: "what i have lost is a constant reminder that i must never again fail [megatron]." while megatron keeps insulting him for, what boils down to, "not fighting back". megatron even goes on to use breakdowns disability, inherently tied to his trauma, to insult him. weaponizing what happened to him directly to embarrass him and let him know he will use that information for whatever he pleases. breakdown becomes a bit more vulnerable after losing his optic. hes more actively trying to prove himself, cant land hits as easily, and is far more angered by being insulted or downplayed. the only person we can assume didnt blame breakdown was knock out. it was knock out who had to have patched him up, knew how breakdown felt about silas, and what happened that night. that breakdown was "pinned to [silas's] lab table" and wanted nothing more than to torture and kill the person that violated his partner. he is made to feel like a failure, that his trauma was his fault, and that he should never talk about what really happened, only that others can use it against him to emasculate and humiliate him.

all this... for there to never be a conclusion. we never see breakdown move on and recover, or realize it wasnt his fault. we never get to see him accept himself or his trauma, or find people that will protect him. just mutilated further and has his body used by the man that harmed him. in additional content we learn breakdown has paranoia, an aspect that was never formally explored in the show. it makes me think that hed have experienced paranoia out of fear of being violated again, a common trauma response from survivors, but wasnt given a chance to happen. what breakdown went through has no silver linings. there is nothing good from what happened to him, he had a part of him removed and was traumatized for the futile gain of a pathetic man that viewed him as a way of gaining power, nothing more. erasing this, in any way, is incredibly disrespectful to me. and it always will be. you cannot simply "fix" a victim, you cannot give them what they had back again and pretend it never happened. breakdown should be loved for who he is, what could have been, and the strength from having survived what gave him his trauma; even if his life would be cut short later.