Wandering Kestrel

I also posted it on my Instagram (cyber__drift) if you guys want to see it and give it some love over there because it barely reaches anyone with that 5 tag limit 🥀🥀

WINDBLADE PLUSH INTEREST CHECK!!

First up: Shockwave! Alt-mode: A German Krupp K5 railway gun

It was actually a bit tricky for Shockwave since I really wanted to find something that spoke to his whole "one arm is a gun" look. I initially was going to have him be the Gustav gun, but that thing was so stupidly massive that it felt more appropriate if a bigger mech had it. Fortunately, there were plenty of smaller rail-guns that were used by the Germans, they were built on rail-cars to be easy to transport.

And...

....

Okay guys, hear me out...

British Ratchet.

His alt-mode is a British ambulance that was used in London to help with air-raid casualties. It seems fitting he'd hang back and help out with the Blitz rescues while fixing up bots as well.

For reference here's pics of the real-life vehicles:

Plus the original sketchy versions, because i think they look cool.

Also here, have a crappy edit of British Ratchet with a top hat:

We can see that Whirl was made to do the Senate's dirty work after his empurata, but this was under threat of further violence and there's never any indication that they directly messed with his mind, though obviously the trauma of the whole thing messed him up and resulted in his current personality. Empurata does make one appear less expressive because well, you don't have a face to emote with, but it doesn't mess with the emotions themselves.

Even then Shockwave's shadowplay is pretty unique in that they usually change specific things about a person to further their own goals or even make the victim a sleeper agent, but Shockwave had his emotions removed. Most shadowplays don't go this far and Shockwave doesn't even gain any sort of directive that benefits the Senate in the long run (in fact, he still turns against them just for different reasons).

In fact both the rarity of getting both procedures and the extremism of Shockwave's shadowplay are noted on the same page right before the Senator's identity is revealed

Professor Shockwave ✨ He sends Orion to find a mythical creature