Spoiler: 47 i am a HUGE proponent of the whirl/cyclonus/tailgate ot3, in all possible forms, in all combinations, and whirl and cyclonus have the best frenemy relationship in the UNIVERSE and ugh. UGHH i love this comic, i love these robots, i love this one bird robot in particular. (in heartbreaking/warming news, JRO tweeted that whirl tentatively going back to making clocks is indicative of his improving outlook and happiness and. don;t... don't look at me SOBS)
Spoiler: 47 I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS SHIP AND THIS BIRD Also also also, consider how Whirl still blames himself for the war, and holds himself responsible for starting it. And think of how far-reaching the war is, and how it affected everyone so badly, even the Cybertronians who tried to stay neutral. Tailgate and Cyclonus are nearly the only two Cybertronians out there that Whirl doesn't think that he, personally, is responsible for hurting that way.
Spoiler: 47 CLAWS AT OWN FACE GOD???? i'm so upset, i'm so upset........... he tries so hard to be flippant about it, like he's flippant about everything, and then he turns around and is ready to throw himself into whatever hideously dangerous situations he can and maybe this time it'll stick, maybe this time "When Brainstorm's about to fire a brain bullet at Pax's head, I need people like Whirl... People who are happy to get in the way." -- this panel is saved as "rodimus ilu but SHUT THE FUCK YOUR MOUTH ABOUT MY SON" in my robot folder oh and CASUAL REMINDER that at this point in time tailgate doesn't even know whirl's name, he still fucking thinks his name is "nutjob". tailgate... tailgate, no.
Spoiler: 47 And because of that blank bullet to the head, Whirl doesn't even remember he did a Good by warning Cyclonus like that with his avatar. Does anyone ever tell Whirl about this?! Or express extreme gratitude off screen?!?! THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT THE SELF DESTRUCTIVE BIRD SON NEEDS TO KNOW HE IS APPRECIATED EVEN IF HE CANT REMEMBER IT 47 still fucks me up, ages after the fact...God, that nudge gun
Spoiler: MTMTE 49 QUARK.... NO................ SKIDS NO.................. also like damn, that was a bit of overkill to tie up Getaway like that. I mean, he's a creepy douche who was actively manipulating probably the most innocent and genuinely kind bots out there, but c'mon his voice wasn't magic. He's not magic! Guys, don't do this sort of this. @Megs: we'll see how long that pacifism lasts. Love how they juxtaposed it with the literal incineration death camp. I wonder if they want us to remember that no matter how remoseful he is, Megs is still a genocidal tyrant.
oh my god i didn't even consider that Spoiler: 47 he wouldn't remember Doing A Good....... oh no......
Spoiler: 49 i think the idea was to keep him from charming his way out because he's a charismatic manipulative bastard, but yes. it is quite the visual. extreme robo-bondage. and WELL NOW YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO QUARK!! and why that song has been stuck in skids' head!!! and pre-DJD tarn!!! and STRONK TAILGATE THE TINY, TINY OUTLIER!!!!!! and..... OH NOW YOU CAN READ THE HOLIDAY SPECIAL!!!!
Spoiler: MTMTE 49 I mean, I'm into it. I'm down. Robot kink hell yeah. I was also deeply attracted to Ratchet's detached head in... 21? 20? Whichever it was. Honestly, there is so much skullfucking/gutfucking you could do in TF. Consensual gore? He'll yeah. But still it's one of those "Guys. Guys," moments, because he's charming and manipulative and very good at being what he is but lbr that goes for Megs too. I mean, he went for Tailgate for a reason, and it's not just because he's a complete innocent-- dude's manipulative but he's not that good.
Spoiler: 49 oh yeah i'm not saying it wasn't overkill cause like. whoooo boy! that sure is excessive!!!! also: the Let Tailgate Say "Fuck" campaign was a roaring success. also also: i had somehow forgotten about froid's arms. amazing
Spoiler: MTMTE 50 HAHAHA WELL YEAH. YEAH THAT SURE DID BITE YOU IN THE ASS, DIDN'T IT GUYS. Also a bit :3c about Megs being on mood stabilizers (or mood changers??) because of that weakening energon. Very :( about the mutiny though, even though it's understandable, it's also partly like... you people do realize that this is a very dumb, very cruel thing you're doing right? What did Velocity do to deserve the slaughterhouse? Nautica? Tailgate? How tf do you think High Command is going to react when they find out what you've done? GOD YOU ARE SUCH A DOUCHE I AM DEEPLY ATTRACTED BUT ALSO DEEPLY ENRAGED. This kind of thing is what leads to death camps getaway. This kind of zealotry and sentencing people to die based on your arbitrary measures is what leads to death camps.
Spoiler: MTMTE 51 On one hand: Drift! Ratchet! My boys! On the other: HOW FUCKING DARE U HURT TEN LIKE THIS. SWERVE YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PARENT. RODIMUS WHY DIDN'T U LISTEN. GUYS CMON. And now, the agonizing wait for everything else while I read other stuff for context.
Spoiler: 50, 51 I figure there must be a reason why the Lost Light is still not responding/there is no response when other people try to hail them three weeks after all this goes down on Censere's world. It's not clear to me yet how all this is going to resolve itself, but Getaway and his mutiny have put themselves in a position where, even if everyone we know and love dies to the DJD (hopefully unlikely), at the very least the mutineers can't really risk crossing paths with Optimus Prime ever again for fear of retaliation. Siccing the DJD on a bunch of fellow Autobots (plus Megatron) isn't exactly something Optimus would take kindly to...unless he were nudged into doing so (there's a reason I wrote a whole fic about Getaway and his sneaky, sneaky nudge gun - that thing is a fucking menace) The options I can think of off the top of my head - Getaway and co are not answering because they intend to find the Knights without high command stopping them (most reasonable explanation, probably) and the surviving Rod Squad are wandering around patching themselves up in Drift and Ratchet's ship; somehow the DJD catches up with the LL after finishing on the Necrobot's world, and have instituted another communications blackout that we won't see the aftermath of until the Rod Squad returns to the gory aftermath a la the alternate Lost Light; the Rod Squad are back in control and someone has confiscated Getaway's nudge gun please, but communications have either been damaged beyond repair in some last minute sabotage, or they've travelled somewhere in those three weeks since escaping the DJD where there's no way to get communications out to Cybertron. I'm sure there are other options, but those are the ones my brain can come up with atm The writers have very conveniently excised all of the main characters from the Lost Light, so to speak. Whatever happens, at least some of them are going to survive. Getaway's mutiny has little such plot armor - they're almost exclusively an entire ship of red shirts and NPCs, from our perspective. I'm not sure how many Getaway may have nudged into going along with this plan, or even if he genuinely had support from the crew outside of those we saw on the bridge, but I'm worried about how this is going to wrap up. Not just for the Rod Squad, but for the LL crew who may have just gotten nudge gun-suggested into going along with a mutiny
Spoiler: MTMTE 50-51 Yeah, that's about how I feel about it? I mean, they certainly aren't averse to killing off major characters and fan favorites, but I would actually be geuininely surprised if they spent all that time leading up to Tailgate's new spark, rescuing all of them from death at varieties of points, and establishing that bit with Megs being "happy" because of the tampered-with energon to.... Rocks fall, everyone dies it. So there's probably a large hunk of them that may die. I don't think the LL mutiny-crew is going to live for very long, because of that lack of plot armor. (And, actually, that's a good question: Getaway says that the crew is all in favor of the coup, but I'd be pretty surprised if that was completely true. So how much of that is the nudge gun, and how much of that is... controlling the spread of information. Swerve was the major gossip of the crew, and he's not there anymore. Who tells the crew what happened to the Rod Squad? The ones in charge of the coup? It's in their favor to spin things as a horrible tragic accident, that they're unable to avert. Or something like their communications going down, so they can't get in contact with anyone. It's not the first time it's happened.) I can't wait to see that nudge gun addressed tbh. I mean, everyone talks big talk about how horrific shadowplay is, but at least mnemosurgery is intimate. Being able to shoot thoughts into people and change everything (Inception was right!!!!) is infinitely more dangerous and unethical.
Spoiler: 50-51 Yes, I've seen some people being super appalled by some of the cast on the Lost Light who are apparently on board with the mutiny plan. Perceptor and Thunderclash are the biggest two that stand out to me. Thunderclash is so hilariously flawless, and Perceptor, dude, what. And I personally am very, very disappointed in Blaster :/ My hope is that there were some people who were smart enough to be aware of the hazards of Getaway's nudge gun and lied appropriately, and maybe there will be a counter-mutiny of some kind? I haven't thought it through in too much detail, because I am still very upset and worked up over these latest few chapters, hahaha
Spoiler: 50, 51 i think you're right re: the LL avoiding any contact with high command so as to avoid repercussions -- the "those are two different things" line comes to mind. there are several bots on board the LL who i hope aren't gung-ho about getaway's plan -- thunders, perceptor, riptide, bluestreak... riptide even went on the time-case adventure!! he chatted with ravage at the dance party! there are people on the rodpod crew that are very obviously his friends! i don't understand. :( we see bluestreak and riptide with getaway's co-conspirators (fucking.. fuck! sadface :() but not thunders or percy, which gives me some degree of hope. i don't think getaway would nudge people into going along with it, though! that doesn't quite jive with his ideological purity thing. if they don't agree with him he wants them gone. actually, i could see him maybe nudging (in the gentle poking sense of the word) people who are not quite as "ideologically impure" as the rodpod crew into going along with it just as a matter of practicality... you can only fit so many people into the rodpod, after all. hmm :(
Spoiler: 50, 51 Eh, I disagree a little, but that might just be because I'm a cynical cynic who cynics, and I think that Getaway comes from Special Ops, aka Prowl's brainchild, with that wonderful, dangerous slippery slope where the ends justify the means no matter whose mind you have to change. I'm of the mind that Getaway can and will nudge anyone and everyone to achieve what he perceives as best for the Autobot cause - but that's personal interpretation, so eh. A combination of more subtle nudging plus bottlenecked control of information to a largely unaware crew seems equally likely, PRrelations. We're probably not going to be able to make a clear call until...well, until this comic arc ends and we see how everything plays out back on the LL Unless /tin foil hat/ the Rod Squad never goes back to the Lost Light,and the LL instead becomes another background recurring threat a la the DJD have been or Pharma was, with people still aboard like Perceptor slowly realizing what happened and working behind the scenes to get back in touch with the Squad. Thus, "The Dying of the Light" would refer to the metaphorical end of the LL itself as the main base of our main characters for the foreseeable future. But that's wild, highly unlikely speculation, born of me trying to explain away "the Dying of the Light" without, you know...people dying
Spoiler: 50-51 crosses fingers that "dying of the light" is referring to the actual LL, not the crew........ :( actually, you know what's coming to mind? remember the psychic giant spark? *aggressively points at throwaway joke in second issue* skids + exclamation point + autobots and decepticons + the lost light MINUS the lost light 5 moons around The Symbol (cyberutopia ??) i mean. that clearly doesn't mean NOTHING. no lost light. lost light prohibited. that, along with drift's not-a-vision that the quest will fail if rodimus isn't leading it, says to me that @Dist 's The Quest Continues (on a smaller scale) theory is gonna happen, and the Lost Light is not gonna be part of it anymore. i hope. fingers crossed. /tinhatting
Spoiler: 50-51 I think that "dying of the light" probably refers to the LL, but it might also be something like... Megs going back to the other side. I don't think that it's going to be the whole crew dying, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Fucked Up Shit and Weirdness Factor with the LL means that, for one reason or another, it can't get to Cyberutopia. Or maybe it can't find it. Maybe they'll meet back up with it much later down the line, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was another Big Arc that fundamentally changes how the LL crew is.
