I feel like I must have blocked that conversation out of my mind because that's a whole new level of go fuck urself, Bumblebee. You were already the Unfavorite out of all the political bullshit in exRID, this is too much
Spoiler: mtmte reread 14 "Oh don't mind me-- I'm just passing through. Sort of an interloper." The sassy husband returns <3 Man, Domey is having way too much fun playing in someone else's head. :c Your husband's gonna be disappoint, bro. well actually your husband's gonna be dead but Megatron being Proud Dad to the murder machine is gr8. (I also accidentally typed Proud Dead the first time, which seems appropriate.) This is what happens when you get cocky, Domey. Less sarcastically: Rewind specifically mentions that mnemosurgeons slowly lose control of themselves the more surgeries they do. CD's probably going in with "shaky hands" at this point, no wonder he screwed up so bad. I still had a split second of "interface=fragging" and snickered. wrong context, brain "had Trepan killed" HAH. HA HA HA HA HA. Chromedome, stop talking to your ex, he's a controlling douchewad. PROWL STOP ENCOURAGING YOUR EX TO RELAPSE YOU MANIPULATIVE SON OF A BITCH "Weapons and 500-foot nude holographic decoys. Postwar diversification." Stormy you fuckin nerd. (I thought Perceptor was the one with the eye-guide? Uuuuugh why are we back in same-colored-bot hell) I really admire how the artist uses shadows and angles to portray emotions on essentially-faceless robots. Namely, Domey's fuckin' pissed. "The last few months haven't been easy for me either, you know." Drift. Drift. You do not get to compare "I'm a conspirator doing something insanely stupid" and "my husband is probably fucking dying." Wrong tack. "...which explains why you burst into [CD and Rewind's] hab suite last month, in the middle of Rewind's story about overload..." fandom terminology makes everything better and I refuse to accept that Rewind wasn't telling CD exactly how he wanted to get off. Man, I love the Grand Highbot, he's such a glorious bastard :D Re: exRid Bee: Spoiler: late ExRid I like him a lot better after he's dead. Hallucibee is pretty great, if only because Starscream half-listens to someone calling him on his shit.
Spoiler: Bumblebee I mean to be fair wasn't Bumblebee also the one who had all the Decepticon POWs given brainchips that would explode at the touch of a button? I imagine that he was thinking more "Oh, well Overlord's gonna be in a cell surrounded by a half-dozen triple changers with implausibly large weapons and a doomgun focused on him at all times, no need to be unnecessarily cruel" as opposed to "now let's ship him off unattended with only a couple people aware of his existence."
Spoiler: mtmte 22 im laughing and im crying, and cant pick a favourite part Spoiler: To Rodimus All Things said and done... If I were given the choice between being part of your crew and being part of Thunderclash's crew? I'd pick you. Thunderclash is... larger than life. And no matter how approachable he makes himself be, his innate flawlessness makes him... boring. You? You're a mess and a bastard, but you care, and you try, and you fail, and you try to make up for it. You're alive, in ways Thunderclash isn't. Whatever Thunderclash creates, it would be depthless imitation, chiseled to perfection. But it would tell no story. This being alive, and fallible, and stubborn, and hopeful... It makes you one of us. It makes you relatable, in a way the other guy just... isn't. And your ass is way hotter than him, I mean, damn you're way more handsome than he is, just as an aside. But, yeah. You're way cooler than he is.
Spoiler: exRID spoilers Yeah, I can fault Bee a lot of things, but compassion is probably not the one I'm gonna pick. Prowl wanted to get CD in Overlord's head, and Rodimus was the one that let him attach him to the ship, so the blame lies with them imo. Bee does a lot of shit wrong and gets caught up in being emotionally constipated and adrift at sea in post-war Cybertron, but honestly showing a little compassion mmmight have kept things from getting so WILDLY OUT OF HAND (at least, until Shockwave made his move.) (Also I find it so funny that Prowl is like "IT WASN'T ME HOW COULDN'T YOU SEE THAT" and then... goes right back to those attitudes and plots and schemes that made everyone think braincontrolled!Prowl was absolutely 100% in his right mind. Holy fuck dude, you are so bad at this pls stop while you're ahead and still have some friends.)
Spoiler I'd argue that we still haven't seen Prowl wholly in control of himself since maybe the first few issues of exRID - or even before then. Chromedome went in to mess with Prowl's head with no preparation and probably shaky hands, and that memory loss and possible trauma has to be accounted for. There's strong hints that even after the bug mind control incident, something's still off about his connection with the Constructicons that's influencing his mental state. We have no idea how Prowl might have responded to the situations he's been in if he were in a clear state of mind because he hasn't been in one in ages Basically, he's a schemey-schemer and all, but maybe he'd be a little more effective about it if it weren't one brain trauma after another in the Prowl show 8(
Honestly, I don't fault Bee with a lot? (Besides, y'know... what the hell is up with those brainchips, man, bad call.) He just... didn't resonate at all with me. Every time he showed up on the page it just felt like a slog to get through his dialogue and I just. Got bored of him really fast. I didn't care about him, and as someone who's ostensibly a main character, that is... a problem. Spoiler: later exrid My reaction to his death, if I remember right, was something along the lines of "finally, now I don't have to deal with him slowing everything down anymore." ...now that I think about it, his... lack of grandstanding? Understated demeanor? might be intended as a contrast to Starscream's "LOOK AT ME, PRAISE ME, LOVE ME" screeching, but. Honestly I think that just made me like Starscream more, because for a while that meant SS was the only character making pages fun to read. Heck, I was excited for Alien Robot Politics, and Bee still felt like a letdown =/ I will be interested to see if/how my opinions change on reread.
i like Bee's contribution to politics only in so far right now as he is absolutely excellent at letting Starscream steamroll him in every public event so far. Right now I can't even tell if 'scream is actually that good at the image game or if he just looks like an absolute genius at manipulating people because Bee is so stunningly bad at generating and capturing positive attention.
Spoiler: prowl This is true! But I also think that he (like... basically everyone really) is adjusting really badly to post-war Cybertron. I mean, I really don't think Optimus is helping either, especially not by taking him back to Earth and letting [waves hand vaguely] all of this shit. I think if he got out of the constant conflict and maybe back to a healthier place both in interpersonal issues and like, mentally? He might actually improve a lot! I don't think it's gonna happen, but it's kind of sad to think about just how badly everyone is adjusting. No wonder Rodimus flung himself off into space first chance he got. I would have.
Some of both, I think? Starscream spent four million years trying to take command of people who follow, essentially, a charismatic SOB who also happens to be extremely good at fighting. (And he succeeds, sometimes! ...mostly when Megatron's not around, but still. He's at least good enough to not get killed just for trying.) Bee... spent those four million years content to be OP's second, the guy who delivers orders or gives them himself and expects them to get obeyed, whether you like him or not, For The Greater Good. So 'Scream's got practice trying to out-charisma the Master Orator, and Bee... doesn't. Really doesn't.
Going by phase one, Bumblebee is good at quiet leadership. He didn't even want to put himself in the running for autobot leadership, but they chose him anyways. His time as a leader was kind of super fucked from the start, because that was when humans were getting the hang of how to exploit Cybertronians (and also when the writing got reaaaaaaaaaal shaky), but there's some interesting character stuff. He wasn't out to lead, but when he got chosen, he did as well as he could. When you get him in smaller groups, he's good at people. He's the only person who manages to make much of a friendly connection with Thundercracker, and even when he makes unpopular decisions, it still feels like folks still like him on a personal level. The situation on earth was such a shambles that I don't really see any good way for him to have salvaged in (just like Starscream post-AHM, which is an interesting parallel), but I think he did a pretty good job with what he had. I'd say he's.... slow to react in some ways. Which is less of a handicap when you have a history with the people you're leading, because you get some teamwork going on and everyone works together. But when he's facing a large (and growing) population with lots of mechs that are hostile to him, plus a rapidly changing situation, I'm not surprised he lost control of things. If he'd been the only person jockeying for leadership, I think he could have done some decent things, but he was up against one charismatic asshole, and one quieter person with a stronger connection to the people. It's a tough setup. I was a little sad for him, because some of the plot points in phase one were about him trying to get properly respected as a leader and feeling super undermined the moment optimus prime comes back on the scene (even if optimus is like 'no, bumblebee, you're still totally in charge, toooooooooooootally'), and it would have been nice to see some things grow from that point... but also I was not invested in him compared to the others. (all hail starscream! )
Some people would argue that even if the ship did explode and kill everyone, it was still a better option than sticking around for the disaster that is Cybertronian politics :P
i saw someone describe prowl's potential 'redemption arc' as 'prowl gets put in time out'. no TV, no dessert, no scheming. circumstances force prowl to chill the fuck out: the novel
You've gotta wonder how many people on Cybertron are actually buying Starscream's schtick though. The remaining Decepticons hate him, the remaining Autobots are deeply suspicious, and most of the NAILs are probably starting to actually get the gossip as to why everyone hates their duly elected leader. Most of the colonists seem content to let him do his thing without really trusting him, and Rattrap was working against him from the beginning. But it's gotta be a comfort having someone you know in charge, right? Like, my state governor is usually called Literally Voldemort, but we keep electing him in because he's predictable and he's never gonna do something destructive enough to make his position a concern. So here's Starscream, the guy everyone says is like, the pinnacle of betrayal and backstabbing, but when you're at the top who do you kill to climb higher? You can trust a guy like that to be looking out for number one, and like Windblade said, he's gotten it so that you help him by helping everyone. Yeah, it sucks when you get to know him, but here's the thing: that means to help himself, he's gonna be helping everyone else by proxy. It's just sort of funny to think about! I'd love to get more of the Cybertron stuff, because I love how that dynamic is playing out. It makes me SO SAD that no one's giving this guy the benefit of the doubt (especially since there's no way that his Thing with ghost!Bee isn't going to become a huge deal at some point) but it's also SO FASCINATING to watch play out, because of course you want Starscream at the top! He's charming and manipulative and has nowhere else to go.
Theory: give everyone on Cybertron therapy dogs. Have Thundercracker be the Earth puppy ambassador for good will. Force Prowl on vacation at the beach with Arcee/Jazz and a herd of golden retrievers This plan is flawless trust me
And we shall call them...Thunder and Lightning B) The puppy squad coming @ Cybertron to make you hug dogs and stuff Spoiler: 52 And I think now Kaon would most likely say "Fuck the eggplant man" and willingly join the dog squad if he were, you know. Alive
