Spoiler Are Tempo and Carcer even in the picture, though? It could just be that Carcer's colonists somehow got their hands on Tempo's space bridge and then raided and took over Vigilem for some reason. Although the whole "turning dead bodies into building material" thing they've got going on does support the idea that the Titan is a mish-mash of several entities.
Spoiler: taao7 Well Metroplex identified the titan (I guess maybe just the space bridge? But if they were in need enough to be stealing such a critical part, it doesn't seem like they'd stop there) as being Tempo, and if Carter's crew just raided Vigilem and took it over, it seems like an unnecessary risk to be calling it Carcer when a hookup with the Titan will disprove them first thing. It's such a perfect thematic fit for them, however it plays out, aaaaaaa :3 The framing where they're fighting so hard to keep their titan as a ship could just be to prevent him from being cEukaris, but it seems like it would make for extra oomph if he transformed and looked like an obvious frankentitan. And man, I'm just loving the way so many of these titans are ending up in such bad places. Metroplex was hunted almost to death, Metrotitan was.... I don't even know. Eukaris started shit and got hit. Velocitron's titan is in titan therapy. And there's Tyrest's whole graveyard of reanimated corpses. It's kind of sad when Metroplex is doing the best out of everyone :p
I was digging through my tags and I found some old rodimus discourse.. http://mizushimo.tumblr.com/post/149039562513/another-question-after-reading-mtmte-i-still The two people in the discussion were very nice to each other, but I still see the argument floating around that Rodimus is a jock and a bully. The example given was that he rearranged the letters on ultra magnus' plaque for the lulz even though he knew that he wouldn't like it (we didn't see his reaction). Is that bullying? My gut says no because bullying needs an element of fear to work properly. Fear of reprisal and the belief that any action taken in defiance of the bully will be futile. What do you guys think? Is Rodimus a bullying little shit?
I think Roddy easily has the potential to be a bully, but in practice doesn't have the dedication to tormenting someone for it to count in my jead. He can trample over people's comfort zone and boundaries without realizing, but on the whole he's a little too sensitive to how he perceives others' feelings towards him? I mean glancing over the post in question: yeah, he can be an asshole. So can UM. Ratchet's a prime one. Cyclonus, Whirl, Megatron, Swerve at times... a lot of the main characters have supreme asshole moments. Bullies are assholes, but not all assholes are bullies, I guess is the point I'm trying to make? (Also if I were going to put up a 'Roddy's worst behavior' slideshow, his treatment of Trailcutter would be much higher than him fucking with UM who gives as good as he gets.)
i think bullying requires a level of intent that rodimus doesn't have! also, rearranging the letters on magnus's nametag is so petty as to be absurd as an example of bullying. magnus didn't even notice, and no one else reacted. 0/10 as far as the goals of bullying go. i don't know. roddy is certainly insensitive when it comes to other people's feelings, but he doesn't want to hurt people. he can be very very self-centered but that's not the same thing as being malicious. he's a jerk but not a bully!!
Ironically, thinking on it: self-centered behavior and trampling on other people's feelings and autonomy seems to be a Autobot/Decepticon High Command thing. It's just that with the autobots, the narrative framing of it isn't as critical, so it can feel like they get away with it. See also: OP's everything, Prowl's machinations, Bee's political missteps, etc.
Spoiler: TAAO 7 - That infiltration op was all so badass. Holy crap. - Bee reaches out to him here, which kind of solidifies in my mind that Bee isn't a hallucination. I don't think any part of Starscream believes that he's redeemable anymore, even just as a hopeful thought to immediately shot down. And I'm kind of <3 <3 <3 about Bee stubbornly trying to get through to him anyway. Because hey, what is Starscream going to do? Kill him? - Sad but true: being dead makes Bumblebee the ideal Starscream friend. - It kills me that Starscream reacts to Bee trying to tell him he's not terrible by throwing the Metalhawk thing in his face. (I don't know whether Starscream himself believes that Bumblebee is fake. The vocabulary convo implies that he thinks Bumblebee is real, but he also seems to think that he's losing his grip.) For all that Starscream says he did what he had to and he isn't sorry, he keeps coming back to that decision like an old wound. That panel was a pretty textbook PTSD flashback on top of serving as a reminder to the readers. - Do we know where Wheeljack is this whole time? Getting a liiiittle worried. - Hey, speaking of: Wheeljack knows Starscream is talking to thin air. He knew Bee. He's a smart dude, and if he catches the right conversation, he could work out who Starscream has been talking to this whole damn time.
Okay okay okay so I recently wrote starscream/brain ghost bumblebee And my current baby that I am fighting to finish is brain ghost skywarp/brain ghost bumblebee All of this is with the shiny new goal of setting up something for my trine+bumblebee ot4, because I love my beautiful fighter jet sons, but they are all such messes. I want to get them all independently adoring/trusting bumblebee, with varying levels of denial (starscream > skywarp > thundercracker) before pulling it all together. Now, thundercracker/bumblebee should be one of the easiest ships in there, considering how phase one tees that right up for you, and has one of the earliest 'are you sure this isn't meant to be flirting' side-eye moments in the series. But. Getting the framing like the other two in the current timeline where bumblebee is sorta dead is a trickier thing. Especially since Starscream doesn't think Bumblebee is real, and Skywarp is going to be less convinced Bumblebee doesn't exist, but more disoriented and confused, and Thundercracker doesn't have a good excuse for similarly unguarded emotional stuff. BUT. I just had the cutest idea. I did a meta thing a while back about the Susan Journeyer and Josh Boyfriend screenplay being Thundercracker writing self-insert fanfic, maybe shipping himself with Marissa. Also coldstars linked me to this comic yesterday and hit me in my weak spot for massive damage. Consider: Thundercracker writing a screenplay shipping himself with Bumblebee, drawing on actual past interactions, but with a Bumblebee who's totally on top of things and is self-assured and knows how Thundercracker really Feels and just wants to take care of him, etc., etc., etc. All those personal emotional things people can put into their fanfics, but double extra overt and definitely About Him. I originally only wanted to make Thundercracker fit into this set of stories because *jazz hands* SYMMETRY! And I only tripped into this at all because I wrote the Starscream thing to stand alone, then oops I accidentally an idea for Skywarp, and now I've gotta complete the set. But every piece of this has really grabbed my attention, and I'm excited
I AM A RESPONSIBLE ADULT WHO MAKES ADULT PURCHASES ft. rewind and ravage in cassette form Spoiler: lorge phone pic
We were in Target for unrelated reasons and Moony was like "look it's your boy" and long story short I just spent EXACTLY AS MUCH MONEY AS I SHOULD HAVE making this PRIME ADULT DECISION.
I HATE!!! that target doesn't exist in canada anymore!!!! i'm being victimized nay, oppressed by geography :'(
I completely agree that Rodimus is not malicious, but idk, bullying can also be about trying to exert control over another person, to pick at them so they'll behave more like how you want them to behave. Then again, Roddy and UM have actually had discussions where Rod advised him to 'loosen up' and then UM made an effort. I always thought the rearranging letters thing as an example of bullying was a little extreme. I could see someone doing little things like that as a way of exerting control over someone else, but that doesn't seem to be the dynamic of mags and Rodimus. On the other hand, it's a little muddy where teasing crosses the line into bullying. UM is often the target of pranks, jokes and teasing because he's something of a stick in the mud. Which is that social pressure to modify your behavior that I talked about earlier, that absolutely can become bullying. Has Roddy always been part of high command? I'm pretty sure he's always been like this (I haven't read too much phase one, but he did steal UM's ship without a second thought, and then crash it on an astroid). Prowl is not like the rest of the autobots, he's the only one that I'd call a ruthless schemer. Optimus really goes back and forth. On one hand, he knows what's best for everyone, on the other he bent over backwards to give his friends second chances when it would have been easier on him to take them out of action earlier (and by friends I mean Prowl, because it's always Prowl.) It would be interesting if Rodimus was like this because he was trying to emulate people that he admired. Also @KingStarscream - that handsome boy and his children were all sound financial purchases!
I'm not positive, but I think Rodimus, Bee, and Prowl were essentially a triad of attempted command during that brief transitional period on Cybertron while OP was in a coma, prior to the events of exRID and MTMTE? I know that Rodimus has held Autobot command positions before, though I'm pretty sure most of those were unofficial prior to the matrix thing, and then afterwards he was pulled into a more cohesive unit with Autobot command? But yeah, I think it would be interesting if part of Rodimus's boundary violating behavior was in part because of attempting to emulate his perception of leadership via Optimus Prime as a model.
@KingStarscream It seems strange to me the OP is personal boundary violatey in idw. In all of phase 2 he seems off balance, he's certainly violating earth's sovereignity and he's made decisions that he expects everyone to go along with.. What personal boundaries are we talking about? If Rod really wants to be a good cybertronian leader, he needs to beat the tar out of a subordinate for crossing him / abusing their power / going rogue. He'LL get his chance to pass that milestone if they ever catch up to Getaway.
I'm thinking specifically of his casual seizing control of the LL in terms of assigning Megatron a captaincy without question and his annexation of Earth as models for behavior; I can't think of any personal boundary violations beyond maybe him beating the shit out of Prowl, but general violation of population sovereignty does not a good example make. (I also think that OP is very much being encouraged to do this by other parties, so it's not like, a reflection on him alone as a person. He's got a metric ton of his own issues too, it's just that here's one of the places where his metric ton of issues is unfortunately coinciding with Bad Decisions.)
I only needed to wait until I got home from work, so I wasn't navigating things from mobile! :D Getaway tentacle porn, nonconsensual (but without significant distress in the nonconsent, and he starts enjoying the tentacles pretty fast), oviposition, annnnnd jelly tits I was all about Larry's Prowl jelly boob art (I didn't understand it, but I was enjoying watching it go by), but I'd seriously never expected anyone to come up with an explanation for them I was willing to accept. (in the fic, it's pretty specific and tied to the oviposition, but i'm now willing to buy them as energon tank overflow) eta: I hadn't quite finished the fic yet, and it ends on kind of a emotional note. Not exactly the way I'd been expecting it to go out, which was kind of not my favorite, but the first 90% was gr8
Okay but this one post has me really worried Spoiler: possible character nonexistence They wouldn't de-exist Lug, would they? D: I know we've already got at least one brain ghost bopping around the place, but I don't need any more beloved characters to be dead. Even if she's only had two issues in which to be beloved. I don't know what this means, and normally I wouldn't be so worried, except for the preview from TAAO 3 where Velocity is talking to Anode and is confused because Anode isn't making much sense. Which could be about any number of things! But JRO has hurt me so many times. So many times. PS, also, the thing in TAAO 1, where Lug is hitching a ride on Anode. Is... Lug a flavor of cassette? I know Soundwave's cassettes were modified to be that way, but it feels like there's gotta be some kind of precedent before someone goes 'let's modify that person so he goes inside that other person' 'yeah, that sounds reasonable'. There could be so many interesting psychological things about being a cassette model a la TGWP, whether it's about not having a carrier, or letting the programming that would get you attached to your carrier latch onto someone else (read: anode). Probably none of this is at all accurate, but I'm finding it fascinating to think about. Also is there a lady camien soundwave? asking for a friend. if there isn't, that's my new tf oc.
