Man, watching the bits and pieces of the trine falling apart is really something. I'd forgotten about this piece from the 2009 series, and just... :( babies... OKAY. Baby recap. Decepticons are wreaking havoc in AHM, Skywarp tries to be like HAHA, TRINE, YEAH, and is upset when Thundercracker isn't super into it. He particularly references feeling alone. Later, Thundercracker decides that letting a nuke wipe everything out is Too Dishonorable and flies off to make sure the ruins of NYC don't get extra sploded. When he comes back, Skywarp is pissed, and even though Thundercracker tries to say to wait, and calls him 'brother,' Skywarp shoots him in the face at point blank range and leaves him for dead. As punishment for this, Starscream ditches Skywarp on earth for a while. Smash cut to Starscream's... attempt at being a leader on that asteroid. Mmyep. Themes of disrespect and lack of support are all over the place, but when Spotlight: Megatron hits, a giant chunk of the focus is on how alone Starscream is, while he's getting this vicious, undeserved beating, in front of a crowd. When one person mentions maybe stopping the beatdown, Skywarp specifically mentions that haha if you try to stop this I will kill you. But then, back on earth, Thundercracker is extra especially alone. At first it's not by choice, but then even after some other decepticons find him and fix him up, he rejects their request to lead them. He stays alone in his building, watching television. The first overtures of contact he accepts in a friendly-ish way come from Bumblebee and the autobots, and Bumblebee even gets him to smile, even if he isn't ready to join up with them or anything. But okay. After Starscream and company come back to earth, I totally forgot that one of the very first things Starscream did was seek out Thundercracker. I'm not going to link all of the talk, because it's like six pages, but here are two snippets Spoiler: large So Thundercracker is still (understandably) upset about what happened to him. His words say that he's over it, his body language and delivery say that he is very much not over it. Now, Starscream's words are very much about 'I want you with me, I want you supporting me.' But Thundercracker is still hung up on when he was cut loose and abandoned. And, you know, left for dead, shot by someone he had just called 'brother.' Now... sometime I need to do a line-by-line breakdown of how their communication falls apart. But I'm getting the impression that Thundercracker is very upset on a personal level. And Starscream is talking about things on more of a....... broad, sweeping ideals angle, about decepticon leadership, about serving as an example to the other decepticons, et cetera. Near the end of his pitch, though, he says specifically, "I can't do it alone." There's probably some more subjective meta to be had here about how after the spotlight: megatron beating, after he's just made several very personal appeals to Megatron and had them brutally rejected, Starscream is afraid/unwilling to speak on a more personal level. If someone, if your brother, rejects you as a leader, that's bad enough. But if they reject you just as a person, a person who is asking for their support? That's even worse. But even if Starscream was asking on a more distant level, it sure seems like he takes the rejection very personally. It wasn't even a flat-out rejection, buddy. Thundercracker is upset because one of his trinemates just shot him in the face, and as far as he's concerned, you left him to die. Of course he's still upset and isn't going to fall right back into those comfortable old dynamics. But going the other direction, after AHM and spotlight: megatron, asking Starscream to sit back and passively take these hits and keep his cool and interpret everything with nuance and patience, just.... not happening. But still, watching this fall apart? They genuinely do try to engage with each other, even if they're both still hurting and carrying old baggage. Watching Thundercracker's old hurt get repeated with his other trinemate? Never even mind the things you can read into all three trinemates in their later phase two stuff. Feels bad, scoob :(
And it's not like canon ever goes into trine stuff, that's a fanon concept, but it's made pretty explicit that Skywarp, Thundercracker, and Starscream consider each other brothers, despite (or maybe BECAUSE) they're cold-constructed. Unfortunately, sibling relationships aren't purely positive, as anyone who has siblings can tell you. Even when you've got a good relationship there's going to be some level of friction, and when you've got a bad relationship, oh boy.
Imagine how angry the sight of a curly straw must make Functionists. "THIS IS SO UNNECESSARY!!!" Also it's hilarious because Rung - wait Why is there an ENTIRE TF WIKI PAGE about how curly straws are a harbinger of doom? Will there be more plot relevant curly straws in our future?? I mean, they're not wrong...
Spoiler Predacons Rising gave us exactly three good things, and those are: Knock Out "joining the winning team", Lord Smokescreen, Emperor of Destruction, and Optimus/Ratchet ship fuel for YEARS.
Spoiler how dare u slander my dragon and griffin sons this way :P Darksteel and Skylynx did nothing wrong (except maaaybe hunt down Starscream at the end, but tbh if he treated them anything like he treated Predaking I can't blame them) protect babby predacons 2k17 I am pretending the Allspark's reintroduction revived everything in the Well the same way life energy saved Bee, because tbh nothing in the film says that didn't happen and I want more flashy predacon darlings Eta: Also I am Disappoint that Knock Out threw Starscream under the bus to get in with team prime, but that has more to do with shipfeels than anything else
I dunno if y'all are familiar with William Gibson's book Pattern Recognition, but the main character has sort of a mantra. It's a strange phrase that calms her down, and it goes, "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." Spoiler: large image I keep thinking of that, and this large image of Optimus Prime crashing into Onslaught: ...and my brain goes, he took a truck in the 'face at 250 knots. Quality content. Get it here.
Spoiler: Optimus Prime 4 Holy fuck. Cosmos! Rumble and Frenzy! I guess Wreck-jar and Rum-maj are a couple? Or some sort of emotionally close paired leadership. The animosity was just a fight they were having. Also Optimus stop gambling with other people's lives. -Sprays Pyra Magna with a water bottle, sprays OP with a water bottle-
A song for IDW Tyrest. Spoiler: Lyrics Pulled off the highway in Missouri and lo, our hearts were heavy laden Made for the chapel with some spray paint for all the things we'd held in secret Lord, lift up these lifeless bones Light cascading through the windows, all the rainbow's heavy tones He has fixed his sign in the sky He has raised me from the pit and set me high Left that place in ruin, drunk on the spirit and high on fumes Checked into a Red Roof Inn, stayed up for several hours and then slept like infants In the burning fuselage of my days Let my mouth be ever fresh with praise He has fixed his sign in the sky He has raised me from the pit and set me high Each morning new Each day shot through With all the sharp, small shards of shrapnel That seem to burst out of me and you Head down for Kansas, we will get there when we get there, don't you worry Feel bad about the things we do along the way, but not really that bad We inhaled the frozen air Lord, send me a mechanic if I'm not beyond repair He has fixed his sign in the sky He has raised me from the pit and he will set me high!
So I linked that panel above with Onslaught, then this happened. Spoiler: nother large image Optimus Prime continues his quest to defeat the Combaticons by crashing grille-first into their crotches: Vortex's Surprise Truck Ride continues for several very large panels across the top of two pages.
Spoiler I guess there are only so many reactions to getting hit by a truck, but it looks like the artist just completely reused the pose.
Spoiler To be fair to the artist, I chose that panel out of several specifically because the pose is so similar to the previous one I linked. There's a few others giving a side view, from which you can see things like Vortex's face in profile and his attempts to gain some sort of handhold before he's thrown off. I just thought it was funnier to pick the one that looked similar. You're probably right that there are only so many clear and interesting ways to portray a very large robot being carried along by the momentum of a truck. I appreciate that they decided to go with "straddling". Edit: fixed a word omission error
