Spoiler: Thoughts on the clusterfuck that is Froid, Rung, and Getaway I was talking to @Mendacity earlier about this... iirc JRO said that Getaway has similarities with Starscream but could never have empathy for Starscream bc he's stuck in Heroic Autobots vs Evil Decepticons thinking. And I was projecting this binary onto his actions in MTMTE and LL, and it really made clear why Getaway picked Tailgate as a sacrificial catspaw. Namely, he doesn't consider Tailgate an Autobot, so Tailgate falls outside his binary thinking, so it's not really betrayal to betray Tailgate, because he's not a Heroic Autobot, and as a bonus Tailgate is extremely prone to manipulation. Of all the people on the LL that wouldn't ping as 'Autobot' to Getaway, Tailgate is by far the logical choice to manipulate. But then that got me thinking of another villain, and why they'd go about things the way they did... namely, Froid's manipulation of Getaway post-mutiny. He claims to be doing it because he finds Getaway's neuroses interesting, and I don't think that's a lie, but I don't think it's the full truth, either. Froid's relationship with Rung is... complicated. But I think he genuinely does care about Rung, in a possessive and unhealthy way. And by the time Getaway goes to Froid for help, he's not only left Rung stranded, but now knows he's left Rung stranded at the mercy of the DJD, which is really no mercy at all. As much as Froid claims his systemic picking apart of Getaway is out of academic interest, I think it's revenge.
Spoiler: guiding hand reveal In light of The Necrobot Is Mortilus, these surviving "urban myths" prove pretty interesting! (Roddy nearly braining someone with a table not included :P) @IvyLB as our resident Unicron-Mortilus shipper you deserve a ping
Spoiler: q&a wh a t are they calling "sending Dominus off to infiltrate the DJD" murder, or...? I mean, it does seem kinda like a death sentence, but there's a lot of hyper-dangerous shit going on everywhere... peacock sons also jro slowly descending into helpless laughter at all the shipping questions is a delight
Spoiler Well I suppose the big thing was supposed to be CD knowing where Dominus was all this time (and also that 'Vos' had been replaced so welp). The 'murder' is still an action the DJD did, but the coverup is Chromedome not telling Rewind. Honestly as cool as I'm sure the story would have been fully realized I'm okay with it not happening.
Spoiler: liveblogging here bc AO3 Comments Scawy Honestly given the one we know he personally invited (Drift) was picked for pretty much that reason........... Pharma would absolutely be a Spark, poor fucker Rodimus is a disaster child and we all love him for it, get on the party bus pharma continue to love the Not Hands dysphoria poor dude GOD FUCKING BLESS GOD FUCKING BLESS
SO Hasbro (and, under them, WotC, the company that makes Magic: the Gathering and D&D) has made a Transformers TCG and I wasn't going to buy it because I do Not need another money sink but lbr: MtG and transformers are both major weaknesses, I was always gonna buy this shit It's for ages 8 and up so I don't expect it to be too too complicated, BUT the IMPORTANT THING is that all of the cards that aren't Specific Character cards seem to have ripped comic panels from the IDW run for their pictures Spoiler: image spam specific character cards are Big, bc the premise is 'use your Big Dudes to punch other Big Dudes with help from the little dudes you draw' they are also v shiny neat little detail: every card name is written in both English and Autobot! I kinda want to track down Decepticon character cards to see if they bothered to switch alphabets, but the neutral little cards also seem to be written in Autobot, so... THUNDERCLASH The Goodest Boy and a very confusing Autobot Megatron to anyone who didn't follow MTMTE/LL Nightbeat!!!! He was actually the first card I saw in the deck, so blame him for the picture spam BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY STARSCREAM IS THE PICTURE FOR INSPIRING LEADERSHIP MY BOY GETTING THE RECOGNITION HE DESERVES
Spoiler That’s really interesting. You’re right about Tailgate being relatively easy to manipulate, which I find fascinating because he’s also a very serviceable liar and manipulator himself. Maybe it’s a question of inexperience. (That’s not meant to disparage him. He did seriously endanger people with the whole bomb expert charade, but he started this voyage with almost no life experience and grew as a person very quickly.) Getaway and Whirl are also very interesting to me. I just reread Stop All the Clocks and discovered again that Getaway was the one who convinced Whirl that trying to pick a fight with Megatron through extreme provocation was the thing to do. But I don’t think Whirl needed much convincing, which is probably good for Getaway because Whirl is surprisingly canny about motives that don’t make sense and emotional vulnerability. (See: Fort Max and Rung incident.) He honestly seems very perceptive, but also generally pretty apathetic about it beyond its utility in picking fights. (Like goading Drift into hauling off and punching him.) He did realize that Cyclonus was using him when he came to ask for relationship advice. Whirl rightly decided that this was a bizarre choice and asked questions about it. Cyclonus said he wanted truth and was satisfied that he’d gotten it. But Whirl hadn’t been telling him the truth. (And he was wrong about Whirl not being afraid of him.) Whirl was intentionally hurting him, and Cyclonus responded in a way that suggested that that was exactly what he was looking for, whether he knew it or not. And that’s when Getaway lost whatever influence he had over Whirl. Whirl acted surprised about the betrayal, but he wasn’t. He’d already changed the clocks. He did it right in front of Getaway and Atomizer, in such a casual manner that neither of them noticed there was any significance to his actions. I think he gets away with a lot because people think they know what he is, and that it’s sufficient to explain everything he is.
Maaaaan I love hateshipping so much, and this show was killing me because I just could not see Arcee being okay enough with Airachnid even for spades without like... a 30,000 word epic backstory to explain how this happened. And that's sad, because Airachnid. I mean, Airachnid. Airachnid, everyone! The backstabbing, the voice, the legend. BUT then I considered the raging death that is IDW comics Arcee, who once spent six years killing the same dude over and over again, which is a fantastic way to get the most out of your worst enemy's immortality, and declared it to be therapeutic. Considered too dangerous for normal imprisonment. Treats some of the most powerful antagonists from phase 1 like minor, somewhat entertaining obstacles. So that's my solution. I ship IDW Arcee<3<Airachnid. Which leaves TFP Arcee free for spades with Jack's mom! Winning all around!
just reach untold heights of gay with all the arcees and a variety of ladies throughout the many continuities
Spoiler: LL remembering the functionist universe cult of rung "all hail the useless one" indeed there's probably something smart to say about the functionist council abusing and physically breaking Literal Primus in their pursuit of making the Cybertron-Primus Adaptus mistook for Unicron on an entirely different tack, Whirl<3<Killmaster forever
