rubbing her temples to try and soothe the headache she could feel brewing, lena let out a sigh of relief as she checked her phone. lunch break, which meant her weekly lunch date with kara. she had cleared her early afternoon in order to be able to properly enjoy her best friend's presence and she was, as usual, looking forward to it. relaxing in her chair, she heard the familiar beeping noise as jess told her that kara danvers had arrived. a smile lit up her face immediately as she got up, feeling the stretch in her calves from how long she'd been sitting down, as she made her way towards the entrance of her office, eager to see the other woman. as her eyes fell on the blonde, her smile only widened into a full grin as she reached out to hug her, chuckling softly. "you always arrive at exactly the right time."
There’s one scene in this issue that truly, 100% makes me sad. And it’s the one where Ratchet tries to give Rodimus a pep talk.
This is how most of his crew sees Rodimus. Ratchet talks to him like a child, and then decides the level he needed to talk to him at was “lower than he thought.” I know it’s supposed to be funny. It’s a joke. But that actually makes it sadder.
That’s how they see him. As a joke.
The character to actually do it, though?
Whirl.
Because Whirl KNOWS people. More importantly, he knows people like himself. Self-loathing people.
Rodimus didn’t need to be pepped the way he’d do it to someone else. Because that’s not really how he feels, especially right now. Whirl talked down to him, but in a way that Rodimus appreciated at the moment. One that kicked him in the aft and reminded him who he was and what he was fighting for.
Look at Ratchet’s face in the panel you see him in. Rodimus is looking directly at him here. “Then you seriously misread my character.” Rodimus doesn’t think it’s funny. He doesn’t like being talked down to like a child. He knows the image he puts forth, he’s pointed out before that he’s completely aware. But he doesn’t want people to think less of him for it.
He doesn’t want people to see him for how he behaves. He wants people to see him for what he DOES. He’s a person of action. If he wants something done, he’ll do it. He doesn’t care if anyone else thinks he can.
Okay so basically after LL 16 it should seem pretty cut and dry that yes Tailgate is dead and Cyclonus is now allowed to make things right between them before the crew is set free/die themselves just in time for idw’s reboot
FALSE
Some brief points:
James Roberts is a Trick Ass Bitch
Jro notorious likes to display the dead body-- I believe there’s one tweet where he said the most reliable way to determine if someone is dead is to see if their head has been severed
As seen by last issue even that’s not always trusthworthy
We have not seen Tailgate’s body
Why did Ten know what to do and then marvel at his ability to speak once reaching the Afterspark?
Mpreg is now a thing because this man found out they were rebooting everything and threw caution to the wind.
Now, I can’t necessarily prove the uh, pregnancy part. That’s mostly going to go on the resemblance of the the Scavenger’s reactions to the one of the group who found Tailgate-- I would say style coincidence except one was drawn by Lawrence, one Milne. That was intentional and I think Lawrence copied the expressions from Milne for a reason. Also MTMTE/LL has been Jro’s cygate slowburn fanfic and Tailgate dying will feel like an unnecessary tragic cop out.
As for the Afterspark. It is most likely a test. Seeing as the Guiding Hand (and maybe Rung since he’s been missing) seem to be running it, it’s reasonable to believe that they can use their knowledge of bots + the memories of those trapped to give them what they want most or maybe even, what they hope or fear may happen when they face those lost, left behind, or killed. Or, in the case of Ten, something they’ve always desperately wanted.
Ten, I think, however, is either dead or fine. He was being used by someone (not himself, noted by the fact that his voice sounded different pre afterspark) to get the crew to a certain place. If left there too long, especially with several bots who do remember what happened, it would be a liability to leave him there for too long and have the ruse discovered. He either was given speech in order to fail (or, as Swerve calls, ascend) or it was not Ten at all and meant to freak Rodimus out a bit. Note that Swerve seems pretty content and he hasn’t ascended.
Roller is greeted by a friend who forgives him for not being able to save them. Imagine if we start going through the others who feel they need to settle affairs with the dead. We may get to see Drift react to Wing, etc. However, while most would want forgiveness, Rodimus most likely wouldn’t expect from those he probably wants to talk to most. Not those he lost on the Lost Light, but the deaths that had been haunted him for a very long time: the People of Nyon. We see how hard death hurts Rodimus-- the last issue they were in, we watched his cool facade break for a panel. If the Hand is smart, they force Rodimus to face the people of Nyon who blame him for their death and he must find a way to figure out if they’re fake. If they’re not, Rodimus is given a people of Nyon who forgive him when Rodimus very much can’t forgive himself and determines it quickly as fake. Etc etc for each person. If they accept death, they fail and ascend and don’t get to move on with the next step in the journey.
There is also the idea that the acceptance of death is what is needed to go to the next part of the journey. Ascending is finding the knights, but I’m not 100% sure and I’d need to read over the issue and maybe last a few more times.
But yeah this Tailgate is a farce meant to explicitly trick Cyclonus to see if he’s worthy.
now that LL16 is well and out, is it just me or is everyone getting what they want now that they’re in this new place??
ten can speak (tho we don’t really know if that’s smth he ever even really wanted but the partner hear will suggest it)
cyclonus gets to see tailgate
drift has proof of the after life and all his tivo-hippy goodness (and gets to prove ratchet wrong)
rodimus gets a front row seat to god
idk maybe i’m reading too much into it bc i don’t trust this shit at face value, but everyone getting what they wanted rn which then leading to their “ascention” kinda rubs me the wrong way? makes me nervous....
