For the character headcanon thing, G1 Smokescreen :]
Realistic: Carreer soldier, but, like, in that lowkey way military techs often are when they're out of uniform.
Unrealistic but hilarious: Smokey vanishes off the battlefield a minimum of twice a month and nobody knows where he goes. Those are in fact the times he has his sit-downs with Skywarp, the only Decepticon who can easily access him for therapeutic chats.
I’m taking you down with me: If there's one part of the Autobot machine that is more paranoid than SpecOps, it's IntSec. The gambling is a cope, but the cope is actually in the true randomness of games of chance, where Smokey doesn't have to wonder if he could have made different, better choices. It's just kind of grown rampant because of the stress from the war just keeps mounting.
Fuck You It’s My House: It's actually helpful for Smokescreen that he and Optimus aren't that close, and Optimus is one of the few people who won't confide him (although he does learn most of his dirt through Jazz eventually). He doesn't have to worry about Optimus' feelings while doing his job, which is spying on everyone he loves -- it's a good opportunity to displace his ambivalence.
