Tell Me Why

[zea_taylor]

 I posted this to fanfiction.net last night, so thought I'd put it here too, just to get the post-film angst out of my system...

Title:             Tell Me Why
Universe:     Bayverse, post DotM
Rating:         T
Characters: Prowl, Barricade
Warning:     Angst, SPOILERS!

Comments

[zea_taylor]

Thanks for the comment! I know this little fic is a bleaker perspective on the film than most, and I wasn't really expecting much of a response to it. I just wanted to get it out of my system.

I know what you mean about coming up with justifications - it is, just barely, possible to retcon most of the Autobots' actions in the movie in the ways you describe. That always bothers me though. I tend to see the different incarnations of TF (and similar things) as completely separate universes, and prefer to capture what I can of the feel and character of each one as it's shown on screen. I wouldn't write G1 characters in quite the same way as their equivalent Movie characters - most of them share traits but have quite different voices. Unfortunately, in this case, what you see on screen is pretty frustrating. It's *possible* to see it through G1-tinted glasses, but that seems dishonest somehow (to my muse, anyway). If anything, the three films seem to have shown a steady erosion of Autobot motives and behaviour since coming to Earth - and that's where 'Tell me why' came from. Sentinel's betrayal is the last straw, but, it starts earlier. Probably with the loss of the Allspark (which simultaneously implies no new generation and no way to restore Cybertron safely, and has to be pretty demoralising).

Of course, the explanation for everything might be different if we'd actually had more than one or two lines of dialogue per Autobot in the film! It's kind of hard to tell what's going through the characters heads when you can barely figure out their names!

Anyway, I am sorry for sounding so negative about the film. I could appreciate the spectacle of it, and the 3D was amazing. The plot as a whole was pretty good (insipid Sam/Carly love story notwithstanding), and I have no problem with character death, if it's done well. It was just the (lack of) characterisation, and that of the Autobots and Prime in particular, that bothered me. Still, I am putting it behind me, and hopefully the next thing I post will be the slightly less negative G1 story I wrote back in April (which has bogged down a little in editing)!