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Player nickname: Re
Player LJ: no_pen_writer
Way to contact you: email/aim/plurk
Email: gdamnitnpc@gmail.com
AIM: redalertlackey // theminimedic
Other: pinkparasol (PLURK)
Are you at least 15?: Y
Current Characters: N/A
Character: Arcee
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character Notes:
History:
Okay, long ago when earth itself was not even created. A powerful being known as Primus moved across the universe preserving life and peace. Soon he was forced into a war against another powerful being known as Unicron. The fight was at a stalemate and so Primus created thirteen beings to help him fight against the Chaos Bringer. Primus and the thirteen beings manage to subdue Unicron and place him into a deep sleep, as even they combined could not fully defeat the being.
After this the thirteen beings settled and become the start of a new civilization and became known to those that came after them as the Thirteen Primes. The descendents were known as Cybertronians living on the metal planet of Cybertron. For a time unrecorded (HASBRO give us more canon backstory!) the world prospered and entered what would be later known as the Golden Age.
Until a war that would split the world into two factions occurred. That of Autobots and Decepticons whose conflict would kill their planet and force them to flee their home…
Comic Prequel:When the great Exodus from a dying Cybertron began, the ship that Arcee was to use to follow after Prime and his team. Deciding to just wait it out until another ship passes by. Arcee notices that the Decepticons are not as gone as everyone had thought and soon figured something was going on that could not be ignored. Finding the base and kicking some Vehicons to the curb, Arcee inadverntently rescues Cliffjumper which makes them even from a time when Cliffjumper had saved her from a similar capture. (Not the one where Tailgate got killed.) Ignoring Cliffjumper for the most part she hacks into the Decepticon communication signal that points her to Kaon and a weapons lab.
Determine to go she ends up arguing with Cliffjumper on how effective he would be on such a stealth based mission and he offers his ship to help her get to earth and Optimus Prime. Long story short, the two go to Kaon together, sneak into the base and find out that Starscream has figured out to rebuild a Space Bridge. Which means bad things since a Space Bridge means free pass to anywhere and everywhere. Arcee at first thinks to destroy it, but Cliffjumper convinces her it's their ticket to earth and Optimus Prime. As Cliffjumper distracts Starscream and the Vehicons under his command while Arcee activates the space bridge, causing enough damage in it to slowly build up a charge to have it overload just after she and Cliffjumper make it through and on to earth. Hardly there long they are ambushed by Starscream who has also jumped through the space bridge. Arcee has her arm blown off and she yells at Cliffjumper to leave her and find Optimus Prime. However he doesn't need to as the cavalry arrives and chases Starscream and Breakdown off.
Start of Cartoon canon: (Due to there being 26 episodes, and she’s in every single one in some capacity, I will employ bullet point and glossing over small things to get through this and not tl'dr anymore the what I already am.)
-- After a while on earth, and during a routine patrol Arcee loses contact with Cliffjumper. Back at base Ratchet, announces that he has lost Cliffjumper’s life signal which basically is another way of saying he’s dead Jim.
--A mine of Energon (The source of food/energy/etc. for Cybertronians) is found and the team go to investigate, claim the energon for themselves. They find that it’s already occupied by the Decepticons, making it worse is that Cliffjumper had been experimented on and turned into a slavering robot zombie. (I shit you not.) During this all the mine gets blown to hell and Arcee watches the monstrosity that was once her partner fall into the explosion.
-- Mourning for Cliffjumper and deciding to do things on her own from now on in terms of having a mission partner. Arcee gets found out by a human named Jack, that then snowballs into two more humans tagging along and thus being adopted into Team Prime.
--Megatron devises a huge Plan that involves using a reoccurring plot device known and Dark Energon to revive all of the dead laying about on Cybertron, and thus conquer the universe using an army of undead alien robots to do so. (That he can control because he literally jammed a piece of Dark energon into his chest.) Team Prime can’t have this and thus launch their own daring plan to stop it. That basically results in them storming the base so to speak, by launching themselves into space with their space bridge to stop the Decepticon space bridge from allowing the zombies through and thus onto earth. Arcee, following the instructions of Ratchet manages to overload the bridge, but gets knocked out in the process. She’s alright in the end and we’re left wondering if Megatron had died in the explosion or not. (Spoiler: He didn’t)
--During a random mission to the Arctic, Bumblebee and Bulkhead found a mysterious pod froze shut. They bring it back to base and while waiting for it to defrost Optimus Prime and Arcee go back to the Arctic to see if there are clues about the mysteries pod. The pod opens back at base and is filled with a horror beyond all horrors for the rest of Team Prime. Scraplets. (A small metal organism that lives in swarms and eat anything metal, to the point that is basically their main function and thus will not stop for any reason in their quest to devour all the things.)
--While panic, destruction, and chaos are happening back at base. The two out in the Arctic get slammed by a storm and believe the lack of communication with base is due to a malfunction and have no clue of what is really going on. Waiting for a rescue the two show that ice and metal do not get along as they slowly start to freeze to death. Bonding happens between the two. spawning many a bad shipping fanfic as well. However before their systems freeze into an eternal shutdown, a gate is opened and they come through and learn about the Scraplet invasion they had dodged, in the form of Bulkhead leading the swarm through the bridge so they can be frozen solid in the arctic landscape.
-- After some kerfluffles with an enemy spy, the team get a call from the human liaison between them and the government. Asking for help in transporting a radioactive device after Agent Fowler is shot down during an attempt to air transport it. As it’s very nature might explode in a ground bridge team Prime packs it up for a road trip. During this they meet a human terrorist group called MECH. Adding yet another group to cause problems for everyone. After some fighting and the kids earning their keep, the device is safely delivered and Silas and his MECH group are foiled for now. (Leaving everyone knowing we’ll see his scarred face again.)
-- Despite a human group knowing about them, the team go back to fighting against the Decepticon’s (AKA the episodes focus more on others then Arcee. Oh thank god.) and searching for energon, which leads to Arcee and Jack trudging through a forest due to an energon signal hit Ratchet had seen. They soon stumble across a crashed ship and once more Arcee comes face to face with Airachnid, who has decided to hunt down a soon to be endangered species, humans. During this Arcee attempts to deny any sort of partnership with Jack, as Airachnid would be even more interested in killing the boy if he was. However, Jack manages to MacGyver a flaming arrow that he drops into an energon leaking pipe on Airachnid’s ship, blowing it up. Airachnid manages to escape and thus revenge for the death of Tailgate (Arcee’s first partner) goes unfinished.
--Due to some problem with the Decepticon floating battleship/base (Nemesis) it shows up on radar, however an Autobot distress signal takes priority. This turns out to be a mistake as the ship turns out to be a plague ship and Optimus Prime contracts Cybonic Plague, which was engineered by Megatron himself. None of Team Prime are willing to let him just die without a fight, thus Arcee and Bumblebee use the coordinates to sneak on board the nemesis in order to find the cure for the plague. In their search they come across Megatron’s comatose body on a surgical table Arcee wants to pull the plug, but is stopped by Ratchet on the comm. lines saying that since Megatron created the plague he would know of a cure. This means someone has to actually go into Megatron’s mind and find it. Bee volunteers and Arcee keeps watch. Aside from nearly getting caught by Starscream, Knock Out, and Soundwave the two manage to escape with the cure, and Arcee shoots one of the life support lines off of Megatron.
--The celebration of Prime going to live is short lived as the con’s once again attempt something involving the Arctic. (Arcee is so enthused to go back there again.) As well as something seeming to be up with Bumblebee after being in Megatron’s mind. While Ratchet figures this out Prime, Bulkhead, and Arcee go back to icy hell and stop Starscream from melting the ice caps and flooding the world to get to an energon deposit. During this time Megatron is revived (Because he was hiding out in Bumblebee’s head and went back to his own body.) and the ice caps remain unmelted, but things just got real again with Megatron up and about.
-- A bunch of things happen, but they didn’t really impact Arcee character wise. Until Jack’s mom. (June) gets suspicious of Jack’s after school activities and grounds him from “his motorcycle”. This of course causes ground bridge shenanigans as Arcee tries to act as if she never leaves the garage to keep June from telling Jack to get rid of her. During this Silas the leader of MECH strikes a deal with Airachnid that results in June being kidnapped, and Arcee and Jack being baited to come into a trap. Arcee manages to escape from MECH and with the help of Jack kick Airachnid around until the cavalry arrives. All of this leading to June finding out that aliens do exist and her son is in the thick of it.
--With an overprotective mother now a member of the Autobot clubhouse, it doesn’t take long for Arcee to jump at any chance to get away, as she and June seem to butt heads a bit when it comes to Jack. She and Bulkhead get a chance when an odd magnetic field pops up and Ratchet bridges them too it, along with surprise guest Miko. (Child, this time we can forgive because June is constrictive in some things.) They stumble upon Breakdown and Airachnid duking it out over a device, and the two join the fray. While fighting over the device Bulkhead and Arcee end up in the devices firing range and end up magnetized to one another. Despite this they manage to find the two cons again and get unstuck while taking the device for the autobot cause. Leaving Airachnid and Breakdown in the same position they had been in earlier.
--During another mission to check out a crashed ship. (Where are all of these damn alien ships coming from and crash landing on this planet?) In the process they run across Airachnid and Starscream. Starscream is captured and he says he wants to give up Decepticon life. Not certain, but Autobots being those who have to harbor the squishy second chance feelings, they leave him with Arcee and the rest of the team (OP and Bumblebee) go after Airachnid. During this Starscream lets slip he is the one who killed Cliffjumper and Arcee flips tables. During her pummeling of Starscream she happens to notice Bumblebee is there and he is giving her huge hurt puppy looks that show he clearly is the true leader of this group, as Arcee stops from killing Starscream and lets him escape.
--Planet watching amongst the bots triggers the remembrance of a prophecy of doom that Optimus recites and pretty much foreshadows it’s going to happen and happen on earth. During freak weather anomalies and a volcano suddenly spewing dark energon all over the place, it’s found out that earth is basically Unicron the chaos bringer, destroyer of worlds, etc. in a deep sleep/coma. One that if he awakes from and so much as twitches would cause the earth to break apart and be destroyed.
--Megatron starts going insane due to this and becomes a pawn puppet ‘Herald’ of Unicron while Unicron attempts to destroy the last living Prime that is on earth.
--While Team Prime try and keep Optimus Prime Megatron decides to show how bad ass he is, and says he’ll help Prime out in stopping Unicron. Mostly because he is the one that deserves to rule the universe and such.
--The bots are of course against this at first, but they don’t really have a choice. So after an attempt at tear jerking with those with human partners, Ratchet sends everyone plus a Decepticon warlord through the space bridge to inside of Unicron’s body. There they fight antibodies have Megatron and Optimus show how god damn bad ass they are in fighting, have Megatron fighting the orders of Unicron, OP and Megs going to the spark of Unicron. There OP uses the Matrix of Leadership (An item only Primes can wield) to send Unicron back into his deep sleep.
-- Since HASBRO can’t kill off people in this series and bring them back, they instead have Optimus loose every single memory of him being a Prime. Thus he reverts to being Orion Derp Pax an archivist who was friend with Megatron(us) and thus he goes off with the Decepticon leader believing the autobots are the enemy.
--Series Ends. Tables are flipped and stake outs infront of the HUB website for Season 2’s air date began.
--Season Finale in a nutshell:
Personality:
Arcee is very headstrong and stubborn which means she sometimes clashes and has to be metaphorically dragged kicking and screaming to follow an order if she doesn't agree with it. Though, most times if the order comes from Optimus Prime she'll grit her teeth and do it, or find another way around it without going at the problem head on. She's also a harsh taskmaster in that she doesn't take mess ups well in herself or others. Add the fact she doesn't really censor herself, tends to be blunt when speaking, and acts tough as nails she is far from a being a wilting flower in her mannerism.
This tends to make her come off distant and cold to others, as seen in the first volume of the comic as she criticizes Cliffjumper for his inability to stay out of trouble, and her continuous refusal to let him help her out on her mission into Kaon due to her belief he would mess it all up and wouldn't know how to be subtle and discreet if such things smacked him in the face. It is even more apparent that she does everything to keep others away in her early interactions with Jack, that was made worse by her lack of empathy for the human race; alongside the belief they were complicating an already stacked fight against the Decepticons.)
This doesn't mean she doesn't care about anyone, far from it in fact. Some might say she cares too much if one delves into her history and the intense emotional attachment she has displayed with her partners through out the war. Tailgate having been her first partner (and likely a mentor of sort though this is not confirmed or denied in canon) whose death in front of her own eyes shook her up and left an emotional scar still felt even in the present time. Then when she finally began to accept Cliffjumper as a new partner, she had to go through the entire emotional rollercoaster again of him dying. Which just rattles her even more. It makes one wonder just how much of her more prickly aspects are a result of this, or if it was always how she was.
Despite this she's not a loner or really antisocial when you look at her interactions with the rest of her team on earth. She has no problem joking around or snarking with them, and has a deep respect for them all. She's also a bit overprotective at times, especially with the human Jack (how much is because of her not wanting to lose anyone else or just her nature well /shrugs) and may become a bit controlling in that regard. (As seen when on a scouting mission she attempted to be in command due to Miko having snuck along and thus could be injured if things went bad.) Showing a close camaraderie with everyone, though if the friendships run as deep as those she had with Cliffjumper and Tailgate is likely not so.
When on mission or in the middle of a battle Arcee manages to keep her head for the most part, though collected she is not really cool in certain situations *Cough*Airachnid*hackwheeze* that doesn't mean she doesn't think or is any less dangerous then when she is fully focused on what needs to be done.
One of the big things that one has to remember when dealing with Arcee is that she is a soldier, trained and tested as such. So in the face of violence and possible deactivation she doesn't let it get to her. Even making quips in such events from time to time which to someone who isn't used to war may seem odd.
Other:
Transformers as a whole has taken to separating its different canons into universes. (Mostly because some characters universe hop and such.) And Prime is part of a universe known as Aligned. That means everything considered to happen in this universe supposedly is all canon. (These include the novels Exodus and Exile, the video game War for Cybertron, and the cartoon Transfromers Prime as of right now.) This wouldn’t be so much a problem if each source followed the main points of the show. Instead they contradict each other and throw consistency of plot out the window.
In regards to Arcee this means a bit of headcanon is needed to explain how each form she showed up in make sense. Especially, in how she went from white and pink with a car form to her currently blue and pink with a motorcycle form. As such I’m going to add my headcanon reasoning down below so it doesn’t come out of left field.
Headcanon starts here: (Loosely based on what was given/inferred in the video game War for Cybertron and the books Exodus and Exile. As HASBRO attempts to make you believe all three mediums are actually connected in some convoluted way. This is me trying to make it all make sense somehow. There is also mentions of actual Prime canon in the form of Delta Team/Tailgate/Airachnid)
Arcee was "born" (I use the word loosely because canon has not given us any indication of just how Cybertronians are created or if they just pop up from some random place.) in a middling caste of Cybertron where she would become a delivery type, due to her love of speed and quick maneuverability in crowded streets. Never really questioning the rigid sociopolitical barriers, or even the entire concept of being told what she would do, who she could associate with, and basically have her life follow a path that a council had created.
This all changes when the riots began and thus managed to make everyone, including her stop and actually think about what was going on. When the riots turned into a civil war and the time came to pick a side, Arcee joined with the Autobots.
During this time and Arcee taking a bit too reckless chance during a mission she ends up being captured by Decepticons and was thus placed into the prison complex in the Decepticon held city of Kaon. During a break in by Optimus Prime, Sideswipe, and Bumblebee, she and the rest of the prisoners are freed by the three as they continue deeper into the complex to find and rescue Zeta/Sentinel Prime (One of the main inconsistencies between War for Cybertron and Exodus is the name of the Prime that came before Optimus) Arcee helped lead her fellow prisoners to Air Raid and the transports awaiting to get them out of Kaon. (The entire Kaon prison aspect is canon for the game War for Cybertron, as you can see her in one of the cells, and again directing others after the prisoners are set free.)
This brings about a more serious attitude and a new frame and paint job to put her old actions behind her and start anew to become a worthy scout and fighter for the Autobots. Along the way she ends up partnered to Tailgate and joining Delta Team. The team worked well together but would soon meet tragedy. During a mission Tailgate failed to take out an enemy sniper, which thus forces Arcee to break rank and her position to enter hand to hand combat with the enemy and thus separated from her team. While bantering with Tailgate afterwards, and detailing how to rendezvous, Arcee is taken captive by a rouge Decepticon by the name of Airachnid.
Not succumbing to the interrogation, Airachnid ups the ante and has Tailgate brought in badly wounded. She then threatens to kill Tailgate if Arcee does not give up the coordinates for an autobot strike. Arcee admits that she has no idea about where this is to take place and in retaliation Airachnid kills Tailgate right in front of Arcee. Before she is executed as well, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper arrive and force Airachnid to retreat. Arcee doesn't really acknowledge this as she's hysterical over Tailgate and is dragged out of the Decepticon lair. All the while saying how she couldn't save Tailgate. (Everything in regards to her capture and interrogation with Airachnid is canon and was found out in episode 12 Predatory.)
Additional Links: Here Wiki Page
First Person (entry type):
[Arcee just stares into the lens of the camera for a moment. A slightly annoyed look on her face. Before she huffs and crosses her arms before speaking.]
I still don't really see how this is supposed to help with anything, or just when it was exactly Ratchet started listening and contemplating human medicine. In any case I'm stuck here having to talk to the lens of a camera, and only the knowledge no one is ever going to see these unless I let them as an assurance of my secrets staying with me.
I freely admit there are things that have happened to me in this war that I don't let go, hard not to have such emotional baggage in a war this long and drawn out. I just don't see the need to mope and whine about it to others or such. I can mourn properly when the Decepticons aren't outnumbering us and making every victory we do manage to get a hollow one. We're only prolonging a stalemate at this point, we're not really doing anything to get an advantage over them.
Maybe my codes are a little screwy, considering I've contemplated gaining a victory over them in ways that Prime wouldn't condone. We can't all be like Optimus, but sometimes maybe that's what is needed to win this war. The longer we keep fighting the more likely the kids will get hurt.
It would be our fault as well if they did. I can't let that happen again.
Third Person:
There was a loud clang from the area that Ratchet had claimed for himself and had guarded zealously from being flooded with everyone else's projects and items. Even before the kids had started making the base their second home. Now it was likely a battle already lost, considering the medic was sharing the space more and more with Raf, when he wasn't playing video games with Bumblebee.
An odd sort of defeat that in a way none of them really minded.
Something she herself was a bit stunned by when she thought about it. Who would have thought after years of being on this planet, she wouldn't really start to appreciate it until three human children had found them out. Even when it first happened she had been with Ratchet in bemoaning having to watch out for them. She was a soldier and not a glorified babysitter. Yet, it was almost like she was about to lose Cliffjumper all over again when Jack decided to leave. For once in the entire time she had been on this planet, she actually had a vested interest and reason to protect it outside of her given duty to do so as an Autobot.
"Hey Arcee, we got patrol now if we still want to make it back when school lets out."
It didn't take long to shake the odd thoughts from her mind and follow after Bulkhead. She could think about things later, for now she had Con's to look out for.