User blog:StringTheories/Blast Off IC Blog/Stardate 2035 8.3

(Blast Off's IC Private Journal)

What is a Combaticon without a faceplate? I mean, unless you happen to be Swindle, and then I suppose he can be forgiven for not stepping in line with the rest of our team, but he does need to charm his customers... Though why they fall for that greasy smile of his I shall never know. A smile is just bait in a trap set for the unwary. It houses the hook waiting to impale at the first eager grab, the last letting down of one's guard.

No, while I am hardly one to simply tow the line or follow along like some turbo-dog led on a leash... I do see the use in a faceplate. First: it protects the face. Having now paraded the painfully obvious, I will mention that there are also other, more subtle reasons. Though not all of them SEEM subtle at the time they come in handy. When you are a front-liner in the middle of the worst battles of a brutal war.... when energon is leaking out of places you didn't even know could quite... *bleed* that way.... the welcome respite of a faceplate ensures that some small part of you emerges at the end of the fight at least a *fraction* of the way it entered it. To remind you of what you might once have looked like. The same could be said for the visors we all wear... and even Swindle joins us on this little show of "team spirit". Again, not to be /too/ droll, but it's ever so slightly difficult to *aim* as well as a sniper of my station is expected to- when energon is leaking from a busted helmet and into my optic sockets. And nothing *bleeds* quite like a head shot... though fortunately, with my skill, I am usually the one *making* those shots, not taking them. The visor deflects the leak, and protects the optic from stray laserfire and grasping Autofools.

It prevents said Autofools from reading one's expression as well, emphasizing the menace of the unknown- which is always frightening to simple minds (so amply represented among my enemies..... not to mention allies). This way, I keep my distance in every way, shape and form. Using my lightning fast reflexes to leave would-be brawlers in the dust, my aerial prowess to dominate ground-pounders and the terminally feeble-minded, and the masks I wear so that they never quite know what I am thinking. They just can't touch me.

Therefore, I remain safely out of their grasp, unhooked, undefeated, while my enemies wallow on the ground far below, writhing out their last death throes or engaged in their meaningless, trivial lives. I remain above it all, looking down on all these foolish, petty heathens as they crawl beneath me... and my notice.

And sometimes... once in awhile.... one of those nobodies on the ground perchances to look up at me... and send up a warm, welcoming smile.

I remain distant. I know better than to take that bait now.