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OPEN!!

WHO: Rodimus and OPEN
WHERE: Heropa; Arcade and foodcourt
WHEN: July 18th or therabouts
WHAT: Trying to figure out human culture, getting excessively into cheap arcade games
WARNINGS: None ATM!

Rodimus is immediately regretting how little attention he paid to humans and their culture in general during his last stint on Earth. He'd never really bothered to pick up on any of the subtleties of their interactions...never really needed to. Okay, honestly, he'd never really picked up on the broad strokes either. Same excuse.

Now, holomatter avatar all fired up and ready to go*, he's ready to do some ""research"". Get the lay of the land; pick up some basic Earth culture....stuff.

*Rodimus' holomatter avatar is of a young, colourfully dressed woman, who appears to be in her early twenties.

A. ARCADE

This seems like a reasonably popular place for people to gather and do things that look enjoyable. Rodimus spends a good long while lurking around the outskirts of the arcade before actually going in. He's figured out that the humans come here to play games, and that to play those games they use currency. The games in question definitely look interesting, although he's not yet sure how they all work or what the object of some of them is. On paper, he's here to just do some observation, and sticks to that, spending some time milling between people playing skeeball, air hockey and some miscellaneous computer-screen based games, occasionally asking painfully blunt questions about what they are doing or how it works. They all seem fairly simple, but the humans in general seem entertained. Many of the games seem to be competitive in nature, and pit two or more individuals against one another.

The longer he spends watching people, the more the urge to actually try these games out begins to grow on him though...

B. FOOD COURT NEAR ARCADE

Although his holomatter avatar neither needs or is able to eat, Rodimus figures this is a good place to try and get some cues about human behaviours. Food seems pretty integral to the culture here, so why not? There's a small food court right near the arcade that's filled with several small stalls and kiosks selling both meals and snack food of a wide variety. He spends an indefinite period of time watching hot dogs rolling in a small, self-contained ecosystem.

The sheer volume and variety of food and drinks available for purchase here is overwhelming to Rodimus...and he can't he even eat any of it. How humans even manage to decide on a daily basis is beyond him. He watches in rapt interest as the people at the juice bar make smoothies, and abject horror as others consume some fleshy nuggets from cardboard containers. There's a lot to learn here, and he's got no idea where to start. In the process, he's generally making himself a nuisance, hanging around too closely to people while they order, watching them eat, asking the employees prying questions about their food preparation processes that if his holomatter avatar were less charmingly disarming they might mistake otherwise her for a health inspector.

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"Forgive me if I don't think that it's necessary for the good of our society us to 'be one' with a mass murderer," Rodimus says flatly, crossing his arms. He can't even believe what he's hearing. Rodimus can understand forgiveness, he can understand second chances, but they weren't talking about a little mistake or a bad decision here and there...they were talking about Megatron. How could Bumblebee have changed his opinion on the most vicious war criminal their race had ever seen in only the short span since he'd left Cybertron?

"I'm all for moving forward from the war Bee, and the hate that fuelled it. But...but there's a line. How do you justify holding that line if it can be forgiven?" He looks genuinely disgusted, putting a fist down on the table and leaning forward. "So what if he regrets it? He still did it. And d'you think he'd still have those regrets if he'd WON the war?"

"War makes murderers of everyone, Rodimus," Bee sighs, rubbing his temple. "They killed us. We killed them. Millions of organic lives were lost too and both factions are responsible for that."

It's not that he's changed his mind about Megatron's actions. There's just more depth to the guy than what he had originally thought. Bumblebee hasn't forgiven the Warlord either. How can he? Too many lives have been lost through this and saving Cybertron a few times isn't going to change that. Too much bad 'blood' there. The only thing that's changed is that Bee's jagged edges have started to smooth out. He doesn't want Megatron simply killed.

"If Megatron, out of all of the Decepticons can change, shouldn't that only give us more hope that we can move away from this?" Bee questions, this time more musing than actually answering. "Maybe you don't agree with me, but I remember how we first met, you know. And then there's Drift... We've given Decepticons and people who blew us up another chance. It would be an injustice to not at least give him one as well just because of who he is."

"I- " Rodimus is momentarily at a loss for words. Bumblebee's right of course. 'Course he's right. Anything else wouldn't be the 'Autobot way'. But somehow, what was right on paper still just doesn't feel right with Megatron. It doesn't feel great to have some of their past decisions dragged out in defense of that fact either.

"You're really starting to sound like a NAIL," Rodimus says with a sigh, putting a hand over his eyes. He doesn't mean it in a bad way, either. "Have you...had you worked everything out with them? All living together happily, all differences and prejudices set aside?" He looks up a Bee from behind his hand. "I hope they at least tried the bastard."

"I've been spending a lot of time with Metalhawk and Thundercracker lately," Bumblebee replies, a little rueful smile on his face. Maybe Metalhawk has rubbed off on him some. Then again, perhaps everything that had happened and the pressure of trying to 'rule' a cit going away just sort of helped Bee see things clearly again.

As the next questions come, he just shrugs. At this point it's really hard to tell what would have been reality once everything had settled and he had lived. Alas, that's not the case. Bumblebee really doesn't know how to answer that. Chances are that maybe some would have come around. He's not so optimistic that he's blind to reality though... There's a lot of hate to work through.

"Metalhawk and I are working on it here. Pretty easy considering we work together."

"Metalhawk, huh?" Rodimus thinks back; he'd only known Metalhawk very briefly. The guy had seemed...there's a word for it. Pushy? Condescending. Definitely condescending. But at the time, Rodimus hadn't had much patience for the NAILs in general. It was hard not to be bitter about the general attitude so many of the more outspoken ones had had. He remembers the protests and the signs, and the speeches and...ugh. A lot of it was understandable, but how Bumblebee'd managed to stay and put up with that...Rodimus has no idea. "So how's that...uhm...going?"

"We had a really rough start back on Cybertron," Bee explains, shifting about in his seat.

Part of that had been his own fault. Bumblebee had started shouting and trying to be this hard ass leader instead of, well, himself. He let things get out of hand and he can't entirely blame Prowl or the Decepticons for it. The truth is that there is a lot over the last year that he regrets. If he had a chance to do it over, he'd take it in a heartbeat.

"But we've talked it out here. It's not like we're best friends or anything, but it's progressing."

Rodimus looks off to the side thoughtfully for a long while. There's a lot of new information to process here...so much so that he's feeling more than a little overwhelmed. The idea of Bumblebee and Metalhawk getting along passably alone was worth a good deal of surprise - given the state of things when he'd left, Rodimus'd half expected a murder attempt.

There are still so many questions to be asked and he's not sure how even begin sorting through them. It might be best to keep it simple, for the time being...Rodimus was curious about the others as well. He sits up and looks abruptly back at Bumblebee.

"So what now? What have you been doing here? How long've you been here, even? I mean, you've been...you're organic, I nearly forgot! Metalhawk too? I - " he breaks off, and takes a breath. "Sorry. I've - sorry. That's a lot of questions. I've a lot. Lets just...what've you been doing here? Lets start with that..."

Hey, to be fair even Metalhawk and Bumblebee are surprised about the latest turn of events. Bumblebee thinks it's for the better and wishes that something like this could have happened back when it was important for them to work together. Hindsight, as the say...

He listens to Rodimus and his yammering, not at all bothered by it. The guy has a short attention span anyway so Bee can't really care all that much about what the other Autobot is blathering about. Too many questions are being thrown out at once. Thankfully, Rodimus finally decides on one to ask.

"What have I been doing here? Since each of us has been given a job, I've just been focusing on that and mending some of the friendships that I screwed up," Be replies. "My job is one of the city council's reps for other Imports."

Rodimus almost laughs, not out of malice but at the strange, almost sense of deja vu this gives him.

"That doesn't sound that different than what you were doing when I left Cybertron," he says with a grin. "Hell, it almost sounds like what Metalhawk was doing when I left Cybertron. Hope you're both better at it here than you were there..."

"It's not," Bee admits, throwing Rodimus a lopsided grin. Yes, he understands the irony in that. He kind of believes that the job selections are just that: made for ironic purposes.

"Thankfully it's much easier here than it was there. This Earth doesn't hold the hate and malice that the one we know does... The people here don't hate those that arrive and are willing to work with them."

In the end? It's a much better situation to start out with.

"Eh, yeah, okay. Fair enough," Rodimus says, with a slight smile. He looks around the food court, watching all the people going about their business. With that in mind he can see how Bumblebee might prefer this. "I guess I forgot what that's like...even compared to the earth in our world the people here seem...more willing to coexist."

"Although I suppose," He looks back at Bumblebee, still smiling. "If we're being honest, in our version, we brought the war with us."

"We could learn a lot from them," Bumblbee chuckles.

Despite the fact that change is something they had been created with, these humans certainly do a better job of it. They lead such short lives, but their ability to adapt is mind blowing. Here these people live on all parts of the globe - in all climates. Yes, there are cases of racism and mistrust to downright hate between certain countries and those of religion, but despite all of that Bumblebee can see what Thundercracker does. Humans create and see the world and universe in a way that they Cybertronians just don't. These people might war and fight as much as any race, but their arts, culture, and history are also passed down. Bee can't say the same for their own race.

After Rodimus' comment, Bee snaps out of his thoughts and glances back over. Yes, they had brought war upon Earth and a multitude of innocent planets. That had never been their intention, but it happened. Bee could make an argument about how it's really Shockwave that had started the mess on Earth, but it doesn't matter now. What's done is done.

"Hmm. You're right," he sighs. "We did bring it, but I had hoped that with some things with Spike being cleared up that relations would be better."

"Well they couldn't be that much worse," says Rodimus humourlessly. The Autobots and Decepticons alike had screwed things up pretty bad on a lot of worlds, but even by those standards what they had done to Earth had been a mess. And Spike...the mere mention of him makes Rodimus clench his fists; that was something he didn't want to even think about.

"I guess this is the Earth we never got to see then. It seems...peaceful. Ish. A lot moreso than we last saw it. Kind of dull. Not...the worst place to be stuck if you've gotta be." He glances back at Bumblebee. "Er...sorry. Not..."stuck". I know you're...this is great for you, I'm sure. This is just a bit...sedate, compared to where I'm coming from." Rodimus shakes his head, looking embarrassed. "Not that...ah. Sorry. I don't know how to talk people who've been - are presently. You know. Dead." Yes, perfect.

"The Cold War is still a thing so there's just as much tension politically speaking," the smaller of the two points out. This place may seem more peaceful, and it is in comparison, but there's still plenty of factors keeping people on the edge of their metaphorical seats.

As Rodimus stutters to find words, Bee just chuckles. He shakes his head, finishing off his meal. "You've never liked Earth, Rodimus. It's all right, I get it."

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OPEN!!

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