#well they kind of did particularly in Cyberverse

[quibbs126]

I find myself hoping that the next iterations of Transformers shake up Optimus and Megatron’s backstories a bit more

I mean sure, Transformers One shook it up a little, having them both be miners and the creation of the Decepticons being a lot more spontaneous and for somewhat different reasons, but it still follows the general current backstory. They were friends before the war, Megatron created what would become the Decepticons originally to fight for change and equality in a corrupt Cybertron, their ideals start shifting as Megatron wants more forceful means and Optimus more peaceful, they split off and the war starts up from their disagreements on the situation. Megatron tends to take Optimus’ splitting off personally and Optimus still holds some amount of feelings towards Megatron due to their shared history. Also, Megatron is usually a gladiator or miner and while Optimus is more flexible, he’s usually a file clerk/archivist or in Earthspark and One’s case, a laborer

Like I mean, it’s not a bad backstory. But I think it’s been their general backstory for the past 15 years or so. By this point I think we can maybe change things up a little more

[thewadapan]

From @evtraininguniversity:

[...] do you have any thoughts or insight re: the planned and conspired treatment of Beachcomber in the show? It at first struck me as kinda funny that the crew, but particularly Marty Isenburg and Derrick J Wyatt, planned multiple times and even succeeded at getting a voiced deleted scene killing off this character who I was not yet familiar with. But after backtracking my way through the different iterations (I mentioned in my reblog, I’m a very, very new fan of the franchise trying to catch up on so much media) and having watched The Golden Lagoon, I’m positively baffled that a G1 character as innocuous as Beachcomber could incite that much level of resentment for multiple staff and crew members to go on record talking about how much they hate him. [...] I’ve sort of silently gathered that it seems as though Beachcomber—a character used to criticize both sides of a destructive conflict in his spotlight episode—did not mesh well with the patriotic propaganda produced at the time that Mr. Isenburg and Mr. Wyatt grew up around, with both born in 1963 and 1972 respectively. I don’t think it’s entirely too much a stretch that a subconscious, or maybe even entirely conscious, bias post-Vietnam and mid-Cold War affected their interpretation of this character, especially with all the points you made re: the decision of the Constructicons. At least, there must be something to explain the entirely vindictive conceptualization of him as a stoned junkie whose only purpose in the narrative is to die on screen solely because they hate him.

GREAT question. I'm not well-versed enough in post-war US culture to speculate on that, but Beachcomber was something of a hot topic at TFNation 2019, where the Season 4 premiere outline was unveiled; it featured another iteration of Beachcomber's death scene. As I recall, showrunner Marty Isenberg was not familiar with the G1 cartoon at all, so Derrick J. Wyatt effectively acted as his lore adviser: Marty would ask "Hey, is there a Transformer like this?" and Derrick would come back with a list. Mae Catt played a very similar role on the production of Transformers: Cyberverse, and both of these shows benefitted from a range of crowd-pleasing cameos.

So the Beachcomber hate was 100% a Derrick thing. Marty would not have known who Beachcomber was, and going off Derrick's description, he would've been like "Sure, if you say so, killing him off sounds funny I guess?" And yeah, as to what exactly made Derrick hate Beachcomber so, it really seems like a completely unironic animus towards "hippies" in general. Not an uncommon view, to find hippies annoying, apparently. From a fanboy perspective, you can argue that Beachcomber is offensive because he challenges the very premise of the show: that the war is a good, just thing, that "the Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons." It's right there in the song! How dare this jumped-up minibot suggest the fighting would stop? Why, then there'd be no cartoon to watch!

There's several instances in post-'80s Transformers canon of writers brutally killing totally random characters out of some bizarre spite. Perhaps the earliest example is the edgy death scene for Wheelie and Daniel—the kid-appeal characters from Season 3 of the '80s cartoon—in The Wreckers #1 by Glen Hallit. If we're being honest, Wheelie is quite annoying in The Transformers: The Movie, so I can kind of see where that's coming from. In Drift #2, artist Alex Milne drew Armada Hot Shot and Shattered Glass Ravage as corpses into the background, solely because a friend of his told him that they were favourites of big-name-fan David Willis. And of course, there's a slew of Cy-Kill cameos where the character was killed off as some sort of *wanking off gesture* about GoBots. The infamous "GoBots crank" earned that epithet by arguing that Transformers fandom's performative hatred for GoBots was in fact classist, as GoBots were typically cheaper toys than Transformers that poorer kids had to "settle for" during the '80s. The Gobots crank was fucking right, y'all.

(In Till All Will Be One—fanfiction recently shared by the Ask Vector Prime tumblr blog—it's heavily implied that the eventual fate of IDW's Shattered Glass universe is to be destroyed by a multiversal invasion. This is because IDW's Shattered Glass comics are a joyless phoned-in waste of time and it's hard to think of a worthier target, if we're going around destroying universes.)

The Beachcomber thing is just a particularly baffling example, because his spotlight episode is generally well-liked and well-remembered; one need only look at the sheer reverence for Beachcomber in Daniel Warren Johnson's current Transformers series for Skybound to see the typical sentiment an '80s kid might have for the dude. Perhaps DJW and DWJ are opposite sides of the same coin.

With DJW's passing, it's in poor taste to dwell on the shortcomings of his creative vision, such as it was—because of his openness on social media, people gave him credence on aspects of the show far beyond his purview as art director. It's hard to tell what aspects of the cartoon's story were primarily his doing; from where I'm sitting, I see his pet project as being the unproduced Shattered Glass mirror-universe episode, which to me looks like it was conceived by an alien. Put charitably, he was an idiosyncratic creator with strong convictions and a distinctive voice.

In da group chat, my pal Omar remarked: "the show just doesn't hold up to this level of analysis and it definitely was not intended to". This is the crux of it. It's fun to look at characters like Beachcomber and the Constructicons as expressions of unconscious bias in the writers. But when the writers don't even know who Beachcomber is, he's getting thrown in there on the whim of the art director, there's no basis to say there's an intentional statement being made about pacifism in the Bush years. We're basically asking the wrong question entirely. Beachcomber dies because "it's funny". Why is it funny? Because it is.

thoughts on Transformers Animated

I would've been the perfect age to get absolutely oneshotted by Animated when it started airing on Cartoon Network, but my parents didn't pay for satellite TV, so after Transformers: Cybertron finished airing on CITV I was pretty much shit out of luck for Transformers cartoons for a while. I remember watching clips from the show on Monkey Bar TV, a section on Hasbro's website. The art style didn't really appeal to me. I do wonder about that alternate reality where I did get to see Animated as a nine year old. Would that have fucked me up?

This isn't a proper essay, I'm not here to tell you Transformers Animated Sucks And Here's Why, it's just some off-the-cuff thoughts I had, having now sat down to watch the cartoon in full for the second time in my life. I am going to have to break out the roman numerals, but only because I cannot shut up. So that's the epistemological status on this one.

I. Be a Hero

The thing with Transformers Animated is that it's a great Animated cartoon and kind of a terrible Transformers cartoon. My friend Jo recently put out an essay taxonimising the two different approaches to writing Transformers stories into Budianskian ("human-meets-robot") and Furmanist ("robots-fighting"), pointing to Animated as an example where the first season is grounded in human affairs and culture clash, only for the show to become progressively more preoccupied with conflicts between Autobots and Decepticons until, by the third season, Earth is basically just a backdrop used to create the illusion of stakes, a damsel-in-distress just offscreen. Well, having now revisited it, I honestly think it was Furmanist from the start?

I think the best way to approach Animated through a critical lens is to think of what it means to be an American boy/tween. What do you find cool? What do you want to be when you grow up? My equivalent to Animated was probably Ben 10, which I thought was the coolest shit; it was probably the best of the overtly-boy-aimed cartoons available to us Freeview plebs at the time. Ben 10 is a very empowering fantasy because Ben 10 can have pretty much any abiliity he wants at a particular moment. As a kid growing up you kind of do wish you could turn your flesh to solid crystal, or buzz around as a mutant bug, or just bowl over your enemies like a human bowling ball. These are normal emotions.

That's how Transformers Animated is written. A big part of Sari's character, as the obligatory audience-surrogate-human-child, is that she has an insane amount of freedom for a kid. She has a palatial penthouse, she's homeschooled, except she mostly ignores her Tutor-Bot, so in practise she can do whatever she wants. She gets given a magic key that lets her make any machine do whatever she wants it to, hilarity ensues, etc, etc. Some of my favourite parts of the show are when it teases out some of the pathos of Sari's character; her disconnection from other kids her age, the way the Autobots sometimes treat her more as a pet than a peer, her distant father with his Tom Kenny racist accent, the overly-mechanised and consumerist world she's adapted to thrive in.

The idea of Transformers Animated as a Budianskian story rings false to me because future-Detroit is about as alien from society as Cybertron itself; which is to say, not super alien, but still pretty unmistakably unreal. It's not trying to feel real. In fact, it's clear that the setting was chosen precisely for the sake of injecting Transformers sensibilities into the "human world" of the story, so that the show can be, on balance, more Transformers. This deliberate homogenisation strikes me as intrinsically Furmanist, which shies away from two-worlds-collide storytelling. Animated definitely has its moments of culture-clash, but they're not The Point, they're set-dressing.

Fundamentally, we're invited into the world of Transformers Animated through the eyes of the (all-male) Autobot cast. Between them they account for most of the episodic "learns an important lesson" character arcs, and as the show goes on, more and more of the screentime is devoted to their affairs. It's similar to how BIONICLE has two audience surrogates: the Matoran, who are weak and stupid like human children, and the Toa, who are cool and aspirational like teenagers or adults; the foundational text Mask of Light is preoccupied with the onscreen transmutation of the former into the latter, as if to say, this isn't just who you want to be, it's who you can be. The Autobots in Transformers Animated reflect the five key aspirational archetypes for young lads, as identified through extensive focus-group testing, these being: combination cop/firefighter, ninja, street racer, Engineer from Team Fortress 2, and angry old man.

Everything in the pitch slate for Transformers Animated is geared towards this being a superhero show that Hasbro doesn't need to pay license fees to Marvel for. It was literally called Transformers Hero at the start of its development. So like, taken as a superhero story in a toyetic kid sense (that is to say, there are no "secret identities", Superman is Superman full-time because kids find Superman sitting in an office boring), it's fine for what it is! This isn't like my Transformers One review where I'm going to try to convince you that the creative team weren't fucking trying, no, they were definitely trying for the most part, and they did a good job. It's purely a matter of taste.

Anyway! So!

Probably what had me be like, "man, fuck this"—and I've never heard anyone else mention this—was actually the Constructicons.

I know, right? Weird! If you're a veteran of the Transformers Animated discourse mines, you probably think of stuff like all the sexism, or the Tom Kenny Funny Accents, or maybe even something more abstract like the undercooked politics of the war. I dunno, maybe I'll talk about some of that stuff while I'm here. For me, though, there was more or less this hat trick of episodes at the start of Season 3, nearly three in a row, where for entirely different reasons I was like "man, fuck off".

II. Beneath the enemy scrotum

When the Constructicons are first introduced in Season 2, there's a genuinely tragic bent to their story. They're born into this alien world as fully-formed New Yoik Construction workers, they form this friendship with Bulkhead, the other Autobots are disproportionally suspicious of them, they get seduced by Megatron, they wind up getting their memories wiped. It's giving "Transmutate". And the arc that this introduction sets up for the Constructicons is like, hey, maybe when it counts, they'll remember who their friend really is, and they'll come back around to the side of angels. The thing with the Constructicons, right, is that they're stupid, and they're lazy, and they're selfish, and they think they're owed something when they're not. They operate on pure id, catcalling at cars, tossing back barrel after barrel of engine oil, and never really doing any actual work. And there's definitely an inherent humour to this image of an alcoholic digger sexually harassing random sportscars. So long as the show seems ultimately sympathetic towards the Constructicons, as if they might have a heart of gold under it all that separates them from the Decepticons, maybe it feels okay to laugh at them, because they're good people who just haven't worked it out yet. It's just a farce, a comedy of errors.

But every time the Constructicons come back, the show just... does an encore. They do more and more overtly evil things, and the show leans more and more on how crude these guys are. In "Sari, No-One's Home", they're cast in the roles of the robbers from Home Alone; if Transformers Animated can be said to have sinned, then it's an old sin, one drawn from a rich tradition of scorn for the working class, the ne'er-do-well, the wrong'un, the layabout. The Constructicons clearly have some valuable skill, when they can be motivated to work; the problem is that they're stupid and directionless. They're often banging on about their workers' rights, and making excuses not to work. While I don't think it's intentional on the part of the writers, the contrivance whereby they are "animated" (lmao) by shards of the AllSpark from regular human machinery does sort of separate them from the rest of the Transformers on an ontological, biological level. Wreck-Gar is similar, portrayed as basically just crazy, not quite a "full person".

Through a lens of writing as observation, the Constructicons are great; they're a distillation, a caricature, a cartoon of lots of specific things you've ever heard a workman say. But through a lens of writing as empathy, they're just kind of cringe, sorry. The show does not afford them the same internality as the Autobots, or even most of the other villains. It's hard to read them as anything other than a mean-spirited stereotype of labourers. On a narrative level, the purpose they serve is related to the Bush-era political morality play of the show; in fact, within the show itself, they provide perhaps the clearest view of who exactly Megatron is, what he believes, how he operates.

Again, I would've been eight when this show was airing. I had some consciousness of who the Prime Minister was, and I was cognizant of the election of President Obama, but it's fair to say that I had literally no perception of Bush-era American politics. Sue me. Most of what I know about it now, as an adult, comes from the spectre of the War on Terror on American culture. What I find striking about Megatron is just how abstract of a threat he is for almost the entire show. He almost never actually gets into fights with anyone. He's always lurking in some hole somewhere, making schemes to compel patsies to carry out acts of terrorism on his behalf. There are some occasions where he talks about Decepticons as a revolutionary movement, but only ever with a sneering self-consciousness that makes it clear that this is all talk, an obligatory performance he puts on in case anyone is dumb enough to believe him. Dude is in it for the power. He wants to be the boot. His complete immorality is what makes him dangerous more than anything—he doesn't care how many innocents get killed in the course of him getting what he wants—because even though he is a powerhouse, he's still just one guy, and he achieves most of his goals by being a liar, a schemer, a coward. And yeah, in the show, we see him take advantage of the Constructicons' stupidity/naivete (take your pick), playing on their sense of entitlement and resentment towards authority, directing their frustrations towards an invented scapegoat, the Autobots, who they've never met and don't know anything about. To me, that's political.

"Three's A Crowd" was what did it for me. Megatron's not even in that one; instead, there's this new guy, Dirt Boss, who forces the Constructicons and Bulkhead to fall in line. For their part, the Constructicons are basically onboard with the whole thing, and the language used in dialogue frames the situation as a workers' revolution (as the Constructicons see it) ruining everything. Scrapper gets something of a redemption later in the season, in "Human Error", but this is kind of unrelated to anything else involving the Constructicons; Mixmaster was always the brains of the operation, and he just exits the narrative after his attempted strike Goes Wrong. To me, the way it reads is something along the lines of like... look, the workers are stupid, and they're looking out for themselves, and wannabe-tyrants are always going to prey on that, so we shouldn't really blame the workers exactly... but also the workers should just stop fucking complaining, they should stop being lazy and contribute to society like the rest of us, and let the actually smart people tell them what's right and what's wrong. Maybe it's not exactly that. But it reads as something basically like that, to me, and sorry, but it just does nothing for me except make me feel bummed.

I realise this is probably more ink than has ever been spilled on the Animated Constructicons. Look, I don't want to get some sort of reputation as the Animated Constructicons crank. It's not that I feel particularly strongly about this, and more that it's difficult to articulate. We'll be going back to more familiar discourse territory for the rest of this blogpost.

III. Green with envy

Moving along, we come to "Where Is Thy Sting?", which is the climax of the Wasp subplot introduced in the Season 2 episode "Autoboot Camp". I think this subplot is typically very well-regarded in the fandom zeitgeist; people like the reinterpretation of loyalist Shockwave as a deep-cover Decepticon double agent in the Autobot Elite Guard ranks (his sick design certainly helps), and people enjoy the reinterpretation of Beast Wars Waspinator as a foil to Bumblebee, and people especially like the twist where you're led to believe Wasp is the double agent, right up until the episode's closing stinger.

Did anyone actually believe that, though? I'm genuinely asking. I can't remember if I got fooled the first time I watched "Autoboot Camp", or if I had already been spoiled on the twist through fandom osmosis, or if I just worked out that Wasp was innocent while watching the episode. On rewatch, it felt to me like the episode was really struggling to sell the ruse; Longarm is overtly suspicious from pretty much the moment he first speaks. This paragraph has gone on too long already, this is a cartoon for nine-year-olds, this probably literally was Baby's First Plot Twist for some number of children.

Anyway, the idea of a Decepticon double agent has a lot of narrative potential, so it's a shame that its largest footprint on the narrative of Transformers Animated is the stock-plot-iest mistaken-identity-slash-doppelganger plot to ever stock. If you ask me to point at one part of Animated and accuse it of Not Even Trying, "Where Is Thy Sting?" is that part. The auteur theorist in me notes that the writer of this one was Todd Casey, whose other credits are the aforementioned "Sari, No One's Home", which is another mid stock plot, and "Nature Calls", which is so forgettable that thirty seconds ago I reacquainted myself with TFWiki's synopsis of it and now all I can tell you is… it's about space barnacles?

And you can totally see how it happened, because on the surface, on the logline level, it seems very fun and clever. Wasp is depicted in the show as a green repaint of Bumblebee… so what if he used paint to literally swap identities with Bumblebee? This is the kind of thing that would make a brilliant Ask Vector Prime entry, but it makes for a rubbish 22-minute cartoon. The problem is it just doesn't work. If you stop and think about how to contrive the situation for more than a second, it becomes immediately obvious that it doesn't work at all.

Wasp swaps helmets with Bumblebee and keeps his faceplate up to hide his face. Their voices swap, but their speech patterns don't; one of the episode's big running jokes is that Wasp-as-Bumblebee keeps making obvious slips like referring to himself in the third-person. He hopes to get rid of Bumblebee-as-Wasp as soon as possible to minimize the risk he's exposed, but he also wants revenge, for Bumblebee to suffer as he did. As for Wasp's plan as Bumblebee… well he mostly just wants to enjoy freedom, kick back and play video games, he hasn't really thought past that.

What makes an identity-theft plotline good (I mean, when they are good), is not what it says about the character being impersonated, but rather how it tests the limits of their relationships with the other characters. What makes "Where Is Thy Sting?" bad is that it doesn't tell us anything about anyone—expect perhaps, "all the Autobots are really fucking stupid?" Is that anything?

Like, sure, if we're imagining a character thinking realistically, it's a bit of a leap for them to start entertaining the possibility of bodyswapping. But one of the first things Bumblebee-as-Wasp says to his friends is "I'm not Wasp, I'm Bumblebee! Wasp swapped our paint jobs and is trying to steal my identity!" And the other Autobots are like, "Pssh, that's crazy," despite the fact that Wasp-as-Bumblebee is in fact behaving extraordinarily odd. It's proper "hollering at the telly like Dad three cans deep watching the Green Rectangle" territory. I think this episode needed like three more drafts.

From an Animated liker's perspective, hey, maybe this is one dud amongst what's otherwise a consistently great series.

For me, this episode is sort of a flashpoint for a wider problem with contrivance in the series. That problem has a name.

IV. Sentinel Prime

As the series goes along, it builds up this kind of hilarious impression of Sentinel Prime as being singlehandedly responsible for everything that goes wrong in the show: from his mishandling of the boot camp that let Shockwave slip into the Autobot ranks, to his Archa Seven field-trip that led to the creation of Blackarachnia, to his decisions as acting Magnus nearly allowing Megatron to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Anything Optimus Prime's crew manage to achieve, they do so in spite of Sentinel Prime's actions. In "Where Is Thy Sting?", Sentinel is the last holdout, who'd sooner believe that literally every other Autobot is "in on it" than admit he was wrong about Bumblebee-as-Wasp. The show relies extremely heavily on Sentinel Prime's too-dumb-to-live personality for humour, but also relies on it to contrive conflict.

So yeah, I just don't "get" Sentinel Prime. I am actually doubtful that most Animated fans "get" Sentinel Prime, from the opposite direction, because I know y'all are for the most part, like me, too young to actually remember the Bush administration. Did you know that the title of Season 2 Episode 3, "Mission Accomplished", in which the Elite Guard prematurely declare the Decepticon threat on Earth to be nonexistent, is a direct reference to a famous speech by George W. Bush given at the start of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, a bloody war that was still ongoing by the time of the cancellation of Transformers Animated in 2009? I didn't know about that speech until just now. Man, I would love to read a long-form, well-researched essay analysing Transformers Animated through the lens of the Bush presidency.

I can't help but observe history repeating itself with the release of Transformers One, where Sentinel Prime is used as an analogue for another idiotic Republican president.

If you squint, maybe there's something to it, in the Animated worldview, where this absolute brain idiot somehow blunders his way into ruling the whole planet by the show's finale, through no particular competency beyond craven opportunism and a delusionally-inflated sense of his own worthiness. Maybe Animated is a show that saw guys like this in positions of power and just wanted to laugh at them, bitterly, because if your president is bombing the shit out of people on the other side of the world, then if nothing else you can depict him as The Tick.

I dunno, it just doesn't do anything for me, never did. It's not particularly cathartic or entertaining for me when Sentinel Prime gets his head cut off—I would just rather be looking at any other character. My gut just tells me that I'm not looking at a character, I'm looking at some kind of narrative voodoo doll, who's getting humiliated to prove some point about something that exists in some other reality altogether. Put plainly, maybe it's precisely the fact that depicting Trump as the blue-and-orange man… didn't stop his election, and certainly didn't stop his re-election. If there can be said to be a culture war, then shit like this was on the losing side, y'know? It's as if we're conceding that all good people can do is console themselves, and pride themselves on their righteousness, while all bad people can do is whatever the fuck they want.

IV. Animated is cancelled

To be fair, Sentinel does get some actual depth at times, shades of nuance that gesture towarads the illusion that he could be a guy who really exists in a three-dimensional world. One of the best examples of this is in "Predacons Rising". Sidenote, weird that they reused that title for the Prime movie, isn't it?

These exchanges between Sentinel Prime and Blackarachnia are some of the best in the whole series:

"I just never knew, never imagined that something this… unspeakable could have happened to you. How can you even live like that?! It's horrible! It's disgusting!" "Okay, okay, I get it! It's bad, but it's not that bad, all right?!" "No. It's worse. You should have gone offline." […] "So that's it?! You just slag your old friend Elita-1?" "Don't say that name! You don't deserve to say that name! You're not Elita-1, you mutant freak. Elita-1 went offline a long time ago."

Sentinel Prime's xenophobia towards organics is played for laughs in most of the show, and he doesn't get many opportunities to actually act on it. This episode is different! In this scene, a healthy reaction from Sentinel would be relief that his old friend Elita-1 is alive after all. But he's so revolted by her mutant appearance—and, unspoken, by his own hand in disfiguring her—that he actually can't suffer her to live! As I've said, Sentinel Prime is often depicted as a delusional liar, an Autobot equivalent to Starscream, and this episode is special because we see him rewrite the narrative in his own mind in real time. At first he feels that Elita-1 should have died. Then he convinces himself that Elita-1 is already dead, so he doesn't have to feel bad about killing Blackarachnia.

I think this dialogue is very raw, and it's extremely distinctive—Blackarachnia's "Hang on, it's not THAT bad!" is hilarious—and it was only after watching the episode that I remembered it had been written by Larry DiTillio and Bob Forward, which certainly explains why. Beast Wars always walked a knife-edge between great comedy and messy feelings.

Ultimately, though, "Predacons Rising" has kind of a nasty aftertaste. It establishes this deliciously fucked-up dynamic… and then kind of doesn't interrogate it at all?

Some of the earliest criticisms I ever saw directed at Transformers Animated concerned its handling of female characters. In terms of recurring ones that matter, it basically boils down to Blackarachnia and Sari, with Arcee and Slipstream to a lesser extent, and the shared thread I would draw between them is that they all have something fucked-up going on with their bodies. Specifically, they exist in this state because of various men in the show. Blackarachnia's hideous mutation was caused by Sentinel and Optimus, frequently framed as "look what you did!" Sari's technoorganic body and abnormal development are effectively thanks to her father, and her relationship with him in Season 3 is coloured heavily by this. Arcee's memory wipe and millennia-long coma were done at Ratchet's hands. Slipstream is implied to be Starscream's "feminine side", defined explicitly in relation to him. There is a sense that female characters are just treated differently by the narrative, and I personally think it's reasonable to term this a misogynist streak, though it's complicated by the fact that both Sari and Blackarachnia have some of the richest characterisations in the show (contrast Elita-1 and Airachnid in Transformers One, who have literally nothing going on).

A curious thing about Blackarachnia is that the show typically presents her deal as being "I'm hideous!", but many of the male characters in the show are depicted as infatuated with her. Cinemasins ding? Derrick J. Wyatt's design for her may not be as horny as the Beast Wars original, but it's still horny. The "mutation" aspect of her design is a little hard to parse out, because despite her supposedly radically altered biology… well, she looks like a cartoon character, same as any other Transformer in the show. Because Blackarachnia is the only female Transformer for most of the series, it's unclear whether the male bots react to her this way because they've never seen a woman before, or if it's a specific factor of her horrible spider swag. I mean I guess it's the latter? And I dunno, it just bums me out. Everyone is into her, but only in a way where it's taboo, she's Othered. Blackarachnia thinks she won't be accepted back into Cybertronian society because she looks like a monster.

And she's right! In "Predacons Rising", Sentinel Prime's view of Blackarachnia is tacitly acknowledged as being basically correct on a narrative level; in fact, at the end of the episode, Optimus Prime surprisingly describes Sentinel Prime as a "good bot"... when the most unusual thing that Sentinel Prime has done this episode is just be very xenophobic. As the show presents it, Blackarachnia is a monster who no longer values the lives of others, and her trauma response has turned her into an evil influence on the universe. At the end of the episode, the problem is "solved" only because Blackarachnia is accidentally shunted into another fucking universe; to Sentinel and Optimus, it literally seems like she's died, and they seem relieved about it, glad they can finally have closure on the whole affair, which was entirely their fault. This was the "original sin" which got Optimus Prime kicked off onto the space bridge repair crew, the entire driving impetus for his arc to prove himself as a hero; but this arc isn't resolved by him "saving" Blackarachnia in any way, rather by him washing his hands of her, this little blemish on his record expelled from the universe. I'm pretty sure Blackarachnia isn't mentioned again.

(You actually see something very similar with Omega Supreme. Animated is pretty clear about the Autobots being fucked up in their own ways, and a big example is Omega Supreme being programmed to heroically self-sacrifice himself if needed. In the Season 2 finale, Ratchet only brings Omega Supreme back online as a last-ditch effort to stop Megatron, and is conflicted over the fact that he's reviving Omega only to have him sacrifice himself again. The resolution to this conflict... is for Omega to sacrifice himself to stop Megatron, because there's no other option, and then Omega pretty much exits the narrative in any way that matters.)

If you're an Animated liker, the obvious argument to make is that the writers did in fact have plans for Blackarachnia… they just didn't get the chance to put them into place. We know that early pitches for Season 4 were very beast-focused, that the show staff were kind of bored of Megatron and wanted to do more with Blackarachnia. It's true! But I dunno, actually watching the show, I just don't see it. I look at the Constructicons, where it seemed like the can was being kicked down the road until they just got bored of it. We have a lot of behind-the-scenes insight into Animated, and it just does not strike me as a meticulously planned show. When Blackarachnia was introduced, I can't imagine there was a strong idea of how her arc might resolve itself, because the tension of leaving it unresolved is in fact the whole point. To me, Animated is a show constructed entirely out of these tableaus, these dynamics, which build towards a season finale but never a series finale. While people generally agree that it was a shame Animated was cancelled, if you probe deeper, you'll find a bit more of a split on whether or not is was cancelled prematurely; more accurately, it simply wasn't renewed. I think part of what confuses people about Animated is that it was never being written towards a definitive conclusion—but rather, with the intent that it it could go on indefinitely.

There's a lot to mourn about the show; it was really the last time—in fact, if you discount the Beast era for the Beast-ness of it all, the only time—that a Transformers cartoon was permitted to radically reinterpret pretty much whatever aspect of the franchise it wanted, to make up new characters, to rewrite the mythos. The "mythos", such as it were, did not exist yet; the Binder of Revelation had yet to be codified. In anything made after Animated, "Prowl" could never, ever, have been a motorcycle ninja. The ossifying brand-alignment that began with Prime and continues with the so-called "evergreen" production bible has stifled innovation in the brand; unless there is a radical change in brand management internal to Hasbro itself, there will never be another take on Transformers as radical as this.

But I guess the necessary flipside of this is that I don't think Animated is really the purest expression of Transformers that many people treat it as. Its writing and visuals achieve a basic level of consistent quality that is otherwise absent from most stories in the brand, sure, but this doesn't make it the "best" Transformers cartoon ever. Perhaps there's no such thing. "Transformers", whatever that is, it's something else. It exists in your mind as much as it exists in mine. True "Transformers" has never been tried.

Just kidding there is a best Transformers cartoon and it's Beast Machines, obviously.

[sepublic]

Ok, so it's obvious you love Beast Wars, but what about other series? Earthspark? Cyberverse? Prime? Robots in Disguise 2015? IDW 2005-2018?

I grew up primarily on Transformers Animated and, alas, the Bayverse, the latter of which I think was my first proper introduction to the franchise; Though I do have VERY faint recollections of previous series, particularly Armada and its keys... 

I only really knew those from their toys, though I do remember a clip from an Armada CD; I had Cybertron Longrack, as well as Armada Excellion vs Thundercracker, and Skyshadow; Not to mention the Robots in Disguise Deluxe Mirage with that color-changing sticker. There was Deep Space Starscream from the Movie lineup, and Fast Action Battlers Jazz.

I have fond memories of my cousin’s Deluxe Scorponok and RotF Soundwave, whom I envied; The latter toy I remember him pitting against my own, particularly my Bionicles, and the constant fights and back-and-forth of Soundwave becoming a good guy, just to be a bad guy again, etc. We wanted to reap the fun of either scenario.

Then Animated Lugnut, whom with Thok from Bionicle have the same story for me; Originally I got someone ELSE from their line, but a factory defect meant I had to return it, and settle for a different character. In my case, I originally chose Animated Starscream, but then his head popped off and wouldn’t come back on, hence the switch to Lugnut. I also had Animated Oil Slick and a McDonalds version of Animated Bumblebee.

Regrettably, I’ve lost ALL of these toys over time, not sure how. But yeah, I had toys from the Unicron Trilogy and a distant memory of watching a CD that came packaged with a clip from the show of Armada Jetfire; Otherwise, the Michael Bay films were my introduction, followed by Animated, which I DID watch all of! I remember as a kid being frustrated by the loose ends of Animated’s finale, so finding out the show was actually cancelled explained a lot; As a kid, Blurr’s death traumatized me, but hearing he survived and would’ve recovered was a relief. 

Ultimately, my knowledge of any other series besides the Bayverse, Animated, Beast Wars (and technically Knightverse) is solely through cultural osmosis, some dives into the TFwiki (was surprised yet amused as a kid at its snarkiness), and Chris McFeely’s guides on Transformers characters throughout the ages. Before that I also remember watching the first three or so episodes of G1 on Netflix (getting to see the source material for the Bay films and how removed they were was a surprise), and years later, various clips of G1 on Youtube as well; I also watched the original 1986 animated film, and the episode where a human girl has a crush on Powerglide. 

As someone who DIDN’T grow up with G1 and thus can’t be accused of a nostalgia bias... Tbh, I really do find it THAT good, but I might just be influenced by the bandwagon. I just think it’s really funny and find a lot of the designs charming, and the ‘86 movie is legitimately raw and well-written. I watched Bumblebee Movie opening month, was disillusioned like a lot of people by the Bayverse, only to be astounded by the first trailer and stoked by the transformations of Bumblebee and Blitzwing, which felt very toy-esque and whom I could actually keep track of!

In general, I remember sort of falling off of Transformers after Dark of the Moon... But then @ganymedesclock started watching Animated, which reignited my curiosity. This led me to revisit the series, as well as the Transformers franchise in general; And that led to a DEEP rabbithole that’s culminated in me going through all of Beast Wars, naming and understanding the toys I had as a kid (and desiring them again with the context of what their characters were like).

It also led me to getting a couple of toys from the Studio Series line, particularly the Constructicons. Sue me, I think the Bayverse designs and films have SOME artistic merit, even if it’s largely garbage, they’re kind of a guilty pleasure at times, and the toys have a necessary simplicity that makes the aesthetic easier to digest. And like everyone else, the ideas of a rewrite, and/or my own Transformers continuity, have taken root in my head.

[crystalconjunx]

Not the same anon, but with that said.... could I request Cyberverse Megop with a breeding kink?? Bottom megs if you don’t mind 💖💖

TFC MegOp

Megatron had just finished his final fight in the Kaonian Pits and the energon was still running unusually hot in his frame. The challengers hadn't even been particularly strong; he had tossed them all off the stage with practiced ease as they seemed to fumble the moment they got close to him. He found himself looking for Optimus's face in the crowd and growing all the more frustrated when he found himself warming even more at the mech's concentration.

He decided to chalk it up to some kind of nervousness— he was still becoming familiar with giving speeches, after all. It normally helped to have Optimus by his side even if they had become more at odds lately. For some reason, however, Optimus hadn't been at his post-battle speech and it soured Megatron's his mood even more. 

His sourness continued when he slid into his usual seat across from Optimus at Maccadam's Oil House and the other mech didn't arrive. 

He sent a message to their private comms. 

::Optimus, blast it, where are you?::

::I am in my hab suite, Megatron. Why do you ask?::

::I'm coming over.::

Maccadam only smiled at Megatron when he stormed out the Oil House and down the street to Optimus's apartment. He didn't even need to knock before the door was opened for him.

"Why didn't you attend our speech, Optimus? Found something better to do?" He accused as he pushed his way into the hab suite. 

"I apologize. I didn't realize you had suppressors installed. I assumed you would postpone the speech until the end of your heat."

"My what?!" Megatron sputtered. Of course. How had he not realized? The strange looks from his opponents and the other mechs that had approached him, the terrible burning in his frame, the reason that Optimus looked especially well-polished in the light of the stage.

"Y-you were not aware?" Optimus asked in surprise. "Perhaps you should go see Ratchet and have some suppressors installed temporarily." He suggested.

"Suppressors make it difficult to fight!" Megatron growled as he stomped forward and grabbed Optimus by the shoulder to push him against the wall. "You could sense that I was in heat?" Megatron demanded. "And you didn't offer to relieve it?"

"Yes," Optimus answered slowly, "But I did not intend to offend you. I did not want to impose my desires onto you were you not interested."

"You fool! We interface all the time. Why didn't you do anything?"

"It would have been improper! Partners or not, I do not-"

"Frag. Me. Now, you idiot." The gladiator demanded as he pushed up against the tall archivist. "Unless the protocols haven't affected you?" 

"Th-they have, but that's why I can't just-"

Megatron growled at the other mech's words before he spun them around, putting his own back to the wall and pulling Optimus's hips against his already leaking panel. 

He could see the moment Optimus's ability to reason finally shut down as desire flooded his frame. He was on Megatron in a flash, kissing his lips open while he grinded his pressurizing spike against the gladiator's dripping valve. With every rough movement, more lubricants dripped from the black mesh. 

Optimus picked him up before carrying him over to his berth and dropping him down as he crawled over him.

He couldn't stop the words that poured from his mouth into Megatron's vulnerable audials.

"I've been wanting to do this since the moment I sensed your heat this afternoon. Wanted to fill you with as much transfluid as I could, until you were swollen with it. I wish I could have pulled you from the stadium and fragged you into the wall until you sparked." 

"Then get on with!" Megatron demanded.

M-Megatron," Optimus panted, struggling to regain control as he rubbed his spike into the other mech's hip. "I don't think-"

"Then be quiet," the silver mech hissed. "And just do."

[dungeonbbq]

anyways. so. wfc siege was uh, something?

not nearly as bad as i thought it might be but theres certainly.... problems.

The animations not so bad imo, better than prime wars at least. Colors could use some saturation, and most of the setting is too... samey. Like, you’ve got grey, more grey, grey ruins, grey.... The only really distinct locations would be like, the arc, that arena megatron gave speeches in, and the sea of rust (but MAN did they go hard with that one, wish it had more screentime). Should’ve taken a cue from fall of cybertron for the rest of the settings. Uh, and the music was nice whenever I noticed it. Nothing really iconic that sticks into my mind but at the beginning I liked the combinations of strings/synths or whatever the hell they used. It could be worked on to be actually memorable though.

The voice acting is like. super hit or miss. Most of it was like, trying too hard to be dramatic and all “war is hell”. Plus I’m still miffed about hasbro clearly not wanting to pay cullen and welker, and apparently not wanting to work with union VAs. The decepticons also like, all have this same/similar quality even on characters I don’t think it necessarily fits? Like they’re all “yes, I am eeevilll” and then that voice comes out of frickin impactor, who I’ve always seen as more gruff. Also impactor should have gotten an f-bomb. Soundwave’s voice is off, and feels like he doesn’t have very much.... presence, compared to everyone else. Shockwave’s voice isn’t bad by itself but I think the VA would be better suited by a less G1 design.

Elita-1, arcee, chromia, and moonracer’s designs kind of suck. They all have incredibly similar silhouettes (to the point several of the subtitles incorrectly identified one as another) and stick out like a sore thumb against the dudes. They’re significantly more frail, and have alot of round shapes and lack of kibble, and it’s clearly because they’re girls. G1 accuracy is worthless if it it’s done like this. They have these like, weird necks too? The guys are more like, segmented from their heads, because fleshy looking necks has always been weird in transformers. Also, rip moonracer you had no character whatsoever but we’re still expected to be sad about you I guess.

Speaking of character, I feel like transformers media is particularly prone to relying on past material to do the characterization work instead of actually writing it in. We all expect a character to act a certain way, so the writers take advantage of that to fill in the gaps they’ve left. Most of the characters weren’t really compelling to me, and then the like, exact second I start giving a shit about impactor, he gets shot like once and dies. Death is largely inconsistent in this franchise. Dude has a skyscraper land on him and gets saved, but can’t take a bullet mr. president style without getting shafted. And not to mention like, whats-his-face. Cog. got half his torso blown out and he was back up in no time. It’s all about what’s convenient for the writers. Back to talking about characterization. 2~ hours of content isn’t enough time to flesh out the cast at all. You’d have to drastically reduce the amount of characters, and just aim for a movie instead of a six episode series. Like, we clearly saw what a lack of time did for cyberverse, hasbro seriously needs to learn that these kinds of constraints are always going to negatively impact the show.

Also, like, am I the only one who’s getting kind of tired of this whole megatron and revolution thing? Like, it keeps being done kind of. crappily. And nobody really wants to do anything different in a substantial way. Siege being absolutely no exception because it’s always talked about by the characters in extremely vague terms, like going back and forth constantly like “no YOU started the war” and  “no YOU broke the planet” and it’s so boring. Give me an actual series of events. Show me what happened, show me why characters did these things, show me a halfway new take on it.

Oh, and like... this weird ass forced oplita is weird. I’m not opposed to the pairing in concept but, like I’ve said, there’s not much room to make decent characterizations and arcs and develop relationships. Plus it’s like... they really go hard on the no homo bro thing with mags and megs. Like. They Knew. But after all that I’m betting money impactor/ratchet is going to be like, THE ship for this whole series, maybe with some impactor/mirage on the side. Anticipate that, hasbro.

In the end hasbro probably isn’t going to change much, because we’re all still going to watch it, and we’re all still going to buy the toys. Well, I mean, maybe not all the toys. Earthrise arcee sucks so bad.

[ckret2]

What seperates TFP Starscream from his G1 and IDW counterparts? Please don’t include RiD I just don’t like that series.

... I don't know if you're talking about the IDW RID title or RID-the-sequel-to-TFP.

why does hasbro have to keep reusing names. you know what i've always thought cyberverse was kind of a silly name but as of this moment: bless it for at least being a new name.

Therss the obvious, of course: TFP's got that deep voice as opposed to G1's shriek of death (I love the shriek of death), spindly silver jet vs blocky blue-and-red jet...

But you're probably looking for personality differences, yeah?

For the purposes of such a discussion, I actually don't think IDW Starscream should be lumped in with G1. He is, in truth, much more of a midpoint between G1 Screamer and TFP Screamer.

The first and most significant major difference between G1 and TFP is that TFP Screamer actually has experience leading the Decepticons without Megatron there holding his leash, and he's successful at it. Successful at winning battles? No—although I'll have you know that he did,personally, terminate the spark of the Autobot Cliffjumper, with his own hand, perhaps you hadn't heard, he's very modest about it— (But all joking aside, that IS the only kill the Decepticons scored, which is worth noting.) But: successful at keeping the Decepticons together, maintaining their numbers, finding and protecting energon mines, etc.? Yes. G1 Starscream, when he commands the Decepticons, is generally an unmitigated disaster. TFP thinks about what he's doing. He knows what it takes to lead. He doesn't actually have all of it, but at least he knows what it is.

And that's reflected in how they disagree with Megatron. TFP Starscream generally only disagrees with him when he genuinely has a different belief about how something should be done. G1 really gives off the impression that he argues with Megatron just to contradict him—no matter what Megatron says, he thinks it's wrong because Megatron said it, and he wants everyone to know, first and foremost Megatron himself.

And that leads into what might be the biggest difference between them: G1 knows no fear—of Megatron or anything else—up until the moment he's actively threatened, at which point he's terrified; but the terror vanishes as soon as the threat does, and he learns nothing from the experience. On the other hands, TFP lives his life in a constant state of scared shitless. Especially of Megatron, who lobs a death threat at Starscream for no reason within his first five minutes of screen time. TFP sneaks and simpers and never utters a word of sedition where Megatron can hear him, and each time he detects (or imagines) a threat to his life, the next dose of terror is even stronger. On the other hand, while he's terrified at the threat of mortal peril, once he's actually in it—which usually means either he's pleading for mercy and it didn't work, or he's reached a state of such constant looming peril that the terror just cancels out—he's focused, clever, and pulls off some of his best gambits and most brilliant strategies.

(Which isn't to say that G1 Starscream doesn't pull off some brilliant moves, too—I'm thinking particularly of the time he gets stranded in a fantasy novel and weaponizes bird crap.)

And the difference makes sense. In TFP, Starscream built his character as an assassin when literally everyone else around him built theirs as gladiators, and then he forgot to put any points into stealth. G1 Starscream is a warrior on par with all of his peers, with the addition of long-range capabilities that make him semi-invulnerable to attack... until he's suddenly in a position where he remembers he isn't invincible. And then he doesn't know how to handle the fear, because, unlike TFP, he doesn't live in that fear.

Their differences as warriors is further reflected in their, well, attitude toward war. When G1 gets the reins of the Cons, he charges into battle (and doesn't fare well). He'll take potshots at his own allies, even Megatron. He's absolutely a little warmonger. TFP is more cautious about combat; he doesn't engage the Autobots—or anyone else—without a clear advantage, and while he enjoys winning, he seems to take no enjoyment from battle itself, which to him is a utilitarian necessity to achieve his and the Cons' goals.

So then we get IDW Starscream, who, as I said, is somewhere between the two. Like G1, he's a consummate warrior, and he seems to take some sadistic pleasure in fighting; unlike G1, he's very shrewd about when and where to resort to violence. Unlike TFP, none of his fears seem to be of harm or death; but like TFP, he does live in fear: it's fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of ostracism. He handles himself far more confidently both in and out of peril than either TFP or G1, but it seems to be a synthesis of TFP's constant nervous assessment of the danger he's in and a façade that imitates G1's effortless egotistical self-confidence. IDW is more focused on gaining leadership, like G1, and unlike TFP who descends from shooting for leadership to just trying to survive and get a place at the table at all. And one more notable trait in common with TFP: actual, like, long term memory. While there are some ongoing plots in G1, they never seem to have a big effect on Starscream's overall personality (or, most significantly, personal danger assessment). TFP and IDW, however, are constantly ruminating on the potential consequences of their actions, revising their plans accordingly, and updating their tactics. IDW's got one thing neither of them does, though: more than two ounces of charisma that doesn't vanish the second he gets nervous.

[transformersaesthetics]

Transformers: Armada

Gooooooood morning Tumblr! This week we’ll be talking about Transformers: Armada. For many of you, this was your introduction to the brand, and I hope you get to relive a bit of that with this essay! As far as our survey goes, it means we’re reaching the beginning of the end of Transformers modernity; once the Unicron Trilogy is over, we’ll be solidly Late Modern. As a reminder, if you want to check out my other essays, here and my website are both good places! Here’s the link for this week’s. https://transformersaesthetics.wordpress.com/transformers-armada/ Hope you enjoy!    

Transformers: Armada marks a turning point in the brand almost as large as Beast Wars. After the mixed results of Beast Machines and Robots in Disguise, Armada’s success with children reinvigorated Transformers. Perhaps the most defining characteristic was it’s introduction of Mini-Cons. These were smaller, simpler figures, one of which was packed with each larger toy. Mini-Cons proved phenomenally popular, and in no small part propelled the Armada franchise to occupy it’s exalted place in fandom memory. Armada marked a radical shift in the engineering of toys. From G1 to RID, the general trend had been increases in complexity and articulation. Armada made a different choice: “The early offerings in particular were blocky, easy to transform, sturdy and colorful. Articulation tended to be reduced.”(Seichi) Many of the aesthetic and engineering changes Armada pioneered would have a dramatic impact, not only on the immediate successors Energon and Cybertron lines, but almost every subsequent line.    

Armada’s engineering is one of the most distinctive features of the line. Where Beast Era and RID molds had featured intricate transformations and the near omnipresence of ball joints, in Armada,“ball joints largely disappeared from the non-Mini-Con toys in favor of permanently-joined swivels.” (Seichi) Articulation on figures was, as a result, more restricted than it had been on previous figures. Overload in particular is famous for being one of the first ‘bricks’ released since the conclusion of Generation 1. (ItsWalky; Omnisvalidus) Even more traditional figures such as Demolishor feature an absence of bicep and thigh swivels that had appeared regularly on figures in previous lines. (Mendou)      The absence of articulation and the robustness and simplicity that provided allowed HasTak to experiment with much more gimmick laden toys. Almost every figure had some sort of action gimmick, ranging from Demolishor’s spring loaded missiles to Superbase Optimus Prime’s extremely involved auto-transforming trailer. (Mendou; Abates) Above the “Super-con” class, (the new name for the 10 dollar price point), all figures featured sounds, and some of the “Giga-con” figures featured both lights and sounds. (Seichi; Singularity)      

  Taken together, the simplicity of the figures in terms of transformation schemes and their complexity in terms of gimmicks represent a coherent design philosophy. Where the toys of RID in particular had often been difficult to actually play with, Armada made a conscious decision to make transformers accessible, and indeed attractive. This element of Armada continues to strongly influence the design of contemporary figures, in particular the current Cyberverse line. In some ways, this philosophy is relevant now more than ever, with the resurgence of incredible complexity in figures as a result of the live action movies, and HasTak’s parallel emphasis on one-step changers and the like in lines aimed at kids. In many ways, Armada represents the first real conscious move towards simplicity, not simply because of costs or engineering limitations, but for play value. Whatever your feelings about that kind of figure, that tension between complexity and accessibility has certainly stayed with us.  

  Many of the gimmicks of Armada figures were intimately linked to Mini-cons. Demolishor’s aforementioned missiles could only be launched by attaching a Mini-con to the specially sculpted port on his arm. (Mendou) Almost every action gimmick was activated in a similar manner. This was tied to the fictional conceit that Mini-cons were able to serve as a source of energy and to unlock powers for larger transformers. (Nova 81426) Much of the action of the cartoon was centered around the various factions trying to gain as many Mini-cons as they could. As a result, there was something of a ‘collect them all’ atmosphere surrounding the Mini-con figures.   

Specific elements of their design and marketing also aided this perception. First, and perhaps most importantly, Mini-cons were established to be their own faction, complete with a unique faction symbol. (Derik) Second, the way Mini-cons interacted with larger toys was very specific. Each figure included somewhere on it a ‘powerlinx port’, essentially a five millimeter hole with a peg in the middle, which could be used to attach to a larger toy and activate gimmicks. (Derik) Third, the Mini-cons not included with larger transformers were sold as sets of three, in themed packs. Some of these packs featured figures that could combine, and some merely featured a common gimmick. (Derik) These elements, and others, such as their unified aesthetic of “facial designs [that]  tend  toward the unorthodox” combine to give the Mini-cons a very strong identity as a class of things, which one could reasonably collect all of. (Derik)     Indeed, not only could one collect all the Mini-cons, there was incentive to as well. Mini-cons, particularly the three packs, featured an incredible diversity of alternate modes. (Derik) Boats, a Saturn-5 styled rocket, and even a skateboard are all represented. These alternate modes were quite unusual, and to employ a normative assessment, many of them are very cool. Independently of collecting all the Mini-cons, it’s cool to have a Saturn-5 transformer. Moreover, their small size makes Mini-cons easy and rewarding to play with, and to own several of. Indeed, this small stature was likely a very conscious decision on the part of HasTak; earlier popular figures such as the Micromasters and Soundwave’s cassettes fit into what HasTak terms the ‘Micro play pattern’, where smaller figures interact with larger ones. (Repowers) Mini-cons proved to be so popular and identifiable that many subsequent uses of this play pattern, though entirely unrelated from a mechanical perspective, continue to use the Mini-con branding. (Derik). Indeed, a new-mold figure with the original Mini-con insignia was released as recently as 2014. (Derik)  

  Armada also featured some elements of design continuity with previous lines. As with RID and Beast Wars, the show had a smaller core cast, all of whom received figures at retail. Although there were figures that did not appear in the show, these were part of the traditional end of line expansion following its success. These figures were largely retools of existing Beast Wars molds, with some redecos of earlier characters in powered up colors. (Seichi) Like Beast Wars and RID, Armada continued to feature size classes. However, now these were renamed, and prices were slightly adjusted. (Singularity). The Mega class was at this point permanently discontinued. (Singularity) Aesthetically, Armada shifted from the realistic vehicles of RID to designs that were more genericized or cybertronian. For example, Demolishor doesn’t turn into any specific kind of tank, yet is clearly a tank of some sort. (Mendou) Much like RID, Armada Optimus Prime was also capable of combining either with himself or other figures to form a super robot. (Abates) Armada did establish figures like Overlord, which were effectively glorified accessories for Optimus Prime’s super mode, in the modern era, a trend that would be continued well into its successor series Energon. (ItsWalky)  

  From the perspective of single figures, arguably the most influential figure from Armada was its Unicron. After slightly less than 20 years after the character’s introduction in the 1986 movie, Armada marked the release of the first Unicron figure. (Seichi). Unicron, as befit a robot that turned into a planet, was massive. The toy has a huge number of hidden compartments and play features, like launching missiles and closing jaws. (Deceptitran) This figure was hugely popular, and in some respects paved the way for “other releases like Energon Omega Supreme” and large figures of large characters in general. (Deceptitran) This figure, or some retool of it, is often considered the definitive Unicron. Indeed, it took until 2021 and a special crowdfunding project for a rival to even be developed, in the form of the famously expensive War for Cybertron figure. (Deceptitran) Perhaps the most enduring testament to the figure’s popularity is it’s continued release; A retool of the mold was released as recently 2018. (Lonegamer78)   

Transformers: Armada proved to be another breath of fresh air for the brand. After the somewhat notorious complexity of RID figures, Armada made a conscious and enduring return to Transformers as toys for children. Although toylines would again grow extremely complex, Armada demonstrated that simplicity can and does succeed at retail. In many ways, the legacy of Armada has stayed with us through to the contemporary era, and the heavily gimmicked, child focused Cyberverse line. Armada also gave us terminology and concepts to process smaller Transformers, and cemented Mini-cons as an indispensable part of the brand. Although in many ways its reach is less sweeping than that of Beast Wars, Armada is still one of the most influential toylines in the history of Transformers; between its emphasis on toys for kids and the way its tremendous popularity expanded the reach of Transformers, and involved folks who continue to be fans to this day, Armada is one of the biggest lines there is.   

       Works Cited

Abates et al. “Optimus Prime (Armada)/toys” TFwiki. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime_(Armada)/toys#Armada Accessed 6/26/2020

Deceptitran et al. “Unicron/toys” TFwiki. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Unicron/toys#Armada Accessed 6/26/2020

Derik et al. “Mini-con” TFwiki. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Mini-con Accessed 6/26/2020

ItsWalky et al. “Overload (Armada)” TFwiki. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Overload_(Armada)#Toys Accessed 6/26/2020

Lonegamer 78 et al. “Unicron of Light” TFwiki.https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Unicron_of_Light Accessed 6/26/2020

Mendou et al. “Demolishor (Armada)”TFwiki. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Demolishor_(Armada)#Armada Accessed 6/26/2020

Nova 81426 et al. “Transformers: Armada (cartoon)” TFwiki. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers:_Armada_(cartoon) Accessed 6/26/2020

Omnisvalidus et al. “Brick (term)” TFwiki. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Brick_(term) Accessed 6/26/2020

Repowers et al. “ Play pattern” TFwiki. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Play_pattern Accessed 6/26/2020

Seichi et al. “Transformers: Armada (toyline)” TFwiki.  https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers:_Armada_(toyline) Accessed 6/23/2020

Singularity et al. “Size Class” TFwiki. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Size_class Accessed 5/5/2020

[quibbs126]

Okay, so I may or may not have been spurred on to make this due to Comodin Cam asking for Optimus Prime designs on Twitter yesterday and me wanting to show off my own, but regardless, it made me finally go and try to make a more official reference for my the Transformers X Optimus Prime

I wanted to do something more with the background, but I don’t know what to do with backgrounds and trying to choose a color was confusing my head, so we’re still stuck with white. Sorry, I’ll try to be better at this, but I don’t know when I’ll change to having better backgrounds

But I did at least import a Mega Man X text font here, which I used on the words, since my own handwriting is kind of plain looking. I colored it too to give it some extra pop

But anyways yeah, here’s this

I think the proportions are better than the first reference, but I really do still need to work on my proportions and anatomy. Maybe it’d help if I drew a proper human body as my skeleton reference first, since of right now, I do it by making the squares and other shapes first, and then the connecting lines. And I don’t draw the bottom halves ever. I also need to work on posture

I also changed up the colors a bit since I was still borrowing from my g1 colors, though only now am I noticing they aren’t the most saturated. They looked more saturated on Procreate. But whatever. Most of the colors come from either the Animated or Cyberverse color palettes I have saved on there, with some color shifts alongside it. The eye color blue is the only one that stayed the same

But I like these colors, they just might need more tweaking to be a bit more saturated, but other than that, they’ll probably stay

I also added in the Autobot symbol now, since he is one here. I’m not sure how I’m gonna do it on everyone else though, particularly Megatron, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there

I changed the axe, and I think I like it better this way honestly. I just need to learn how to to draw people with axes more

Honestly I think the legs are the only thing most prone to change at this rate, other than general proportion things. I just sort of slapped details on there without thinking about if I want to keep them. Oh well

Oh yeah, and since we’re here, I don’t think I ever said but there’s some things in his face I wanted to point out. Just that I gave him the flat-ish nose I give One Optimus, and thick eyebrows like Prime

Do I have anything real important to say in this description other than design things? I don’t really think so honestly. Maybe I should just reiterate basic stuff about him in this AU, for people who don’t know? Might as well. Assuming they’re still reading at this point

So a virus has broken out on Cybertron, which makes bots’ processors malfunction and become incredibly violent. Many of these bots have come together to form a faction called the Decepticons, to wreak havoc on Cybertron. In response, the force known as the Autobots was formed to combat and contain these Decepticons, until a cure for the virus can be found

Optimus Prime is one of the Autobots, and a rather high ranking one as well, fighting the Decepticons whenever they cause trouble. He was the second creation of Alpha Trion, and he was given the Matrix of Leadership by him, which has made him immune to the virus, one of the reasons he’s so high ranking outside of simply his skill. He also has a partner in the field in the form of Megatron, a bot with incredible power and a seeming immunity to the virus just like Optimus, though no one quite knows the reason for his. They both also have field support in the form of Jazz, giving them all intel on the battlefields and enemies they face

Optimus isn’t the most thrilled with all of the violence that comes with his role, but he also knows that it’s necessary to stop the Decepticons from their path of destruction, and if he were to stop, so many more innocent bots would be put in harm’s way. So he keeps on fighting for them, with the hope that one day a cure will be found, and peace will return to Cybertron and he can lay down his weapons

And I think that’s about it for now, I’m not sure I have else to say. So yeah, take this new, proper ref for Optimus. I don’t know when I’ll get to the next one, but I think Megatron will probably be next. And ideally Elita after him, but I’ve already made clear my struggles on designing her