#yeah earthspark JUST started like we are only in s1

[scalproie]

granted season 1 just ended so this might be a bit unfair but earthspark makes you sympathize with the decepticons by telling you look! The decepticons are treated horribly and yeah they might be a little mean but often if someone listen to them and get thru theyre not that bad! They might even show up to repay a favor, even someone like starscream!

meanwhile cyberverse making you sympathize with the cons was like. the decepticons are bastards for 2/3 of our show. The only reason they stop is because if they didnt everyone was going to die, AND we had them team up with the autobots during a training montage set to a knock off version of "The Touch". After that neither factions wanted to go back to fighting so they didnt. When some asshole tried to start the war again they realized they actually liked not having to fight 24/7 (and might actually CARE for those stupid fucking autobots) and deceived him, and even the autobots, into thinking they havent changed their ways before fighting to protect the newfound peace at the risk of their lives. Theyre still mean bastards to the end. But get this: they were funny about it.

[darkstarofchaos]

Having seen some frankly irritating opinions from both sides of the aisle, I think some of y'all need to chill about the way the Decepticons were handled in EarthSpark.

Decepticon fans are allowed to be upset that the faction's depth and potential for development was tossed aside in favor of "Decepticons are just evil".

However, depth and potential doesn't mean the Decepticons have to be buddy-buddy with the Autobots. Depth is amoral, you can be a villain who resists "redemption" and still be a well-rounded character.

My issues with S2 vs S1 are as follows:

The lack of good explanation for why the sides are fighting again. I am not upset that the Cons are villains again. They have no reason to like or trust any human or Autobot, and gratitude for having your life saved only goes so far. My issue is that S2 literally opens by saying the Cons started the fight again just because that's what Cons do. Obviously the story is from the perspective of the main cast, and there are hints that they could be intentionally unreliable narrators (Starscream refers to them as oppressors, Breakdown challenges Bumblebee about giving up on Cybertron), but we aren't given enough time with the Cons to draw a solid conclusion about the intentions here.

The way the heroes treat Spitfire, i.e. a literal newborn. She was 100% in the right when she said that she didn't know the moral rules she was being expected to follow. But because she wasn't born with morals and an understanding of mortality preinstalled, the heroes condemned her instead of trying to de-escalate and take responsibility for their part in the situation (granted, Megatron was the only flight-capable adult present and he argued against de-escalation. Which tracks because he's Megatron. But someone should have pushed for a peaceful resolution).

How much depth do individual Decepticons still have? Who knows, Starscream, Shockwave, and Breakdown are the only ones with any focus. The others are only seen fighting, causing trouble for fun, or just standing around growling. Twitch - i.e. one of our main characters - literally spends an entire episode in the Con camp and we still manage to see nothing of Decepticon life when they're just hanging out. And yes, I know that the more characters you have in a scene, the harder it is to show their personalities. You can still show them playing cards or arm-wrestling or something. Anything to show that they're actually people and not just a hive mind that exists to fight.

Starscream. Specifically the last 20 minutes of the S2 finale, because everything else in his characterization fit S1 until that point. He literally calls the Autobots oppressors, so of course he's going to fight them. He wants Aftermath kept out of the way (that's a child, so that's perfectly reasonable) and he's frankly patient with Twitch-as-Spitfire, in spite of Skywarp's incredulity that he lets her "get away" with causing trouble (again, that is a child. Patience is the correct response). He even seems to like Spitfire after meeting the real her. The only issue I had with Starscream leading up to the second half of the finale was that his motivations didn't seem to be much deeper than "I want power" (I could be misremembering that point - there may have been an "Earth is going to be our home, let's make it better to live on" when he and Shockwave discussed Cybertron). And then the last 20 minutes happened and I can't see any logical extrapolation from S1 to that. It was just a generic "Starscream goes mad with power", and it came completely out of left field. Not even any remorse about what he "needed" to do or any attempt to justify himself, it was just, "Yeah, I'm worse than the people I called out for being oppressors, isn't it great?"

If there is some big plot twist where it turns out the heroes were unreliable narrators all along, some of my issues will actually be fixed. However, I find that extremely unlikely, for one major reason: all of the non-Decepticon characters who disagree with the heroes are either villains or they "come around". The Quintessons felt betrayed by Quintus? Nah, Quintus was a great guy, you can tell because he tortured a kid for wishing she had never been chosen by him. Prowl doesn't like the Autobots' reliance on children? Silly Prowl, those kids are special, we want them to fight. The narrative never, at any point, entertains the idea that those dissenting voices might have a point. Which means we're probably meant to take the heroes at face value on most, if not all things.

TL;DR: the Decepticons being villains makes perfect sense, even with the context of S1; it's the heroes acting like they're only fighting for power after we had several episodes about second chances and not all Decepticons being the same that makes it feel like a cop-out. And Decepticon fans are allowed to be upset that some of their favorite characters had interesting stuff going on only to be functionally relegated to Voiceless Grunt Number 3 (and yes, several Autobots have also been relegated to Voiceless Grunts. If one of your favorite characters has fallen victim to this affliction, regardless of faction, you have my sympathies).

[mincedpeaches]

final batch of earthspark s1 episodes post

One thing that I kind of sort of praised in my first earthspark post, the slow trickle of information the show was giving us, is something that I look upon much less favorably now that S1 one has ended. Not because a slow trickle of information itself is bad, but because in this batch of episodes more than any other it was clear that the information hasn't been always given in a way that makes sense from a story prospective. Rather it's been given in a way that very clearly telegraphs "okay the writers want to introduce this now, so here it is". Most egregiously with the backstory on the kids sleeves. Why only NOW, twenty episodes in, was the crew heading down to Teletraan I to google the info about the Prime that gave them the sleeves? Well, because the sleeves and the emberstone were about to be plot relevant.

This is also something I remembering thinking with the energon bear in the last batch of episodes too, in that NO ONE really questions or follows up on why the the fuck the bear was like that. Which doesn't really make sense, except from the Doylist perspective that it looks to be like A Plot For A Later Episode, when the energon waste dumping might become relevant.

And these episodes only bring up even MORE questions that should have been asked in-story but aren't, like what the fuck was up with the tunnels and the doors and the dweller inside them.

AND my point STILL stands about wanting more of the OG bots. It's even worse when there's five kids instead of two. Once again I'm sorry kiddos.

Like the best "finale" per say in terms of action was undoubtedly the first batch of episodes, where big bots were fighting big bots. I was really hoping the actual finale would bring more of that when the second batch "finale" felt pretty lackluster in comparison. But then this finale had the OG bots out of commission for the ENTIRE thing. There were some visually cool moments (Mandroid's terrifying new look, Croft getting fucking vaporized) and fun moments (Schloder becoming part of the team) but. Idk. I think about the first batch of episodes and how much fun I had watching them and the potential I thought they held, and the show hasn't quite hit anything higher than that for me. Yet. Curious to what a season two could be about with the main antagonist gone and most of the intro-to-their-alt-modes and learning-about-themselves-as-terrans stuff is out of the way. I thought maybe with the kill and heal waves going over the entire earth they might cut to some as yet unseen bots as a little teaser of things that might come but nope. (I still might bet on that tying into a plot of a potential season two though.)

All that being said I love what Hashtag has going on. Both overall and in-particular her thing with Starscream this batch, which was giving Armada Starscream & Alexis vibes for sure. I actually mentioned in my earthspark post that I started for the second batch of episodes (that I never managed to finish and post): Hashtag is my fav of the new kids. She's so #cringebutfree, pun not intended, and I love that for her. Also she a has rad alt-mode and color scheme and her satellite turns into a little ponytail. How cute is that. Also digged how they had Twitch gearing up for an arc about being the team leader in the previous batch of episodes and then there were moments where she was making calls when it was just down to her and Nightshade/Bumblebee etc in this batch. Would love to see that expended upon even more in potential future eps. I love her. Can I get a yeah women?

Also the way that Megatron (along with the majority of the OG bots) had so few lines this batch BUT almost every single line Megatron DID have managed to showcase his Scottish twang? They did that for ME. Thank you Mr McCann.

tl;dr I wish we got more (back)story based on the things already teased/things already shown, and in a way that made more narrative sense, and I really REALLY wish there were more OG bots. And at this point it kind of hurt my enjoyment of the show a tiny bit. It was still fine and I understand that as a show for kids it's very good and also, as always, not really for me but for children. And I'm still hoping there is more potential than what season one has given, which I don't think is an unreasonable thing to hope for. Like remember how rough and kind lame season one of Cyberverse was? Yeah. There's still a ton of potential here. Here's to hoping. I will still undoubtedly be tuning into season two if when it gets made.

P.S. rescue bots reference. :)

[darkstarofchaos]

Yet more EarthSpark S2 spoilers.

And now for some general thoughts about the season itself.

Where was Nightshade during all this? They are a main character, why did they not have so much as a subplot in another character's focus episode? People talk about Thrash getting sidelined, but he had a whole episode plus a paired episode with Twitch. Nightshade is barely there, and when they are, it's either a battle scene or sharing the scientific spotlight with Wheeljack.

Speaking of Thrash, I liked his episode. I would like to think finding a random Quintesson on earth and then shooting it into space will have repercussions later in the season, especially with the Quint lore in the final episode. But now that the Decepticons are just flat and evil, I might not even watch that far.

Why are the Decepticons interchangeable now? Starscream and Shockwave are the only ones allowed a personality beyond "smash stuff". And yes, I'm counting Breakdown in that, because he's a shadow of his former self, and the whole thing with him being a parent to Aftermath got dropped after five minutes. And you know, I might be giving Shockwave too much credit, because disagreeing with your leader on one course of action isn't a personality trait. And Starscream's ultimate goal is apparently just smash stuff. So you know what, I'll amend that, why do none of the Decepticons have a personality beyond smash stuff?

Like. Twitch ends up in the Decepticon base in the guise of Spitfire, and we don't get a single characterization moment. I guess the Cons all just stand and snarl at each other when they aren't on missions.

On the other hand, I don't understand why so many people were confused that the Decepticons were following Starscream, because why wouldn't they? He seems to have been doing a fine job, judging by the number of Emberstone shards the Cons had. I get that most Starscreams can't get support to save their lives (often through no fault of their own), but the Decepticons here seem to have no reason not to follow him.

Moving on from the Decepticons, I'd have to call the trailer episode and the carnival episode the worst of the lot. The whole subplot with Robbie having a crush was the most uncomfortable thing I've had to sit through in a while, and I would not voluntarily watch it again. And the trailer episode was just tedious. I get having something more relaxed in between the Spitfire two-parter and the finale, but couldn't they have found any other plot for it? People rag on the bear episode, but at least that had a nice little lesson about not messing with people's prostheses rolled in. This episode was just. Nothing. But it did come with a distinct lack of squicky "feeling your brother's crush through your psychic bond" stuff, so I'll give it that it's rewatchable.

Okay, this was a problem with S1 too, but that psychic bond has to go. It's creepy and invasive, and it's only going to get more so as the humans get older and start exploring adult relationships. At least give them some way to close it or otherwise shield themselves from it (it's also a constant plot hole, because characters often end up in danger that the others somehow don't notice. Like, is there a range on this psychic thing? How far apart do they have to be before they can't feel each other anymore? This thing is not explained well enough, and I don't see why it even needs to exist).

Assorted episode nitpicks:

That is not how you dispose of hard drives. Why did you not wipe them before recycling.

No food ever touches the plates on the dinner table in the Quintesson episode. I am unreasonably bothered by this.

How did none of the adults think to address Spitfire's insistence on being part of the mission by pointing out that Twitch is older and more experienced than her? Like, yeah, Spitfire probably wouldn't have cared, but someone should still have put their foot down and said she can't go on a mission until she's had some training.

Megatron, you are the only non-participant who can fly and the final stretch of that obstacle course was over a ravine. Why were you not in a position where you could quickly help out if someone fell? Twitch wouldn't have had to go back to save Alex herself and the whole thing with Spitfire being mad because she crossed the finish line first wouldn't have happened if you had positioned yourself more strategically.

Actually, Megatron proposed the race, Megatron wasn't close enough to be helpful during the race, and Megatron said they needed to let Twitch and Spitfire sort things out themselves, which resulted in Twitch getting bodyswapped. Every problem in this episode was Megatron's fault. Optimus, why are you not vetoing any of this? Why are you just standing there and letting Megatron pit kids against each other? You're a leader, do some leading!

On the other hand, Megatron wanting to resolve everything by letting the arguing parties fight it out is on brand for him, so like. Kudos for characterization, now get an adult in here.