#but yeah they’re probably not as sentient as that. it’s just the adventure line except it’s doing what narry expects for once!

[braisedhoney]

Mmmmmm what if Narry’s scarf adventure line is sentient like each one of those head it manifest is sentient and they are the little helper for Narry. If he’s in danger they go berserk

oh you mean like doc ock’s actual metal arms!

on some level this is kinda already semi-canon (fanon?) for my version of narry as it is—the scarf-line-thing (that i still don’t know how to label) can definitely move independently from his limbs, and i usually draw ‘em moving in response to whatever happens to him whenever they’re not draped over his arms because i think the aesthetic is cool and it helps take up empty space on the canvas.

the difference is that they don’t have actual emotional reactions to anything though since they’re not really sentient, just extensions of whatever it is he wants to do. so in theory if he was in danger and feeling particularly aggressive/skittish as a result, he could end up using them to lash out and protect himself. or to grab a cup of… tea? coffee? whatever it is he drinks. maybe he drinks the steeped conceptualization of the color blue. vaguely eldritch creatures are weird like that.

[themadcapmathematician]

all i know abt transformers is the shia movie and the fact that darren criss plays one in the cartoons i think? should i get into transformers is what i'm asking

Oh god this is my favorite question. I’m not sure how to answer it but its my fave. Pull up a chair. I hope you’ve got some time on your hands.

The short answer: yes. You should at least give it a try. Transformers is a 30+ year old muti-media franchise that gets rebooted almost every 3 years so it basically has something interesting to offer almost any fan. If you end up not liking it that’s cool but there’s a lot to try before you decide.

The long answer is: yes you should and here’s why and here’s a rough idea of all the options you have to sample. I’m about to go on a long rant anon so you can check it out now or later or whatever but I’m just warning you ahead of time.

The basic Transformers plot (which I’m sure you know but I’m gonna go more in depth in a minute) is that a race of giant robot aliens who can turn into vehicles and other things have been engaged in a civil war that has lasted millions of years. This is the basic plot that all tf franchises spawn from although some explore slightly different subject matters. If that doesn’t appeal to you I mean there /might/ be a few other things you might find worth sticking around for because there’s just so fucking much of it, but you’re welcome to turn back now because that’s the basic things tf has to offer: giant robot aliens, cars and planes, fighting, some drama. Those are what tf is best at, with some variation.

It has a very active and long lived fan base and each section of the fan base is interested in different stuff with some crossover. There are people who literally only care about collecting the toys, people who wont try any other series except g1, people who only like the comics, etc. Etc. You’ll probably find people who like what you do pretty readily. If you like the toys there are toy forums and blogs. If you like the cartoons there are forums and blogs made for that too. If you like the comics, same. There’s a pretty active following of the comics and cartoon series on Tumblr alone; I would try searching the #maccadam tag since most tf activity has been moved there since the bay movies came out. Id also use the tf wiki liberally because it has pm all the information you’ll need to know about the fandom and the canon lore. There’s also plenty of fan fiction on Ao3 and ff.net if you’re into that and pm anyplace that hosts fan art has tf fan art.

Now there are several series, including comics, cartoons, the Michael bay films, the cartoon movie, spin off books, and video games. I’m gonna go over my personal favorites because I like and know them best but there are more than these if you’re interested in digging deeper.

(More under the cut)

G1: there are a lot of forms of what fans refer to as Generation 1 or G1 but if you live in the US its likely they’re talking about the very first cartoon series.

Summary: the autobots and the decepticons stripped their planet of resources and went looking for a new planet to continue surviving on. They both crashlanded on earth where they lay dormant for millions of years until conveniently awakened somewhere during the 1980s, where they continue their war all over again

Why you should try it: listen its cheesy as hell and full of nonsense plotlines and animation errors but not only is it good fun but at least watching an episode or two might give you a decent grasp on what spawned this enormous franchise in the first place.

G1 movie: this movie was a game changer. Its technically right in the middle of the g1 cartoon but it works as a standalone film too. while it has many trappings of the cartoon its better animated and has a more consistent and dramatic story.

Summary: Optimus Prime and Megatron fight, OP dies (yes he fucking DIES for the very first time. thousands of 10 year olds bawl their eyes out), Megatron gets mortally wounded, and the Matrix of Leadership (aka an autobot holy item/macguffin [this is the proto-cube btw]) has to choose a new leader.

Why you should try it: decent animation, classics lines, tons of 80s rock music, and it establishes a lot of tf conventions that would be carried over to all series that come after it.

Beast Wars: haha the 90s couldn’t be left out of the transformers fun, now could it? This was one of the first all-cg cartoon series in history and while its not much to look at nowadays, it was a big step in the 90s.

Summary: the series doesn’t center on Optimus Prime and Megatron but their decendants. The war is long over but some factions are starting to clash once again. Several members of these factions do the whole “crash land on earth while fighting” thing except they wake up during times before humans and instead of taking vehicle modes, they take animal forms, thus the name.

Why you should give it a try: it establishes the idea of Sparks for the first time, it has historical significance in the cgi realm, and it has a decent storyline with interesting characters. If you can muscle through the 90s-computer-animation look it might be the show for you!

Transformers: Animated: I dont think its a secret that this is one of my favorite tf series of all times. It was the first cartoon series I ever watched of tf and it also features my favorite toy line.

Summary: Optimus Prime is much less a war hero and more of a ..janitor really. He flunked out of the academy and spends his time repairing space bridges. One time during repairs though, they stumble across the Cube and just their luck, Megatron and some nearby cons are looking for it. They portal away to earth where they, you guessed it, crashland, until they’re awoken sometime in the future and go on adventures in futuristic Detroit.

Why you should give it a try: I like tfa’s art style and story and characterisation best tbh; Optimus is younger and more unsure of himself but also more earnest, with more visible baggage. The rest of his team feel like a ragtag band of misfits (which I have a weakness for no lie lmfao) who are still trying to find their place in this conflict and the future ahead of them. Sari is also one of the more beloved human companions and the show’s take on classics characters feels fresh and interesting, and the interpretation of the autobots and decepticons themselves is surprisingly nuanced.

Transformers: Prime: remember that 90s animation? Kiss that shit good bye my friend. This cgi is some beautiful shit. More than a few fans wish tfp is the art direction the movies had taken, storyline aside.

Summary: the autobots are already on earth, staking it out and fighting a more subdued sort of conflict with the cons. One day they get some human kids involved and stumble across some conspiracy shit and it all spirals out of control from there.

Why you should give it a try: great animation and atmosphere, gorgeous character designs, a solid interpretation go the characters, and it offers a more serious take on the story over all.

Rescue Bots: I’ve noticed this show doesn’t make the list a lot which is a shame? It has a much younger audience than any of then other series but its still quality and one of my fave tf series.

Summary: the ship of four non-combatants who were left in stasis before the war detect a transmission telling autobots to go to earth, so it…goes to earth. There they wake up on some island and are told they’ve gotta start building a repatoire with the native species…but they can’t reveal that they’re sentient aliens yet.

Why you should give it a try: ok ok, most of the series are made for 7-12 year olds with the teen and adult fans sort of in mind, this show…is a show made for pre-K kids, no joke. Its a lot less…murder-y, and this is especially saying something because it came out at the same time TFP did and in fact is supposed to take place in the same universe!

BUT, but it has a consistently well-written story and characterization, it addresses stuff I never thought it would, and its a nice break from the ridiculously high stakes of the other series. Honestly Rescue Bots is great and I wish more people talked about it because its a series totally worth watching, certainly as much as any of the others.

More Than Meets the Eye comics: there are a lot of comic series but so far this is my favorite one lol

Summary: the war is over, Optimus is done with everyone’s shit and splits the matrix in half, giving one to rodimus and they other to bumblebee. And what does roddy do with his newfound matrix half? Decide he’s going on a quest of course! And who better to go with than literally every unqualified misfit the autobot and neutral factions have to offer?

Why you should give it a try: ridiculous shenanigans, horror, drama, intrigue, strong characterisation, and a killer aesthetic. Damn it may not always give me what I want but its got a lot of exactly what I’m always looking for.

There are some video games (Fall of Cybertron, War For Cybertron, Transformers: Devastation), other comic series (Robots in Disguise, G1/UK comics), and the Robots in Disguise cartoon, however I don’t have a decent enough grasp on them to describe them super well I just know they’re pretty good and have had people recommend them to me. You’re welcome to try those as well of course.

Also if you’re into toy collecting or want to get into it there’s a lot of materials you can read and such but my personal advice is pretty simple:

1) go to walmart, target, a store that sells collectibles, a convention, or a garage sale

2) buy a cheap toy that you like. Don’t spend over like $20

3) decide if that was a fun experience or not and if you like having this toy or not

If you liked it enough to keep buying, then congrats, toy collecting might be right for you! Do your research, Don’t blow too much money too quickly, take it easy, have fun.

But yeah sorry this is really long but I do hope you consider giving transformers a try since I know I love it a lot and it really has a lot to offer. I hope this wasn’t like…a crazy response. That a crazy person might give. And that I didn’t scare you away or anything XS

the key is to try some stuff and have fun and if its not your thing that’s cool too! Have a chill night anon

[a-lover-of-hounds-blog]

Arc 1 intermission

1 - Rin's Intermission Hiya~ Rin here to clarify some stuff since Akem is fairly simple in their explanations. First, this certainly isn't earth! The story started in the Myun Kingdom (though it's an elected king, so maybe not a kingdom at all? Not that the elections are fair though...) and will be going through at least 2 human kingdoms in the near future. They'll be the Equis Empire (descendants of the Roman and Mongolian empires) and the Central State. Yep. It's literally called "central state." Someone is laaazy. They're one of the two human countries that aren't utter shite, though they're admittedly the worse of the two. Buncha merchants, slavery is legal, non-humes are lower class citizens, etc. Run by a council of merchants, guarded by an army of adventures and mercenaries, used to be gnome's land but they got wrecked. Onto magic! The three (formerly four) of us are unusual! Normally magic is controlled by a system inherent in the world. It handles the hard stuff like accounting for variables in Gravity, rotation, energy conversions, etc. I'm doing that manually, which lets me control my spells to a much greater degree and cast spells the system normally wouldn't allow but it greatly increases cast time. I use music to help keep focus. Akem and Kris are different. If you called it sorcery to my wizardry, you'd be close. Akem just feels what they need to do and it happens, while Kris makes things happen by pure force of will. Zere was able to do it in the same way as me, but he could only ever manage basic dark magic (blind, shadowbolt). If you're talking functional difficulty of my way, Zere's magic would be equivalent to executing about 200-300 lines of code in your head and properly displaying the result. Advanced magic like lightning bolt would be like running a constant simulation on the level of Doom for 3 minutes. Not impossible, but difficult to keep track of all the variables. Also, memo: Make a golem and install doom on it. Oh, that's part of what we did for 6 months. I taught magic, made a gun, refined it, studied Akem, and taught Zere music. As far as Akem goes, we tested about 3 hours a day, things like viscosity, absorption, magic conductivity, magic power, composition, acid dilution/strengthening, physical limitations, and compounding with Akem as an ingredient. It was fun to have a new subject! The results were a bit disappointing though... No tentacle control or shape shifting yet :( For nsfw stuff, it probably won't appear in any detail or at all really unless the character is 18. None of the gods allow pedobears and, thanks to magic, infant mortality isn't near as high as actual medieval times. Rape may happen in the world, but not to those under 18 and definitely not in this story. Maturing rates are standard for the most part. Early teens is puberty, 18 is an adult, drinking age... There isn't one :P not that kids are getting sloshed though. Alcoholic content is low in general, with exceptions for dwarves, oni (sentient ogres), and some humes. It's generally considered impolite to be drunk in public too, so most know moderation. Oh, the exception to maturing rate is demons and demon beasts. If a demon reproduces normally (exchange of magic to create a new life), the offspring will follow the standard but sometimes demons just kind of appear fully grown with knowledge of the world and little naivety. Demon beasts on the other hand are mostly "male" and reproduce with just about anything, needing only a few days to a few weeks to become sexually mature. They're non-sentient though, just humanoid shaped beasts. They also sometimes just appear out of nowhere full grown. This'll probably be expanded on later, but demon beasts and demons overlap a fair bit. For example, there's actually 2 different species called orcs. The classic pig faced savage beast type that basically eats, fights, and f-cks and the sentient High Orcs that properly build and establish towns. High Orcs are still rather brutal but... They're hot. The pig snout recedes into simple broad humanish noses, the tusks are smaller, and sexual dimorphism occurs (normal orcs are mono-sex or perhaps sexless, if that makes sense). The dimorphism is nowhere near as extreme as a certain mmo and, because of their nature as a being born of magic, can be controlled to a large extent. Thanks to some mysterious person leaving a magic item that contained the equivalent of 1.7 terabytes of Orc porn a few hundred years ago, high orcs tend to gravitate towards certain builds... Well, it's definitely more fun that way and it makes otherworlders less likely to murder them on sight. I digressed a bit, but yeah. The trend of demon beasts and demons sharing similar base species persists throughout most of the common races. Dragons and wyverns, hobgoblins and goblins, high harpies and harpies, succ(ubi) and imps, oni and ogres, Arachne and.. Well, giant spiders. Werewolves fall under the Beastmen category (<3) while vampires don't naturally have a beast equivalent, the thralls they create are considered demon beasts. Kobolds are a bit of an oddity because they are two completely different species under one name (one like Hin sized dog-men, the other being lizard like). The lizard like race is technically a demon, but, due to high fertility and limited intelligence, they are often treated as demon beasts. The fluffy kobolds are a tribe of beastmen and are cute af. Other than the name, the two species have no relation. Oh, on beastmen. They're mammalian. Centaurs, wolf men, and other common animal people are all beastmen. Lamia, Scylla, and Arachne all fall under the demon category, along with sentient merfolk. Beastmen are awesome because not only are they typically animal headed (centaur being a rare exception), they also get a beast form. The sizes vary, but wolf men typically reach 6 ft at the shoulder on all fours when beasting. It's awesome. Giant wolf puppies~ <3 Er... Oh, Myun and these two. So first thing to understand is the second soul impacts appearance. The closer the two souls are, the stronger the second soul's racial traits appear. There are 4 tiers that are divided by breakpoints that effect ability and appearance. Until the 3rd tier, it's fairly easy to distinguish Myun from true demons/beastmen generally. The Myun will appear closer to a human with animal/demon traits than the opposite. An example would be lamia. A true lamia can virtually split their face to swallow prey while Myun with a serpent or lamia soul will at most have the tail replace their legs and have snake eyes at tier 1/2. Unrelated, but lamia hold competitions to see how big of a creature they can swallow whole. Unfortunately for the vore fans out there, the record for a human sized lamia is only the size of a 100 lb dog. Still impressive though. That's all for world building for now. Onto pointless questions! What's up with Kris? He's an idiot. It'll be explained in his arc, but seriously. So dumb. Is Zere dead? Yep. He ded. Unlike the knee, arrows to the head ends every career. Isn't Akem actually strong? Yep. They don't know that though and using acid on enemies doesn't occur to them normally. Personally, I'm not gonna tell them. More interesting if they have to figure out ways around their restrictions without knowing their benefits. Also, it's scary~ Who are you? Someone who loves you~ Joking, just quoting star wars. Nah, I'm just someone with a particular goal. Look forward to 2-5 for more info on that~ What's up with the prologue? Who's that aboot? It's a secret to everyone. Honestly, the "writer" forgot about that. We'll see what happens. This story is crap? Not technically a question, but agreed~ Obviously needs more Beastmen. There's a reason writer was in quotes up there~ That's all for now! Rin oot!