#does arcee replace bulkhead here? idk

[lazychimken]

IM FREEEEEE FROM MY FINALS!!!! Here’s some doodles I had where TFA Ratchet and Bumblebee switched ages lol, mostly cuz I liked the grandpa and grandson dynamic they had and wanted to mess around with it (Part 2)

[authoratmidnight]

I've been watching/rewatching (cause I DID watch some of it once before) RiD (2015) and I have some thoughts.

So firstly, I don't hate it. It's fine as a series. The problem is, the problem I have, is that seems to be trying to be BOTH a sequel to Transformers: Prime and a standalone series.

Which means it kinda fumbles on both aspects imo.

Like, they had so many cool things from Prime to use and they just. don't. All of Team Prime and the only ones that appear are Bumblebee (b/c MC), Optimus (b/c he can never stay dead), and eventually Bulkhead and Ratchet appear. But like, everyone else? It looks like all they get are mentions.

Which rubs me the wrong way cause like, you mean to tell me, after being teammates for god knows how long (decades? centuries? longer?), after fighting to save Cybertron and saving it, they just drift apart in THREE YEARS? Absolutely fucking not. Like, where did they all go?? And why??

Arcee, Wheeljack, Smokescreen, Ultra Magnus? Shit what about Knock Out?? Do you know how much fun that dynamic would have been? He's a former Decepticon, and the biggest drama queen around, having him around would have been SO much fun.

I don't mind having new characters, but they also just. Scrapped all the old ones. At least come up with explanations for where everyone is/what they're doing instead of pretending they're not there at all.

And on Earth too. You meant to tell me that Bumblebee, upon getting stranded there, doesn't try to use any of his old human contacts? Like sure it's a long shot but, you got options here.

Bumblebee gets stranded on Earth, so have him try to call up Agent Fowler (b/c surely he's got some kind of contact info for him/Unit E) for help. which gives you several options to work with.

-Option 1. He calls and Fowler answers, giving us some kind of connection to Prime (also you would get a fun dynamic between Fowler and the Clays I'm sure haha. You don;t even need Fowler to be physically there, he could be the voice on the phone for them)

-Option 2. He calls and someone ELSE answers. Agent Fowler has retired sometime in the last three years and this is his replacement. This works if the va is unavailable/unable to return, but also gives a sort of connection to Prime via Unit E, but ALSO allows a new character for the new series.

-Option 3. He calls and no one answers/get a 'number no longer in use' message. This gives us a reason for why he's not going to them for help.

Ditto for calling Raf. You know his best human friend? Since Raf would be a teenager and thus gone thru puberty now you can easily recast him w/ a new va, mitigating the issue of getting the va back. Or you have the number no longer work for w/e reason (not in service, belongs to someone else).

Not only does this give a reason for why Bumblebee isn't using his former Earth contacts, it also emphasizes how alone he now is.

Like, if you want to NOT use your previous assets, fine, but you can do that w/o just pretending they don't exist.

And, b/c they DO reference things and characters and places from Prime, it doesn't *quite* work as a standalone.

Like, they bring back some of the Decepticons, so why not bring back some of the Autobots we know and love?

Shit, you know what WOULD have been neat? The return of Airachnid. Last we saw she was stranded on a moon. Alive. So it's not impossible for her to have escaped (maybe she hitched a ride on a ship that landed on it?). So, have her come back! That would be one hell of a fight. Maybe use that as a way to bring Arcee back (Arcee learns Airachnid is back and is hunting her down to stop her from hurting anyone).

There was so much potential there and they just. yeeted it and Idk why.

You can either be a standalone, unconnected series, or a sequel. But you can't be *both*. It don't work.

[earthstellar]

Language in TFP

A couple things I’ve been thinking about lately: 

1) We aren’t sure how the translation process/language learning process is for Cybertronians, even though there are several effective and reasonably plausible ways for them to have learnt English. 

They also might look things up in real time fast enough to learn on the go to supplement base knowledge-- It’s handy when your brain is basically a high end computer! 

But what we do absolutely know is that they’re not organic.

So how do they replicate the sounds of human speech, which are highly dependent on our actual physiology? We know that in some TF media, Cybertronians have a tongue equivalent (glossa), but is that the case in TFP? I can’t recall ever seeing a bot stick out their tongue or ever seeing one when their mouths are open wide, like when yelling. 

So there may be a real physical difficulty for them when speaking English, at least at first. The effectivity or accuracy of work-arounds may vary. 

For example, can a Cybertronian replicate a glottal stop effectively? So many human speech sounds depend on the glottis, something they don’t have, but may have an equivalent for. We don’t know exactly. 

--

2) There are some concepts and words that would just not translate, and some concepts that are familiar but so different with humans that it would be completely bizarre to them. 

We see this a little bit when Ultra Magnus asks Optimus what a kilt is after Agent Fowler mentions it, and Optimus admits he has no clue. 

Clothes, or items like shoes, etc. are all totally foreign as concepts to Cybertronians. 

Food items or similar are somewhat irrelevant to them, so they might struggle with that in terms of building vocabulary; In TFP they have one primary source of fuel, energon, although it does have variations like engex and other refined forms. We never see them eat solids of any kind in TFP that I can recall. 

But I can imagine them initially being surprised at learning about humans and human language, and how extremely different life forms on Earth are and how the language reflects that. 

Arcee: “I did a little drive around to check out the locals. They have this place called a cafe where they source their fuel, like a canteen or bar, but they seem to be able to eat pretty much anything, so I’m not sure what they were doing. Maybe a social ritual. It was weird, they seemed to go in and out pretty quickly...  Maybe they don’t like to eat around others? Do we know if humans are defensive over food? They all looked different, maybe they only eat around their own group or something.” 

Ratchet: “Pff, nonsense. These are organics, if the rest of the organic land animals we’ve seen on this planet so far are anything to go by, they have a primary diet of grasses or plant matter, perhaps mild carnivorous tendencies, something along those lines. The humans aren’t so different from the other organic life here, they just appear to have higher cognitive functions. Biologically--” 

Arcee: “I did some recon and found this.” (Shows a paper take out menu.) 

Ratchet: “These are all ingestible??? They can fuel themselves with ALL OF THIS????? Beings so tiny... I wouldn’t have imagined. Although I suppose it makes sense, they must require more energy than other smaller, simpler organics. Is this desert area so barren because they’ve stripped it of nutrient giving material? How do they process or store it all?” 

Optimus: “We should be careful not to transgress on any contested or sensitive human territories. It is good to learn more about the native life before we attempt to engage with them directly; This is potentially valuable cultural information. Well done, Arcee.” 

Bulkhead: (Looking at the menu) “They have 50 different words for fuel fluids alone! THEY HAVE 50 DIFFERENT FUEL FLUIDS!” 

Ratchet: “Remarkable... What is [coffee]?” (looks it up) “THE HUMANS ENGAGE IN WIDESPREAD CASUAL DRUG USE ???” 

--

3) We don’t know about how age (hardware age, age overall, etc.) affects Cybertronians in regards to mental acuity as it relates to language learning. Would older Cybertronians have somewhat more difficulty adapting to using a new language, or a completely different language like ones spoken by organics due to the possible difficulty in physically replicating some sounds-- Even if their processors don’t actually struggle all that much in regards to learning it, and adapting to using it was the primary struggle?  

My great-Grandma spoke Slovakian and learned English later in life; She did well, but as anyone who knows multiple languages or is from a bilingual family knows, often vocabulary was forgotten momentarily in one language or the other, so it would just be substituted with the right word in whatever language it could be remembered in at the moment. Sometimes it just happens no matter how fluent or how experienced with a language someone gets. 

Where I’m going with this, is that I really like the idea of Ratchet sometimes getting frustrated with English and just using a Cybertronian word instead, but then refusing to mention it or translate it because it’s one of the few ways in which his age shows so he tries to just cover it up. Or if he does acknowledge it, he tries to keep it on the down low, but every now and then you just hear him yell a random word and you know it’s because he just remembered it. 

I recall in S3 when Raf mentions Ratchet has been teaching him Cybertronian, at least the text form of it, to assist with tech work at the base...

But that might also result in cultural etc. language concept problems, too! Just the other direction.

Ratchet: *tries to casually, secretly slide up to Raf despite being the boxiest bot in the base* “Hello Rafael, may I interrupt briefly?” 

Raf: “Yes, Ratchet? I'm working on--”

Ratchet: “What is the word for 01010101010″ 

Raf: “...I have no idea. Can you describe it?” 

Ratchet: “You know when you get some wear and tear around the edges of your armour, perhaps some damage from the elements, and you need to debride, treat, repaint, and replace the sealant?”

Raf: “Uh, no.” 

Ratchet: “FFFFF OPTIMUS WHAT IS 010101010″

Optimus: “Rust.” 

Ratchet: “RUST” 

idk I just think it’s fun to think about space robots having to cope with weird human stuff