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Mouse Armor by Jeff De Boer

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I've mentioned a few times how in my Lotus AU Dot and Alex ask Mandroid to remove the cyber sleeves from Robby and Mo. The way the sleeves are bonded to them makes it borderline impossible to take them off through normal means. Mandroid knows this and is expecting Quintus Prime to make an appearance when he does try to take them off. Basically, Mandroid pulls a Batman Gambit on Quintus by asking him if he really wants to deal with another set of troublesome Emberstone children.

Quintus:

Quintus doesn't say a word and disappears with the stone after removing the sleeves.

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If I did add the Chaos Terrans in my Lotus AU, they'd be physical manifestations of the the kids repressed negative emotions. The hate plague would also be the work of the Chaos Terran version of Nightshade.

Keep in mind the Emberstone is dormant in my AU so how did the Chaos Terrans come into existence? It's Quintus Prime pulling another "The beatings will continue until morale improves" like what he did to Mo in Prime Time.

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Mona Lisa cat nest 😭

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IMO every Terran's personality is a few bullet points which is a shame because Nightshade and JB sound much more interesting in the Production Bible. Thrash actually grew on me a little in S2.

What gets me though is how little conflict there is between them considering what personality we do see them have. I like Hashtag, but you can't expect me to believe she hasn't done similar shit to what she did to JB in Outtakes.

It's ironic that a show where individuality is a main theme ends up being moot.

ngl I like the Terrans, but does anyone else feel like they’re just kinda lacking a solid group dynamic? Like when they’re talking about rescuing Bee everyone is equally enthusiastic, and they generally react to situations in very similar ways. Compare this to TFA, TFP, and RB, where the main bots had personalities that made them stand out compared to the others. They’re endearing characters, but I honestly feel like the show should’ve just gone with two like they originally did (preferably Twitch and Nightshade) and combined the traits of the others into them. I feel like the reason why this fandom often treats them as sort of accessory characters to other characters is because they simply don’t have much individuality personality-wise from their group (Thrash doesnt have a single episode to himself 😭) which ultimately makes them less interesting then they could’ve been

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Thoughts on Megatron's Redemption

I've sprinkled my thoughts in other posts, but wanted to make a longer version especially since it ties into how the character is in my Lotus AU.

To be it bluntly, IMO Megatron's change of spark is half assed in ES. The show and his bios stress that he's truly changed... except that he's shown actively having blood knight tendencies and happily tells Bee that using intimidation/force is a valid way to deal with underlings. We get hints of how he used to be, but it's like the writers were worried about exploring things more in depth unless it was about Starscream.

The thing that stands out to me though is that his dialogue and actions makes it seem like his defection is more out of necessity than full blown remorse. He wants what's best for the Cybertronians and he says that seeing Dot treat the Cons with more care than he did was a wake up call. And that's part of the issue for me. Yes, he aknowledges that humanity and Earth suffered as a result of the War, but that's a side note for him compared to how terrible he feels about what's become of the Cybertronian race.

His response to Optimus after the Seeker fight is, "Now humanity has another reason to fear us." and he takes the time to tell Mandroid that TFs aren't a threat to Earth. He knows that TFs have to play nice with humanity, especially because most TFs on Earth think they're the last ones left of their race. The only human he likes is Dot to the point that GHOST had to trick her coming to Witwicky to work with him and he only chose an Earth altmode to save her. It's unlikely that he'd even bother with Alex, Robby, and Mo if they weren't important to Dot.

Even his Production Bible bio does the same "Oh, he's truly reformed." only to add that he's tempted to take the Emberstone for himself and eventually does:

His interest in the Terrans is mostly because they renewed his hope for the survival of his species. Twitch (the leader) is the only one out of the Terrans that he has any sort of bond with.

Basically, I find Megatron's characterization just another example of ES' tendency of executing concepts in a way that goes against the intention.

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As expected, Wild King did get fan subs posted.

Some stray thoughts having cleaner context.

Lightlong recognizes Optimus being a vehicle. Perhaps Elementrous Transformers evolved from vehicular colonists similar to what’s implied in Galaxy Force’s Animatros. Lightlong wants to know how such a Transformation works and wants to try it out for himself, though by nature of the toy gimmick he cannot. Incidentally there is a Longrack homage in Galaxy Force that becomes a construction vehicle, so perhaps Lightlong would become that if he could.

The denizens have a rule about the animals and the dinos sticking to their own territory, which Captain Volca violated by teaming with Megatron. Volca declares such territories are irrelevant now that Megatron will led the dinosaurs as being the true rulers of Elementrous. This mirrors an idea from IDW, where Eukarians, trying to escape the racism of Vehicular Transformers, found they didn’t really like each other either, and segregated themselves into different clans based on what animal they were: birds, mammals, dinosaurs, aquatic creatures, bugs and so forth. I don’t know if this is an intentional reference or just coincidence, but I’m leaning towards coincidence going by how poorly received IDW stuff tends to be in Japan.

Megatron is also a weird plot point, as Japan saw fit to retain the former friend angle (perhaps to reference TFONE, but postwar instead of prewar), but immediately disregard it so Megatron can be a villain again. The marketing still calls Megatron and the Decepticons evil, and Megatron in-story has a rather callous regard of the Transformers from Elementrous, feeling they’re beneath him. He seems to only care about becoming the strongest in the universe and the power of Elementrous will help in that endeavor. That he gladly attacked Lightlong and Optimus behind their backs seems to imply this is a post war Megatron who was merely biding his time to get what he wanted to defeat the Autobots. I don’t see this web anime really using Grunkle Megatron at all, baring some left field thing. The Dinosaurs want Megatron to become their ruler of the planet, something Megatron seems content with also.

The Megatron toy has this evil Matrix looking thing that flips out when he has elemental chips plugged in, but it’s not been addressed in show as of typing. It’s possible this could be Megatron being corrupted by the power, but we’ll have to see.

Optimus’ Matrix meanwhile seems to be implied to be a separate thing that manifested when he landed on Elementrous as Optimus both expresses surprise at his chest and Lightlong seems to recognize what this means, as Optimus has also been energized with elemental power having befriended the giraffe.

The planet speaks of a legend, according to Lightlong, that a being will come from the sky and become the Wild King by bonding with the natives of the planet. The Dinosaurs want Megatron to be this, while Lightlong wants Optimus to combine with him so they can teach Megs a lesson.

Curiously the end cap for the next episodes mention “A brave man will come down from the sky”. Presumably this might be further elaboration on the legend, or another character appears. Leaning towards the former as the toys have made no mention of other Energy Masters beyond Optimus or Megatron. Though if more did appear, it’d probably be Starscream and Bumblebee, and Bee did appear in the Wild King chapter of the ongoing Transformers manga, so who’s to say.

The anime also reveals a fifth element, Earth, that wasn’t released in the past advertising. The main elements so far were Lightning, Grass, Fire and Water, with the toys so far showing the combining gimmick working with those four. How the Earth element fits in isn’t clear as of typing, but clearly more Transformers of that element are coming.

A lion, rhino, Spinosaurus and Stegosaurus were shown in the anime and early leaks, but my guess is they represent Fire, Grass, Water, and Lightning respectively, to represent the elements Optimus and Megatron lack atm. I could be wrong and the rhino and stego represent Earth instead, but that doesn’t really align with what appears to be the marketing gimmick at the moment focusing on four elements. There’s only 11 episodes so now there’s 9 left as of typing, so the Earth element comes late in the story or its saved for a second season where other Autobots and Decepticons swing by to see what’s going on. That last part I’m unsure on, but we do have an element not counted for yet so it’s possible. Toy wise, it’s probably just a beast that forms a backpack or chest armor to complete the combiner look. We’ll see soon enough tho’.

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The thing is that ES wasn't even that popular with its target demographic judging by the poor toy sales. IMO S1 seemed like it was more for Tumblr users than general audiences with the IDW-esque writing. The main reason I even came back to this site was because it was and still is the main place that actually talks and acknowledges the show even exists.

The premise for S1 had so much potential but the sloppy writing prevented it from being something truly great IMO. The designs are much better in 2D than 3D. It's a shame that this show had so much going against it because I 100% thought it was going to be one of my favorite shows ever when I started watching it.

Earthspark is childish garbage that looks as if its aimed at preschoolers and people are only saying its good to look cool and fit in. Hasbro have even begun to aim towards young children and this is just the beginning of infantile content that a lot of us want no part of. Sorry but thats just how it is. The designs are terrible, theres a huge bunch of virtue signalling and the plot is god awful.

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The first two episodes of Wild King are out on the Takara-Tomy site.

They aren’t subtitled, that might be reserved for fan subs potentially, but it’s simple enough to get the gist of it.

A big return to the toyetic roots of Transformers after EarthSpark and Cyberverse turned their nose up at it, this is a huge breath of fresh air.

The return to a proper Super Mode Optimus, in a fashion, is much welcome.

Even Megatron having a combined form evokes his Nemesis Breaker power up from Galaxy Force.

For people worried about CyberWorld also having a five minute format, Wild King uses it well to establish its lore and characters so it can smoothly get into the action.

A nice bit of character work in particular is Lightlong, who’s introduced galloping right next to Optimus suddenly as the Autobot is exploring Elementrous in Vehicle Mode.

Due to a series of comical misunderstandings caused by Lightlong, and Optimus about ready to clobber him with a tree (as he thought Lightlong was trying to attack him), Lightlong Transforms to Robot Mode and is able to explain himself. Optimus, now understanding the boy, does a cool trick with the tree before plopping it back into the ground.

This bit of characterization is already heads and shoulders above what Cyberverse and EarthSpark was doing. Lightlong, as a curious individual is already much more entertaining than the Terrans combined, the later who come across as the stereotypical, annoying way children behave, vs here where Lightlong is more smoothly integrated, and has a more sincere, energetic side, in a smaller run time.

Lightlong explains the general gist of how his world works, based on earlier press releases, and we see a shot of the tribes feuding.

It does very much evoke Beast Wars, with the green animals as the Maximals, and the red dinosaurs as Predacons, despite not being addressed as such.

We also see the missing toys we’ve yet to see in the toy line fully: a lion and rhino for the animal faction and a spinosaurus and stegosaurus for the Dinosaurs.

Because of the toys referencing Beast Wars anyway, this implies the choice of Lion evokes Lio Convoy, while the rhino evokes Rhinox like how Lightlong evokes Neo’s Longrack.

The Decepticons being Dinosaurs also evokes Beast Wars Neo, where the Predacons were primarily dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures akin to them. While a stretch, the stegosaurus may evoke Saberback from Neo, while the Spinosaur evokes Undermine from Galaxy Force, as Captain Volca evokes Megatron and Leafback Guiledart.

The animation is surprisingly more smooth than I expected with some good fight scenes. I was expecting the more limited CGI of Energon, but Energon has one thing over this: the characters mouths move when they speak.

For some reason, the robots lips don’t move, which makes the conversations somewhat creepy but Transformers Go! did this also, despite having better animation. To compensate, the robots’ optics flash bright and dim, kinda like Wheeljack’s ear fins when he speaks in G1. This optic concept is also used in the 90’s Brave series, but usually with mouthplated combiner modes.

The episode ends with Optimus able to combine with Longrack, and try to face off against the combined Megatron, though Megatron might still have the upper hand as he has Leafback along with Captain Volca. Presumably this may see Optimus and Lightlong need to recruit others to match Megatron.

The ongoing Transformers manga in Japan has a Wild King chapter.

Despite being the G1 Optimus and G1 Megatron, they too can Combine with Volca and Lightlong.

Lightlong proving why he’s my immediate favorite. That sincere, excitable anime protagonist energy.

The web show also includes a stop motion segment narrated by Lightlong where he shows the kids at home how to Transform the toys.

A particular distinction is Takara still using the Vehicle Mode and Beast Mode terminology while Hasbro uses the boring sounding Alt Mode term. (I know there’s a legal snare due to Beast Mode becoming copyrighted and it becoming a slang term for athletes and bodybuilders but still.) The distinction does make sense to highlight, since the toys’ theme is Vehicles and Beasts Combining.

Still the web anime is off to a good start, and while it’s not the heavy, sluggish, war is hell plot IDW, EarthSpark and Cyberverse (kinda) had mixed with stereotypical Tumblr bizarreness, it’s fun and weird for kids like both RiDs and Rescue Bots, and that’s more important to me than trying to appeal to an increasingly aging fan base who wouldn’t know fun in TFs if it shot them in the foot.

Hopefully CyberWorld can also deliver a fun experience for kids, to get more kids into this so Ninja Turtles and Jurassic World isn’t hogging all the attention.

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I don't like ES season 2 and 3 but I can't stop thinking about this episode 😔

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Kade and Twitch would be competitive about almost everything because that's how they are. Twitch gets brownie points with Heatwave because of this, especially if he gets a chance to heckle Kade.

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Siberian Tiger

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Headcanon that if the Terrans went to Griffin Rock, no one would see/hear from Nightshade and Doc Greene for days because the two are bonding over SCIENCE.

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my cat still doesn't get that we have different definitions of 'acceptable breakfast time'

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This is what the Production Bible says about Schloder:

I much prefer the way Schloder is in the show. He's still a dweeb to an extent, but he genuinely wants to protect people and is horrified at Croft's extreme methods.

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Once again going to explain something that many people fail to comprehend. Understanding something doesn't mean condoning it. The amount of people that 100% think I support Mandroid genociding the TFs clearly don't have reading comprehension because NOT ONCE HAVE I EVER SAID THAT.

When I say Mandroid was right, I'm referring to 2 things he specifically mentions in the show:

-It being bullshit humanity got caught in a war they had nothing to do with. -TFs are dangerous.

How anyone thinks these two statements aren’t true is doing some intense mental gymnastics. The TFs are literally giant robots with built in weapons. People died. Warzone has the characters going to a war memorial and Megatron almost shoots them after they accidentally trigger his fighting instincts. It's a running joke in the show that JB frequently breaks/destroys stuff on accident. Dot freaking lost a limb in the conflict. Multiple Cons tried killing the kids. Mandroid was drafted under protest by GHOST and hated the experience so much that he despises the organization just as much as TFs.

Does that mean Mandroid is justified with his genocide plan? OF COURSE NOT! Having negative emotions doesn't give a person carte blanche to do whatever they want. I understand why Mandroid is angry, but think his actions are horrific and that he's a bastard. He's a fascinating character and the fact some people vilify me and others who think the same are hypocrites considering the majority of the TFs they love so much have done equally terrible things.