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Chronicles of Mandroid and a Cat: Chapter 5

Making a link post wasn't working for me so I had to improvise.

Summary: The cat starts displaying new behavior that makes Stephen second guess keeping her. Also, the cat finally gets a name.

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Headcanon that if Megatron did go back to the Cons, they'd demand he kill Dot to prove he's actually committed to the cause again. Think about it, pretty much all of them are pissed he defected so it makes perfect sense they'd have an issue with Dot.

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In my Lotus AU, Schloder is very aware pretty much everyone didn't care for Croft. Despite everything she did, she was his sister and he cared about her.

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Despite thinking it could have been done better, and admittingly fell out of love with it, I'm glad Earthspark got a chance to exist.

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Headcanon that Mandroid learned Cybertron's fate while on his space bridge journey but doesn't say anything about it because he's a dick. However, even after his views on TFs change in my Lotus AU, he still doesn't say anything since he's worried what Megatron will do after finding out that Cybetron is still active. After all, Mandroid's goal is still protecting Earth.

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OP in my Lotus AU

Spoiler Alert: He's not a butt monkey like the show wants him to be. Instead I'm focusing on his pragmatic approach to things.

-He faces backlash from multiple people after he decides to partner with GHOST (now lead by Schloder) again. OP's reasoning is that GHOST under Schloder is a much better alternative than another government entity, especially now that the Cons are active again.

-Works with GHOST to build a space ship so the Autobots can go back to Cybertron. He forbids anyone from telling the Maltos and Terrans because of the high possibility they may expose the operation, especially the kids.

-Takes advantage of the Terrans being confined to the GHOST base to educate them about Cybertron. He's very aware that the Terrans being so entrenched in Earth culture isn't going to be well received by a lot of TFs back on Cybertron.

-While he's not happy about it, he suspects that Mandroid is somehow necessary to repair the Emberstone.

-Refuses Dot and Alex's request to remove the cyber sleeves from Robby and Mo: 1. The Emberstone is vital for restoring Cybertron and the TF race. 2. The original 13 Primes are basically the TF version of saints so going against the will of a Prime is a big no.

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I know that I've referred to OP's behavior at times as shady, but I take it back. A better word to describe his actions like sending Bee undercover and allying with GHOST is pragmatic. Most of the other characters (especially the Maltos) operate on emotion while OP is concerned with logic.

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Hot take: Dr Morocco is the only evil human that actually poses a threat if he existed outside the Rescue Bots. Silas has nothing on this Victorian, age-defying scientist who puts his consciousness into a video game, then into a toy. Then that toy makes a full sized mecha to pilot. Somehow this man survived in the middle of the ocean for who knows how long thanks to his brain waves controlling animals.

You want to tell me /Silas/ is a bigger threat? Or any of the humans in TFA?

Please. Morocco built a whole time machine, but didn't have the necessary power source. He broke out of jail with a radio, a fan, and ANTS.

Don't tell me this man ain't a threat. He is THE threat and I wish we had a version of him outside of TFRB where he can show his true colors.

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More on Dot and Megatron's friendship taking a hit after Quintus Prime removes the cyber sleeves and takes the Emberstone in my Lotus AU... There's no amount of Power of Friendship that's going to fix things.

-Megatron He understands why Dot wanted the sleeves gone, but with how strongly he feels about his race, he's not going to forgive her. In his mind, Dot betrayed him. However, he'll always be grateful to her for making him come to his senses about the way he was treating the Cons. That's not enough though so he avoids her and the rest of the Maltos (this includes the Terrans since he's pissed at them for going along with removing the sleeves). -Dot She's going to act like she's going through a break up. Both the Guidebook and Publication Bible state that the only reason she's not bitter about losing her leg is because she became his friend. She tries to do the Conceal Don't Feel thing, but it doesn't work. Throwing herself into her ranger job doesn't help much either. She gets snappish with her family at points. Really, the whole situation is a wake up call that she needs different coping mechanisms.

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Some cleaner packaging art for CyberWorld appeared for upcoming Amazon listings.

The character designs are definitely inspired by super robot anime of the past, giving the characters a fun throw back to Car Robots and the Unicron Trilogy. Megatron in his bull form is not out of place in stuff like Energon and RiD01.

On a related note, Sky-Byte takes his inspiration primarily from the Generations toy but his head evokes his old RiD01 head to me.

Curiously his Anchor Arm is detachable and can be equipped to his Beast … uh… Vehicle Mode head. I’m assuming it can be a new attack, but a lot of people say it evokes a crown. Others have lovingly nicknamed him “Land-Byte” because of his Hot Wheels monster car design.

Snarl definitely has a Junkion vibe, but whether he’s supposed to BE one we dunno yet. I don’t really see it being addressed either way, but a lot of veteran fans are content with the very idea of a Dinobot Junkion. I’m still impressed it’s Snarl of all guys, because he tends to be the forgotten one in favor of Slag or Swoop if Grimlock has another G1 style dino buddy in modern toys.

These toys, as mentioned before, emphasize a quick transformation on the packaging, a continued carry over from complaints from the Bayformers toy lines where several toys were becoming too complex to Transform.

These seem to strike a decent balance of the simplistic G1 era toys and the early one step toys of Beast Wars, which I’m fine with. The RotB toys were of a similar ilk and I like fiddling with my figures from it.

One thing I find funny is how the packaging on these guys refer to "Quick Change" or "Armor Up" based on what type of toy it is...

While Grimlock's toy instead says "CHANGES TO DINO!" with its own unique logo with Grimlock biting the words. It's so delightfully absurd, and exclusive to Grimlock, I adore it for that. Why Snarl didn't get any such logo for himself, I dunno, since he too CHANGES TO DINO!

Still not really sure I get the Armored Changers idea, as the accessories they come with are just flip out gun thingies rather than clip on armor like the Cyberverse Spark Armor or the Beast Armor from ROTB. The idea of a separate Transforming partner does evoke the Action Masters, which I kinda dig also.

The packaging seems to emphasize elemental typing more than expected, as besides referencing the biomes mentioned in earlier press, the same elemental logos are used for individual Transformers. Bumblebee and Optimus represent the city zone, Galvatron represents the desert zone, the Dinobots and Megatron represent the jungle zone and Sky-Byte represents the water zone.

I might be reading too much into it, but I wonder if this is meant to be analogous to Bakugan's elemental factions (and where they had Transformers style Clan factions that one time). It wouldn't be the first time Transformers referenced Bakugan, considering the RiD15 Cyclone Mini-Cons (and frankly most of their Mini-Cons were analogous to Pokemon and Bakugan, with Pucks and Torpedoes also evoking Trap Bakugan, Nanogan and Geogan).

As of typing we still don't have the full context on how the rules fully work in this universe, but Hasbro and Takara clearly are experimenting with an elemental idea going by this and Wild King, ESPECIALLY Wild King. CyberWorld doing something similar makes it clear other Transformers will also be categorized based on elemental affiliation too.

So we can assume the following:

Chop Shop (Insect Beast Mode): Jungle

Elita -1 (Boat Vehicle Mode): Water

Starscream (Jet Vehicle Mode): City

Mirage (Also Jet Vehicle Mode): City

Scorponok (Scorpion Beast Mode): Jungle or Desert. He's kind of a toss up, but leaning towards Desert being his affiliation. Maybe Galvatron and Scorponok dominate the desert zone in a nod to the Bay films.

Off Road Optimus Prime & Off Road Bumblebee (Off Road Vehicle Mode) City, Jungle and/or Desert. The toys were shown associated with the city zone at Toy Fair, but the Off Road theme would suggest they'd be used heavily outside of the urban jungle.

G2 style Megatron (Tank Vehicle Mode): City, Desert or Jungle

If the line is successful, or if they already had some additional characters in the can, I think it's safe to assume any additional Autobots and Decepticons we weren't privy to yet would follow this typing system.

And frankly both the Autobots and Decepticons could use more Water guys, as we only have Elita and Sky-Byte as the Water rep. Maybe they're rivals in this context? Hopefully it's a better developed rivalry than Sky-Byte and Jetfire was in Cyberverse... I could see Scorponok involved with the Water battles, Sea Scorpions are a thing, but it leaves the Autobots at too much of a disadvantage and Elita-1 is good, but she's not THAT good. I'm not expecting someone like Broadside or High Tide here, heck maybe they'll bring back Hammerbyte as a Sky-Byte retool, who's to say. Same goes for the Desert, since Galvatron is the only one of that typing for the moment.

Another curious thing is there seems to be a tagline: "More to Unlock". It clearly refers to other toys available in the line so far on the packaging, but the idea of Unlocking is curious. Perhaps it refers to what the Autobots and Decepticons need to do in story? What little we know so far says there's video game like challenges, so perhaps each elemental area is akin to a video game level, and they have to progress through? That would make the most sense.

Either way, the first wave of toys come out June 15th, 2025, with the second wave on October. The first wave is said to be Optimus, Bee and Skybyte, with Starscream as the only named one for the second atm. When the other guys and gals come out we don't know yet as of typing. Perhaps the first and second waves will have more characters? Only having Bee, Prime and Sky-Byte to start out is strange, at least strange in that they're not going in with the new Megatron, but maybe after the failure of EarthSpark Megatron, maybe they want to hold off a smidge on Megatron this time toy wise...

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HELLO YESSSS AAAAAAAA commission of my cassette oc Riot and Mandroid from Transformers Earthspark

Artist is @miimster thank you so much for accepting my commission!! I'm so happy with how this came out it's GORGEOUS!!

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The way the Emberstone's fate is handled ties into some of my biggest complaints about the show:

-I still find highly unrealistic that the TF characters, especially OP and Megatron, aren't furious their last hope of saving their race is destroyed. Megatron's 'redemption' boils down to him feeling bad about what happened to TFs because of his actions. You really expect me to believe that Prowl is the only TF to take issue with the fact two human kids were put in charge of a Prime relic? Even Terratronus, who was specifically created to guard the stone, isn't as angry as she should be when Mo and Hashtag are like, "Oops we broke it."

-The fact that the Malto kids rarely ever face consequences for their actions. Sure, the show does a few after school lesson type episodes, but ultimately none of it matters because the kids act like they can do whatever they want and don't care about anyone else except themselves and FAMILY. It doesn't help that the show usually frames them as being right. A few examples: -Their attitude of how dare any human have an issue with TFs -Not a single thing is said about Mo being responsible for both Robby getting his heart broken and causing a freaking alien invasion. -No one expresses any concern about the humans trapped in the dome. Robby getting a damn comic book is more important. -The treatment of the Chaos Terrans and the only reason the Maltos took the time to resurrect them is because they needed cannon fodder for the Quintessons

And I'm supposed to root for them?

Compare that to Armada/Micron Legend where Rad states that him being so adamant about helping the Autobots is because he feels responsible for reigniting the war.

When I was watching season 2 “finale” where Robby and Mo were using the emberstone to build a dome and it shattered into dust, Robby said “Oh well. It’s okay. We don’t need it.” ARE YOU STUPID!? THAT IS THE THING THAT BIRTH THE TERRANS AND THEY WILL BE THE ONLY ONES LIKE THRASH SAID IN S1 YOU IDIOT BOY NOW YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO CREATE MORE TERRANS AND SAVE THE TRANSFORMERS RACE OF PRESUMED EXTINCTIONS CAUSE THAT IS THE SECOND LIFE-GIVING ARTIFACT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT! SO WHAT PEOPLE FIGHT FOR IT? ITS A DOUBLE-SWORD YOU PROTECT IT AGAINST EVIL.

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I really wish Frenzy had gone to be with the Maltos tbh. I've just been musing about a fanfic for the idea but I don't have the energy or time to write it out.

tw for child endangerment, discussion of sibling death

Frenzy would have been such a cool older sister/cousin/friend type of character. The Maltos are supposed to be a loving and accepting family, so it would make sense if they extended their kindness to her, someone who lost her sibling. They could have taken her in and tried to help her become a softer, kinder person. (Something I also wish they'd done with Spitfire).

With Rumble dead I wish she had gotten close with one of the boys, probably Thrash. Jb is very sweet and kindly, but Thrash seems more her speed. I think she would have found Thrash funny and gotten into mischief with him just like she used to do with Rumble. I feel like it would cause a lot of conflict in the siblings too. She's a bad influence on Thrash and Hashtag, probably getting Thrash into trouble and encouraging Hashtag to bully people online as a "joke", Thrash would start negatively comparing Twitch to Frenzy (i.e: Frenzy doesn't always have to nitpick like you).

The tension boils over when Frenzy finds out about Bumblebee's "funny story" he told to Robby and Mo about one of Soundwave's cassettes. When one of the human siblings make mention of the story in passing, Frenzy demands to know what they were talking about. When the kids explain, Frenzy is stunned silent before she starts going into a panic. She's having flashbacks to her brother's energon seeping out of the seams of Soundwave's armor and she now knows the Autobots thought it was, of all things, funny.

She'd snap, grabbing up Mo and running off with her. The family is thrown into a panic and try to save her. The chase and would-be fight comes to a stand still with Frenzy crying and holding Mo against her, as if ready to snap her neck. Frenzy argues back and forth with the Maltos and the Autobots. She squeezes Mo harder when Bumblebee tries to defend himself, making Bumblebee switch up his stance and start trying to appease her, begging her to just put Mo down and they could talk. Frenzy would refuse, telling them that she didn't want to talk, that she wanted them to know how she felt.

"Back off! I'm gonna snap her neck. I'm gonna crush her. Jus-Just like Rumble... And we're going to see just how fff-" She's trying to hold back her tears. "How fragging f-funny you think it is when you gotta clean her up!"

The Maltos are screaming, Optimus and Megatron are terrified of attacking because there's no way they could avoid Mo. Bumblebee and the others are begging for her to let Mo go, but Frenzy just gets more angry. Finally, she'd squeeze Mo really hard, making her scream. (Not breaking bones but definitely hurting her) Mo would call out for Robby to help her, which would make Frenzy hesitate.

I think Mo crying for Robby would hurt Frenzy somehow, it would remind her of herself. She'd see the two siblings crying and she'd feel guilty for wanting to make them hurt like her. Frenzy would ultimately loosen her grip on Mo and just slowly sink to the ground, letting go of Mo to hang her head and cry. The Maltos would run to approach her but Dottie would definitely be in the lead to snatch Mo away from Frenzy.

Frenzy proceeds to have an emotional breakdown about missing Rumble, she's sobbing into her hands. She probably just repeats a couple of times that she misses him. After a few long moments I think that Mo would probably push away from her mom and approach Frenzy. Nobody would be down with that idea. They would not want her to do it, but I think she'd do it anyway. And I think she would probably put like, a hand on frenzy. Or maybe go as far as to hug her or maybe gently touch your face to comfort her. And Mo would tell her that Robby almost died once and then it was the worst she had ever felt and Frenzy just hangs her head again and cries quietly.

Ultimately I do think the Maltos would allow her to stay but she would be heavily monitored and mentored from then on. It would be sweet if Bumblebee tried to include her more in training sessions, if they actually worked on Bee and Frenzy's dynamic too. The funny story thing couldn't just be overlooked. But I think they would ultimately come to some sort of agreement that both sides have "dehumanized" one another for far too long.

That's where the ideas kinda run out though 😫😭 I wish I had more energy cause I think it'd be a nice fic

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TBH, I can 100% see Robby pretty much slow fading from the family once he's old enough to drive and go out on his own. Canonically, he's shown pushing back against the family dynamics even before the sleeves. But after the way he was treated in S1? It'd be very unrealistic for him not to have some level of resentment about it.

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It makes me soooo sad when people say they haven't watched Rescue Bots. "Its for babies" its Y7 like every other transformers cartoon and it is SO funny and charming and genuinely the best tf show of all time. I'm begging you. Yes you, reading this right now. You should be watching Rescue Bots.

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Do you block people in the same fandom as you just because you don't like their takes?

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sparkledog/fur Hashtag!!