#TRANSformers 😉

[bootleg-cal-weathers]

the terror twins y’all

[chrissy-kaos]

Who's coming to cuddle with me? I really could use some right now 😩

[hercarisntyours]

@munejewels YOU ABSOLUTELY GOD I AM FOR EVER INDEBTED TO YOU THANK YOU SO MUCH MENTIONING THIS I'M.ABOUT TO FUCKING I'M I'M I CAN'T EVEN SENTENCE

[princelancey]

Aston martin implying Lance is an alien and the AMR24 is his rocket ship is hilarious and I love it (also the animation in this is amazing can we get a series?)

[compaculaaa]

Can we see the siblings at a beach ?

The whole fams on vacation

[wineaunt420]

New job means more money to spend on transformers merch (and rent ig)

Plus picture of my pookie bear

[just-a-creep-babe]

How tall would u think EJ would be? I’m struggling to draw him lol (also freaking love demons ache great work home slice)

Oooh I’d say like around 6’3 normally because he slouches a bit, but when he’s standing straight, maybe more so somewhere around 6’5

[megatronsimp]

Heck; tumblr won’t let me edit my poll 😒

I just wanted to add if anyone has any plot bunny ideas for tfa dratchet with ratchet carrying I’m all for it!

[sleepybunnymel]

mel who is ur favorite transformer(s) ? :3

oh there's a lot but to name a few I'd have to say for autobots, it's Jazz, elita-1, arcee, Lancer, Optimus, Bumblebee, moonracer, tracks and cliffjumper,

As for cons it's, Soundwave, swindle, nova storm, nightbird, lunaclub, octane,, dreadwing and blitzwing!

My faves are pretty vast in range of designs and personality there's more I like that would be a long list haha 😄

[meridianbarony]

One of these days some writer’s gotta include kindling alongside forging, mentoring, constructed cold, budding, etc. If splitting sparks makes twins why not merging and begetting sparks? I just really like the idea of multiple forms of reproduction and choosing to have babies or adopting new adults. Which btw I really liked the mentor system and hope it transfers but I hope it’s just one option among many.

Haha, Good morning Anony- 

I’ve not written the mentoring system from IDW2 personally, but I do like it too. This is one of those times I wish I could sci-fi magic edit some convos I’ve had with my pals away from tumblr and twitter and post them because it doesn’t really come through in some of my fics that I combine systems in them, but I’ve talked extensively about it..... in private. 😅😂

For instance my boy Brainstorm- In everything I’ve posted with him he’s still his good ol cold constructed self- but in an AU I have with a good friend I will not name here, he’s actually a kindled mech- depending on our mood he knows that or not and gets to be reunited with his carrier. 😉

In my Vos fic (assuming anyone reading this will be minding my tags on that one lmao) It’s not explicitly stated but The Confederated clans of Vos are exclusively kindled/carried For Reasons™ and the surrounding city-states all use all the different fanon/canon ways-(Kindling, hot spots, cold construction- likely mentoring for those second two?)  and find them all normal. Brainstorm in that one was Cold-Constructed to be a guard for Harmonex, but being how brilliant he is they choose to educate him. Of course, the discrimination isn’t based on construction in that AU, it’s based on mode ability in both the flier and non-flier cultures. 

I do also hope that whatever comes next for TF comics it’s interesting and Well done. I like how it’s been done in TF Earthspark, with the Malto family growing but the new Terrans needing more time to grow into themselves than classic canon tf babies in the past. :3c 

I’ll deff have to think about this more, I’ve not really done any lore posts for my Aus in a long time or lore that includes how wide stuff goes for me as a writer myself. It’s aaaaalll in the chatlogs. Thanks for the ask! ♥

ETA: I’m honestly still whacked on cold meds from this whatever it is so I completely forgot to mention ATUE- my soap opera lmfao. That’s also one where it’s different. but I’ve been going back and forth on changing it because the initial ideas for it were written when IDW was going on and a lot of the canon rules for it were less solid. the only reasons I’ve not is because it’s kinda cool and also I know there’s some folks who get squicked by a human analog for tf reproduction. 

that being said, it’s been so long that who knows if those folks have gone on to other fandom pastures? we will see. 

Okay post actual over lmao

[teefsintheweb]

A short compilation:

[penny-anna]

Imagine you're a human in the transformers universe and you're on tinder and you come across a profile where the picture is just a car so you're like wow this guy must really love his car

But you open up the full profile and it's like '6,000,000/M Autobot, Cadillac, 12'7" hmu for a smooth ride 😉🚗'. This would be one of the many hazards and/or benefits of coexistence.

[creativitysparks4everxoxo]

Breakdown really went 😉

(;

[dontbelasagnax]

I find as fandom has assimilated towards a capitalist mindset of consumption, there has been a larger focus on fanart and fanfiction- both in spaces that view creatives as "content creators" and spaces where creatives are seen as writers and authors but lauded similarly to celebrities or deities for gracing the common people with their creations.

This has produced a side effect wherein fanart and, primarily, fanfiction are seen as the Best Forms Of Transformative Works... which means that any other type of transformative work is thrown by the wayside.

There should be no hierarchy of fanworks - every single work is a labor of love (or spite... I see y'all throwing middle fingers to canon 😉) and should be recognized as such. Fandom is a community. It's not a transactional relationship. Everyone contributes and interacts out of shared passions and interests.

If you make podfics, gifs, photo edits, fanvids, fan binding, metas, fiber arts, jewelry, fanmixes, translate fics to another language, run/contribute to a fan wikia or compile lore and resources in other ways: I see, appreciate, and cherish all the hard, love fueled work you put into your creations.

Not to say that fanfic and digital art are over-appreciated (Since I do see that many people are allergic to pressing reblog. It's a community. We're supposed to share and communicate. Lurkers are valid but for the most part, interaction with like-minded people is what fandom is intended for.) but the pedestal they are placed on needs to be lowered. Your favorite artists and authors are real people with real lives. They piss and shit just like you. They work in retail and healthcare and are unemployed due to disability. There is nothing extraordinary about them and they are wonderful human beings all the same. No one is better than anyone else. We're all equals here on this playground.

That said, I think we need to uplift the underappreciated fanworks and creators and give them more attention so they are on equal footing with fanfic writers and fanartists. Reblog the gifsets and tell the creator you're in love with how they colored the gifs, keyboard smash in the tags when reblogging a plush doll someone crocheted of your blorbo, try listening to a podfic on your commute home instead of an audiobook and remember to leave a comment when you get home.

As a final note, I want to give a warm hug to anyone who has sat refreshing tumblr or ao3 hoping that maybe someone will tell them they did a good job. To anyone who has considered quitting their fandom endeavors because their posts or works never get as much attention and love as the rest of the artworks or fics in the fandom tags, your creations are worth making and sharing. Numbers do not equate to quality, nor can they convey how loved your creations are by a given person. Only you can bring your unique sparkle to fandom and your presence is absolutely welcome no matter how big or small, grandiose or inconsequential, important or worthless you think it is.

[blacktabbygames]

Slay the Princess Concept Art

We shared a bunch of concept art on Twitter today. Sharing it here, too, where you can find it all in one post. Post contains spoilers, so proceed with caution (or just play the game already if you haven't 😉)

Going to start with the first piece of concept art Abby drew for the game.

In the earliest stages of development, we toyed around with the concept of there being multiple "end game" forms of the Princess.

The initial outline, rather than being tied together by an overarching metanarrative, structured a full playthrough as a 5-6 chapter long, self-contained journey down a single route, determined by your decisions in chapter 1. Here's an alternative late-game form:

The idea of deviating end-game forms didn't lost for very long, though. As we explored the game's themes more deeply, it made the most sense for there to be a singular "true" form.

If your reality is shaped by subjectivity and perception, then the "truth" has to be what's left when that subjectivity is swept away. the Shifting Mound's final design feels like that initial truth for the Princess, though there's also another truth if you push back against her and press on into the final cabin.

We really liked this "void" design, and I played around with the idea of it being an intermediary to the final form. The "void" Princess would be what you saw upon encountering the final Princess without understanding your own truth, but once you had that understanding, you would see her as the Shifting Mound, as depicted in the game.

That gave way to the intermediary design of the SM being a sea of disembodied limbs, and we also took parts of both designs and incorporated them into the protagonist (particularly the wings.) You can see the eyes and feathers for this void form in the ending card of the original trailer below:

You can see extremely early concept art for the spectre (top), nightmare (top-right), stranger (left), beast (bottom) and ??? (right) as well!

The eyes became a motif in the Nightmare route (Paranoid's manifestation of the fear of being watched), but I also like to think of them as a part of The Long Quiet's truth. You are space and emptiness, but you're also that which observes those things, and it's your perceptions that give the Shifting Mound shape.

Anyways, on the note of the original original concepts for the game, the Princess was initially going to remain human for several loops before taking on more monstrous forms. Some concepts of that are below. Had to get Abby to tone down some of the more horrifically cartoonish designs because they creeped me out and I didn't want to romance them in a video game.

We had to hold our cards close to our chest in the non-metanarrative early drafts, which is part of why, even in the first demo, the cabin doesn't really change much in chapter 2. More room to subtly play with the concept of transformation over time.

There were a lot of reasons we moved in a different direction for the full release. The branching was unmanageably large to write, and the game felt like a slog to write.

Using an overarching narrative as a framing mechanism in the final version gave us a lot more freedom to explore wildly divergent ideas within routes while still driving the player towards the originally planned finale.

Anyways, now we've got some concept art for individual princesses. There's a lot more than this lying around somewhere, but it's all in sketchbooks, and we'll probably wait until we make an art book to show it off.

First is the tower, who really didn't change much at all. (She got a little thicker, I guess. All of the Princesses did)

Not a lot to say about her, other than the fact that we knew we wanted a set piece where she gets so big that the trees and cabin orbit around her.

The stranger went through many many redesigns over the course of development. Here, she was a "princess skin" filled with a hive of sentient bugs. The script wasn't working for me, though, so instead she became a peak behind the curtains without the necessary context to know her.

A lot of people ask how these earlier drafts of the Stranger route would have played out, and the answer is I can't tell you, because I couldn't figure out something worth writing.

The writing process for individual routes didn't really start with outlines or plot beats. Rather, the routes started from a theme and a relationship dynamic, and I organically found their outcomes by exploring actions within those themes, and then seeing if those passed Abby's editor brain.

Neither of us found actions we wanted to explore with those versions of the Stranger, at least actions that weren't a beat-by-beat retelling of chapter 1, which contained way too much variation to put on a single chapter 2 route.

If each princess examines a relationship formed by perception and first impressions, the Stranger examines one that's fundamentally unknowable. One where you've seen too much, too quickly.

An insect hive-mind pretending to be a person seemed like a good starting point, but it was too difficult to write any interactions that didn't immediately feel knowable, if still strange. So the final version of the Stranger was designed in such a way where her unknowability makes interacting with her on a human level fundamentally impossible, and you don't get to have a real conversation with her unless you satisfy extremely specific criteria.

Anyways next up is the razor's final form. We decided she needed more swords.

Hearts became an accidental motif very quickly in the development process, too. (The fact that it is only strikes to the heart that fell her in the demo was accidental, but it felt poetic so we extended it to the rest of the game.)

So on top of adding more swords, we made her heart visible. This is something we did with the fury as well, as a way of showing their emotional (and physical) vulnerability.

Here's an early version of the Adversary and what would eventually become the Eye of the Needle, back when she was still called the Fury. Originally her hair was going to be fire (as seen on the right), but it didn't feel right in its execution.

She's hit the gym since this concept art. Good for her :)

And we're going to end with the Beast, who at this point was called the Adversary. I think this was before the Witch was added? The Beast was originally designed to be a Questing Beast who lurked in the shadows, where you'd only see glimpses of her, and where each glimpse would make her appear to be a different animal. This was too difficult to execute, though we gave her a more chimera-like appearance in the final game.

This design was from when we still has the Voice of the Obsessed, and the route was going to be a more feral mirror of what eventually became the Adversary, but it felt too thematically similar while being less interesting, so we moved in the direction of making the Beast about consumption as a form of love.

Anyways, that's all we've got for you right now. Hope this was fun!

[blainvillemitsubishi]