#i havent watched it and even if i had its a reboot of the events so it wouldnt fit in the other theme of through the years

[lavendorii]

Second year

[elfelt-valentine]

beelze.. as someone who recently got into transformers.. where should i start? im thinking about picking up mtmte

Hi Omen!!!

That's a really good question, because TF is such a behemoth when it comes to it's content, there are so many continuities that you really can pick any of them up and go with it! If you're interested in the comics, picking up MTMTE i think is a good way to get acquainted with the idw1 continuity - it takes place after the events of many other comics and goes in parallel with Robots in Disguise, so i think it's good to read them hand in hand, personally. From what I remember, any plot relevant information they provide as well from the word of other characters, so you don't have to worry too much about the fact that you don't know stuff that happened before, if anything it might spark you interest to check it out later!

If I had to personally tell where to start with the comics, talking about idw1, there are three massive phases of their comics before the 2019 reboot - war, post-war, and the third one I don't remember and i havent gotten to it yet, so cant say for sure. All these phase collections are available on readcomiconline.li, that's where i read em! MTMTE and RID are parts of phase two, subsequently.

When it comes to shows, Transformers Animated is also it's own continuity and is very good and fun! It has three seasons 13 episodes each.

Earthspark from what i know is also a standalone show, so far there's one season, but from what i've seen it's very charming and nice (may be a little cheesy for me personally but i dont mind it)

The original G1 cartoon is also a very good way to start if you're into old silly animation and writing, it will give you a ground to stand on i think when you look into other continuities, cuz ultimately all of them take their root from this show, even if a lot of things have changed and aren't aligned with the G1 cartoon anymore. When you watch it and then look into other things like comics you'll have a moment of "i fucking know what you are" whenever a certain writing choice is made, but its just me FGBSFBV It also comes with a movie!

Aligned continuity wraps a huge mass of different mediums as they've been trying to tell this one solid Transformers story, but as far as I'm aware it didn't work and they stopped trying to do it. It includes the Cybertron trilogy games (can pirate them - if you need a link to where i got the games let me know!), a novel (i think) and then Transformers Prime tv show and its sequel Robots in Disguise 2015. I might be missing something cuz i haven't look into it yet, but personally i don't think it's my favorite continuity so far.

There are many other shows that comics and other things take pieces of inspiration from (Beast wars, unicron trilogy, cyberverse i think? and more) but i haven't looked into those yet and can't vouch for them in any way.

So yea! If you want to start, just pick whatever catches your interest the most and you can go from there! You really don't have to read, watch, or play every piece of tf to get in the groove.

[flowergirlmiwa]

I'd love to hear about ur ocs if u wanna talk about them :0

ah ummm... really it's sort of a thing where it goes through 500 reboots and reimaginings and only sort of some of the core elements bleed through so its actually really hard to answer this LOL.. but given this is in response to saying the OCs are from 2003 ill describe that version of the story

basically i imagined a TV-Y8 (yeah they invented TV-Y8 just because this show is That Badass) anime inspired cartoon about a bunch of high schoolers that have magical girl powers. theyre given these powers by the Spirit Guard whom they then work for to fight against the devil or something. lets go into the characters

NOTE I HAVENT WORKED ON ANY OF THIS SINCE LIKE 2007 so if it sounds dumb and not very developed it is

Yamachi - standard protag guy/self insert, he's quiet but fiercely loyal and prone to superpowered freakouts when the tension gets ratcheted up. at the beginning of the series he can transform into a dragon (LITERALLY imagine Guilmon because that's what i did, just bigger Guilmon and he's fuckin pissed) but like a third through the story a major moment happens and after that he can't do it anymore and people just kinda forget about it. if he had real character traits i dont remember them

Manga (this was seriously his name) - Joey Wheeler best friend to the protagonist. much later on he becomes an edgy revengeboy and breaks from the heroes to become an antihero who wants to fucking annihilate the devil for his own reasons. up until that point he's basically Michaelangelo from TMNT. also he dies at the end because fuck you i guess?

Anime (this was seriously her name) - tsundere and Manga's love interest (woah). later in the series she's severely hurt by a big meanieman we'll talk about later and this is what causes Manga to go into his descent into badass revenge. after she's hurt she basically becomes a ripoff of Oracle from Batman

Cicelia - the protagonist's main love interest for the first part of the series but they never get together and it just kinda remains flirty. she seems to be having fun much of the time and has a positive spirit. she likes flirting with men but doesn't really seem to want to hook up with them so i'm retroactively interpreting her to be a lesbian. she actually sticks around even when all of the protag's other friends are gone in the sequel series and she becomes a mix between Tuxedo Mask and a catgirl, mostly watching over the protag until he could use unexpected help before fucking off again after saying something mysterious and flirty. so yeah flirty catgirl lesbian

Paka - a girl with a crush on the protag who dies early in the series (in the same event that causes the protag to lose his Guilmon powers) because idk sympathetic cute young girls deserve to die to make the male protag more angrier. also you may note this is the second time ive described a main character as basically being a woman that exists to be hurt to fuel the anger of the cool male protagonists

Rose - not long after Paka dies Rose is introduced to be the protag's love interest. they start dating pretty soon after she's introduced and from that point forward they spend pretty much the rest of the series fighting side by side. she doesn't have a character besides this besides her magic being mostly about making shields and supporting people and stuff.

Rune - an intimidating demonic bad guy who killed Paka. every time he appears in the series it is guaranteed for the heroes to suffer serious losses, like when he hurts Anime

Aiko - brother of Rune and another demonic bad guy... it seems. Aiko is like that archetype of villain that's clearly going to turn on them, he's very bored being forced to fight the heroes and ends up just screwing with them instead. when Paka dies, this disillusions Aiko to the point where he decides to betray the demon world and becomes the mentor to the heroes. at this point he becomes half mentor half team dad, though he always retains his sarcastic wit and youthful energy (despite being 10000 years old or whatever)

the series itself would be mostly episodic with the team going wherever in the world they need to to stem the flow of demons coming from underground. in the finale everyone converges on Hell (basically), Manga ends up dying somehow and Aiko finishes off his brother Rune then the protag kills the big bad who never got characterization beyond being the evil demonking

EDIT: i forgot that i mentioned "the sequel series" above but failed to talk about that so lets do that now

this would be a series running at the same time as the regular series and it even is weirdly well thought out that way. basically it starts when the first show is still early on and gets cancelled before the first show ends. in the meantime it's a more light hearted and comedic show with more adventuring less fighting demons

in the beginning of the sequel series, Yamachi is pulled out of class one day (we see hide nor hair of any of his friends and the audience is just supposed to kind of assume they all went away for some reason? like i dont even think he would end the first series even as a high schooler but that's just part of how this is a 'odd spinoff/sequel'. like the idea basically is that my OC stories are real world shows following tropes of real world animation production and?? ok lets moveon)

Yamachi is pulled out of class one day by mysterious people and ends up in the back of a van getting injected with something called the Dragon's Kiss. suddenly his dragon form from before is back!!! he's permanently the dragon now and it's a more demure form than before (LITERALLY THINK GUILMON JUST IMAGINE GUILMON HE LOOKS LIKE GUILMON). he sets off on a quest to figure out who kidnapped him, what they injected him with and why, and how to go back to normal. in the meantime he abandons his past life and starts going by Dragno (the name of the sequel series)

Dragno quickly meets and befriends a nine year old named Zak (if anyone remembers that post i made about coming up with the name 'Zak' as a variant of 'Jack' not realizing it was already a real name uhh yeah it was this). Zak's thing is that he's a gunslinger and during every fight is just constantly firing all sorts of guns and jumping around being a menace. so basically Rocket Raccoon. Zak besides this is a fun-loving regular kid and he and Dragno start traveling together. basically this forms the core of the series, Dragno becomes more relaxed because he's hanging out with a goofy kid and the two just kinda have a good time and are friends on Dragno's quest

like mentioned above, Cicelia returns except as a Tuxedo Mask catgirl now going by just "Celia". every single other one of the characters from the original series are nowhere to be found. aaaaand there isn't really a whole lot more to it because i never had any real ideas besides "and then they adventured and had fun together and then Celia would hop in from time to time to give mysterious advice or fend off a powerful foe". at some point they'd discover a village full of dragons just like Dragno and he'd learn more about his origin and why he can turn into a dragon and stuff but i never thought about it that hard

[richardsphere]

Richards DC Superhero Girls Watchlog

Well its time for me to find a new show to watch. Looked at the list of shows to give a shot someday, spun the wheel and the dart landed on DC Superhero girls. (dont ask me why it was on the list, i legitimately dont remember putting it on there...) Problem 1: Turns out there are 2 shows by that name, one with a great artstyle and that seems to feature Harley Quinn in the promotional materials and seems to be quite short-lived. And a reboot of the premise with a lot more episodes. im gonna start with the reboot. Even if its artstyle is a lot less vibrant looking, and it focusses less on the DC character in my top 5 DC characters (Harley, Riddler, Aya from the Green Lantern Animated Show, Ivy, Mr. Freeze)i dont think i could emotionally handle getting attached to the cool-looking artstyle and characters only to be hit by the reboot. So the 2019 series it is. lets keep the one with the highest quality animation for later as a treat. What i know going in: Its a coming of age, high-school inspired by characters who are (presumably all) adults in the mainline comics. (curious to see which choices they're gonna take adaptationally). I'll admit im kind of worried what "everyone lives in one town" is gonna do. With how many superheroes are the man/woman of the town type. (IE: Spiderman is designed around NY. Batman characters dont work if there isnt art deco and Gargoyles, Metropolis is designed to be sleek so theres little Supes can crash into, that sort of deal). Cast is: Wonder Woman, That Wasp Girl (but not the marvel one), Batgirl, Zatanna, Supergirl and Jessica Cruz. The last one is the character i'll admit to being the most interested in. for all the others (except the bee) i have at least a vague, baseline understanding. But for her I only know that the fandom which i shall not directly name had a crossover event she appeared in (which i havent seen) around the time they told me their series was "going back to its roots' (it wasnt). So i absorbed a little through osmosis. At least enough to know that her core concept is "what if a Green Lantern had crippling Agorophobia" (and that she's the only character in that crossover whose redesign / art-style adaptation actually looked good).

And i'll admit "green lantern with agorophobia" is such an interesting concept, (compliments to whomever came up with it) that I was sincerely tempted to find all her comics and media right then and there. But i kept off because: 1-i dont think its healthy for me to get into the Comics Proper. Comic Book Fandom is somewhere between a wikiwalk and a black hole. So I have a personal rule only to interact indirectly through the medium of one-off movies and spin-off shows. Keep myself (and my bank account) safe that way. 2- That is exactly the kind of concept that'd end up either being reduced to a one off joke (bad), running gag (worse) or bungled to the point it becomes insensitive to an issue real-life people struggle with. thinking about it, maybe she's why this show was on the list? I remember googling which media she appeared in and finding the list quite short. So in general my attitude to Jessica going in is "i cant wait to be dissapointed" (though obviously i hope i wont have to be) So now im off to watch the 4-episodes-franen'd-together event movie opening. Wish me luck -------------- Taking a break two-thirds through. ( as of now: the ice cream shop has just been blown up. The fellowship is broken to be reunited in the third act) Some notes: Zatanna is being cast as the "rich, snobby girl". Supergirl is being cast as the "Raphael from Ninja Turtles/Thug with Heart Of Gold" one Wasp is being cast as the "meek and shy" one They made Diana the "cool big sis"/Transfer Student (which feels weird with Barbara getting to do the standard "im new at this school in a different city" Pilot plot) Barbara is being played as the "overly excited, intended audience insert/Designated Superhero Fangirl" Jessica is being played as the "Mai Ti"/Heart / "we needed a vegan option" one. Not had any true problems so far, but i have 2 nitpicks/moments: 1- Im kind of worried about Zatannas voice actor. Its absolutely just a nitpick, but for the character whose entire thing is backwards-talking magic to have a VA whose enounciation of names leaves me to think she was talking to supergirl (whose name i understand to be Kara) when adressing the wasp-girl (who i think from context, she was actually refering to. And conclude must be Karen). That feels like an early warning sign of a potential future problem. (lets hope its a one-off) 2- look, Diana. I can handle the constant "mans world" stuff coming from the isolated island. And the"our warriorrace must spread their peacefull ways" thing you introduce yourself into the show with, might have deeply uncomfortable "George W. Bush talking about Spreading Democracy to the Middle East" vibes. But both of those i can deal with and hope are seeds for future characterarcs. But i cannot let you just move the goalpostslike that. Everyone had failed the training montage, but when its her turn to do a simulation, Jessica actually plays the objective and puts the Manequin Civilians safe-ly out of harms reach and you start attacking the rest of the girls to force a failure? Thats some Kobayashi Maru shit! Justice for Jessica!!! back to the show ---------- [insert spongebob narrator: "Five Seconds Later" screen here] HARELY!!!! OMYGOSH! Why are you here (or well, in the show at all)? Thats a legitimate shock i thought they'd dropped you in the reboot? personally im still not a fan of the 'blue and red pigtail" thing? But that might be the fact that i associate it with the "snyderverse" version of your character. And i just dont like the DCEU. I have to acknowledge its not a bad design, its just loaded with bad associations. Hope to see you cameo more then just this one episode.

back to the "getting the band back together" part of the show -----------

"you cut off for a second, could you repeat the emotional Third Act Speach?" 9/10, good joke. ---- "you are only three-hundred and seventeen years old" I wonder how that lines up with her canonical age in the mainline comics... but in the mainline its "everyone is adult, therefore dating isnt a problem even if Immortality ads Mayfly Tragedies". Here its "she's a teenager, but also been around since before *quickly googles the year 1702* the invention of the fountain pen and might have a love-triangle or romance with a normal teenager at some point in the show". Am i noticing a trend in Jess' use of her powers or am i wrong? So right now i've seen 4 uses, Giant Spring, Safe, Knightly Plate Armor, Magic Carpet. And i note that half of them have a Fairy Tale theme? Is this small samplesize or characterisation? ----- Lena refers to Lex as her "brother"... i dont know enough about the Luthor family in most continuities. But i'll admit that the advert in Ep 1 screamed "Father and Child" not "brother and sister".

I dont know how i feel about "lex luthor sucks, this new less well known character is secretly the smart one in the family" thing that she's talking about. I dont have much emotional attachment to Lex (look, he's either a Boring Capitalist, or a Boring Social Darwinist. neither is interesting, but I consider his lack of interesting sort of a virtue? Both because of the banality of evil, and because it means he cant upstage Supes the way Joker always upstages Bats). But im gonna guess that the "im totally better then my big brother" thing is more of an unreliable narrator thing. So your plan was to make a monopoly on teenage enterntainment, then brainwash teens into complacency so that little kids have more to do? All you do is free up adults' time from lecturing Teens for Recklessness and doing the Unprotecteds, and ensure you now have double the parental supervision. Not a great plan. I'll give you one thing though, "snot-nosed brat with a mech"is a thousand times more engaging to watch then any version of Lex i've ever seen. Lena gets the green light.

--- This defeat makes me wonder... would a shrunken-down person require less voltage to die of a heart attack? Would it be proportional to the square/cube law? Oh she's a bumblebee, not a wasp.

Wait Lex and Lena have parents? That arent alive, and are in the story? Did not see that coming. Final nitpick, i dont like that "sweet just ice" sells baked goods and qui lime pie. It should just sell Ice and Ice Assessories. ---- Final wrapup. Though the existence of an icecreamshop-Batcave is insufficiently explained to justify its inclusion. And i hope that the show doesnt keep cheating Jess out of her moment (seriously, everyone else had a big "moment", Z cleaning up the mess with 1 spell. Wonderwoman being the badass, Batgirls analasys and Supergirl and Bumble defeating the Big Bot. I feel that Jess didnt have a moment) The show definitly has potential, and i look forward to watching more of it.

[dick-grayson-wayne]

I legit spend 2 years studying before I started to buy American comics.

I am not kidding I spent 2 years watching history video, guides, reading articles on the history of characters and events in just DC. Just DC. Just for the Batfam. Not all of DC, not DC and Marvel but just DC and focused on Dick Grayson and Co.

I also spent that time picking up every comic my local library and high school library had and spent the time learning how to tell which time period in comics that comic was from (and therefore what continuity i was looking at).

All before I majorly started buying comics so that way I wasnt left floundering as I tried to read stories about characters I grew up with through other mediums.

And now I havent regularly bought comics in 3 years. I got bored with what current comics are doing with the characters im interested in, or I got frustrated, and to top it off each issue was 4 to 5 dollars and the prices just kept seeming to go up. So between the damage it did to my wallet to just not having fun anymore I dropped them.

If I ever go back to buying comics its going to be older runs. I havent completed my Robin Vol. 1 run as I only have up issue 180 so I do need to finish getting the rest. (With a few issues between 1 to 180 that im missing). Or I'll continue collecting the Pre New 52 Batman comics. Basically if I go back to collecting them its going to be older titles, older runs.

The new runs have gotten boring, have bad writing from the runs I've read, are getting more expensive, and are just hard to get into.

There is also the issue that trying to make the comics more accessible to new readers causes issues. New 52 and Rebirth were both attempts but I'm a new reader who still had a lot of work to do to get into the comics even with the N52 being a thing. (Though I don't like the N52 and know very few who do)

The reboots which were attempts to bring new readers in both really didn't but also pissed off older readers as the characters they'd been reading about suddenly had all their stories and back story shifted. Relationships destroyed. Personalities changed. The whole shebang.

Not to mention newer readers like myself who liked the old continuity and/or characters that n52 got rid of suddenly didn't have those characters we wanted to read about or see in comics.

And then there is the issue of there not being good guidelines or communication through the various writers so various runs have different interpretations of the characters. Just look at the Rebirth Teen Titan run. They just. Destroy Damian and back track his development. And hes a comic book character who has gone through so much development in so little time to (reletavie to comics).

The industry is dying. And the reasons why are way more than pandering. Im someone who wanted to collect comics. I was all in. I personally own at least 300 individual issues. And im a new reader. I only started collecting back in like 2015. And was ready to keep collecting my whole life.

But in the span of 3 years I dropped out of collecting because new runs just weren't interesting and were so expensive.

It also doesn't help that better alternatives exist. Manga is killing it right now. Im a huge manga and anime fan I've been collecting manga since I was like 11. And like between the story lines that are easy to get into, the better prices (7 issues for $10 is way easier than 1 for $4/5), the diversity in type of story and just better story telling it's thriving while Americans comics are dying.

The American comic industry is not doing good right now and there are so many issues that need to be addressed if it's going to be fixed.

Also people who say western comics are failing only because comic writers are pandering “sjw” wokeshit dumb. 

Comics are failing for a whole bunch of other reasons. Writers being jackasses are just the tip of the iceberg. I’d say the simple fact thats its literally impossible to read comics about one character without having to do a shit ton of research while looking up reading guides and editorial being dog shit at quality control and being extremely out of touch of what readers want are much bigger problems.

Fuck man the process that dictates what book gets canceled is beyond fucked. Its not issue sales, digital sales don’t matter, its not trade sales its fucking pre orders. Something that new readers have no idea how to do.