#i think theyre all autobots LOL

[absentmoon]

i have crushes on a lot of transformers but i csnt talk about that right now

[wiihtigo]

Your g1->es starbee is so funnie and awesome In your mind how do uou think they got together in g1. Is it pre war. Cross faction romance. I want to go to the world of your transformers fanon

thank youuu^_^ the ES starbee 89 parter is somthn actually cooked up with my friend shayan so i cant took full credit for the vision. but i can take. half credit:)

basically they get together DURING THE WAR for some cross faction drama cuz theyre STUPID theyre so STUPID

(images included for visual aid)

so they start this romeo and juliet sort of relationship where they keep having to meet in secret to hang out

we didnt dwell too much on how this actually came to be bcuz we were thinking of this as like a real episode script for a 3 parter that would never exist and was thinking their g1 relationship would only be shown in flashbacks while it was already well underway BUT in the back of my mind i always thought it was something like: starscream makes the odd offhanded battleground sarcastic sort of flirty comment at bee and bee is like "??" and internally is like Wow thats crazy i never noticed before that starscream isnt just a huge ugly disgusting hideous mean ugly shambling beast, hes all that but also....interested in me?

i think what draws bee to starscream is that hes treated basically as the baby of the autobots, but going along with my favorite bee characterizations (g1 and the g1 mini novel story 'Joyride' where he kidnaps some delinquents and reenacts Christine and is overall really delightfully evil, ES and idw) hes kind of a jackass sometimes and not just the "sweet little bumblebee, friend to all" that everyone sees him as. I think bee finds his relationship with starscream gratifying because its rebellious and forbidden and also starscream treats him so differently from all the autobots. I also think he gets some sick pleasure from feeling morally superior to him and being able to tease and banter with him and having it always be ok no matter how far he goes because its STARSCREAM its impossible to feel sorry for him.

as for what starscream gets out of it: a scheme. clearly. LOL! I think when they first met up it was just out of curiosity and he planned to kidnap him maybe but for some reason didnt. so they kept seeing each other....and starscream was like "ok this is fine, if i build up trust with this scout maybe i can SEDUCE HIM TO OUR SIDE or take him in him as a hostage and get some brownie points w megs or take him apart and use him as scrap metal or SOMETHING"

i think a point of tension in all their little meetups is them simultaneously thinking "hes so easy to manipulate/I CAN CHANGE HIM"

I think starscream tries to pull a "i was born with glass bones and paper skin" on bee every so often but bee is too smart to fall for it lol. (basically what he did to hashtag in ES- he never learns!) but every once in a while during their talks theres..a tiiiiiny glimmer of honesty...something deeper inside past the lies and fakeass traumadumping that keeps bringing bumblebee back for more....

every time bee broaches the topic of joining the autobots it gets shot down and everytime starscream mentions him joining them bee is like "Are you out of your ever loving mind"

eventually things fall apart, as lazerbeak follows starscream out on one of their secret dates and soundwave confronts him at their spot threatens to snitch. Star is like "Wait i was just using him this entire time i actually dont feel anything for him at all but im sooo close to getting him to trust me enough that i can put on a convincing 'i wanna join the autobots' gambit pleeease dont tell megatron"............and then (dramatic sting) bumblebee was there the whole time...and heard the whole thing...........he givse ss a chance ....starscream digs his heels in and is like gah soundwave you just wasted months of work and soundwave is like ok lets just capture him. (lowkey he knows they were serious abt eachother and is using this as a way to make him choose between this bug or the decepticons) so starscream attacks bee and they capture him and in typical g1 fashion the autobots save him before 20 minutes are up but at that point all trust is LOST starbee is OVER theyre BROKEN UP AND STARSCREAM AND BUMBLEBEE HATE EACH OTHER NOW!!!!!!!!! (i think before optimus and crew showed up to the brig to bust him out starscream tried to come and talk to him when no one was looking but they got into a fight and starscream got genuinely angry that bee didnt believe this couldve TOTALLYYY BEEN AN INTENTIONAL GAMBIT...YOU SHOULDVE TRUSTED ME, so he digs his heels in even deeper and is like ITS TRUE I HATE YOU STUPID AUTOBRAT)

the war goes on. fast forward a million years. and they still havent talked extendedly since then. LOL

theres like a million things that happen in the ES portion but i feel like this ask response is long enough and also its not relevant to what you asked

[yogurtlid10000]

Recently I read Transformers: Skybound FINALLy!!! it was fantastic, cant wait for the next issue

Highly recommend reading it tho, its a greattt comic and has super awesome art

Spoilers incoming ofc

Everyone's already talked about this but wow Optimus is portrayed so well!!! I love the dialogue when he describes Cybertron. Also love the pink backgrounds i some panels!! Anyway the interaction with him and Spike feels good and authentic. nice

The fight scenes. SO good to me, I think the art is super dynamic and the way the sound effects are written give great impact. The artist knew what they were doing for sure. I love how they use the comic media to its fullest. With those different shaped slanted box panels, and the smear lines when somethings moving fast idk

I also looove the shading in these comics!! and the linework like on their faces really helps the atmosphere. once again i love the sound effects (especially that big TONG) when starscream gets hit lol it just looks like all the fonts were designed or drawn by the artists yk?? and the variety of camera angles throughout is cool too.

Also love the relationship between optimus and the humans. It feels... better than how other transformers media has handled it (imo). I think its sweet

again great comic art the lighting.. the EVERYTHING idk i just admire this artist a lot (i think his name is daniel warren johnson, although it switches to Jorge Corona later) one thing i love in particular is how the lines are like... a little messy and sometimes a little all over the place-to depict their wear and grime. cool!

Next. Cant talk about skybound without talkingabout THE DECEPTICONS. oh my god. starscream is a spawn of hell. what a bitch. like actually he might be at his worst here hes so diabolical. Anyway even though hes very evil hes still enjoyable to watch because its just idk pure villain. Soundwaves care for his cassettes is sweet as usual. PUNTING Ravage is crazy. cannibalizing Skywarp is crazy. FGELP IDEK WHAT TO SAY except i like the art a lot here as usual its great very comic-y again. SOundwave stays a favorite character.

THIS is an iconic and great moment of skybound, i love it, i lvoe that optimus is willing to use this cannon to further the battle yk also looks badass

Gotta say these are two of my favorite pages throughout the whole series. Love the color and camera angles.

I know starscreams the big bad villain or whatever (for now) but he still makes me laugh

These panels... THE YELLOW BACKGROUND. THE LOUD SOUND EFFECTS. THE POSE. THE "YOU KNOW THE SONG" perfect. 10/10 for me. the artist has got the touch. (theyre referencing The Touch right?)

These three phenomenal moments with devastator. the art.... its just too cool. very dynamic. i like starscream getting squished. Once again the fight scene art DELIVERS.

This too. I love how soundwaves punches feel really weighted. also YAY starscreams getting the beating he deserved

....remember that PUNT to ravage earlier? welp. bye starscream. Things only get worse for the autobots here tho.... because with soundwave as leader the decepticons can actually function and be more deadly....

...when i saw this i knew we were fucked. we are fucked. wave and wave partnership? optimus is screwed. AND MEGATRON HASNT EVEN BEEN ADDED TO THE MIX YET. oh god.

The newest chapter has some gorgeous panels. plus beachcomber!

Local deadly robot scientist discovers whales and the beauty of earth. Big fan of transformers discovering earth stuff.

GUYS. ultra magnus!! hes one of my favorite transformers im so glad hes in this series.....i wish he was in better shape because-WE ARE SUPER FUCKED RATCHETS DEAD. no medic-HOW IS ANYONE GONNA GET REPAIRED.

ok fr what are we gonna do

poor wheeljack.

anyway the issue ends with shockwaves insane evil plan to bring cybertron to earth working so idk whats gonna happen next but im excited to see more.

also jazz this whole comic has been really cool, hes always helpful btu then he like gets beat up or captured but HES ALWAYS POSITIVE and he only speaks in music puns too. ONLY.

ultra magnus save us... idk bro we need a miracle... maybe jetfire will be useful again soon, maybe beachcomber will come in clutch. maybe new autobots will join. if yes, i hope we see springer again hes cool

anyway yes ik i barely talked about any faults of the comic, im trying to be super open and see it with like no bias or comparing it to other comics and stuff. personally i like it a lot. the humans arent even dislikable imo. the characters are nice. one thing is that MAN a lot of characters are dying. kinda sad. no ratchet is crazy. also when will megatron awaken? and how?

[0wldn0]

I could see some stunticon - terran interactions during the time period the stunticons are still figuring out their revenge on megatron. Giving the terrans (or even just one terran) a quick insight into how they actually behave on their own, and maybe even a hint that MOtormasters largely the driving force when it comes to getting revenge on Megatron.

lol I can actually see a scenario where some of the terrans try to go "spy mode" on the stunticons when theyre running around just experiencing Earth with Breakdown. (I like to think they see a drive in movie theatre and stuff lol) Only.. the stunticons arent actually, like, doing anything? They're just kinda.. hanging out?

Anyway Motormaster is aware theyre there the whole time and largely just sorta... lingers close by to make sure they dont attack or anything before revealing she knew they were there the whole time and that they "not that great" at recon.

Before giving them maybe a stern warning to stay out of their way in the future. Their beef is pretty much entirely with megatron and the autobots. The terrans and the Earth as a whole dont really come into it.

AFDHJFD OMGGGG ANON!! YOUR BRAIN!!! I LOVE THIS SO MUCHHH 😭😭😭 I was thinking about ways for the Stunticons and Terrans to interact before the attack on Megatron, but wasn't sure what to do. You absolutely nailed everything with this ask!! Thank you!!

I can see the Autobots warning the Terrans about going out on their own after the Stunticons' arrival. Especially Bee would be so serious about like "You are. NOT. going to leave the house until we figure out what to do. And you will PROMISE me." And they do promise him, with fingers crossed behind their backs. 😩Poor Bee, whenever he thinks he knows how to deal with kids now, they do something else to prove him wrong.

The Terrans would be SO proud of themselves the whole time they're stalking the Stunticons. They think they are being master spies!! Of course like you said, Motormaster is aware of them the whole time. And whenever she hears them whispering among each other like "You're stepping on my servos!!" she would let out an internal sigh. 😭"They aren't being subtle at all..." ((At least they're still subtle enough for the rest of the Stunticons to not notice. Then again I think the Stunticons would be so lost in each others' company and happy to be together again that they forget Autobots even exist for a while.))

Motormaster warning them beforehand was an idea I was thinking about, but never properly decided how to put it into the AU. I think it fits perfectly here!! The Stunticons would decide to go back to the ship to rest, and since Motormaster always keeps a fair distance from them, they don't notice it when she is staying behind. As the Terrans watch the Stunticons leave, Motormaster comes up behind them. Of course the kids take guard immediately, but MM doesn't do anything to attack them, doesn't even go near them. Just says they need to work on their spying skills, making the kids grimace and look around at each other. Then of course, tells them that the Stunticons want nothing to do with them, they're free to keep living their lives. They are not enemies, nor allies. But if they do intervene with the Stunticons' business, then they won't hesitate to harm them while swatting them out of the way.

I can imagine the kids to get a LOT of scolding after accidentally blurting out that they talked with Motormaster. We got Dorothy, Alex, AND Bee giving them a whole lecture. 😭

[joelletwo]

v like i think tfa is. offffffffff the ones i know. the only one to pull off the 'the [segment of] autobots [that we follow as main characters] are radical scrappy underdogs w egalitarian politics' that ppl seem to want tfone to be (???*). and thats. through the plot of. they dont START OUT that way. they come to that position thru having values that keep having friction with and being-reshaped-by-as-a-result the society theyre embedded in. and deciding that society is fucked up. and having all sorts of fucked up beliefs to get rid of and stop acting out themselves. that they dont manage to do in the time allotted by the plot** and the real-world cancellation lol. they end the show still pretty shitty <- AND AINT WE ALL

[dorkicon]

24 & 27 Xaaron

24. Most annoying habit

id say its probably how hes sort of callous with the lives of others (and himself!) when it comes to what he deems the greater good. example of that frm the start of target: 2006 v

(two issues later, xaaron sends the autobot triple changers to go kick impactors ass lmao. girlboss!!)

its really fucking funny to me that his tactics usually just end up working out for everyone in the end anyway. i think he eventually learns the worth of a life though. ha ha. :^3

. although if this is talking about like. physical habits, i think he probably does something like...incessantly tapping his foot or something like that. hes carrying such a carefully maintained façade that all the stress in his body has nowhere to escape to. lol

he also doesnt know how to wipe his feet before tracking mud in the damn house.

27. Their guilty pleasure

annoying impactor. refer again to the above images. ⤴️

(actually i dont know. i think itd be kinda cute if he liked energon sweets or something...but theyre in short supply on cybertron. :^( )

[bigprettygothgf]

unbox thread

box 1: bigbadtoystore pile of loot

actually the one i spent the least amount of money on since all i had to pay for was tax and shipping everything else was already paid for and the last thing i added was thru store credit. been waiting to ship since december

first off: even more diorama setpieces. im worried this company has disbanded because there hasnt been any updates since last year and a lot of their product has sold out on most sites, including everything here. the top box i only got because i happened to catch one that went up after someone presumably cancelled their order, i had to cancel my siege sky lynx reissue to pay for it bc i didnt have another $80 lying around but this was far more important since im not sure ill ever be able to get it again. its already kinda hard to find info on these smaller chinese companies so i guess ill have to wait and see but i hope their line is continuing because i fucking love these sets. anyways

kämpfer to build later, my favorite mobile suit, knowing me this will either get built like tonight or in like 6 months

siege optimus, this has randomly restocked on several sites so its either uncovered old stock or a new production run. either way recently ive been trying to collect a more cohesive g1 autobot collection since i realised compared to my decepticons their situation is kinda (really) dire. earthrise optimus has risen up by a bit on the aftermarket but i think that version looks way worse and vastly preferred this version anyways so idc, if i later decide i *really* need a trailer ill look elsewhere

got the siege jetfire reissue, as prev mentioned i was gonna get the sky lynx reissue too but had to cancel him. will get that later, he seems a lot more abundant than jetfire is

i really love him. only thing i dont like is the hand gimmick where a 3mm port flips out whenever the fingers are closed because theyre loose and cause his guns to just kinda flop around but its whatever. and also the jet mode is gappy and ugly but its hard to make a good toy out of a design that fundamentally was clearly drawn by someone that did not give a shit lol so idc its fine still

g2 ramjet, one of my favorite 90s neon nightmare recolors, clearly the basis for slipstream. got on sale for like $25 back before bbts made the horrible decision to not allow sale items to be added to stack

addon kit for legacy scourge, i still have massive problems with that toy but this will help. a bit. i thought they sent me the wrong kit at first bc the box still showed laser prime and was panicking since this set is sold out now lol but i opened it and sure enough its correct, guess they saw no sense in redoing the box since its just a variant

more neca alien/predator, i do love the avp arcade game aesthetic, sucks that anime dutch is the only dutch you can get now that wont cost you a kidney but what can you do

and finally my most important acquisition

bf1 spam

[scalproie]

Uhhh for the Transformers asks..... ALL OF THEM >:)

🥹👍

• Decepticon, Autobot or Neutral

I like a very specific flavor of neutral which is "picked one side at the beginning of the war but eventually left/deserted/defected" and it often happens to cons so... and also one of my favorite tf trope is when the war is just a part of their history and they end the story united as they once were anyway

• Optimus or Megatron

Megatron lol Optimus may be Dadimus but I'm driving my friend on the autobahn

• Favorite Autobot(s)

Hot Rod, Whirl, Jetfire, Grimlock, Nightbeat, Atomizer, Perceptor by association, Ambulon, Thunderhowl, Wheeljack, Chromedome, Brainstorm, Skids...

• Favorite Decepticon(s)

Soundwave, Shockwave, Tarantulas, Cyclonus, Flatline, Starscream, Waspinator, Skybyte, Thundercracker, Ravage, the Scavengers as a whole...

• Favorite Neutral(s)

Censere🖤 and Quintus Prime💚

• Favorite femme bot(s)

Velocity, Nautica, Firestar, Moonracer, Shadowstriker, Flamewar, Arcee, Swoop

• Favorite show(s)

#CYBERVERSESWEEP BABEYYYYYY

• Favorite comic series

THE WRECKER TRILOGY with mtmte behind having nostalgia points

• Favorite comic company for TF comics (Dreamwave, IDW, Marvel, etc.)

IDW1 wins with nostalgia points

• Favorite human character(s)

Verity, Daniel and The Maltos are my least disliked human characters so they win, one could say I actually like them in fact

• Favorite ship(s)

Soundrod Warrior reporting for duty🫡, Shockwheel, Windstream, Jetbyte, some good ol Megop, cyberverse was the king of good ships actually, then Cywhirl, (poking with a 10ft pole) Taraprowl, Crankcase and his alien bf, also not proud of this one but I saw that one tfp ep like everyone else so KOSS I fucking guess.

• Least favorite ship(s)

Every other soundwave ships, every other hot rod/rodimus ships, you need to understand cyberverse did a miracle with me here, other than that, well ofc most drift ships, some other VERY POPULAR TF SHIPS that I shant name here, uuuh honestly? I enjoy a ship more when its a crossfaction one so if theyre in the same team theres a huge chance that I wont care.

• Least favorite Decepticon(s)

Drift, Starscream, the DJD💜

• Least favorite Autobot(s)

Drift

• Least favorite Neutral(s)

Drift

• Least favorite show(s)

I won't say anything in this one bc I dont want my friends to feel bad

• Least favorite comic series

Dark Cyberton but only the ramondelli sections like please for the love of GOD whats going on

• Least favorite human character(s)

tranformers has yet to introduce a human character that I actually like and love. I do not like almost all human characters other than the ones mentionned above.

• A character you love that no one else seems to

I finally feel normal about Getaway. He was a great autobot antagonist like come on we barely get those. Also Froid is fun.

• A character you hate that no one else seems to

DRIFT

• A pairing you love that no one else seems to

Bro most of my fav ships are from a continuity that most people either havent seen or dont care about. Im not getting anything

• A pairing you hate that no one else seems to

Most confirmed canon ships in mtmte/ll💖 and also arguably the biggest ship in tf period that I shant name here but if you know you know

• Favorite underrated character(s)

Atomizer, Makeshift, Krok, Fulcrum, Spinister, Crankcase, Flatline, Vortex, Chop Shop, Fracture, Terrorsaur, Javelin, Venom

• Favorite class/group(s) (i.e. Seekers, Scavengers, Constructicons, Aerialbots, DJD, etc)

VEHICONS/ERADICONS

• Favorite combiner(s)

My own OC Cannon Fodder, Bruticus, Devastator when Prowl was at the head of the polycule bc it was really funny, Victorion, Volcanicus

• Least favorite combiner(s)

OPTIMUS MAXIMUS

• A bot you want to be best friends with

The frat sons of Optimus

• A bot you’d want as a mentor

Put all the mad scientists in a pit I wanna see who'd get custody of me

• A bot you could consider a mortal enemy

I think If I were a bot or con and Drift was joining our ranks I'd defect to the other side so I could be the one to beat him in battle

• Favorite fandom sparklings (if you know of any)

Not a huge fan of the concept of sparklings in the first place. Not a huge fan of trying to push the human concept of (technically) blood family onto the transformers where the appeal is (to me) how socially similar yet biologically different they are from us

• Favorite siblings

Not a big fan of the confirmed ones so I guess I'll go with the unofficial frat sons of Optimus

• Favorite alt mode(s)

I love unusual flying modes like tfp soundwave's drone one

• What your alt mode would be if you were a Cybertronian

• Favorite toy(s)

I probably have an actual one but Im gonna go with this one bc I got to recently torture my friend with it💖

• Favorite game(s)

WAR FOR CYBERTRON WINS BY DOING NOTHING

• Favorite TF universe(s)

#CYBERVERSESWEEP BABEYYYYYY

• Least favorite TF universe(s)

Forever feeling betrayed by shattered glass bc on concept alone if it were simpler in execution I would love that shit but noOO we cant that it has to be a convoluted mess, so I hate it.

• How did you get into transformers

Saw the first bay movie on tv and was too young to realize it was bad, then saw one or two episodes of animated, then nothing until prime which I saw from ep1 as a wee teen and then it was over for me.

• Would you recommend it to others

Yesn't💖

• What would you do if the Autobots landed on Earth right now and asked for your help

Wouldnt even be bothered by it with the type of shit I got going on. Hell yeah I'll play ambassador and unlike most humans in these shows I'd be good at it.

[cazerole]

ok so here is an incredibly messy and not very well researched guide i made for my friend about how i would personally recommend reading the Transformers IDW Comics (widely regarded as the best run of the comics, and beloved by pretty much every fan)

(best features include: gay robots, lesbian robots, trans robots, love, everlasting friendship, space hijinks, political intrigue undercut by thousands/millions of years of history and war and hatred, also more gayness.)

caz's quick start guide to the transformers comics (IDW):

Start with reading (The Death of Optimus Prime) its a great jumping off point for the most popular series (more than meets the eye and lost light) because it kicks off the start of this "phase" of the idw comics run. it starts with the end of the autobot/decepticon war (after they leave earth. see why i like the comics? [my personal belief is that transformers is more interesting sans humanity lol]

Then read Transformers: More than Meets the Eye : This is the first half of the story and it concludes with: Transformers: Lost Light And that makes up the full series that i've read.

I actually haven't gotten around to reading the companion/sister series to this run which is called Transformers: Robots in Disguise (which is part 1) and Transformers: Optimus Prime (the nomenclature of this franchise is hella confusing i know) (which is part 2)

note: the part 1 and part 2 of the sister series runs parallel to the mtmte (more than meets the eye, aka part 1) and ll (lost light, aka part 2) story, so they have semi-frequent crossovers, but its 100% possible to just read one and not the other

AND

there are other one off comics/ mini series in IDW that ae also awesome and 100% worth reading: Spotlight: Blurr (this is my fav, but all of the spotlights are awesome imo) (megatron origin story, which is a pretty great version of the whole megatron origins, and you can def see how it has continued to influence TF:1) Sins of the Wreckers (i see ppl talk about this one a lot, but i've actually never read it…)

AND LASTLY

the IDW run ended a few years ago now (jesus almost 6 years or something???) and the publisher's contract was up with hasbro, SO all the hasbro franchises then got picked up by Image Comics (including Transformers, GI Joe, Cobra Cai [i think, lol])

and its A LOT to catch up on, so understandably you might be more interested in starting anew with this new run by Image, which really requires no prior knowledge of ANYTHING.

This new era of Transformers comics is a part of a (thankfully very small) group of semi-interconnected stories called The Energon Universe (they haven't really gotten any better at naming things)

You can read this new run (brilliantly named "Transformers") HERE

(ok that was a lie it wasn't the last thing)

Also part of this new universe theyre making is a completely original series that features cameos of several transformers (but is still very much a standalone) called VOID RIVALS and its a wonderful read, Kirkman (who also wrote Invincible) has written what is basically a fanfiction within the Transformers Universe but features all original characters (barring some pretty big cameos)

and yes for shows, i LOVE LOVE LOVE transformers Prime, ive heard really great things about transformers: animated, and transformers: cyberverse wildly varies in quality but its a fun casual watch.

If I want to get into transformers where should I start? I’ve seen the bumblebee movie and few of early Michael bay movies, but that’s it.

with regret i'm not the best person to ask about this as i haven't actually consumed that much transformers media. i can tell you that Transformers One is what ultimately hooked me on the franchise.

you COULD also just start with G1 (thats what i'm currently doing) but that does require a degree of Commitment haha

will put this one out there in case any followers have animated show or comics recommendations!!

[pastelpaperplanes]

Big Ol’ Ask Post

Crusade goes by them/them!

And let’s see—I don’t think that Optimus would ever let a medic touch his baby with intent to reformat them, I think he’d sooner rather dive into a smelter than even let Crusade know that the Council planned to do that to them.

But for What If’s sake, sure here’s what their reformat would look like:

Crusade would have been the equiv. of 16 to receive these changes. looks a little too much like a wind-up toy soldier. it’s creepy.

Same as Op, Megs would absolutely recognize or at least suspect something is up with Crusade—but in this timeline, their meeting would not be on the battlefield—rather they’d meet when their Carrier threw them through a space bridge into Megatron’s arms before blowing the whole bridge to hell.

Crusade as you can imagine in this timeline is even more blindsided than our OG Crusade, you can imagine the fear, denial, and betrayal they’d feel in the rushed time between when a frantic Optimus told them they had to run and never come back. oh and the notorious Warlord you were told to never ask about—he’s your Sire. you have to trust him now

QUEUE THE DRAMA

HA no. I don’t have an ao3 for writing, just one I use to keep tabs and give kudos and cry over other’s fics.

I don’t have enough confidence in writing to consider a fic! I like playing off of scenarios, writing dialogue/backstories rather than considering piecing a whole ass fic lmfao. One day I may try! But art is my trade for now ;D

the best I can offer you is to read all I have on Crusade would be to check out the crusade and cybertron’s legacy au on my tumblr! There I have all the asks/art and lore for them, have fun!

HAHOUUHOHUNGHG NooOOOOOPE.

‘who needs another sparkling when they have me? I’m perfect ✨’

that they are for sure. but they know they’d get stuck w babysitting duties for the rest of their life, plus (after I figure out the whole fiasco that is the true reunions) theres tentaive trust just beginning to form between their Creators, another sparkling to worry about my blow up in their faces,,or not. we just don’t know.

but man this ask came soon. at the rate we’re going Crusade may not get a CHOICE

hhh I don’t know! so the way I have the CLau laid out—it takes place roughly 20 years after The Trial of Megatron. A little soon for other member of say Team Prime to settle down, hell their careers have just begun, that and if there were other Sparklings in the AU born from our favs, they’d be itty bitties.

I’m thinking it may be so much more fun to have Wormholes Gone Horribly Wrong and Rips In the Timelines—queue the clashing of AUs so Crusade can meet the lot! lol I can’t wait for Crusade to meet the SAR team I’m practically shaking

yeah

sweet

among

other things,,,

their child*

and yes it was not fair at all, Megatron on will realize this eventually—but the level of fear this reveal invoked trumped over rationale—which is what exactly what happened when Megatron realized just how vulnerable this sparkling would be should the Autobots even remotely know of it’s existence.

The Autobots would have every motivation to simply take the information from Optimus by force should he have told him of the sparkling. Megatron’s interests lied in protecting all parties. He made a tough choice as a Carrier, but an even harder one as a former lover.

HAHAHA

YES THEY WOULD FOR THAT EXACT REASON. The rhymes, the quips during battle—or Crusade is a little bit too like their Sire when they’re in the zone. ‘an angry opponent makes for a stupid one’ like Sire like Sparkling

But after A Little Too Familiar, Megatron didn’t let them near any active field so long as he could help it. Too risky, the Magnus would suspect more than anyone, Crusade was compromised and most of all nearly taken down, or worse taken. But Crusade was stubborn—they found a way—more on that eventually aksjsksjd

They didn’t get to meet Team Prime on any field, now on a base or in a brig,,,,hmm we will see ;3

No one. There hasn’t been a carried sparkling in the ranks in Primus knows how long, their existence alone was an anomaly—and one that put Megs through the ringer emotionally ofc but physically as well

there was no How To book (easily accessible to the Cons at least) so everything Megs performed was out of instinct alone,,with some assistance from Shockwave of course—theyre the most versed in watching over ‘little things’ and most of all what could possibly be ‘Autobotish behavior’ and how to care for one (that doesn’t exist you dumb FUCK it’s just a Cybertronian BABY)

Carrier protocols are extremely powerful on a bot, some go soft, some go on the attack, some have a mix of both—either way the base line coding just screams protect, which is exactly what Megatron did for whatever reason Crusade should need him for.

Whether it was by being a warm perch to nap on, giving reassurance, providing a firm hand on their shoulder when supporting them through announcing their new chosen titles, showing them the proper way to fight, or simply just letting them know that they can do no wrong because they are his and they are perfect, Megs was there to protect them—and he did his job well.

[thewadapan]

in the grim darkness of the far future there is only cred

(This is a complete archive of the @Ask_Triton Twitter account created for April Fools’ Day 2020, based on my previous comics “PASS” and “The Beast Within (My Pants)”. A behind-the-scenes commentary is included at the end of the post.)

triton ebooks

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

autobot code sparknotes

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

wikihow cred acquisition

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

toyhax insignia stickerfixer

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

wait *hit i thought this was google

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

hi. my names triton. and the great war was the best thing to ever happen to me

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

rodimus finally convinced springer to let me join the rockers. rock and roll

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

springer is giving each of us a special nickname. were supposed to call him springax 219.31 alpha. apparently im now tritus 717.25 beta. wonder what he meant by that

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

shut the *uck up road buster

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

roadbuster be quiet challenge

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

triton can have little a cred. as a treat

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

hey whirl do you wanna play im a spy? wait *hit

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

if anyone ever finds out im a decepticon im gonna get *ucking shot. thats cancel culture baby

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

no cred? no thanks

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

boy am i glad impactor ate *hit and died. that guy was not *ucking around

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

YEAH uh huh YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS green and yellow green and yellow green and yellow green and yellow

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

no whirl this is not a poncho you *ucking cyclops

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

starting to think the special rockers assignment springer gave me and whirl was just a clever ruse to get rid of us. like theres no way all of the empties we just shot were decepticon moles

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

when you triton your best but you don't succeed

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

whirl no offense but theres absolutely no way im hitching a ride with you back to autobase. no its not because my arms are too weak to hang onto your landing skids for that long. no see this is your problem youre just *ucking annoying end of story

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

got that sinking feeling again lads. wait no i just forgot to transform before jumping into the sea

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

sky of blue im a green / and a yellow submarine

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

10,000 hics under the sea

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

sometimes underwater. always undercover

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

yeah springer can drive and he can fly but he sure can't bob around the sewers like a piece of *hit can he

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 1, 2020

felt cred might delete later picture cred: @ikkadkarf pic.twitter.com/cQKer3asaW

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 2, 2020

ultra magnus just held a door open for me. his magnusnimity knows no bounds

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 3, 2020

if you think you know where im going with this tweet your wrong but what you were thinking of is probably more good

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 3, 2020

3000 kilograms? yeah thats me. triton

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 3, 2020

you wear a mouthplate just to hide your face and you wear it because you think your cooler than me

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 3, 2020

met scattorshot in the hallway. he was like "i never heard of an autobot who was a submarine" and i said "im not" and he said "what" and i said "a submarine". clutch save

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 3, 2020

springer just got back from patrol and says hes finally killed all the decepticons. good thing he doesnt remember that time we got absolutely spannered at maccadams and i got up on a table and start shouting im a decepticon

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 3, 2020

yeah weve all heard of the last autobot but what about the last decepticon. just something to think about

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 3, 2020

actually this reminds me of a funny story about how the word spannered came about. it all started when straxus decided he wanted to cross this body of water. i said id carry him but he just gave me this weird look and said he had a better idea

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 3, 2020

thinking of getting a massive flame painted on my chest. just kidding who do you think i am clodimus prime

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 3, 2020

not MY prime

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 3, 2020

stop talking about me behind my back. im not talking to anyone in particular. dreadwind

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 4, 2020

yeah im going through a bit of a phase right now. phase six

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 4, 2020

its hard being a double agent. its hard and nobody understands

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 4, 2020

sometimes i wish i was a car robot

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 4, 2020

just got tackled by sandstorm. had to scream at him to get him to move his rotor away from my throat. thought it was a funny hat not a deadly weapon. most terrifying experience of my life aside from when computron stepped on me

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 4, 2020

im horny

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 4, 2020

bots with no rights: horny people and decepticons. lucky for me two no rights makes a right

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 4, 2020

i have discovered the secret of combiner technology. step one. stand up straight with your shoulders back

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 4, 2020

why wont afterburner combine with me

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 4, 2020

springer is *ucking ugly. who even paints themselves green and yellow. piss off

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

im like dropping hints that im a double agent

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

TR-8N

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

inside you there are two faction symbols. one is an autobot the other is a decepticon. you are triton

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

not faction-swapper! dont like that term. freelance double agent. for certain social remuneration of course

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

hnng megatron im trying to sneak around but the clank of my *ss cheeks keeps alerting springer

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

you think cred is your ally? i was born in cred. molded by it

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

springer put me in the inhibitor harness again

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

sick of being a loser nobody. wish my life could have an issue 0 where i was actually the man of iron all along

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

it isnt easy being green

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

this planet isnt relevant to my interests anymore

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

better dead than no cred

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

just called roadbuster an idiot. back on top

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

im springers oldest enemy but he hates roadbuster more

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

Yo waspinator, is everything allrignt??

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

its like people dont even remember my name

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

sometimes its hard to reconcile the continuity error of my life with the established canon of me being a huge *ucking ledge

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 5, 2020

im the first in a new generation of transformers. introducing the credacons

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 6, 2020

tritons in disguise

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 6, 2020

more ton meets the tri

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 6, 2020

if i hit broadside on the back of the neck hard enough either hell turn back into a boat or just *ucking die. either way i win

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 6, 2020

join the TCC today. Triton's Cred Club

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 6, 2020

got cred?

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 6, 2020

just found out about the beast. damn that *hit sucks

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 6, 2020

if i was there with the beast i wouldve stopped it. rip to megatron but im different

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 6, 2020

lol i remember telling megatron i wouldnt go native but look at me now not a single capital letter in sight

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 6, 2020

pictured: me and the other great decepticon leaders beat the *hit out of rodimus prime pic.twitter.com/6ShZrPgV8l

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 6, 2020

for *ucks sake lightspeed stop trying to correct my grammar you mechanical throwback. i know how to use *ucking apostrophe's

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 7, 2020

mucho cred

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 7, 2020

mucho mucho man

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 7, 2020

nosecone keeps asking me to follow his account. at drill or something. what a plonker

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 7, 2020

desperately trying to think of a funny joke to make ultra magnus and the rest of the gang laugh

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 7, 2020

Leader Class Triton With Triton Master Triton

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 7, 2020

excuse me roadbuster who said youre allowed to laugh at my jokes

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 7, 2020

hate how i always have to be triton. sometimes i want to be tritoff

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 7, 2020

topspin and twin twist should legally change their names to blue and white. wait *hit theyre both blue and white *uck *hit i didnt think this through

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 7, 2020

richard starkings stop sending me to voicemail

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 7, 2020

i am triton. the last living decepticon and incognito espionage specialist amongst the autobots. ask me anything

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 8, 2020

Anything?

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 8, 2020

pass

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 8, 2020

hey nosecone ive got a favour to ask. so ive been thinking of getting an upgrade lately. basically what i want is to be able to fly away from this place by means of large quantities of gas expelled at high velocity from my rear. now allow me to explain how you fit into all this https://t.co/Mt9ELmLNLU

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 8, 2020

we get it. you strafe

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 8, 2020

had the nightmare again. the one where springer figures out im a decepticon. i try to use the waterways as an escape route but when i get there broadsides fat *ss is blocking the estuary pic.twitter.com/XMZbkZsYs0

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 9, 2020

squad goals pic.twitter.com/PkI92HCHCn

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 9, 2020

in my dreams im always fighting my new friends. everyones super ripped. oh and impactor is there for no reason pic.twitter.com/Uzl9asiZCY

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 9, 2020

when im staring down the barrel of the gun im *hitting myself and i always thought that was stupid because if you die in the dream then you dont die in real life you just wake up. but now im wondering if thats what im afraid of. having to go back to pretending pic.twitter.com/fEZbfu81nf

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 9, 2020

primus forgive me but its time to go back to the old me pic.twitter.com/hh1vXZO5WS

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 9, 2020

Triton: A Transformers Story

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

few can remember how the war started. fewer still can now make the distinction between good and evil. but everyone will remember this particular day. because this is the day the war ended

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

are you tired of being nice. dont you just want to go *hit

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

all I wanna do is BANG BANG BANG BANG and a *transformation noises* and BRAAAAP

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

first you fard. then you *hid. then

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

cybertronian vandal

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

uh oh! stinky!

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

just saw blurr speedwalking to rodimus primes office at mach 2

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

you are about to enter the courtroom of judge rodimus prime. the bots are real. the cases are real. the rulings are final. this is judge roddy

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

Autobot Leader Gives Road Buster 11,453 Stern Looks

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

first one to talk gets to stay on my planet

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

getting flashbacks to that time unicron attacked. he picked me up between his fingers and vored me. i barely escaped with my cred

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

not on your life. its a fake. total fiction. it didnt happen. not fact. im innocent

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

it could be you. it could be me. it could eVEN BE

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

GHAA!

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

my Rash Action has led to a Fatal Consequence

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

i used to think that my life was a tragic. but now i realise. its a comic

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

now i understand. he who smelt it dealt it. i have been a smelting fool

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

ultra magnus i dont feel so good

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

dont reveal the shield. i said dont

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

the decepticon high command on cybertron have judged this account to be anti-decepticon and the firecons have been despatched to Earth to incinerate all copies. in order to thwart the firecons make sure you fill out your credit card details below

— Ask_Triton (@Ask_Triton)

April 10, 2020

Notes

The Ask Triton tagline, “in the grim darkness of the far future there is only cred”, is the tagline of Warhammer 40,000 except it replaces the word “war” with “cred”.

I’ve got no idea when I started working on this project, except that it was many months ago. I opened a note on my phone and wrote the words “triton ebooks”, and thereafter whenever I thought of a Funny Joke™ I’d crack that bad boy open and slap it in there. I wasn’t entirely sure when or how I’d ever release the material; I could copy my direct inspiration for the account, @prowl_ebooks (and its own ancestor, @Horse_ebooks), by making a bot that’d periodically post a random tweet, but felt like there was some degree of serialisation in what I was writing. Despite the content of its tweets frequently being utterly absurd, and completely at odds with its source material, the genius of prowl_ebooks is that it manages to paint a picture that somehow feels like an accurate reflection of IDW Prowl’s canon self. Seriously, I’ve seen many of the tweets this bot pumps out countless times, and they still crack me up. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live up to that, but I had other tricks up my sleeves.

The Autobot Code originated in Simon Furman’s comics for Marvel UK and featured more prominently in James Roberts’ stories for IDW Publishing, where it was presented as a laborious tome of rules. SparkNotes, meanwhile, is a well-known site hosting CliffsNotes-like study guides used by students primarily to avoid having to read assigned literature in full.

wikiHow is an infamous encyclopedia devoted to tutorials, which often feature illustrations using a distinct style and deliver questionable advice.

Toyhax is the company that produces “Reprolabels”, effectively stickers for Transformers figures designed to replace vintage labels or to enhance newer figures (though I personally find the results to be pretty questionable). At one point they sold a product called a “Stickerfixer”, which I think was basically just a pen of glue? Anyway, Triton presumably wants one to (re)apply his fake Autobot insignia.

Google is a popular search engine for the world wide web. Its inclusion on the account was last-minute, and I was uncertain that Triton would actually have any understanding of what Google was, but figured if he was already using Twitter I could stand to show exactly how far I was planning to stretch disbelief from the outset, and that it’d work to explicitly tie together the intent behind the opening salvo of tweets.

Though I couldn’t be bothered tracking down an exact quote, “hi. my names triton. and the great war was the best thing to ever happen to me” was a reference to narration from Netflix’s Daybreak zombie-apocalypse series. I wrote a single paragraph about that series, specifically focused on that line, in an article which probably requires far more context than I’m able to give here. Of course, the general phrasing there is a common enough trope that this probably serves as a reference to any number of things. The halting style of dialogue used in Ask Triton, where full stops are the only form of punctuation, was a product of necessity, but it’s significantly at odds with the run-on-sentences used in the original comic. By my count, this is the fourth piece of media set in the “PASS” universe, but there’s no singular consistent presentation of that canon; every time I’ve revisited it, I’ve extrapolated and reinterpreted aspects of what has come before in ways which simply don’t match the original intent of the work. It’s kinda like the Star Wars expanded universe, where throwaway beats of the source material spin out into entire stories, ones that obviously don’t match the intent of what those beats were implying in the first place.

The Wreckers’ catchphrase is “wreck and rule”. I can’t find the exact tweet, but somebody recently realised that it’s supposed to be a play on “rock and roll”, which blew the minds of me and a whole bunch of other people. Hence, “the rockers”.

Ask Vector Prime explored the concept of “universal streams”, categorised by the multiverse-observing TransTechs using arcane identifiers. Springer’s nicknames are plays on these, substituting “Primax” for “Springax” and “Malgus”/”Iocus” for “Tritus” and encoding the dates 25/07/2017 (the original release date for “PASS” on Summer Meme Sundae) and 31/02/2019 (the date of its rerelease here) as 717.25 and 219.31. Springer uses the last part of the identifier, a Greek letter, to label himself as an “alpha” and Triton as a “beta”.

I’m not sure where it originated, but “x be quiet challenge” is a phrase which people sometimes use on Twitter when they effectively want someone to stop posting for once. I think I was probably introduced to the phrase when someone addressed it to Makin, then-owner of the Homestuck Discord server? Suffice to say, that probably informed its usage against Roadbuster.

“Cats Can Have Little a Salami [...] as a treat” was a Google preview of the article “Can My Cat Eat Salami?”, which became a snowclone on Discord and Twitter.

“I spy” is a famous guessing game where someone picks an object they can see and answers yes/no questions about it until another person is able to identify it. I have not played this game in a very long time.

“Cancel Culture” is a phrase used unironically mostly by assholes, in reference to the practice of “cancelling” problematic individuals in the court of public opinion on social media. I wish somebody had cancelled Triton.

For the life of me I cannot discern what “no cred? no thanks” is a specific reference to - there are probably many words you can substitute “cred” for in order to obtain an existing joke.

The phrase “eat shit and die” is one I enjoy using way too much, mostly in contexts where it’s absolutely unwarranted. What’s that? Someone said hi to me in the street and I didn’t say hi back in time? Well, guess I’ll eat shit and die then.

“YEAH uh huh YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS green and yellow green and yellow green and yellow green and yellow” is just Wiz Khalifa’s “Black And Yellow” only with green instead of black. Somehow I mostly associate this song with its usage in The Lego Batman Movie.

A poncho is a loose bit of fabric worn over the torso. Speaking of Lego, I was probably thinking of the poncho worn by this Mariachi minifigure, which resembles the triangular shape of Triton’s armour more closely than an actual real-world poncho. A cyclops is a one-eyed giant from Greek myth. Look, I know I don’t need to tell you all these things, but I wanted to really drive home just how pointless this venture is.

The “special rockers assignment” was a last-minute addition to the account; the tweets were posted in a completely different order to the one I’d written them in, with many thematically-related tweets collected into threads, and I needed a way to tie together several of the early ones into a clear narrative throughline. The Empties are fuel-starved unaligned Cybertronians from the Marvel comics. I considered having Springer’s ruse claim that they were all Robosmashed, but figured the cartoon reference was kind of at odds with the canon’s source material, and that it’s somehow funnier if Triton legitimately believes all of these robots are incognito like he is for just long enough to murder them all.

I think the goof of Triton substituting his name for vaguely-similar-sounding words references a habit developed by Chang in Community. “When you try your best but you don’t succeed” is the much-memed opening line to Coldplay’s “Fix You”. When I went to get that link, I realised that I do actually quite unironically like that song. Could it be wooorse...

Again, I wanted to make explicit that Triton was returning to Autobase, where the rest of the story would unfold, so Triton refuses Whirl’s help and uses his submarine mode to return home.

Triton’s alt-mode was suggested to be a submarine by Dreadwind in the letters’ pages of the Marvel UK comic. Triton reacts to this piece of Word of God in a later tweet.

“sky of blue im a green / and a yellow submarine” is a rewrite of the lyric “sky of blue sea of green / in our yellow submarine”, from The Beatles’ famous song “Yellow Submarine”.

I substituted the Cybertronian unit of length “hics” (roughly kilometers) into the title of Jules Vernes’ story 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which I only now realise took place 20,000 leagues under the sea, and not 10,000. Perhaps if it wasn’t for my crippling fear of sea monsters, I would be better acquainted with this story. Wait, shit, I told myself I was going to break my crippling tendency to mention my crippling fear of sea monsters!

A common simile used in Homestuck is “like a piece of shit”, hence its inclusion.

The profile picture of the account was cropped from a piece of artwork drawn by my friend Ikkad, who also created the artwork that inspired/was-inspired-by my short story Dendrochronology. He posted it in the TFWiki Discord server on 07/03/2020, and it immediately galvanised me to prepare to launch Ask Triton, but the subsequent mass outbreak of Coronavirus led me to decide to delay the launch until April Fools’ Day. I coloured Ikkad’s lineart using colours taken directly from the scans of the comic, which didn’t result in a perfect match to how it looks in print but is close enough. At Ikkad’s suggestion, I replaced my first attempt using flat shading with a softer paint-like style that better matched the tone of the original comic. For the profile picture, I flipped the image so Triton faces the text of the tweets; I used a version with a blue background (flipped again to accommodate a status indicator) on Discord as a way of promoting the account. I’ve yet to decide whether I want to keep it on a more permanent basis. “felt cute might delete later” (the exact wording varies but I like this one best) is a snowclone usually posted alongside terrible selfies, or alongside bad pictures of fictional characters. Naturally, the tweet including the full artwork wasn’t planned in advance.

Substituting Ultra Magnus’ name into “magnanimity” is another terrible Chang-esque name pun. Ultra Magnus’ old AtoZ profile describes him using the phrase “top-notch geezer”, which was prominently used in a sketch show made by a friend of mine.

The line “if you think you know where im going with this tweet your wrong but what you were thinking of is probably more good” is a rewrite of the final narration box from “PASS”, which reads “believe me if you think you know where im going with this your wrong but what you were thinking of is probably better”. The joke is that you expect the tweet to end with “better”, and not “more good”, except I’m sure literally nobody who saw it remembered the narration box, because why would they? See, the thing about Ask Triton - arguably the crux of the whole thing - is that it exists in a fictional world where "PASS” and its related materials form the whole basis of an entire fandom, one which presumably documents its deep lore in the same exacting detail as we do, and for which the account’s jokes are actually funny.

A “ton” is a unit of weight which varies somewhat but can be basically used as a shorthand for 1,000 kilograms. Hence a “triton” is 3,000 kg. I am very smort.

“you wear a mouthplate just to hide your face and you wear it because you think your cooler than me“ is a minor rewrite of the lines “You got designer shades / Just to hide your face / And you wear them around like you're cooler than me” from Mike Posner’s “Cooler Than Me”. As you can tell, I mixed up the words slightly, moving “wear” forward and using bits of the line “And it's probably 'cause you think you're cooler than me.” from later in the verse. On the one hand, this goes to show that I should’ve done more research (indeed, there were a fair few other misquote flubs like this which I did correct in time for publication), but at the same time for crying out loud why is this paragraph not over yet.

Triton’s implied to be afraid of Scattorshot, whose AtoZ profile described him as the kind of person that says hi by sneaking up behind you and putting you in a headlock - if you’re thinking that’s a little specific, yes, I have had not one, but two friends like this. The word “clutch” is used by Gamers when they pull off something precise; a “clutch save” is usually a difficult last-second move made to win a game.

Maccadam’s Old Oil House, or just Maccadam’s, is the name of a bar on Cybertron which first appeared in Furman’s “Target: 2006″ Marvel UK comic storyline, which introduced the Wreckers. It’s risen to prominence in the 2000s, appearing in multiple stories, with Maccadam himself recently being explicitly revealed to be one of the legendary “thirteen original Transformers”. The tweet which mentions it was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing I wrote to better set up the one which follows it in the thread.

“The Last Autobot” is another some-time member of the Thirteen, introduced by Furman towards the back end of his Marvel run. The phrase “the last Decepticon” crops up multiple times in the original text of “Peace”. The phrase “just something to think about” comes from SCP-2293, which I know entirely due to the fact that my friend jenny in the TFWiki Discord quotes it incessantly. She was the one who asked me to make this commentary, which absolves me of responsibility entirely, because I totally wasn’t already planning on writing it. The form of this very commentary is inspired by her annotations for Ask Vector Prime and TFWiki’s notes sections, which I think plays nicely into the idea of an alternate universe where “PASS” is an official piece of source material and Ask Triton is funny. I also like being able to mix these kinds of thematic tangents into banal observations about bad memes with wild abandon.

Again on a whim, I chose to make explicit the inspiration behind my use of the word “spannered”, an oblique reference to the US comic “The Bridge to Nowhere!”, which revealed that Decepticon Lord High Governor Straxus’ new space bridge was in fact constructed using the still-living body of the unaligned scientist Spanner. This was probably the closest the account ever got to genuine stream-of-consciousness.

Rodimus Prime expresses some level of indecision over his paint job in PASS, which Triton mocks by pretending he’s considering getting a flame painted on his chest. There’s a line in Rodimus Prime’s AtoZ profile which is interesting in light of what we learn in “The Beast Within (My Pants)”, where he’s described as “the oldest AUTOBOT”. I guess he’s the oldest in terms of age, but Optimus Prime’s the real leader? Weird.

#NotMyPresident was a hashtag that got circulated on social media following the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Wow, I regret this sentence. Wow, I regret this project.

Speaking of problematic jokes, the line “yeah im going through a bit of a phase right now” refers to “It’s not a phase mom”, a phrase used to mock kids making life choices perceived as questionable. It’s combined with a reference to Furman’s six-phase “infiltration protocol” from his IDW comics; Phase Six sees the complete annihilation of whatever planet the Decepticons are sneaking around on.

“its hard / being a kid and growwing up / its hard and nobody understands” is a line from Homestuck spoken by Eridan to Kanaya, which gets called back to multiple times later in the comic. This is another case of me misremembering a quote, as I forgot the “and growing up” part. I previously namedropped Eridan in the commentary for “The Beast Within (My Pants)” as the inspiration for my version of Skids, but I think it’s safe to say that he informed my versions of Triton and Grimlock to some subconscious extent.

Car Robots was the Japanese name for the 2001 series Robots in Disguise. The phrase “car robots” itself was used in the opening narration for “PASS”, hence its inclusion.

Triton describes Sandstorm’s propeller as a “funny hat”, in reference to propeller hats. Sandstorm’s characterisation in his AtoZ bio was a play on his The Punisher-like murder spree in IDW’s comics. The incident Triton recalls about getting stepped on by Computron is phrased in reference to this I-guess-meme (the lines between sincerity and insincerity increasingly blurrr) where people say they want their crush to “step on” them. The crude mapping between combiners and relationships began in “The Beast Within (My Pants)”, which slotted surprisingly well into the “restraining order” gag from Computeron’s AtoZ bio (written to make up the numbers for a neat grid of sixteen), and I flipflop between thinking it’s the funniest shit or just thinking it’s legitimately fucking awful, but canon is canon.

Sadly, this theme doesn’t stop there. “im horny” is a terrible innuendo referring to Triton’s horned helmet.

Triton tortures the “two wrongs make a right” fallacy by mixing it with the common refrain “horny people have no rights” (which perhaps originated in this tweet but for fuck’s sake I’m not wasting any more time looking this up).

This continues when Triton claims to have “discovered the secret of combiner technology”, which is a phrase that seems to crop up in various places in 21st-century Transformers comics. It turns out that Triton’s solution is the first of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, “Stand up straight with your shoulders back” (ugh, thanks, Spotify Discover Weekly). Jordan Peterson’s this asshole with a rabid following of straight white guys; my impression is that he uses a lot of overwrought pseudoscience to justify his ideology, but I personally think his twelve rules are actually pretty solid, which seems to be a perfect example of wrong-working-right-answer.

Afterburner’s AtoZ profile written as backmatter to “PASS” described him as “Cybertron’s bicycle”; Triton wonders why he refuses to combine with him and god this is fucking stupid.

“I’m like dropping hints that I’m single / I’m single” is a pair of screenshots from one of Kim Kardashian’s shows, which frequently see the word “single” substituted for various other things.

“TR-8R” was a nickname given to a Stormtrooper that appeared in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, famous for his funny weapon and his loud accusation that one of the protagonists, Finn, is a “traitor!”

“Inside You There Are Two Wolves / One Is Gay / The Other Is Gay / You Are Gay” (the exact wording and concepts used vary) is a snowclone most commonly associated with various images of a black wolf and a white wolf.

“Not bounty-hunter, yes? Don’t like that term, understand? Freelance peacekeeping agent, yes? For certain financial remuneration, of course” is dialogue spoken by Simon Furman’s character Death’s Head in his sort-of-debut appearance in issue #113 of the Marvel UK comics.

“Hrrrrnnggh Colonel, I’m trying to sneak around but I’m dummy thicc and the clap from my ass cheeks keeps alerting the guards” was a tweet written from the perspective of Metal Gear character Solid Snake which turned into a snowclone and got so big that the actual voice actor for the character did a dramatic reading of it.

“Oh, you think darkness is your ally. You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, moulded by it” is famous dialogue from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises.

The “inhibitor harness” is a piece of technology namedropped in Nick Roche’s Last Stand of the Wreckers, used to restrain Triton and the rest of Squadron X. It was itself a reference to the inhibitor claw and inhibitor band from Furman’s Marvel UK comics; I chose “harness” both because of its explicit connection to Triton and because it’s a funnier word.

In Simon Furman’s Transformers ‘84 issue #0, a prequel to the Marvel comics, he made a number of retcons, one of which revealed the identity of iconic Marvel UK character “the man of iron” to really have been the character Fastlane, who wasn’t conceptualised until 1987.

“It’s not easy being green” is a famous song sung by Kermit the Frog.

“This chat isn't relevant to my interests any more.” is the rare quote used in Ask Triton which comes from a completely arcane source, being the punchline to an anecdote someone told in the Worth the Candle Discord server. The channel where it was told is currently archived and inaccessible, but it centered around somebody leaving a group chat of friends in spectacular fashion, something I thought was apt considering the events of “PASS”. Anyway, I guess this is my excuse to tell you to go read Worth the Candle, as is obligatory of me.

“Back on top” is the punchline to a series of Limmy’s Show sketches.

One of the handful of replies received by Ask Triton over the course of its run simply read “Yo waspinator, is everything allrignt??” Suffice to say I was pretty baffled by this, as I’ve legitimately got no idea at what point my own profile picture got presented to that person, or whether they just genuinely mistook Triton for him.

The Maximals and Predacons of Beast Wars have occasionally been described as a “new generation” of Transformers, though I didn’t track down any kind of exact quote.

Robots in Disguise and More than Meets the Eye were the two famous ongoings launched by IDW Publishing in 2012, written by John Barber and James Roberts respectively.

One minor plot beat in More than Meets the Eye revolved around the notion that if you hit a Cybertronian in a certain spot, they’ll transform involuntarily. Broadside was noted in his “PASS” AtoZ profile to have transformed very rarely, causing great inconvenience in the process.

“TCC” is an acronym for “Transformers Collectors’ Club”, a fan club run by Fun Publications from 2005-2016, the logo for which was frequently placed on Transformers packaging.

“Just found out about racism...damn that shit sucks...” was a Tweet that turned into a snowclone.

The same goes for “if i was at chernobyl i wouldv stopped it / rip to ur gradma but im different”.

The Decepticons (and Roadbuster (hmm)) all speak with proper punctuation and capital letters; a minor retcon implies that Triton used to speak this way but lost his “accent” over time.

The image of the Decepticons surrounding Highbrow and Rodimus Prime is Dan Reed and John Burns’ inside cover artwork for the 1989 Annual which included Peace; the characters in the image are drawn from that book’s comic strips. I like the way Triton implies that frikkin’ Apeface, Snapdragon and Mindwipe are “great Decepticon leaders”.

Lightspeed's AtoZ bio (like Nosecone’s) is based around an inversion of the Technobots’ typical characterisation as being generally intelligent, claiming “A broken clock is right twice a day. LIGHTSPEED wishes he could be that clock.” This implies that he’s wrong about everything, but I thought it’d be funny if the one time we hear about him doing anything he’s actually right, i.e. he’s right once a day.

As mentioned in the commentary for “PASS”, “mucho cred” is a meme phrase amongst readers of the superhero web serial Worm, which I strongly recommend but not as much as Worth the Candle.

“Macho macho man” is a phrase from “Macho Man” by Village People, which I only now realise actually already included the phrase “mucho” a bunch. I only wrote the tweet referencing it off-the-cuff, thinking the phrase “mucho cred” wasn’t quite funny enough in a vacuum.

At a certain point, I decided I wanted to namedrop every single character that appeared in “PASS”, so in a Man-of-Iron-like twist, noted idiot Nosecone is implied to be behind the famous twitter account @dril.

The line “desperately trying to think of a funny joke to make ultra magnus and the rest of the gang laugh” came to me at some point while I was sitting staring at the note on my phone. In a way, it’s a mission statement for Ask Triton. I don’t think “PASS” was ever written with the metaphor of social media in mind - it was instead a story about pointless tragedy, and of giving up too much in pursuit of some fantasy ideal of social standing. In retrospect, I most strongly see it as a story about... falling out with people, of the disconnect between the things people say and the things people think, and the breaking points where people start saying “actually, I’ve always hated you.” At the same time, however, it’s kinda just a funny joke comic, one that didn’t have a complete clarity of purpose at the point of its creation, so sometimes I wonder if by talking about it in these terms I’m acting against the spirit of the thing. Regardless, Triton is the perfect character for telling a story on social media, as he’s all about facades and the hit of dopamine that comes when someone smashes the mfing cred button.

“Leader Class Triton With Triton Master Triton” is written like the kinds of online solicits we got for Titans Return, where each figure included a “Titan Master”.

I’m not sure this entirely needs explaining, as it’s not really a reference, but the idea of a person being “always on” usually implies that they’re putting on a persona of some kind, most often by trying too hard to make everything they say funny.

The interchangeability of Topspin and Twin Twist formed the basis of their shared AtoZ profile. Seriously, the name “Topspin” is so dumb, he’s not a frikkin’ helicopter!

Richard Starkings wrote “Peace” under the pseudonym “Richard Alan”. He’s most famous for founding Comicraft, the first major computer-lettering company. I have not attempted to contact Richard Starkings in any capacity. Please do not tell him I exist.

I knew going into Ask Triton that it needed something else going for it, as it was both derivative of prowl_ebooks and less funny than it, and so drew inspiration from the one bit of official Transformers fiction to significantly use social media: namely, Ask Vector Prime. I predicted that I wouldn’t get much in the way of interaction, because I never do, but figured I could pitch Ask Triton directly down the middle and lean more towards “roleplay ask blog” or “shitpost bot”, depending on which way the wind blew. My friend gearshift observed towards the end of its run that “if it was meant to involve external engagement like AVP like the name suggests rather than just being something fun to look at, the format of him rattling off to himself 99% of the time makes it a little difficult to know where to step in and interact”, which I think was spot on. As one last-ditch attempt to solicit interaction before heading into the story’s finale, Triton reintroduces himself by saying “ask me anything” in a way that’s probably most famous nowadays via the r/IAmA subreddit. I took quiet pleasure in drawing a comparison between those threads and Ask Vector Prime.

Sure enough, only one question came in, simply asking “Anything?”. This was brushed off with the reply “pass”, in reference to the title of the comic, a goof that became even funnier to me as it became clear that no more questions were incoming.

To my surprise, gearshift sent me something that completely blew me away - a digibash of Earthrise Blast Master as Triton. To hear her tell it, she’d just picked out a recent figure that was “adjacent” to a submarine, but I immediately drew more connections that formed the basis of the eventual tweet. She sent me four different variations on the colour scheme: one “perfect” deco to match Triton’s colours in the comics, two different decos that’d require about the level of paint complexity of Siege Rung (above average for a retail toy), and finally one deco that seemed realistic for what could be achieved on a retail budget. We agreed that the last one was the best, but I bumped the saturation waaay up on it to better match the inks used in the comic (the digital scans don’t do it justice, the printing in the annual is stupidly saturated).

“We get it, you vape” (perhaps more commonly “We get it, you smoke weed”) is a snowclone posted alongside images containing smoke of any kind. It mostly serves to mock people who are perceived to have no character traits beyond vaping (for an astonishing examination of this archetype, check out the ongoing serial masterpiece Chili and the Chocolate Factory: Fudge Revelation). Strafe’s AtoZ profile states that his only character trait is loudly broadcasting the fact that he can fly.

Again in reference to his AtoZ profile, Broadside ends up blocking a route. (In response to the tweet in question, one of my friends who goes by the name Broadside remarked “i do indeed have a”, which made me laugh.) The thread continuing from that tweet was written when I realised I had an opportunity to drill down a little deeper into Triton’s character, and to incorporate the handful of pieces of official art depicting him; the first is Andrew Griffith’s cover to Sins of the Wreckers #2, while the rest are Nick Roche illustrations inked by Griffith. All of these pieces are coloured by Josh Burcham, lending them a nice consistent tone for the dream sequence.

“Squad goals” is a phrase posted alongside images of people that the poster’s group aspires towards. By posting it alongside an image of Squadron X, Triton expresses that he wishes his current friends were more like his old ones.

“You die in the dream/game, you die in real life” is a conceit used across countless stories by this point. The word “pretending” was chosen as an oblique reference to Pretender technology; Triton isn’t a Pretender, but hey ho, I just thought it fit.

“Lord Forgive Me But It’s Time To Go Back To Tha Old Me” is a snowclone mostly posted alongside edgy pictures of cartoon characters. Triton’s referring to his time as a Decepticon, but the accompanying image shows him as a corpse, bluntly foreshadowing his death. Evidently, this thread landed; a friend of mine remarked “Jesus wads that bit about dreams was grim / Poor Triton :(”

I could’ve sworn that Bumblebee was referred to as Bumblebee: A Transformers Story at some point, but I’m probably just mixing it up with the likes of Solo: A Star Wars Story. EDIT: Locoman informs me that the movie was at one point called Transformers Universe: Bumblebee, which is definitely what I was thinking of.

Narration from “Peace” was added last-minute practically verbatim purely as a way of making up the numbers: “few can remember how the war started. fewer still can now make the distinction between good and evil. but everyone will remember this particular day. because this is the day the war ended“. I could probably have changed this into a joke but I figured the melodrama that comes with taking it into this context was enough of a joke as it was. Sue me. (Richard Starkings, please don’t sue me.)

“Are you tired of being Nice? Don’t you just want to go ape shitt” is a famous Yahoo! Answers post. Naturally, Triton’s most interested in the very last part of that sentence. This was another last-minute addition.

“All I wanna do is-*BANG BANG BANG BANG*-and a-*cash register noises*-and take your money” is the chorus line from M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes”. “Brap” is onomatopoeia for a fart, used in shitposts.

I refuse to explain what shidding and farding is. Fuck you. God, this was in such poor fucking taste. What the hell was I thinking.

The second season of American Vandal centered around somebody putting a powerful laxative in a school cafeteria’s lemonade. I actually genuinely recommend this show, it’s got a lot going on.

As proof that I was legitimately getting tired of the poop jokes, the phrase “uh oh! stinky!” was used, referring to this one gross-ass video making fun of the style of humour.

Blurr’s AtoZ profile was the hardest to write, because he’s got a couple of lines in “PASS” (hence I couldn’t invent characterisation whole-cloth) but doesn’t have anything in the way of personality beyond his use of the word “ayy”. In retrospect, I guess his characterisation ended up being based on Gamzee from Homestuck, this creepy stoner. History repeated itself when it came to writing Ask Triton, as I realised I’d namedropped every character except Strafe and him. I was barely able to sneak him in under the wire; I considered having some Shattered Glass-style joke about him being really slow, but ended up deciding that the phrase “speedwalking [...] at mach 2″ (twice the speed of sound) was funny enough to carry a tweet.

The introduction to reality TV show Judge Judy goes “You are about to enter the courtroom of Judge Judith Sheindlin. The people are real. The cases are real. The rulings are final. This is Judge Judy.” Its inclusion was an oblique nod to another time I’ve used it, in a Transformers non-fiction work which might see release soonish, but this is definitely one of the weakest jokes on the account, written for the sake of numbersNUMBERS.

The video which introduced me to YouTube comedian Gus Johnson was titled “Man Gives His Cat 11,453 Stern Looks”. Another late reference which I found by going into my playlist of random videos to use in community streams.

Having forgotten I’d already referenced the movie, “First one to talk gets to stay on my aircraft” is a line from the infamous opening scene to The Dark Knight Rises. I made a comic adaptation of that scene using Marvel’s terrible Create Your Own editor, which is kind of an inversion of “PASS” in that it keeps the text of a story but substitutes the visuals. I’d previously used that editor to create the original Spider-Man comic Everything Is Red Now.

I just saw the word “vored” in here, so it looks like I’m going to have to plead the fifth again. Let’s talk about Unicron instead. Unicron is an Orson-Welles voiced character from The Transformers: The Movie, who appears in Worth the Can- WON’T SOMEBODY MAKE ME STOP?

“Not on your life. It’s a fake. Total fiction. It didn’t happen. Not fact. I’m innocent.” is from the Kevin James/Neil Cicierega video “Beyond Believability: FACT or False”, which parodies the Johnathan Frakes reality show Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.

“It could be you. It could be me. It could EVEN BE-” is an iconic line (but then again, which of these lines aren’t iconic?) from the Team Fortress 2 short “Meet the Spy”. This foreshadows Triton’s imminent death.

“GHAA!” is Triton’s parting word in both “Peace” and “PASS”, a rare bit of text to go completely unchanged in my version.

In the supplementary material for Nick Roche’s Last Stand of the Wreckers, the Rash Action and Fatal Consequence were two different ships aboard which Triton was second-in-command.

“I used to think that my life was a tragedy, but now I realise it’s a comedy” is a line from the infamous movie JOKER, featured prominently in its teaser trailer.

“He who smelt it dealt it” is a textbook response to somebody calling attention to a fart. “The Smelting Pool!” was the Marvel issue, featuring a torture device of the same name, that led into the aforementioned story “The Bridge to Nowhere!” Like “Peace”, it’s a Marvel story prominently known for introducing and killing a comic-only character.

“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good” is an iconic line spoken by Peter Parker at the end of Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War.

Reveal the Shield was a subtitle used for a Transformers toyline back in 2010, which referred to the heat-activated rubsign insignias of the toys (the gimmick being that you supposedly wouldn’t know which side the toy was on until you took it out of the package and got your grubby fingers on it).

The first page of the 1989 Annual begins “The Decepticon high command on Cybertron have judged this Annual to be anti-Decepticon, and the Firecons - Sparkstalker, Cindersaur and Flamefeather - have been despatched to Earth to incinerate all copies. In order to thwart the Firecons and protect your Annual, make sure you fill out the special Autobot citizenship card, below, with your name and address. The Firecons will only dare to attack Annuals if they are sure the owner is not under Autobot protection. This card could save your annual...” This page left quite the impression on me as a child, and (to what I can’t decide is my shame or my pride) I did in fact take a pen and fill out the card in my copy.

Towards the end of this project, I realised that there’s a certain symmetry between Ask Triton and the very origins of “PASS”, in an old meme page I once ran. Effectively nobody followed that page, and it was mostly me shouting into the void; like Ask Triton, many of the posts consisted of things which resembled jokes, where all the individual pieces fit together in some logical (if impenetrable) fashion, but when taken in aggregate none of them were really funny. Like Ask Triton, it turned into an attempt to tell a story using a medium utterly unsuited to storytelling. This time around, I think I succeeded, even if the story being told is one that already existed. Ask Triton consisted of 111 tweets. If I ever finish and release the epilogue for my old meme page, it’ll consist of 111 posts.

“PASS” has made the rounds on Twitter twice now, and each time the response has astonished me. On a pure numbers level, it’s nothing, but the people who share it around seem to derive so much joy from it. I made a handful of print versions for the comic to give out at TFNation 2019, and everyone there seemed to love it, so if TFNation 2020 goes ahead (god, I hope it does) I’ll make sure to print off some more. It’s something that’s torn me in two directions, where I want more people to see it, so they can get something out of it, but I also don’t want to run it into the dirt. As such, this ended up being one of the rare projects of mine nowadays not to receive any prereading (aside from a couple of the conventionally-funniest jokes being sent off to close IRL friends, to their amusement/bemusement), in the hopes that the whole thing would be a pleasant surprise rather than an uncertain slog, and I think that decision paid off.

In the TFWiki server, phrases like “shot on the spot for being a don” crop up frequently, with a handful of emoji cropped from the comic seeing a lot of use. It’s weird to be confronted with your own work so often, especially when that work was something that you threw together in an afternoon back in 2017, before you’d even started interacting properly with online Transformers fandom. At the same time, it’s nice to feel like one of the things I made genuinely mattered to people, at least ones who don’t know me.

If you’ve made it to the end of this notes section, then I’m sorry, but someone with as much cred as you simply cannot be allowed to live. Report to the TFWiki Discord server for your immediate execution.

[patchthemedic]

OHMYGOD how could i forget?? Dispatch, my USPS truck and his rival (to friend.......to eventual lover) Porter, the UPS truck!!

They're both neutrals (now) and Dispatch is definitely my most well known lad besides Patch. Idk if anyone else remembers that call on twitter to make a sexy USPS robot around 2020 (since they were getting mass funding cuts lol) but that's where he came from! I still really love how he came out! I need to post everything I've made for the two of them so far but as of now: Dispatch is a laid-back "what is UP my dude, how are you friend" kind of guy. Teetering on the edge of granola mech, and loves transporting pakige. He gets to see friendly doggos, meet new people, say hi to those on his routes :]. Used to be an Autobot courier but came to Earth on a rotation and thought "hm. I think I'm done with all this." and left the army.

Porter is not as laid back and absolutely sees Dispatch as a rival even though they're not poaching customers in any capacity?? More than one Cybertronian can vibe here, the town *is* big enough for the two of you. A cargo transport mech who rotated to Earth a little later than Dis and also decided to stay, he's relatively more reserved (but still polite). Except for when he comes across the dogs on his route. How can anymech say no to those little guys 🥺 cmonnn theyre just littol guuuuys (he keeps treats in his subspace) That's what brings them together; their love of dogs. During a moment of nonsense trying to spy from a bush Dispatch sees Porter open up and be more of himself during a stop with a dog. he thinks "well. he can't be *that* bad.......*wait is that what he looks like when he actually smiles?*".

after much petty rivalry nonsense i'm thinking they might have their turnaround moment to frenship when they both try to stock up on treats (in holoform of course) but there's only one box left. [oh my god there's only one box] i'm....pondering....but i like where this is so far......

More deets: before he scanned his new alt, Dispatch had a reinforced speedster frame, and Porter had a standard hauler-type alt. While Dispatch has a truck alt now it's mostly empty space so i really don't think mass wise it'd be much different to his prior frame. Porter's just an unusually thick UPS truck nothing to see here. :] Neither of them have removed their war-grade armor or weapons. While they're still neutral I would assume they'd still go to the Autobot base for repairs/check-ups.

uhhh i think that's it for now without looking at my notes! I don't have much else in terms of their wartime escapades or anything else but I'm always down for more OC questions

How many ocs you have and who's your fav?

Just a handful:

Patch (a human reformatted to a B1-B Lancer frame, which later gets refitted with a more Cybertronian look). She’s my fave, and central to most of my plotting heehoo. She’s p heckin tall but spends most of her time in mass-displaced mode (think Skyfire, he doesn’t stay big even tho he’s a shuttle). Got a bit of an outlier capability with energy types but part of her story is figuring out how to use it etc.

Thrasher (a combine) plus her two dudes Graintrain and Crophopper (both grain trucks). They love each other a lot :) Thrasher’s a big sturdy femme, absolute chonk we love to see it

Hitch is my last one but I haven’t done much with him yet, he’s just a regular offroader :] like a jeep but like more kitted out for long distances? he has extra gear for isolated treks

[skywarper]

rockdownu replied to your post: rockdownu replied to your post: ...

i just want the cons to be treated like they arent just killing machines like for fuck sakes wheres the care for them

rockdownu replied to your post: rockdownu replied to your post: ...

like can nobody feel fucking bad for the cons ? can they? is it so hard to see that the cons have been socialized for millions of years to be the way they are and they wont change at the snap of a finger and their leader being ‘suddenly good’ wont do it? full disclosure, i hate the autobots

ITS OKAY ITS OKAY i fully agree w/ you believe me i cant stand autobots 99.99999999% of the time .. i personally cant really stand how the “autobot megatron” story has panned out because its fucking like. absolved megatron of all guilt but left it on all the decepticons? most of which have very little if no blood on their hands and now theyre? left with the repurcussions of everything their leader did before abandoning them? like most decepticons are decepticons because of MEGATRON and his charisma and promise to lead them to a better future and he’s basically.............jumped ship to guarantee his own personal future which. i dont know. it SEEMS like a megatron thing to do on the surface but really its not at all

i think the premise of autobot megatron is interesting, im not against it at all, im just kind of tired of how its been written out to further demonize the decepticons but megatron gets zero retribution for the shit he did to a lot of people but two in particular being starscream and tarn lol.. starscream is still demonized as being awful and mentally ill and unfit for anything which is almost entirely megatron’s fault, same for tarn, megatron killed tarn for something He inflicted on them its probably gonna happen to starscream and im (snaps tree in half