#maccadam guide

[springtimeishere]

Awww 🥰🥺

Who would say no to such a beautiful thing!! Symbiotic relationships are the best in nature!! 💕

I was reading some transformers fanfiction and it's a solely underutilized idea to have humans and Cybertronians be in a symbiotic relationship. In nature all the time big animals will rely on smaller animals' help.

For example humans could give repairs, clean them, and help them reach smaller places. Cybertronians can give transportation and protection of course. They're emotional benefits too; humans are really nice soft things to touch and humans like having big robot friends :3.

So I'm imagining transformers realize how useful it is to have a human partner around so they start going around trying to get one. Anyways this leads to shenanigans of course and a lot of cracky moments.

Suspiciously nice looking car in a driveway with its door opened: ....

The random human who owns the driveway: ...

Human: *turns around* Screw that! I'm not becoming part of the human distribution system today, no sir I am not.

Cybertronian: *sad beeping noises*

[yuukirita]

Here we have the BOARD ALLMIGHTY! Which regroups all of the delicious AUs you may encounter on this blog C:

Some of them have fics in the works by me. Some don't. The ones above do. Those bellow don't

Some of these aren't original- none of them are actually. But at least you have a guide to look to when I post something and you wonder 'what is this about?'

It's mostly cute stuff- and kind of headcanons. Theres a few people that have started their own versions of these AUs inspired by my art/headcanons... And that kind of things is encouraged! Create away! (just pin me if it is inspired by me- I wanna see all of it)

There are other variations of Bee you might see on this blog- But they aren't really AUs- at least not like the ones on this post. It could be art for a fic i'm writing or fanart of someone Else's AU like the examples bellow.

Fic art for "A Bee See Dee" and "A Bee's Last Sound" on AO3

Bee's design varies according to the story he's in- If it's not from an au then it'll be in the tags! I try to tag the fic name if I want to draw a lot of art for it.

Oh and- example of art from someone else's Au. The Bodyguard!B-127 Au from @whalemleck that I LOVE. (someday I'll write something with it...)

Of course I don't draw JUST B-127. You'll find a lot more other Cybertronians here. And my art style changes depending on the days... But I hope this post will Help some of you keep up with the AUs :D I'll update this post when needed.

[ihatebrainstorm]

The (Hopefully) Comprehensive Guide to Drawing Transformers! [1]

[Chapter 1/5?]

Decided to make a little quick guide to drawing transformers/humanoid mechs because some people asked! (Plus I thought it'd be fun lol) .... Hopefully it makes sense and helps some people out :'D

[Next] -> coming I dunno when, I keep adding to my WIP pile......

[lancelotslair]

"Was that a nuke?" - Galvatron

THAT'S RIGHT BITCH, SUPER SEVERE SUNSTORM BLAST 9000!!! TASTE THE POWER OF PRIMUS BITCH!!!!

the scars on Galvatrons face have numerous causes but they're all from when he was oool Megs, the big one on the cheek specifically is from Starscream kicking him once thrusters ON

[m3char0b0l0v3r]

THANK U FOR EXPLAINING TRANSFORMERS/CYBERTRONIAN TIME.

Cybertronian Units of Time: a Guide

…concocted by me, via:

Canon Definitions

Most Common Terms Used in Fandom (that I have seen)

Most Common Interpretations of Aforementioned Terms

Math That Makes Those Terms Make Sense Together

Filling in the Blanks With What Sounded Good (to me)

So essentially I began with Cybertronian units with explicit definitions in canon that are also widely used in fandom (ie. Vorn = 83 years, Joor = 6 hours, Groon = 1 hour). I then worked my way out from those and tried to keep to rough factors of 6/8/10.

Some terms that did have explicit canon definitions had to be slightly skewed from their value (ie. Breem: 8 → 6 minutes, Klik: 8 → 6 minutes) if their definition contradicted another definition that made more sense/fit better. 

At any rate, obviously no one is obligated to use this standard, but canon Transformers content has been unfortunately… awful at establishing any universal units of time, their relationship to each other, or their equivalents to human units of time.

So this occasionally makes fanfiction an absolute nightmare for people like me with a crap memory who don’t want to constantly have to scroll through a thousand pages of the wiki to remind themselves what the hell a groon is.

So, naturally, I simply spent far too long whipping up this at-a-glance guide to keep track of it & on the off chance that the fandom might adopt it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

(PLEASE REBLOG THIS IF YOU LIKE IT SO THAT MORE FANS CAN SEE IT!)

[keferon]

Any starting resources for someone looking to get into Transformers?

I can’t speak for everyone but if I could time travel this is the list I would give to past me

1 - Transformers Prime. (Great series + basic lore/terms/names introduction for the new fans )

2 - Transformers : More than meets the eye + Transformers : Lost Light (IDW) (Infinitely dramatic gay clownery. Such a gem. 10/10. You need to have at least basic understanding of tf lore and terminology though. This is why I recommend watching “Transformers Prime” first)

3 - You probably have some of those robits as yours favorites at this point. Type “IDW insert name” into google or youtube to find out where to look for more comics with them. Use this image to navigate the timeline chronology so you always know what happens after what. (Don’t try to read everything on that list from the very start in chronological order - you will die of boredom)

4 - Transformers Animated (This series has it’s own version of tf lore that might cause a lot of confusion if you try to read IDW comics after watching it without being already familiar with the basics. That’s what happened to me lmao There’s a lot of primes instead of just one Prime. And Bots and Cons are kind of like two different species or something.)

5 - Transformers Earthspark ( Very good series but you need to have a lot of prior knowledge to fully understand its themes. It’s writers did a great job at showing how much their characters have changed but absolutely forgot to show what they were like before they changed. This is why you need to read comics or watch the other shows first. Earthspark Megatron is redeemed villain but they didn’t show him being a villain. Earthspark Starscream is traumatised but they didn’t fucking show what exactly happened to him, they just expect you to already know. I could write an essay about this lol I need to stop)

6 - Transformers 1986 animated movie. For some reason I really love it. (The reason is Roddy who am I kidding) Maybe also Prime wars trilogy? Cyberverse? Transformers G1? Poke at everything. Have fun.

[izsheum]

how does one go about practicing on drawing mechs? like, how did you do it? I have no idea where to start aaah 😭😭 any advice would be so helpful

i have soooome notes but! truly it comes down to looking at a LOT of references! references and REPETITION!!! i swear i have dozens upon dozens of photos of characters pulled up when i start drawing. it gets easier with each time that you sketch ‘em i promise!!

(i also “cheat” a lot and look at my figures when i wanna put them in certain poses—this goes heavilyyyy for megatron LOL)

and i hate to sound like a broken record because i’m sure everyone says this…but truly i break them up into shapes! they really are just layers of geometric shapes layered on top of one another with pretty little details etched on top :)

this is kinda how i see their figures! these kinda forms are how all my drawings start out before i put the armor on top of them!

also important to remember that the inside structures of organic figures (bones/muscles/etc) are completely visible for mechs! you can see the joints and gears that bend at their knees/elbows/shoulders/hips/feet rather than them being hidden by skin and clothing. i think this is the part that i have the Most trouble with because it’s a lot of small moving parts layered together. forgive the messiness…i’m still learning myself honestly haha and this is all compiled after looking at a LOT of art and models and whatnot. included in this are hands…which have a Lot of the small exposed joints.

anywayyys that’s all i have in terms of general advice that i can give…if you have any specific questions feel free to ask! i am an open book and will do my best to answer with words or visuals lol

but really—just have fun with it! experiment and try try try again

[somerandomcockroach]

God games - epic the musical Little test of storyboard pro I guess... (*sigh* JUST. UM. The lyrics of God's games fit so much to Prowl ahah? And, as a lover of afterlife things, hypothetically speaking it can be happening in Allspark when Jazz tries to get Prowl's spark back, since he isn't actually dead, but forced there. There is also, Ares' part. COME ON IT FITS PERFECTLY)

[rotorarc]

5. The Indie Corner Presents: Mtmte (1-44)

For those who need help with starting the IDW comics, check these Lets Reads and Dubs (in no order):

1. StarForce Media: Spotlights, RiB, Mtmte

2. Team Train-Wreck: Mtmte (1-3)

3. MetaMagnus: Mtmte (1-3)

4. RyvesNemeisis: Mtmte (1-14)

Feel free to add to this post if you find more!

[they-hermes]

This is what motivational posters look like in decepticon bases

[zhibekfromkaon]

No surprise Rung took them with him to death lmao

[lets-try-some-writing]

just curious, if you ever put The guiding hand in your fics, what will they be like?

https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Guiding_Hand

Difficult to say. I think the way I would integrate it into the Aligned Continuity lore that I personally use for my fics would be something along these lines:

Before the Thirteen, there were the five. They were not truly Cybertronian, and rather they were pieces of Primus's own spark that he forged into Avatars to help him fight against Unicron. He imbued each with part of his personality, emotion, and desire. This led them to each shift enough to become their own entities in the sense of split spark twins. They are the same, and yet while they live in different frames, they are not united.

These Avatars were not children of Primus, they WERE Primus. Despite greater numbers, the broken focus of the god of Creation led to little to no changes in the battle of Chaos and Order. The eternal struggle continued, but as it did so, Unicron gained the upper hand through Adaptus. The transformation god was able to have his loyalties shifted through Unicron's manipulations which convinced him that Primus would refuse to allow for any change when the battle was won. As a being who was made to change, Adaptus could not allow this and quickly turned on his fellows.

The result was catastrophic.

Adaptus broke Epistemus, which resulted in the gift of intelligence being gifted to all living beings but ended with Primus losing the ability to see and know all at the same time. Only a small shard of him remained, and that shard was eventually forged into the Covenant of Primus, a relic capable of reading the echoes of Epistemus and recording them as it is required. Unfortunately, following Epistemus's scattering, Primus was forced to focus on one thing at a time to see its truth.

Adaptus attacked Mortilus next, and while gravely wounded, he did not die. So to preserve him, Primus created the Allspark from him. That way he would not perish and all life that was or would be would be secured. (There is a reason Unicron despises the Allspark so much, and it is because Mortilus protects Primus's children from true death and reabsorption into Primus himself.)

Solomus was the only one who escaped the unexpected betrayal unscathed. And he and Adaptus battled as Primus fought to hold Unicron at bay while also saving what little he could of Mortilus with Epistemus scatted to the winds. Their conflict was so brutal that their identities began to blur. Wisdom and transformation morphed as they tore each other apart. The biggest molded piece of their frames became Vector Sigma. The rest were reabsorbed by Primus, which is what ultimately allowed him to create children that could grow physically, mentally, and spiritually while also limiting his influence with Vector Sigma now stuck as a physical object.

Back to square one, Primus was desperate. He saved what he could, but this time he knew he had to try again. He needed warriors that were not extensions of himself, beings that could act on their own and not be predictable. He needed creatures who could adapt, who could learn, and who could become capable of gaining the upper hand on the Unmaker.

This is how the Thirteen were born. Instead of turning himself into many mecha, Primus instead cultivated new sparks through small echoes of his. He fed them pieces of Solomus and Adapatus and what little he still had of Epistemus. And from all this, the Thirteen Primes came into being, not knowing any had come before them.

The Guiding Hand were pieces of Primus that live on only in the vague memory of the Thirteen. They are legends, and while Alpha Trion knows the truth, the rest of the Primes believe the Guiding Hand to be some sort of parable that they cannot decipher. They do not know, and they don't need to. It is irrelevant to them.

This is how I would integrate The Guiding Hand.

[halenhusky309]

The only good things about the Thirteen Primes from Transformers:One is that Solus Prime, the sole "female" Prime, wasn't the first who kicked the bucket for the sake of symbolic bullshit in TF aligned. But then, she still became the subject of Eulogy along with her other Prime fellows. So yeah, 13 Primes in Transformers:One are just fucking wasted potentials (except for Alpha Trion, until he get erased again) that almost made me wished Hasbros just deleted the 13 Primes concept completely.

The way this movie handled 13 Primes just makes me appreciate the shitty ass drama of the Primes from COP, and I'm fuckinh hate 13 Primes storyline so much.

[tginen]

rung has a suggestion for that one day

[jaylestial]

Transformers Inktober Day 1 - Perceptor

I want to fill every day with a different Transformer so I can see how much I've improved by the end. Please drop me requests! ♥️

Materials: Sakura Permapaque, blue Cello Superglide, red Pentel RSVP, Pentel fine point correction pen

[blueikeproductions]

So we’ve established the modern idea for Transformers leadership is some combination of the Primes and a Council.

But what I forgot to mention last time was IDW’s stab at both ideas.

I think we all forget IDW’s era of Transformers was around for longer than we remember. It started around the time of Animated and the first Bay movie, ending with Cyberverse and Bee.

As such, IDW went through a lot of growing pains as Hasbro started modifying the brand into what we know today.

Furman kicked things off, with his story revolving around a modified version of his own Prime lineage, with Prime Nova, now Nova Prime, as a central antagonist for much of the run.

As time went on, Hasbro had started to reshuffle the Prime concept after RotF brought the ancient Primes to general audiences, ushering in the the modern version of the group that included Solus, Quintus and so forth. The main line books hadn’t included ancient Primes yet, so the book could slide them in fairly easily, but as usual there was a catch.

It’s pretty apparent Roberts didn’t want to be saddled with the Primes, as his MTMTE series largely went out of its way to ignore them. Instead, he had his own vision for the legendary original Transformers in the Guiding Hand.

13 robots whittled down to five, they represented the three core components of a Transformer: the Spark (life in Primus and death in Mortilus), the Brain Module (wisdom and knowledge in in Solomus and Epestimus) and the Transformation Cog (Adaptus).

These five would shape creation myths on Cybertron, and hence the group’s name, would guide the early Transformer race, part of which were members of their own group, the legendary Knights of Cybertron.

Don’t get too excited about these guys, despite the book hyping them up as being as important, if not more than the Hand or Primes as this benevolent group who led Cybertron to prosperity until they tried to spread their philosophy to the stars, they were basically normal, religious, space explores who got fatally sick from being in “too much contact” with organic species and were euthanized.

I really do think Roberts hated most things about Transformers, from being very dismissive to the human component (despite writing the Transformers as sitcom humans), the unusual lack of Transforming to the point it was a running gag, and trying to erase the mysticism Transformers has had since the 80’s movie.

See the Guiding Hand do represent this mysticism to a degree, right down to legend saying the death of Mortilius is the reason Transformers have millennia long life spans, but in actuality it’s all a sham.

Like the Primes, the Guiding Hand was undone by infighting. Legends claimed the death god Mortilius was the one to start the first wars on Cybertron.

However, the Guiding Hand turned out to not only be real, but the legends were all wrong. It was the ambitious Amalgamous Prime stand in Adaptus that betrayed his brothers, wanting war purely so the Transformers wouldn’t stagnate in peace time, and gradually evolve from the coming conflicts so that they may ascend as organics do to higher plains of existence.

These were the true forms of the Hand, just simply ordinary Transformers, with the unassuming psychiatrist Rung actually being the first ever Transformer born on Cybertron: Primus.

Adaptus and Solomus, now Tyrest, would serve as series antagonists, with Epestimus being retconned into being the ancient Magic 8 Ball artifact The Magnificence the early IDW Furman run used. Mortilius was actually a nice guy, though he still did observe death, being a sort of mortician chronicling the death of individual Transformers, but also having the means to save others thought lost to history.

Like the Primes, all of the Hand ultimately died for the Transformers species to move on to other things.

The group doesn’t appear to be that popular, with Rung being Primus met with a particular revulsion, as the Lord of Light was whittled down to a nerdy, forgettable twig boy that had some healing factor powers. Rung did have the ability to create the Matrix in his unusual “ornament” mode, but perhaps to add to the annoyance, he could build multiple versions of the Matrix, further reducing the mysticism. Like can you imagine TFONE doing this? Oh Sentinel couldn’t get the Matrix, because he accidentally destroyed it when he shot Zeta? No big! He can just force Rung to pop out a brand new one! Yeah it just doesn’t work.

Rung being Primus or the first Transformer tends to be ignored, and so far he’s the only one of his group to make the leap to other media, where he’s usually just treated as a field medic like Ratchet. His alternate form is instead a weaponized medical device rather than a Matrix Maker.

Rung is so far the only one to get a toy, but general audiences and kids weren’t terribly interested, his WFC toy clogged Ollies for the longest time.

Rung would get a surprise return in Japanese media, as the leader of a group of human made Transformers called Selectors, who were powered by the mysterious Angolmois Energy deposits found on Earth. Unhappy with his people’s lot in life, being a (somewhat unintentional) servant class for humans, Rung turned to the Decepticons to start an uprising against humanity, fracturing the unified Cybertron brought about in G2.

When the Quintessons interfered, corrupting several Selectors into their servitude using the chaotic power of Angolmois Energy and later observing Spike Witwicky admit to mistakes and declare his love of the Selectors as friends and fellow people, Rung realized his mistake and helped humans and Autobots fight back with the power of true “Good” Angolmois Energy.

Notably the manga references a dirty joke from Rung’s appearance in Earth Wars…

Where a now Autobot X Spike uses Rung’s weapon mode against a Quintesson in a … much deserved but still painful way.

The battle ultimately saw the Angolmois Energy too dangerous to use, as humanity rightfully feared the power would react to the evil in all human hearts, so humans and Selectors, now cool with each other, evacuated Earth for greener pastures, setting the scene for Beast Wars II’s Angolmois plot with Galvatron. Spike wasn’t too concerned about the Selector’s still being fueled by Angolmois, as they proved they can work together in peace, which feels a bit contradictory, but whatever, Rung and Spike seem happy.

The similarities the Guiding Hand had to the Primes would see a couple of them be regarded as actual Primes in IDW 2, but otherwise the group has largely been ignored after IDW ended.

As for the Thirteen Primes, they came off as an afterthought in the original IDW comics. I’m not sure if Furman had any immediate plans for Prima, Liege Maximo, Maccadam and others he had a hand in creating, but that ultimately fell John Barber and Mairghread Scott to fill in some blanks. The Thirteen were not demigods but instead simply the leaders of various tribes of the discombobulated Transformers race after Adaptus’ so called God War. A time displaced Shockwave created a time paradox where the Primes only formed due to Shockers’ awareness of the future. Killing Onyx and assuming his identity, Shockwave kicked things off by making Megatronus his student, ushering in the era of the Primes. This also saw the eventual rise of the corrupt Prime lineage Nova Prime, Sentinel Prime, Nominus Prime and Zeta Prime would go on to define.

So why are the Primes so clumsily implemented here? Two reasons: the reintegration of the Primes via TFP came much later into IDW’s run, where like most series up until that point, IDW was mostly content to ignore the concept of a group of ancient prototypical Transformers. The other I believe boils down to IDW wanting its own unique creation myth, but because of Hasbro wanting to enforce the updated Prime mythology, they had to included it whether they wanted to or not. I think this is also why MTMTE feels more like its own thing divorced from what the rest of IDW was doing, as Roberts seems to have had more freedom to do what he wanted, using his old fan fics as a basis. Ergo the creation myth of the Guiding Hand persisted over the Thirteen Primes here, although the rebooted IDW2 would more organically implement the Primes as the first Transformers, with some of the Hand in their ranks, but still treat them as myths and legends vs most media showing the Transformers being fully aware they existed, with older Bots having even worked alongside them, like Starscream’s High Guard in TFONE.

As for a Council, that was the awkwardly implemented Functionist Council, which would later give way to the oppressive Senate. Both were exaggerated versions of the Caste System (Transformers can only have work and benefits based on what they turn into) from Aligned with the simpler Cog and Cogless concept succeeding it in TFONE. In one timeline, the Functionist Council evolved into an oppressive dictatorship worse than the Senate, who casually enforced the deaths, or “Mass Recalls” of Transformers whose alternate forms no longer served a purpose to them on a whim like spaceship Transformers or cassettes/data sticks. Think that obsolescence episode of the Twilight Zone, but cranked up to 11. While the original Functionists died off in the Great War, their fingers in the pie of the Senate beforehand, their alternate versions were the final antagonists of MTMTE while the main books fought Unicron. The cog headed nitwits had managed to Transform their Cybertron into a more traditional looking Primus to cleanse all universes of non Transformer life, but were stopped and killed by Rodimus and Autobot Megatron’s group.

These clockwork bean counters don’t appear to Transform, but apparently these Skeksis wannabes can Combine to form The Key to Vector Sigma. Like most of Roberts’ stuff, we never actually see them do this, and it would appear they found a way to access Vector Sigma without needing to Transform to do so. I understand this is probably intentional to make them hypocrites, but even so… I would think maybe just having them be cars, spaceships and other things that were recalled might be more appropriate.

Some earlier ideas that were kicked around to make these IDW concepts a bit closer to older creation material would’ve seen the Knights of Cybertron have ties to the Quintessons, and Rung channel his inner Ultraman to fight Unicron. The later was recycled for alternate Rung to fight a super weapon of the Functionists, but that resulted in Rung both dying, and further abusing concepts like Mass Shifting, making the Transformers more broken and oddly overpowered which annoyed fans.

For now, the concept of the Guiding Hand and Functionists as alternate creation myths and governing bodies seems to be utterly ignored in favor of doubling down more on the Primes. Rung is the only one to make it into toy form, and other non IDW media, but he along with many other IDW originals appear to be benched for the time being. While Skybound can use whoever they like, so far they seem mostly content to stick to the G1 cartoon cast and the occasional OC like Starscream’s friend Genvo. I don’t really see Rung having a role here anyway, and frankly he’d probably just get shot in the head and stay dead if he did appear considering the violent struggles of the Autobots here…

Funny enough I could see Rung as a Miner class robot in TFONE, he fits the aesthetic, but so far no. I feel like he’d probably just be a car or bike to stream line things if he did appear though.