#when you were bees

[beautysnake]

@linkerbell and I decided to start a new save for co-op and it's already off to a great start

[quibbs126]

Okay, I think I’m FINALLY done with these designs. Well okay, I said Megatron might need some reworking, but shush, I’ll do that another time

I was not expecting this to take as long as it did. Apparently I started making this at 9 in the morning, and it is now 9:30 at night. Optimus, I am almost certain this is your fault

Anyways, as mentioned prior, the idea here was to give the Earthspark Cybertronians protoform designs like the Terrans, what they might look like when they were in this stage, because I haven’t seen anything to claim Cybertronians in this series don’t also have this stage, unless I’m wrong

I mean theoretically, Cybertronian protoforms could look entirely different from Terran protoforms, but we don’t know at this juncture, so I used the Terrans as my main references

Pretty much the main thing was trying to turn their blocky features smooth, while also taking out a bunch of their little details, like their antenna and horns

Honestly I still think Elita turned out the best, which is maybe a bit sad considering she was the first one I finished, but oh well. I don’t think everyone else was horrible, but I think she just looks best

I think Bee’s design is fine, and it was honestly refreshing after struggling so much with Optimus, but I can’t help but feel like his eyes are still wonky

Like I’ve said, by the end of things I think Megatron came out the worst. He was the second one I did, so I wasn’t sure, but by now I think he is. The real struggle with him is that his entire helmet is comprised of angles, when I need curves. And then there’s his side things, which I still do not know how to translate here. The idea I was trying to go for here is the top half goes around his head, while the bottom half is attached at the ends, but it’s the bottom half that looks weird. But ah well, hopefully I can fix it later

And then there’s Optimus. The majority of the time I’ve spent on this was him. It was mostly the struggle of his vents and trying to make them un-blocky. It was getting really frustrating particularly because I couldn’t think of anything new to do with them to change them, drawing the same thing over and over

But then I remembered, this Optimus was once Orion Pax, a fact I was planning to omit. But that meant I had something else to draw on

And it’s what finally got my brain to make his side things into the curves you see now. It’s also why his middle thing is solid black, like how it seems to be in the picture above

But yeah, I wouldn’t rate his design as the absolute best, but it’s serviceable and I’ll take what I can get

But aside from trying to change their designs, I think I had fun. I noticed by the end of it that they all have different face and eye shapes, and that’s pretty fun

Speaking of which, I notice with this how small Optimus’ eyes are here. They may not look it in my drawing but they’re a lot smaller than the others in the show. Is that one of the reasons his design looks so off? Like I know it looks weird, I just can’t place how exactly

But yeah, take these designs, the culmination of my drawing abilities for the day. I’d like to do more with them, I just don’t know what. Best I can think of is like, a fic premise where the Cybertronians somehow get reverted back to these protoform stages, and the Terrans now have to help them out

[crossbackpoke-check]

blessed be (lorscher bienensegen) | telling the bees (wiþ ymbe)

"Bees" [remixed, abridged], Claudia Emerson // "Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now" [remixed. abridged], Matthew Olzmann // "Letter to my Great, Great Grandchild" [remixed, abridged], J.P. Grasser | Len Redkole, Nina Weiss, Brian Babineau, Christian Peterson, Mitchell Leff, Dave Isaac, Megan DeRuchie

[tezzbot]

Was thinking abt the fact that IF Vector and Espio found Charmy when he was a baby, taking their "canon" ages into account, Vector would have been like mid-teens and Espio like. a preteen at the time and I love a good 'You're the age I was when we met/I did [X]/etc.' Soooo woe! That upon you Espio, it's always fucked up and evil the passage of time LOL

[suguwu]

seemingly indifferent but incredibly possessive sae you make me insane

[kevingorg]

today's insane concept to keep my mind off of other matters: will smith hockey getting a gay little earring.

i think it could go something like: mack's just fucking rambling again, of course, always going on about something, and will tunes in just in time to hear, 'would look good on you, smitty, like hot i think. girls love that pretty shit.' and will has to do a little mental reset before he can laugh awkwardly and go, 'mack. what.'

mack's like, 'i'm telling you dude, you've got the face for it i swear.'

'no,' says will, 'what the fuck are you talking about.'

mack rolls his eyes. 'you're such a shitty listener. you should get your ears pierced, dude.' frowns. 'or ear. less --' waves his hand around as if to indicate the broad, nebulous idea of homo that he doesn't like to actually put into words. will appreciates that about him.

'hmm,' says will. 'i don't know.' but mack starts up right where he left off -- it'd be so hot, smitty, and what's your problem anyway, no way you're afraid of needles, lmao (pronounced luh-maow). and will's like prepared to just forget this entire conversation happened, and mack forgets about it pretty much as soon as he gets on the subject of their boston game, which is coming up, and he's got ideas for how they should be on the same line for it. but will catches himself in the mirror a couple days later and thinks, mack said it'd be hot. and, he reasons, he can always just take it out if he doesn't like it. duh.

cue will showing up to practice with a diamond stud because he thought it was like, showy but not too feminine. it's like, a classic. diamonds are always classic. and mack's like HOLY SHIT DUDE. I TOLD YOU. will has to stop him from poking at it, because now that he's got it he's at least gonna make sure it heals properly, and mack's hands are all grimy like a toddler's. but when the rest of the team starts filtering in it's this weird mix of guys who think it's neat, guys who don't bring it up at all, and maybe one or two guys going 'what the hell's this all about, dude?' which is, you know. will's not insecure or anything, that's a girl thing, but he doesn't love that reaction.

so will revisits himself in the mirror later and thinks aw shit, maybe a hoop would've been better. maybe the diamond IS gay. maybe it's too sparkly and i fucked this up and i should just take it out and be done with it and, oh shit, what happens if i get hit in the fucking head and my ear starts bleeding and everyone on the ice knows that i went out and got a PIERCING on PURPOSE which is just SUCH a gayass thing to do, oh my god. and will's like convinced himself fully to take it out, it was a stupid idea anyway, but there's a very, very small part of him that's thinking about mack reaching for him in the room that morning, mouth open in this fascinated little o, going, 'did it hurt? can i -- it looks so good, bud, wow, just like i thought. sick, dude, i --' like he's trying to figure out how to ask for something he doesn't even know he wants. so will leaves the earring in.

[lord-squiggletits]

i know i’m late to the conversation—i just watched the movie this month—but i feel compelled to say this because i was genuinely shocked (still am) to see that the overwhelming takeaway for many viewers was the "d-16/megatron was right" bs. while it’s understandable to sympathize with his anger and grief, justifying his actions in the end or framing them as entirely right feels so deeply misguided. what surprised me even more was the tendency to shift the blame on orion/optimus, as though he was solely responsible for d-16’s downfall. it’s disheartening to see orion/optimus being villainized so much. his efforts to reason with d-16 came from a place of desperation and hope, as he tried to prevent the escalation of violence. at that point, d-16 had already begun to spiral into his unchecked rage, disregarding the safety of those around him. to see that nuance overlooked, with orion being faulted for a situation that was far beyond his control (the whole "don't be like sentinel" thing is often used to shit on op lol), is genuinely baffling.

while i love that the movie showed the tragedy of d-16’s arc and even empathize with his situation, painting his actions as justified—and vilifying orion/optimus in the process—feels like a misreading of the movie’s core message. sorry but i was so happy to see your post about the movie, it was tiring to see so many 'megatron was right about this and that' comments.

Oh man if you're new to this fandom, you really ought to know that this place is full of people who glorify terrorism and war in the name of "justified revolution" and it doesn't really matter what Dee/Megatron does or how horrible/over-the-top it is, he's oppressed or he's mentally ill or he's just plain upset which means that everything he does is justified and questioning him makes you evil.

It's so funny because I hoped for sure that a continuity where both OP and Megatron were working class individuals before the war would reduce this kind of shit take (compare to something like archivist/librarian OP and gladiator Megs in TFP or CBV, or cop OP and miner Megs in IDW1), but unfortunately this fandom literally still found a way to blame Orion for everything even though he suffered the exact same things Dee did..... and furthermore Orion literally was the rebel challenging the system compared to Dee who wanted to keep his head low and not cause trouble so honestly at this point I just think the fandom (and somehow new fans whose first exposure to TF is this movie) purely sides with Megatron on everything as either a knee-jerk reaction or some misguided attempt at being counterculture and intelligent.

People get sooooo mad when you tell them that unbridled rage and killing everyone who disagrees with you isn't a good social/political strategy, but then again this is a problem that is universal to humanity and not just the Transformers fandom. It's just a shame that so many people looked at a movie that blatantly spells out what the moral of the story is, and has all of the protagonists be working class oppressed people fighting against a tyrannical system, and their takeaway from it is still basically "fascism is okay if you're mad enough about it and if your friends try to stop you it's a sign that they're centrist liberals who think punching Nazis makes you as bad as a Nazi." It's childish black-and-white thinking masquerading as critical literary analysis.

And at this point people pretty much just don't give a shit about Orion/Optimus and will find a way to make him the villain no matter what the context is, no matter if he also has feelings or if he also deserves to be respected/listened to/validated as Megatron's long-time (possibly lifelong) friend. If ppl look at the way Dee treated Orion and their other friends and DON'T see what was concerning about that then there's really no saving them until they deradicalize a little and learn what usually happens when "kill all the bad people until society is a utopia" is implemented as a governing party's primary strategy.

[kinokoshoujoart]

the coolest kids in forgotten valley!!☆

(…it seems there may have been a stretch of time where rock and lumina were the only kids in forgotten valley…🥲)

poseref

[mrmeepsmadmind]

SOCIETY KEEPS KILLING ONE OF THEM BCS THEIR FRIENDSHIP WOULD BE INCAPABLE FOR GALAXIES TO HANDLE !!!!!

[numberonetribble]

Stuck at my mom's house until the 27th, can't finish the comic I was working on until then :( here's a rough Cowboy!pinup sketch of Bumblebee and some Breakbee + Piston angst:

[verraising]

so the good news is that we finally beat m2s!!!! 🎉 the bad news is that during last pull of the night i was like "if we finally kill her now i'm gonna fanta into a lala permanently" so guess what, myrri is closer to the ground than ever before, at least for the next week. as a compromise. 🤣

[theradicalace]

did y'all know bees come in other colors??

[stormyykat]

hey. go on about butch Dyvim I am listening

HIIII LAWL. ok so .

i really just like the idea of butch dyvim because it makes him more awesome to me plus the Why Not......... but ALSOOO

i noticed that mouse knights are usually male and that female mice have the like. praying hands model or whatever it is... but in other species like the sugargliders the difference between their models is not that apparent... so like why not have some female mouse knights with swords and antler helmets.. where are the butch warrior mice..... so obviously im taking the most prevalent one and making him butch

[biowho]

you yell you're not scary, and I'm still scared to interact, damn you, anxiety!!!

I have however seen a bunch of your posts across the main tags and checked out some of your writing, it's really good :) Maybe one day I'll be able to interact without working myself up into a spiral of overthinking :'D

I also have anxiety, we can do this together!! I’m not scary!!!! I’m literally laying in bed right now cradling a giant sheep plushy the size of a rotund toddler

In all seriousness though, I understand how difficult starting conversations can be with other folks and I appreciate you sending this ask in quite a lot xx

[warabola]

stories in FL giving a small nod to the erasure and forms of violence done to the cultures under the British Empire

[catinheadlights]

I regularly eat meat so maybe take this with a grain of salt, but I think when people try to "own" the concept of veganism with "facts and logic" as either a diet or a moral stance, they generally misunderstand what they're trying to criticize.

Like, you can say that the "real" problem with animal agriculture is capitalism encouraging animal abuse and factory farming, but like. Vegans know that's bad. That's not the only problem they have with the industry. You've got the slew of environmental problems it causes plus the whole, y'know, killing/exploiting animals thing that they don't like.

Someone who values the life of a chicken as equal to that of a human won't give two shits if it had a good life before being slaughtered, because to them it's the moral equivalent of killing a person for food. By saying that they're simply ✨wrong✨ for seeing a problem with the killing part, you're missing the entire point. "It had a good life" hardly means anything if you don't think of human life as inherently more valuable. You can disagree with that premise all you want, but you're not gonna change their minds.

I also challenge you to actually come up with an argument for why you feel human life inherently matters more than all nonhuman life, because I've never in my life seen a cogent argument for it that includes all humans and excludes all nonhumans. It's just that evolution hardwired that value into most people (including me, I agree). I think it's fine to feel that way and live accordingly, but you should know where your values come from. Vegans act on that too - getting rid of an infestation would be the equivalent of mass murder. This isn't a dig, by the way, it'd be impossible to have a decent quality of life if you stuck to "humans = nonhuman animals" completely.

I see people tossing around eggs and dairy as morally fine because they don't require killing the animals that produce them, but everyone seems to conveniently forget what they do to nearly all the males. It's not practical for farmers to keep all the males alive for their natural lifespan because they aren't economically useful. Some very small farmers might, but it's never going to happen on any remotely large scale. Something tells me that the "killing animals is bad" club isn't gonna be happy about that.

Also, I don't know what's up with people making shit up about domestication but:

Livestock was, in fact, domesticated. Yes, this includes laying hens. We'll breed anything for efficiency.

The purpose of domesticating an animal doesn't dictate what is morally okay to do with it (ex. if you bred dogs specifically to fight, it wouldn't make dogfighting more moral).

In a similar vein, no, factory farming never reduces the need for cropland, and the animal agriculture industry as a whole doesn't either (hint: it's mostly factory farming). I don't know where people get the idea that animals somehow magic nutrients/energy into existence, but a lot of crops are grown specifically for livestock feed, which is less efficient than growing crops directly for human consumption due to trophic levels and waste production. If you insist otherwise, please take a biology class.

I do think that putting so much focus on individual action is a bit silly considering how giant animal agriculture is as an industry and how heavily subsidized it is. Put some of that energy into changing policy please. It'd probably be more useful.