Sketch Coms I forgor to post last year— in watercolor, @capbiscuit's OC Deathtail and Skybound Carly teaming up, and in Posca, Wheeljack passing by in the Arctic
There's a lot of analysis in this post. I'll mainly talk about:
How Spike's current state made what Sparky did look even worse to me
Comparing Arcee & Elita
Story themes I've noticed
Me expecting Wheeljack to be a disability rep and got blindsided by Jetfire
How I want to send in my multiversal OC to help Carly & Spike with the human side of things.
Oh dear, the bullet hit Spike's spine. If he's wheelchair bound from now on, then my beef with Sparky is even stronger. So, not only Spike ended up like this because Sparky and his friends didn't pay attention to what's happening in front of them, but Sparky also effectively left his son alone to handle the aftermath of his hospital stay. The Autobots can't do shit about the kid's medical bills and other paperwork. Carly can't fully help Spike with the human side of things either, as she likely now has to work full-time because her dad is also dead, which Sparky knew about. If this mf haunts the narrative later (other than tormenting Optimus with his memories, I'm cool with that), then I'm going to splash salt at him.
Oh yeah I just remembered that I thought Starscream had broken Carly's legs when he got her in his grip. Since Spike is already wheelchair bound and the plot wanted to have Carly be available to join the action, I guess she doesn't have to stay at the hospital too.
The skinned dude is still alive?! Does he count as a naked in the scenario? Should I look away?
I like how Elita's design is very obviously feminine, but not in a soft way like Arcee's, which helps to contrast these 2 pink female 'bots. Like, you can imagine Elita with a bob and puffy upper arm sleeves, but those features complement her ruggedness due to their sharp angles.
Thundercracker is likely the most merciful of the Decepticons. Buddy, how the hell did you even end up here? (DWJ please let him stay alive long enough to reunite with Skywarp, I'm begging you)
I like the theme that empathy helps you think better, like Optimus understanding that Skywarp is acting up because he's now a paraplegic who can't do much other than talk and allow or deny people from using Teletraan 1 (or so everyone thought), so Optimus proposed to get Skywarp to cooperate with the 'bots by reminding him of what the 'cons did to him. Carly's refusal to emphatise with Skywarp led to her making stupid decisions, like wanting to kill him even after listening in to Optimus' and Wheeljack's conversation.
*sigh* These kids are going to need a human adult, and if no one shows up later, then I'll insert one myself in the background of my mind. I'm not going through the effort of cooking up an in-universe OC again (Tammy Langley's character doc spiraled into being 47 pages (due to containing scenes & episode rewrites), and I haven't even finished TFP), so I might just chuck in my multiversal serial-parent. Although, Infiniti might pull these kids away from the action, since he's a responsible adult who doesn't want kids to become war casualties.
Arcee has managed to cool down her hatred for the Decepticons, which is why she took the shot for Skywarp, leading her to look like she has a burning heart. Meanwhile, Carly who's still burning full of rage from what the Decepticons did to the people she cared about, starts crying in hurt and confusion.
I'm happy for Wheeljack that he gets his legs back, but I was kinda hoping for him to be a Transformer disability rep instead of his treads be used as a plot device to keep him out of the action. I know he's the demolition expert and it's safer for him to be able to run away from his own explosions, but bomb-defusing robots irl also have threads, so Wheeljack being a bomb-detonating robot with threads would've been really fun.
Oh fuck Carly is living out of her van because her house got blown up. You're getting adopted by my OC kiddo. (I know she's old enough to apply for college, but I feel like anyone, especially people who have been in her shoes, would want to have a comfortable home and financial stability)
Megatron, you're a dumbass for not making Soundwave your 2nd-in-command instead. The Decepticons would've won the war a long, long time ago if you gave him a bigger leadership position.
Ok when I said that I wanted a robot disability rep, I didn't mean for it to come in the form of Jetfire being upset that he's not allowed to die and is now stuck in jet form. His TFwiki page joked that in the original G1 cartoon, the 'bots brought him back to become their taxi. And now that's literally what happened. DWJ, you're one cruel comedian. Did you really have to make him blind on top of all that? I'm not implying that being blind results in a life entirely full of suffering, but people who become blind due to a sudden incident handles their disability worse than people who are born blind. Plus, based on my vibe check, Jetfire is a space nerd who likes to travel across the stars, isn't he? So him completely losing the ability to see, which makes him even more helpless in his jet mode, has gotta be traumatic to say the least.
Ya know, since Jetfire can still hear, maybe Jazz can vibe with him while listening to music later? I wonder if Skywarp can have a chat with him, and they can bond over their newfound disabilities. I got a feeling that Skywarp and Jetfire has almost never interacted in canon despite- OHMYFUCKINGGOD THESE TWO CAN TALK ABOUT THE VERSION OF STARSCREAM THEY KNOW OF AND FIGURE OUT WHAT WENT WRONG WITH HIM pleasepleasepleaseplease I need these two to interact in this comic series more than ever. This is the perfect opportunity for it to happen.
Why Astrotrain gotta use Thundercracker as his punching bag lmao (；∀； ) Thundercracker just happened to be standing the closest to him, but then Astrotrain just kept going lmao
I like how despite the emotional torment going on inside Optimus, he's still kinda corny, with the dad lessons and the way he tries to announce a new mission for the Autobots in a cool way. It's really cute ngl (he counts as a dilf, isn't he?)
Arcee, are you willing to share custody of Carly with my OC? Infiniti is a totally trustworthy human being who isn't in this universe just to survey stuff that'll survive in an apocalyptic timeline so she can loot it for his place. She also isn't searching for Metal, his ex-kid who is hopping across universes and possessing dead robots instead of processing the grief of the death of their friends, their entire world, and themself. I know Metal isn't a great example of Infiniti's parenting skills, but she adopted the kid as Zero, his half that has commitment issues despite impulsively taking care of children. The other half, Satu, was busy plotting to take over the world at the time. Even though Zero & Satu has reunited to form Infiniti, Metal had bad experience with both of them and won't listen to Infiniti at all. However, Infiniti does have millennias of experience in taking care of kids. (I know that alternating between he & she within the same sentence feels performative, but both Infiniti & Metal are non-binaries that use multiple pronouns, and I need to differentiate them. Infiniti presents himself as whatever gender lets her get away with stuff in a particular situation, & therefore often goes by "he" or "she" since male and female has a lot of societal expectations that Infiniti can exploit. However, he is not cool with "them" and "it" since she considers himself as a singular higher being. Meanwhile, Metal is apathetic about their own gender and is cool with anyone calling them whatever pronoun) (someonepleaseaskmeaboutmyocsiwantotalkaboutthemsobadly)
I like how Elita and Arcee are both badass women, but in clearly separate flavours. They're both do badass things to protect the people they care about, but the undertones and presentation are different. Maybe it's just the situations they were shown in that makes them feel different, with Arcee being on Earth that only has a few active Transformers, while Elita is in the heart of enemy territory on Cybertron, but Arcee feels more gentle while Elita feels more rugged. I got spoiled that Elita is going to join Optimus' squad later, so maybe then I'll be able to better define what makes these two female 'bots different.
*wakes up screaming just as I was about to fall asleep* OPTIMUS VS SOUNDWAVE IS A BEEF BETWEEN A SINGLE DAD AND A SINGLE MUM.
