thinking about how aesthetically TR already did partner Daniel Witwicky with IDW1 inspired Arcee because of the helm shape TR Arcee has, before we did that in fanfic, & afterwards (almost certainly having done so without knowing about our trans Daniel and Arcee fanfic) JRO did so for uk postage stamps+
ID 1 of 2: Three Arcee toys on a window sill. Specifically, an IDW1 custom of Arcee (from Legacy Elita) holding Leinad (Daniel Witwicky) in head mode showing Arcee's face, and touching the back of that head is Studio 86 Arcee. TR Arcee has helm guard ridges on her mid and lower cheeks, just like the IDW Arcee custom, whereas S86 Arcee does not. End ID.
ID 2 of 2: Visual art Arcee heads: from EXRID of IDW1 (art by Alex Milne and Josh Perez), a stock photo of the TR Arcee from TFwiki, a zoom in on the box art of TR Arcee, and screencap of Arcee's head from Transformers the Movie. The TR heads do have some differences from both the comic and cartoon heads: the audials are smaller (likely due to the TR headmaster gimmick) and are pink (like her early EXRID helm), and the head crest has an additional smaller crest on top with a blue biolight at the front (similar to her early Phase 1 helm). End ID.
Combined with the fact e.g. original Arcee bio describes her as a ferocious warrior especially when fighting people who threatened her loved ones, and well, if you watched Sunbow you do see some of that, a lot of this was not new ground for EXRID to tread, just a different journey. So TR Arcee being an amalgam of the trans gal we know in the comics & G1 Arcee (and TR Blurr retool no less, across gender retools are one of our favorite things about transformers) is just bringing together two overlapping aspects of Arcee the postage stamp bio did the same.
What the stamp bio did not do in having Arcee & Daniel being friends was have Daniel go on a gender journey as a result of that lmao, which we did write , after talking with another fanfic writer who was writing how Daniel would be inspired by her & the blurring from their binary bond.
Now, we aren't actually the first person to post a trans Daniel Witwicky story on Ao3. Somebody beat us to that by nearly nine years, back in 2013 (we definitely don't mind! the more people who write trans Daniel the better) but it's smut so we won't link it here lmao.
But if you want to read the fic that led us to write how Daniel & Arcee's gender journeys could intertwine, or want to read a good G1 fic go read Showdown at Sherman Dam , the fic we did partially because of that one is Day of Multiflame .
More & more we feel that G1 & IDW1&2 'Cees aren't drastically different chars, just different things happened to them & have some personality differences. But the ethical & martial core of her is there. Earthspark Arcee reflects this. Don't believe us, then read Best of Arcee. it's all there. That comic has one of the better moments for Arcee in the old G1 comics, she speaks to her pacifist ethos to keep Hot Rod from losing it. Sound familiar to Arcee advising Optimus in IDW1? There are some big differences but that's for another time and frankly we’d rather save that for a larger thing about Arcee that would also talk about Aligned, the movie comics, Animated, all of it that we have the spoons to dig into