I’m gonna talk about Beast Wars Blackarachnia. Because I love Blackarachnia and her BW incarnation is my favourite. Okay
I haven’t finished the first season yet, so please don’t spoil anything—even if I say something that changes after the Spider’s Game episode. By extension, this will contain spoilers for BW
I love love LOVE Blackarachnia—she’s literally one of my favourite characters in the franchise. Mainly because she’s just… genuinely so interesting to me
Her main motivation for pretty much everything she does in BW is—drumroll please—sating her curiosity! Yeah. She just wants to Know, and I love that for her
Why does she insist on exploring the floating island and making it to the obelisk? She wants to know what’s going on!
Why does she pretend to be interested in studying under Starscream? She wants to know what he’s up to!
Why does she play along with Tarantulas’ plan to steal the pod? She wants to know why!
Her curiosity is framed as neither a weakness nor a strength—it’s just a part of her, her motivation, and I really like that. Snooping around and investigating is just… something Blackarachnia does. She’d get 100% exploration on any open-world game, I think
She’s also incredibly smart. Everyone knows about her mechanical engineering abilities (bio-technological engineering in TFA), but also… her people skills?? She gets people to do what she wants because she meets them at their level
She needs to get inside the obelisk, but to do that she needs to blast down the door. But to do THAT, she needs to risk getting shot by the obelisk… or, get it to shoot at someone else and break in while it’s reloading. There are Maximals approaching, Maximals who see all Predacons as hostile…
What does she do? Proclaim loudly to Scorponok (who’s also there I guess) that she’s going to attack the approaching Maximals, who overhear and shoot first—because of course they would! They’re in war, after all
The Maximals take out Scorponok, the obelisk takes out the Maximals, and Blackarachnia gets to poke at alien technology! Hooray!
How does Blackarachnia get Starscream of all people to trust her? Easy: show that she knows he’s lying about his past, thus revealing that she has information that can ruin his status with the Predacons, but also make it clear that she can be kept silent
Oh look, someone intelligent with a flair for treachery! Of COURSE Starscream has to take her on as an apprentice! He’ll need a second in command, after all!
Unfortunately for him, Blackarachnia double-crosses him once her curiosity is sated. Tying up loose ends, and all
How does she get Tarantulas to let her tag along, and let her learn about his goal? Sadly, by playing the flirt who simply watches from the sidelines unless she’s instructed to help
Yeah, she hates it. She hates him. I hope she gets to punch his lights out at least once
Beyond her observational talents and ability to put them to use, Blackarachnia is also the local historian. Every time something related to the Autobot-Decepticon war is brought up, she’s the one who knows the answer
Who is Shrapnel? A Decepticon warrior who’s actively dead (*insert show-accurate insult towards Waspinator here*)
Who is Starscream? The second-in-command of the Decepticons, who very much did not die in a noble attempt to protect his leader from Unicron
I’m assuming even more comes up later on in the season
Side Note: Blackarachnia being well-versed in her species’ history really makes the fact that two characters in the show are named “Optimus” and “Megatron”, yet have zero connection to the original show’s characters, that much funnier
She’s also insanely stubborn and prideful, which… I’m always a sucker for in characters… if they can prove that they deserve such pride, and Blackarachnia 100% does
Beyond her personality, I also really like her voice. It’s scratchy and often pitches up to be shrill—something you don’t often hear from female characters, especially ones that are meant to be seen as attractive. Blackarachnia (at least, in Beast Wars) really betrays the “temptress” stereotype that she’s canonically made in-universe to be. It’s just… really fun to see
Also, the way web-spinning spiders’ foot-combs were incorporated into her design is super cool (that’s why her hands look like that: they’re web-walking combs). It makes her very exact with her hands, not just because she has massive claws, but because of the delicate and precise use of real life foot-combs
There’s definitely more that I haven’t rambled about yet, but I’m tired and tumblr is fighting with me while writing this, so I’ll have to save it for another day. Feel free to ramble about Blackarachnia in the notes—I’d love to see more appreciation for her!
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