An Essay: Trans History and Retcons Regarding IDW1 Arcee and Her Spotlight
As we've slowly learned more and deeply immersed into IDW1 Arcee's writing over the years, finding much more than just kinship to her, we felt this urge to dig further, to understand, feeling threads that were there regarding trans history, but not having much knowledge regarding historical transmedicalism, so we dug. We dug because we wanted to show that Arcee's writing from 2012-2018 not only is a beautiful trans story unique in science fiction, but that her personality there and in part in her Spotlight (which absolutely did not intend trans stuff and walked into a minefield in that regard that inadvertently opened up the opportunity for the writing and consulting team in Phase 2 and Phase 3 to figure out beautiful character arcs for her) are direct successors of the original personality frameworks for G1 Arcees, and to show the impact and legacy of both Sunbow/Marvel and IDW Arcees along with more Arcees combined on many versions of her thereafter.
Here's the introductory paragraph:
In much of the last decade, a lot of people familiar with Transformersā trans stories appreciate Arcee being trans and her arcs in that regard from 2012 onwards. But during those six years from 2012-2018 where her narratives that firmly navigated her agency as a trans gal were being established by a number of writers, with consulting help in 2015 for Ask Vector Prime and 2018 for IDW1, there was and remains uncertainty over how exactly that works for her, specifically for her comic iteration where her transness was first hinted and then plainly stated. The variety of understandings in this regard in part originates from her introduction to the IDW1 run, Spotlight Arcee, in 2008, which was received rather turbulently because of how it portrayed her gender and transformer gals at large. Writing years after would navigate resolving this rather beautifully as showing Arcee having struggled with transmedicalism, isolation, abandonment, loneliness, and alienation, the brutality of a violent (and androcentric) world, as many trans people across gender and parallel spectrums or lacks thereof have in real life. Her story is done in a wlw trans gal context in particular. She is shown getting closure on all this, finding her happiness by the end of that continuity that would along with her story at large as a sweet, ferocious, outspoken old warrior sage help set the tone for her portrayals afterwards. Much of this overlaps with how she was described in her The Transformers Universe bio all the way back in 1986. In these regards, we (the writer of this is plural, we'll have a note about that near the end) think it is pertinent to take another look at how her story played out, what was actually written and shown vs. what was intended, to navigate transmedicalist history that overlaps with her story, and to show that Arceeās trans iterations are directly part of the legacy of G1 Arcee overall
also a brief fact check edit regarding HRT:
we said HRT only effects hormones but realized we should fact check that, and apparently for some people HRT does effect their genes!! (this is separate from the discussion of gender journeys and epigenetics which we personally know next to nothing about) this a deeply understudied topic you can read about it here:
Gender-affirming hormone therapy induces specific DNA methylation changes in blood
Anis are bizarre, coal-black cuckoos with long floppy tails and unique, curiously tall, flattened bills. Groove-billed occurs in a variety of open and semi-open habitats in tropical lowlands and foothills, typically staying low in shrubs and grasses. Gregarious and not particularly graceful; usually seen crashing around awkwardly in small groups.
groove billed anis are a hilarious cuckoo situation where they ended up laying their eggs in one anotherās nests instead of anyone elseās. they hang out together in groups of up to five pairs until a nest gets built (sometimes by committee, sometimes they just hang around hopefully until someone does it all on their own) then they start sneaking over and laying an egg in at a time. the females who lay for the first time will sometimes flip prior eggs out of the nest like āoh i KNOW this one isnāt mine! away it goesā but eventually everyoneās laid a couple eggs in there and is stuck with the mutual hostage situation. then they take turns incubating until all the kids hatch and everyone pitches in on feeding them, because no one knows which of the kids are theirs so they all might as well.
they also like to do a team handshake where they clump up and mutually make a low bubbling noise together, to signal group affiliation. go team!
Also their eggs are incredibly beautiful. Theyāre a very pretty blue color, but covered by a white chalky outer layer that is easily scratched off, so they end up in various stages of in-between.
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