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pluralsword · 1 month

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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 Transformers’ 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 Arcee’s 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

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askarcanamagnus · 5 months

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Lady Arcana Magnus, and the collective that she's associated with therein, which forms of aesthetic variation do you personally find the most appealing or fascinating? Furthermore, which kind of ideal expression do you advise to a queer demimale who has been feeling some feminine aesthetic alignment for some time now, and would thus like to dress or style themselves accordingly? I was told once that I had a certain feminine quality about myself, though back to the core of the question, I suppose I'd love to learn more about your aesthetic experiences in order to learn more about my own potential.

Additionally, in terms of the outer multiverse that you may be aware of, have you ever encountered any variations of Shockwave that were trans, where perhaps learning about themselves and their own internalized biases led them to realize that their present external expression didn't align with what was truly themselves? I suppose I think it would be interesting if a Shockwave was able to better apply her potential in the service of aesthetic liberation :3

The query:

“Zoomy” Arcana Magnus: Dear Expansive Quester,

I am deeply honored, we all are, that you reached out to us about this. We will answer in three parts, first, regarding the various aesthetics we enjoy for ourselves and in others. Second, giving you tools to navigate your own iteration and desires on your journey for euphoria. As it sounds dress is a part of this, we will advise in that regard overlaid with our own experiences whether binary bond or otherwise, and some questions to consider. We are more than happy for this to be a blog conversation if you wish!

Lastly, we will tell you about some the Shockwaves across variation we’ve met, for we do know some. I myself was close with an Autobot Shockwave, they was an instrumental strategic advisor on Nautica’s command staff in the Great War, and a proud single mentor to the stoic fun-loving Wrecker and Torchbearer errant in love with Windblade, Strongarm. We do know some she pronoun Shockwaves though. <3

On my part, as you may know, I am a trans torquey zoomdare and a gal, the latter from contact with humanity and my trans gal binary bond partner. For those unfamiliar with compound noun aesthetic assemblage terms originating from bots like us under the umbrella systems of sparktion (Cybertronian origin), hearth (Camien origin), voyage (Velocitronian origin), sedneemet (Eukarisian origin) etc. terminology, some of which we first introduced to this world back in early 2022, we will define in brief in this regard:

Cybertron -sparktion - literal meaning: sparklike assemblage, assemblage of sparks, the seeing of trying to understand one's aesthetic singularity as getting to know one's spark.

Caminus – hearth - an aesthetic understanding from the fire of the person and community, of passion, of forging, of dedication, and the universe.

Velocitron – voyage - the love of the journey itself taken very deeply, considered more important than a long resting point of conclusions.

Eukaris - sedneemet - rock affinity based, specifically the intergenerational formation and changing of shape and composure from many different sources.

In regards to specific aesthetics to me zoomdare reflects a sense of a graceful rush in body and mind, it is somewhat comparable to the sensory re-acquaintance euphoria human bodied people experience particularly from doing hormone replacement therapy for aesthetic reasons, however it is also comparable to the reknowing of oneself and the world in other senses, whether meditation, dance, martial arts, whatever one feels at home and in tempo with, what makes one happy. That is more the zoom side typically, however these definitions are self ascribed, not prescriptive. People such as myself speak to the entwining with the other end of the dare portion reflecting an intrepidness in existing and building on that, and also to carry on and care for ourselves and one another, to protect, create, and deescalate all we can.

As such, for people like me, there is also a bodily component- while a zoomdare can be any shape, say a telescope or microscope bot in the zoom and/or daring of their magnification, or a building bot one with their surroundings and denizens- for many of us it is the altmode shape to soar or flit about or charge or outmaneuver or race or flow that affirms us- for me, being a robust high speed car with some torque and reflecting that in my bot mode shape and my fields of study makes me very happy. Windblade, Anode, Velocity, Aileron, Hot Shot, Trans-Mutate and many more also know themselves with their frames in a similar manner. As a mutualist in attraction, that is to more similar aesthetic assemblages while still reveling in symbiosis of our differences- I find that attractive, and there is a tank Shockwave who fits that profile for me, but we won't talk about her until the end of this post (my understanding is that the feeling is mutual, but we've decided not to act on it. sometimes attraction is just that).

But the truth is most bots of my world feel some affinity to zooming and daring, just as I do to holding, wooshing, booming, clawing, flapping, chords, spinning, flares, seeking, forging, the torque, blazing, plunging, the absences thereof, the whys, the hows, the whens, and where’s and on and on. We do after all have hundreds of thousands of years to have built up an assemblage viewpoint, to know ourselves as compounds of so much. In this way. My realizations of myself created a new kinship with my symbiotic launch tank-alt torquey wooshhow twin sibling Galvatron, for he could see and embrace through me what taking on mutualistic trans zoomdareness would have been like for him.

Regarding torque- it's a way of referring to the rapid build-up and force of momentum of persona and/or euphoria of such in the frame and the ensuing results in contact with the world. It is somewhat comparable to your term “butch” from lesbian and sapphic terminology as one butch lesbian Spacewarp realized dating torquedare Perihelion, however as you can tell from the fact symbiotist Galvatron uses it the term torque, like the rest of our aesthetics, are not mere analogs for gender. They are our own parallel and vastly differing iteration that has some amusing overlaps. Some examples of primarily torque folks include Elita One, Pyra Magna, and Optimus Prime (all torqwhy), Road Rage (torqdare), Cliffjumper, Arr-Cee (a motorcycle bot I am close to), and Catapult (zoomtorqdares), whereason the holding or being held and knowing when to let go ranges from as small as Lug (holddare), to Titans like Lodestar (zoomholddare).

There will always be aesthetic contextualization and iteration, there has been as long as there has been life to experience of it, so at the very least as long as there has been sapient life- and in that sense, will always be around no matter how hard people try to erase it, and even should all life perish, we carry on in love’s memory forevermore beyond the question of physics or gods.

“Prof” Arcee: while my world and that of Arcees you are familiar with use gender, the situation is similar. Our genders are linked to one another, and inform and are informed by alt mode and relation to it. I am a mutualist trans alt modus iterexper gal, so I am polygender in that way, and even in how harsh and tragic my world’s history was, we did still have many beautiful understandings, and though I would not know the word zoomdare until I was very old, we were building towards that framework, for example I did know I liked some torque to me, and this was actually a point of grief since Jhiaxus’s transmedicalist reformat of me in his rigid ideal of a woman and not what I wanted for gender affirmation as a gal, did not take that into account or more accurately ignored it. I would take millions of years to be brave enough to take on robustness again within the shapes I actually wanted.

Regarding your question- I would encourage you to reflect from yourself and the world around you. What kind of gals or femme-spectrum folks do you look up to or aspire to be like? What clothing makes you happy? That will help answer your question. While clothing is not really my thing…

“Arcblade” Danielle Witwicky: if its not tough color schemed armor that allows maneuverability, I like a-skirts and dresses, because I can move easily in them, more easily than pants (not that I’ve worn pants for along time, hard to do as an exosuit cyborg), and I tend towards a stately appearance if I am bothering with clothes. Anything can be feminine if you want it to be, it's just a question of what resonates with you.

“Zoomy” Arcana Magnus: regarding Shockwaves, yes, we know of some who are trans, and some who even though they are not had their own epiphanic cycles entangled with the journeys of other people. The Shockwave I know from my life uses they/them, a zoomdare, is aconjunxic and asensual, and struggles with emotions. They however were raised in a loving community of my world’s Golden Age, that showed them to observe and understand that there is wisdom and reason for a society of mutual aid, consensus, care, and solidarity, and while they may struggle with being compassionate and loving emotionally, the concepts themselves make sense to them, and they know that we love them. There is one entity in the universe they do love dearly, can hug close most easily- their mentee, the brave and sweet gamer Torchbearer errant Strongarm, who they raised on Caminus in the late Golden Age, since they foresaw that world would play such a particular role in the aesthetic Autobot Revolution. Shockwave was a scientist of astronomy, physics, and engineering, but they also intently studied civilian and military strategy, and would go on to serve as one of the strategic command advisors to stratelect Nautica, who advised and coformed much of the strategic planning with Supreme Commander Optimus Prime on behalf of our pluralistic democratic government at the galactic level of the war. It was Shockwave who was the chief architect of the system by system, sector by sector randomized strategem algorithm offensive late in the war that made us unpredictable in our offensive late in the war against the remaining Decepticon sectors, before Nautica led the command of a unified consolidation of special forces interdiction, fleet-scale peaceful penetration, and wave based planetary deployment with direct tactical ground support and in tandem with Decepticon defectors.

It was my personal honor as a Prime and as elected Director of the Anchor special forces and thus one of the joint chiefs to present Shockwave with the Medal of Cosmic Survival, for their algorithm that they monitored and edited with real-time sapient input until conventional command resumed to have so thoroughly mitigated civilian casualties and maintained as primary priority the safeguarding of them above all else in a chaotic situation where we retreated from some regions and made full frontal assaults in others.

I won’t lie. Even with our pacifist military (which we in the brass knew was an oxymoron and were always looking for the day when we could build peace instead of fight to survive) considerations of not engaging in strategic bombing or bombardment of any targets that was not confirmed to be solely a conventional military base or holding with a confirmed lack of civilian presence in or close enough to be collateral, that even with maintaining only use of tactical direct support otherwise and de-escalatory doctrine always looking to find grounds for mutual reparation, restitution, restoration, and reconciliation, people were caught in the crossfire throughout the war even on the infantry scale. Even when the killing usually reached only the target in mind that itself is still a sadness and atrocity. It weighs on my conscience, on all of us. We cried a lot about it, and it’s the whole damn reason Anode and Lug made a plea to both sides to stop because of the sheer amount of trans people, and people generally, who had died on both sides over 500,000 years of war. But that’s a story for another time. Suffice it to say that at least we did not try to declare our cause just, to excuse what we did, and that even though it was the Decepticons who had seceded and tried to coup us with their stratocracy that eventually became neo-Functionist genocidal reactionary totalitarianism and as such eventually had a civil war with those who didn’t agree, that we did not annex them, that we helped to reconstruct democracy with them when all was said and done, and that we repaid all we could for the hurt we caused, just as they did for us.

Shockwave helped with that. They, like me, gave up their rank, helped to rebuild damaged polities by hand, to ensure the traumatized received care, to step in the way of conflict and not return violence in turn, like the peaceful intercessions of old in cycles of violence during the Golden Age. To risk their life as someone working for the dream with their integrated cannon deactivated and stuffed with cyberflowers, working with their one arm, and hauling supplies on their treads. They told me they were happy when, years afterwards, they were instead tugging youngsters along on field trips to the observatory.

"Prof" Arcee: I could talk about the Shockwave of my world

It is my understanding that some Shockwaves do know themselves as trans gals. One such example is a Shockwave from the Tyran Cluster who found her way onto Axiom Nexus after a Spacebridge accident while helping AllSpark bearer Multivalia Prime (Chromia) take down the Fallen in order to save the new forged population of Cybertron from being forced into an army and dying. But because of her pushing for offworlder equality simply because it made more sense than the extractive jus sanguinis hierarchy, she was pushed by bruisers affiliated with the Freelance Police Legion into the Heap, where she joined up with the Unified Anarchists League in trying to make the best of scarce resources through caring for one another and finding joy in resistance- it was in learning to dance and the way of the sword that she realized herself as a gal, and as the bots of her universe could do, simply changed her shape to reflect what that personally meant for her. She rationalized having armored skirt halves like Anode’s that in this case form part of Shockwave’s tank armor because the skirts have pockets, but she did later admit that the moment to moment life and emotive expression her t4t partner Anode had through them is why she took them on for herself. After the post-Shroud revolution that brought a new consensus of equality to Axiom Nexus, I met her via a Multiverse Drive ship that ‘Backpack” Arcee was on, and we shared stories with each other. Shockwave seemed very happy.

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