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douxie-casperan · 4 years

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I’ve been thinking a lot about timings, specifically Douxie in Arcadia in regards to just the Trollhunter’s series and generally what he was up to at the time. He was clearly in the area before we saw him in Season 3 though his day to day was shown more by comparison in 3Below and thus thanks to an initial ramble in the tags I decided to go ahead and figure things out that make most logical sense to me and could well be completely wrong. As you do.

Prior to the start of Trollhunters it is very unlikely there would have been too many problems as all factions were largely keeping to themselves and under the radar of the others. However after Kanjigar fell, Bular was a LOT more active in Arcadia because of hunting down Jim and in turn because of trying to stop the Killahead project Jim was most active within town it's self at weird hours. As a result this greatly increases the run in risk with Douxie’s own night time wanderings however regular they were for dealing with non-troll related beings that are likely being attracted by the native magic (Ley-line) of the place. The changelings could clear up the messes a certain troll left behind, sure, but somebody who knows enough about trolls would start putting two and two together that the dynamic had shifted somehow and not in a particularly good way.

The easiest way to solve this problem would Douxie happening to be out of the area at the time and quite handily in his first appearance Claire mentions a tidbit that could easily do just that: Ash Dispersal Pattern was the opening act for at least one Papa Skull concert (Highly likely the one she went to with Steve) and it'd make sense to be fronting for more than one and it would keep him safely out the area for a while. After Bular is killed, it is much easier to again hand wave Team Trollhunter and Douxie/the hedge-witches simply not running into one another when something was happening on the Surface given the locations various things tended to happen with a lot less environmental destruction compared to recent times.

In the first episode of Season 3 we see the kids have been placing warded signs under the guise of supporting Ophelia's campaign to help ward off Gumm-Gumms and that’s a giant neon sign something is there you're trying to protect for anybody with any magical knowledge. It's unknown how long they have been doing this though given Claire and Jim are planting them in the neighbourhood it's likely they started branching out after experimenting with the original hiding spot for Trollmarket (If with a few hiccups given one troll managed to stumble over them anyway) pretty recently which gives ample time for the source to be spotted before the sudden increase.

It stands to reason that around this period is when Douxie would have likely picked up there was now a human teenager running around as the current Trollhunter which I have no doubt he did side eye a bit as uh what and that Trollmarket had an emergency exodus to the Surface even if not knowing the reasoning behind either. Word will be passed on but it's still troll politics at the end of the day, nothing to do with us but worth keeping tabs on.

A few days maximum prior too will be also when a new unknown witch in Arcadia was noticed (Something I touched on here) whom he could just have easily innocently passed in the street. With Zoe's help they would be able to slowly pin down a bit more information (Teenager, likely in High School so gotta check 'em all) until through using Battle of the Bands as a ruse find out that person is Claire. Jim’s attempts at dissuading her joining in (The so-called ”after school activities”) would have confirmed any suspicion that she was also part of Team Trollhunter too which would stand out given they tended to be more solitary in that job role. While he did use very archaic terms (To us), he was being exceedingly respectful of another unknown magic user as appearance is no judge for true age as he proves himself.

Douxie is not seen again until he's on waiter duty at Mr. Benoit's and it's likely thanks to Darci's presence they don't fudge any mention of Trollhunting duties and not give him any tip offs/confirmation that Toby is also involved. Claire's initial outburst would have been very ?? but if you've been in customer service long enough it's a bit on the worrying side sure but not an immediate red flag. That said given the complete change in demeanour afterwards with very wrong vibes being given off to boot that would have been a whole nother kettle of fish easily leading to stealth texted Zoe while back inside say a bit of a situation was developing with the new witch and how best to handle it. I actually had a rough mention of this scenario here.

The next time he would see them, in passing or otherwise, whatever the situation was has been resolved thanks to the help of Strickler meaning whatever plans they had to research more or help would have been rendered unneeded which is good or bad depending on how you look at it. This would also mean the other magic users of Arcadia remained completely in the dark that both Morgana is actively in play and that she was right there in front of Douxie without him even realising it.

Author note: Due to the weirdness of the in the UK aired version, I cannot accurately speculate on Douxie seeing 100% possessed Claire as there are two jump cuts. The first during the bathroom scene just after Morgana leaves the mirror then where it then suddenly jumps to showing a few seconds of "I feel like a whole new girl" then a second jump to everybody walking home. I think there was a "Silence, peasant" in there from gif sets I've seen but aside from that I genuinely have no idea! Tried to do my best with what I know for certain.

Then you get the Eternal Night and ho boy this is precisely why I’m writing about it in a one shot and have previously had a mention of the situation here as well. Given Douxie’s outburst at the start of Wizards it stands to reason that Merlin never contacted him and this poor guy in turn had absolutely no idea that he’d awoken nor was in Arcadia. This meant that he (And very likely Hex-Tech too) were completely caught out when it hit which would match up with his being completely without the bracelet leaving him to defend Mary and Darci with a freaking flying kick and belting a Gumm-Gumm with his guitar. Honestly it does show he's not defenceless without it but damn what an entrance. Plus the little slip up with calling the attacker twits, that wouldn’t have registered with the girls but had Claire or Toby still been there? Oh that’d have been very interesting as that is not a term you know without knowing outting him on the spot very much like how it did for us as viewers. Alas they were elsewhere, his secret remains intact.

It’s very possible during this entire mess he might have seen Morgana too, distantly perhaps but very there given her colour of magic and the golds are very distinctive, leading to one very awful blast from the past but right now your focus has to be on getting these kids and any other stragglers to safety because that is where you can help right now and not on the field. Head down, keep going and freak out about it later. Oh and whenever get a spare minute text Zoe to check both she and any of the Coven in the area currently are holding up okay and if they need backup.

At the very least none of them would have to pretend they don't know what trolls are anymore, handy given at least two plus the two changelings who stayed behind though the same hat syndrome between Strickler and Douxie would be an absolute goldmine about now if they hadn't manage to have a run in prior. I am a simple person, I find the concept hilarious.

Finally there is one other little issue needs resolving. After the arrival in flying Camelot, Douxie much like the others appears far more worried about seeing Jim inside a crystal and not about the fact he's no longer human. Steve? There’s every possibility he found out along with Eli at some point from Toby but in the wizard's case, he would never have been in that friend (Or even kinda) circle to get that bit of information nor does Merlin pull him aside to mention it either. That leads me to suspect he may have briefly glimpsed Jim during the battle and put two and two together much like Aja did that they are the same person. It’s highly unlikely he knew of the Eclipse armour existence given how secretive Merlin tends to be (Plus he was 19 at the time not to mention a bit of a disaster but we love him anyway) however there would be absolutely no mistakening that it is the Trollhunter in a new coat... and new bluer form. Follow that train of thought enough and it leads to the fact there is only one person alive that could have pulled that one off: The very same one who created the amulet in the first place.

Oops.

#History in the making - Headcanons #They won't remember me #Team Trollhunter #Master Merlin #Tales of Arcadia #Trollhunters #ToA #Wizards #ToAWizards #[In which once again the Mun will not shut up]

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cryptidwriterdotcom · 4 years

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The noise of multiple sets of feet, three to be exact, pounding against the pavement echoed up the walls of the buildings around them. The tallest figure whose body type determined them to be of male physique spun around to cover their escape with a veil of blue fire. The tallest had dark, almost purple in color, burn scars that covered his body. Between old and new injuries it was difficult to tell what his condition was. He seemed to mostly be covered in dirt, however, the unlit alley ways provided no way to tell.

With him he had two companions, both significantly shorter than the arsonist. One of them was female, as given away by her clothing and body shape. Her blonde hair was tied up into space buns that were messy but went with her square bangs. The baggy, faded, yellow sweater she wore was accompanied by a sailor themed girls uniform, the navy blue pleated skirt coming down to her mid thighs and the tie/scarf was over the most likely itchy cotton sweater. Slightly opaque black stockings came up to meet the edge of the skirt, paired with brown school issue shoes. She was covered in minor cuts and bruises, but the edges of her clothing were torn and tattered.

The other small figure was a male, but could easily pass as a female because of his femanine physique that boys typically didn’t have. His shoulder and torso shape ultimately gave away his gender, as there was no flare of the hips or soft rounded shoulders. He wore a tattered hoodie, if it could even be considered anything more than a rag at that point, that was crop top length. The shoulders had been cut off thus allowing for the sleeves of his tee-shirt to show and extend past the non existent sleeves of the hoodie. Curly green hair, crusty and sun bleached from years of living on the street and washing in the ocean, was pulled back into a bun. He wore high waisted shorts, stockings, and a garter belt that didn’t match the red hightops. Said shoes had aesthetically been dragged through the zombie apocalypse and back four times over.

“Izuku this is all your fault!” The tallest yelled, the smaller male responded by flipping his head back with a grin and a giggle. Said smaller figure ran with a limp and several moderate injuries adorning his skin, not that he seemed to notice.

“You’re welcome Dabi!” The greenette responded as he looked forward again, and led the other two through the streets. Despite the delays they had been setting up, they could hear the pro heros getting closer and closer. A fireball narrowly missed the female of the group, instead hitting Izuku in the back. He cried out in pain as he stumbled and fell to the ground, his attempt to get back up was foiled by his injured ankle giving out below him.

“Shit! Come on Izuku, tell us which way to go!” The female spoke as the taller male began to carry Izuku on his back. The anxiety of the three rose with every passing second and the heros were hot on their heels. Before they could get any instructions, their escape was cut off by a wall of branches. The other passage was blocked off by several pro heros. Their sweat dropped as they heard the familiar thump of combat boots against concrete. They spun around to see a raven haired man. Instinctually Dabi and the unnamed female took a fighting stance.

“Your friend needs medical attention, it would be wise to surrender before he gets worse.” The pro hero, Eraserhead as they recalled, stated blandly. The pair didn’t seem to like that, seeing as the female gave a loud outburst in response.

“NOBODY TOUCHES OUR LITTLE BROTHER!” She screamed. The only thing that was keeping her from lunging forward was the weak grip she felt tugging on her sweater. She looked to see Izuku was the one who had grabbed the yellow cloth, acting as a distraction while Dabi swept his arm out to keep her back.

“Toga, we’re surrounded. If we fight now, we might lose Izuku. Look at him-” Dabi tried to reason, Toga’s head dropped to the ground as she reached up and gently grasped the hand holding onto her sweater. Izuku began to slip off Dabi as he spoke. Causing Toga let out a screech as she rushed to try and support their family member. Dabi looked alarmed and both of them turned their attention to the boy barely breathing at this point.

They both knew that there was no way to easily heal Izuku, after all the organization they “belonged” to had no healer. Without sharing any words they nodded to each other in agreement as they raised their hands in peaceful surrender. Except, they forgot to put Izuku down beforehand and ended up dropping him, he was lucky that Eraserhead had fast enough reflexes to catch the boy with his scarf.

The rest went as expected, except with Izuku in an ambulance while Toga and Dabi were being taken in for questioning. They ended up taking an offer that they couldn’t refuse from a mouse bear dog creature, and then were taken into the newest place of residence for the next few years.

That’s how Izuku woke up, handcuffed to a hospital bed. The first thing he noticed was how tight the bandages on his chest were. The cloth put pressure on his ribs, he had broken several in the past but lack of treatment led to them healing improperly. He could only wheeze shallow breaths for fear that he might puncture a lung. Because of this he couldn’t sit up on his own.

Izuku noticed that Toga and Dabi were sleeping close by, the blonde was on the side of the bed while leather and staples was in the corner. Izuku desperately made his distress noises, doing his best to wake up the two sleeping lumps. Both woke up fairly quickly at the noises, shooting upwards as they looked at Izuku.

“... Too tight, help.” Izuku whimpered out, his voice scratchy like he had decided to throat fuck a cactus. Toga jumped to her feet and helped Izuku sit up while Dabi climbed in behind Izuku and unwrapped the bandages as quickly as he could manage. Izuku slowly caught his breath once the bandages were discarded in a heap on the floor.

“Thank you.” Izuku mumbled in gratitude. He shifted until he was against the larger male, enjoying the heat his body gave off as it helped relax his taxed muscles. Toga joined her brothers in the pile on the bed, nestling into the crook beside Izuku. They just sat there listening to the others breathe before the silence was broken for a couple of seconds.

“Where are we? All I remember is getting hit with a fireball while running from the pro heroes and the feds.” Izuku asked quietly as he finally had a chance to take in the unfamiliar surroundings. He sunk in closer to his siblings as he subconsciously looked for comfort in their warmth.

“We got trapped in an alley, it was by pure luck that you didn’t puncture any internal organs when you fell. You passed out when we got surrounded by the damn government pawns. Eraser-cunt used you as a bargaining chip against us and would only get you help if we surrendered. They decided to drag us to UA because of whatever reason.” Dabi responded as he wrapped his arms around Toga and Izuku. He pulled them closer as he shifted to get more comfortable, and the three fell asleep.

That’s how the UA staff found them, well, that’s how Aizawa, Nezu, and Recovery Girl found them. They were wide awake the minute they heard the footsteps on linoleum tiles, staring at the door in complete silence as the doorknob twisted and the door was popped open. The three of them stiffened as their muscles tensed up. The sight was of the three teens tensed and hunched over like vultures, completely unmoving as their eyes tracked every movement.

Nezu approached the bed and hopped up onto the bed. The sudden movement started Izuku who out of reflex and pure muscle memory grabbed the nearest small heavy object, ironically being Nezu, and without registering what he grabbed he threw it as hard as he could across the room. The entire time he made a defensive half yowl half growling noise.

Nezu was unscathed by the entire thing, he wasn’t even shaken up in the slightest as he landed on his feet with practised ease.

@darkpuppymemes here's the edited version, it's too long to send in DMs :')

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fuckyeahcharmcaster · 5 years

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An Ode to Omniverse!Charmcaster

OV’s Charmcaster is the non-Man of Action-involved Charmcaster that doesn’t entirely suck, and she has as much good points as bad points, all of which I’m analyzing in this post.

PROS:

Sensible progression in her story - Charmcaster’s story in OV went from point A to point B and so on in a logical way, a far cry from how it went in UAF. We understand why she first gets involved in the show to start with (because the Alpha Rune was stolen by Zs’Skayr while she was busy contending with Darkstar trying to steal magic from her realm), why she goes to Friedkin University (to take the family heirloom staff from Hex in order to replace the Alpha Rune as a power source), why she goes for the power of Bezel (she hears about it while trying to get the staff again and decides it’d be an even better power source), and why she seems so much more rational and reasonable in the game show episode (she’s been deprived of power for a while, and this has a healing effect on her mind). It all adds up.

A return to form in villainy and point of character - The original Charmcaster was all about seeking various sources of power for the validation of her own ego (she has a Inferiority Superiority Complex), with the point being that she did so in place of seeking love, which she subconsciously wants but consciously considers a weakness, a contrast to Gwen who is just as ambitious in the pursuit of growing stronger but does so with love and support from others. After UAF’s version of Charmcaster completely dropped this angle, it’s nice to see it restored with the OV version, who is blatantly portrayed as a troubled young addict to magic power that is too hung up on getting back at people she hates, only hurting herself in the process.

A fantastic design - Derrick Wyatt may have not had any interest in Charmcaster as a character, but he knocked it out of the park with her design, combining her OS design with aspects of her UAF design and topping it all off with stitches in her coat, giving the sense of someone broken trying to put herself back together. The purple hair highlights are cool too.

Badass magic powers - I was far more impressed with OV Charmcaster’s skill with magic than I was with UAF Charmcaster’s. The writing also backs this up, returning to the OS fact that Charmcaster was “always the better sorceress” compared to Gwen, rather than the bullshit retcon about Gwen always being the stronger one because she’s “made of magic”.

Kari Wahlgren’s performance - Just listen to it here. Kari sounds like she’s actually having fun with the role again, as opposed to the drab take on the character she performed in UAF.

Great character interactions - Charmcaster got to have some fun and interesting interactions with Darkstar, Adwatia, Zs’Skayr, Ben, Rook, Hobble, Hex, Gwen and Bezel...she even had non-verbal interactions between many of the other female contestants in the game show episode (providing plenty of crack ship fodder as a result). That was highly appreciated.

A far better ending - UAF’s Charmcaster ended on the worst note you could possibly leave the character on: alone, unloved and mentally broken inside of her awful home dimension. It was a slap in the face to her and to any fan who wanted better for her. OV’s Charmcaster ends in the custody of people who love her on Earth and is mentally recovering. Despite UAF’s Charmaster being the one saddled with the name of “Hope”, there’s actually far more to be hopeful about regarding OV’s Charmcaster. Seriously, just look at the difference here. I am forever thankful that this is where we left the original continuity’s Charmcaster* on.

*The original Ben 10 continuity before the reboot, known as the Prime Timeline, was a timestream, made of three different branches: OS, UAF and OV. So the OS and UAF branches and their Charmcasters technically still exist separately from OV, but not as part of the Prime Timeline. The Prime Timeline’s Charmcaster thus started as OS!Charm, shifted into UAF!Charm, and then finally into OV!Charm which is what she is left off as. Complicated, eh?

CONS:

Mischaracterization - I’m not going to say that I didn’t find the zany, cheerful, energetic, high-on-magic Cloudcuckoolander personality OV Charmcaster had entertaining. I did. But the fact remains that it’s not the personality Charmcaster is supposed to have. Take away all the witchy trappings, and Charm is a “thug life” girl. Strip her of her magic and she’d be ready and willing to throw down with her fists. She’s sarcastic and tough-talking, insolent to authority figures, competitive and kind of tomboyish. Basically, she aspires to be the kind of woman Rojo is: the baddest bitch around who nobody oughta mess with, and she’s constantly frustrated when her own awkwardness gets in the way of this and she is unable to back up this egotistical self-image, though she often blames the likes of Gwen for it instead of herself. UAF’s varying depictions of her as a sultry femme fatale, high school alpha bitch, sadistic and obsessively vengeful murderer, sympathetic outcast and freedom fighter, troubled daddy’s girl, or whatever the Hell she was supposed to be in “Couples Retreat” were not the right characterization, and neither is what was done with her in OV no matter how much more enjoyable than those UAF characterizations it may be. Only the reboot got it right.

Her story hinges too much on UAF’s crap - Just when you’re enjoying OV Charmcaster’s story, you suddenly hear things like “Ledgerdomain”, “Alpha Rune”, “Spellbinder”, “Adwatia”, or “Darkstar” get brought up, and you zone out thanks to the bad memories that are awoken. OV Charmcaster would’ve worked better without all this baggage from her previous self.

Unfortunate Implications - Some of this connects to the previous point, as it exists solely due to the UAF crap (ex: OV Charmcaster’s story means denying the route of Charmcaster becoming a better ruler in Ledgerdomain, sending the message that women aren’t capable of being good rulers because they just aren’t mentally up to the task). Others are just OV’s fault, particularly where Hex is involved - I get what they were going for with him, but to do so they had to whitewash the fact that he and Charmcaster weren’t a loving, mutually evil family; Hex abused Charmcaster in order to drive her to evil. To make Hex sympathetic by having him reformed and upset at his niece’s self-destructive behavior that ends up harming him while dancing around the fact that said behavior was Hex’s own damn fault to start with is gross.

Her relationship with Gwen is a non-factor - OV didn’t butcher the dynamic between Gwen and Charmcaster the way UAF did, but this is mostly because it barely did anything with that dynamic at all. The third act of “Charm School” is the only time the two actually get to interact, and it’s as basic as you can get, with Gwen being all “Charmcaster, you’re not well, stop this so that we can help you!” and Charm being all “How dare you get in my way? I wasn’t even looking for a fight, but now I’m gonna finish you once and for all!” They fight, Gwen wins, Charmcaster retreats, and that’s it. In “Third Time’s a Charm”, Charmcaster turns Gwen into a stone totem right at the very beginning, paying little thought to her for the rest of the episode. Gwen, meanwhile, doesn’t really have anything to do with Charmcaster until the very end of the episode, with her line about hoping to finally make friends with Charmcaster now. For a character who is meant to be Gwen’s foil, Gwen barely mattered to Charmcaster here.

No character development - UAF attempted character development for Charmcaster and did it badly. Once again, OV’s answer was to simply not even try. OV Charmcaster is static to an irritating degree, with the exception of her final appearance, in the game show episode, where she appears to be mentally healed...which naturally happened completely off-screen, since putting it on-screen would mean taking Charmcaster’s mental issues seriously, which OV was not willing to do...after all, it hardly takes anything seriously. I think that this was a missed opportunity, as it could have made OV Charmcaster’s conclusion even stronger.

Horribly paced, minimal appearances - Charmcaster appears in 5 out of 80 episodes in OV. Worse still, her first appearance is a brief cameo toward the end of episode 42, showing up afterward in episodes 47, 63, 75, and 78. This means that Charmcaster and her story is primarily a factor in the episode 61-80 period, which is considered by many to be the worst period in the whole show! It is transparently clear that the people behind OV did not have any real interest in Charmcaster whatsoever, she didn’t fit in with their preferred focus on Ben, Rook, the Plumbers, and stupid shit like “harem” antics and Blukic/Driba shenanigans.

The spin-off that never happened - A justification as to why Charmcaster was so underplayed was that Gwen was not a regular on OV and thus too many Charmcaster appearances without Gwen would feel weird. As it stood, an OV spin-off focused on Gwen at Friedkin University was being planned, and Charmcaster would have been a regular character on that show. The problem is that this spin-off didn’t happen due to OV bombing and the franchise getting rebooted, so Charmcaster having few appearances and no character development in a story arc dedicated to putting her in place for her role in that spin-off just ends up feeling like a total waste. As painful as it is for me to admit this, even UAF Charmcaster ultimately felt more meaningful to UAF than OV Charmcaster does to OV thanks to this misguided decision.

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thewadapan · 5 years

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I rewrote an obscure Transformers comic from the 1980s.

Creator’s Commentary

It’s 1984. Marvel’s four-issue Transformers miniseries has been a smash hit, and they’re already expanding it into a full monthly ongoing. Marvel’s UK branch is looking to import the book, but they have a problem - the newsagents want weekly issues, and there simply isn’t enough comic to fill those pages.

To meet demand, they bring on Simon Furman to write extra comics weaving into the US material. Because he’s the only one with any idea what's going on, he continues to churn out Transformers stories for almost ten years - with only occasional contributions from other authors.

“Peace” is one such interloper.

Written by letterer/editor Richard Starkings under his “Richard Alan” pseudonym for the 1989 Transformers Annual (which was actually published in 1988), it presents one of Cybertron’s alternate futures. Its exact placement in continuity was contentious - even within the comics’ own letters pages, where the editors (writing in-character as Transformers) gave several contradictory answers to questions regarding its canonicity.

The comic opens when the final Decepticon is killed by the Wreckers - an elite group of Autobot shock-troopers. With the war over, the very-very-tired Autobot leader Rodimus Prime announces that he’s going to step down - letting the Wreckers’ leader, Springer, take his place.

Unbeknownst to the Autobots, not all of the Decepticons are dead after all - the double agent Triton still hides amongst their ranks. In an attempt to incite conflict, Triton suggests that Ultra Magnus would make a better leader. The Technobot combiner team agrees, and an argument breaks out between them and the Wreckers. Whirl argues with Triton, Triton punches Whirl, Roadbuster pulls a gun on Triton, Scattorshot shoots Roadbuster, Sandstorm shoots Triton, and the war begins again.

It’s a grimly interesting story, one forever doomed to remain a footnote in Transformers history. Fittingly for a bot of subterfuge, Triton’s alternate mode was a submarine - at least according to Dreadwind in the letters pages. Marvel UK fanboy-turned-creator Nick Roche much later reinvented him as a member of Squadron X - sworn enemies of the Wreckers in IDW Publishing’s Transformers continuity.

In its most recent reprint as part of the twenty-second volume of The Definitive G1 Collection, “Peace” was left stranded as an afterthought alongside Regeneration One - with the rest of the UK strips being collected across the first twenty volumes alongside their contemporary US material. That partwork was curated by Simon Furman, who still writes Transformers stories to this day - despite pleas from some corners of the fandom for him to just call it quits already.

Richard Starkings, meanwhile, went on to found Comicraft - bringing lettering into the 21st century by pioneering the use of digital fonts in comic books.

I wasn’t alive when most of that happened. My first brush with Transformers - at least, as far as I remember - came when I saw Transformers: Armada’s Land Military Mini-Con Team on the shelves of my local Woolworths (a much-loved now-defunct chain of British department stores). I didn’t get it at the time, but when our birthdays rolled around (or maybe Christmas? I was young; I barely remember any of this and neither do my parents) my brother and I got a bunch of Mini-Cons. Our first brush with Generation 1 would come much later, when we found a knackered Strafe at a car boot sale.

For a long time, my only experience with Transformers fiction came in the form of the cartoons - they didn’t show Armada on Freeview so I missed most of that, but Energon and Cybertron both aired in their entirety on CITV. I had the pack-in comics, and the Armada and Energon annuals - which basically just collected random Dreamwave comics without context. All of which is to say that, at the time, I felt pretty starved for good Transformers stories.

Finding the 1989 Annual in a secondhand bookshop, then, was like finding the holy grail.

I won’t lie. I had basically no idea who any of these characters were, or what was going on. But damn if I didn’t pore over every inch of those pages trying to work it out. And I sure as hell was gonna sign the thing, lest those abominable Firecons paid me a visit to finally incinerate what was presumably the only Annual they’d missed back in 1988.

Years passed. Some movies came out. I drifted away from Transformers for a while after my parents said “aren’t you a little too old for these” one time too many. Well, it was either that or the hordes of overpriced Bumblebees clogging the shelves at the time.

Eventually, though, I was drawn back to the franchise. A Humble Bundle of IDW’s comics and Thrilling 30 Sandstorm was all it took.

For some reason, at some point I decided to start a meme page. I don’t know why. Please don’t look at it. I don’t want to talk about it. Most of the edits I made were atrocious, although I’ll admit there’s a few I still find pretty funny. I actually referenced Transformers a bunch of times. There was this whole thing where I tried to work in a plot, so really the whole thing was much closer to a terrible webcomic than an actual meme page.

Perhaps the most involved reference to the franchise came in the form of a relettering of “The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas”, a 4-page comic originally published in a 1985 issue of Women’s Day. Why did I make that thing? I don’t know. Maybe a little more context would help.

Y’see, waaay back when the first Armada toys hit shelves, fans weren’t too impressed - to say the least. They’d seen pictures of highly-articulated prototypes, only to find that articulation completely absent in the finalised figures. To make matters worse, the first pack-in comic was pretty lacklustre - thanks to the trilingual dialogue squeezed into its speech bubbles.

One enterprising fan (Yartek, now better known as Blueshift) expressed their dissatisfaction by completely rewriting that pack-in comic’s dialogue - reimagining Hot Shot as a deranged, jam-obsessed cannibal. It was an idle joke, but one that tapped into the collective consciousness of the fandom at the time. Its popularity grew to the point where it was even referenced on the license plate of a later Hot Shot figure.

By Blueshift’s own admission, the comic isn’t all that great. Nowadays, the atmosphere surrounding Armada’s launch is but a hazy memory for most of the fandom - leaving the comic’s depiction of Hot Shot looking more like an uncomfortably ableist caricature than anything approximating a real parody.

But I digress. I was barely aware of Transformers when all of this happened. My point is that JaAm was like an abridged series, only presented as a comic, and I thought that was a neat idea. I was looking to make a post that was a little bit different for Christmas Day, and remembered the existence of that old Women’s Day comic. Thus was born “its christmas... so what??”

My process for that one was pretty straightforward. After reading the comic once to get a broad sense of its plot, I went through it again panel-by-panel - blocking out each narration box with an autoshape and adding my own text. Mustard features pretty heavily in it... I guess as a reference to jam? Honestly, I was writing this thing entirely by the seat of my pants and - with the exception of the choice panels I’m including here - it’s pretty unfunny as a result. I’m not proud of it. Even at the time, I felt like I could’ve done better. So, half a year later, I did.

When the mood eventually took me, there was only one option in my head - Richard Starkings’ “Peace”. This time, I took a moment to plan the whole thing out in my head before diving in.

I think my idea for the plot came about simply as a result of Rodimus’ body language and expressions on the second page. I reckon I looked at them and thought, “man, he looks like he’s just caught a whiff of something pretty nasty.” From there, my mind jumped to Triton... the culprit, naturally.

When you go back and read some of the early Marvel stuff, there’s a bit of dissonance between the Furman-esque galaxy-spanning conflicts and the more offbeat “the Transformers crash a wrestling match / concert / car wash” stories written by US author Bob Budiansky. At times, the Transformers could be figures of real gravitas - and at others, they were almost like children.

For both “its christmas” and “PASS” I tried to lean into the latter interpretation as much as possible. As a reflection of that, the dialogue and narration - both written in Times New Roman - are completely devoid of punctuation, capital letters, or special formatting. Well, mostly...

There’s a few instances in “its christmas” where capital letters are used for emphasis.

Roadbuster’s dialogue gets to keep its punctuation, and is written in (I think) Arial, because he’s supposed to be more mature than the rest.

Each comic had one panel which retained some of its original dialogue - the fourth on the first page of “its christmas”, and the fourth on the fourth page of “PASS”.

There’s a couple of instances in the comic where characters use swear words, only the wrong letter’s censored - “sh*t” became “*hit”, “f*ck” became “*uck”. That’s simply an artefact of the comic’s origins in my old meme page, where that was a running joke.

In addition to changing the text, I also made a few visual edits...

I changed the comic’s title from “PEACE” to “PASS” (as in, to pass gas) by chopping up and rotating bits of it.

I changed the credits for “RICHARD ALAN” (writer) and “GLIB” (letterer) to “ME” and “ME AGAIN”.

On the fifth page, I rotated Springer’s, Ultra Magnus’ and Sandstorm’s mouths by 180 degrees - changing them from horrified grimaces to jaunty smirks. That’s why they’re kind of lopsided relative to the rest of their expressions! Honestly, the original version looks pretty strange to me now.

I likewise modified Sandstorm’s and Ultra Magnus’ expressions in the first panel of the final page, and Nosecone’s in the second panel.

I scribbled out the question mark in the little “THE END?” box on the final page. This is the definitely the end; no need to beat around the bush.

The idea to make Roadbuster a butt monkey stemmed from the fact that he was the only non-triple-changer to appear on the first page. I saw that panel with the four of them together and thought “one of these guys is not like the others.” And of course, I knew that he’d be dead in a few more pages.

Once I’d established Springer as a bully, I started to get a sense for what life was like amongst the Autobots - but there were still things I wanted to leave open to interpretation...

Why does Roadbuster hang around with the other Autobots so persistently, when all he receives is abuse?

Is Triton’s fixation on “cred” overblown, or is it the only reason he’s survived as long as he has?

Is Rodimus really past his Prime?

Who’s really the coolest Autobot?

Are the Autobots inherently bad people, or simply products of their environment?

If they’re the latter, does that excuse their actions?

If these are the Autobots... then what were the Decepticons like?

Here’s some other miscellaneous notes...

There’s a single speech bubble on the fourth page where the speaker’s off-panel. In the original comic it belonged to Triton, shouting “HEY!” Here, I like to think it’s Whirl speaking.

In the narration of the second panel, I refer to the Transformers as “car robots” - a nod to the Japanese name of the Transformers: Robots in Disguise series.

Rodimus’ “light their darkest hour” line is, of course, a quote from the 1986 animated Transformers movie. Yes, I’m as tired of those references as you are, but no, I couldn’t resist.

I can’t remember if it was deliberate, but I’m pretty sure “if you catch my drift” was a nod to The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye - where original character Drift stars as Rodimus’ third-in-command.

Speaking of More than Meets the Eye - when it was relaunched as Lost Light, Rodimus got a brand new purple colour scheme. In “Pass”, Rodimus agonises over whether or not to get that same paint job.

“Mucho cred” is kind of a memetic phrase amongst readers of the superhero web serial Worm. I feel like “cred” is one of those inherently funny words (along with “cahoots”), so that was enough to justify its inclusion here. If you’ve somehow made it this far into this post, trust me when I say that Worm is a rabbit hole well worth tumbling down.

“Peace” has a very strong atmosphere. It’s about a group of individuals - who’ve known nothing but conflict for thousands of years - suddenly finding themselves with nobody to point their guns at. That exact same scenario played out decades later in IDW Publishing’s Transformers continuity, where it was explored in much greater depth - but in just six standalone pages, “Peace” presents its broad themes with impressive clarity.

I think we’re very much invited to root for Triton - he’s a real worm, but he’s also an underdog. When characters are created whole cloth in Transformers stories, they’re marked for death.

“Pass”, on the other hand, is about a group of kids who’ve lost all sense of perspective. The most important thing to each of the group’s members is how they are perceived by the rest. They’ve been living under ever-increasing social pressure, and things are finally reaching a boiling point - and people die as a result.

And I say “kids”, but the truth is that I still see these dynamics amongst grown adults today - admittedly without the death. For any given subculture, you’re going to find ingroups, outgroups, and the awkward middle ground between them. If I thought there was a clear-cut solution, I would’ve put it in the comic. But oftentimes - like I said in the closing panels - there isn’t really anyone at fault.

If you fart in public, don’t stress about it too much. Nobody really minds. Just own up. And whatever you do, don’t try to pass the blame - or else...

As one final nod to Marvel UK’s Transformers comics... here are some short AtoZ profiles for the entire cast!

You can follow me on twitter if you want to see more of my Transformers ramblings. The rest of my writing can be found right here on this blog - I recommend starting with Everything Is Red Now, a dumb comic about Spider-Man.

#Transformers #Marvel #comics #The Wadapan #31/02/2019

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