normal tier: only sort of thinking about your tf designs’ transformation scheme, putting the kibble you think looks cool in places it looks the coolest
good tier: designing a decent transformation scheme for your tf designs, putting kibble in places that actually make sense
god tier: detailing elaborate internal transformation mechanisms for your tf designs so that you can put the kibble you think looks cool in places it looks the coolest
id be remiss not to include where different canons fall
normal tier: g1 cartoons and comics, animated
good tier: unicron trilogy, beast wars II + Neo
god tier: idw comics, prime, bayverse
True fact, though: When applied to fan-canon god tier is replaced with “Crying tier” bc that’s what I do when i try to utilize it
“Teletraan I, the Transformers Wiki” was originally founded on Wikia (then called “Wikicities”) back in May 2005 by a user named Nova81426, with the intention that he and a friend of his would work on it as a hobby. The week after opening up the site, however, the pair were offered a big job opportunity (to take over the running of a comic book store), so their planned project had to be shelved so they could devote their time to that.
Nothing much happened to the wiki for a while, until April of 2006, when it was discovered by longtime Transformers fan David “@itswalky“ Willis. The editing of Transformers articles on Wikipedia itself had been increasingly troubled for some time thanks to the efforts of one particularly terrible editor, so Willis determined to turn “Teletraan I” into the “proper” Transformers wiki as a way to have a good online resource free of that nonsense. He chose to make it a little humorous, and the first few editors who joined him in working on the site – being from a similar era of fandom as him, and sharing a similar sense of humor from being in the same fandom circle – rolled with it.
And y’know, it might’ve ended there, with the site being somewhere these guys had fun while documenting Transformers, but instead it just kept growing and growing as more people joined up to contribute. And as popular as we are for our tone now, back in the early days, whee-OOOH, there were some folk that HATED it, and were really out to get the site! But as our main talkpage still says, “THE FUNNY STAYS,” and eventually history got on our side. 🙂
To complete this recap of our history and answer the other big question that’s often asked – “why are there two wikis?” – we’ll jump ahead to 2008, when Wikia was in the process of redesigning itself to look less like Wikipedia, leading to the incorporation of an increasingly ridiculous number of ads. You’ve seen what Wikia (or “Fandom,” as they’re call now) looks like these days, right? This was the move toward that. The Transformers Wiki had no time for the talking auto-play adverts that were being shoved into their page layouts, forcing text and images off the screen, and as the Wikia administrators were not willing to compromise on the issue, it was decided that, in order to preserve itself, the site would go independent, moving to its own server, owned by Willis. That was when we were rechristened “TFWiki,” and where we remain today, while the previous Wikia wiki still exists in a largely-abandoned state.
This is still one of my favorite things i’ve done. Some day soon when i’m feeling better, maybe i’ll try to make more of them… if I can think of other common “types” of alternate mode! The last one was the start of a third batch that i never got any further with.
1. ACTUALLY EXAMINE DECEPTICONS-BAD AUTOBOTS-GOOD FOR ONCE. God! If we’re going to go out of our way to paint the Decepticons as a group of repressed minorities fighting the status quo and then slowly becoming the very thing they fought against in the first place, actually go full bore with it and examine it. Don’t half-ass Megatron going “oops I was wrong”, don’t make them universally bad, examine it!
And same with the Autobots! They literally fight to support the status quo, which has been portrayed in most continuities as a bad thing that enslaved and murdered people! Examine this! Why are they doing this, are they going to change it, are they thinking about it at all?
I know, I know it’s a result of this franchise being so deeply and inherently American – this country that’s built on the backs of slavery and abuse, but still supposedly stands for freedom and abolishing injustice – but this is something we need to examine, and science fiction has always been there for us to safely examine these things without directly labeling things as real life things. (Hi Star Trek!)
2. Tying into #1, I would give so much for the “adult” life-action Transformers movies to not be Bayverse, but to actually be an adult story that gives Transformers a modern examination and story, with action set pieces and compelling characters. Like IDW almost did, before it crawled up its own ass with bad writing and preaching. Basically – I understand that the children’s cartoons can’t be given any nuance at all – /sarcasm – but at least if we’re pulling out the big budget adult movies or comics for adults, let’s have them be written by adults for adults, please?
*I do not accept the Bayverse movies as adult movies. They’re for teens, with crass humor and insulting writing. They do interesting things, but ultimately they’re just bad in ways that are painful.
**Adults for adults: I intend this to mean mature writing. Not death for shock value, not fanservice (in either interpretation), not writing for the corporation to sell toys – I know, I know. MTMTE sometimes hit these heights, but it often wanted to go off and get into the ASOIAF rut where it’s too complicated in non-beneficial ways, kills people, and isn’t fun to read, because you’re spending most of your time upset.
3. Next up. Transformers, The Movie. The G1 80s cartoon: I would have given anything if it had actually been a finale for G1 S2 instead of “quick do a finale so we can kill everyone and introduce the new toys!” it was insulting, it was upsetting, and as much as I love that thing, it’s deeply, deeply flawed. Basically give control of these toy commercials to someone who cares about the characters so they don’t die. (This also includes a general wish for G1 to be written better / examine some of the intensely interesting world-building and character-building it engaged in, but that’s a general wish…..)
4. …I’m almost running out of things with that “give everything better writing and care about the characters” plea. I mean, okay: I want more female characters, but I primarily want the ones we have to get characters and arcs and storylines, and no, I don’t count the ongoing comics for this. Whatever Hasbro’s doing next for an animated show, I want it to include more characters than “the leader, the smart guy, the impulsive guy, the fat guy, the chick, the villain”. Or, if it must do that, please dig into this and make it interesting like TFA did. (Forever impressed that they gave Optimus PTSD in that show.)
5. Final request, the most personal one: please give us more Transformers video games in the style of the High Moon studios ones – and I don’t mean FPS games, I mean games with that intricate, interesting world-building with interesting takes on the world. They were set on Cybertron, they were full of life and death in compelling ways, and they brought me into the franchise. (And it was all disappointment from there, because there’s nothing else in this franchise quite like those two entries.) I know the writing was kind of bog-standard video game objective-based, but – environmental storytelling. Anything that forces the writers and artists to depict Cybertron and robots and alien things, anything that gives me more stuff to think about when I go world-building. Please.
I think part of the reason why I quite like the idea of (x) coding with Cybertronians, specifically when it comes to the differences between those who want to embrace their coding and those who fight it, is because the things that come to me “naturally” and the things I want to do are very different, on some pretty core levels, and I like the idea that- yes, some people are inclined towards certain things and embrace it. Others…maybe not, but in the end it doesn’t matter, because training a skill is always going to triumph over talent.
And I guess I find the idea very personal, so HEY have some rambling under the cut re: why I don’t agree with that one post but I know it’s entirely for personal reasons regarding how I view my own issues.
very much agreed, on every point. everyone is making such wonderful posts that I’ve mostly just been over here cheering the anti-censorship brigade, but what the hell, I’ll throw my hat in the ring too (and I’m not replying to the OP because this reeks of SJW Trolling to me and I don’t want to feed the troll). also this got WAY longer than I intended, so here’s a readmore for those who would rather not have this cluttering up their feeds:
Cybertronian Database 