#arcee confession

TFP Arcee my goddess. G1 pin up queen Arcee I love you. Best design. Yes this includes the lipstick. In fact, especially the lipstick. Windblade's comic run and rid15 make Windblade look like a goddess and I would throw myself at her alter every single day

I LOVE pretty girls. Strika and Clobber having big girl bodies with defined chests, gorgeous. Step on me please. (not Clobber tho she's innocent and cute :3)

One reason why i love arcee in tfp is how much of an imperfect victim she is (ie survivors guilt , can come off as cruel and pushes people away) she both hates and is terrified of airachnid ,i love how the story allows her to be flawed like this,as someone who still lives with my abuser im tired of media which insists on their traumatised characteristics to be pure saints when for a lot of people thats not the case. I feel seen by her and i think its important for kids who are the target audience of these shows to understand the pov of a victim. Maybe im praising this show too much but those are my thoughts

is it progressive for its time considering the political climate in the US in the mid 2000s? probably! leaning to yes.

was it because it canonized gay couples and made more femme characters?

not really?? its a factor but its not what made idw progressive in the first place.

was idw progressive because it was more of a critique against america's imperialism from the start?

absolutely! and the focus on imperialism and its consequences paved the way for hasbro to allow queer tf characters due to the changing political climate of the US! did it age well? ehhhhhh depends on what you consider aging well. some parts are still centrist, but it was entirely dependent on the writers and how they viewed war and diplomacy. but it was an attempt!

were the female characters well-written? they were given more exposure, but well-written? maybe verity, or only if the characters were written by mscott or jro, who still mostly focused on the male characters. they certainly had bulkier designs so that they look like robots, but thats on the artist's art style. aside from them, it depends. arcee's origin is so offensive that it made dreamwave's sexist femme bot origins look better. imagine being so transphobic that dudebros allies and queer readers rallied together to hate on her backstory because it was that bad. now people just want to forget it and focus on her badass killing spree in idw.

is it super progressive?

its just a step into the right direction, but ultimately the comics were not really about catering to us queer fans until the second half, and it was still more of a criticism against america until the end. which still makes it progressive unless the writers were making decepticons into misunderstood revolutionaries. not a problem to have nuanced villains, but the writers didn't communicate with one another about consistency, so they were either sadistically evil in one issue and semiwoobified in the next.

is idw the best tf comic we have?

not really, i fucking hated what they did to star saber and the impact it had on fanon portrayals like empurata and idw!prowl's personality being the definitive personality for prowl in fanfics set in continuities where prowl isnt even like that. star saber is losing in the husband polls and im blaming idw bc some of the fans who voted only know him from there. but tf comics are generally mid with fun concepts. thats kinda the appeal of the marvel comics and why g1 is more influential to official writers than other continuities. the amount of wild shit that happens in those comics is insane.

is idw entertaining?

yes and no. yes because half of the writers are really good at dry humor and aren't afraid of expanding the tfverse. no because cybertronian politics is not fun to watch. its trying to be as good as game of throne politics but its just gruelling to read. but they got the spirit for being anti-imperialist though.

are the people who hate idw queerphobic and sexist?

thats a generalization. the community is like. 25% conservative, 25% queers from the 80s who were making tf gay fanfics of ships we've never even imagined in livejournal before most of us were even born, 25% toy collectors who care more about molds than the story continuity, and 25% younger fans who either watched every tf show available because it became their hyperfixation or refuse to engage in anything that isnt tfp. i had friends who were fans way longer than me since childhood and they hated idw for so many character assassinations, and i recently met someone who was into tf and got sad that she didnt have anyone to talk about tf for years until tfone made it more popular. and then admitted to hating idw except for the starbee parts.