#blueike

Commish for @dynared poking fun at merchandising ideas for the Energon Universe. In my notes for who makes up the Autonauts in this AU, I had forgotten I included Pipes in a past comic, and came up with something for him to do here. A different spin on his old G1 profile, he’s a bit of a weeb and has taken an interest in Earth’s toys. He likes what’s considered retro toys, but Pipes does find sexy anime statues interesting for the sculpting (since he doesn’t get the same “enjoyment” humans would from them, nyuk nyuk).

Besides this more modernized take on his old profile, Pipes is still a nuts and bolts guy like in the cartoon, and uses chemicals in his pipe arms to solve particular problems of the day from cleaning, creating smokescreens, or “bug spray” when dealing with Cobra-La beasts.

Because this takes place after this page,

A two pack of Optimus & Mirage who in context are Re-Scans (or is that Reskins considering game world) for the aquatic level.

Optimus is a retool of Scourge.

And assuming he had the same general accessories, instead of a cutlass he has an axe. The one toy to give him an axe and it’s a two pack that’s probably going to be impossible to find in certain areas, go figure.

Mirage is more curious as he’s a retooled Elita, but with a head that’s based more directly on IDW Riptide. I’ve seen TFW2K5 happy about a technical Riptide toy, but I have NEVER seen anyone actually like Riptide either So it might be another overestimating popularity thing again.

It also works as a double reference, calling back to Energon Mirage, which is even funnier considering the new Energon Surge branding.

This does answer a potential question about how the main cast might navigate the cyber seas, but it might also just be a toy only oddity like the G2 Megatron.

It also begs the question how the others would navigate the seas if they don’t have aquatic modes in toy form. I think Bumblebee’s new toy is meant to be semi aquatic so that might help to ferry some guys if necessary.

I feel like some people kvetching about CyberWorld’s toys can’t appreciate the simplicity of the weapon customization and just not being very imaginative.

There’s a fair bit you can so with these guys alone.

I call the Gerwalk Bee one the Hive Cannon with Chop Shop.

Sky-Byte now has the Ultimate Anchor Arm.

Commish for @thebigboy71 featuring Etemon's past careers before sliding into evil.

In the Zone version of events, while Etemon does resurface as a reoccurring antagonist once again in the Network, having now Digivolved to KingEtemon, during Adventure, he's treated as more of a 9-5 villain who is actually pretty chill and more of a doting eccentric uncle. This is based on fandom observations that suggest they saw him as more of an ally that was simply on the wrong side for how goofy he was compared to the other villains, ... despite the fact Etemon is a more traditional cartoon villain who just enjoys being bad, but I do see the logic, hence my using of it here. Plus, besides Adventure: doing something similar, Etemon in other ancillary media tends to be more friendly, so even Bandai/Toei seems to have recognized this also.

This bit is also partly inspired by a joke in the old fan fic "Ticketed Items Only", an alternate telling of the Adventure story after they defeated Myotismon. While the fic did have a serious story in mind (one plot beat involved Matt discovering an extinct race of Digital Humans similar to Gennai and the DigiDestined having to fight a new villain with the power to mutate other Digimon into more destructive Digimon), it was largely forth wall breaking and jovial, having custom Digivolutions like "SonicBirdramon" and a reoccurring AOSTH Wes Weaselly type Digimon called Retailmon that assisted the DigiDestined with their current situation.

Wanted to do something for Pride Month, but due to comm work and personal matters, it wound up happening later than planned.

Settled on fleshing out Braverman and JD in the Energon portion of the Unicron Trilogy.

Unlike the Heathers/Stranger Things AU, they’re a gay couple, but it’s not a big focus either.

Braverman and Heather (who is bi-curious with Veronica) are Billy’s cousins, with Billy turning out to be a closeted gay man by Energon and started dating Fred (who’s gained more self confidence and become more buff since Armada, tho he gets fat again by Cybertron lol). The two of them being gay is low hanging fruit, but I wanted something for them to do besides working in Energon construction and engineering during the alternative energy boom of this period.

The main non human gay rep among the Transformers are Slugslinger and Sharkticon and Getaway and Dogfight (the later two I haven’t designed yet as of typing).

Commish for @92ndletter ~!

Continuing a wacky series about Wolfang finding himself in various misadventures where, like Waspinator and Wile E. Coyote, he's able to shrug off the worst of it.

The initial idea was just Megatron fighting Wolfang and crushing him into a cube, but I added the narrative that Wolfang was outed as a spy to give Megatron more of a reason, lol.

In Japanese media, Wolfang is both a Maximal and a Predacon due to a funny quirk. The original toy was released as "Howlinger", while a red repaint for the Telemocha re-release line retained the original name Wolfang, but reclassified him as a Predacon.

Some obscure media, to reconcile this quirk, casts Wolfang as a spy depending on the scenario, so I went with a similar idea, where he was working for the Maximals, and tried infiltrating the Predacons. Besides his colors changing, and a flimsy claim he's a coyote rather than a wolf, in Robot Mode, his "Mutant Head" retracted to reveal his normal robot face.

The Wolfang series is its own thing where it bounces between stuff like Beast Wars II and the American series, but the general idea of Wolfang as a Double Spy was a reoccurring plot point in an IDW Beast Wars AU I toy with on occasion, so this slides fairly neatly into that.