#friedrambles

1.) I've seen people begging for this alt since forever, even before I actually got into FE proper!!! Y'all won!!! As far as I know, this is spun-off of a card from the FE TTCG since the armor is different but the whole vibe is still intact! Man looks so beautiful omg

2.) He's doing the Chrom™ pose!!!

3.) The Mark of Grima is really easy to find in this design and Chrom's bow looks like Grima's horns. He wears a crown like Aversa's/Gangrel's and, as another person pointed out to me, the place where he was stabbed by Robin glows! Nintendo, that is vile!!!

4.) It's a bit hard to tell but I think this is also another Chrom pose reference, I hope! You can see his Brand peeking out from under his broken sleeve and it ACTIVATES MY BRAIN. This man lost everything and covered up the symbol of his family and duty but he can't escape it, just like fate 😭. The whole theme of FE13 is that you can decide your fate but Fallen Exalt Chrom's voice lines are just about how you/he can't change fate- ouch

5.) You can kinda see it in the other sprites but here you can see the hilt for Falchion really well. Despite having an entire wardrobe change Chrom still wears Falchion's hilt even though he doesn't have it- Lucina probably does and this hurts my soul so much oml

6.) Litol guy 🥺

Love how Alex Malto is very Filipino honestly. Like- it's so small but he's very there and he's the only fictional Filipino I've ever seen in anything live-action or animated that didn't originate from the Philipines. My dad was immediately activated when he heard/saw Alex say 'nanay' (my TV was quiet compared to the movie he was watching in the other room) and it makes me insanely happy. Also he's a lot like my dad scarily enough.

Originally I had TF:Cyberverse in my brain as the 'divorced Transformers show' but EarthSpark has much more divorced-exes vibes oml. Megatron with Soundwave and Shockwave, Bumblebee with Breakdown, Tarantulas in general, especially Megan and Sounders

I'm not a fan of humans in TF stories but the Maltos were great- they were woven into the story very well and were also very entertaining! Alex could infodump and had a fun arc with Bumblebee, Dottie and her backstory were great lore-fillers and her mom abilities were silly (there were a lot of dads but only one mom), Robbie and Mo felt like their own characters without overshadowing the Transformers, and the other background humans were generally enjoyable.

On the other hand- Mandroid didn't really stick with me, especially after he came back after his thingy blew up. Dude is practically a zombie- let him die 😭 BUT I'm excited to see what he'll do next season regardless of how little I enjoyed him as the big baddie

This show has so many dads oml. Alex Malto, Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Tarantulas, Soundwave, where are all these dads coming from?! It's so fun, you get dads in different fonts like silly, casual war vet, PTSD war vet, not-paid enough war vet, new dad war vet, give him another chance war vet, and angry ex!

Starsceam's eyes are blue! It's so random and small but it activates my brain! Is it a design choice or something more?!

We've seen multiple stunticons but never all together in one place. I wonder if we'll get Menasor or not but, regardless, I love this version of Breakdown so much. Dude is so chill and spawned a new ship in my brain QwQ Bumbledown? Breakbee? Those two had very complicated vibes but my non-TF fan sibling agrees with me they have friendly exes energy

TERRANS- I LOVE THEM- ALL OF THEM- THEY'RE SO COOL

The fight scenes were so 💋 smooth and beautiful and I'd marry the fight scenes if they were people

I thought Bumblebee's friend he was chasing down was going to be Blurr because hee hoo I grew up watching TF:Animated and TF:Cyberverse plus Blurr is one of my favorite Transformers

Actually, my brain is infested with Bumblebee × Breakdown because seriously- this show didn't use slowmo scenes until BREAKDOWN SACRIFICED HIMSELF TO LET BUMBLEBEE ESCAPE. WHAT IS THAT?! IT TICKLES ONE OF MY FAVORITE SHIPPING TROPES OF ALL TIME (friends to enemies to lovers) BECAUSE THEY RACED TOGETHER, GOT SEPARATED, BY THE WAR, AND STILL RETURNED TO RACING WITH EACHOTHER HELP ME

Arcee with her classic car-inspired look omg 🛐 she's so cool and pretty besides for her black eye-liner thing. It looks really weird when her eyes are closed but she's very pretty regardless

Addicted to the found-family vibes of this show (It's not a TF series unless there's found family) but the especially traumatic energy of Tarantulas and Nightshade fuels my 4:47 AM mind. Tarantulas literally doesn't care about anything other than keeping this kid safe and can't tell what actually is safe or not and SACRIFICES HIMSELF SO NIGHTSHADE AND THEIR ENTIRE FAMILY CAN ESCAPE. PLEASE DON'T HURT HIM HE JUST WANTS TO LIVE IN PEACE WITH THE COOL KID HE FOUND IN HIS HOUSE ONE DAY

The size differences in this show are immaculate.

After getting kidnapped by Mandroid and cut, Megatron keeps the slice in his shoulder for later episodes and it's so cool that the continuity is there but sir, please patch yourself up! I don't hate it, it looks cool, but your armor is broken!

Please where did Mandroid get the funds to make who knows how many Arachnamechs?! The government/GHOST sure wasn't paying him while he was in his corrupted Howl's Moving Castle evil lab or sitting in his illegal fight ring.

I know the captions call Hashtag 'Hashtag' but she said she didn't have a word for it therefore her name in my brain is actually gonna be #. Just that. #. She deserves it because she's so silly. She has a fake ponytail and headset as part of her head design- it's amazing.

ALSO # MADE A REFERENCE TO "All your base are belong to use" AND I LOVE HER FOR THAT- POP OFF QUEEN

On the topic of design, Nightshade's protoform look was a little uncomfy for me with the helmet leaving their head very exposed and the random 'ear' discs. It felt weird but after they got their alt-mode they've been nothing but beautiful.

Jawbreaker my boy- you don't need an alt-mode to be so silly <3

Reoccurring Fluffy Ears is amazing

Honestly a lot of designs are either hits or misses. Megatron looked perfect to me but Optimus was off with his very flat head and weird faceplate. Like he was missing a forehead and the faceplate itself looked wonky. Soundwave was super pretty, even if his face is one solid color he absolutely rocked that look. I miss the smiley face Cyberverse Bee had on his pelvis area but at least my eyes aren't drawn to EarthSpark Bee's hips lol. Also Wheeljack. They brought back the mustache face but made it white and it feels incredibly silly and cool and scary and weird at the same time.

Stop it you're bullying a newborn

In the car today- out of nowhere- my dad asked about EarthSpark, specifically Alex Malto and I just began info-dumping about how Alex is like my dad omg. I finished watching ES yesterday but put it on TV again today because I wanted to see some fight scenes again plus Breakdown and my dad walked into the room as soon as Alex was on TV again. Mans was literally SUMMONED. In all my years of existing I've never seen a fictional Filipino before besides from media that originates from the Philippines (my sister loves watching Filipino telenovelas for the memes) so including a half-Filipino family that was very culturally connected to their Asian heritage was just eeeeee exciting! I could see and recognize things! Alex Malto referenced his nanay, and lolo! I have those too! (except my grandma is weird and wants to be called nanay and not lola but we do have an adopted lola in the family lol) I have a very Westernized family and it's not even a "we got colonized" story- my mom just didn't really connect to her heritage while my dad was raised by a single mom in the US after she left the Philippines so I always just sort of thought that I wasn't very 'culturally-Filipino' until Transformers: EarthSpark brought in a character who was shown to be very Filipino and I clicked with that! I absolutely didn't remember what a Wakwak was (most myths and monsters from the Philippines are horny night kidnappers so I keep forgetting stuff) but I went to check and even that was just brain juice. Omg it's 10 PM and I need to wake up at 6 tomorrow rip goodbye I have rambled enough

AYOOO DID THEY MAKE ES TARANTULAS BRI'ISH? HE HAS AN ACCENT AND IT'S NOT HIGH-PITCHED HOO HOO HEEHEE RAT LUNCH CRUNCH HOURS

Also some of my favorite scenes- it's so unhinged