#monsterbots

Because Obviously they exist, Trion turns into a robotic lion and Onyx's presence implies there's more of them, question is where are they?

I would suspect the reason they are not present in the film is because either Sentinel and the Quintessons drove them to near extinction or perhaps Sentinel sold them to the Quintessons as slaves (which could explain where the Sharkticons come from)

Or perhaps instead in an extension of Sentinel's caste system (and taking a cue from idw), the beast formers are the lowest of the low, treated literally like animals and forced out of society

Thank you for the ask! It sure would be nice if there was like, a dragon fruit emoji for Twinferno(Also known as Doublecross, but the name Twinferno is so much cooler). Thats like, the fruit for him. Now lets see...

off the top of your head: notes for characterization? what are the most essential traits of this character to you (personality traits, important connections/dynamics, voice)?

There's two(2) minds in there. And they pretty much like/dislike the opposite things from each other. However they both agree on fighting Decepticons! But that does mean their actual personality can wildly vary and it can be up to personal interpretation past that. Its not like there's a lot of media to work with for anything concrete.

Also being an outcast, much like the other Monsterbots. They(the monsterbots) just... aren't like the other Autobots. They're the oddballs, the freaks, its certainly not *nice* of the Bots, especially how none of the Bots seem to notice there's two seperate entities that make up Twinferno

In my mind, Twinferno has a bit of a deep voice, and the cadence changes based on which of them is talking. This is headcanon though because they don't exactly have a lot of canon voices.

adjacently—do you think fandom does the above traits justice? why or why not?

There is no fandom for him. I can count the art Ive seen and the fics starring him on my hands. Hasbro barely remembers he exists. Repugnus gets to be a whole species in Cyberverse, Grotusque had a tiny role in IDW'19, but Twinferno? T-T He's my favourite one, come on....

throw this character at any other character of your choice to bounce off each other as outsider pov to each other— regardless of timeline or logistics (crossovers allowed if you're interesting about it). why this combination? what insights would they have on each other?

The obvious answer is the other Monsterbots because those are his friends!! They're his buddies!! I imagine them as like ride or die loyal to each other. I wish there were things featuring them.

Also I want to stick him in a room with Punch-Counterpunch. I think there's ways in which they could relate to the other(s), but I can also imagine it going terribly or tensely and that in of itself is intriguing. Also I like Punch-Counterpunch.

how do you think you would react to this character in real life and vice versa? would you prefer be a million miles out of range, be amicable classmates, or fall desperately in love?

I would be their friend. Both of them. They're a two headed dragon, that's really fucking cool I want to be their friend so bad.

ideal flavor of rotating for this character? crack them open and dissect them— do you want them tormented, pining, or being loved + comforted? do you have any specific scenarios you like to think about?

Twinferno remains a constant background presence in my mind and I desperately wish for more reasons to talk and think about him. With so little to go off of, its a bit hard to formulate specifics, but Im always hoping for the right change to consider them in a Scenario or Conflict or maybe someone not being mean to them for being different.

weave a web of dynamics through the cast for this character: which dynamics are you most interested in? both canonically and through extrapolation/speculation— which dynamics are the richest to you, and why?

Like said above, the Monsterbots. I want to see, like, anything with them as the trio they are. They're outcasts! Freaks according to their comrades! I can't help but be inclined to wonder about them and their friendship.

do you have particular niche takes on this character? defend those takes. (openly controversial takes are permitted, but also: hyper-specific headcanons which you believe in and no one else has considered enough to disagree with yet. pick a hill to die on.)

Every fucking take on him is niche because there is like nothing for him T-T But! I see him(them) as having DID specifically, with one calling himself Twinferno and the other Doublecross(the alternate name for the character.

While the dreamwave bio for Twinferno(the only bio that exists outside of the toy blurb because there's no budiansky bio) does not state him to have DID(or even the improper 'MPD' like they did another character), and instead state his mulitple identities as a result of both of his dragon form's altmode having their own processor, like...

That's not exclusive to them? Both Hun-Grrr and Sinnertwin of the Terrorcons/Abominus have two headed altmodes and aren't really portrayed as having any identity disorders(tho Sinnertwin's first appearance in the show does have both heads talking in different voices,this isn't something that really comse back or shows in other media from what i've seen)

The Monsterbots are an ugly, repulsive bunch and they not only know it, but they own it. They’re not used to receiving much kindness from others and it suits them fine.

Dear Aegis Agent,

I have indeed. Allow me to continue my tale of the ultimate Titan Masters, and I promise your curiosity will be satisfied.

While Arcee was tracking down the Titan Master hidden on Caminus, a separate mission was being carried out on the colony world of Biosfera—known to the locals as Eukaris. Grotusque, Twinferno and Repugnus journeyed there to find another Titan Master, this one believed to grant incredible fireblast. The Monsterbots were not Optimus Prime’s first choice for the mission, as he worried their bellicose disposition would create conflict with the native population—but with the so-called jungle planet having no roads to speak of, only Autobots with bestial alt-modes would be able to handle the terrain.

As Biosfera had been largely insulated from the Autobot-Decepticon conflict, the Monsterbots expected its inhabitants to be pushovers, who would do little to impede or expedite their search one way or the other. Instead, they arrived to find the planet on the brink of all-out war between the four major tribes. Something was terribly wrong: the kinds of weapons being amassed were beyond even those used by Cybertronians in their raw destructive potential. Still, the Monsterbots decided the brewing tensions were none of their business, and decided to focus on searching for the Titan Master.

It was at that point that I was forced to intervene. I materialized in their midst, which proved to be something of a miscalculation: they were taken by surprise, and turned on me immediately. Naturally, I am no lightweight, but I must admit the three of them had me on the ropes. I forced a time-out, separating us from physical spacetime, to allow us to communicate without violence. Once they were prepared to listen, I told them what I had seen.

In the future, Biosfera is an irradiated wasteland. Algorithmic engines crawl over the ash, feeding carbonized trees into immense furnaces, liquid metal pouring from foundries to coat the planet, constructing some kind of superstructure… to uncertain ends. The few survivors of the global devastation have shed the last vestiges of their organic biology, becoming purely robotic lifeforms in order to weather the potent radiation.

The Monsterbots refused to believe me without proof, and so I removed my head, Safeguard. Repugnus briefly swapped Dastard for Safeguard, and saw in his memory banks what we had witnessed of that apocalyptic future. Begrudgingly, the Monsterbots agreed to help us, and we separated, each to visit one of the four tribes.

High in the mountain eyries of the Cloud Walkers, Grotusque and Fengul discovered that they had forged a partnership with the Decepticon Fangry, who had given them a powerful attack jet. At the same time, Twinferno and Daburu found the Scale Walkers to be strategizing with Krok, who had armed them with an unstoppable armored tank. So too were the Wave Walkers consulting with the crab-like Squeezeplay, and as I discovered, the Fur Walkers had welcomed amongst them the ferocious Horri-Bull. It was obvious to us that the Decepticons had completely infiltrated the planet’s tribes, and were deliberately stirring conflict between them. Unfortunately, stirring conflict was the Monsterbots’ specialty, and they each started fights with the Decepticons on sight, leading to them quickly being ousted from the other tribes. Safeguard and I had the most luck, managing to convince the chieftain of the Fur Walkers that they were better off without the “guidance” of Cybertronians—though unfortunately, this included ourselves.

We regrouped, and the Monsterbots decided to resume their search for the mythical Titan Master hidden on the planet. I hoped that in the course of our hunt, we would stumble across a centralized base of operations for the Decepticons, which might produce the evidence we needed to sway the tribes. As it turned out, we were being followed: one of Twinferno’s heads spotted a bird flying overhead, and recognised it not as one of the Cloud Walkers, but as the Decepticon Wingspan. Twinferno almost flew up to take out the snooping Decepticon, but I was able to convince him to hold. We waited until nightfall, and when Wingspan left to make his report, we quietly followed.

He led us to a foreboding tower of steel, a weapons factory hidden in a barren valley. Inside, ensconced within the topmost chamber, we found the true mastermind behind the hostilities: the lost Titan Master, Scorponok. Once, he had commanded one of the Titans of myth, but he had been usurped by the alien Lord Zarak. Driven to madness by this defeat, he had begun traveling the galaxy in search of new evolutionary pathways. On this remote and primeval colony, he found them: and now, his machinations had brought him to the precipice of his return to power. In the fallout, once the biomechanical natives evolved into a purely mechanical existence to survive the nuclear winter that followed, he would use a planetwide relay to reach out and upload his consciousness simultaneously into thousands of bodies—becoming a gestalt lifeform on a scale that would surpass even the Titans.

Well, we certainly weren’t going to stand around and wait for that to happen! The Monsterbots made short work of Wingspan and Horri-Bull, but Scorponok was far from finished: he recalled the jet and the tank from the tribes, and they joined together to form the almighty Overlord. One Titan Master formed his head, while another plugged into his chest, right alongside Scorponok himself—giving the combined giant three times the power.

As it happened, deploying Overlord turned out to be a miscalculation: unbeknownst to us all, skillful trackers from the four tribes had followed us to Scorponok’s lair, and when they saw that the Cloud Walkers’ and Scale Walkers’ new weapons were in fact one and the same, they finally had proof that they’d been deceived. They raced back to their homes, to urge their leaders to begin peace talks. Unable to take down Overlord, we beat a hasty retreat, and he split into his individual components once more to menace the tribes.

Unfortunately, the nuclear submarine Scorponok had built for the Wave Walkers remained in play—and once he gave the command, it launched its payload, sending a dozen missiles up into the atmosphere. Converting to starship mode, I flew after them, and began an arduous process to disarm the bombs. First, I froze the missiles in time, halting their trajectories but maintaining their velocity relative to the planet’s rotation in space. Then, with a boost of power from Safeguard, I isolated each individual warhead, accelerating time to allow billions of years to pass in what was, from our perspective, mere cycles. During that time, the fissile material experienced many half-lives’ worth of radioactive decay… until finally, the payloads were rendered inert. Although I had saved the planet from nuclear fallout, the missiles still had enough raw explosive power to cause untold destruction—and I was powerless to stop them. The radiation from the warheads needed to go somewhere—and although spread over a short period, it was still a strong enough burst of gamma rays to cause a chain reaction, unleashing an electromagnetic pulse which knocked me offline and sent me plummeting into the ocean.

The rest, I heard after-the-fact, once the Wave Walkers dredged me up and brought me to shore. The Fur Walkers and Scale Walkers united, ambushing Overlord’s tank half, while the Monsterbots waylaid the jet—just long enough for the Cloud Walkers to intercept and destroy the missiles in midair, before they reached their targets.

As for Scorponok, he was able to slip away in the confusion. The Monsterbots were frustrated to have failed their mission, but after seeing the sheer destructive potential of his fireblast, they knew it was for the best that Cybertron would have to do without his power. They resolved that when Scorponok next appeared, they would be ready and waiting to settle the score.

Back on Cybertron, the situation had gone from bad to worse: Powerhouse’s seismic forces disturbed Trypticon from his hibernation, and he awoke very hungry indeed. After consuming several Titan Masters, including Powerhouse, and gaining their abilities, Trypticon lay waste to the Autobot defenses, felling Fortress Maximus. Just in time, Iron Apex arrived from Caminus, merging with Magnus Prime to form Omega Prime, who was able to drive the beast back to the Praetorus Wharf.