Andraste

So, this week's Star Trek: Discovery got me thinking about moments when you realise that your favourite character is your favourite. Because, at least for me, with some characters it's practically instantaneous, and with others it takes a while, and sometimes I don't figure it out until later.

( Spoilers for this week's Disco. And also for who my favourite Disco character is, I guess. )

This is not the first time that this has happened - believe it or not, it took me until I got on the internet and started looking for fanfiction to realise that Charles Xavier was my Best Beloved. (Keep in mind that this was 1996 and there was basically no fanfic about him at the time. Had I a time machine, I would love to pop back to my annoyed teenage self and reassure her that this was not going to be a problem for her twenty years down the road ...)

On the other hand, I knew that I loved Magneto basically as soon as he appeared and began talking. There's also the time the Twelfth Doctor was talking to a tramp about his face and I thought 'he is my favourite Doctor.' (I then told myself I was being ridiculous because it was far too soon to make up my mind after less than half an episode, but my love never wavered after that.) With Londo Mollari it took until he told Adira was his password was, and with G'Kar it was the singing to his lunch, so both of those happened pretty early. I think Merrill became my favourite Dragon Age character somewhere during that first hilariously awkward conversation with Hawke, but I don't think I knew that until at least the second time I played the game. I don't even remember a time when I didn't love Starscream - I definitely did by 1987 when I was distressed by his death. (Little did I know that he would end up dying and coming back in most versions of the canon to the point where I would become completely blasé about it.)

... all of which to say, if there's a pattern in any of that, I do not know what it is. But sometimes you really don't know you love a thing until you think it might be gone. Or you cannot find any fanfic about it.

So, finally finished Transformers: Prime! It doesn't edge out Animated as my favourite iteration, but it was pretty great.

Unfortunately, I think I would have preferred the ending we got in the last episode of Season Three to the one presented by the movie :(. There are a few reasons for that.

( Spoilers. )

I am pretty sure I would have gotten around to watching Transformers: Prime sooner if someone had explained Knock Out to me. After only a handful of episodes, he's swiftly become one of my favourite Decepticons. Which is certainly a long list, but seldom has anyone gotten on there so fast. (I think the last person was Sky-Byte, and he has the advantage of being a haiku-composing flying shark. And Slipstream, but she embodies a concept I've wanted to see done officially since I was a little fangirl, so I was obligated to love her immediately.)

The combination of 'what if G1 Tracks were a Decepticon medic?' and 'what if Starscream had his own Starscream?' seems specifically designed to appeal to me. Now I just wish they'd made a toy with his in-show paint job! Knock Out would be very displeased that the only versions of him available are inexplicably maroon, covered in dubious stickers, recoloured an ugly green or have a crocodile tail attached.

This thought brought to you by watching Shadowzone, otherwise known as The Hilarious Adventures of Starscreams's Severed Arm.

While I avoid plot spoilers like the plague, I do like to know which characters might be coming down the line, mainly so I can run in small circles squeeling at the top of my lungs. So today I sat down and had a serious look at the cryptic list of upcoming characters that was posted on Seiberton.com a while back.

( Cut for those who don't want to know. )

Too ... much ... awesome. Brain ... failing ...!

( OMG, part the second. )

Have not been around much. Do not expect to be around much for a while. But ...

( SQUEAL!!! )

If you're remotely interested in transforming robots from the G1 or Beast Wars era, you need to go to YouTube and watch the TF: Animated episode Along Came A Spider NOW. Massive spoiler for why below the cut.

( Hiding in plain sight ... )

In additional cool TF news, there are loads and loads of cool pictures of awesome things from ToyFair up on the net:

Robot Heroes including Arcee, Rhinox and Waspinator who were in my top twenty characters I wanted to see in this format. Also Rumble! Just to keep the debate going, he is red *g*.

More Classics including colour pictures of Octane and the first images of Galvatron!

Animated Toys! Since for some reason I couldn't get them to load at Seibertron. OMG WHY CAN'T I BUY SOUNDWAVE NOW?!

Watching the whole thing through from the beginning, it has come to my attention that I really enjoy Transformers Season Three. This shouldn't surprise me - I liked it just fine when I was a kid - but it gets so much bashing in fandom that I wasn't expect it to be as much fun as it is. It's not that I don't understand why some people hate it. Not only have has most of the cast from the first two seasons been thoughtlessly killed off to make way for new toys, the settings and stories are very different. I'm as pissed off as the next fangirl about the mass slaughter of beloved Autobots, but considered on its own merits these episodes have a lot going for them. Here are ten reasons that they rock:

1. The main problem with this season is that Ironhide, Wheeljack, Jazz and the like have been replaced with too many cookie-cutter Autobots who don't get a chance to develop properly as characters. Luckily, the Decepticons don't really have that problem. Almost all of the new bad guys get proper introductions and enough personality that you can tell them apart from each other. (The Terrorcons may be an exception, but I haven't got that far yet.) It's not until Season Four that fifty billion interchangeable Decepticons arrive on the scene all at once.

2. Many of the new or reformatted Decepticons are awesome. Don't get me wrong, I miss the hell out of Starscream when he's not possessing people, but I do love seeing more of the Combaticons, Scourge, Trypticon and most of all OCTANE.

3. Galvatron and Cyclonus get their own dot point, because while the Autobot change of leadership didn't really work in the show's favour - I have considerable affection for Rodimus, but replacing Optimus Prime was a ludicrous thing for the show to try - the Decepticons fare better. While they will never replace Megatron and Starscream in my heart, the dynamic between the crazy leader and his loyal, long-suffering, honourable second also fascinates me. Also, Galvatron is really funny.

6. Ultra Magnus has always been one of my favourite Autobots, and without the massive cast changes in Season Three, he would not exist!

5. I feel kind of bad about the way he pushed Ratchet and Wheeljack out of the spotlight and into the path of a laser gun, but I have loved Perceptor since I was tiny. Season Three has MOAR PERCEPTOR on average, so that's good. Also, Season Three has Skylynx! And Wreck-Gar!

6. There are more than zero female characters. Not many female characters, but if they weren't going to go with gender neutral alien robots - implausible after The Search For Alpha Trion - tokenism is better than nothing.

7. The stories and settings are a lot more varied. While Season Three does lose touch with the 'alien robots in disguise on Earth' concept at the heart of the show and turn into space opera, at least we don't get a dozen episodes about Megatron trying to beat the Autobots with magic crystals.

8. There are some truly excellent episodes in here - not just Starscream's Ghost and Ghost in the Machine, but Webworld and The Return of Optimus Prime. Others are cheesy fun to match anything in Season Two (well, maybe not City of Steel) like Thief in the Night and Carnage in C Minor. (I should add that Thief in the Night is also deeply offensive to Arabs and anyone else with half a brain, but it has Octane stealing world monuments, so it is still love.)

9. The Quintessons are a regular foe for the Autobots and Decepticons who make a nice change of pace and complicate things nicely. They're also the only successful attempt at portraying alien behavior the show ever managed - more successful than many aliens in more adult genre TV, for that matter. "Perhaps a quiet chuckle?" is one of my favourite lines in the whole series. With their presence, we also learn much more about the history of Cybertron.

10. The updated version of the themesong rox00rs.

So there are things I don't like about Season Three - Daniel, Wheelie, Grimlock devolving into an overgrown toddler, Carly having no personality, the lack of Optimus and Starscream - but over all I give it the thumbs up. I bet Season Four sucks just as much as I remember, though.

While context is for the week, I should probably explain that one day apathocles, saltedpin and I decided that, back in the day, Starscream made up his mind which faction to join by having sex with everyone he could find. The Decepticons turned out to be better in bed, so he turned to evil - but not before giving a scathing report cards to a couple of dozen Autobots. Over fifty comments worth of Starscream sex00ring everything in sight resulted.

Anyway, I thought these well worth collecting outside Ap's locked journal. If anyone else wants to contribute by adding some characters we neglected to the list, feel free. Starscream seems to have time travelled in order to have sex with characters who didn't exist until after he died, so don't let plausibility constrain you.

Special new bonus ratings tacked onto the end by yours truly!

( Not safe for those who object strenuously to giant robot slash. )

So because I got to come home early from work (I went in early as well) I decided to celebrate by watching the first episode of Robots in Disguise on YouTube. (Yes, I am three quarters of the way through Beast Wars, I'm just working out which series I want to watch next *g*.)

I will not spoil all the glorious, glorious crack that the universe has in store for future viewers of this series. (Prowl's younger, flirtier brother! Optimus Prime kidnapping children and driving them from Japan to New York!) But I would just like to note that while RID!Megatron transforms into, like, five different things including a two-headed dragon, his minions are a frog, a skunk, and a flying squirrel. (A screechy flying squirrel, heh.) Like Optimus said, looks like someone left the gate unlocked at the petting zoo.

Also, last night at work I am sitting there minding my own business when a customer rings up and asks for help with his internet. He sounds kind of substance-affected, but I put him through to the right people and think nothing more of it. Until ten minutes later when he rings up and says "I have another problem, and I didn't know who else to ask. My kid won't go to sleep, because he wants to know the name of the leader of the Autobots."

Naturally I tell him that it is Optimus Prime! Then I hang up and accuse all my co-workers of pranking me. Except it was an outside phone number, and nobody not in the call centre could have known the person with the tiny robot army on her desk would answer the phone. Maybe it's just one of those weird, amusing coincidences that he found the person best able to solve his dilemma?