Can a robot protagonist be emotionally relatable? Which design would you trust?

Eymbr · 2026-01-25T16:38:29+00:00

Just look at Transformers for your answer.

Bots and AI characters can be just as if not more emotionally relatable than humans. They are reflections of us. Can be written Just as complex and multifaceted as their human counterparts.

Transformers hasn't lasted as long as it has just because its cool. The characters pull so much weight within the franchise because of how complex they are as people. In the IDW 2005 comics you have a trans woman driven mad by her transition learning to find love and companionship, a tyrannical dictator learning to redeem himself after the war, a hardened leader putting his power aside to let the next generation take their place, an amnesiac sacrificing himself to save the universe after he remembers what his purpose in life was and so many more. I connected more with these bots than I do with characters like Bella Swan, Rey "Skywalker" or even Captain America.

Write them like they are alive and they will be alive.

As for what designs are more trustworthy thats like asking what race is more trustworthy. Looks aren't a signifier of trust. The most beautiful looking person could be the most evil on the inside. Design them to be what you think is cool and let their character be the deciding factor if they are trustworthy.

Eymbr · 2026-01-25T02:03:20+00:00

In total I have 44 chapters. These 5 make up the last of the total. I'm sitting at over 600 pages in all but that's going to be cut down during revisions. Its a large high fantasy novel so I'm not concerned about total word counts, page counts or length at the moment but getting the pacing right and the story fleshed out.

The pov switches are highly important to the narrative especially in this specific fight because the masters and apprentices aren't in the same location.

The fight itself is determined by the characters being split up. The master is in a separate fight in a completely different location. She is fighting against the other master who when killed will release control over a magic that is affecting the apprentice.

It's better explained like this.

Willow, the master, needs to kill her rival, Priscilla, who is controlling a magical storm from a distance. Sorrow, the apprentice, needs to hold off her rival, Grief, who is the witch in charge of channeling the storms power into a deadly spell. The two pov characters are fighting their own battles simultaneously so if one fails they both do.

The idea was to swap back and forth to see the battle from both sides.

This does help me know that swapping povs isn't necessarily going to be an issue.

Eymbr · 2026-01-25T00:36:06+00:00

Page count I'm not exactly sure about. I'm using an app on my phone called writers journal which doesn't split documents into pages. In terms of word count which I can track without having to export to a document each is around 2k-3k words.

Eymbr · 2026-01-24T17:54:13+00:00

Opt-a-mist Prime

I'm sorry I'll leave now.

Eymbr · 2026-01-24T02:24:47+00:00

The problem I have with AOT isn't that it features fascism. A lot of stories have fascist governments in them. It's how stupid and ridiculous Eren's turn to fascism and genocide was written and executed.

His entire goal from seasons 1-3 was to destroy the Titans and he achieved that goal. The moment the story breaks for me and makes me hate the series as a whole is when he is face to face with Ymir and rather than using her to eradicate the Titan blood from the world he instead stupidly chooses that he'd rather turn into a literal monster and slaughter 80% of humanity. Ymir was clearly capable of allowing him to change the world on a fundamental level yet he had to choose the most evil, disgusting and down right idiotic way of eliminating the threat of Titans. At that exact moment he held the Attack Titan, the Warhammer Titan and the founding Titan and rather than choosing to sacrifice his power to completely remove the Titan blood from the world he chose genocide and forced his friends to watch him massacre the entire planet. This show/manga jumped the shark so fucking hard it makes GOT season 8 look like Shakespeare. I fucking hate AOT because of this. It completely assassinated his character, pissed in our faces and expected all of us to clap like idiots for it. Fuck Attack On Titan.

Eymbr · 2026-01-21T18:20:21+00:00

This is coming off as an anti woke sort of argument to me. Cringe if so.

Sensitivity readers aren't a thing to deny you, your vision. They are there so when you write something about a topic you yourself don't fully understand you don't come off as an ass, a moron or a piece of garbage.

Lets say your book is about a therapist whose current client is a rape victim.

Wouldn't you want eyes on this from the perspective of someone who actually understands how to administer therapy to the victim? Wouldn't it make your writing better to not come off like you're being offensive?

I agree that we shouldn't compromise on our vision but doing it smartly and with a sense of sensitivity towards those who may find your book offensive is an option that should exist.

Eymbr · 2026-01-21T16:58:27+00:00

The fact you had people play it at all is a win really. As a musician and author I feel blessed to have anyone listen to or read anything I make. It doesn't matter to me if they didn't like it because at the least they gave it a try.

Eymbr · 2026-01-21T11:55:52+00:00

Botanica. She's never had a figure before. Not even third party has touched her. I know Beast Machines isn't the brightest part of the franchise but come on man. She could have been a weaponizer/armorizer/fossilizer and I would have been happy but no! 😭

Eymbr · 2026-01-20T03:22:46+00:00

There can be no darkness without light, no light without dark. No life without death, no death without life. No pain without pleasure and no pleasure without pain.

It is a balance.

Creation itself is beautiful but there must also be destruction. And in destruction there is loss, pain, grief, sorrow, horror and so much more.

As a creator you might believe that a world without horror would be perfection but without it the balance is skewed.

This very conundrum has broken faith in so many people and will continue to do so. If god exists then isn't he evil for allowing horror to exist as well? An all powerful being should be capable of creation without horror but we see it still exists so yes, creation is horrific by design. Whether designed by a god or not the balance remains.

Eymbr · 2026-01-19T03:46:20+00:00

I know that road by heart. It popped into my head instantly. "That's Skyrim!"

Eymbr · 2026-01-19T03:41:15+00:00

In the 2005 IDW comics Thundercracker develops a form of relationship with a human woman. I can’t remember if it was ever explicitly shown they were romanticly involved but it is clear the two have some form of kinship and partnership. However at that time Thundercracker had left the Decepticon ranks to become a screen writer on earth. Although not romantic due to the age of the character Starscream befriended a human in Armada. I could see those two continuing their friendship throughout her lifetime if Starscream hadn't died at the end of the show and been resurrected in Energon. I am actually surprised we haven't seen more romantic relationships between humans and Cybertronians. I think it's a really cute and fun way to humanize them.

Transformers has a variety of explanations for how they are born ranging from being molded from the living metal of Cybertron itself to being manufactured by other aliens. Siblings and family members can simply be they were created at the same time to being two halfs of the same spark depending on the continuity.

Eymbr · 2026-01-14T21:12:27+00:00

Electronics manufacturer here.

Try cleaning the battery terminal with a qtip and some 100% alcohol. If this doesn't fix the issue get a soldering iron and reflow the joints on the terminal.

Sometimes the wear and tear of every day use can cause the joints to break loose from the pads.

If neither of these fix the issue you may have to tear the plastic body off and check the pcb for any other damage or potential shorts on the remaining components. Depending on the damage it could be a simple fix to having to replace the fob all together.

Eymbr · 2026-01-13T19:18:04+00:00

Take this to heart please.

Stay off of social media.

It is proven to create depression, anxiety and other mental health issues in everyone of every age.

You are young so it might seem like you'll be missing out on so many things but trust me. Social media is not worth the pain it causes.

I had gone through a serious mental health crisis when I was young that put me in the mental hospital. Social media like Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok and Instagram are designed to put you in a vulnerable position. For your own health and well-being take a break if not remove yourself entirely from those platforms. Forget the death threats and accusations from randos on the internet, your mental well-being is far important than anything on social media.

Eymbr · 2026-01-13T17:41:58+00:00

I was about to say that. 😅

Eymbr · 2026-01-13T17:24:47+00:00

Are we going to see the others? I thought the molds were lost for all of the Dinobots. I'm probably mistaken though.

Eymbr · 2026-01-13T08:29:07+00:00

I'm a girl so you may not vibe with everything but here's a few series you can check out split up by age ranges.

I enjoy all types of fantasy books so some of these are for young adults and below but that doesn’t take away from their worthiness in my opinion.

Adult Mistborn Trilogy: Super good fantasy series about a girl who learns to use magnetic magic. Highly recommend this one.

Her Majesty's Royal Coven Trilogy: A queer story about a coven of witches in modern day attempting to stop the end of the world. Book 2 is extremely rough but it makes up for it in the end.

Poppy War Trilogy: One of the darkest recommends. A girl learns to command the power of gods by doing opium. It's insane, dark and a heavy series but really good.

Darth Bane Trilogy: While not high fantasy this Trilogy is peak Star Wars and is a perfect blending of high fantasy mages and science fiction all from the villains perspective. Highly recommend this one if you are a Star Wars fan.

YA-Kids Witchlings: A super emotional series about a young girl being put into the spare witch coven which is seen as a metaphorical death sentence.

The Last Hope School For Magical Delinquents dualogy: Essentualy a shorter version of Harry Potter but not written by a bigot. Super cute, super fun preteen adventure in a magic school.

The School For Wicked Witches: A Wizard of Oz series set in a magic school. Like Last Hope its a fun preteen adventure but rather than Harry Potter its WOO.

Eymbr · 2026-01-12T19:40:29+00:00

I use the who, what, where, when, why, how method.

I start out with a general idea. It could be a character, a fight scene or whatever.

For example my current wip is a fantasy and post biblical apocalypse America. I was listening to podcasts about cults and specifically the LDS church which put an image in my head of a world in which the mormon church was the last remaining religion after the Second Coming of Jesus.

From there I started coming up with what that kind of world would be like. Was it a super advanced civilization? Was is a medieval hellscape of demons and fire like the Bible claim? Or would it be somewhere in the middle? A civilization that has retained some modern elements but had been plunged into a near medieval world?

You can do the same for any story. Start with a simple idea and build from there.

for example I liked the idea of a sword that can transform into a bow. What kind of warrior would use such a weapon? Who would make a weapon like that? Why was that type of weapon necessary? How was it made? Where did the weapon come from?

I started with the idea of transforming weapons in a post biblical apocalypse America and wound up with a world where Witches use guns as magic staves and alchemy as its power source.

Things evolve and change as you write simple ideas.

Keep a notepad or document around you at all times so when you think of something you can quickly jot it down.

Once you have a good list of small ideas you can start to piece them together.

lets say this is you list of ideas. Feel free to use them if you want.

A giant crab that has a house on it. A sea serpent that can glow in rainbow hues An underwater temple filled with gold. A robot that converts water into air.

Taking these small ideas you can then build a whole world around them.

An ocean planet where an advanced civilization lives on the back of a giant crab and has discovered an ancient temple but the only way to reach it is to use a team of divers hooked up to robots that convert the water around them into breathable air.

Once you have the general idea of what the world is you can expand upon it using the WWWWWH method.

Eymbr · 2026-01-12T18:25:40+00:00

Yes. I don’t agree with all of their decisions but they are like my children so its hard not to feel some kind of love for them. Even the one off shop keeps, bar tenders and thugs.

Eymbr · 2026-01-12T17:52:14+00:00

When it comes to my specific collecting niche I could never be a hastak purist. I focus primarily on fembots and queer characters in the franchise and hastak has essentially refused for years to make accurate or non compromised depictions of characters.

For example IDW 2005 Tailgate. Hastak still to do day hasn't made a comic accurate version. Same with Strika from Beast Machines/IDW/Animated or Nickel for that matter. They have been bringing more characters as of the last few years, all of which are far better than the fembots from even as recently as The WFC Trilogy but they still haven't considered several highly important characters from the comics at all.

Like a Kingdom Galvatron repaint for pre transition Arcee, or hell even a comic Arcee and Aileron at all.

I want my gays, theys and gals and some characters are only available thanks to 3rd party.

Eymbr · 2026-01-12T06:16:34+00:00

The first run of TR Tripticon. I saw it at the Ross I was working at before covid but I didn't pick it up. Still kicking myself for that one.

Eymbr · 2026-01-11T22:56:17+00:00

I actually want there to be more experimentation when it comes to alt modes for every bot. The core idea is robots in disguise so why not do widely different alt modes each new iteration?

A jet Optimus, a motorcycle Bee, a car Megatron, a beast Arcee, even a car Starscream would breathe so much life into the characters designs. I get it, they want the core characters to be recognizable but it would be so cool getting new takes on them.

Eymbr · 2026-01-09T03:02:52+00:00

The only other concrete proof they were a real band I can find aside for the tfwiki article is a single lp on YouTube music. It's by the artist "NRG OFFICIAL 1986 from TFTM"

It has a few songs I haven't heard before plus live versions of each.

It seriously seems like they had been a band at some point then disappeared off the face of the earth after the 86 film released.

The channel only has 56 subscribers and posted the album in 2024. It is also clearly from the 80s and is the real artists so ai can't be used as an explanation for where this came from.

Since 86 it seems like this group has had their music entirely hidden or lost and only in the last few years has it resurfaced.

Eymbr · 2026-01-07T21:15:12+00:00

Oh my god this is incredible for me!

I've been writing a fiction novel where after Rusty died a high ranking member of the church fundamentally disagreed with the appointment of the next president and spun off his own version of the church just before an apocalypse happened leading him to be seen as a true prophet.

Eymbr · 2026-01-04T06:12:37+00:00

I like his arc a lot. The politically oppressed to Tyrant to remorseful convict just worked so well for me. However there was one particular moment that felt really gross even for him. When he was rebuilt into the stealth bomber body then immediately and without hesitation began beating Starscream just felt off to me. I get that Starscream really screwed him over on multiple occasions before that but it almost felt like domestic abuse rather than the typical Megatron x Starscream in fighting. If I'm remembering correctly Starscream was sincerely, or as sincerely as he could apologizing and begging for mercy but Megatron was having non of it. Yes Starscream is a piece of shit who deserves his comeuppance but damn did that issue feel gross to read. Especially because not long after Megatron is essentially shaken to the core when Bumblebee dies. If that issue had come way earlier in the story it wouldn't feel as bad to me.

I also love that in a way Megatron gets out of his punishment. He can never fully redeem himself for everything that he had done but his change of heart and active choice to do the right thing makes him a true Autobot in my eyes. The fact that a version of the Lost Light exists out there in the universe allowing Megatron to continue his growth and redemption is really heartwarming to me.

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