The absolute king of “being loved despite having no discernible personality and literally never doing anything of note ever” from the 1984 cast is absolutely Sideswipe. He is popular because he is a sexy car.
I… kinda like him because he’s got a jet pack. That Optimus Prime borrows. And he tried to piledriver his way through a mountain like an idiot. Yeah, the lambo is nice, but… adorable goof with jetpack? Sign me up!
👆👆👆
Maybe it’s because I want to know more about someone who tries to fight a mountain.
Or appreciate the complex physics and extensive talent it would take to fight by jumping on the back of a plane.
Or capturing the feel of wind rushing around my ears in freefall, and the thrill of watching the world spread out under me as I rush toward it and pull a ripcord as adrenaline rushes through my veins.
But I can’t possibly like and over-inflate a background character in G1 because of fight scenes and want to figure out more backstory about why/how they can do the things they do now can I?
Nope, it’s because he’s a “sexy car.”
🙄
LOL. He posted fighting words and didn’t even know. “sexy car”. LOL! Yeah… Yeah that’s SO why.
chris … there’s this side of the fandom you haven’t met yet, but may have heard of. they’d like to have a word with you. they brought diagrams and fanfic. they dont care if you’ve eaten, but you should – its going to be a long, eye-opening night. when they are done, you will never be the same again.
You know what, you’re absolutely correct, let me amend my statement.
*ahem*
The absolute king of “being loved despite having no discernible personality and literally never doing anything of note ever” from the 1984 cast is absolutely Sideswipe. The core of his popularity with old-school toy-buying fandom who grew up with G1 is the fact he’s a Lamborghini Countach – one of the quintessential, iconic sports cars of the 1980s with a load of appearances in movies and TV of the era, ballooning Sideswipe’s status at the time despite no media ever giving him a starring role. His popularity with the creative side of fandom, on the other hand, is largely the product of a fanon personality that paints him as a “goofy, lighthearted prankster with a straight-man brother for a foil” that was Frankensteined together by fanfic writers in the early 2000s out of incidental moments in the G1 cartoon because he didn’t have one, which persists to this day because, even in all those intervening years Sideswipe has still never done anything of note ever – except die in IDW’s comics.
I thought most of his “defined characteristics” are actually fannon turned canon like the Seekers?
I mean, G1 cartoon didn’t really give much personalities to anyone, so most of the personalities from popular “pairings” are made up such as: the seekers’ personalities (Starscream being The Mary Sue *sarcasm*; Skywarp being the simple-minded jerk, TC being the quiet and sidelined one); and Sideswipe and Sunstreaker being the prankster twins.
And the Seekers and the Twins were one of the most popular ships because, well, they are sexy jets/cars
*shrug*
A Force Sensitive Phasesixer 