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#21 paragraphs of me talking about Thunderhowl..
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This was supposed to be Earthspark Thunderhowl headcanons, but whatever.
I decided to post an essay I wrote about Thunderhowl(yes, I wrote a whole essay about him) that I S L I G H T L Y Modified
Warning that you will see a lot of crushing/gushing about him.
I wrote this for a video I was gonna post.
So I'm gonna start with a basic introduction to the character for people who have watched Cyberverse, but for some reason don't know who he is.Thunderhowl was introduced in the S3 Episode Of the Same Name (Season 3 ep 19 to be exact), he has a very..erm..basic.. backstory.
He was sent to Crystal City by a "Liege Prime," which was revealed to be Onyx Prime later. But he stared too long at his own reflection,and It came to life pretty much, and Imprisoned him. It is unknown how long he was Imprisoned, but regarding a comment about Iaconus, we can assume it was during the Age Of Expansion when he got Imprisoned. He was freed by Bumblebee and Chromia, when they were looking for one of Windblade's physic shards, which was lodged inside an entity, person, whatever The Crystalline King is..And He was the first of many to help Bumblebee get Windblade's Physic Shards Back. After Returning to Iacon with them, he pretty much Pledged his Loyalty to Optimus Prime.
he wasn't in any episodes until the end of the season.He was then present at the Silent Strike and The Arrival Of Megatron X. He was present at the Signing of The Peace Treaty as well. He didn't become a major point until the final S4 Special. This is when it was revealed that his former liege was Onyx Prime.
in summary, his former liege had a powerful artifact called The Cortex Helm, which, at first Thunderhowl refused to help Bumblebee, Optimus, Soundwave, Shadowstriker and Tarn Acquire, but after Optimus ensured it would be use wisely, he agreed.and then the next scene Thunderhowl is Pretty Much messing with them for a solid 2 minutes.
after he reveals the Isle of Onyx Prime, where the cortex helm is, he mentions the fact that Onyx prime "created many such hidden Places around Cybertron'' to quote him directly.and then, after.. the whole thing with Tarn. Watch the show. I'm not getting into that. He pretty much went back to being a background character.he had a few scenes, but they were very minor.
Thunderhowl's design has all the aspects of A Knight. He has a Cape, which is Grey on the outside and Red on the inside, a kinda raven blue color scheme with teal accents, which Actually makes drawing fanart of him a lot harder, because his main color is not a specific color. He also has a lot, lot, Lot of armor plating. His Alt mode is a wolf, which I bet was obvious because of his name and his Liege Prime.
Like Cheetor and Hammerbyte, Thunderhowl has a title that he says is "Knight Of The Primes."
Fun facts:
There is an animation error in S4 in which he doesn't have his cape on. There is actually more than one instance of this.
He only has two toy figures.. They don't even look like him. His deluxe class is Teal and Yellow, and then His Ultra Class Design is pretty much Army Green.but if you want the full Maccadam, build a figure.. you kinda need His Deluxe Class. From what I've seen, most people get him last of the deluxe class, as he has Maccadams Head(I'm serious. The piece that comes with him is his head)
He is played By The Same actor who played Wild Wheel and Meteorfire. Those are the main other ones anyway.
He has the most screen time of all the one-off characters introduced in Cyberverse. I always like to joke that he was probably someone's favorite on the Cyberverse Crew because of how much he shows up compared to others like Wild Wheel or Meteorfire.
I have a TON of Opinions and Headcanons and regarding Thunderhowl
Thunderhowl Dramatically Flips His Cape Before He Is About to Start Talking. I got this from a fanfic.
The Autobots can usually tell how long he is going to be talking with His Typical Chivalrous Manner,just by How Enthusiastic he Looks.i got this from the same fanfic as the last one.
He Hardly Ever Calls Optimus "Optimus Prime." Normally It is just Liege Prime and Only Liege Prime.
He is British. A certain relative of Mine came up with that And It Stuck.
Thunderhowl Has Intense Spectrophobia, or Fear of Mirrors/his own reflection. Spectrophobia is a specific phobia and fits more under fear of His own reflection. Result of BEING IMPRISONED BY IT.
Opinions:
CONS
Due to His Relatively Small Screen Time (to Me,13 minutes and 24 seconds isn't small but anyway), Thunderhowl is really not recognized by the Fandom. Or even most Cyberverse Fans Themselves. Small Disclaimer: I said most fans, i'm not saying every Cyberverse fan doesn't know who he is. 90 percent of the #Thunderhowl Tag is Him (that Tag is FRAGGING crazy by the way geez- but kind of in a good way I guess-) it's actually kinda my goal as a TF Content Creator who works mostly only with the Cyberverse Continuity, to Bring More Attention To Him. He is really underrated, and I wish he had developed more.
I am gonna be truthful here. I hated how Cyberverse did Him in the Finale. WHAT I MEAN IS, he was really just a plot device who became a background character during s4ep2 when they could have been developing him a little more. We got a little more depth to his Personality (he slightly Laughed, HE SLIGHTLY FRAGGING LAUGHED AND IT WAS SO CUTE-ahem anyway-) one scene in particular is a scene, actually Two Scenes With Soundwave, which live rent free in My head. he was just pissed with Soundwave. He was Fragging done. And then we get into Tarn's Betrayal(which was done okay, i was not that big a fan of tarn in general) and then that's when he really became more of A Background Character Again. BUT ONE LINE IN PARTICULAR HAS HAD A HOLD ON ME. After Tarn takes the helm and laughs, Thunderhowl Responds with a "How.Dare.You." THE LINE DELIVERY OF IT. HE SOUNDED MOSTLY PISSED BUT THERE WAS A KIND OF HURT UNDERTONE TO IT. THAT ARTIFACT BELONGED TO HIS FORMER PRIME. HE HAS EVERY SINGLE LITTLE RIGHT TO BE HURT AND ANGRY ABOUT IT.
And after being held with his arms on his back and being put on his Knees For real, though,can this man get on his knees for me- he's so- you know what I'm gonna stop. I'm a fragging Simp and I'm not ashamed of it.And there is one little tiny background scene which you have to watch and pay attention to see, is when tarn is walking to Soundwave and Shadowstriker, HE FRAGGING FOLLOWS TARNS STEPS WITH HIS HEAD AND HAS THIS LOOK OF "I AM GOING TO BREAK YOU INTO A THOUSAND LITTLE PIECES." He is Fragging Pissed Throughout This Ep, except for a few Scenes.
THUNDERHOWL AND OPTIMUS/ONYX. So, as mentioned before, we didn't even know Onyx Was The Former "Liege Prime " Of Thunderhowl, though, it was a common theory of Commenters on reviews of His Debut Ep With some others, like Mac and Trion. I feel like this should have Been Revealed Sooner, because if you look at Thunderhowl Fanfics From Before S4 Ep 2 Released, (Ex:Thunderhowl, Story Of The Knight of The Primes On fanfiction.net, read it its really good ) you see that it's not Onyx Prime. The Example Listed, It's Maccadam. This should have been revealed in that line "I swore to my Liege Prime, that I would destroy this evil place,.." So I think it should have been something like this, "I swore to my Liege Prime,ONYX PRIME,that I would destroy this evil place."
And then there's Thunderhowl and Optimus. As I stated before, Thunderhowl Pretty Much Pledged his Loyalty to Optimus at the end of his Debut Episode. But after that we don't see anything between them. All we got was a little hint That Thunderhowl Trusted Him, but why wouldn't he? This scene here shows that he trusts him in a hinted way. But in this same scene, Thunderhowl looks like he's contemplating for a minute. Like he doesn't want to do this,but he doesn't want to go against his Liege Prime Either. This defined their relationship a bit, but it was not enough for me.
THINGS I JUST DIDN'T CARE FOR
Generally, I Liked The Knight Personality, and how confused he was 90% percent of his debut Episode.Like-man woke up after being Imprisoned for Probably Millions of Years. Man was confused as All Hell as to What the Frag was going on. But there were some things and lines I just didn't like.
A good example is the scene when he says, "i have engaged in battle against multitudes of vile creatures,we can, and we will prevail."Don't like this quote at all. IN FACT, It's the only quote I don't like. It makes him sound like he is saying he is better and more experienced than them, and that's why they will succeed. THIS MAN HAS AN EGO, YES, I LOVE THAT ABOUT HIM, BUT SCENES LIKE THIS IT DOESN'T WORK OR FIT. Another thing I didn't like is the main part of His Backstory, how he quoted "stared too long at his own reflection."Like..yes, it's important to his backstory, but I highly want to doubt he actually stared at his reflection that long. I like to think it's like what happened with Bee and Chromia.
Here are the good parts about him.
HES ODDLY COMFORTING TO WATCH. Thunderhowl is Everything To me. Including my comfort character. Anytime I think about him, I smile. When I'm upset, what character do I turn to? Thunderhowl. When I'm just having a shit day and I need a mental break? What should I do? Rewatch Scenes of Thunderhowl. This bot came into my heart in 2021 when the s4 special came out and has not left since. He takes up 75% percent of my love. He is precious to me, and I wish he was more recognized in the Fandom. Hopefully, this will bring more attention to him.
PERSONALITY.One thing that really makes my love for Thunderhowl Skyrocket is his personality and how it developed in the background from season3 ep 19 to s4 episode 2. In his debut episode (S3 Episode 19), his personality was.. well.. what you would expect from a Knight Errant. Very dedicated to his "quest," to say the least. But also probably one of the rare Autobots who are undyingly loyal to Optimus and The Autobot Cause.
To quote a Fanfic “The code of an Autobot carries forth the code of the Primes. Indeed, carrying such code is to carry nobility and passion forth. I am a mere servant of valourous ideals.”this is from a fanfic called Once and Future By Only_Elsewhere on Ao3, Def. Recommend it if you want a more Mostly-Light-Hearted SoundRod Fanfic It also has Thunderhowl as one of the main bots, so that's a bonus.
But then we get to "Silent Strike/The Other One," and it's a little more developed, the what-3 times? He talks, his voice is still very, very British- cough- but it's more.. I can't really describe it, but it's more.
Then there's S4. In his first scene, he called the Perfect Decepticons "extremely Annoying" . This is the episode, to me, that developed his personality fully. He is very annoyed and his normal self Most of the episode except for when they are going to the Isle of Onyx Prime, where you can just straight up see How Happy he is, he's just too cute when he's Happy. He was so glad to go to the Isle of Onyx Prime.
CONCLUSION.
So I hope this encourages you to check out Him As A Character, someone did make a compilation of all his scenes, so if you want to rewatch those scenes if you have watched Cyberverse and just didn't realize he existed for some reason. But I also hope, for the people who haven't watched the show, but don't mind spoilers, this will encourage you to watch the show. It's really a Great Show after Season 1, Season 1 is sorta bland, but you will get through it. I'd say Season 2 is when it gets good. And S3 is funny and iconic, YES, but it's also a Fragging dark. Cyberverse is well renowned for its high death count and sorta dark story. I truly honestly recommend you watch Cyberverse if you haven't,I don't think you will regret it.
Links:
You need an account, but this is the link to Once and Future
This is the compilation of scenes that were posted by " characters scenes and others. "They also have the other one-off characters too.
youtube
This is the other fanfic I mentioned, which actually has served as a heavy influence on Thunderhowl in my own AU for Cyberverse.
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