Crystal Widow

Crystal Widow is an Autobot from the Unicron Trilogy continuity family or a Maximal from the Generation 1 continuity family (via the 2003 Universe toyline).
Shackarachnia.

Crystal Widow is not trusted by her Autobot teammates, mainly because she used to be a Decepticon. But even Decepticons will fight against the multi-dimensional threat of Unicron!

At least, until they lose their loved one by ending up stuck forever inside the multiversal hub city Axiom Nexus. Here, Crystal Widow owns and operates the Widow's Cafe Cybertronian, where the desperate and destitute come to drown their sorrows. With her somber, hopeless attitude, she suits the atmosphere well.

She's able to use energon to seemingly magically heal and repair. It's a power she doesn't advertise.

Sometimes it’s a whole world, sometimes it's just a city, or a few friends, or a lover... Everyone always wants to be someplace else, sister. But wanting and being are two different things. So you try anything you can, make deals and do things you’re not proud of. Make friends you wouldn’t normally make... for all the good it does.{{#if:|{{{quote2}}}}}{{#if:Crystal Widow, "Withered Hope"|Crystal Widow, "Withered Hope"{{#if:|, {{{3}}}|}}|}}

Fiction

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TransTech

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Many Crystal Widows are unlucky in love, and this one from the Aurex streams had it worse than most. She fell for Skyfall, another bot who wasn't quite in one faction or the other, and both used the other and switched sides as their feelings grew. When Widow learned Skyfall had something big planned, she resolved to stop him... but Unicron snatched her for the Universe War and while Rhinox was able to deflect her abduction, she ended up bouncing through the cosmos until Axiom Nexus rescued her. They saved her life but, due to Unicronian interference, could not find her home universe. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/09/25

Look, I'm tired of your freakin' Evanescence!

Small Foot arrived at Crystal Widow's cafe, seeking help for herself and her four other companions. Crystal Widow offered them rooms, but that wasn't quite the help Small Foot was after. They wanted out of Axiom Nexus. But so long as Small Foot and her companions were bots-of-interest, Crystal Widow assured them that they could not leave, and that they should resign themselves to staying there forever. Small Foot took the rooms.

The next day, Crystal Widow talked to another of the group, Path Finder. Crystal Widow once again assured them there was no way out of Axiom Nexus if the government didn't want them to leave. She unwittingly gave away her special ability when she noticed out loud that Path Finder and her companions were not Cybertronian in nature. They used Energon, but not as a primary power source, a biological schematic that she was able to detect using her powers.

Later, Crystal Widow was visited by Inspector Airazor, who was looking for a murder suspect. Unfortunately, she was paired with General Demolishor, who had little regard for their target or Crystal Widow's cafe. His loud arrival alerted their target, Escargon, and he tried to escape. General Demolishor splattered his cranium all over the cafe, which Crystal Widow demanded payment for. In private, Airazor confided that Escargon had murdered some couriers who were carrying free passes out of Axiom Nexus. When Airazor left, Path Finder and Small Foot's group asked that Crystal Widow share them, assuming that Crystal Widow had confiscated them from Escargon himself. Sadly, Crystal Widow had not. She had given up hope of leaving Axiom Nexus long ago, and suggested to her gentle interrogators that they do the same. Small Foot accused Crystal Widow of not totally believing her own professed despair. Giving up on hope was Crystal Widow's easy way out.

Small Foot's words must have had some effect, as Crystal Widow later came to the group's rescue when they were being attacked by General Demolishor in the Heap, a land of garbage that existed outside the law. General Demolishor was very hard to defeat, which made Crystal Widow's energon-aided healing powers very important to the small and outpowered band of travelers. She was also able to temporarily disable the general by extending her longer foreclaw, crystallized into energon, directly through his head. However, none of their actions were able to defeat the general outright, but they did manage to stall their deaths long enough for Inspector Airazor and Commander Cheetor to arrive and put a stop to General Demolishor's violent, rogue acts.

Cheetor and Airazor found a way to give Small Foot's group the free passes under the table. Small Foot offered her pass to Crystal Widow, but she declined. Crystal Widow vowed to get out another way, some day. Small Foot and the others would need massive repairs, even entire new bodies acquired from the black market to ease their exit from Axiom Nexus. This would be expensive, so Crystal Widow called in Airazor's massive bar tab. Though Airazor protested at first, she was at least happy that Crystal Widow appeared hopeful again. Withered Hope

Beast Wars: Uprising

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Crystal Widow was on the Maximal team in a fateful match of the Games, which was interrupted by Lio Convoy's assassination of Supersonic and call for an uprising against the Builders. Broken Windshields Like the rest of her team, Crystal Widow made a break for it rather than sticking around. Head Games

Toys

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Universe (2003)

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Bet you wish you got her now!
  • Crystal Widow VS. Oil Slick (Two-pack, 2004)
Crystal Widow is a redeco of the Beast Machines Deluxe Blackarachnia toy, transforming into a technorganic spider. In spider mode, squeezing its pedipalps together raises her central fangs; they are spring-loaded to lower upon release. Her forearms have been mistakenly swapped in manufacture.
She was only available in a Kmart-exclusive Universe set with the Decepticon Oil Slick. A callout on the toy's packaging touts "Superior Articulation", presumably in comparison to Oil Slick.

Notes

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  • The iteration of her in "Withered Hope" transforms in a flash of light, just like any technorganic Transformer from Beast Machines.
  • When discussing the unfairness of the universe, "Withered Hope" Crystal Widow describes the cruel indifference of their creator and his hungry nemesis. The Facebook edition of Ask Vector Prime would retcon in 2015 that the conflict between them is what is responsible for dumping her in Axiom Nexus.
  • Skyfall and Widow's faction-hopping and mutual using is a nod to Silverbolt (who Skyfall's original mold shares a name with) and Blackarachnia (Crystal Widow's original mold)'s relationship.
  • Crystal Widow's past was intentionally left unexplored in her premiere story, with no intention to back-fill it later. Years later, the idea was floated that she would come from the universe of the BotCon 2005 comic, "Descent into Evil", but it was later decided to have her be from an unknown Aurex stream.<ref>Verity Carlo, Allspark post on 12th February 13:47</ref>

References

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