Circular reporting: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:45, 4 June 2024

The cover for *The Transformers: All Hail Megatron* issue #15, featuring text from Perceptor's article on this wiki.

As befitting a franchise that has run continuously for {{#expr: 2026-1984}} years, the Transformers brand is a vast and sprawling one. However, as an intellectual property based around the inherently transient medium of merchandising, both Hasbro and TakaraTomy have, historically, taken a laissez-faire approach to storytelling and don't have a complete, centralized repository of internal reference material.

As a result, the largest compendium of Transformers knowledge is, in fact, this very website you are reading this article on right now, and many creatives have confirmed that they have used our wiki when writing stories or looking for toy references. While wikis have a few advantages over "in-house" lore bibles—they can be edited by anyone, not just professionals, for instance—their main downside is that... well, they can be edited by anyone. Although we at TFWiki.net strive for accuracy and neutrality when covering Transformers topics, there have been cases where inaccurate, misleading or misinterpreted information on this very wiki have gone on to inform official Transformers toys and fiction.

Of course, people working on official Transformers work use references outside of the wiki, namely other sites reporting on Transformers, leaving the door open for many, many more errors. See the miscolorings page for more information.

This phenomenon is formally termed [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}circular reporting|{{#if:||circular reporting}}]], commonly nicknamed citogenesis due to a 2011 xkcd webcomic strip that satirized the concept. This article provides a non-comprehensive cross-section of such mishaps.

{{#if:||

}}

Hasbro's in-house continuity documents

Comprehensive. Definitive. Authoritative.

In the mid-2000s, Hasbro licensees were provided with copies of Simon Furman's Transformers: The Ultimate Guide as reference—notably, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman regularly consulted the guide while writing the 2007 Transformers movie. In a similar vein, IDW Publishing's reprints of Dreamwave Productions' More than Meets the Eye profile series were directly referenced for The Art of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, and have been used by other licensees such as Fun Publications and Space Ape Games.

The only known example of a high-level continuity document designed solely for internal use was the 2010 Binder of Revelation, compiled to help new creatives in the franchise get up to speed with key characters, concepts, and settings, to bring the various stories they were producing at the time into alignment. This lore bible went on to inform vast swathes of modern Transformers storytelling, most notably the Prime cartoon, which proved extremely influential in its own right.

As the creatives behind the Binder have moved on from the company over the years, however, it appears to have fallen by the wayside, with Hasbro happy to have different concurrent media diverge entirely so long as some key synergies remain—such as the Cyberverse cartoon being informed by the script for the 2018 Bumblebee movie—directing writers to the wiki for lore nitty-gritty. Cyberverse showrunner Randolph Heard cites this as one reason for the show's starring roles for many more obscure fan-favourite characters.<ref>{{#if: I came to this, again, without a lot of Transformers knowledge, and I was directed to TFWiki, and I started reading TFWiki and I'm like, oh my god, I don't understand anything, is this a multiverse, or- why- why are there so many variations on things? I'm never gonna learn this thing or understand it. And fortunately my staff were very helpful in that regard. But I think that Cyberverse to me was like, because I came from the outside in a way, I looked at it as a big box of toys, and I could play with any of them. And you know, that's how kids are, right? They're not going to distinguish between a Marvel toy, a DC toy, and something else—if they're cool they'll make a battle between anything. And so to me I felt the freedom, like, yeah, I'll just pick stuff and no-one said no. In fact they seemed delighted that we were bringing back characters. [...] I researched lists of 'weirdest Transformers ever.' [...] I said I don't, you know, I confessed to Mikiel Houser, and he said that's fine, check out the TFWiki and that'll tell you everything you need to know, and I was kind of like- it told me too much, you know? It was overwhelming. And I love TFWiki—they have such great writers, they're hilarious. |"I came to this, again, without a lot of Transformers knowledge, and I was directed to TFWiki, and I started reading TFWiki and I'm like, oh my god, I don't understand anything, is this a multiverse, or- why- why are there so many variations on things? I'm never gonna learn this thing or understand it. And fortunately my staff were very helpful in that regard. But I think that Cyberverse to me was like, because I came from the outside in a way, I looked at it as a big box of toys, and I could play with any of them. And you know, that's how kids are, right? They're not going to distinguish between a Marvel toy, a DC toy, and something else—if they're cool they'll make a battle between anything. And so to me I felt the freedom, like, yeah, I'll just pick stuff and no-one said no. In fact they seemed delighted that we were bringing back characters. [...] I researched lists of 'weirdest Transformers ever.' [...] I said I don't, you know, I confessed to Mikiel Houser, and he said that's fine, check out the TFWiki and that'll tell you everything you need to know, and I was kind of like- it told me too much, you know? It was overwhelming. And I love TFWiki—they have such great writers, they're hilarious."—|}}{{#if: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vindAiN7YNY&t=1087s |Randolph Heard is too kind,|Randolph Heard is too kind,}}{{#if: Keyan Carlile's Transformer Channel |, Keyan Carlile's Transformer Channel|}}{{#if: The cancelled TF show BEFORE Cyberverse! (Randolph Heard talks Early Development & Seasons 1-2) |, "The cancelled TF show BEFORE Cyberverse! (Randolph Heard talks Early Development & Seasons 1-2)"|}}{{#if: 2021 |, 2021{{#if: 11 |/{{#switch:{{#len:11}}|1=011|11}}{{#if: 20|/{{#switch:{{#len:20}}|1=020|20}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vindAiN7YNY&t=1087s ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vindAiN7YNY&t=1087s%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vindAiN7YNY&t=1087s%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vindAiN7YNY&t=1087s%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vindAiN7YNY&t=1087s%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref> Another franchise newcomer, Brian Ruckley, writer of IDW Publishing's rebooted Transformers series, plucked a large number of obscure characters from the wiki, in particular a great many female Transformers. All of this is to say that the referencing of fan wikis is perfectly normal and can often be positive. It's also why the wiki should strive for completeness and accuracy when documenting the Transformers universe—as the following cautionary tales show...

Examples of circular reporting through TFWiki.net

Absence of evidence

The original Tailwind that went undocumented on this wiki...

...and this guy showed up! Maybe if he gets hurt, he'll shrink back?

In the 2008 comic story Spotlight: Hardhead, the Micromaster toy character Tailwind was given a cameo as one of the many Gorlamites attacking Hardhead and Nightbeat—but for many years, Tailwind was the only one whose appearance in that comic was not documented on his own wiki page. As part of a general desire to make use of characters who had yet to be introduced to the IDW continuity, writer James Roberts evidently decided to check him off the list by writing a full-sized Cybertronian Tailwind into More than Meets the Eye #12, being bisected by Drift.

Similarly, the 2007 online Transformers Collectors' Club profile for Flashdrive—based on the Japanese-exclusive Mini-Con Processor—refers to a teammate called "Trickshot", clearly intended to be his fellow Micron Booster toy Triac; the wiki failed to note this, and soon thereafter the Mini-Con bio regimen ended without Trickshot's own profile being published. Thusly, the 2015 Ask Vector Prime column would instead give Triac the localized identity of "Bingo".

Text transfer

(Heavy) Artillery Drones

The Vehicon drones belonging to Strika were never named in the Beast Machines cartoon, toyline, or related media. Back when TFWiki started out on Wikia (now Fandom), an anonymous user created the article for Strika's drones in 2008 using the fan name "Heavy Artillery Drone". Due to an oversight (as no one knew that it wasn't an official name), this remained the article's name for nearly a decade.

In a non-visual, text-only instance of this roundabout reporting, the 2016 prose story "Derailment" officially named Strika's drones as "Artillery Drones" based on the wiki's use of the name "Heavy Artillery Drone". The article was soon moved to "Artillery Drone" shortly after in early 2017, to reflect the official name. But, the official name only came about in the first place because of the wiki unknowingly using a completely made-up fan name.

Coloring conundrums

The use of TFWiki.net images as color references can occasionally result in... interesting... new color schemes. Original colors are given to the left when possible.

IDW Robots in Disguise Horri-Bull

In the IDW Publishing comic issue Robots in Disguise #1, Horri-Bull's colorization is apparently based on photos of a photodegradated example of his original toy that was once used on his page. When asked, colorist Josh Perez said he chose to use the yellow to "help him stick out a lot more".<ref>{{#if: |""—|}}{{#if: https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/84653-idw-rid-teaser-images/page-5 |Josh Perez|Josh Perez}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: |, ""|}}{{#if: |, {{#if: |/{{#switch:{{#len:}}|1=0{{{month}}}|{{{month}}}}}{{#if: |/{{#switch:{{#len:}}|1=0{{{day}}}|{{{day}}}}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/84653-idw-rid-teaser-images/page-5 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/84653-idw-rid-teaser-images/page-5%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/84653-idw-rid-teaser-images/page-5%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/84653-idw-rid-teaser-images/page-5%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/84653-idw-rid-teaser-images/page-5%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: yes | (dead link)}}</ref>

Original 1988 toy pictured
Degraded toy pictured
2012 comic scene pictured
It's canon folks!

Fall of Cybertron Vortex

Vortex's color scheme in Fall of Cybertron is an unusual red and beige, derived from G1 Vortex's More than Meets the Eye character art that is his main page image—in particular, our previously-used scan of the artwork makes it appear to have a much warmer tone than it does in print, shifting the gray towards brown and the lilac towards pink. These tones influenced the coloring of Vortex's Fall of Cybertron concept art, which evolved to the in-game colors.

Original 1985 deco pictured
Better scan of 2003 art pictured
Worse scan of 2003 art pictured
2012 game render pictured

Legends Roadburner

Roadburner's 2013 appearance in the Transformers Legends mobile game can only be described as a fit of insanity. His appearance is based on a catastrophic misinterpretation of this wiki's photography for the toy, depicting his partner Wheel Blaze as white... because they didn't understand the greyed-out photo this wiki uses to indicate which toy the article isn't about. To make matters worse, it is highly likely Roadburner wasn't supposed to be in the game to begin with. Considering that the theme of the event he appeared in was basically "These Autobots with military alt-modes do stuff," and the fact that Roadbuster would make more sense given Whirl's prevalence in said event... yeah. Not helping matters is that when in the process of typing "Roadbuster" into this wiki's search bar, Roadburner shows up first in the search results. Someone must have been in a hurry.

1990 toy pictured
HOW???
2013 art pictured

IDW Transformers Azimuth

Azimuth was originally a minor character who appeared in The Covenant of Primus. Beyond a brief namedrop, she went unseen for several years until 2015, when the Ask Vector Prime Facebook feature revealed that she sported a body based on the gold MC-6 Kronoform toy. However, when a new incarnation of Azimuth appeared in 2020, in IDW's Transformers comic, she was colored silver—a mixup that almost assuredly stems from the photo on Azimuth's wiki article more prominently displaying that figure, with the "correct" gold figure tucked away on the far right.

Original 1993 deco pictured
Catalogue scan uploaded to the wiki in 2015 Hey, she got a Transformers toy out of it.

Catalogue scan uploaded to the wiki in 2015
Hey, she got a Transformers toy out of it.
2020 comic scene pictured
You know what, you're welcome.

Earth Wars Dile

In the Transformers: Earth Wars mobile game, Dile was revealed as a forthcoming character in early September 2020, sporting an unusual gray and purple deco which doesn't match his toy's colors at all. The following month, Space Ape Games put out a new render via their official newsletter, explaining that the original colors were based on the washed out scan of his card art seen at the top of his TFWiki character page. This makes it one of the few known instances where circular reporting was caught and corrected before release. The new render instead uses a more light-green and silvery hue based on a somewhat color-corrected version of the card art, rather than the much more pronounced green of the toy itself.

Original 1987 toy pictured
Scan of 1987 art pictured
A washout, that's all you are! A washout!
Initial 2020 CG model pictured
Finalized 2020 CG model pictured

Siege Ion Storm

The stock photography for Siege Ion Storm's jet mode mistakenly showed Thundercracker's jet instead—which is nearly identical apart from red highlights. With the 2019 Rainmakers set being hard to come by, this erroneous image was used on the wiki for a couple of years, and appears highly in Google Image searches—leading Ion Storm's jet mode to be colored according as Thundercracker in a TakaraTomy comic released in September 2020 and in an IDW comic released in September 2021.

Erroneous 2019 vehicle mode pictured
True 2019 vehicle mode pictured
2020 comic scene pictured
2021 comic scene pictured

Deco disasters

On rare occasions the aforementioned coloring misadventures can escalate to the point of affecting the characters' actual future toys. Once again, original colors are given to the left when possible.

Prime 10 Year Anniversary Igu

The 10 Year Anniversary reissue of Igu (Jet Vehicon's Arms Micron partner from the TakaraTomy Prime toyline) mistakenly colors him bright silver, as opposed to the black of the original release.

This can be attributed to the set designer using the first image in the "Toys" subheading of Igu's wiki page for reference—which was actually an "elite" redeco packed with Jet Vehicon General. The original black release of Igu is used as the article's mainpic instead of being used in the "Toys" section, due to a lack of images of his vanishingly few fictional appearances. From a toy design perspective, this error means that the now-silver Igu breaks aesthetic cohesion with his mostly-black partner Jet Vehicon.

Original 2012 deco pictured
Secondary 2013 deco pictured
Please, "Igu S" was my father.
2020 reissue deco pictured

Kingdom T-Wrecks

The Kingdom Leader Class toy of T-Wrecks has a colour scheme which is much more drab than the original Beast Machines Ultra Class iteration, with the brown-tinted torso being swapped for a dull grey, and the bright bronze of his helmet being swapped for the same red as his beast-mode skin. More noticeably, only the lower portion of T-Wrecks's crotch is molded blue, with the waist itself being left unpainted grey. It seems that these changes are the result of the wiki's photo of the original toy being primarily used for reference; the lighting in the image is a little misleading, and the toy's posed leaning forward such that its belly overhangs its waist entirely! The Kingdom T-Wrecks's eyes are also yellow rather than the green of the Beast Machines toy. It would seem that some of the other pictures on his page may have played into this color change also.

Finalized 2000 deco pictured
Prototype 2000 deco pictured
2021 toy pictured
His bronze and innocence: Gone.

The big ones

Black Roritchi's antennae

For years, the main image for Black Roritchi on this wiki used an image from the 2006 Metrodome release Masterforce cartoon depicting him against a pitch-black backdrop, which his equally-black antennae blended into. When Generations Selects Black Roritchi was produced in 2020 as a redeco of Fasttrack, the figure was given a custom head solely to remove the antennae under the mistaken belief that he didn't have them. Color-correction in later re-releases of the cartoon would reveal Black Roritchi to have blue antennae against a starfield. The timing of those re-releases? 2012. Oops.

Original 1988 toy pictured
2006 Metrodome version of
1988 anime scene pictured
He's literally about to turn his head and show off his black antennae.
2012 Shout! Factory restoration pictured
Uh, make that blue antennae.
2020 toy pictured
The only time people wouldn't care if Hasbro accidently forgot to show off the new head.

Studio Series Scrapmetal

TFWiki.net's beautiful son. Our little guy.

The character that the wiki identifies as "Scrapmetal" was created through a complicated, decade-long tennis match between the wiki and Hasbro. In 2009, shortly after the theatrical release of Revenge of the Fallen, the wiki created a page for the then-nameless character under the half-jokey title "Ze little one". Rather than assuming that the character was a Scrapper clone, wiki editors at the time decided that he was his own character, as the scene where Constructicons went underwater featured a yellow Volvo excavator that didn't match to any of the other characters. "Ze little one" quickly picked up an ironic fan following, and by December 2009 Hasbro called him "Scrapmetal" and identified his alternate mode as "the bulldozer."<ref>Hasbro Q&A December 2009 at TFviews.com</ref> The wiki documented this and moved on. Around the same time, Revenge of the Fallen Devastator's page noted that the film version of the character was formed from an extra bulldozer compared to the official list of his components.

Almost ten years later, Hasbro announced a giant, fully-articulated Revenge of the Fallen Devastator toy formed from multiple Constructicon figures from the Studio Series toyline. It is not 100% clear, but what appears to have happened is that whoever was planning the character selection looked at both Devastator and Scrapmetal's pages and decided to marry these two random tidbits by making Scrapmetal the extra bulldozer. Then, the individual(s) assigned to design Scrapmetal's toy consulted the wiki page to figure out who the character was and instead made them a yellow excavator with the robot mode of the concept art randomly chosen for the main picture of the article—the result of the wiki stringing together tidbits of contradictory information from the movie.

Sideways the dimension-hopper

Can you see all of me?
Walk into my mystery
Step inside and hold on for dear life
Do you remember me?
Capture you or set you free
I am all, I am all of me

Oh dear.

In 2002, Hasbro released two motorcycle toys bearing the same name: Robots in Disguise Sideways and Armada Sideways. The Hasbro toy bio for the latter recycled much of the same text from the bio of the former, nearly verbatim. This led to speculation at the time about whether or not they were meant to be the same character, regardless of the differences in toyline release since Robots in Disguise Sideways also came packaged with Axer, whose own bio hinted at his being the same person as his Generation 1 namesake, having crossed dimensions from Generation 1 to Robots in Disguise.

In 2004, Takara's Robotmasters line released another motorcycle toy named Double Face, who shared the exact same colors and Japanese name of Armada Sideways. Since the Robotmasters series was a big crossover event similar in concept to the concurrent Transformers: Universe series, fans in the West initially mistook Robotmasters for a multiversal event, with characters crossing dimensions from different universes to team up with each other in a Generation 1 setting (as was the case in Universe). In actuality, Robotmasters only featured time travel, not dimensional travel. But because of the initial misconception, what came next was very easily believed.

In early 2005, a mere two months after Double Face's release, a fan-given claim was made online about Takara's official Robotmasters website supposedly declaring Double Face to be the same character as Robots in Disguise Sideways. When the original TFWiki article for Sideways was first being put together in 2006, this same claim was reiterated several times on the article's talk page, which misled the article's original creators to believe it and treat the Robots in Disguise, Armada, and Robotmasters characters all as the same Sideways, assuming that Robotmasters had confirmed the character to have dimension-hopped from another universe into Generation 1 (when it actually hadn't).

With the wiki article treating all three as the same person, able to jump from universe to universe, the article went on to inspire later versions of Sideways, like Animated Sideways and Ask Vector Prime Sideways, who not only were explicitly presented as dimension-hoppers, but also had implicit ties to the originally-unrelated Revenge of the Fallen Sideways, which only led to even more debates about how that Sideways related to the others, and whether or not every Sideways was really the same individual!

It wasn't until late 2022 that the validity of the original claim about Robotmasters Double Face was finally investigated; the results of this investigation revealed that there had actually been zero evidence in support of the claim found anywhere on the Takara Robotmasters website. And thanks to this false claim influencing the wiki, Sideways went on to have a reputation for being a multiversal mischief maker who jumps across multiple realities, which was never originally supposed to be the case.

Robots in Disguise Sideways
Armada Sideways /
Legends of the Microns Double Face
Robotmasters Double Face

The littlest one

Spelling the word Robo-Smasher

In perhaps the amusingly smallest example of circular reporting from this wiki, the "Robosmasher" from the 1985 cartoon episode "The Secret of Omega Supreme" was in fact written as one plain word in the episode's script. However, as is prone to happening with televised media, the original dialogue's text was not consulted when a TFWiki article for the device was created in 2006, under the hyphenated spelling "Robo-Smasher". This spelling was thus used by the Ask Vector Prime Facebook page as well as Beast Wars: Uprising text stories in 2015 prior to the wiki article being amended in 2017 to acknowledge the original spelling.

Non-TFWiki misreporting

Of course, people working on official Transformers material make use of unofficial reference material outside of this wiki, and errors in Transformers scholarship elsewhere are just as capable of leading to incorrect or occasionally, outright made up, information making it into the final product.

Incorrectly-colored animation models

*Inaccurate model at left*
*Accurate model at centre*
*Off-model 2020 product at right*

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The 1984-1987 The Transformers animated series that has become a centerpiece of the brand was, to be blunt, not a high-quality production in the animation department. All four seasons were prone to animation errors, adding an additional challenge to modern fans attempting to isolate simple views of any given character model. To make matters worse, Hasbro and licensees have often relied upon a set of fan-colorings from the Ukrainian Transformers fan website, Transformers.kiev.ua, that attempted to recreate Sunbow animation models using screen captures of episodes, while eye dropping the colors from said screen captures, and then replacing the heads of the models with traced headshots also taken from episode screen captures. These fan-colorings regularly make rounds on the web since they are readily available on Pinterest and Fandom wikia pages, making it hard not to come across them through a simple Google Search.

On top of all of this, the models Transformers.kiev.ua would frequently use were also the ones published in The Ark series books as they were the only real source available for Generation 1 animation models at the time. In the years since, better copies of animation models have surfaced through eBay and various Japanese auction sites, revealing that a large majority of the models used in the books were actually out of date pre-final models that had been revised anywhere from once, to several times afterwards. The author of the books, Jim Sorenson has also stated in conversation with the wiki team that due to the condition of some of the models he had found or been given access to, Bill Forster had to sometimes trace, redraw and digitally mend models, such as the Junkions, to make them more presentable for publishing; this has also led to several inaccuracies with the original model sheets that have surfaced since.

As can be seen in the example at right, the 2020 R.E.D. [Robot Enhanced Design] Soundwave figure's shins were incorrectly left blue instead of being painted silver/gray due to Hasbro once again basing the figure on the Transformers.kiev.ua fan-colored model.

Hasbro also tends to use the images from Transformers.kiev.ua whole-hog in their social media posts on Instagram and Facebook for memes, visuals for trivia and holiday celebration posts, as well as using them as placeholder images for pipeline reveals of upcoming figures in the works. A notable example of this was the pipeline reveal of Legacy Devcon, whose placeholder "model" image isn't even a model at all, rather a couple of traced screencaps from the episode "The Gambler".<ref>Transformers Jan 23 Livestream Recap – Legacy Evolution Wave 2 and More! at TFW2005</ref> The same had also been done for Snarl, Bombshell, Dirge, and so on. It's one thing to use them as reference for toys and design inspiration, but the practice of taking them whole-hog without a background check, and using them in official posts is a bit of a shoddy practice, to say the least.

Other oddities

Discmaster

This might be one of the earliest cases of circular reporting in the history of the Transformers brand and fandom (and one of the rare, non-visual, text-only cases). The toy bio for Beast Wars II Autolauncher refers to both himself and his rival Mantis with the turn of phrase enban tsukai (円盤使い, meaning "disc user"). When the bio was translated into English in the late 1990s/early 2000s, the phrase was written in English as "Discmaster", with the one responsible having likely taken some creative inspiration from the various forms of "-master" technology of Generation 1.

During the mid-2000s, when putting together the Beast Wars Sourcebook, longtime fan Ben Yee (who was co-author of the Sourcebook with Simon Furman) took this translation to heart and applied the term to the book's profiles for both Autolauncher and Mantis—unaware that "Discmaster" was actually creative liberty on part of the fan translation and not an accurate representation of what was originally written in the Japanese bio text. As a result, the term "Discmaster" now referred to a martial art practiced by both characters, despite the term having never actually existed beforehand in the first place.

Transformers Legends Axe

Combiner Wars G2 Menasor

At first glance, Hasbro's Generation 2-themed redeco of Combiner Wars Menasor looks to be a simple homage to the original, canceled Generation 2 toy. However, a closer inspection reveals that it took some notable inspiration from a 2014 fanmade digibash posted to DeviantArt by longtime fan artist Air Hammer, which was itself based on another fan's hand-painted customization of the original Generation 1 Stunticons in an attempt to recreate the canceled Generation 2 toys. Most glaringly, Breakdown winds up having purple and silver in place of the proper pink and gold. As an extra, the official Transformers Facebook page posted a promotional pic of the set that used the aforemented digibashes of the individual Stunticons instead of their proper stock photos... which featured Offroad as the fifth member of the team, rather than Brake-Neck (whose Combiner Wars version wasn't revealed yet when the digibash was made) as the official set.

Original 1994 deco pictured, left
Purple-faced Menasor, as seen in promotional materials
2015 deco pictured
Why, these limbs are the wrong toolings entirel- Oh, right.

Warriorbot

In 2017, a Hasbro license, Open Road Brands, released a tin wall sign exclusively to Hobby Lobby stores, meant to showcase the many faction symbols from the brand's history, but one symbol stood out. The self-proclaimed "Warriorbots" were never a real thing. So were did they come from? The answer can be found on the "Insignia" page on the Transformers Fandom (formerly Wikia) wiki from 2014 to 2017, with it being listed among the others. In other words: Whoever designed it used that page as reference.

References

@@ Line 64: / Line 64: @@
 File:MTMTEVortex.jpg|''Worse scan of 2003 art pictured''
 File:FOC-HMS-render-Vortex-robot mode.jpg|''2012 game render pictured''
+</gallery></center>
+{{-}}{{anchor|Roadburner}}
+====''Legends'' Roadburner====
+[[Roadburner]]'s 2013 appearance in the ''[[Transformers Legends (mobile game)|Transformers Legends]]'' mobile game can only be described as a fit of insanity.  His appearance is based on a catastrophic misinterpretation of this wiki's photography for the toy, depicting his partner [[Wheel Blaze]] as white... because they didn't understand the greyed-out photo this wiki uses to indicate ''which toy the article isn't about''.  To make matters worse, it is highly likely Roadburner ''wasn't supposed to be in the game to begin with.'' Considering that the theme of [[By Land, Sea, or Air|the event he appeared in]] was basically "These Autobots with military alt-modes do stuff," and the fact that [[Roadbuster (G1)|Road''buster'']] would make more sense given [[Whirl (G1)|Whirl]]'s prevalence in said event... yeah. Not helping matters is that when in the process of typing "Roadbuster" into this wiki's search bar, Roadburner shows up first in the search results. Someone must have been in a hurry.
+<center><gallery heights=200px widths=200px>
+File:G1-toy Roadburner.jpg|''1990 toy pictured'' <br> HOW???
+File:TFLegends-Roadburner.jpg|''2013 art pictured''
 </gallery></center>
@@ Line 127: / Line 137: @@
 ===The big ones===
-{{anchor|Roadburner}}
+{{anchor|Black Roritchi}}
-====''Legends'' Roadburner====
-[[Roadburner]]'s 2013 appearance in the ''[[Transformers Legends (mobile game)|Transformers Legends]]'' mobile game can only be described as a fit of insanity.  His appearance is based on a catastrophic misinterpretation of this wiki's photography for the toy, depicting his partner [[Wheel Blaze]] as white... because they didn't understand the greyed-out photo this wiki uses to indicate ''which toy the article isn't about''.  To make matters worse, it is highly likely Roadburner ''wasn't supposed to be in the game to begin with.'' Considering that the theme of [[By Land, Sea, or Air|the event he appeared in]] was basically "These Autobots with military alt-modes do stuff," and the fact that [[Roadbuster (G1)|Road''buster'']] would make more sense given [[Whirl (G1)|Whirl]]'s prevalence in said event... yeah. Not helping matters is that when in the process of typing "Roadbuster" into this wiki's search bar, Roadburner shows up first in the search results. Someone must have been in a hurry.
-<center><gallery heights=200px widths=200px>
-File:G1-toy Roadburner.jpg|''1990 toy pictured'' <br> HOW???
-File:TFLegends-Roadburner.jpg|''2013 art pictured''
-</gallery></center>
-{{-}}{{anchor|Black Roritchi}}
 ====Black Roritchi's antennae====
 For years, the main image for [[Black Roritchi]] on this wiki used an image from the [[2006]] [[Metrodome]] release [[Transformers: Super-God Masterforce (cartoon)|''Masterforce'' cartoon]] depicting him against a pitch-black backdrop, which his equally-black antennae blended into. When ''[[Generations Selects (toyline)|Generations Selects]]'' Black Roritchi was produced in 2020 as a redeco of [[Fasttrack (G1)#Generations|Fasttrack]], the figure was given a custom head solely to remove the antennae under the mistaken belief that he didn't have them. Color-correction in later re-releases of the cartoon would reveal Black Roritchi to have blue antennae against a starfield. The timing of those re-releases? [[2012]]. Oops.