Humanization

Throughout the various Transformers canon, there have been several instances of Transformers with humanistic traits and having very human actions that possibly conflict with their status as mechanical robots. Many of these instances can be dismissed as stylistic choices by the artists or as gags not to be taken seriously.

## Body Parts

### Mouths/teeth/tongues

* The Generation 1 cartoon series is the only major piece of fiction to *not* present Transformers as possessing teeth and/or tongues. The features appear in both the Marvel and Dreamwave Productions comics, *The Battlestars* manga, the *Beast Wars* and *Beast Machines* animated series (where teeth would even be knocked out on occasion), the 2001 *Robots in Disguise* cartoon, and the Unicron Trilogy cartoons and comics.
* A majority of the Transformers from the Prime cartoon in the Universal series possess teeth and throats, but completely lack tongues.

### Eyeballs/eyelashes

* Most Transformers have eyes. They see with them.
* In a episode, Optimus Prime's eyes are closed (apparently to shield them against the smoke) much like a human's when the Autobots stagger out of the fire and smoke of the Negavator's destruction.
* While dying from life force depletion, Elita One occasionally closes her eyes. The Search for Alpha Trion
* Sludge's *Brontosaurus*-mode eyes briefly pop out in a cartoonish manner when he is punched by Devastator.
* Arcee and Springer clench their eyes shut when their ship is grabbed by a claw.
* Lyzack sports some pretty heavy-duty eyelashes. So does Esmeral.
* Ravage clenches his eyes shut when Bumblebee shines blinding headlights in his face.
* Hot Rod is shown to have what appears to be blast shields for his optics when he passes out after landing. Dealer's optics are mostly covered by his eyelids, so he looks half-passed out.

Per an email query to IDW, their response is that Transformers do not have eyelids; it's just artistic license.

* The robots in the live-action film series have eyes designed to resemble cameras, enabling them to dilate and blink.
* Swindle has eyelids. He also blinks frequently.
* The cyborg GoBots, as portrayed in the animated cartoon, do in fact possess eyelids (when the eyes aren't covered by a visor) and frequently blink. Some also have visible pupils.
* Most robots in *Prime* possess camera-like eyes similar to those seen in live-action films, which dilate, contract, and blink in a highly human-like fashion. Notably, they also replicate the involuntary saccades of the human eye when idle.

### Obesity

Although Transformers come in all shapes and sizes anyway, some characters have particularly round appearances that suggest something equivalent to human obesity.

* Bulkhead is virtually as wide as he is tall and is depicted as extremely round, with very short, stubby legs. It gives him more than a passing resemblance to a heavily obese person, or at best one of those huge, flabby, off-season wrestlers.
* Much the same could be said of Omega Supreme. Being big-chassised is no excuse to let yourself go.
* Gnaw. Well, all the Sharkticons, really, but seriously. It's kind of comically appropriate that the robots which do absolutely nothing but hang out and eat stuff all day are so roly-poly.
* Leadfoot has a set of metal plates that form the front of his Alt mode forming a sort of "beer gut" on his abdomen.
* Likely to give Devastator a proportionate torso, Long Haul's *Combiner Wars* toy portrays the Constructicon on the portly side.
* Skullcruncher is a wide Croctobot with a big gut. 'Nuff said.

### Masculine characteristics

#### Facial hair

*Main article: Facial hair*
* Alpha Trion, Scourge, Unicron, and Wreck-Gar all sport "facial hair" in the G1 cartoon. In addition to that, other Wreck-Gar all have varying amounts of facial hair. (The last of these was modeled after his voice actor's own, prior to his appearance's overhaul.) The *Shattered Glass* versions of Alpha Trion and Rodimus Prime also have "facial hair", probably as a homage to Evil Spock's appearance in *Star Trek*.
* Many characters in the live-action series have facial hair, like Jetfire, Sentinel, and The Fallen.

#### Nuts, bolts, and screws

* Gilmer got rammed in his crotch by Lightfoot, causing it to become red and Gilmer to clutch it, groaning he got "kicked in the balls". Lightfoot:
* Rattrap kicks Waspinator in the groin, causing apparent pain and giving him a high-pitched voice.
* Stampy once suggested a kick to the "unmentionables" as a workable battle tactic.
* Flareup interpreted the word "key" in "keymaster" a little differently than Megatron intended.
* Ironhide in his fight with Sharpshot.

#### Breasts

Protruding chest areas are a common sight on Transformers, with characters like Prowl and Bluestreak wearing their vehicle mode hoods as huge "monoboobs." Female Transformers, however, will more often than not be designed with protruding chest pieces not as a consequence of alt mode, but deliberately to resemble a human female silhouette. Some even have two separate and even more distinctly rounded breast-like protuberances, particularly in their fictional depictions. Blackarachnia, Antagony and Beta all fall into this category. One, Thunderblast, even has visible nipples. *(You're going to look, aren't you...?)* Meanwhile, *Legends* Arcee had *partially visible cleavage* as her armor was consumed by Kickback.

#### Lips

Another common feature to denote gender in female Transformers is distinctly fuller, plumper lips than is standard, such as Blackarachnia's in *Beast Wars*. Sometimes, however, they will additionally have red or otherwise different/darker coloration to their lips, with an evident similarity to human lipstick. Such paint-mouthed female Cybertronians include Blackarachnia in *Beast Machines*, her *Animated* counterpart, and the G1 Female Autobots.

As far as males go, none of them have differently colored lips, but some do have noticeably thicker lips. Generation 1 Orion Pax, Silverbolt, Streetwise, Overlord and Shouki, for instance, have lips that can easily compete with the females.

Much like humans, many female Transformers have a wider, more highly curved hip structure.

*See also the **Sexuality** section below.*
### Questionable body parts

* Nearly all Transformers seem to possess noses for no discernible functional reason, *Beast Wars* characters and movieverse Ratchet being exceptions. Noses are sometimes even implied to be there when not clearly visible, such as with Jetfire in the *Armada* episode "Mars". Movie Megatron also notes that he can smell Sam when the latter is trying to escape from him, and Ironhide remarks that he can "smell" Demolishor. This would seem to imply that movieverse Transformers have a form of olfactory systems. The idea of noses is somewhat 'fixed' in *Transformers Animated* and *Transformers Prime* by having the noses be a visible part of the robot's helmet as opposed to being part of their face.
* At the end of the G1 episode "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide", Powerglide is seen to have the LED outline of a cartoon heart within his chassis. This is somewhat nonsensical even within in the context of the show (the contents of Transformers chest cavities had been shown several times before), and is doubtless merely meant as a one-off sight gag.
* Although listed separately above, breasts and "nuts, bolts, and screws" would also fit under this category quite well, seeing as there doesn't appear to be any use for them on Transformers, other than to show them off.
* Rung has eyebrows. They're so prominent that "eyebrows" is literally his nickname.
* Then there's the eyebrows in *Transformers: Prime*... my God, the eyebrows...
* *Transformers: Prime* also has Megatron (and sometimes other Decepticons) referring to consumed Dark Energon "flowing through my veins!" Whether they were being poetic, or if it was part of *Prime's* attempt to redefine the technobiological nature of the Transformers, is unknown.
* In *Transformers: Animated*, a clone of Starscream once asked Prowl if he didn't "have some Decepticon oil in his tubes." This isn't the only time when oil has been referred to as blood in the show, though it has some morbid implications, as it has also been used as an analogy for beer...
* Predaking has an organic brain when he is sliced in half in the *Zone* cartoon.
* Unicron also has an organic brain in the G.I. Joe crossover, Black Horizon Part 2. Later handwaved by explaining that the particular Unicron in the crossover came from the universal stream Gargent 984.08 Alpha and had taken on an organic brain in a similar fashion as the native GoBots.
* *Dark of the Moon*'s Sentinel Prime seemed to have something in his head resembling a brain after Optimus executed him.

Buttocks
* Arcee is depicted with a rather human-like gluteal region in both issue #182 of the Marvel UK comic and issue #1 of IDW's *Transformers: The Animated Movie*.
* Bulkhead recalls a time when Wheeljack pulled a stunt to get them out of a dangerous situation, and states that he's "still picking shrapnel out of his backside" while scratching his.. bottom. Arcee states that she isn't surprised due to its size, which amuses Bumblebee. Con Job
* Lugnut has a robo-butt, which is a more explicit example of the former example. The Race
* *Animated* Scrapper and Mixmaster have buttcracks.
* Grandus has a wide "exhaust port" according to Wildrider. The Stunti-Con Job
* When Hound gets himself stuck in a building, he complains "My fat ass is stuck!". Age of Extinction
* For some reason, Robots In Disguise (2015) has many butt jokes involving Grimlock, most of which are him sitting on someone. This even extends to the comic book tie-in.
* Rhinox and Dinobot have also been used for this type of humor, in the same episode... The Low Road
* The Con Crew's promotional packaging shows a social media post of Captain Cartridge flexing his...exterior.

## Other biological functions

### Sleep

* In the Marvel G1 comic, Trailbreaker plays a prank on Huffer while he is in "rest mode." Trailbreaker's *Universe* profile Ratchet falls asleep and dreams (or rather, has a nightmare), an experience Prime refers to as an "involuntary systems shutdown". Back from the Dead Kup later attempts to rouse a vision-struck Optimus Prime by urging him to "wake up"—then reminds himself that "we don't sleep!" The Power and the Glory When Donny Finkleberg remarks that unlike machines, humans need to rest, Skids informs him Transformers need to as well to conserve fuel. Skids also has an on/off button in his dashboard. Heavy Traffic!
* In the *The Headmasters* cartoon, Mindwipe is able to use a form of hypnotism on the Autobots, which can include lulling them to sleep. In the Omni Productions dub, Grimlock notes the strangeness of a robot feeling sleepy.
* This ability is also shown by Hellbat in the *Victory* cartoon.
* In *Beast Wars*, it has been firmly established that (perhaps partially due to their organic components), all Transformers within the cartoon sleep. Some prime examples of this are:
	+ Megatron has been shown to sleep in the command chair of the *Darksyde*, while his dino head mounted on the end of his arm stays awake, looks around, and smiles slyly. Wonder what it thinks about...
	+ Cheetor has been shown asleep at many points, complete with (occasionally prophetic) dreams. In "Feral Scream Part 2", he also purrs when he's asleep. How cute!
	+ In "Call of the Wild", the Maximals are kept awake for two days by the Predacons' non-stop attacks on their base, which exacerbate their beast instincts overriding their logic circuits.
* Ratchet enters a form of sleep he calls a "stasis nap", during which he gets several parking tickets.
* Nightstrike's screams put his victims in a sleep-like state, while also stimulating the "fear centers" of their processor and forcing them to have nightmares based on their worst fears.
* Rewind falls asleep and has a bad dream about the Dark Dawn.
* Bumblebee can be heard snoring after a lack of Energon caused him to pass out.