It's weird.
I never even met the man and I'm usually more centred when it comes to celebrity deaths because while it's sad, it's not like I knew them. So it's easy to process.
This one, though, is hitting in a way I didn't foresee.
I was just as much a Batman fan as I was a Transformers fan as a kid and Kevin Conroy's passing, RIP, was sad but it didn't hit like this.
I donno. Cullen was special I guess. I think Transformers was my first "fandom" if you can call it that. I asked my parents for an Optimus Prime for my fifth birthday and they were so confused
Optimus was just
the good guy. He was who I compared Luke Skywalker, Batman, Superman, Duke, the Red Ranger, and everyone else against. Part of that, the biggest part, was Peter Cullen giving Prime humour, warmth, and kindness. A lot of the moral lessons in that show are simple, but they're not simple to a four or five year old. They mattered.
I had friends too, friends whose dads weren't around or in the picture. I know "robot truck dad" has become a meme, but I've had at least two friends of mine say Optimus was almost a father figure to them.
Peter Cullen meant a lot to me, and I know he meant so much more to many others. I don't know. I knew this was coming. Dude's been sick and cancelling con appearances for a while now, but I donno. I need to sit. I need to process it, and we need to appreciate his legacy and what he left behind.
