I think that, FOR ONCE, there is a collective sense that outrage is premature.

If nothing comes of it, it's trivia.

If it's foreshadowing for a cool story, all right.

If it lands with a thud as an excuse for us to make pre-assumptions about fembots with no real justification, I think that's when you'll see some hurt get laid down.

 

To clarify, that's what I meant... it had been noted and discussed earlier.

My personal point of view is as strident as ever, but the subject has been well-documented in other threads. In this case, Roberts has tossed something out... so I'm waiting to see what he does with it.

It would be a heck of a tease though...

Referring to the earlier discussion, I think it was Wily who suggested that many other Bots might have an Estrol value in their spark, and applied that to (by way of example) Bots who have "female" psycho-affective holo-avatars.

Pretty much.

zmog

 

Yeah it would be a tease. I'd like to see it as something like maybe estriol positive makes you more likely to identify as a female but it doesn't make you female, y'know? so maybe Whirl is estriol positive and maybe he identifies as female or maybe he doesn't. Or maybe he does sometimes, maybe he is gender fluid.

 

It's pretty much confirmed Whirl is vitreous positive, same as Rewind and Chromedome. It's how First Aid was able to use Whirl's spark to jumpstart Rewind in MTMTE 12.

James also said Cyclonus' holoform would have been female, but his spark type (and Tailgate's) is ferrum negative.

Curious to know Rung's and Minimus Ambus' sparktypes; and interestingly enough, First Aid and Fort Max very likely have the same sparktype given that Aid jumpstarted Max in the Delphi arc.

 

Yeah I was just using whirl as an example because he was the first bot with a female holo-avatar I could think of.

Which is a fancy way of sayin I forgot.

 

Strangely enough I'm not all that bothered about the possibility of estriol positive spark type being exclusive to female transformers. It makes a heck of a lot more sense than CNA or whatever and it doesn't really change who Nautica is. If anything I kinda wish they'd chosen a different name for it(still female exclusive but less of a connection to actual human biology)

And we don't really know all that much about it. I'm the sort of person who takes things in stride so we'll see if anything comes of it. If yes, then ok hope it's all good. If not... well, still sort of good cos I don't really want gender to be made a big deal of. Kinda like the approach the Windblade mini is taking.

Oh yes, for Minimus I'd like to know if PoP have a unique sparktype(apart from being green) and for Rung I just want to know! Does he have a normal spark type like everyone else that just so happens to be extra bright. Or is there something more to it.

 

So... was reading through "Remain in Light" again and got up to this page where Skids goes through the portal and... well... that bottom left panel - was it trying to tell us something all along?

 

Hey, JazzMeister. I don't think the image is working. It's coming up 404

 

Yeah... I have a crap internet connection at the moment. Should be working now.

But yeah... what was that orb trying to tell Skids? There's the exclamation mark and the silhouette of the Lost Light... and then the symbol essentially bisecting/crossing off the Lost Light...

 

Its a curious one.

Bottom right you have a ! which could be warning, quest or "does not equal" depending on the iconagraphy used, preceded by a picture of skids and followed by faction symbols and then a lost light silhouette.

You then have what is less likely to be a destroyed or bisected lost light and more likely to be a "No" sign over the lost light. Followed by the symbols located on the "engines" of Luna 1.

Chances are we'll never decode what that meant, but when its revealed it'll be obvious.

Assuming of course that *is* the lost light, its not very quilly. The colouring of the moons over where Skids is seem to match the iconography moons too.

Of course it could be as simple as "Hey Skids, Heres a warning for you, when there are Autobots and Decepticons on the lost light, you'll end up with no lost light and wind up at a place related somehow to whatever Luna 1 has been up to"

 

This is essentially how I feel too. I like how it just took one word and we can now infer a physiological basis for females. If this is indeed the correct interpretation, it works perfectly as a way of pointing at it without actually saying it out loud. I'd be happy if they never addressed it directly, maybe throw out an occasional reference to it like they did in this issue. This way the people who absolutely need an explanation can have their explanation and the story can move on without wasting more time on it.

 

That is my hope too. I decided to treat spark types basically the same way I would treat ABO types of blood. It is there and not all spark types are compatible.

SMOG is correct also that the people display masculine and feminine personality traits. Arcee is one of the more masculine personalities out there and that has nothing due to her gender. Some of the male looking characters have very feminine traits Whirl, Sunstreaker, and Perceptor.

I don't have to have characters that have similar body types to my gender.

 

I agree. The name kind of bugs me.

You mean where people are constantly referring to her as "lady" this or "girl" that? The gendered terminology is way more prevalent in Scott's dialogue than just pronouns. That's a pet peeve of mine.

The problem of course is that you can get in trouble when you start describing things as having "feminine traits" beyond physical markers... as usual, there's a lot of cultural baggage that goes along with these things.

Like, what are the feminine traits of Whirl, Sunstreaker and Perceptor? Crazy, vain, and quiet?  

zmog

 

That's because, obviously, femformers have inherit telepathy powers forcing all bots around them to change their usual language.
That's the hidden meaning of their gender.  

Also, do estriol-positive sparks are colored pink, at least?

But seriosuly, default word for them should be "bots" or "mechs" as it is for other characters. Otherwise I require all other TFs to be called men - or it doesn't makes any sense in cybertronian.

 

Blue actually. Turns out that spark color follows more closely to pre-1940s gender color preferences. Windblade did bleed blue energon after all  

 

Crazy yep Whirl....but honestly his fighting spirit kind of reminds of a quote "Hell hath no fury like woman's scorn." Whirl is all fury. Kind of reminds you of the Greek Furies or Maenids.

Perceptor is far more dangerous because he is so quiet. A woman can be quiet not a man is double standard that this society has.

Something as beautiful as Sunstreaker is most deadly. Some of the most beautiful things are. Spiders, Frogs in the Amazon, and some sharks in the ocean. I know some plants that are beautiful but very poisonous.


It is a part of their personality not the whole person. However I admit I am a bit excited about #32. Nautica I wish she get to shine with out Brainstorm

 

I think the silhouette is of the top view rather than the side which is prob why the quills aren't shown.

It's that whole crossed out Lost Light symbol that intrigued me esp given the last page of 31. Could be completely unrelated, but could have also been foreshadowing that at some point down the road there would be "no Lost Light" which is what has happened now..

 

I guess my point was just to call attention to the fact that craziness, fury, reticence and beauty/vanity are not really very representative feminine qualities, so much as stereotypes that don't much stand up to scrutiny. Should we continue to endorse these old cliches?

As a side note, I think it is perfectly acceptable for men to be quiet in our society... the "man of few words" or the "strong silent type" for example. I don't think men are under any pressure to be "loud".

On the flip side though, women are conditioned NOT to raise their voices or be loud for the most part. There is still an old "ladylike" standard that encourages women not to speak up.

But we digress...

zmog

 

I don't have a problem with it exactly, I'm more worried about the potential problems it could bring. Transformers have hitherto been sexless but gendered. This means gender was even more purely a social construct than it is in our species, I think it should make TFs being gender fluid and viewing gender entirely differently from us much more easy to explore. My worry is that they might just make the physical estriol spark the end of the matter. You have an estriol spark, you are female, if you don't, you are male and I think that would be extremely problematic.

But I have a lot of respect for Barber, Roberts and Scott and I really doubt they would screw it up like this but until we know I'll remain a bit worried.

 

Oh, no, Nautica's spark type is based off human female biology. It's not like that spark type could be exclusive to Caminus or anything...