By now going a bit overboard with 'shipping various bots?
And by bringing Rewind back?

 

No. The existence of other relationships doesn't dilute or lessen existing relationships. Love isn't a zero-sum game.

 

I think Rewind being brought back is it's own separate debate, as I have quite a few thoughts about it, but as for the 'specialness' of their relationship... Not really?

Within the context of the story and the established rules of the universe, CD and RW aren't any different from anyone else. The only thing that sets them apart is that Conjunx Endura are 'rare', but for a race that lives millions of years that's understandable, you wouldn't settle for the first person you find.

And I'm not sure what you mean by 'specialness'. Do you mean because they were the first official gay couple? Or that they were the only gay couple? If it's the second I think that does the characters a massive disservice. We went for issues without fully realising they're a couple because that is not their single defining character trait.

And as mentioned in another thread, homoromantic is kinda the default orientation for Cybertronians(*). If that is normal for their race, why would it stop at one couple? Bring in all the romances, I say! Not just male/male, but more examples of female/female and even male/female. I love all the doors this opens for future stories.

(*)Note that I said Cybertronians. Caminus and the other colonies seemed to be mixed gender so we'll see where that goes. But with Skids and Getaway's recent flirting with Firestar it looks like gender might not really be an issue for some when it comes to attraction.

 

^All this. And add on the fact that Chromedome and Rewind's relationship isn't even meant to be that unique within their own lives. Chromedome is Rewind's second husband, and Rewind is Chromedome's fourth.

Chromedome has literally forgotten more spouses than most of us will ever have.

 

Could we maybe add that on top of this relationship being nothing special, it's not exactly gay? Don't forget, Cybertronians are genderless.
The only special thing about this relationship is that it's the first official couple in idw fiction, and is between two characters that, traditionally, don't usually interact with each other in TF fiction.

 

Yeah... nah.

Rewind and Chromedome are two characters who identify as being male. They are absolutely the Cybertronian equivalent of a gay couple. In fact, both the writer and Hasbro themselves have identified them as gay.

 

I don't think cybertronians make that distinction. Gay/hetro etc are just norms and equally as valid so they simply don't have those labels.

-Also, how many confirmed Conjunx Endura have we seen so far? I think that CE couples are what you could compare to married/soul mates/very serious about each other. Whereas the Camian culture of 'expected coupling' probably makes this a weird area? I can't imagine Naughtica and Firestar have shared innermost energon.

 

I think Roberts described the distinction between Conjunx and Amica as one being the equivalent of marrige(Conjunx) and the other being a best friend(Amica) with the tagline of "a best friend in a society where friendships can last millions of years". Amica is clearly meant to be a platonic pairing(besties!) while Conjunx is romantic.

For Caminus it still clearly seems to be a friendship thing(when asked, Nautica denied having a conjunx) but has this social expectation added onto it for those who follow the Way of Flame.

I think what we really need is a term for the dating period? Obviously you're not going to go out with someone for a year and declare them them as the dark poison on your heart. I'd like for there to be a formal term for boyfriend/girlfriend.

And, off the top of my head...
Confirmed Conjunx Endurae: Chromdome and his many MANY husbands, plus Rewind.
Rewind and Dominus Ambus
Knock Out and Breakdown
Acceleron and Proxima

 

Conjunx Endura is spouses. Amica Endura is best friends. Rewind and Chromedome are husbands, Nautica and Firestar are friends (albeit strained ones). Cybertron and Caminus both have both institutions, we just haven't seen a lot of the latter outside of Caminus.

And yeah, Chromedome and Rewind are clearly a gay couple. I mean come on, the author tweeted a picture of them with the caption "Love Wins" on Friday. This isn't deep subtext.

EDIT: Whoops simulposted with Nocturne.

 

Of course not. My love does invalidate yours. Nor do my romantic trysts lessen yours. Transformers are a massive society, and we shouldn't be limited to one perspective on relationships in that society.

 

Heh, I just thought -this version of Rewind isn't actually 'our' Chromedome's CE.

 

Since when o they identify as male? Genderwise the only TFs in IDW that actually have a gender so far are the females.

We only think of them as gay, because both characters have been treated as male since the 80s.

As for the tweet, so, what does that prove, that pic is neither canon nor associated with the brand in any official capacity, it's kinda like the fan art Milne posts to his DA account.

 

How about all three of the IDW writers(one of whom is the editor) stating that they have gender and use gendered pronouns because they identify as that gender?

I can understand calling them sexless(I agree with you on that point) but genderless? Nope, not a chance.

 

It's the author of the comic holding up a big flashing neon sign that says, "this is my intent; this is how I think of these characters as I write them. You don't need to guess, I'm telling you."

 

What about the instances of in-story were they state that they don't have gender, or the real life explanation of male gender pronouns being used because most of the characters are traditionally male and we don't have genderless personal pronouns?

On top of that, all that would fall under authorial intent, which as everyone likes to point out has no bearing on the actual material and is always trumped by later fiction, like Beast Wars and their uses of "Dark Side (obvious Star Wars reference turned ship name because people didn't get the joke)" or "Unicron Spawn (meant to be Son of a Bitch for TFs, but fans didn't get that and turned it into an actual species)".

Authorial intent.
Also, does this pic Marcelo Matere posted to facebook give us any official insight in any of those characters? Does this prove that Movie Optimus and Grimlock like wearing Santa Hats and Grimlock being a jolly fellow?

Story wise they are still genderless, something that's further supported by their more androgynous designs they have since MTMTE, which, since you're into authorial intent, was even outright stated by the creative team when MTMTE started.

 

Right, I'm tapping out.

 

Shouldn't the point be that there's nothing "special" about it? Transformers are people, people are attracted to each other, some get married. I like how they kept the idea genders not the big decider in the relationships, as cybertronians are as attracted to females as they are males.

But yeah. Bar the idea that marriages seem relatively rare, relationships shouldn't be a big deal when you have a diverse character roster.

 

Way to take something out of context just so you can have something to be butthurt about and have an excuse to ignore something you don't like. It's true though, in most other media and incarnations they are treated as having genders, that's what we all grew up with. That was also the main problem with Arcee when Furman had to introduce her into idw, since he wanted genderless Transformers, but Arcee's identifying characteristic was that she was female.

And the English language doesn't have gender-neutral personal pronouns, so the easiest and most sane thing to do is to use the personal pronouns traditionally associated with them.

It's just really, really difficult to write something about a genderless society in a language that is gendered, especially when the society in question has historically been depicted as gendered, with gender being the defining characteristic of a few characters.

And that is the reason why I want IDW to just retcon the shit out of their TFs, they're introducing more and more female characters, they could have an event in which gender is properly introduced into their Cybertronians, have them turn male. Then we'll have gay, maybe even lesbian couples.
Heck, they could, if they were really brave turn characters that are traditionally male female, Soundwave could work as a female for instance.

 

Can I refer you to a thread on the first page of this forum called 'Do you want Simon Furman back' or something similar where this has been discussed ad nauseam. There's many others if you search. No reason to derail this one.

 

The 'specialness' of their relationship I referred to actually wasn't anything to do with gay (ummm,,, ness?) at all.

I was really referring to the arc of their story and how it ended with a tragic and selfless sacrifice.

It was also the first depiction of any implied (or explicit) romantic relationship (not counting the fembots are automatically girlfriends of the G1 cartoon)

As far as my intent with regard to 'diluting' Roberts original story came out of nowhere, was well done and caused controversy and introspection. But now later writers seem to run the risk of imitation. I look forward to good stories in the future but I hope there isn't a mad rush to do poor imitations of what was already done.