How dare you judge me for wanting to see Optimus take a huge dump after beating Megatron

 

I meant not as much as Knockout's image as his relationship with Breakdown. It could be a mere companionship, a friendship or a relation of romantic nature. It's ambiguous, is it not?

 

"Surely this thread will be filled with positive commentary and none of the same crap I have to hear whenever this comes up in different franchises."

 

You appear to be trying to argue a subjective thing while dismissing a legitimate measuring tool (popularity), all while trying to push a veneer of legitimate good faith discussion, by using the “logic” talk. But let’s assume that is not the case and you will address my points as oppose to attacking a legitimate measuring tool.

A constructive way to measure the quality of a subjective thing, like a comic, is through the wisdom of the crowds approach. The wisdom of the crowd takes the averages and applies weights to experts in that crowd, for our sake the crowd is the reader choice nominations and awards and the weights are the nominations and awards given by critics and experts in the field of literature review. Otherwise you are just endlessly whining and complaining never moving the conversation forward, just being a unproductive bull work against it.

I present my evidence that on average having LGBT in Transformers was either positive or at the very least had no negative impact

• Three nominations for the 2014 True Believers Awards: Favourite American Comic Book: Colour, Favourite Single Story (#13), and Favourite Continued Story ("Remain in Light").[16]
• #85 on Comic Book Resource's top 100 Comics of 2015.
• Winner of Comics Alliance's Best of 2015: Continued Excellence in Serial Comics (beating Saga!!)
• Winner of Comics Alliance's Best of 2016: The Best Sci-Fi Comic of 2016 (beating Saga again!!)

Now if you are trying to have a good faith discussion you will identify some alternative review or criticism from a critic (weighted member of the crowd) and we can have a good discussion on the topic. BUT if you are not here on good faith I would imagine you will just either attack the structure of the argument (“Your logic is.....blah blah”) or attack me “how could you be so..... blah blah and you think THOSE are legitimate references they are blah blah”)

I am hopping for it to be the former and not the later. I look forward to your response.

Reference

The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye - Transformers Wiki

 

I didn't say it wasn't ambiguous. I was saying that every relationship in the show is ambiguous in that regard. Well Except maybe Agent Fowler and Jack's mum. but they're human.

 

HOLY FUCKING SHIT THANK YOU! THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SAY! FUCKING! PREACH! Let me clarify that I still heavily agree with SPLIT LIP and Novaburnhilde, I just think that romance and gender don't need explanation in Transformers. Again, a balance between humanizing them and making them different.

 

What is with this topic coming up in forums for all of my favorite franchises lately?

 

*dips toe in* Having 'LGBT characters' in a TF show is, IMO, pointless when the main characters (as in, the Cybertronians) are asexual, in-organic beings who just happen to have physical traits we humans attribute as either 'male' or 'female'.

As for actual human characters? If they are in the show at all (there are a number in the fandom that don't like humans being present in TF shows in general), it should not be their 'primary' characteristic, or even secondary. As other's have said 'a character that happens to be gay' not 'a gay character'. Admittedly, it may be interesting for a one time conversation to happen between a human and a Cybertronian on the subject (I kind of touch on it in on one of my stories, for instance, at least on the 'biology' side of it), but just once, as a normal conversation of the two characters trying to learn about each other's species, nothing more.

 

By this metric The Spice Girls' music is the highest quality music on the planet because they went platinum, so they were popular.

I goddamn DARE you to corroborate that...

 

At least now I know that BBee lubricating on agent Simmons was made for the sake of exploring human conditions.

 

Don't kink-shame bumblebee

 

Not trying to be rude to anyone individually but throwing in your personal orientation or whatever doesn't give your arguments more weight, so I'm not sure why you're adding that.

You don't see me randomly throwing out my trans status when making my arguments, I only am now to prove a point.

It's not really all that relevant to the discussion at hand and It generally takes a special kind of narcissist to demand authors make characters that cater directly to their sense of identity instead of making their own characters and stories.

Also no, I'm not calling anyone a narcissist, I'm saying there's definitely an element of it to the whole 'representation' spiel.

 

My stance on TF romance in general is that it's similar to human romance in the sense that it's a "More than friends" thing. Of course, they're fundamentally similar but the way they work are ultimately wildly different.

 

I feel like we live in an exceptionally narcissistic society. Social media is a celebration of narcissism, with people feeding their own egos under the guise of self-expression, making sure to show themselves off at any given time, whether or not it's necessary.

This has nothing to do with LGBT BTW, just an observation I've made. Not trying to imply being LGBT makes you a narcissist, before anyone draws conclusions. XD

 

Sure! You may not like it (neither do I) but the logic holds; they went platinum, and even 20 years later they remain a name in pop culture (I believe they were references in The Boys.

The logic holds my friend because it is rooted in...... well logic  .

Sure I agree with this point, you don’t have to explain it, but it can exist.

Not to get too personal but I am not part of the LGBT community and I don’t think it’s narcissistic to want to be represented, I think it is being human.

 

That seems like a really simplified take to reduce someone wanting to see themselves represented in media as a form of narcissism.

Like contrarians who go, "well if there are Gay Pride parades why aren't there Straight Pride parades?"

The reason minority groups maintain pride of themselves and push for representations is because the status quo has pushed them down.

 

I am and I don't give a damn about being represented. The people I'm into doesn't define me.

 

I like how I flat out said my comment on narcissism was not related to minority groups, specifically LGBT, and yet you still took it that way. You really want to paint the opposition as a villain.

The status quo of media is changing, and has changed, for the better. Virtually every piece of media is inclusive and representing minority groups prominently. The question is whether it’s appropriate for every piece of media, even ones like Transformers where it should logically not exist. Is it worth compromising a story just to capitalize on current interests?

The fault in your logic is the same root of the “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” mindset. You assume that just because minority groups are not represented in a certain media, or if that conversation does not fit that media, it is an act of malice, when it’s not.

EDIT: And that’s all ignoring the question of whether or not this representation is successful. Again, I do not speak for myself, but I’ve heard people in the LGBT community find the Transformers stories distasteful, and consider it at worst trivializing and unintentionally mocking, at best misrepresenting real life problems and the struggle those in these communities face.

 

Part of the push for representation isn't just to see someone of the same orientation/status as you. It's to see a LGBT person who is portrayed as a full complex person. A character who can be good, evil, selfish, dumb or any other characteristics but not because of their sexuality.

It's about seeing this layer of identity portrayed as a normal thing.

Idk, there is this seemingly good-natured pushback against representation on the grounds of being shallow or virtue-signaling but at times it seems to veer into "what's the justification behind this?" well there doesn't need to be any justification behind it.

And I didn't take that as you being against LGBTQ @SPLIT LIP I was just stating I found that a simplification of the topic. I'm sorry if you take it as me painting you as the opposition. I don't think the status quo has changed as fully as you think. The fight for good, authentic representation is still very much a fight IMO. As you note, some didn't care for the LGBTQ depictions portrayed by IDW. So let's use the opportunity to reflect on the depictions in the comics as a way to build off of and improve representation in future media and decide how and when it's appropriate.