I hate that they don't actively speak Cybertronian enough to throw off their extraterrestrial enemies or amaze their extraterrestrial allies. The language is there, but isn't often actively portrayed. This is not to say they don't use it casually whenever speaking on Cybertron or amongst one another. Just hearing the language itself or reading strange glyphic text in comics.

 

Double-moral fans.

EDIT: What I actually wanted to say...

Transformers Fans, who apply double standards (it's always good to have one or the other friend who can help someone out of a linguistic misery).

 

That Cybertronian is just an English cipher.

 

Yeah, thats the problem when you don't find the right english word and have to use German-English dictionarys...and all they spit out is this one word.

 

There's nothing I dislike in every single continuity, so I can't say there's anything I dislike about Transformers, because all of the things I don't like are absent in at least one continuity.

As far as the fandom's concerned, I could live without all the people who blame everything they don't like on shippers and "social activists" because they have forgot that there's been romance in the show since G1 (Orion/Ariel, Powerglide/Astoria, &c) and they haven't been paying enough attention to the way the world is to be aware that most of the things they are blaming on "social activists" are incredibly mainstream. It's not 'social activism' to have a same-sex couple in a show that's produced in a country where same-sex marriage is legal, it's just a reflection of the world we really live in.

 

I've been thinking about this since I posted my earlier comment this morning and it occurs to me that there are a lot of people in this thread who may not even know what the term 'shipper' actually means.

A 'shipper' is a person who supports a romantic (or sexual) relationship between two fictional characters. This can be an overtly canonical relationship, like Optimus|Orion / Elita|Ariel in G1 and WFC. The slash mark or the X mark denotes a romantic relationship.

If you support Optimus x Elita and don't like to see people pair either member of this couple up with anyone else in fanfiction or in new continuities, that means that you (yes, YOU) are an Optimus/Elita shipper. I strongly suspect that a lot of G1 fans who think they're not 'shippers' actually do 'ship' OP x Elita.

Everyone who was annoyed that WFC Kingdom blew off Tigatron/Airazor, and complained about Blackarachnia hitting on Airazor? You are a Tigatron/Airazor shipper. Yes. You.

Most people are familiar with shippers in the context of someone who ships characters who are not officially together in canon, but you are still a shipper if you support a relationship even if it is in canon.

Sometimes people ship things and they turn out to be canon; for instance, people shipped Knock Out and Breakdown in TFP before they were officially referred to as a real couple on Instagram or ported into the comics as a married couple.

Sometimes people ship things that are implied, but still deniable. There are a fair number of hints in the IDW1 comics that Ravage has had a romantic relationship, but this is only hinted at obliquely. There have been many people who commented that in TFP and WFC Megatron and Optimus seemed to be pretty obsessed with each other or even looked like they wanted to kiss, but again, this was all deniable. I only wish the Megatron/Elita had been deniable, because it was gross.

If you think 'shipper' means crazy obsessed person who sends death threats, you're wrong. 'Shipper' just means someone who supports a relationship between two characters.

Some shippers are obsessive and crazy and send death threats, but there has actually been very little of that in TF fandom. In TF fandom, the badly behaved fans were the people who sent death threats because they didn't like Optimus' paint job in the movies, and the TRUKK NOT MUNKY crowd.

There will always be bad behaviour in fandom because whenever people care a lot about something, there will always be some of those people who are obnoxious and/or obsessive.

However, bad behaviour is not limited to shippers. I don't know nor care about Voltron or ATLA, but I remember the toxic Ron/Hermione and Harry/Hermione shippers from HP fandom nearly 20 years ago, and let me tell you, Ron won in canon but in fandom there were equal amounts of obnoxious on both sides of that aisle. TF fandom shippers do not act like this.

Shippers are no more innately toxic than gearheads or figure customisers or collectors.

But what is absolutely toxic in my opinion is to be so offended by the way other people have fun that you go into their threads or spaces to tell them that you hate what they're doing even if they've made their own thread for their discussion so that other people don't have to be involved unless they want to, and are not actually bothering anyone else.

 

One of my many, many issues, just how stagnant the worlds tend to feel. Aside from the IDW comics, I can't think of any media that has actually taken some look at the effects of the Cybertronian Civil War's effects on the galaxy at large, not just Earth and Nebulos. Like, this is a war that's been raging for what is thousands of lifetimes for other species, you'd assume there's some other group of people this is affecting. There's usually talk of the Decepticons completely devastating planets, but there's no meaningful military presence of the other creatures this unbridled destruction is assuredly affecting. Like, yeah, Cybertronian tech is scary, but it's not "lay down and die without a whimper" scary.

Another big one is just how static characters are now. Megatron is always grey with the bucket helmet and a fusion cannon now, Optimus is always a red robot with windows in his chest who turns into a flat-nosed semi truck, probably with a trailer. And Windblade has been the same design since her inception. I miss the days of the whacky, new, out-there designs. Megatron as an H-tank with giant moose antlers or a mad-max style truck, Optimus Prime turning into a fire truck, Soundwave as a stealth bomber, and so on. It especially sucks for new characters who don't have that sort of history and just feel aggressively bland because of it. Like Windblade, who's always been the female character with a VTOL jet vehicle mode, a sword, and a geisha aesthetic. I want more radical takes for characters, something to flip them on their head. Like, make Wingblade a part of Windblade's "franchise past", give her character something to pull from that wasn't there the moment Hasbro announced her.

 

I got a couple

1 Hasbro giving G1 to much attention a majority of the time. I mean yeah Hasbro we get it G1 started it all but come on!

2 characters like Cliffjumper dying all the time. Why? Why is that a thing? Well it was said it was meant to show the decepticons or other villains are evil but does it have to be an Autobot getting killed to show it? Take sentinel prime scene in dark of the moon during the iconic Ironhide death scene and the part where he tore up the nest base, if you remove Ironhide death but leave in the rest it easily shows sentinel was a threat

3 the almost same cast repeated. What I'm talking about is the almost same cast of characters being used in the show like prime, bumblebee, and Megatron and starscream are expected but can't we have a series with jazz or springer or hoist or trailbreaker in it? I mean jazz was planned to appear in cyberverse but was canned whiched sucked. Yeah theirs to many to make for a small cast but I would like a verity in characters Hasbro! If you were going all out with the siege trilogy then give all the characters in it a chance to shine

4 speaking of the siege trilogy it was by far the worst thing ever in my opinion. Which leads into this next problem on a theme of a series. If you want to make a dark and serious series that's OK but sometimes it can be bland if done poorly like with the siege trilogy show. But for some characters dark and serious doesn't work all the time and its nice to have some humor tossed around, and also get a proper voice cast like or heck get the genuine beast wars cast (I'm not hating on the kingdom beast Megatron) back

5 scalpers... Need I say more?

6 factory errors and other mishaps like mixing parts just ruin the figure because you have to find a loose piece of it or return it or go full Karen towards Hasbro

7 stock. Stocks at places like Walmart has been very very poor ever sense toys R us shut down (R.I.P toys R us) their are a few reasons why like a certain places like Walmart won't Cary it or it did so bad that places Walmart refuses to put more of that produced on their shelf's and anything related to that product (basically shelf formers)

 

This franchise is nearly 40 years old & still to this day no one can talk about female TFs without everyone in the thread becoming gender studies professors. Just… ugh. And it sucks cuz it always leads to driving away people from the discussion or threads needing to be cleaned up or just locked.

I get it. And it all circles back to the questions it opens up. But if you’re looking for the kind of hard science fiction that would have real explanations for genders, Transformers is not it. It’s fantasy of the highest order with a robotic veneer, complete with gods, dragons, and even a guest appearance by King Arthur and Merlin (twice!). Boy robots and girl robots exist because either Hasbro wanted to broaden the appeal of their toys or the writers wanted more character types to use (or both). That’s about it.

 

Can't disagree with any of that. Often, I find it's best just to recite the MST3K mantra: Just repeat to yourself it's just a show. I should really just relax.

 

the price tags.