The Concept Of Fatphobia Isn't "skinny People Have Never Ever Been Shamed Or Insecure About Their Bodies

Sorry if I'm bothering you. I came across your blog and it's rare for me to find someone critical of idw (I feel the same). Can you tell some of the problems you have with them? It's okay if you don't want to. Just happy to know I'm not the only one (My friends are huge fans of idw).

Hello, kindred spirit! I'm sorry that I'm not answering the question so quickly!

Well, it's nice to know that someone is also unhappy with IDW and wants to know more about it! Get ready, this will be the opening of Pandora's Box.

Out of a million of my claims, I will try to build a constructive list.

1. IDW does not build lore of the universe. They didn't have enough for this for 17 years or whatever they wrote comics. What kind of innovations, adequately embedded in lore, do we have? What lore did we get? No, we don't really know anything, neither the origin of transformers, nor what's going on in the universe, the rules change at the click of your fingers.

A couple of egregious examples.

Explanation of female transformers. Experienced IDW authors for 3 or about as many retcons could not explain it all, which is why the whole fandom got mad, tired and asks not to explain anything at all, so as not to see idiocy anymore. That is, they give the authors the right to be lazy, but more on that later.

You can say that it's really "everything is complicated and explanations are not needed, female characters have the right to exist!". They have, that's not the point.

This problem is solved simply — there is no need to explain the female characters, you need to explain why Cybertronians, in principle, have a humanoid form. That's all, any explanation from this point justifies both female and male, and androgynous, and any other, as well as all kinds of genders. As an example, Primus has seen enough of the variety of organics and made his creations roughly similar. All. I had to sit for 10 minutes to come up with this, and this is not the most brilliant idea. The IDW authors had 17 years, they didn't come up with anything.

Another example is Conjunx Endura. I understand perfectly well that the authors of the comics wanted to appeal to the fan base writing fanfiction. But you need to be able to do it correctly. You can't just take a phenomenon invented by fans and shove it into an official work without any explanation of this phenomenon inside the lore. Especially since many fanfiction writers do it! You can find works with such beautiful and logical explanations that it seems ingenious. But the IDW authors are above any explanation. And yes, there are not always explanations in fanfiction, but we compare non-professional writers who post their works on the Internet for free with experienced authors of an official work that is sold for money. Who should put more effort into their work?

I'll just explain. For us humans, romantic love seems obvious, but it's not a particularly common evolutionary invention. If an intelligent species evolved from some elephants or killer whales, then the priority would not be a pair, but a kinship relationship. There are a bunch of animal species that don't create pairs at all. So how and for what purposes does such a phenomenon as Conjunx Endura exist in the society of transformers? They do not breed in pairs, they do not have any very harsh living conditions where a partner can help with survival. Something from Primus? Some kind of "power of love"? Who knows, the authors don't care, the fans of couples are happy and draw tons of art and write tons of fanfiction, and they don't need more. And I understand that in the original very first cartoon we were shown that Cybertronians know how to love. But this is a cartoon for children, of course there will be no details, these comics are designed for an older audience who can understand complex explanations.

Age-related burnout is something like a disease ending the life of a transformer. What do we know about it? After what time does it come? For what reason? What is it like? And why should the reader know this, it is there and that's it.

Similarly, for all IDW's love of violent scenes and cutting transformers into pieces, we don't really have a single image that normally shows the anatomical structure of a Cybertronian. They didn't even bother to come up with names for body parts. When I needed to find names for the most basic body parts, I found about 10 fan interpretations for each and 0 official ones! I'll repeat it. THEY HAD 17 YEARS TO DO IT!

About changing bodies and genders to more suitable ones. Again, it is too directly written off from humans, although we are talking about alien robots. Humans have biological and socio-cultural reasons for this. How does it work for transformers? Different types of sparks were canceled by the retcon, so it is impossible to talk about some kind of accordance. Just fashion or aesthetic preferences? Well, that's something. But why, according to this logic, we were not shown examples where transformers change their alt-mod, because they felt that it would be right? No, it's too difficult, because the reader is too stupid and will not understand the allegories or signs of alien psychology of another intelligent species. Again, I'm not against it, but while it's clear how it works for humans, everything here works on the principle of "because".

And these are the biggest examples, but with the little things and everything else, it's about the same. These comics don't build the world, you don't want to dive into it, because almost nothing is known about it, except for a short period before and during the war. It's unclear how it works.

2. The authors obviously like Decepticons and don't particularly like Autobots. And they try very hard to hide it behind the so-called "gray morality". The authors tried so hard to suggest that the Decepticons are not so bad, but at the same time, because of the rule of coolness, they left their actions far beyond the point of no return, when the arch of redemption can no longer work in the work.

I will explain this with the most striking examples.

Megatron. How the authors protected him with all their might. The fact is that the authors adored Megatron so much that they tried to give him everything at once. Megatron must be a cool destroyer who staged genocide on Cybertron and on other planets. But at the same time, he should personify a "misunderstood hero who fought for a just cause." Megatron throws from extreme to extreme. Then he orders to kill all living beings in the universe, and then he changes on the move and decides not to kill anyone at all, doing absolutely nothing to save his comrades. (Time of MTMTE and Lost Light events). He defected to the Autobots only out of self-hatred, and not because of regrets about his actions. He never says that he feels sorry for the murdered Cybertronians or the inhabitants of other planets.

And the authors are trying to emphasize this, then through Rodimus, who almost licked him and promoted the point of view that Megatron (the leader of the Decepticons) is not responsible for everything that has happened in the last 4 million years. Or through Whirl, who began to blame himself that it was because of him that Megatron started all this, as if Megatron could not think on his own.

But apparently the authors didn't have enough of that, so they introduced a Functionist Universe to show how bad it would be for Cybertronians without a revolution. After all, screens instead of heads are much worse than the genocide of their own kind and the deaths of countless living beings on other planets.

I am sure that even the authors introduced Holomatter technology to draw a hot humanization of Megatron. You just compare his drawing and the drawing of others.

The authors had 2 options — not to make Megatron a monster so that it all worked, or not to follow the path of his justification. For such an image that turned out, the only redemption is death, any textbook of screenwriting skill will say that. What did we get? An inarticulate, unsatisfying ending where we don't even know if he was executed or not for all his crimes that he didn't really atone for. In general, it is very interesting to send a galactic criminal essentially on a cruise initially instead of a normal punishment. The inhabitants of the affected worlds especially liked it, I'm sure.

Starscream. Of course, they could not ignore the audience's favorite. How not to give your beloved Starscream the crown and the status of ruler. Despite the fact that before that we were shown him as an incompetent leader who brought the Decepticons to an incomprehensible extent in the absence of Megatron, but no one on the planet remembered this when he became ruler. No one in the galaxy was unhappy that the second in command and accomplice of the intergalactic genocide became the ruler. Because the authors wanted a Starscream in the crown, which in the end did nothing but argue with Windblade, and then in the end unexpectedly committed a heroic act during the fight with Unicron. What led to this? Nothing really, it's just that the authors love Starscream, why explain.

It's about the same with Soundwave.

Thundercracker. The kindest Decepticon. Who was not happy with Megatron's actions, but still obeyed them, whined to himself, and only at some point the authors remembered that they needed to make him good. And one act was enough to declare him so. And even humans accepted his residence on Earth, which should not be, since his one act is not enough for everyone to take and forget who he served and what he did before. But add a dog, and everyone will stop paying attention to it, because it's all so cute.

Well, just look at all the "positive decepticons" who still hate organics, who do not particularly repent for their actions, but the authors present them to us as "good guys".

And what about the Autobots? And now they are partly defenders of an unfair regime.

About what was done with Prowl and Star Saber (here is my post about it) I can only keep silent. As far as I know, the comic book author at least hated Star Saber, so he made him like this.

It would seem that here it is grayness, there are no good and bad. But, as we have seen, the "good" Decepticons are not as gray and good as they are presented. But they showed us good Autobots, right? We'll see.

Tailgate is at first a good autobot, who, because of his strength, has become some kind of hysterical, driven by momentary inadequate emotions.

Rewind is a good one, we won't pay attention to the fact that he used Chromedome as a tool, in fact he didn't love him, chasing after his previous partner, but we will perceive these two as a good couple. Yes, by the way, the beloved fan couple and the representation proudly called by the authors do not really demonstrate a bit of a good relationship, only use and disrespect for the feelings of the partner.

Rodimus is a good one, although he is an infantile egoist who, after a moment of enlightenment, returned to his previous behavior, and treated everyone badly except our beloved Megatron.

And really good characters like Skids can be killed and forget about their existence.

But we have a bad Getaway, which could be an excellent example of gray morality, since he was initially right, but the authors could not allow this, so they turned him into a caricature villain and killed him.

I really can't think of a single character that was enjoyable. Not necessarily morally clean, but at least not disgusted. Maybe this is just my opinion, but I hate almost everyone in this line of comics.

3. Authors hate human characters. It's simple, the whole storyline is on the Earth. Humans are stupid and evil bastards who thoughtlessly fell for the Decepticons' trick, fought against the Autobots and tortured them. Yes, humans can do terrible things and most likely would have done something about it, but it feels like there was no place for humans in the vaunted "gray morality". Even if the authors have a teenager's brain with all this "humans suck!", they could try to make a good story. What did Spike do to deserve such a character portrayal? By being annoying in a cartoon? That's not an excuse.

4. Terribly boring MTMTE and Lost Light, a soap opera at its worst. Most of this sprawling plot could be spent on really interesting things.

5. The ending. No comments. The only plus is that it's finally over.

6. Reboot is just boring.

7. Shattered Glass — thanks them for remembering, but it doesn't even match the original, either in the image of the characters or in the plot. The plot is so-so.

8. Last Bot Standing is just some nonsense with an incomprehensible morality, an incomprehensible premise and some crazy image of random characters.

And all this is only a small part of my claims, which I was able to quickly recall.

You can say, and many will say, that this is unfair, because other works on transformers are no better and suffer from the same problems. And I will agree. But there is one detail.

Most fans do not put other works on the pedestal of the best media on transformers. Therefore, I have no complaints about other comics from Marvel or Dreamwave, because they are treated adequately. But there is such a rush around IDW that I'm tired of seeing endless proposing to put every character and every solution from these comics into new comics/cartoons/movies/games. I understand that compared to other works, these comics seem cool, but they have a lot of problems that should not be repeated. You need to come to something new, and not take the most popular and think that this is the key to success. Earthspark is going down this path, and it doesn't look good anymore. But if everything is covered with a sad Megatron and blue flowers, then everything is fine. And this is not so.

Perhaps not everything was bad, the beginning was promising and even interesting, but all this quickly turned into some kind of nonsense, fanservice and fulfillment of the wishes of the authors. In the end, I'm glad that their license was taken away from them, and I hope that the following authors will not rely on these comics in the future.

I don't like IDW for the reasons outlined above, but I hate these comics for the way the fandom treats them.

Thank you for wanting to hear me and perhaps listening to what I would like to convey.

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Sorry, didn't know about that, I always viewed the Jewish people getting Israel back as the opposite of what happened to Native Americans, they finally got their native land back that they were forced out of, and fought to keep it, it kind of inspired me in high school, after learning the travesties committed against Native Americans, that times had possibly changed. Glad to know the truth though.

it’s okay, tumblr is kind of terrible.

yeahhhh a lot of pro-israel people like to spin the tale like that, that they’re people fighting to get their land back. but it’s much more accurate the other way around; palestinian people are an indigenous group fighting to keep foreigners from stealing their land. they’re the ones who were just on their land chilling when a group comes in and invades.

also, it’s better to refer to the people behind israel as zionists, as not all jewish people support it. in fact, large parts of the israeli government actually support things that go against jewish interests. one example is netanyahu celebrating trump’s election as meaning an end to palestine, despite the number of neo-nazis he’s appointed to office.

hiii you know what really irks me? like a lot? the way people talk about wheatley, a very very neurodivergent coded character.

something i see way too often is people using this to justify certain things he does that cant be justified or using it to make him into an “uwu soft boi” and then patting themselves on the back for. good neurodivergent representation or something when theyre literally doing the opposite? just because hes neurodivergent coded doesnt mean he gets a pass for everything he does wrong. and its also super fuckin ableist to infantilize him and call him a soft boy or whatever. this goes double if you do that shit and STILL call him stupid.

on the flip side, something else i see a lot is people demonizing him for neurodivergent traits. and personally this one makes me angrier. im not saying he has to be your favorite character or even that you have to like him just because hes neurodivergent coded (i can understand a ton of reasons why people dont like him) but when people call him. annoying or self centered or, again, stupid its. very obvious a lot of the time that youre talking about neurodivergent traits. of course in the game he is literally the intelligence dampening sphere and theres definitely something Big to be said about valve writing an antagonist thats meant to be Stupid as Very Neurodivergent Coded but thats a rant for later because i feel like if people actually cared about neurodivergent people theyd be able to tell when the writers were being ableist and when a character is not how the game tries to portray them. and im speaking as an autistic person here but when you call wheatley annoying for talking a lot or you call him self centered for talking about himself a lot (again im autistic and its hard for me to talk about topics my brain isnt wanting to focus on and most of the topics i do want to talk about are related to me so?) it just really. comes off as ableist.

and even moreso, what wheatley does and tries to do when hes in control of aperture is very bad and thats obvious but… its ALSO obvious that a lot of what he does happens because hes an abuse victim lashing out. which doesnt make what he does right but still. again im talking as an autistic abuse victim here but what really goes through is something i relate to a LOT. hes constantly deemed as stupid for neurodivergent traits so much so that he was LITERALLY MADE TO BE “STUPID” but hes not.. even stupid hes just neurodivergent and acts impulsively. hes constantly reminded hes “stupid” or “incompetent” and you know what it reminds me of? it reminds me of my experience in school as an autistic person. the american public school system is VERY good at abusing and traumatizing neurodivergent kids and its exactly what wheatley’s situation reminds me of. again, how he acts is not right but from where i stand, hes an abuse victim whos never felt like hes had control in his life and when he finally gets control its way too much way too fast and because of his impulsivity it just goes to his head and he makes a LOT of bad decisions.

what im trying to say is that the way the fandom treats wheatley personally gets me very upset at times because of how much i relate to him as an austic abuse victim and how much he gets treated like ive been treated. you dont have to like wheatley but i feel like people in this fandom could do a lot better job of not constantly being ableist about him. thats all

Transformers creation

Instead of making Transformers unable to make more of themselves, I’d rather make it a difficult task and during war effort its hard to get all the specialists together and do so in a timely manner…and explore the ethical ramifications if do.

If you rush it you are rushing a life. And debugging can only do so much.

[Poor Silverbolt [aerialbot]. They didn’t properly wipe the electronics of the low-altitude craft they used for parts and he developed a (relative) ]fear of heights.]

And then there’s the fact you’re making them to fight a war…

Rushing it with ancient technology (Vector Sigma, Creation Matrix…) if manage to obtain control over them, they might be kinda monkey-paws genies…

When writing a blind character, what are some things to avoid?

Ah! So this is definitely a bit of a broad question, but I can give a few basics:

Blind people don’t actually give a shit about touching faces, so please, please stear clear of that. The only exceptions may be the same way sighted lovers may caress each other’s faces and parents may hold a child’s face in an emotional moment, but it’s just like a sighted lover or parent would, nothing more.

Please avoid giving your character a cure. One of the most crushing things as a disabled reader is to finally have a disabled character, but for them to end up with a fantastic magic cure half-way through. It rarely makes for a good story, and often a much better story is that person’s journey in understanding themselves as equal and learning that they aren’t broken and useless and can do whatever they want, overcoming internalized ableism rather than “overcoming the disability.”

Few blind people actually wear sunglasses or eye coverings, so your character probably won’t either if the likelyhood says anything. Chances are they will not be part of that minority, so probably better not to do that.

Something similar can be said for characters with white or cloudy eyes. The vast majority of blind people will not have very abnormal-looking eyes, so chances are your character will not be part of that minority.

Another very similar thing should be noted about the level of vision they will have. Somewhere between 80 and 90% of blind people have some level of remaining vision, weather it be little more than light perception or enough that they were forced to use their eyes a lot growing up and weren’t taught braille or to use a cane because they could get by well enough not to die most of the time.

So these are just the first several things I can think of at the moment, but definitely feel free to ask about more things!

being in your early 20s is crazy bc there’s people who are literally married and people who’ve never even dated and people who are trapped in their childhood bedrooms waiting to get out and people who are trying to live out romanticized dream lives and people who are completely on their own and people with multi tiered support systems and we’re all supposedly peers and none of us think we’re doing it right at all

be pro-aging but wear sun screen. sun protection is not beauty industry propaganda it will save you. wear it. or else.