[ SECRET POST #3440 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3440 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 79 secrets from Secret Submission Post #491.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

08. http://static1.keep4u.ru/2016/05/30/Screenshot_464615ee.png

[blitzwing]

I'm pretty sure it's the good writing that makes it popular, primarily. The characters have actual character development, we get an internal plot as well as an external plot, where most Transformers comics are just external plot for the most part. All the other things listed, other than the marriages/BFFships, are just props.

Like there being Cybertronian toasters. It's totally plot irrelevant, you can love it or hate it, but people aren't buying 50 comic books because of the toasters, or because they're eating energon sandwiches instead of sipping cubes.

Whether it's an energon sandwich or a cube is irrelevant: it's a prop to show something. I don't think it's that Transformers are using human-esque props instead of alien-roboty ones that is making the characters relatable and the series popular.

It's that James Roberts actually gives a shit about making the characters real and paying attention to them internally, instead of just handing cardboard archetypes some guns and doomsday devices.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

I absolutely agree with you. It baffles and amuses me when people say that some setting details ruin the whole comic for them. I must add though that in MTMTE some characters are able to be developed thanks to those details, like Trailcutter is a typical drunkard character, and the whole thing with Rung and Froid is one big refrence to psychology, stuff like that. But I also think that even when the element seems to be "human", there's always a cybertronian side to it. Like with Trailcutter, his drinking problem is described in technical terms and has actual technical reason, and then it's dealed with in a way humans couldn't do. So I personally don't see problem with some stuff being "too human".

Re: OP

[ozaline]

Well I've only read this book off and on cause I have a limited comic budget, but I will say I see both sides on that issue. I'm all for female coded Cybertronians cause let's face it the older canon was very "male as default." And I personally find the human affectations rather charming, but I do kind of miss the elements from older canon that made them seem more alien...

But I'm willing to forgive much (and there's not too much to forgive cause the changes I like outweigh those I don't) if the writing is good, and in this case it's some of the best Transformers has ever seen... so yeah!

[feotakahari]

Some people really latch onto the idea of a species "better" than humans, and the more that species reminds them of humans, the angrier they get. (See also: elves, My Little Ponies, and just about every form of anthropomorphic animals.)

[(Anonymous)]

It's always been clear that Transformers have emotions, a society and a culture. Even if their culture didn't originally have many "human" features, it's to be expected that they have copied some of those features to their own culture after meeting humans (or other aliens). All cultures tend to be influenced by others.

Maybe they even have their own SJWs who accuse the others of appropriating.

[(Anonymous)]

No, Cybertronian SJWs were all killed by the DJD and both sides felt they were 100% justified. Probably.

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, I just find robots that are too much like humans with NO explanation for it is just...a failure of creativity. Okay, so robots disco dance. Cool, I'm down with that. But...why? What part of culture (especially functionist culture) created dancing? Was there ritualistic dancing before? How and why? What a great opportunity to worldbuild that...gets totally skipped over.

As for the holoforms, I just wish they were consistent. Oh, so Tailgate's is a baby because the NEW holoform program is a way of showing who the mech really is, on the inside. KEWL, so Tailgate's a baby. (not a brat like Whirl, but an actual infant). I'm down with that...until they decide to change that because it gets in the way of shipping him. Or the 'estriol spark' that created gender as a biologically-based thing...until the writer got so much flak from Tumblr he retconned that.

The 'humanlike' stuff is just a different flavor of that dumb argument that brought us shitty cartoons in the 90s, etc, which is that Hasbro said, 'oh no, audiences can't relate to characters unless there are tons of humans for them to relate to'. Now we just...make them exactly like humans. It feeds into that mindset that audiences are dumb and can't find common ground even with an alien culture, which, wow, so much sci fi has proved so many times that I feel like I'd be condescending trying to explain it all.

And also, yeah the whole 'let's hamfist british slang in there'...which makes no sense at all. Not that I think we need to have them SPEAKIN' MURRICAN, but how's about just standard written English that conforms to American spelling (since IDW is made in America, sorry to say!). Having Arcee come out of nowhere to berate Slag on his name was just agonizingly stupid.

I could handle all and any of this (after all, I stuck through Transformers through the CostaClasm) if I had any real faith that the author was writing to his own vision. But the constant changing and revision and just lazy 'let's borrow a plot from Red Dwarf,' etc....I feel like he's not really clear on the vision of what HE wants to create, and that is sad. It's popular with people whom he listens to, obviously. But that isn't everyone in fandom.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

You and people who have opinions similar to what you wrote are exactly the ones I'm talking about. :P

Calling this stuf a failure of creativity and saying how Jimbob is inconsistent in his writing when he's the one of the only writiers who have long overreaching plotlines is kinda lame. I'm pretty sure after all the awards MTMTE is acclaimed as a good comic and has much readership outside of Transformers fandom btw. Saying it's "popular with people he listens to" is questionable at best.

In other words, how you don't love fun so much that you "stuck through" Costa's run which is universally hated by almost everyone but "can't handle" MTMTE because it seems to you the author isn't clear on his "own vision"? Spoiler alert: all of the stuff you wrote about, british slang included, IS HIS "VISION".

PS: Also love how according to you we only can have dancing robots if the dancing is "explained" and tied into continuity with silly stuff like "ritualistic dancing" (wtf), it's almost similar to what I hear from some old fans about female characters, how women need to be "explained" to excist in Transformers.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

+1

People who get pedantic over "worldbuilding" are fucking annoying tbh, and any of that shit is completely irrelevant. Shit like cute dance parties are just a vehicle for the greater narrative, that also help the general audience to relate to the cast: any further worldbuilding is flavor that may serve as a set-up for a future payoff, and anything further than THAT is just superfluous.

Ppl don't understand how writing works lol

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you OP, you have highlighted EVERYTHING I love about MTMTE. That the characters are relatable. That there was actually references to something I studied intensely (Freudian and Jungian psychology). That we were even given some pretty neat writing and plot like the corruption of the three pillars of society.