Transformers: The 10th Sex
May. 25th, 2008 01:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seiberwingTitle: The 10th Sex
Fandom: Transformers (G1, Season Three)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seiberwing
Pairings/Characters: Galvatron/Rodimus Prime, Scourge, Spike Witwicky, mentions of others.
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 820. Transformers (anyverse): Any characters. Human characters have difficulty dealing with the fact that the Transformers don't necessarily conform to the gender/sexuality standards they expect. Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
lgbtfest.
Summary:: While attempting to escape Torkulon (again), Scourge gives Spike a lesson in Cybertronian ideals of gender and sexuality. Spike doesn’t completely appreciate the education.
Disclaimer: Not mine, unless you count how my toy collection put some Hasbro employee’s kid through college.
“So explain the plan to the one guy who doesn’t have an internal radio.”
“They come in, I disrupt the energy barrier, we kill them and take their stuff, we find our own stuff, and try to get out with our sanity intact.”
“And my job is basically to not get stepped on.”
“Look, I’m not liking this anymore than you are. Last time somebody dragged me to this awful place we nearly got our CPUs fried. At least you don’t have a CPU in the first place.”
“No, I’m just squishy and the height of everyone else’s knees.”
It was supposed to be a routine recreational outing, which in itself should probably have been the first warning sign. An intelligence mixup with Laserbeak had led the Unicronians to attack the Autobot ship en route, thinking it carried some sort of important Autobot weapon instead of Rodimus, Wheelie and a pair of Witwickies out for a metaphorical Sunday drive.
By the time anyone noticed that they’d crashed on Torkulon it was already too late. They were summarily sedated, stuck in cells of a cushy but powerful nature, and the damn dirty psychotherapist apes had taken Cyclonus off to be studied.
“I just wish we didn’t have to wait so long. I’m worried about Daniel, he’s probably terrified by now.” Spike stretched out on the soft, gel-like substance and watched Scourge continue to poke around in the locking mechanism embedded in the innards of the cell wall. Through some obscure logic that only they could interpret, the Torkulonians had put them in the same cell, explaining gently that Scourge seemed to be the least violent of the lot and his interactions with a weaker being might be therapeutic. As a Decepticon, Scourge found this very insulting and claimed that being a coward in the face of danger did not mean you couldn’t be violent when you wanted to be.
“Hey, my wingmate’s the one off getting his head inspected due to ‘trauma bonding derived from a history of physical and emotional abuse’. The most your kid’s probably doing is clinging to the minibot and trying not to wet himself.” Scourge cursed and pulled his hand back, waggling a singed finger in the air to cool it off. “What I can’t figure is why they put Prime and Galvatron together. They couldn’t break his mind last time, why do they think Prime will have an effect on him?”
Spike shrugged, and felt the ground underneath him move ever so slightly. “Like you said, they’re insane. At least Galvatron’s stopped running into the energy barrier and thinking that the eighth time’s the charm.”
There was a loud squishing noise from behind him and the wall bent ever so slightly. Scourge raised an optic ridge (optic brow? Spike had no idea what they called them when they had neither eyes nor eyebrows). “What’s going with them?”
The floor wobbled, vibrating from the shock of people in the next cell being thrown against it. Scourge tilted his head, scrutinizing the wall with sensors that went beyond human perception. A slow, wicked grin crossed his face. “Clever ‘bot, your Prime is…”
“What? What’s Rodimus doing?”
Scourge reached into the wall panel again. “Nothing to worry about. Rodimus is just giving Galvatron a little stress relief so he doesn’t keep beating the walls and getting the Torkulons to sedate him again.”
Spike backed away from the wall a bit, well-versed by now in Decepticons ideas of stress relief. “By letting Galvatron beat him up?”
“Not exactly...” Scourge chuckled sinisterly, watching as the horror spread across Spike’s face. “Come on, human. You’ve lived with our kind for twenty years and no one’s explained the concept of physical intimacy to you? Prime’s having as much fun as Galvatron is.”
The cell wall bulged again and Spike skittered backwards, gaping in horror. “You guys can…what…how…” The human’s palms flew up to cover his eyes, as if to somehow gouge the images of his son’s childhood friend having hot robot sex (how did that even work?) with the leader of the Decepticons. “Ew!”
“Don’t go ‘ew’ at me, I’ve seen how your kind do it,” Scourge replied, still far too smug. “At least we don’t have fluids going all over the place. Usually. Galvatron gets pretty rough sometimes and I’ve seen him inflict a heck of a lot on Cyclonus with the electrowhip, although it’s not like Cyc complains--”
“Stop talking! Please!” Spike’s hands flew to cover his ears as the Sweep leader laughed raucously. These were images he didn’t need. Ever.
Galvatron made a weird kind of sense. He was a big purple guy with a giant phallic object attached to his arm, maybe it made sense he’d swing a bit funny. But Roddy? He thought Roddy liked Arcee. “Since when is Rodimus Prime gay, anyway?”
Scourge snorted derisively. “He’s not gay.”
“Bisexual, fine.”
“Not bisexual either, fleshling. None of us are.” Scourge held up a single, slightly charred finger. “We’ve only got the one gender. It’s you fleshlings that are the freaky ones.”
Spike shrugged awkwardly, curling up with one knee at his chest as he watched Scourge work. “I guess I can—wait, hold on. What about Elita 1 and her group, or Arcee? They’re chicks.”
“They’re female. Females are…” Scourge waved a hand about awkwardly. “Well, they’re weird. Different. Until a few years ago we weren’t even sure they existed. Lot of people wouldn’t mind it if they stayed that way, although they’re mostly the old ones.”
“We had two genders back around the times of the Quintessons, or at least the records seem to think so,” he continued, squinting into the little half-organic circuitry. He seemed to actually be enjoying having something to talk about, which made Spike wonder if he was more nervous than he let on.
“After the Quints left, the whole separate gender thing just sort of…phased out. I mean, what’s the point of being weird and different when it doesn’t mean anything? It makes people uncomfortable. By the time Megatron kicked off for Earth nobody even thought we had any females left.” Another spark, another curse and waving of singed fingers. “Who designed this thing? I can’t even reach into the back.”
“Can I help?” Spike asked like the eager little human sidekick that he’d been ever since the Autobots entered his life.
“If it means that much to you.” Scourge reluctantly picked him up between two fingers and stuffed him unceremoniously into the crevice in the wall. “Wiggle in until you hit the end of it. My arm can’t fit in that far.”
“Right.” Spike slid in around the bulky wires and cables that didn’t even begin to resemble functioning machinery, and at times seemed to be more like tentacles than machinery. “Was that why everyone was so surprised when Elita One’s group turned up?” he called back, still perversely curious about this unexplained aspect of Cybertronian culture. He’d asked a few Autobots about it when Arcee turned up, but everyone seemed too embarrassed to even discuss the subject.
“I think so, I wasn’t exactly myself at the time. It’s not that anyone was going to go around underestimating them, it was just that nobody knew we even had females anymore. Turns out being female was more a programming glitch than a fad, and we’d had them all along, they just hadn’t said anything about it. After the female group reappeared and kicked collective Decepticon aft halfway to Darkmount, a lot of females on both sides started…what do you guys call it? Coming out of storage?”
“Coming out of the closet.” Spike sidestepped a wire, trying to ignore how it seemed to turn to follow him as he moved. He kept Scourge talking, just so he knew someone would be paying attention to him in case he got attacked by random tentacles.
“Yeah, that. Started not being such a stigma anymore, although you’d probably never get an Autobot to say it, stuck up prudes that they are. People used to mostly think of females as being bitchy, clingy, overemotional and oversexed and not good for much else. Elita One impressed a lot of people, and as much as we hate Autobot scum we can appreciate a good warrior when we see one.”
Another wire was trying to curl around his ankles. Spike wondered if this place was designed to drive you mad, to make it easier for the Torkulons to ‘treat’ you. “I’ve never even seen a female Decepticon.”
“Not surprised. Most of ‘em are too covered in weapons for most people to notice until they start talking. Some of them don’t even bother getting their bodies changed after they figure out they’re different, they just identify female and keep going with life. You to the back yet?”
“Almost.” Spike wiggled around what looked like a purple and mildly slimy screw and touched the back of the narrow corridor. “Yeah. Now what?”
The light was blocked out as Scourge peered into the opening, lighting up the Torkulon circuitry with a pale reddish glow. “That fat one, with the orange casing? Yank it out and try not to touch the end of it.”
“Got it.” Spike set his feet and began heaving, quickly stepping aside as a dark fluid came pouring out of the port. He really, really hoped that it wasn’t some crude analogue to blood or another unsavory substance. “So exactly how do you know so much about this sort of thing? No offense, but you’re not exactly the intellectual, ngh, type.”
Scourge paused, tugging for a moment on his metal beard. His voice lowered, just in case the soundproofing on the cells decided to up and vanish somehow. “Not like it’s anyone’s business, but I had a Sweep come out funny one time. She needed a hand and I did some research for her. Nothing big, just helping her out a little.”
Spike violently repressed the image of a pregnant Scourge and any desire to find out how that worked. “Didn’t know you were such a big softy.”
“Shove it,” Scourge barked coarsely. “It was that or her going to someone else about it and everyone blaming me for turning out a freak. Not like I’m responsible for their programming, I just bud ‘em off. Now yank out the one next to it and plug it into the first one.”
Pregnant Scourge was replaced with Scourge being followed around by baby Sweeps squeaking like deranged ducklings. Which…was actually sort of accurate. “Second one’s out. Now what?”
“Now get out of there before the thing overloads, fleshling.”
Spike scampered, the dark fluid lapping at his heels as he jumped out onto the cushioned floor. Scourge tilted his head ever so slightly, sending a message down the comlink and grinning as he received a reply in the frazzled but eager affirmative. “They’re ready. Soon as the barrier goes, we move out.”
“Done having the physical intimacy, huh?” Spike scoffed, staying against the opposite wall so he could see Galvatron coming. He didn’t trust the Decepticon leader to watch where he put his feet.
“Hm?” Scourge crouched up at the cell entrance, counting out the moments before the wall’s circuitry shorted out and the people of Torkulon once more felt the Pit itself come down upon them. “Nah, my sensors say Galvatron still looks pretty het up. My guess is once we get out of here he’ll finish up on whoever looks the least worn out. Might even let you watch, if you—”
“For the love of god, stop talking!”
Fandom: Transformers (G1, Season Three)
Author:
seiberwingPairings/Characters: Galvatron/Rodimus Prime, Scourge, Spike Witwicky, mentions of others.
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 820. Transformers (anyverse): Any characters. Human characters have difficulty dealing with the fact that the Transformers don't necessarily conform to the gender/sexuality standards they expect. Written for
lgbtfest.Summary:: While attempting to escape Torkulon (again), Scourge gives Spike a lesson in Cybertronian ideals of gender and sexuality. Spike doesn’t completely appreciate the education.
Disclaimer: Not mine, unless you count how my toy collection put some Hasbro employee’s kid through college.
“So explain the plan to the one guy who doesn’t have an internal radio.”
“They come in, I disrupt the energy barrier, we kill them and take their stuff, we find our own stuff, and try to get out with our sanity intact.”
“And my job is basically to not get stepped on.”
“Look, I’m not liking this anymore than you are. Last time somebody dragged me to this awful place we nearly got our CPUs fried. At least you don’t have a CPU in the first place.”
“No, I’m just squishy and the height of everyone else’s knees.”
It was supposed to be a routine recreational outing, which in itself should probably have been the first warning sign. An intelligence mixup with Laserbeak had led the Unicronians to attack the Autobot ship en route, thinking it carried some sort of important Autobot weapon instead of Rodimus, Wheelie and a pair of Witwickies out for a metaphorical Sunday drive.
By the time anyone noticed that they’d crashed on Torkulon it was already too late. They were summarily sedated, stuck in cells of a cushy but powerful nature, and the damn dirty psychotherapist apes had taken Cyclonus off to be studied.
“I just wish we didn’t have to wait so long. I’m worried about Daniel, he’s probably terrified by now.” Spike stretched out on the soft, gel-like substance and watched Scourge continue to poke around in the locking mechanism embedded in the innards of the cell wall. Through some obscure logic that only they could interpret, the Torkulonians had put them in the same cell, explaining gently that Scourge seemed to be the least violent of the lot and his interactions with a weaker being might be therapeutic. As a Decepticon, Scourge found this very insulting and claimed that being a coward in the face of danger did not mean you couldn’t be violent when you wanted to be.
“Hey, my wingmate’s the one off getting his head inspected due to ‘trauma bonding derived from a history of physical and emotional abuse’. The most your kid’s probably doing is clinging to the minibot and trying not to wet himself.” Scourge cursed and pulled his hand back, waggling a singed finger in the air to cool it off. “What I can’t figure is why they put Prime and Galvatron together. They couldn’t break his mind last time, why do they think Prime will have an effect on him?”
Spike shrugged, and felt the ground underneath him move ever so slightly. “Like you said, they’re insane. At least Galvatron’s stopped running into the energy barrier and thinking that the eighth time’s the charm.”
There was a loud squishing noise from behind him and the wall bent ever so slightly. Scourge raised an optic ridge (optic brow? Spike had no idea what they called them when they had neither eyes nor eyebrows). “What’s going with them?”
The floor wobbled, vibrating from the shock of people in the next cell being thrown against it. Scourge tilted his head, scrutinizing the wall with sensors that went beyond human perception. A slow, wicked grin crossed his face. “Clever ‘bot, your Prime is…”
“What? What’s Rodimus doing?”
Scourge reached into the wall panel again. “Nothing to worry about. Rodimus is just giving Galvatron a little stress relief so he doesn’t keep beating the walls and getting the Torkulons to sedate him again.”
Spike backed away from the wall a bit, well-versed by now in Decepticons ideas of stress relief. “By letting Galvatron beat him up?”
“Not exactly...” Scourge chuckled sinisterly, watching as the horror spread across Spike’s face. “Come on, human. You’ve lived with our kind for twenty years and no one’s explained the concept of physical intimacy to you? Prime’s having as much fun as Galvatron is.”
The cell wall bulged again and Spike skittered backwards, gaping in horror. “You guys can…what…how…” The human’s palms flew up to cover his eyes, as if to somehow gouge the images of his son’s childhood friend having hot robot sex (how did that even work?) with the leader of the Decepticons. “Ew!”
“Don’t go ‘ew’ at me, I’ve seen how your kind do it,” Scourge replied, still far too smug. “At least we don’t have fluids going all over the place. Usually. Galvatron gets pretty rough sometimes and I’ve seen him inflict a heck of a lot on Cyclonus with the electrowhip, although it’s not like Cyc complains--”
“Stop talking! Please!” Spike’s hands flew to cover his ears as the Sweep leader laughed raucously. These were images he didn’t need. Ever.
Galvatron made a weird kind of sense. He was a big purple guy with a giant phallic object attached to his arm, maybe it made sense he’d swing a bit funny. But Roddy? He thought Roddy liked Arcee. “Since when is Rodimus Prime gay, anyway?”
Scourge snorted derisively. “He’s not gay.”
“Bisexual, fine.”
“Not bisexual either, fleshling. None of us are.” Scourge held up a single, slightly charred finger. “We’ve only got the one gender. It’s you fleshlings that are the freaky ones.”
Spike shrugged awkwardly, curling up with one knee at his chest as he watched Scourge work. “I guess I can—wait, hold on. What about Elita 1 and her group, or Arcee? They’re chicks.”
“They’re female. Females are…” Scourge waved a hand about awkwardly. “Well, they’re weird. Different. Until a few years ago we weren’t even sure they existed. Lot of people wouldn’t mind it if they stayed that way, although they’re mostly the old ones.”
“We had two genders back around the times of the Quintessons, or at least the records seem to think so,” he continued, squinting into the little half-organic circuitry. He seemed to actually be enjoying having something to talk about, which made Spike wonder if he was more nervous than he let on.
“After the Quints left, the whole separate gender thing just sort of…phased out. I mean, what’s the point of being weird and different when it doesn’t mean anything? It makes people uncomfortable. By the time Megatron kicked off for Earth nobody even thought we had any females left.” Another spark, another curse and waving of singed fingers. “Who designed this thing? I can’t even reach into the back.”
“Can I help?” Spike asked like the eager little human sidekick that he’d been ever since the Autobots entered his life.
“If it means that much to you.” Scourge reluctantly picked him up between two fingers and stuffed him unceremoniously into the crevice in the wall. “Wiggle in until you hit the end of it. My arm can’t fit in that far.”
“Right.” Spike slid in around the bulky wires and cables that didn’t even begin to resemble functioning machinery, and at times seemed to be more like tentacles than machinery. “Was that why everyone was so surprised when Elita One’s group turned up?” he called back, still perversely curious about this unexplained aspect of Cybertronian culture. He’d asked a few Autobots about it when Arcee turned up, but everyone seemed too embarrassed to even discuss the subject.
“I think so, I wasn’t exactly myself at the time. It’s not that anyone was going to go around underestimating them, it was just that nobody knew we even had females anymore. Turns out being female was more a programming glitch than a fad, and we’d had them all along, they just hadn’t said anything about it. After the female group reappeared and kicked collective Decepticon aft halfway to Darkmount, a lot of females on both sides started…what do you guys call it? Coming out of storage?”
“Coming out of the closet.” Spike sidestepped a wire, trying to ignore how it seemed to turn to follow him as he moved. He kept Scourge talking, just so he knew someone would be paying attention to him in case he got attacked by random tentacles.
“Yeah, that. Started not being such a stigma anymore, although you’d probably never get an Autobot to say it, stuck up prudes that they are. People used to mostly think of females as being bitchy, clingy, overemotional and oversexed and not good for much else. Elita One impressed a lot of people, and as much as we hate Autobot scum we can appreciate a good warrior when we see one.”
Another wire was trying to curl around his ankles. Spike wondered if this place was designed to drive you mad, to make it easier for the Torkulons to ‘treat’ you. “I’ve never even seen a female Decepticon.”
“Not surprised. Most of ‘em are too covered in weapons for most people to notice until they start talking. Some of them don’t even bother getting their bodies changed after they figure out they’re different, they just identify female and keep going with life. You to the back yet?”
“Almost.” Spike wiggled around what looked like a purple and mildly slimy screw and touched the back of the narrow corridor. “Yeah. Now what?”
The light was blocked out as Scourge peered into the opening, lighting up the Torkulon circuitry with a pale reddish glow. “That fat one, with the orange casing? Yank it out and try not to touch the end of it.”
“Got it.” Spike set his feet and began heaving, quickly stepping aside as a dark fluid came pouring out of the port. He really, really hoped that it wasn’t some crude analogue to blood or another unsavory substance. “So exactly how do you know so much about this sort of thing? No offense, but you’re not exactly the intellectual, ngh, type.”
Scourge paused, tugging for a moment on his metal beard. His voice lowered, just in case the soundproofing on the cells decided to up and vanish somehow. “Not like it’s anyone’s business, but I had a Sweep come out funny one time. She needed a hand and I did some research for her. Nothing big, just helping her out a little.”
Spike violently repressed the image of a pregnant Scourge and any desire to find out how that worked. “Didn’t know you were such a big softy.”
“Shove it,” Scourge barked coarsely. “It was that or her going to someone else about it and everyone blaming me for turning out a freak. Not like I’m responsible for their programming, I just bud ‘em off. Now yank out the one next to it and plug it into the first one.”
Pregnant Scourge was replaced with Scourge being followed around by baby Sweeps squeaking like deranged ducklings. Which…was actually sort of accurate. “Second one’s out. Now what?”
“Now get out of there before the thing overloads, fleshling.”
Spike scampered, the dark fluid lapping at his heels as he jumped out onto the cushioned floor. Scourge tilted his head ever so slightly, sending a message down the comlink and grinning as he received a reply in the frazzled but eager affirmative. “They’re ready. Soon as the barrier goes, we move out.”
“Done having the physical intimacy, huh?” Spike scoffed, staying against the opposite wall so he could see Galvatron coming. He didn’t trust the Decepticon leader to watch where he put his feet.
“Hm?” Scourge crouched up at the cell entrance, counting out the moments before the wall’s circuitry shorted out and the people of Torkulon once more felt the Pit itself come down upon them. “Nah, my sensors say Galvatron still looks pretty het up. My guess is once we get out of here he’ll finish up on whoever looks the least worn out. Might even let you watch, if you—”
“For the love of god, stop talking!”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-05-25 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-05-25 01:35 pm (UTC)Great job!
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Date: 2008-05-25 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 04:14 pm (UTC)I like your Scourge. Either pregnant or with ducklings.
I like your Torkulons and their screwball psychology.
And now I am going to write TFgendertheoryfic. Because I am compelled.
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Date: 2008-05-26 05:04 pm (UTC)Scourge, I think, tends to use the budding system. He goes through an intensely painful procedure whereby a second mech is drawn from his own body and spark and then he sits around watching TV for the rest of the day.
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Date: 2008-05-27 08:43 pm (UTC)Yes, Scourge would definitely bud. The Sweeps don't need to be that smart.
Love love LOVE squicked!Spike!!!!!
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Date: 2008-05-27 09:33 pm (UTC)Squicking the humans is just fun.
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Date: 2008-05-28 01:24 am (UTC)It is indeed. ::rubs hands together::
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Date: 2008-05-27 10:44 pm (UTC)I will admit to wishing you'd focused on the other side of the wall . . .
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Date: 2008-05-28 10:49 pm (UTC)I'm going to leave an actual review for this now...which will basically consist of what I already told you ^_^;
I love it. I love Scourge. Rodimus is awesome. Scourge (again) is awesome. And the whole Human vs. Cybertronian/Unicronian (if that exists) views are great. *cuddles*
Thank you.
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Date: 2008-05-28 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-06-06 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-27 02:37 pm (UTC)As a Decepticon, Scourge found this very insulting and claimed that being a coward in the face of danger did not mean you couldn’t be violent when you wanted to be.
So very Scourge! XD *love* You have his voice down perfectly. I also adored the visual of the Sweeps as ducklings. It is accurate in the most hilarious way.
The dialog is so fast and smart here. It's usually tricky to do a fic exploring a certain subject in this manner without it seeming like the character is drabbling on - but you've done it excellently there. The exchanges are incredibly witty and sharp; Scourge and Spike play off each other so well.
The whole idea itself is great at that, especially about female Decepticons. I hate the 'Oooh! Decepticons are sexist so they don't have femmes!' ideal some people take on. They had Nightbird... though I suppose she doesn't quite count. But there's also Flamewar, Thunderblast... etc. Anyway. Much support for your expansion on canon! It's perfectly plausible. I love when fics can delve into canon oddities and find reason in them. I approve greatly! ^_^
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Date: 2008-06-27 02:50 pm (UTC)I did try to find an explanation somewhere between 'the Transformers are sexist' and 'Simon Furman', and I'm glad you liked it, and the method of transmission. I went through three or four different settings/characters to use to get the idea across and I doubt any of the rejected ones would have turned out this entertaining--and dialogue always gets more interesting when the characters are doing something else at the same time.
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Date: 2009-02-15 06:16 pm (UTC)1.)"Optic ride". Do you perhaps mean "optic ridge"? (Mind, English isn't my native language.)
2.)"hot robot sex" - considering the sentence is from Spike's pov, the "hot" part seems out of place if he's supposed to be horrified by it.
3.)"your kind do it" - "your kind does it" or intentional?
4.) Not a wrong in your fic's story, but Elita's G1 name is Elita One. Script says so. (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys.transformers/browse_thread/thread/5821789ca800431a/68758ddf3993e5ac) Alpha Trion's "Optimus Prime" says so.
5.) Spike as a grown-up is an ambassador. People who get jobs like that tend to know a thing or two about manners and tact. The word "chick" to refer to females (in particular Elita One (an arguably high-ranking lady-figure) and Arcee (his son's second mom)) feels incredibly out of place, even if there's no females around to be offended and he's talking to Scourge.
6.) "left the whole" - comma request.
7.) "what’s the point of being weird and different when it doesn’t mean anything?" - And at this point, perhaps something oughta be remarked about the Quints' intents for two genders and how they are different. As it is, you seem to be contradicting yourself with the later statement on "female" being a glitch. Quints' don't do glitches beyond the experimental phase.
8.) "By the time Megatron kicked off for Earth nobody even thought we had any females left". Who's we?
9.) "“Was that why everyone was so surprised when Elita’s group turned up?”" Because all those featured in TSFAT totally were... Heck, no one even bothered with Nightbird's female-ness.
10.) "It’s not that anyone was going to go around underestimating them". I fail to get this sentence's purpose/meaning.
11.) Not misogynistic, but "bitchy, clingy, overemotional and oversexed" is so out of the left field and so has nothing to do with any canon source that it's just jarring anyway. What possibly in canon could justify this fic's supposed attitude towards females? Besides, the rest of the sentence makes it sound as if Elita is a recent creation rather than one that was around for five million years before she went stealth.
12.) "they’d just hadn’t" - typo or intentional?
13.) "Nah, my sensors say Galvatron still looks pretty het up" Not necessarily wrong, but the combination of "sensors say" and "looks" is odd, like you're saying that something both is and could be.
When I read this fic, I can't shake off the feeling you were more concerned about making statements than a coherent story/fanfic. I can't combine most statements on females with anything I know from canon (heck, the most sexistic thing I've been able to spot in the cartoon was Chromia's "ladies first" and anything sexistic I know of in the Marvel comics is human-related), which kinda defeats the purpose of this fic.
Again, apologies for lack of tact.
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Date: 2009-02-15 06:34 pm (UTC)2) The "hot" was meant ironically, as "hot ___ sex" is a common cliche term.
3) Intentional, I think, just because Scourge isn't totally grammatically correct.
4) Bah! *will also fix* My fault for not doing the research. Her name constantly frustrates me.
5) Has Spike actually displayed that level of sophistication? I thought he was just ambassador because he knows the Transformers the best.
6) Will fix. I really should have gotten a beta. *fails*
7) I may have not been so clear there. The implication is that Scourge doesn't know why the Quints created females, and in this case the "glitch" is the fact that it showed up even after they thought that female programming had been expunged from the Transformer race.
8) The Transformers.
9) Nightbird was a female? She looked female, but she never displayed any female traits of voice, personality, or self-identification. She was a drone.
10) That no one would assume females were automatically easier targets by virtue of being female.
11) I was going more for countering the fandom stereotype (see: every Mary Sue ever). The Transformer perception of females isn't touched on that much in G1, and when it is it's usually by Decepticons being jerks for the sake of it or Autobots who are a bit too enlightened to care, so the prejudices behind it are a bit more open to interpretation.
12) AAGH. Typo. *fails more* I'm usually better than this, I promise.
13) The sensory data Scourge is receiving indicates that Galvatron may be "het up", although there is the possibility he could be wrong. No?
Given that it was for
no subject
Date: 2009-02-15 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-15 07:59 pm (UTC)2.) The problem is that if there's supposed to be initial shock, there shouldn't be irony from his perspective. Now, if, say, Scourge had remarked something as "How do you like these images of your son’s childhood friend having hot robot sex," as remark on Spike's reaction, then the irony would have been in place. As it is, Spike seems many issues away from going sarcastic at that moment.
4.) Ctrl+F "Elita 1".
5.) Implied, yes. And don't forget he's not just representing Earth to Cybertron, but also various other planets. Tact would be more of a requirement than knowledge on Cybertronians alone. Besides, he's married to Carly. If anything, that should've given him enough level of sophistication on addressing females.
7.) Then how does it make people uncomfortable if they can't even detect it?
8.) By that time, the Cybertronians bar those located in Iacon should believe Elita and co. to be still alive. Or explain to me why they wouldn't.
9.) Everyone referred to her as "she", "she-bot" and "her", including those that have no shown reason to know Fuyijama considers her female. She is a drone, I don't argue about that, but she's female nonetheless.
10.) If it "doesn't mean anything", then why does it comes up in Scourge's mind to mention specifically that the females aren't weak? That should be perception not within him, unless he also researched humans and gender.
11.) What do you have to care in your fics about the fandom? And, no specific reaction doesn't mean their perception of females wasn't touched upon. Perhaps no specific reaction was supposed to imply no gender binary. As I said, with so many different builds, it's easy to believe gender isn't a difference the Cybertronians can be arsed to care about. Or as I like to compare: some people go all rampant that a group is made out of females only as if that's proof of sexism. Why do I never hear anyone complain on the equally "crude" team up that is the Throttlebots, who are together on virtue of sharing the same transformation scheme?
13.) May I suggest changing it to "Nah, Galvatron still looks pretty het up according to my sensors"? It removes the "is" from the "could be".
Fanfic =/= soap box. Or at least, I'm certain the two goals can be combined in one product, but the shape should be fanfic, not soap box, which it becomes in the middle. What jars me about most TF fics that deal with TF gender is their straight-forward insistence to do so. For instance, where's the discrimination hierarchy? What's with the nearly complete analogy to human sexism? Why deal with topics that aren't relevant within your theory. To illustrate the last two points, see 10. Scourge, as far as I can tell, should not be aware he has to mention females aren't weak, because that's not how Cybertronians according to your theory view their females. Your construction on females as a Quintesson leftover minority is nicely done, but you bring in concepts that do not belong, solely to be able to deny them. That just doesn't work, in my opinion.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-15 08:25 pm (UTC)2) You mentioned English wasn't your native language. Perhaps the phrase isn't as common where you come from?
5) It's common slang and he's in a stressful situation, which makes a lot of people less sophisticated than normal. If it was a more formal situation, he'd be formal.
7) Because it's different. It's weird. It's the same sort of uncomfortable you get when someone reveals that they're transgendered, gay, or possessed of an ideology counter to the normal. People get uncomfortable about things that don't fit in with their natural world view.
8) Eh? Not sure what you mean here.
9) Hrm. Perhaps since she's human made, they're attributing human traits to her?
10) To differentiate between treating them different socially and treating them different in battle.
11) Fics don't occur in a vacuum. A lot of them are made to counter or comment upon societal, fandom, or other themes outside the universe they're based in.
13) I think it's fine as it is.
It's specifically supposed to be a soapbox examining the theme given in the prompt. And it's not an analogy to human sexism--I'd actually designed it to be more of an analogy to transphobia or homophobia. Fear and dislike of the differently minded minority, despite the fact that they are no different from anyone else is most other ways.
I've...never heard of the Throttlebots.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 09:56 am (UTC)5.) Still feels odd, but I won't argue.
7.) Gotcha. Critique humbly withdrawn. ;)
8.) Well, Elita and co. "died" just before the Ark and Nemesis took off. So unless they were thought of as dead before that time even (why I wouldn't know... at least Elita would seem to me the kind of enemy soldier/leader you'd try to keep track on and not presume dead until you've seen the corpse), no one but Optimus and co. should know they were dead, as they were there when it supposedly happened and immediately took off thereafter (far as I can deduce from the retcon). So, anyone not present in Iacon should have no clue but few basic facts about what happened, and thus the disappearance of Elita's group should not be something to be noticed immediately.
9.) Not sure... they did refer to her as an "it" before she was revealed and I would find it odd the Decepticons would bother about human notions and opinions. Still, not an impossible interpretation.
10.) Again, why would he do that? What's in his, in Cybertronian culture that justifies his thought process to come up with the idea that nobody underestimates females if that's indeed something not done? I get the comparision to human culture, but that's because we indeed do underestimate certain groups of people based on prejudices. If Cybertronians don't and never have done, then it logically shouldn't be a thing for them to mention, unless comparing to another culture.
11.) In theory, there's nothing wrong with that, but I've never liked it when the message takes over the story. Perhaps you know of that fic that is anti-racism and has a human go white power on Blaster and Jazz? Perfect example of why soapbox =/= fanfic. As for the fandom... heh, I've been here shorter than you, but I've been already ticked off often enough to... stop caring what today's idiocy/shallowness is. I really miss people's own visions on characters and events, rather than that most fanartists are stuck in what the others do. You say "bitchy, clingy, overemotional and oversexed" was meant to counter the fandom stereotype, but I would take this more as adding to it than countering it.
13.) Then I won't suggest.
Ahum, do tell when I'm overstepping my boundaries and need to shut up and back off. ^^*
Sexism, homophobia, transphobia: it's alike in that it all comes from that fucked up bullshit that is the gender binary. But yeah, I get your analogy to homo/transphobia now (hence 7). I still find the soapbox thing a shame, but that might be just my taste.
...The heck do you mean you've "never heard of the Throttlebots (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Throttlebot)"?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 10:48 am (UTC)11) I've read it, but I believe that was more commentary on more general themes (done Anviliciously and badly, because who the fuck notices voice but not giant robot footsteps?) and not fandom commentary. People having their own visions is great, but not when it gets into the depths of idiocy and misogyny that the Transformers fandom seems to cling to.
I mean I'd never heard of the Throttlebots. Goldbug I know, the rest not so much. I don't read the comics.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 03:47 pm (UTC)11.) Well, you mentioned societal themes yourself, next to fandom ones. And as far as fandom goes, I see far more stupidity arising from people talking after each other than people going their own way. "Slutscream", violent and stuck-up Ratchet, "BabyBee", sparkbonding that enables a telepathic connection and makes one person die if the other dies, Wheelie-hate and all kinds of other fuckup are people not giving a crap about canon and what they as individuals could do with it, but rather many happily sitting around together mangling canon into barely related fanon. It's rare to find a fic or pic that has no fandom influences.
But... the Throttlebots are S3/4 characters too! Why, why does this fandom not care about all the awesome that can be found outside of the S1/2 pretty ones and the S3 main cast!?! Seriously, half of the S3 characters and any S4 character is just as out of luck as everyone not in the cartoon. And that damned thing ended 6-8 years (G2's just G1, imo) before the franchise did! And that's even ignoring Marvel's exclusive characters.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 04:06 pm (UTC)11) And if I was writing a fic that addressed perception of those characters or tropes, I might have included them. Wheelie-hate I also protest, I personally think the guy's a badass and would enjoy fic where he is portrayed as such. If there is any.
Look, I'm not responsible for the fandom and what it cares about. I, personally, just don't care about most characters in the show and if I didn't have friends in it who wrote goodfic about it I wouldn't give a damn about the entire thing in the first place. As for the S1/S2 pretty ones...bar a few rare exceptions like Red Alert, I don't care about them either. The comics never held my interest at all, as they're again before my time and not something I personally prefer. Unicron Trilogy and Animated are more to my tastes.
It's rare to find a fic or pic that has no fandom influences.
NO DUH. Fandom is a subculture and it behaves like one. We trade memes, borrow ideas off each other and either use them or counter them. Certainly some memes need to die horribly, but it would be impossible to get rid of all of them without keeping everyone from discussing and reading each others' stuff.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:45 pm (UTC)10.)Not sure if Autobot jets would be considered a deviation as they only get their flight ability from their alt mode, whereas Decepticons (also) have whatever enables them flight in main mode. Regardless, I'm getting a bit more the hang of what you're saying, but still, different kinds of discrimination come with different prejudices and not every possible prejudice gets applied to every discriminated group.
Aargh, I really, really need to watch more carefully what I'm typing. Didn't mean to sound like I want all memes to be gone. Just that... it quite brightens my day when I find a fic (or pic) that has all appearances the creator recognizes canon from fanon, analyzed the fanon and rather feeling the need to one way or another go with it (this includes blatant countering), just puts aside whatever of it doesn't make sense. Hope this somehow makes it clearer what I'm trying to say. ^^
And because I'm a nitpick like that... you now have both the spelling of "Elita 1" and "Elita One" in your fic.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 02:33 pm (UTC)Sorry, I'm probably coming off overly irritated. As I said, I'm a little less familiar with G1, so I'm more influenced by memes. Fics where I've been in the fandom little or none at all aren't as reliant on such things.
And because I'm a nitpick like that... you now have both the spelling of "Elita 1" and "Elita One" in your fic.
Oh, buggering hell. Where?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 04:43 pm (UTC)Spike shrugged awkwardly, curling up with one knee at his chest as he watched Scourge work. “I guess I can—wait, hold on. What about Elita 1 and her group, or Arcee? They’re chicks.”
There.