User talk:Geewunling/FemaleTF-Sandbox

Feedback

It'll be quite some time before I can wrap up this kitty, but I would kind of appreciate to get feedback already. The lay-out is currently rather unconventional, and I am not sure if it actually works, not to mention that the size of this thing makes me wonder if I should split it in two pages - one for fiction, one for production process (and then another one for toy history, but that's a later day concern). Also, there are sections I am going to be unable to write (completely) and would like to ask help on (these would be Headmasters (maybe), Masterforce, Beast Era cartoon material, UT cartoon, Movie, Animated, and anything you need to be member of the club for). Geewunling 09:55, 5 April 2010 (EDT)

*pokes* I understand nobody finds this an interesting subject, but the current article is in a big need for an update. So, a little help? Geewunling 14:58, 7 April 2010 (EDT)

I'm interested in it, and I like where you're going with it, but I'm not familiar enough with "oddball structure" articles to say anything outside of that.

I'd be willing to help write up the Club fiction, too, although I'm not really sure what angle you'd want to take for how to handle the writeups. (Since just listing what the character does like we normally do for Fiction sections wouldn't be the right approach here.) --Jeysie 15:06, 7 April 2010 (EDT)

Right now, the way I try to write the fiction sections is that they give a good overview of the female variants history through the TF species as specific to that continuity/the philosophy behind the continuity as a whole (ergo why the Japanese and American Beast Era section are currently separated). Like, why do they exist, who was the first, what purpose do they serve, what is their appearance frequency etc. and from there on out what role they performed throughout. How the section should be written is dependent of the broadness of the fiction though. The Art of War, for instance, pretty much only features a short "now"-timeframe, which makes it impossible to write from a bigger perspective. Hence, G.I. Joe's fiction section is mostly "Arcee did this and that and then she cried", rather than "Female Transformers are a result of Jhiaxus getting curious some era ago. Arcee went batshit and hunted him down. It appears she was not his only experiment." For what I know of TransTech and Shattered Glass, a historical perspective seems not very much possible, but both could offer good G.I. Joe-ish write-ups, the goal not being to mention everything every female ever did, thought or said (in that sense for instance, I can't think of SG Andromeda being relevant to mention. TT Andromeda on the other hand..), but those things they did that made an impact (like SG Crasher becoming an honorary citizen or Beta being a crime lord) or offer perspective on their role in the continuity (Crasher's shape being acceptable in SG). I, uh, I hope that'll do as explanation. Geewunling 15:56, 7 April 2010 (EDT)

Well, sorta. I admit the fact that the Fan Club femmes are generally treated as non-notable gender-wise was my stumbling point. If memory serves, the only two bits that ever address the fembots in terms of gender are CJ's being confused over Crasher, and Jackpot being the TF equivalent of a skirt-chaser. --Jeysie 16:11, 7 April 2010 (EDT)

I hastened up the UT comic section to function as a possible illustration for what approach you could be taking. But to be clear on this first: it doesn't matter if females are anything special in a universe or not. Regardless of them getting any remarks or not, thing is that females always are a deviation from the norm, just like Triple Changers or Pretenders are. I do intend to categorize this page as subgroup when its done, because to me it seems a logical approach. Perhaps comparing it to if you were to write fiction sections for the Triple Changers, cartoon (virtually no attention) vs. Marvel (Triple Changers start out grouped together) v.s. Dreamwave (Shockwave did it. The Duocons are a pre-built) vs. Animated (Blackarachnia's invention. It's implied to make you nutty) vs. whatever else, might help in setting out a course, even if this "subgroup" is far less a group and a lot bigger in numbers. Geewunling 18:19, 9 April 2010 (EDT)

I could either go the route of the way Fiction would normally be written, summarizing what each female did/her place in the stories (just in less detail than I normally would), or I could talk only about the few times they're treated differently—which would really just be Jackpot's attitudes and maybe Elita-One being Rodimus's girl, since Cliffjumper's reaction to Crasher is already covered elsewhere in the article. I admit I can't think of what else approach would work. :> --Jeysie 18:38, 9 April 2010 (EDT)

First option, and then not even "each" female, since sometimes, it's just not worth mentioning. With the UT comics, I have purposely skipped information such as "While Sureshock crashed on Earth, Spiral stayed on the Moon," until Spiral actually showed up in the comics and got "specific" attention. Same for Airazor who I skipped to mention until the story brought her into play, even though I could have mentioned her earlier since she'd storywise been to Earth for some reason. And then I'm still skipping on CJ and IH, even if I could say for sure where they were between the first and last issue, because they had no impact on the story as told. On the other hand, would Dreamwave have gotten to write the Cybertron series, I would have mentioned Override and Thunderblast by now, because that'd be relevant story- and historywise.

But, yeah, I think it's best to let you do a write up on the two continuities already. I'm certain you'll do right.

P.S., if you could, I'd also appreciate a writeup on The Razor's Edge for the Beast Era section. I'm not sure yet how to incorporate it yet, but I believe it to have relevance for the continuity. And lastly, I'm still searching for a good, neutral main image... Would the Matrix be a defendable choice, for all the unfortunate implications it might bring? Geewunling 07:12, 10 April 2010 (EDT)

I can't help out with The Razor's Edge, unfortunately, as I know almost diddley squat about Beast Wars. You might try poking Rosicrucian; he has a TFCC sub and has shown willingness to pitch in writing about TFCC stuff.

As for the rest, I'll see what I can do. Withered Hope will have to wait until I have a chance to read it in detail, but I'll try working on the others. --Jeysie 08:55, 10 April 2010 (EDT)

About your edits, I believe you want me to say something now, but I feel I can't quite do because most of the context around the female characters has yet to be written, like on which missions they were sent as the storyline progressed. You know, some stuff to tie it (all) together in something that reads as an overview rather than a list of facts.

It is a fine start though, but one thing I request to be trimmed out. Except for the notes section and captions, I prefer to keep feministic/equalistic notions out. Picking sides in this article's subject's controversy isn't going to make for a nice reading experience. In this case, the SG and TT sections are written as if it is to be expected females are (considered) terrible soldiers and unfit for leader functions, but.. there's not really a source for that expectation. There's not a continuity to support that notion. Sometimes, yes, females were written as "different" in a continuity, but not in a "unsuited for men's work" kinda way. Compare IDW Arcee: different, treated differently - not "lesser". And it may be what readers "expect" from a real-life pov, but I'm not in favour of mentioning in each section how female warriors and leaders are not a problem in that continuity as proven by female A & B (and C & D & E & maybe F & G & etc.). I realize what I said a few posts back might have caused confusion, and if so, I am sorry. What I meant with "females who had an impact" was not to go into the fact they are female but that as their "kind of Transformer", they played such and such role in the race's history. If there is a reader expectation of sexism, saying "Before the war, ??? years ago, Beta was a notorious crimelord, whose deeds made her the prime target of the Elite Guard member Thunderwing." works better to get the point across than "Females holding leadership positions was also not an issue. Beta was a notorious crime boss before the war began." Geewunling 10:28, 11 April 2010 (EDT)

Thing is, other than Crasher, none of them actually do much of anything remarkable compared to their male counterparts. Arcee is an ordinary background soldier in a single fight. Beta has literally a single-line mention from Thunderwing (I can't even say "??? number of years ago" because that info's not given. "She is an escaped crime boss Thunderwing's chasing" comprises everything we know about her.) Elita doesn't do anything special other than hanging on Rodimus's arm. Andromeda and Esmeral have very small bit parts, with Esmeral maybe being slightly notable for being co-owner of the DBN. Etc.

That's why I said I didn't "get" how you expected the sections to be written, as there's no gender-related things to cover, and very little notable about any of the TFCC female characters compared to their male counterparts. The TransTech females are just as non-notable for the most part. Airazor's one of Cheetor's security guard officers, and Crystal Widow owns a bar, and... everyone else is pretty much background. Taking the "feminist" angle was the only way I could think of making any of them remotely worth mentioning.

It also seems like, as a result, the sort of info you want is actually already covered in all of the TFCC female characters' wiki articles, so you don't need my help anyway. You can just read the other articles, and, for the purposes of writing this article, you'll know as much as I do. *shrug* --Jeysie 11:12, 11 April 2010 (EDT)

Again, I apologize for my inability to convey how I... "think" the fiction sections should be written. You know, how about this? Based on the individual articles (you have) already written, I can try to tackle the section myself. Then you can check on the accuracy of the sections. I guess that means I am also requesting you to continue your work on both "franchises" pages. There's a few TT characters left without pages, possibly including that nameless WH medic, and now that we've mentioned him, SG Thunderwing. Think you could? Geewunling 11:51, 11 April 2010 (EDT)

P.S.,what do you think of the main image? Too...? Geewunling 12:01, 11 April 2010 (EDT)

That'd be fine, I don't mind checking stuff after you do it. I didn't mean to come off as rude or accusatory, or anything, I was just sort of at a loss, so you don't need to apologize. :)

Uhm. I still haven't gotten to read much of Withered Hope, but if there's anything from the other TransTech or SG stories...

I can work on writing up SG Thunderwing and Cyclis for you soonish, although I'm not sure either of them are going to help this article much, TBH, so don't get your hopes up too much... --Jeysie 12:15, 11 April 2010 (EDT)

Some info for you: After having a bit of a "Who the heck is Strika the Sixth" moment, I went searching through my TransTech articles and discovered that in "I, Lowtech", when Bulletbike tells Officer Blastcharge he's really RoboCo's CEO, Blastcharge responds with "Right, and I'm Grand Admiral Strika the Sixth," and that's the only mention of her I can see. --Jeysie 10:10, 12 April 2010 (EDT)

Presuming it's a she. ;) Thanks for that headsup: All bits are most welcome. Which reminds me, I believe I might be able to use information of "SG" Side Burn too, if you could. Geewunling 10:22, 12 April 2010 (EDT)

Indeed there, the story doesn't say. :>

As for Side Burn, I have to sheepishly admit I've been putting him off just because there's gonna be so much to write up for him. XP But for the moment, I believe the context of what you're looking for is as follows:

After the battle with the Decepticons for the fuel dump in "Dungeons & Dinobots" goes badly, Prime yells at Blurr and Side Burn. Prime berates Blurr about how they would have won if not for Crasher's interference, and that if Blurr had just killed her when he had the chance... Blurr counters that Prime didn't make Sunstreaker kill Sideswipe, Prime retorts that he had wanted that job done properly, and Side Burn cuts off the argument with "If I may, my lord, undue attention to females is a waste of time and resources," before going off on to other tangents (that he had recommended reforming the Wreckers to deal with the MSS, etc.)

My memory wants to say that's the only time Side Burn's "reversed attitude" comes up. --Jeysie 11:05, 12 April 2010 (EDT)

Then I guess this makes it roughly done (Andromeda and Esmeral currently are more trouble to incorporate than they are worth to mention). The only things possibly of value to add that I can't discern right now is Thunderwing's arrival and purpose in "BB" and if Crasher was one of the Decepticons to go into stasis. Geewunling 16:06, 13 April 2010 (EDT)

You're in luck, I'd been in the middle of working on it, and it's now done. Though like I said, it's probably not going to be very illuminating.

And yeah, Crasher was one of the Decepticons that went into stasis after the Nemesis was shot out of the sky. I think Crasher's page, both her quote and the fiction, covers all the relevant context I can think of there... well, aside possibly from Sephie meeting Crasher and squeeing about the fact that "girl-bots" (Rick's term) exist. --Jeysie 17:11, 13 April 2010 (EDT)

Ah, no, that's not the stasis I'm referring to, I think. I'm talking about the one in "Blitzwing Bop", with the humans protecting the Decepticons from Beachcomber. I'm a little uncertain who was still active and who was not and don't just dare presume Crasher went snoozing. Geewunling 01:02, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

The intent was that they're all in stasis since none of them can block the signal. --M Sipher 02:19, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

Heh. Yeah, what he said... only Soundwave and Blitzwing were online at that time. Sorry, I misunderstood. ^^;

I corrected just a little bit of the article. Also, the Roll-N-Wash scheme takes place before Blitzwing's signal goes completely haywire, as Beachcomber was sent out because he's the only other Autobot besides Blaster who isn't eventually nearly useless due to the signal, but I wasn't sure how best to tweak that. --Jeysie 08:24, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

Too much fiction?

I have to be honest... I question the whole complete fiction writeups deal. It seems like it's really, really overloading the page with stuff that's not especially relevant to go through everything any female TF was involved in, even if they're just in the periphery. Personally, I'd limit the fictions writeups to instances where the gender difference is actually an issue, supplemented by a simple "list" of appearances for minor characters. I appreciate thoroughness, but there does come a point where it just becomes cumbersome for little benefit, and the page as-is is on that line. I'll look at a section or two (probably SG) and throw together an alternative version in a little bit. --M Sipher 10:07, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

I admit that threw me a little too, during my aborted attempt to write up part of the fiction... I felt like an article about female characters should have in its Fiction section just those times where the characters' femaleness was relevant (or possibly notably non-relevant). --Jeysie 10:30, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

Yeah, I'm looking at the Dreamwave UT section, and... really? This is basically a rundown of what the Mini-Cons as a whole were doing, not females in specific. We can definitely do some heavy pruning. (Actually, I'll tackle the UT opener chunk first... well, in a bit, since I'm at work and probably shouldn't be screwing around here now anyway. But yeah... UT because I'm less close to the source material so there should be little "author intent" corruption.) --M Sipher 11:35, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

Uhm, my intention certainly isn't to write up on all females. Or on every bit of fiction, for that matter. That would indeed be cumbersome. What I hope to achieve with the fiction section is simply a red (intention) line of femTF presence in the stories, wirtten as if about a subgroup. I have realized from the start this might be something I should limit to the cases in which females are an oddity, but I have found that... causing to me problematic associations as well as defying what reasons motivated me to try improve on the article. Not to mention that odd or not, females always are rare, which makes them eligible for a fiction section always. I agree the fiction sections in some cases could use some downtuning, but just because they are written like this now doesn't mean they'll stay that way when I get to finetune the whole thing.

Nonetheless, I do appreciate your offer to rewrite some of the fiction sections. I have noticed I have begun writing those in greater detail as I did more, but I can't quite tell if that's my fault or a result of the franchises I've tackled later on being more about a greater storyline than episodic content. In the latter case, the "glue" of not-fem related content that does tie their stories together is bothersome, but potentially necessary to mention if I don't want to start every sentence with "then", "later", "some time before", etc.. I appreciate your input, because, hey, maybe I'm just clueless to a superior documenting strategy. But I do wish to have this taken into account: I find it important not to drench this article in feminism/anti-sexism/equalism or whatever (outside of the captions & notes). Hence, preferably no "females are accepted in the army", "female x can kick male y's butt anyday", etc.

As for the UT comic part in specific, yeah, definitely could use some trimming. Could use a big trimming. I disagree this is what the Mini-Cons as a whole were doing (because, really, that's just not the case), but I do see a lot of it is covered pretty much on virtue of Sureshock and Spiral being somewhere in there. If you can make it smaller, I'll be happy. Geewunling 12:10, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

I disagree that simply having a female TF somewhere in the vague vicinity of an event means that event needs to be cataloged here. I appreciate the desire to be as informative as possible, but it's running headlong into the steam locomotive that is "being interesting to read and relevant to the subject at hand". Spiral does NOTHING in the comics save exist. Sureshock fares little better; hell, I don't think she even has her gender assigned in the comic proper.

I'll even go so far as to call into question the necessity of "fiction" sections at all. Aren't the most noteworthy and interesting aspects of the existence of female TFs covered in the explanatory parts right out of the gate? Isn't there more in-depth coverage on the individual characters' pages for the minutia of "they were there when"? (I would recommend a "see also" link that goes to the particular franchise's list of female TFs at the end so people can go get the nitty-gritty.) It's like... are we going to apply this same philosophy to the "human" article? List everything that happened with a human being present, no matter how minor the role? What about our "Transformer" article about the race as a whole? See where this is going? This isn't like we're cataloging the exploits of a single small team like the G1 Aerialbots. The page as you have it is already three times the recommended page size. I really think this page is far, far better served as a "meta" article than a fictional-history one. Never mind the bounce back-and-forth in perspective and tone that happens.

And as for "feminism/anti-sexism/equalism"... isn't that pretty much the elephant in the room? Something inherent to the discussion due to the existence of the article in and of itself? If it's not notable, why do we have a whole separate article calling attention to it? The very phenomenon of "female" mechanical life forms brings up the subject of "why" and how they're different from the "males", and how the fiction itself treats the phenomenon. It IS notable that Armada on both sides of the globe seemed to treat the existence of female TFs as pretty much "ehn, they're there, and?", and the "after-the-fact" method of assigning the other gender to characters that came about during the whole series. --M Sipher 13:10, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

Eh, pretty much said I agreed with you on the first count. Looking at it, Spiral can be cut out. Writing about her as I did was mostly my way of saying Sureshock's not the only female Mini-Con in the story. And, neither Spiral nor Sureshock were referred to as female within the comics, mostly because they only interacted directly and as part of a group. I would guess Spiral was not even female at this point, but that's a guess only.

I tried to mirror pages such as Faction Mini-Cassette, Combiner, Mini Vehicle, Triple Changer, etc. when writing the fiction sections, taking into account my own estimate those sections might not be "complete". Which is why the fiction sections became (a lot) bigger. Now, I have two questions for you. 1.) What do you mean with "bounce back-and-forth in perspective and tone"? and 2.) This article already is big and will continue to grow regardless of how much of the fiction sections get cut. Are there options for subpaging instead of cutting for the sake of staying close to 30kb? As you might have noticed, that is my plan at least for a potential FemTFtoy page.

Yes, that's the elephant in the room. And it is something that should be adressed, which is what the background sections are for. However, my experience with the TF fandom is that female Transformers are made much more controversial than they should be and for the sake of the article, I want to avoid siding. For instance, I find Furman a sexist for his problems with female Transformers and his bizarro take on Arcee. As well, I find his IDW lack-of-explanation one of the most embarrassing moments in TF fiction development ever. But I know a lot of people like it - like seeing Arcee as a mad, raving monstrosity who can't be stopped by anyone and is so much more awesome than any of the wimpy females preceding her. They think the IDW story for females' existence is brilliant. Some people feel there should never have been females added to the cast (never questioning why males are acceptable then), some feel (nearly) all the females that have been added are crap (giving the male characters a far bigger range to qualify as good), some feel females are weird but the characters okay (again, not questioning males) and others love each femTF for the sake of them being female (I won't deny I do in a way, the same way I squee over Minibots, Mutants and Six Changers). Meanwhile, nobody bothers to realize how Hasbro/Takara look at Transformers and that the relative low numbers of females is not because of some great brilliant realization that robots have no need for gender but because girls don't sell in a boy-oriented toyline, which the fiction is there to promote. And when they do, I have seen it more than once end in accusations of sexism towards the companies (rather than to society as a whole, but I figure there's a loop going on there with the entertainment industry giving the audience what they want and the audience being influenced by what they get from the industry). So what I am trying to say is that I wish to keep all of that gender-whining female-whining out and try as objectively and subtlely as possible to address the various takes on gender/female Transformers throughout the (main) continuities. In doing so, I fear keeping to the female-highlighting parts of the fiction might leave a certain biased part of the casual reader group believing that being female is all there is to the femTF characters. And if that happens, regardless of whose fault it is, I think the article fails in its duty... That's about it to some of my currently finished writing. Geewunling 14:55, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

Just a quick comment on the "never questioning males" point. Until the addition of females to the cast it was possible to assume that the male TFs were only "male" as a convenience of writing. Using "it" for a sentient character seems insulting and English (at least traditionally) assumes male gender for unknown actors ("everyone should do his duty"). Khajidha 15:07, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

Yes, I know that argument. But the thing is that's.. not really true. Did anyone ever actually believe they were genderless, what with the he's and the male voices and the heterosexual interaction with not-Transformers and the (humanoid) body types, etc? The male orientation is... well, you have to be pretty... willfully ignorant to maintain that pre-fem, the "guys" were not guys. I get that people might claim that, but I doubt any of them actually believes it's true. Not to mention that there's this gender bias going on in the human psyche that genderless equals male (as if female is a deviation per standard) that only makes the claim more... questionable. Geewunling 15:24, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

I believed it. They are robots, not sexually reproducing organisms male and female are totally irrelevant. At least until someone added females. Khajidha 15:30, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

I've always felt, personal canon-wise, that TFs were genderless, in the sense that whatever they consider male and female has little to do with what we consider male and female, functionally speaking. The only commonality is that their females sometimes superficially look like ours. (Then again, there's also some male TFs that look somewhat like our females...) --Jeysie 15:36, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

That's pretty much the position I've adopted, too, since there has been gender differentiation in all continuities. Khajidha 15:42, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

And that makes three of us. But whatever little answers we come up with to explain the unexplained that we could probably fan-talk for hours about, that does not change the "gender bias" in the marketing reasons behind it, the fiction's dealings with it and the fandom's reaction at large and specifically to it. And that's what I want this article to be about, without pointing fingers. Geewunling 16:00, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

"I fear keeping to the female-highlighting parts of the fiction might leave a certain biased part of the casual reader group believing that being female is all there is to the femTF characters.'""

I... really don't think that's actually going to be a problem here. A simple link-jump to any given character's page should point out what they're about, and many of the sections will be about how female-ness is a non-issue in various series. Let me work up the Armada section at least, since I consider that the first series to treat female TFs as "normal". --M Sipher 18:06, 14 April 2010 (EDT)

Actually, I would say the first to treat them as normal is the G1 cartoon with the exception of "TSFAT", which seems to be a retcon retconned in regards to femTFs anyway. And if that doesn't go, then BW does. But... yeah, as I said, that's what I fear will happen, I could be way wrong and I'll be happy to be proven to. I'm looking forward to what you'll do on the UT section. Geewunling 01:43, 15 April 2010 (EDT)