crazy customizing and creativity questions and discussion

[Shockwave]

I hate to say it, but Dom's right, official is official and unfortunately, Hasbro as the property owner has the last word on what is or is not canon. Do we like or respect them? No. But it is what it is. But I also think Gomess is right when he says that this will be a (gladly) forgotten chapter in larger TF Universe. I know that when I go back and read the G1 comics "beginning to end" I sure as shit am not including crap from the Fan Club. Also, it all stil qualifies as fanfic. It's produced by fans for the Fan Club which actually makes it official fanfic.

Shockwave
-I think Dom is the only one of us that actually remembers the Fanclub fanfic on a consistent basis.

[Gomess]

"Official fanfic" is a wonderfully pedantic term that perhaps needs publicly coining.

[Dominic]

I suppose it might be semantics.

If I understand your arguement, you are saying that recognizability, even favourability weight more than what is actually official.

There are plenty of forgotten official stories. How many people remember "Man of Iron"? How many people here besides Shockwave and yourself have read any meaningful amount of the UK series? (I have read some. Ironically, much of what I found the original copies of was later reprinted in the US anyway.) But, those old UK stories are official, if somewhat contrary.

LOADS of TF fans think Bay's movies suck, but still accept them as canon.

For the record, I consider canon to a subset of being official. (Something can be official without being canon. But, being canon requires it to be official. Put another way, canon to Sunbow is not canon to Marvel UK. But, both are official.)

But, I also accept the movies as canon because they are about as official as it gets. Hasbro gave permission and support for the movies to be made. That cannot be argued.

Much the same can be said of the Fan Club comics. Yeah, they suck. Yeah, not too many people have the misfortune to have read them. I am not going to say that they do not count, or that my "Timelines" Breakdown is not a representation of a character from that story. (I really need to separate the toy from the context on that one though.)

...I think the main difference in our perspectives, Dom, is that I respect the fans' opinions more than the copyright holders' rules

Even putting aside the fact that the fandom's opinions are scattered and often childish, it is best to stay consistent with official context because that is (if only in theory) universally agreed to.

For example, I do not care what somebody says about how PCC fits in with the rest of TF as a property. Hasbro said that PCC is not linked to any specific part of TF, but that it is consistent with "Aligned". That is the correct answer.

(Yeah, this gets dicey when Hasbro is self-contrary.)

Everybody uses a bit of fanon to fill in blanks here and there. That sort of thing happens all the time. But, when there is an official answer or reason for something, then that is the answer.

For example, I really dislike holomatter, (a technology from the early IDW issues). It is too ripe for power-gaming, and needs a better writer than Furman to be handled well. But, I am not going to ignore it or strike it from my fanon. Why? Because it is not about me. It is about what Hasbro produces and/or clears.

I sure as shit am not including crap from the Fan Club. Also, it all stil qualifies as fanfic. It's produced by fans for the Fan Club which actually makes it official fanfic.

Neither is IDW apparently. But, the official wayto reconcile that is that there is a multiverse. (And, that involves "multiversal singularities", which I really fucking hate, but I ain't gonna ignore it.)


Dom
-managed to finagle a copy of this year's BotCon comic. Review coming early next year.

[138 Scourge]

Maybe you should try ignoring stuff you don't like? Or maybe just not worrying about it?

Like, if I want to assume that Unicron's origin in "Call of the Primitives" is closer to what I like than the Marvel G1 origin, or the "multiversal singularity" nonsense, nothing stopping me.

Or, better example: If I liked Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, then that doesn't mean I've gotta worry about what Alec Holland is doing in Brightest Day and the like.

[Dominic]

Hey, you do not see me buying every comic that comes out, right?

But, as much as might prefer the origin shown in "Call of the Primitives", Hasbro says otherwise. So, we are stuck with that.


Dom

[Gomess]

I think Dom's point is that ultimately our personal perspectives "don't count", which, in the context of fandom, I think is a bit daft. Especially a fandom of such an unctuous, impermanent, messy franchise as TF.

The individual's fanon is at least more reliable and plays by more rules than the "official".

"Stuck with" nothing, what is the ultimate worth of Word of God in TF fandom? Do any TF fans actually respect Hasbro's fiction-crafting ability that much?

[BWprowl]

I think Dom's point is that ultimately our personal perspectives "don't count", which, in the context of fandom, I think is a bit daft. Especially a fandom of such an unctuous, impermanent, messy franchise as TF.

The individual's fanon is at least more reliable and plays by more rules than the "official".

"Stuck with" nothing, what is the ultimate worth of Word of God in TF fandom? Do any TF fans actually respect Hasbro's fiction-crafting ability that much?

I think it's also a matter of precedents, and at least acknowledging things that *did* happen, officially. It's like that super-annoying situation, you know the one, where you're discussing something in, say, the Beast Era with someone, and you bring up something that happened in Beast Machines as an example, and they start screaming "NO NO THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN IN MY PERSONAL CANON IT WAS ALL A BAD DREAM YOU CAN'T MENTION ANYTHING FROM THAT SERIES IT SUCKED AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT SO IT'S NOT REAL AND IT CAN'T HURT ME!".

It's like, I think 'The Ascending' is one of the worst crimes ever commited against pieces of paper, but I still acknowledge that it's a story that exists in official context, and if it happens to form an interesting bridge between Magmatron in BWNeo and Magmatron in Beast Machines, at least it's good for something.

Contrast, say, people who still buy into that monumentally retarded 'Sword of Deceptus' story for G1 Megatron's sword or whatever, which was not only stupid as hell in the first place, but *just a fanfiction* and one that's been 'overwritten' by at least two or three different 'official' pre-G1 stories.

[Shockwave]

Apparently Dom does.

Most people (and by that I mean people that aren't totally immersed into what they watch) don't even bother with any of this. I think the last time we had this debate, I had asked my parents and their friends what they do in situations like this and their response was "I don't waste time with shows like that". I guess most people are just too busy with their lives to give a shit about crap like continuity. Then, there's the way my mom does it where she watches a show like it aired. Meaning that if the show was once a week, she will watch one episode per week. drives me nuts. I mean the whole point of having something on dvd is that you can watch it all at once. And when you see it that way, you catch stuff (like continuity errors) that you wouldn't catch otherwise.

I think I might start taking this approach (the not caring about continuity). It seems way simpler. Most "normal" people don't even bother with it. It's only us geeks that are apparently the keepers of the continuities.

[Gomess]

It's like that super-annoying situation, you know the one~

I... No, I am relieved to say I don't know it. Where do you find people like that??

And Trekwave, judge each situation as you find it. Discussing continuity in TF really is a fool's errand for the most part, but sometimes it's worthwhile. If I tried too hard to be like the majority, or- heaven forbid- my family, I wouldn't be half as happy as I am.

Anyway, regarding what is canon in TF, history is written by the victor.

Sometimes.

[Dominic]

I think is a bit daft. Especially a fandom of such an unctuous, impermanent, messy franchise as TF.

Hasbro has been trying to clean it up of late.

And, yes, I am saying that the word of the copyright holders outweighs the echo-chamber of the fandom.

Anyway, regarding what is canon in TF, history is written by the owner and license holders.

Fixed.

The individual's fanon is at least more reliable and plays by more rules than the "official".

But, it also muddies things up and balkanizes the fandom by removing common points of reference.

For extreme examples of this, look to UseNet in the 90s and the page long discussions over Nightbird or something. If somebody just stumbled across them, they might actually thing there was evidence in legitimate sources to support even the wackier propsitions like Starscream being more than professionally jealous of Nightbird. Similarly, the multiple Constructicon origins are problematic. Rather than just write off the mistakes as mistakes, or try to sort out which was less wrong, people concocted all manny or reasons for how and why one mistake could be reconciled with another or one was less a mistake (even if it was no more or less a mistake) than another. Then, the question gets even more confused because people cannot sort fanon from official.

In some cases, (such as the Constructicon scenario above), there simply is no right answer that we can find with the information that we had/have.

Contrast, say, people who still buy into that monumentally retarded 'Sword of Deceptus' story for G1 Megatron's sword or whatever,

I am not familiar with, but am very curious about, this example.

Do any TF fans actually respect Hasbro's fiction-crafting ability that much?

Hasbro owns it. So, if they or a license holder say something, it is true. If I did not respect that much about the people making the comics, I would not buy them.

"NO NO THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN IN MY PERSONAL CANON IT WAS ALL A BAD DREAM YOU CAN'T MENTION ANYTHING FROM THAT SERIES IT SUCKED AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT SO IT'S NOT REAL AND IT CAN'T HURT ME!".

Or that is another way to put it....

Joking aside, Prowl's (hilarious) take on this cuts to another problem I have with fanon, it is so damned ego-centric. Prowl's tone is less sarcastic than we might like it to be, and typically it is all about the fans in that conversation.

Granted, people have to filter or (conversely) make allowances for what other fans may not have read. But, that need not be a question of feeding egocentric fan-children.

A good example came up in the custom character thread. Shockwave did not know that Takara had made a legitimate black Ironhide figure, let alone that the Fan Club had used the character. Along the same lines, I recall somebody on ATT years ago being confused about why people hated Wheelie so much because he never saw the third season of the cartoon and was only familiar with the UK comics.

In those cases, two or more parties could hash things out with official sources, and largely stay away from "what I like" style arguements.

In the case of BMac, it would come down to recognizing the editorial shift the cartoon made and pondering how much one series really affected the other, retro-actively or otherwise.

There are plenty of opportunities for this sort of confusion.

"I don't waste time with shows like that". I guess most people are just too busy with their lives to give a shit about crap like continuity.

Alternatively, some people just filter out a property if it has too many egregious errors and inconsistencies.

I admit that "Transformers" as a whole gets more leeway from me than I give to other franchises that I have not been in to for as long. (I am just about ready to drop the "Horus Heresy" books after a few bad offerings this past year and what looks like a pretty big error in "The Outcast Dead". I will discuss this more when I am done with the book.)

And when you see it that way, you catch stuff (like continuity errors) that you wouldn't catch otherwise.

It comes down to how attentively you are watching as well though. (The Constructicons thing made me nuts as a kid.)


Dom
-tends to watch/read things in blocks as well. But, hey....