The Other Half 4: On Femme-Bots!

Not long after I posted my write-up of Nicee, and followed it up with my post about Femme-Bots generally and the fandom's reactions to Nicee in particular, I asked my girlfriend if she'd be willing to write an opinion piece of her own. Not that I felt my overtly positive impressions of the figure needed any kind of legitimising, but because I was genuinely interested in what she might have to say.

After all, this is someone who sees my collection - on display in closed, glass-doored cabinets in our lounge - as part of the scenery in our home, to the point where she barely notices it at all. I know she's aware of my appreciation for Femme-Bots, and I get the impression she's neither offended nor threatened by it... but, equally, it's not something that we really talk about in any great depth. I tend to show her any and all new purchases - including Big Firebird's most recent transforming Femme-Bot, Mooka - but I don't exactly expect a detailed and discerning assessment, because I know she's just not really that interested.

However, I did say that I was going to get her to offer her thoughts on the matter and, while they've taken a couple of years to coalesce, they arrived just in time for Valentine's Day, so here we go...

The Other Half 3: The Next Toyline!

Apologies for the abundance of text-only posts... It's almost as if I'm treating this blog as a blog. This one is almost a counterpoint to yesterday's post, and it came together pretty quickly, so there didn't seem to be much point delaying it till after the next toy post (whenever that may be - hopefully soon).

 

On a complete whim, just for fun, and following my screed on the travesty that was the War For Cybertron Trilogy, I asked my girlfriend, Courtney, what she would do if she were tasked with creating a concept for a new TransFormers toyline. She's seen several of the TV shows, and even admitted to skimming through my toy review posts, so she has a pretty good grounding in the brand, and certainly has her own opinions on what has worked and what hasn't as far as the more prominent associated media goes.

 

Furthermore, she has said she likes the concept of 'robots in disguise' - as well as the idea of toys that are essentially action figures, vehicles and puzzles, all in one - and particularly likes the TransFormers toys that were derived from Takara's Micro Change line.

 

So, given free reign, without the need to refer to any existing TransFormers continuity or franchise in terms of characters or setting, what would her pitch be for a future TransFormers toyline?

 

Here's what she came up with...

The Other Half 2: TFNation 2018 Edition!

I mentioned in my TFNation 2018 summing-up post that I'd asked my girlfriend, Courtney, to write a little bit about her experience of the show as 'an outsider' - that is to say, someone with a level of familiarity with things TransFormers-related but is not herself 'a fan'. Courtney and I share similar tastes in movies and TV shows, but don't have a great deal of common interests and are both content to do our own things.

In part, I dread to think what it would be like to be in a relationship with another TransFormers fan - and particularly cohabiting with one - and haven't tried to engage her in my collection, though I have forced her to sit through shared with her some of my favourite TransFormers TV shows, and the first three live action movies. We've been living together for a few years now, and I have asked her if she wanted to come along to TFNation since its first year but, while she's been happy to attend more general conventions - MCM London Comic Cons, London Film & Comic Cons, Hyper Japan, New Scientist Live, to name but a few - she politely but nervously declined to attend until this year (she was out of the country the first year anyway).

Considering I enjoyed this year's show much more than I'd expected, I figured it'd be particularly interesting to commemorate this momentous occasion by getting her take on the event, both as a non-TransFormers fan, someone who doesn't necessarily enjoy crowds, and someone who occasionally attends events around the country as part of her job.

So, without further ado, I'll hand over to Courtney...

The Other Half

I'll put my cards on the table straight away and admit that this post was inspired by a couple of articles on the TFSource blog (specifically this one and this one) as much as it was that today is the third anniversary of the start of my relationship with my girlfriend, Courtney. Furthermore, it's a whole bunch of questions that I hadn't really considered before (though an ex- once told me quite pointedly that I'd "never find someone else who'd put up with" my collection) and reading the responses in the TFSource blog post got me wondering how Courtney feels about it all, since she has lived with me now for about a year and a half.

It is worth noting that both of us are Sci-Fi geeks, though Courtney has read less Speculative/Science Fiction than me (possibly because she's been into actual science for many years, and so reads more of that). Despite a not inconsiderable age difference, we like quite a lot of the same stuff (Film Noir, The X-Files, Firefly and Doctor Who, just for starters), and at least one person in both our families has a habit of collecting/hoarding, so we were both exposed to that mentality from quite a young age. Where I collect transforming robot toys (and other things), she collects stationery and books... and, lets face it, there are WAGs out there who may be frustrated by their partner's obsession while neglecting to consider their own.

I took questions from both posts, since they are quite different, reorganised them into a more logical sequence (because I couldn't help myself), and asked her to jot down a few thoughts. Her first comment, interestingly enough, was on the tone of the questions - she felt it was pitched quite negatively, with all its questions of "should" but, having now read both of the TFSource posts, she has said that they "weren't as negative as I'd expected them to be."

So... here's the Q&A, with a few of my own thoughts tagged on, because it's all about me...