Now that I’m getting back into Transformers it’s interesting to see how a lot of the ships had evolved into a new form of “fandom ship” where those characters relationship gets tossed into a “canon” version.
This isn’t to say this is a horrible thing so much is to say it’s an interesting observation. I adore fanworks that cover things like romance and different forms of relationships, but sometimes when a single version gets popular, it hinders exploration.
Dratchet comes to mind in that the MTMTE version of Drift seems to be the default personalty when included in other continuities, rarely exploring new or different dynamics between him and Ratchet, despite the interesting backstories for both of them.
It’s also interesting how when some ships become synonymous with the characters themselves, the expectation for creators in fan spaces change as well; in personal experience with the LLCS AU, I’ve had people get real mad at me that I made Bee a human and Starscream a cat bc that interrupts the ship. A LOT of people were mad in my askbox when Pharma was revealed to be human(and dead lmao). People have gotten upset at my refusal to protray the cats’ relationships romantically as well. What even?
Regardless, it’s fun to study a large fandom like Transformers and see what influences it.
