Kijikun2 asked: Can you clarify - would Tailgate have been considered an 'adult' by Cybertronian standards when he fell?

James Roberts replied: Yes. He is naive, trusting, loyal and dependent - you could say these are childlike qualities. But he is not a child.

also I know some people were wondering about Conjunx Ritus (the marriage one) and he confirms to another question that it has to be deliberate

yeah you can't accidentally get married lol

I should hope not!

yeah tailgate is an adult why can no one see this

IM NAIVE AS SHIT AND I LIKE TO PLAY WITH TOYS this does not make me a child

...do people really see tailgate as a child

yeah. a lot of ppl do

oh of course they do, fandom likes to take any character with childlike qualities and take away any agency from them

it's reaaally abelist as hell, as often as that word gets thrown around

and it's like. guys. these are alien robots. some are born and then literally tossed off a ship with a gun and a good luck but no one is yelling child soldier about that

His holoform being that of a toddler probably doesn't help the perception that Tailgate is a child.

^^^ This is my biggest problem with it. Like it was questionable before but I'm just "whatever, robots" but the holoform just lends itself to that view and I'm like ROBERTS WHHHY?

The holoform is definetly everyone's biggest problem with it and I also wish it wasn't being used. But I do also think its more supposed to reflect his naivete and inexperience. Two things you

can have without being a child.

I still wish they'd change it though.

Oh yes! They say it reflect their personalities/characters, but yeah, the toddler!Tailgate has so many thinking of him as a child. They just...they're robots! There are no genders, there're no children

Just robots! Wonderful, amazing, derpy, crazy, sassy, asshole robots!

at the very least his holoform seems to have aged up a little since the baby issue

A little...

yeah at least he looked like a toddler instead of a baby like his first appearance

on the robots note though, and I apologize if this slightly tangential, but it seems like he's making them more and more human? which doesn't help with the 'they're alone robots' reassurance.

the bit about baby Cybertronians in the Holiday special. And on Twitter he confirmed that conjunx endura only come in pairs...

which reinforces a binary system that has no reproductively driven origin/necessity the way humans do.

OOPS, alien not alone, up there. thanks auto correct.

and females seem to be normalized now even if there's no explanation for why they exist/what their gender means.

/sigh Yyyyyyyeah. Still need to read the Holiday Special, but.....yeah.

I am really happy for everyone though, cycgate shippers especially, that someone asked and he gave this answer.

Yes.

having confirmation makes it easier. I just wish it wasn't contradictory to his symbolism and previously established canon. but maybe they'll update the holo later?

and I know it can be explained as representative of his naïveté and inexperience, I just... why did Roberts make that choice if he was going to support the ship in canon?

and if in hindsight that was a mistake on Robert's part (the holo not the ship) please, please fix it!

Yyyyeah I would be a lot more comfortable with the ship/this answer if Tailgate's holo wasn't still. A child.

Then again, "holos reflecting the truest self" or whatever concept is somewhat bullshit anyway, since how many he-ID'd robots have she-holos?

/sigh

Well you know, if gender meant anything besides a pronoun for cybes then maybe we could make a correlation for or against similarities with human gender roles and if that applies.

(Tho granted maybe there's stuff in more recent books I haven't read with camians or something but I doubt it)

And Whirl's holo is young (teen or girl) depending on the artist) but then Roberts also isn't shipping him with anyone AND he's well established as having lived a long life.

So again, sure we can explain why the holo exists it's just a hugely problematic choice.

While I'd love for it to be the case that holo gender and robot gender are completely uncorrelated with human gender stuff, frankly I don't have enough faith in JR as a writer for that

Especially given how anthrophomimic his robots are (and how the cybs in the franchise in general are, let's be fair).

So what it boils down for, for me at least, as that I wish the concept of holos as reflections of the self was a concept that he was putting a LOT more thought and meaning into.

Yes, this.