#chat does what chat wants

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Transcript:

Greetings, bestie.

Beautiful, fantastic, stunning, and intelligent as always.

But in my infinite wisdom and never ending judgment, I couldn’t help but observe you’re just a little dry.

Here, take this. It’s a big fucking jug of water. Chug the shit out of it.

Drink to your heart's content.

You will stay hydrated.

I’m starting my own 10 commandments, and this is actually at the top of the list, so for there to be piss, there must first be slurp.

So sayeth Gabriel, Judge of Hell, and judge of your bladder.

Drink up. And the urine will await you down below.

Audio source

[egguv]

no reflection needed.

[r0swells]

[ohhgingersnaps]

I'm seeing some frustration over fandom creatives expressing anger or distress over people feeding their work into ChatGPT. I'm not responding to OP directly because I don't want to derail their post (their intent was to provide perspective on how these models actually work, and reduce undue panic, which is all coming from a good place!), but reassurances that the addition of our work will have a negligible impact on the model (which is true at this point) does kind of miss the point? Speaking for myself, my distress is less about the practical ramifications of feeding my fic into ChatGPT, and more about the principle of someone taking my work and deliberately adding it to the dataset.

Like, I fully realize that my work is a drop in the bucket of ChatGPT's several-billion-token training set! It will not make a demonstrable practical difference in the output of the model! That doesn't change the fact that I do not want my work to be part of the set of data that the ChatGPT devs use for training.

According to their FAQ, ChatGPT can and will use user input to train itself. The terms and conditions explicitly state that they save your chats to help train and improve their models. (You can opt-out, but sharing is the default.) So if you're feeding a fic into ChatGPT, unless you've explicitly opted out, you are handing it to the ChatGPT team and giving them permission to use it for training, whether or not that was your intent.

Now, will one fic make a demonstrable difference in the output of the model? No! But as the person who spent a year and a handful of months laboring over my fic, it makes a difference to me whether my fic, specifically, is being used in the dataset. If authors are allowed to have a problem with the ChatGPT devs for scraping millions of fics without permission, they're also allowed to have a problem with folks handing their individual fics over via the chat interface.

I do want to add that if you've done this to a fic, please don't take this as me being upset with you personally! Folks are still learning new information and puzzling out what "good" vs. "bad" use is, from an ethical standpoint. (Heck, my own perspective on this is deeply based on my own subjective feelings!) And we certainly shouldn't act like one person feeding a fic into ChatGPT has the same practical negative impact, on a broad societal scale, as a team using a web crawler to scrape five billion pieces of artwork for Stable Diffusion.

The point is that fundamentally, an ethical dataset should be obtained with the consent of those providing the data. Just because it's normalized for our data to be scraped without consent doesn't make it ethical, and this is why ChatGPT gives users the option to not share data— there is actually a standardized way (robots.txt) for website servers to set policies for how bots/crawlers can interact with them, for exactly this reason— and I think fandom artists and authors are well within their rights to express a desire for opting out to be the socially-respected default within the fandom community.

[ratatatastic]

maffhew who refuses to say runebergin torttu because he knows hes gonna butcher it so bad he might be kicked out of the country the second he tries and staunchly avoids that by going "the one dessert that barky is going to have to explain 😃"

sasha who gets faced with the most generic description of everything hes ever eaten in his life so far because of maffhew and going "???... oh you mean runebergin torttu!"

"he did good he liked the food and he likes the finland so far so its good" sasha says with so much pride now that all the anxiety has left his system that his husband teammate is enjoying his country and doesnt hate it

media availability | 10.29.24 (x)(x)

the smile of a man who knowlingly doomed his husband and said husband using all his brain power to context clues his way to whatever the fuck he just got asked that his brain is running hotter than a mid 2012 macbook air thats somehow still alive in the year of the lord 2024 but girl does she chug along shes louder than a fighter jet

[royalarchivist]

Fit: Yeah, they're all great, you'll like them a lot, you're in good hands.

Pac: You're in good hands, Empanada. One day, if you want to switch place one day, maybe? You know? Just let me know. Remember the thing we talked about yesterday, right? Yeah. Anytime.

Fit: [Chuckles] You two made a little agreement?

Pac: Yeah! Maybe one day it's going to happen, you know? I need to search for a hat just like Empanada's.

Fit: W- wh- wait, Just like in wait a minute, wait a minute. You want to switch places with Empanada? Is that what you mean?

Pac: Yes!!! She had the best mothers of all time! Like, imagine how she's going to be treated, like, she's going to be a princess! The princess of all princess!

Fit: [Stunned silence] Y- yeah, yeah! That- that- great. Just-

Empanada:

Pac: Yeah, you know, like– Tina and Bagi, you know, they are my mothers as well.* Mis madres, mis madres, mis madres, you know, 'cus of the meme, you know Fit, you know Fit?

Fit: Yeah yeah yeah yeah, I- I– Yeah. Yeah no, I get it, I get you, I get you, I understand. I understand. ...yeah.

Pac: [Laughs] Yeah.

Empanada: Drama

Fit: We say "fofoca", Empanada, in Portuguese, yeah. Fofoca, fofoca.

[viperwhispered]

Too Hard

Woop part 2 of the trip inside Jamil's head. Part 1 here.

The next time Jamil caught sight of you on campus, his first instinct was to turn around on his heel.

What a stupid thought to have because of you.

Besides, that would only make him more conspicuous, not less.

So, when your eyes met his, Jamil gave you a short nod in greeting. He would’ve left it at that and kept on his way, had you not walked up to him.

“Hi Jamil! How’s it going?” you said with that impossibly disarming smile of yours.

Why was it so difficult to look at you like he normally would? You had no right to make him feel so stiff, so unnatural.

On autopilot, Jamil exchanged a few pleasantries with you - those lessons from his parents had been instilled too deep in him for him to falter too badly in a simple exchange such as this. Still, Jamil quickly excused himself by telling you he still had to find Kalim before his next class.

Jamil didn’t miss the way your smile faltered. Had you hoped to get something out of him?

“Oh, okay. I’ll see you two later, then.”

Something about that irked him, though Jamil did not allow himself to dwell on it further.

His heart really had no business still racing as it did when he walked away, unaware of the frown on his face.

Just act normal. That’s all he needed to do.

After all, he had no time for dwelling in silly fancies.

If Jamil had been acutely aware of you before, it only seemed to worsen now that he was making a conscious effort to not act any differently with you. In fact, the harder he tried to keep you out, the more you invaded his thoughts, unsettling him.

The most innocuous words from you looped in his mind, and even the simplest actions caught his eye. For goodness's sake, he’d found himself staring at you while you were queueing up in the cafeteria the other day, not even doing anything other than standing around and looking bored!

For once, Jamil found himself grateful for all his duties. At least they provided him with something else to occupy himself with.

After all, if he was busy enough, it was difficult to think about those bright eyes of yours, your sweet laugh, or the way you bit your lip while thinking.

Still, sometimes it felt like no matter which way he turned, you were there, ready to throw him off-kilter. Not like it was his fault that often the most convenient route to class intersected with your daily routines. Or that your face seemed to jump out from any crowd, catching his attention.

Which certainly did not help his basketball performance. Jamil certainly did not recall you having such an interest in sports before, yet suddenly you were always there, distracting him. What had changed?

Could you possibly-

Jamil scoffed to himself, forcing his thoughts back on track for the nth time that day.

He picked up the tray of food and started taking it to Kalim. After dinner, he’d need to help Kalim with his homework, there were some housewarden tasks that would need dealing with, not to mention the preparations for the next-

Jamil froze in his tracks.

The voice he heard was quiet, but it was unmistakably you.

Really, it should not have come as such a surprise to him. You had become a rather frequent visitor to Scarabia, and Kalim often invited you to stay for meals. In fact, Jamil had started planning the dorm’s meal prep with your tastes and dietary restrictions in mind, just in case.

Jamil rounded the corner with strange exhilaration, his heart fluttering needlessly.

Yet, his mood evaporated when he saw you.

Why did you stop talking and look so guilty as soon as you caught sight of Jamil?

Jamil knew that look you gave to Kalim, had used it himself a thousand times. The one telling Kalim to keep quiet about something.

What could there possibly be that you would be comfortable sharing with Kalim, but not with him? That would give Kalim reason to sit so close to you, a comforting hand on your shoulder?

Jamil's mind raced with possibilities, yet could not settle for any single explanation.

He’d have to ask Kalim about it later.

Jamil gave you a short, polite greeting, his eyes lingering on you in an attempt to read what you were hiding.

“If I’d known you were coming over, I would’ve prepared something for you to eat as well,” Jamil said, already thinking about which parts of the dorm’s dinner to spruce up for you.

“Oh, no need, just figured I’d pop by. I’ll get out of your hair soon enough,” you said, something sheepish about your expression.

As expected, Kalim asked you to stay and dine with them, and with just a bit more persuasion you agreed - though not before telling Jamil that he should join you too and have himself a breather.

And since Kalim agreed with you, Jamil soon found himself sharing a meal with you and Kalim. Yet, even as he sat down with the food, his mind raced.

Had you been getting particularly close to Kalim lately? But surely Jamil would’ve noticed such a thing. Maybe someone from the dorm had been giving you trouble? But if that was the case, then surely you could let Jamil know about it, too. Unless for some reason you did not want to? But if it was something that concerned Kalim, then sooner or later it was bound to concern Jamil, too.

All the while, Kalim was talking to you about this and that, the latest topic being the animals kept on the Asim estate.

“I’ve got some pictures, let me show you!” Kalim said with an excited grin.

Only, a thorough patting of his pockets and a look around confirmed that Kalim’s phone was nowhere to be seen.

Jamil pinched the bridge of his nose. Where had Kalim left it this time?

Before Jamil even had the chance to say that he would handle it, Kalim sprinted off. Jamil hesitated for a moment, automatically halfway up from his seat, before he decided that leaving a guest unattended would be a worse offense than not helping out his master.

Jamil slumped back down with a sigh, mentally tracing the path Kalim took today, trying to recall the last time he saw Kalim handle his phone.

“Breathe. He’ll manage,” you said. There was the faintest of smiles on your lips, and Jamil could not decide if it was knowing or amused. Perhaps both.

Somehow, despite his frustration, Jamil’s own lips wanted to curl up too.

“Hmm. Maybe he will.”

Sure, Jamil could’ve called Kalim’s phone, to make it easier to find, but it was not that urgent, was it?

Jamil took another bite of his food, keeping an eye on you from the corner of his eye.

How was his mind so empty and so buzzing at the same time?

“You know-”

“So-”

You looked at each other, both just as surprised that the other had spoken up at the same time.

Even your surprised look was so-

“You first,” Jamil said. The way you bit your lip... Jamil had to raise a cup to his lips, slowly sipping his drink.

“Just… Feels like it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen you be still, you know. Or exchanged more than two words with you,” you said. You were attempting a light, joking tone, yet it was quite clear there was more to it.

“You say that like it would be unusual for me to be busy.”

He was not prepared for the way your soft sigh tugged at his heartstrings.

“No. It is not.”

You were both quiet after, poking at your meals. Normally, Jamil would’ve cherished such a moment of peace, yet this particular silence between you two was decidedly awkward.

Where was your usual chatter? Why weren’t you looking at him like you usually did?

“If you’re worried about me, don’t. I’m fine,” Jamil said, some softness creeping into his tone despite his best intentions.

“That's what Kalim said too,” you said. Yet the way you looked at Jamil made it clear you were still skeptical.

Wait.

Had you clammed up earlier because it had been Jamil you had been talking about with Kalim? That Kalim had comforted you about?

The thought twisted his stomach into knots.

Eta: you can find part 3 here, part 4 here, and finally part 5 here. Hasdhfsdf the way I fought with that last scene I swear. I don't even want to know how many versions I went through, trying to figure out how to say what I wanted without rubbing it into your face or making it too veiled. The joys of trying to convey things through a limited pov. Hopefully it came out reasonably balanced in the end. Rip to all those sentences that were lovely on their own but didn’t work for the whole. Hopefully I can rehome y’all one day. I do have thoughts for part 3 and part x (might be some chapters between those two as well, who knows at this point), so maybe we'll see those at some point, too. Tag list: @colliope @crystallizsch @diodellet @jamilsimpno69 @jamilvapologist @twstgo If you'd like to be tagged for future works, let me know! (Just be aware that sometimes I do also write nsfw, though you can certainly ask to be tagged only for particular kinds of works.)

[khattikeri]

drives me nuts when people treat jin guangyao or wei wuxian like they're socialist revolutionaries like no! they're not!! in fact their respective roles in society and complacency regarding its hierarchies is why ANY of the story even happens to begin with!!!

jin guangyao doesn't hold bitterness just because he was born lower class. he is bitter because others deride him and his prostitute mother in spite of both their intelligence, skills, and efforts to climb the ladder.

why do you think we were shown scenes of other prostitutes in the brothel deriding meng shi for being literate, for "trying" so hard? why do you think we were shown scenes of anxin taunting meng yao and throwing shit at him because he was trying to learn cultivation at his mother's behest?

why do you think jin guangyao arranged for the arson of that brothel, burned to the ground with everyone except sisi inside? that's not the behavior of someone who believes in true equality and the inherent worth of sex workers as human beings!

that's the behavior of someone who thinks he's better than them. the behavior of a man who already came up on top through political games and war crimes, backstabbing and spying for the sake of the "greater good".

i won't rehash his argument to nie mingjue that he didn't have a choice-- he had some choice, but no matter what he does his class will come up and people will always assume the worst and try to hurt him for it, which forces his hand to do whatever will protect him best (hence 'no choice').

jin guangyao did everything he could to secure his own safety and a place among those already higher up. and by that point, he'd won it.

the fact that the temple rebuilt on the brothel site is to guanyin, the goddess of mercy, is even more ironic! the fact that jin guangyao has the goddess's statue carved to look like his own mother is proof that he viewed both her and himself as higher than them. more worthy than them.

of course he cared about the general welfare of others (read: the watchtowers). but consider also that there is no watchtower near yi city, which ended up being one of xue yang's playgrounds. jin guangyao can and will turn a blind eye to certain sufferings if it is convenient to him.

sure, jin guangyao made undeniable contributions to cultivation society and accessibility, but he is not at any point trying to topple existing class structures. his adherence to them is in fact integral to his own downfall in the end.

it brings with it the inevitability of society conveniently ignoring his triumphs and genuine moments of humanity to deride him once more as an evil, disgusting son of a whore once his crimes come to light.

now for wei wuxian. he's the righteous protagonist of the story and he doesn't give a fuck what society thinks, yes, but he wasn't out there trying to cause an uprising so that all the poor servant classes and lower could become cultivators. he wasn't trying to redistribute wealth or insinuate that those who are lower deserve to be viewed as equal to the gentry.

the most critical and non-explicitly stated fact of mo dao zu shi is that wei wuxian has always been resigned to his position in the social hierarchy.

his unreliable narration, especially regarding his own past and thoughts, is so damn important. he doesn't EVER tell the reader directly that people treated him any which way at their leisure because of his parents' differing social classes.

no. instead we are shown how much prestige he is afforded as cangse-sanren's son-- reputation as a talented and charming young cultivator, made head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang-- and how little respect he is given in the same breath, as the son of servant wei changze.

the way he is treated by others is as fickle as the wind. if he obeys and does as told, there is no reward. of course he did that, that was the expectation to start with! if he does anything even slightly inconvenient, there is a punishment. of course he has no manners, what else would you expect from an ungrateful son of a servant?

wei wuxian's righteousness is not a matter of adhering to principles he was explicitly taught, the way nie mingjue values honor or the way jiang cheng always tries to prove himself. wei wuxian does the right thing regardless of what the consequences are to him because his good deeds are always downplayed and his bad deeds are always singled out, no matter who or how many people were doing it with him.

he has faced this double standard since childhood. there are points in the novel where it's clear that this sticks out to wei wuxian, but does he ever fight back against that view of himself? does he EVER, at any point in the story, explain his actions and choices to jianghu society and try to debate or appeal to their sense of reason?

no. because he knows, at his very core, that any explicit deviation from their interests whatsoever will be punished.

slaughtering thousands of people is fine when they want him to do it, and when the alternative is unjust torture, re-education camps, and encroachment upon other sects' lands.

slaughtering thousands of people who are trying to paint him as evil for not going along with their genocidal plans, however, is punished.

wei wuxian knows his acceptance among the higher classes is superficial and unsteady. from the age of 10, when jiang fengmian took him in, he knew subconsciously that he could be kicked out at any time.

he knows that cultivation society doesn't care about war crimes and concentration camps and mistreatment of the remaining wen survivors of the sunshot campaign. but the right thing to do now that they aren't at wartime is to help them, plus they'd punish him either way for it, so he will.

in this regard wei wuxian is more self-aware of his position than jin guangyao. he does care about common people and he does try his best to help them as an individual. even if that ends up with him disabled, arrested, targeted in sieges, or dead.

but is he revolutionary? in the full equality, fight the establishment, rewrite laws, change social structures and people's perceptions of class sense?

no. no. he isn't.

now my knowledge of chinese society and history is fairly limited to my hindu diaspora upbringing and our shared cultural similarities ... but speaking to what i absolutely know us true, adherence to one's social class is expected.

this is rigid. efforts and merits might bring you some level of mobility, but in the end, the circumstances of your birth will always be scrutinized first, and your behavior compared to the stereotypes of where and how you originate.

mdzs is not about revolution, and none of its characters are able to truly change its society. there is no grand "maybe cutsleeves aren't inherently bad" or "i'm sorry for persecuting you and believing hearsay, you were truly a good person all along!" at the finale.

people ignore history and repeat it again with the next batch of ugly gossip and rumors.

wei wuxian, lan wangji, and luo qingyang find peace only by distancing themselves from cultivation society and its opinions.

jin guangyao and wei wuxian both cannot ever escape from others' perception of their origins and actions. regardless of their personal beliefs, they are not revolutionaries.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

bro the feminine wiles aren’t even a joke like. im with that anon who thought hellfire gala charles was a woman when they first saw him bc same, that design is insaaaane (/pos). how could u not think that when u see it lmfao. idk whose choice it was to give him a corset but the hourglass figure + female coded jawline combo do not lie. i saw it on pinterest and i was like ohhh don’t lie to me i know an anime girl when i see one- WAIT PROFESSOR X????

and that’s not even to mention movieverse charles ofc. we’ve all seen james mcavoy and his big sparkly kawaii anime eyes, i shouldn’t have to say it. charles xavier is never beating the allegations, i fear

gonna need this ask hung in the louvre i fear

[sea-jello]

hong kong miku,,,

[reloaderror]

where is that “engage w academia as god intended”-post

[the-bi-fangirl-biatch]

the entire season they've shown sylvie perpetually being okay to just walk away from the fray and getting no consequences whatsoever. which would be ok since she doesn't rlly care about them like loki does. but in the end she just moves on so fast after she watched loki isolate himself and go off JUST to fix her mistake.......

meanwhile mobius is there, frozen in that time, left behind by the person he's an "expert" on not only bc of his job but bc of their friendship, him quitting the job that was his entire life, because loki has left and his previous purpose didn't have loki anymore

it's just fucked up how everyone else got their happy endings (good for them) except for loki and mobius. they're apart, separated once again, looking miserable in their last shots. just like last season.

[merakiui]

overblot! Riddle nonconning you in front of Ace and Deuce while going on about how this is the only thing a magicless nobody is good for 👍🏼

Omg yes,,,,,,,,

(cw: yandere, gender neutral, nsfw, non-con, humiliation/degradation, public sex)

Amidst a ruined, debris-ridden rose maze, a monster looms. No one dares stray close, lest they find themselves maimed and sent to the grave, and so they can only watch helplessly from the safety of overturned chairs, tables, and uprooted rose trees. The scene was once serene, an almost-perfect Unbirthday. Now it is desolate and bleak, a nightmarish reality that leaves thick, discomforting silence blanketing the grounds.

Riddle casts a grotesquely bone-chilling shadow, and his appearance mirrors that of a creature torn from the pages of a classic horror; that's the only way to describe him: cruel and cold, all sharp, vicious edges and thorns, dripping blot. He's on the verge of a supernova, toeing the line of life and death, a monstrous mage who has reached the consequences of a culmination of excessive magic, spilled over into bitter negativity. The aura that clings to him is, in a word, utterly terrifying.

And you're right there in his shadow, a fragile, caged thing bent down on your hands and knees. Your fingers curl into the grass, tearing clumps. No one dares to speak up, to demand he release you, to fight for your safety and dignity. Hopelessly collared, Ace and Deuce, your closest companions in all of this mess, look on in horror even though they don't mean to.

It's like a tragedy spun right before their eyes. They want to look away, but they can't. It's morbidly ensorcelling.

"Observe!" Riddle's voice booms, commanding absolute obedience and attention. His pallid hips press against your ass while clawed hands dig into your hips, holding you perfectly still. Blood is drawn; it seeps beneath his sharpened nails, leaving painful indents. You feel filthy and fearful, cut down to something small and insignificant and weak. Droplets of blot speckle your backside each time he shifts. It's warm like candle wax, but it doesn't burn.

The betrayal does, though—stains through to your very soul.

You grit your teeth, squeezing your eyes shut in hopes of drifting off elsewhere. Anywhere that isn't here, speared on his cock for all to see, forced into the grass like you're bowing apologetically before the Queen and her card soldiers.

"You lack the key capabilities all mages must possess, and yet you thought it wise to challenge my rules? Here? When my word is law?" He barks out a laugh, sickly amused. Scarlet eyes narrow with disdain. "Perhaps you're as slovenly as you are disobedient. As expected of a disrespectful, magic-less fool who knows nothing! Absolutely nothing of the order I so carefully uphold!"

He pulls back, seething through grit teeth, and snaps his hips forwards. You collapse on shaky arms, gasping in pain.

It hurts more than heartbreak, more than a bruise, more than a slap. Tears spot your lash line, threatening to fall with one more well-aimed, brutal thrust. Spidery fingers dance along your waist, tracing a line towards your neck. He grips your chin and forces you to look upon a crowd of terrified faces, all ogling with bated breath. Ace is watching and so is Deuce, albeit through the cracks in his hands.

"What did you hope to achieve—to prove—by defying me?" he demands, his grip a deadly vise. "That I could be in the wrong? That all I've worked tirelessly for, all that I've done, is wrong?"

"Riddle..." You wince in your futile attempt to pull away. "Riddle, please... I... I'm sorry, but please... You're hurting me..."

He turns your head towards him, eyes ablaze with a furious tempest, and he leans closer, pinning you with startling ease. His cock presses up against your insides, enveloped tightly in your walls, and you shudder through the discomfort and the agony. A single claw traces dangerously close to your jugular.

"Speak up if you have something to say!"

"It hurts!" You gasp again, outright sobbing now. "It hurts! Please..."

"It's a punishment," he sneers, glaring disapprovingly. "It's meant to impart a lesson—one learned through pain. If you understand this, stop sniveling and respond appropriately."

You're not sure which is worse: humiliation at the hands of someone you considered a friendly acquaintance or the fact that, no matter how villainous he may be, you only wish for him to return to himself. You'd never wish this fate on anyone, but maybe it's your too-big heart that makes it impossible to hate him. You don't hate him. You can't.

And perhaps that's the worst part of all this.

You hang your head, defeated and devoid of hope. "Yes, Dorm Leader..."

And so he teaches you and all those who witness the devastating spectacle a lesson neither will ever forget.

Red is passionate and fiery, a reflection of roses and redamancy. But it is not a pleasant color. Not anymore. Not in the aftermath.

Red is the color of Riddle and Heartslabyul and blood and pain and anger. And every time you spy the slowly healing marks from that day, you feel it all over you. Red everywhere, inside and out. Externally, you may heal with all matter of magical cures, but internally it's not an easy fix.

So red is no longer a comfortable color. You wish you could look upon it and admire it for what it is: a color. But that proves impossible, for a color that is so highly revered as pretty does not evoke pretty feelings for you.

[aspennntree]

since we only see the fucking. what do i call it. this thing.

when theyre alone do we think oscar has told the others about these weird merge episodes? because it doesnt seem like they know...

[lord-squiggletits]

Semi related to the other day's post about people calling OP a hypocrite for not wanting to kill people, it also really annoys me how often this fandom (even in corners like MegOP where OP is ostensibly one of the main characters) just disregards or does not care about how Optimus feels. Or seemingly doesn't even comprehend that OP having his own emotions/goals besides validating Megatron/whoever else he's being shipped with or interacing with. Or they think that every time OP is "mean" to someone else it's bad and awful, but when any other character does bad things it's justified because they were upset/hurt.

It's not really a commentary on character apologism or morality so much as it is annoyance that the spaces I've been around in near universally don't give a crap about how Optimus feels ever. Like, to use MegOP as an example since that's my main context of seeing Optimus content, I always see takes like this that only center Megatron's experiences/feelings while completely ignoring anything Optimus feels.

Like. TF One? It's okay for Dee to turn on Orion because he feels betrayed by him "siding with" Sentinel and Orion is such a jerk for banishing him from Iacon. But god forbid that OP might be a little upset about being dropped down a pit by his own best friend (and then said best friend immediately tries to kill him again when he comes back) and want Megatron to get the hell away from him if he's gonna be so violent.

Can't even count the number of examples in IDW1. Megatron is traumatized and oppressed so that means he can do as many crimes as he wants and hurt Optimus as much as he wants because "Optimus should've just listened to him better" never mind that OP literally did listen but no one besides dedicated IDW OP lovers ever points out that OP has a right to be pissed off at Megatron for some of the shit he did to him. People get mad at IDW OP for making Megatron give a speech denouncing the Decepticons because it's mean/controlling/anti-revolutionary or whatever (never mind that OP letting Megatron go free on a space adventure is incredibly permissive and informed by his personal bias towards Megatron) but they could care less about the fact that OP is staying on Cybertron dealing with the remaining Decepticons + shit with the neutrals and might maybe want Megatron to pull his weight deescalating the post-war situation so that Optimus has an easier time trying to manage.

It's very much a thing that heroic characters are held to higher moral standards than villains and grilled over doing similar things that villains are cheered for. But this isn't even some strictly moral thing, it's just. So fucking bizarre how ready people are to demonize Optimus because "he hurt X" or "he got in the way of Y" or "he sided with Z when he should've sided with A" but completely disregard all of the many, usually valid reasons Optimus has for doing what he did! It's all about poor woobies who suffered so much and are doing bad things because they're upset and justified from their perspective. But all of a sudden when it's Optimus, his feelings don't matter and how things look from his perspective (his goals, values, obligations, what he feels is right or wrong, the depression he often has across continuities) doesn't matter either. He did something that made someone else feel bad therefore he's the literal worst who only does things out of hypocrisy/self-righteousness.

It's not like Optimus could ever experience emotions like depression, anger, frustration, fear, loneliness, urgency, etc etc that drive him to do what he does. Optimus has no internal struggles between what he desires as a person versus what he feels is the right thing to do/what he's obligated to do. Getting sympathy for the very real hurt and struggle he experiences is just for every other character except Optimus, I guess. Swear to god the majority of the fandom doesn't actually see Optimus as a character and instead just sees him as a prop to either validate their fave or to act as a scapegoat for whatever's wrong with the plot.

[nattousan]

I officially start as an apprentice at a tattoo shop today!! Yippee!!

i've been drawin on myself and others since I was a kid so i guess this was only natural! I'm very excited and also Very terrified!

I can't help but think about the election coming up and how drastically different my future looks depending on who wins. Nobody's gonna want to get tattoos when they can't afford to live in the even Worse hypercapitalist hellscape trump would turn this country into should he get reelected.

How could i escape a potentially dictatorial country when I've been apprenticing and all my savings are gone? What would happen if he succeeds in banning my existence as a trans man and i'm forced to detransition in the eyes of the law? I really don't see anything being sacred when it comes to human rights for this monster and until we know once and for all that he's out, I will not be able to relax.

Alls I can do right now is make sure i VOTE. That's the one thing that will save us. Vote blue. Vote for the future and our potential to improve things under an imperfect but not outright fascist government. Overwhelm the numbers to where there can be no argument as to who won.

please. make sure to vote.