#he was as nice and polite as expected

[masonjarsmoments]

Happy five year anniversary to me meeting Casper at the Davis Cup in Oslo - where did the time go ?

[crimeronan]

my dad hasn't reached out to me or my siblings Once in the six months since i visited home, but earlier he suddenly texted, "are you voting tomorrow? this is the most important election of our lifetimes"

....when he Knows every single one of his kids is a registered democrat. simply to try to bait us into an argument. because (and i swear to god this is not hyperbolic) he finds it hilarious to make any or all of us cry.

rest assured none of us have responded & are instead talking shit about him in our sibling group chat, but like. Oh My Goddddd. Dad .

[carcarrot]

ok sitting down for a moment at disneyland. elaborating on the post-beat concert shenanigans in the tags

[ineed-to-sleep]

Just as a general life update bc I'm a bit absent lately, but I went on a date on sunday!!! First date with a stranger I ever went to and I nearly died of anxiety I was shaking like a chihuahua but I did it!!!!!!!! LOOK AT ME GO

[dyrewrites]

It's fun to see people shut down when they ask what you do for a living and your answer is, "I write stories."

"Oh, you're an author, anything I'd know?"

"Do you like indie horror shorts?"

*the conversation has ended*

[mymp3]

my poster from the con!

[i-am-kind-of-lost]

Jawan mai tanananananananana

Jawan tu tananananananannaa

[sunless-not-sinless]

so fucking happy jezza got in that i went and told my dogs about it. then i come back to see tumblr's reaction to jezza and fucking nigel got in??? fuck my life

[dnangelic]

dunno how it might be for other darks but all i can say ab mine, personally, is that while it isn't necessarily a spot of insecurity, it can become a point of frustration when he has to like. interact with people and try to get them to listen to him in some way 😭😂. it can depend on his mood but so much of the time he is just yelling and demanding if he ever needs something, and likewise it's hard for him to not butt heads and end up backfiring anything bc he's disagreeable. he doesn't have the same sincerity or tenderness that daisuke always has and he knows it; knows he's arrogant and belligerent and callous and manipulative. which is why so many times when circumstances don't call for that sort of particular approach, he'll leave things to daisuke instead. there's a lot of reliance dai has on dark for things like combat or their heists, or even just hiding and protecting his mundane identity, but the way dark relies on daisuke for his mundane life, so is he tagging out to rely on dai for a lot of interpersonal behaviors. daisuke just doesn't really know it, and has never really realized it, especially since the general excuse dark gives is, 'it's a pain in the ass to do it myself.'

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

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[lord-squiggletits]

One of the thing I love about IDW Op is that he's technically an atheist war pope. It's interesting that he didn't believe in religious aspect himself but was willing to use it for the power. Made his character more complex to me. Do you have opinion on this topic?

I have a lot of mixed feelings about it tbh. On one hand, I think being an atheist/agnostic fits IDW Optimus' character well (I've tried to imagine him as religious and just...can't), but on the other hand, I kind of have a problem with the way most media depicts religious people, and it's a bit disappointing that the Matrix has canonically been associated with multiple miracles (reviving OP and Hot Rod from death, creating new sparks, even Primus/Rung being able to make them) but Optimus still calls the Matrix 'nothing but a bauble' at some point like. Really bro? So there is a part of me that is disappointed at the Matrix being treated as a Plot Device rather than a proper, respectable religious thing. On the other hand, that's just not what the story is about, and I can't call a story/character bad because it didn't go in the exact direction I wanted.

TLDR: I think Optimus being agnostic/atheist makes sense for him, but I really dislike the way it was handled in the story because it feels more like it was used as a plot inciting device than some sort of journey of Optimus trying to discover his purpose. Also, the way he interacts with other religious characters had a lot of wasted potential, so I just feel like it wasn't written in a very interesting way? Basically, the writing is such a mixed bag of interesting concepts with mediocre/bad execution that I can barely focus on the in-universe implications and mostly just get mad at Barber's writing.

My feelings are also complicated by the fact that I don't like Barber's writing at all (it's like 90% dislike and 10% like) because of how bad he is about prioritizing plot over character emotions and stuff. Earlier on in phase 2 it seemed as if Optimus was genuinely curious about his religious role as a Prime and asked the Camiens for guidance on who he should be as Prime (Windblade, Aileron, the Mistress of Flame). In Death of Optimus Prime, OP literally wished he was dead when he woke up. He made a very big deal about how he's Orion now, not Optimus. In Dark Cybertron he had a whole crisis about whether he's Orion or Optimus. Basically, he was set up to have a huge identity crisis (especially since the war is over and leadership of Cybertron fell to Starscream), but any amount of introspection was quickly derailed into PLOT PLOT PLOT OPTIMUS ANNEXES EARTH AND FIGHTS GALVATRON. The story just devolved into bullshit plot on Earth that was just action, action, plot, things happening, with pretty much no room for the characters to stop and breathe and talk and have relationships with each other. I barely felt any emotional investment for most of exRID.

I think the only scenes we got with Optimus actually getting to reflect on this new role of his was 1. when he first met Aileron and asked her and 2. when he's telling Aileron he doesn't believe and then Pyra Magna comes in and gets mad at him.

Speaking of Pyra Magna, the story writing also annoyed me because from the moment she was introduced, Pyra Magna was SUPER self-righteous about how she should be the Prime instead of Optimus and she said that she would try to make Optimus into a better Prime. But then guess what happens? Her and Optimus barely talk and Pyra Magna is basically just there to form Superion and punch people :/ And then later on when Onyx Prime is introduced, all the sudden Pyra Magna goes from having strong opinions about what a True Prime should be and believing she's destined to be the true Prime........ to talking about how she's never trusted Primes and she left the Mistress of Flame for trusting a Prime too quickly??? I know Pyra Magna isn't Optimus, but the reason I'm bringing her up is because she seemed truly religious and opinionated, she SAID she was going to "teach" Optimus things, she seemed like she was set up to be a rival to Optimus, but instead they barely have interactions and the ones they do have early in the series end up being retconned later by Barber's shitty writing that puts plot over consistent character development so. :/ I really expected Pyra Magna and Optimus to have some meaningful interactions, some mix between a rivalry and a mentor/student situation, but instead all she does is shit on him like half the case of exRID/OP and it just made me mad.

(There was also Slide who went from worshipping Optimus to saying that his leadership style is "literally fascism" and monologuing about how Optimus is a conqueror while fighting Unicron and Trypticon is being killed in the background. She's so fucking annoying and comically stupid that I genuinely thought she was going to betray them or do something evil just because she was so unhinged.)

But if you want my actual in-universe opinion on atheist pope Optimus, I do think it's an interesting concept. It shows off Optimus' sense of duty where even though HE doesn't believe, he thinks that what other people think of him his more important. He sees that being a religious figure can help him do what he thinks is right, so he willingly plays that role as a means to a greater end. He's already a "patriot and hero" to the Autobots thanks to his military feats; he's used to being venerated (sometimes to unhealthy degrees) and knows how powerful his influence can be whenever he makes political decisions. I think that he basically saw the Camiens' worship of him as just a new form of the admiration he was already used to receiving. He's spent his whole life commanding armies so simply adopted the colonists into his ranks as well.

(Also, side note, it's so fucking hypocritical for Pyra Magna to call Optimus a piece of shit for "using belief, but not believing" only for her herself to admit a few volumes later that she's never trusted Primes. Why do you wanna be one so badly then if you think Primes are so awful? If it's because you think you could do a better job than past Primes, that literally makes you the same as Optimus, who is also trying to redeem the title of Prime, so you have no right to be punching Optimus in the face lmao. But I also genuinely can't tell if that hypocrisy is supposed to be deliberate or if Barber just did what he usually did and ignored character emotion/motivation/self-reflection in favor of shoving some backstory in for Pyra Magna that tied her to Onyx Prime.)

At least Optimus tried to discourage the blind worship and used the Camiens to do things he had already spent his whole life doing (fighting genocidal colonizers aka Decepticons and protecting organic lives) so I don't really see it as out of line for Optimus. It shows how IDW OP can be a politician as well as a military leader. I think it shows how Optimus can be clever and take advantage of his reputation to achieve his political goals (protecting Earth) and it makes him a more realistic character. Sometimes things that are good aren't done through noble means. Sometimes people do good things by being not very nice.

Also, for what it's worth, I think IDW OP is less manipulative than someone like Starscream, who constantly flaunted his "Chosen One" status while admitting he didn't believe in it (or wavering in his belief) and doing things like creating secret police and trying to kidnap sparklings. Like damn at least Optimus risked his life in the same battles he asked his followers to fight in, he ruined his reputation for the sake of protecting Earth from the Decepticons. Even if the guy is an atheist pope at least he puts his own ass on the line for things he believes in for the sake of protecting people who pretty much hate him lmao. That's why I'm more inclined to view Optimus sympathetically; he's living a lie for political means, but his politics are literally "protect humans and Earth from the bullshit war and destruction Cybertronians forced onto their planet", and the burden of leadership is making him depressed and passively suicidal, and eventually he literally sacrificed himself by jumping into a black hole to save millions/billions of people so like. Let the guy fucking rest lmao.

[felinenthusiast]

sigh. realising an understanding about one of my favourite characters of all time has just greatly shifted. i need to reconfigure my entire brain because this character has changed sexual orientation to me lol

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

pictured: banner 69, featuring dimitri and claude, and the third wheel placed by edelgard because she was sick of third wheeling their kissing

don’t tell me they aren’t kissing, bc they were kissing here too

[hiveswap]

Girl who is not breaking the cycle <- hasn't spoken to her grandmother in months for a good reason and felt the skin peel off her face just texting "hi how are you" to her dad despite promising to keep contact for the sake of her baby sister if not anything else

[leatherbookmark]

still thinking abt that post from like a coupla days (?) ago bringing up the fact that a little girl called zira a faggot in the original g0mens book. like damn that should have been in the show

[palms-upturned]

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