#hi i'm mentally ill about this guy

[nebulilli]

Hi borderlands fandom I redesigned borderlands 3 Rhys Strongfork for a school assignment. Hire me gearbox.

[waitineedaname]

my inner monologue is just always thinking about ritsu way too hard

[tvckerwash]

random head canon I just came up with: tucker complaining about the meta suit being tight in the crotch is supposed to be a dick joke, but I think it's way funnier if it's supposed to be tight because that's how armor works: if its too loose you risk being injured because of things being knocked around when impacts are made, lessening the effects of the armor absorbing and distributing the force, so you don't want a bad fit. tucker wouldn't know that though because he's been wearing flowers armor, which was custom fit for flowers, and when they got new armor in s6, they used the measurements of the old armor, so tucker's been wearing improperly fit armor the entire series—which is a level of stupidity only the reds and blues could accomplish.

[lord-squiggletits]

Y'know the thing about writing feral/unhinged versions of Orion/Optimus, is that you can't go too far into the feral/unhinged direction to a point where OP's core character traits are lost or become too diminished. After all, in a multiple-continuity franchise like TF, part of what makes the stories make sense is that even if details change (sometimes major details), the characters are still recognizably themselves to one degree or another. (Although this isn't always the case due to executive meddling or some characters being such blank slates from their initial G1 appearances that there's basically nothing to model them off of, but I digress.)

It's pretty much another reason why I love IDW1 Optimus, bc he literally is a canonical feral/unhinged Optimus who's unhinged as a direct consequence of who he is as a person and what he's been through. Like, he still has those fundamental character traits of trying his best to be moral and make good choices, trying to be a role model, etc, except after 4 million years of war and untreated depression he's basically holding onto his sense of self by his fingertips. So when he "goes feral" e.g. losing his temper and beating up/killing people or saying hurtful things, he's feral in a way that's directly tied to his normal personality and not just as a random quirk he has.

IDW OP's feral moments arise from the gaps between "Optimus' attempts to be who he thinks he needs to be" and "the reality of the world that he can't fix/seems to only make worse" that cause him to lose hope, or become cynical, or lose his temper. But in this case, the unhinged-ness makes perfect sense because it arises out of Optimus trying and failing to be the best person or to make the most morally good choices he's trying to make. Basically, the "feral/unhinged" label is just another way of me trying to say that he's not just unhinged because he's weird or because he's a bad person, but because it's an emotional reaction (more like an emotional explosion due to pent-up emotions) to the context he exists in.

I'd also say that IDW OP's personality being generally reserved/stoic and (trying to be) noble works in tandem with those moments he has of going feral because it makes him more realistic. His psyche is treated in a way where the writers are like, "Hey what if the pressure of having to be everyone's idol and be the best person in the galaxy at all times actually broke Optimus down mentally and emotionally?" It makes IDW OP far more relatable. Instead of naturally being a perfect Christ-like figure who never wavers in his morals or convictions and is just naturally a nice person who always has the wisest and best answer, being a good person is something that IDW OP has to consciously strive to be. Even when he feels like it's useless, or the cycle of violence will never stop, or any attempts he makes to help only ends up with things becoming worse.

And I feel like this does a service not only to IDW Optimus as a character, but also as a sort of moral/philosophical perspective for the reader to ponder upon? I feel like culture at large (or at least my experience of it) tends to believe that "goodness" in a person is simply an innate feature that people are born/not born with, and that being "good" means that you must be good at all times, both in your actions as well as the way you feel emotionally about yourself and the world. Like, there's a tendency for our vision of "a good person" to be good in every aspect at all times without having to try to be a good person. So I think IDW Optimus' character stands as a good example of how someone can be good at heart but still struggle to maintain those feelings of optimism and hope and justice. It's a good idea to have such a paragon of a character (in-universe and out-of-universe) be so conflicted and to even be mistaken, misguided, or make things worse because it shows that goodness is as much about "trying to behave/act in a way that is good" and not just "existing as an innately good person."

It's way more realistic for a person to want to be good, try to be good, and sometimes/often fail than it is for them to just be a good person. I enjoy the fact that IDW Optimus is both a good person at heart, but also has to strive to be a good person and live up to other people's expectations of what they see in him. I like how he wants to be a good person and change society for the better, but he also spends a good amount of time either feeling hopeless and alone or being angry at/detached from other people because of how frustrated they make him. He's realistically portrayed as someone who wants to be good and hopeful and change things for the better, but is also mentally and emotionally broken by that burden because of how impossible it is for him to Fix Everything and be the Perfect Prime/Leader/Autobot that people see him as. It's this fascinating mixture of "yes, this is who he is as a person" but also "there are things he desires to be that he could never possibly become or live up to."

This got really far off based from feral/unhinged Optimus sdklfjaslkdlfkas. The TLDR is that if people want unhinged OP, I feel like they should give IDW OP a chance because he IS unhinged but he's unhinged in a way that's a realistic/thematic representation of how being an Absolute Good is impossible. And how being a good person isn't just about Existing And You Are A Good Person, but rather goodness is a constant state of flux in which you adjust, you make mistakes, you lose your temper and feel hopeless, but then you pick yourself up and try again.

Also IDW OP really likes climbing in dangerous wilderness and jumping out of flying vehicles which I think is very feral and sexy of him to do.

[itz-pandora]

Huh. If my life was a quote, it'd be "one of those sad ones with a deceptively happy tune"

[artificial-ascension]

Am I insane or is Rin's satanic lineage a metaphor for aggression and social misconduct caused by mental illnesses and the mental illnesses stigmatized by these symptoms??? I don't know how to word it perfectly but like.

1. People treat him like a horrible monster the second they learn of his condition, regardless of how much they liked him before

2. As a child, he was written off and shunned for being 'evil' because of actions he couldn't understand as good or bad because he was a literal child

3. Furthermore, he struggles to understand how to connect with and rely people because he's always been shunned which makes him come off as even more 'creepy and weird'

4. His abilities make it hard for him to do nomal tasks (such as hold down jobs)

5. People judge his powers and how he uses them as evil because some other guy also used him for evil

And that's off the top of my head. Like... he just sounds so much like someone with ASPD, autism, schizophrenia, ect, who exhibits aggression or a lack of empathy or psychosis or any other symptom that can make it difficult to exist in 'regular society.'

I have no idea if this was the intended reading, but the way they talk about how hard it is for everyone to live with him and how people doubt if it's worth the trouble to let him live is really reminiscent to me of how people discuss those of us with neurodivergences that make us hard to get along with.

[mad-hunts]

barton being awkward at first or even completely throughout a whole interaction whenever he's trying to comfort people is so in character for him TBH and let me tell y'all why because i think it's important to his character:

he can fake a lot of things. barton can fake being nice to people, he can fake being innocent, and he can even fake having a much stronger sense of morality around people if he wants to — but whenever it comes to empathizing with someone on an emotional level... barton finds himself often struggling with faking it because of the nature of it. and this is due to it being different than whenever he's trying to feign something easily comprehensible like innocence. but empathy is something that's usually viewed as innate in us as humans and has to do with love, which doesn't depend on logic. it's something that comes from within, so it doesn't have clear parameters as to how you should do it, so whenever barton tries to fake it in the event that he's trying to make someone feel better; he'll stumble. and so although barton can cognitively empathize with someone, his efforts to actually put himself in other people's shoes fall flat, as he just can't physically imagine himself being in someone else's position probably more than half the time.

so if your muse were to ever come to him seeming upset, barton would likely not know what to do / how to comfort them, at least for a bit before referencing back on how he's seen other people do it. because i hate to say it (i don't, in reality, but y'all know what i mean LOL) but barton does actively mimic behaviors that he sees people do whenever he feels the absence of a certain emotion. he especially does this whenever he's trying to appear charming to other people, but like i said, he'll also try to use what he's seen his peers do as a guide as for what he should do in regards to empathy. and sometimes he may even seem a bit flustered before he's able to do this because he knows that it is expected of him to be able to empathize with people and can identify it in other people BUT knowing how to approach faking it has always been sort of hard for him even as an adult.

but yeahhh, that's just my own two cents about how barton sometimes break character that he is quote unquote ' normal, ' though he does try to mask this around people who aren't really familiar with him as simply being social awkwardness. however, it is part of a larger thing with him as despite the fact that he can blend in with the population REALLY well and also is pretty good at manipulating others, i suppose you could say that barton is still not an expert at ' constructing empathy ' because whenever someone is visibly hurt in front of him... he is more liable to act like he isn't sure what to do, than to put on an act immediately since he is likely to feel nothing first before anything else. and i realize that that is a rather unsettling thought, but i think that he is a lot more suspectible to doing this with people he doesn't know well / who he isn't particularly close to, as he's got a lot more practice with being falsely empathetic towards friends and/or sometimes even family members.

[suffercerebral]

me having gone to bed at 6 am every day for the past week and generally spiraling mentally while rotting in bed waking up this morning: a 4 mile hike in the heat is a really good idea right now, and while we're at it let's start like 3 art projects

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I think I accidentally made Wriothesley AuDHD. fuck

[hussyknee]

I miss when different things used to happen. Memes and movies and discourse and world crises and celebrity drama and political discourse and disaster and more memes and such. Now it's just genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide,

[seithr]

powerful sorcerer with magical storm blood who can still magic and rend minds and transform people btw

[trans-leek-cookie]

when I think about Geto Suguru i want to kill and torture him when I think about Mimiko and Nanako I want to kms. You give me twins who went from physical abuse to being in a cult and you don't even give them the grace of the guy who is basically Their Dad But Worse dying while they're alive? You just kill the bc. Fucking. Idk they fed him some fingers. You don't let them live without their fucking garbage dad who I want to kill and torture? You waste their potential? You waste the girls who could be really fascinating parallels to Maki and Mai? Twins with similar name schemes who suffer extreme abuse and their abusers are all massacred by one person- but while Mimiko and Nanako are everything to each other, Maki and Mai were pitted against each other and only able to connect at the last possible moment? Mimiko and Nanako were saved but Maki was saved by Mai, and then had to save herself??? I'm going to start killing innocent people at random.

[the-moogle-of-your-nightmares]

you know. 'i am posting about IDing as a system and my experiences with being one, so i can look at back at it later when i'm thinking it was Just a Phase again and tell myself That's the Repression Devil Talking, We Said It Publicly Now No Takebacks' feels in hindsight like a very plural thing to do lmao

[birdsandcake]

She's such a girl

[calronhunt]

Oc question! What was Condor's childhood like? Or if that's a spoiler, how does he feel about his scars?

not spoilers! Condor grew up in a totally normal family, with his mom, his dad, and his two sisters. They lived out in the woods on their own, outside of a colony. Condor has always had a crazy high prey drive. like. a REALLY high prey drive. anything smaller than him he wants to catch and kill and such. This at first was great because he was a great hunter for his family and they praised him all the time for how much food he brought in. Now, condor isn't. the smartest guy. I hope i've gotten that across. Awful stats in both Wisdom and Intelligence.

Hunting prey was fun but it wasn't all that exciting after a while. So eventually he started hunting other cats! He kept it a secret from his family, just a side condor funtime, until his sister found him killing a cat, so he killed her! He couldn't stand the idea of the rest of his family hating him for the rest of their lives, so he killed them too! They can't hate him or be afraid of him if they're dead! Condor's scars from his ear, his lip and his front leg are from the tussle.

That whole thing did deeply traumatize Condor, but it also started Condor's extreme cheery nature. He was always a bit jolly and such, but it ramped up really bad after that. Without the worry of his family not liking what he was doing, he was able to go full hog on anything he wanted to do. You can be happy doing anything when you don't have to worry about the disgust and fear in your mother's eyes as you tear someone to shreds.

[powerfulkicks]

fucccccckkkkkk i really need to write that octet video essay that's been percolating in my head for years