#i also think i'm very lucky that i had to 'learn' that awareness vs.

[not-poignant]

Everyone can feel however they want about any character etc etc obligatory disclaimer... that said, I do wonder how people would feel about Temsen if he was white. It's the same thing I wondered when I saw some comment reactions to Kadek back when he was introduced in FFS.

I'm a big fan of Temsen, btw. The way he talked about both Efneisen and Gary's abusive actions was really responsible and useful, and I love characters who have both an upright moral core and the smarts to be able to take actions effectively.

Hi anon!

Yeah I do...sometimes have these moments as well. I also have the self-reflective 'am I writing POC too often as assholes' and then think about Eran and Leo and some of the other characters I've written and it's like okay, I don't think it's necessarily that specifically (though there's always room for improvement) and I really really do like writing hot assholes dsfjkaf

I also love Temsen, I love characters who are just really complicated but ultimately still doing their version of their best. And that anon might not have been thinking of the race factor at all, but it is something that also occasionally plays in the back of my mind because after 10 years of writing, there is a certain kind of 'he just rubs me the wrong way' that characters like Eran, Kadek, and Temsen have gotten just a little bit more than some of the other characters (and on the flipside, the 'oh I didn't know they were POC' which is...a whole...*sighs* - probably at its most painful when it's fanart so you know someone's put a lot of effort into something but also blanked the description of a character's skin colour and features at the same time) - I guess there's just an awareness? Also an awareness of my role in what I'm perpetuating as a white person because realistically I will unfortunately fuck it up too.

I am team 'give anon the benefit of the doubt' because I do canonically write Temsen to be unnerving and intimidating and I do think some readers will be a lot more receptive to / sensitive to that than others. But yeah, I also think this is a really understandable thing to wonder? It's a crunchy space to be in, because I also think Temsen's hitting the mark if he is unnerving some people as a character, just like Gary does. A sort of 'I like it when disabled / POC / queer people can all be hot assholes' lol

But in this instance like, in addition, Temsen has been one of the least directly harmful characters in the entire cast in terms of his actions and I do think about that a lot.

I think until society gets better about racism and decolonisation gets way way way way further it's just a normal thing to wonder about tbh.

(And on an aside, I am glad that the sentiment largely swung towards very positive towards Kadek by the end of FFS. He's one of my favourite side characters that I've written in a while, and I'm hoping to write more with him in side stories one day).

Also re: the talk he gave Efnisien, that has honestly helped Efnisien so much. Him stepping into his strength and consciously thinking about it has directly led to so much of the positive growth he's experienced in the last like 10 chapters. It was so needed, even if the timing wasn't great, Temsen really delivered on that front.

[fuck-customers]

Sorry in advance. This one is gonna be REAL long and vent-y.

So I currently have a retail job that I've been at for 4 years. I'll be honestly, it's never been a great job and since it's retail, I obviously never intended to stay there forever. Honestly, I've stayed there longer than I intended to, due to a lot of disasters in my personal life. (legal battles, house fire, homelessness) And because it was easier to just stay at a job that I already had and was already established and trained and knew the drill vs. going through these personal disasters at a new job, trying to give a good impression and perform well while hiding the fact that I'm miserable and going through a lot of difficulties that I do not want to bring into work/have bosses or coworkers be aware of. (I feel very hesitant to share any personal info at work, because I worry that any shared info not work-related can be used against me, in minor and major ways. But perhaps I'm being unnecessarily paranoid.)

However, after all this time of me dragging my feet, it is unfortunately clear to me that I am going to have to get another job. My job was always part-time (with a promise that was a lie about being promoted to full-time with good performance) but now my hours have majorly decreased from 12-30 hours per week when I was first hired, to now getting 3-6 hours EVERY OTHER WEEK.

So now I have begrudgingly resigned myself to accept the fact that I need to apply for jobs. I'm terrified. I've accepted it, but I'm terrified.

I don't have very much work experience. I had a seasonal job before my current job (3 months) and I've been at my current job for (a bit over) 4 years, which looks good because it shows loyalty, commitment, blah, blah, blah. But that's IT. 2 jobs. No degree or license or qualifications. I was in a few clubs in high school, but I'm too old to be listing my high school achievements. I can't afford college. And I know that a lot of job applications have auto-delete programs that will just trash an application if it doesn't have the correct buzzwords...but how am I supposed to know the correct buzzwords? I've also heard about ghost listings where companies post job listings they never intend to fill so they get a tax write off or whatever. (Idk if this is true, but the idea is enough to terrify me) I also have a hearing disability and I suspect (but am undiagnosed) that I have a learning/neurological disability, possibly ADHD or mild autism.

So there's ALL THAT weighing on my mind. And then on top of all of that, I'm scared out of my mind about my own personal situation.

I figure I can probably fake it well enough for the first week or so, maybe the first month if I'm really crafty and lucky (I figure I can get through the application process by listing my P.O. box as an address without putting that it's a P.O. box. And I have a lot of clothes from before becoming homeless that I can change into so I'm not constantly wearing the same clothes) but eventually people at this hypothetical new job will figure out that I live in a car (I can change my outfits and use dry shampoo on my hair, but trust me, from experience I know that I can really only go about a week and a half without a proper shower before it becomes very noticeable, no matter how much dry shampoo I use. I am a female woman with medium-length hair, for perspective) and will treat me differently and disrespect me and treat me as less than human. Or possibly take advantage of me, shoving extra work on me because I "need the money" and making me a scapegoat. Or worse, firing me. Sure, it's illegal (I think) but if they really want you gone, they can find any minor mistake you have made (and being new at a job, I will likely make a few) and use that as an excuse to fire me. Or lay me off due to "budget cuts" or some bullshit. If they want you gone, they can make it happen.

But most importantly, I don't feel good about myself. I've never had particularly high self-esteem, but in past interviews, I was able to list positive traits of mine and spin the less positive ones in a good light.

But now I don't even remember a positive thing about me. It doesn't help that my mother (whose car I live in) puts me down every chance she gets. Every day, she calls me a loser with a dead-end job and tells me I need to get a new job, without listening to what I tell her I need from her to do so. (She doesn't have a job, but of course that's not a problem) For example, I do not have word on my laptop. I need to go somewhere (library? the paperclips store? Unfortunately the work network place in my area that used to help with job applications, resumes, etc shut down) to use a computer with word to update my resume, as the one I have on my computer does not have my current job. (I tried to use the online version...what a nightmare. Also, sure there ARE resume websites where you can use their templates and make your resume....for a price. Usually $50+ that I can't afford for something I will use exactly once.) She refuses to help, even though I think her laptop has word, but I am not certain, and instead just repeats the same things over and over like a broken record. "You need to get a better job." "You're going to die a loser at a dead-end job if you don't quit." "You need to get a full-time job." (Sidenote: she herself has not even glanced at job listings. There are NO full-time jobs available, unless you are a licensed professional, a doctor, nurse, teacher, etc.)

But despite all of that, I need a new job. I held our for the holidays, thinking with the holiday rush, I'd get more hours and I could use that to keep me afloat while looking for a new job in the new year. Well. Our hours continually got CUT during the holidays and I suspect the store may go out of business and I do not want to still work there when it does. (Even though I would LOVE to watch it burn) The harsh reality is that I need a new job. I just have absolutely no faith that I can find anything much better than my current job. I expect the most I'll find is part-time of 20-30 hours per week, which is still better than 3-6 every other week, but I truly need a full-time job. Which will not happen.

Posted by admin Rodney.

[autogeneity]

yeah, I agree with Catherine Hawkins's comment:

This is how I interpreted Linden, too. I don't think we actually feel emotions that much of the time, or at least not strongly enough to really register. Your brain kind of interpolates between the emotional moments to create a general sense of how you feel, and I think that interpolation is biased to be positive for most people. For example, if I had a timer go off every 10 minutes today and I had to record my emotions, I probably spent far more time neutral or vaguely annoyed than happy today. There were dumb emails, it was cold in my office, I was tired after lunch. But if someone asked me how I felt about the day, I would say it was good - I feel basically contended and satisfied and I'm not thinking about those small irritations. My brain's general abstraction of the day is more positive than a second-by-second inventory of my feelings would suggest. So, encouraging people to monitor their feelings so closely can interfere with that positive abstraction process and make their life seem more negative.

I am usually broadly happy, and I'd say on average most of my days are pretty pleasant. if someone has actually not had a single pleasant day in a decade, that would be much more troubling to me (whether depression or shit life syndrome).

but on a moment-to-moment basis I highly doubt most people's moments are overwhelmingly full of positive feelings. I actually did attempt a form of 'mindfulness' intermittently for a time, which involved being very aware of your internal state. most individual moments are not pleasurable! even the things I find highly rewarding include a significant portion of time spent not experiencing the feeling of happiness.

I think it can be valuable to actively spend some time experiencing that feeling — this is probably the notion behind gratitude journalling and so on, but simply trying to pay attention to how I'm feeling all the time is not going to spark joy.

also I find the combination of this incredibly perplexing:

Because emotions are normally pretty accurate, consistently ignoring your emotions shuts you off from an important source of knowledge. Maybe you’re always angry at your boss because she’s mistreating you. Maybe you dread hanging out with your frinds because you don’t like them very much.

vs

Perhaps Abigail Shrier’s experience interviewing Linden was legitimately immiserating; I myself would be unhappy if I had to talk to Linden. But, I suspect, she could have said to herself: “I’m a competent professional who’s good at my job. I’m so lucky that I’m paid to talk to some of the world’s greatest experts about whatever I’m curious about. I’m adeptly balancing work and raising three children. I’m learning new things about the world.” With that self-narrative, would being a bit tired and not being pretty enough really be the most important thing?

like, or, maybe she should realize that 5am rushed video calls isn't how she wants to be living. alternatively, maybe when you're angry at your boss for potentially mistreating you, you should think about all the nice things about your job. are your emotions important, mostly-accurate indicators, or should you be trying to think your way into feeling happy when you're not?

I may as well share my semi-effortful (though rambly) comment on one of Ozy's recent posts criticizing Amanda Shrier on her recent anti-therapy-culture book, as I imagine more people might see or interact with it here than in that comments section. What I'm most interested in here is, what does it mean to experience the emotion of happiness?

I learned of Shrier's existence and her book from seeing her interviewed by Coleman Hughes on his podcast, and I thought throughout that interview Shrier sounded like she was made of good common sense (it helps that I'm already broadly in sympathy with wanting to push back against what we might call "very online therapy culture" which Ozy seems also to be in agreement with), with an exceptional moment here or there: for instance, at some point one of them (I think it was Coleman) seemed to imply that it's good when children are slightly scared of their parents. While there may be some empirical evidence somewhere that children who are slightly scared of their parents stay on the straight-and-narrow and have more positive life/career outcomes or something, this idea still massively creeps me out. But still, overall in conversation, Shrier comes across as reasonable. I think this sequence of posts tearing apart her parenting beliefs as expressed in her book (unless a bunch of these quotes are grossly taken out of context in some way I can't see) show that she's less reasonable "in writing" and that her more deliberate beliefs that she expresses in her work represent a pushback that is righteous initially but goes to an unfortunate far extreme in the other direction. The part of her interview that stuck in my mind the most, actually, was her line about "We used to ask kids such-and-such; now we ask them about their feelings all the time", which wasn't something that had occurred to me before but I was open to where she was coming from. So I find the response to it in the end of this article interesting. I don't say this with much confidence, but I tend to feel more like Shrier on the issue of how often we're actually feeling the emotion of happiness, although I don't think I'm clinically depressed or at all prone to it (although I have a rather negative outlook at the moment about my future prospects and the world in general which may prevent me from feeling much wholehearted happiness, but that goes for a lot of us. I think perhaps a majority of people relate more to Shrier here. Just yesterday or so, I saw a post from a Tumblr mutual saying they haven't had a single actually *pleasant* day in years like they used to in the 2010's, only "good given the worse background situation" days. This seems to relate to the same idea. Maybe due to recent shifts in world events most of us have moved in that direction? I don't know.) I would suggest actually from reading the end of this article that the difference might come not from psychological make-up but from a disagreement over the definition what it means to feel happiness, where Ozy's definition aligns more with what Shrier and I would call "feeling okay".

[kiranatrix]

Hi! hey I was just wondering, if L is someone who in the manga sees himself as a person who solves cases for fun and addresses what he does as "not justice at all" then isn't that an inconsistency on his character? bc like, on the first chapters of the manga he stated "justice will prevail" and in L: Wammy's house he has a line that says "I'm justice" so I guess I was just curios, does L really cares at all about justice? or is he just fulfilling a personal liking by solving cases?

Oh I’m sure L believes at points that he’s ‘justice’, but what that looks like to him isn’t just from a neutral point of view. Justice to L is triumph, not completely fair and legal dealings born from a desire to right a wrong. That doesn’t mean he’s evil or doesn’t value life. But L is self-aware about what motivates him, if you consider Near a reliable narrator (I do), and he tells the Wammy kids as much in Chapter 109:

Solving cases is his hobby and he considers himself responsible for many crimes, but it’s fun!

L repeats these same ideas in the main manga so we don’t just have to rely on Chapter 109. The above statement is one of the first things we learn about L. He has a reputation for refusing boring cases, and this is well-known in the policing world, as mentioned by Soichiro early in the manga.

[I always laugh a little that they think L wears suit pants and snappy dress shoes like James Bond]

L only takes the cases he’s personally interested in, “otherwise, forget it.” So he’s turned important cases down, ones he could have solved, because he wasn’t interested or it didn’t seem fun for him. We can see from INTERPOL’s chatter that they don’t reach out to L lightly, he’s almost like a last resort.

His justice isn’t that reliable when it comes to what they need, but they got lucky with the Kira case since L was chomping at the bit for it. And of course the other big statement L tells the Wammy Kids he repeats to the Task Force is that he hates to lose (which is how he magically knows Kira is also like that). So I think we can take L at his word that he is not justice.

Other aspects of that Wammy’s speech bear out in L’s actions in the manga— the crimes, the lies, considering it a game. I don’t need to list out all the unjust things L does that contradict being capital-J Justice, but he shows again and again how the ends justify the means, even if it results in doing something illegal or morally wrong. In that Wammy’s House one-shot line you mention, his claim is ironic since he’s literally just committed violence on half a dozen kids for the crime of trying to cuddle him lol. It’s a childish belief that justice means exerting force to get your own way, but easily excusable in a kid. But while L grew up he never quite outgrew that. Real justice isn’t whatever you want at that time, others be damned, that’s just selfishness.

Let’s also consider the other detectives that L has put out of commission, Eraldo Coil and Deneuve (that we know of). Someone purely interested in justice would find no satisfaction or need to knock others out of the crime-fighting scene, the more detectives means more cases solved, right? MORE justice! Haha, no, that’s not how L sees it. They are competitors to him in this game, and thus must also be triumphed over and cast aside, their aliases commandeered like trophies.

Not that the intention of Ohba matters that much here since he prefers to let readers decide these things, but he too says L is not just (and even a lil bit evil). Justice is not a monolithic notion where there’s only one obvious ‘side.’ That’s how both L and Light see their battle but neither can look outside themselves as arbiter. Ohba had some fun with us readers framing Light vs L’s ‘justice’ as two sides, two ‘teams’ for readers to choose between and root for, then letting both sides fail. The joke being that neither side was justice and whoever won would only do that, WIN.

Does all this un-justice-like behavior contradict L’s sense of self? No, I don’t think so. I think L knows why he’s doing it (for fun, to win) but he can ALSO believe he’s in the right. He had a very high personal interest in catching Kira, but he also believed stopping him was the right thing to do.

I’m afraid all this sounds like I’m dogging L when he’s my second fav character— I really love him, and even moreso because he realizes what drives him, accepts it, and doesn’t make excuses about it. But no one human being exemplifies justice, and by the very act of declaring yourself to be that, it’s falsified. Perhaps Ohba really played up these grandiose declarations early on (which appeared less and less from L as the manga went on) to highlight how similar Light and L were in their thinking despite being on opposite sides. L saying, “I’m going to catch you because that sounds like a really fun time!!!” has a less dramatic ring to it than making some noise about justice lol. It elevates the stakes of the game for readers and served L’s purpose better (provoking Kira).

[bondsmagii]

you got any advice on like. not getting attached to people. I always feel like my friends mean way more to me than I do to them and it sucks. I mean they're not bad people or bad friends but it's always "you mean a lot to me, I think of you almost like family and I'd go out of my way for you" vs "you're nice to hang out with but you aren't a priority" and I feel like I'm being a clingy freak

man, not gonna lie, I have the same problem. by nature I’m just a very intense person, and this carries over into all aspects of my life. I care very deeply and I love very easily, and I’m well aware that not everyone is... on my level with that, I guess. this isn’t to speak badly of them; it’s just I am very intense, and really? I can’t expect everyone to give me the same level of intensity as I give them. I would love it if that were the case, but I recognise that with me personally, it’s just not something that other people naturally do. my level of intensity isn’t exactly normal, so I can’t possibly expect everyone to match me.

it does suck. sometimes it makes me feel very alienated and lonely, and sometimes it makes me feel taken advantage of. it’s very easy to get into a spiral of “I love you so deeply and so intensely, and yet you don’t give that same amount of effort back”. even knowing what I know about myself, I still get sad over it sometimes. but over the years I’ve learned to take a step back and realise that just because people aren’t showing their affection in the way I would show mine, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I call this concept “love language”. we all “speak” love differently. it’s great when you find someone who speaks the same love language as you, but very often that isn’t the case. loving someone -- partners, family members, friends, whoever -- means learning their love language. and you’d be surprised what you find.

to use an example: I love very deeply, but I’m not overly physically affectionate. I do, however, like spending relaxed time with the person I love. my fiance @karlacton had to learn that while I might not be very cuddly, when I want to sit with him on the couch and watch creepy video marathons with him and have snacks and joke around, that’s my version of affection. that’s my love language. this is obviously not something that can be done all the time, so sometimes I would get sad because we just didn’t have time to do that, and I worried something was wrong. then I noticed that no matter how busy Acton is, he always brings me tea, several times a day, made just the way I like it. that’s his love language. and once I noticed this, I started noticing all the little things we do in a day that show we care about one another; it suddenly seemed a lot more mutual.

I started noticing the same thing with my friends, too. I love them all incredibly deeply, though I don’t show this as much as I would like because I recognise it could be quite stifling or come across as too strong, especially if they don’t realise I even see them as friends (newsflash: if you’re my mutual, you’re my friend. also to the other people I don’t follow back because I think you’re too cool: you are also my friend, and hopefully I’ll just hit that follow button soon). but I noticed they tag me in things, they think of me, they tell me funny things they think I’ll appreciate, they’re excited to share their projects and aesthetics with me. it all adds up. I know that when you’re like us, though, it might not seem enough. we have to weigh things up and consider if we’re alright being this way, or if the apparent imbalance hurts too much. with some people, it is an imbalance, and it’s best to not have such people in your life. but with a lot of people, it’s just a case of speaking a different love language. look what they do, and try not to compare it against a checklist of the things you do. no two people love and care in the same way.

finally, I obviously can’t speak for both of us, but. I like being this way. after considering all of the above for some time, I’ve decided I’m alright with how I am. I love deeply. I love so easily. I am absolutely full of love. and while it can sometimes smart, when I get hit with apparent rejection or imbalance, I still wouldn’t change it. I’m still going to show it. I see myself as being very lucky to possess such an abundance of it; I’m not going to keep it to myself.

[primus-why]

Hit me up with them Bayverse Hot Rod predictions or what the heck you think is gonna happen. I'm disparate for the trash child

AIGHT, here’s a long-ass rant of what I think is gonna go down in Bayverse number 5:

I think, first and foremost, Unicron will be awakened. I think Unicron will have actually been around way back in the day (hence the King Arthur stuff?), and had Predicons under his command that became the myths and legends we humans interpret them as today (AKA “dragons”, “hydra”, “monsters”, etc.). Lockdown had been alluding to a big religious phenomenon while he was around in the last movie, and I don’t think it was just centered around Optimus. Remember how the Dinobots were on his ship? What if they were also minions to Unicron, originally? Basically Unicron employs big beasts to roam the planet, and I think Lockdown was using the humans to collect them– all under the guise of helping humanity, when in fact, I think he was going to release them upon the humans to take back the Earth and kick-start Unicron’s revival.

I think Unicron is gonna pull a Transformers Prime on us and possess some people, most notably, Optimus Prime. How, you may ask? Well, Optimus has become more and more flawed as the movies have gone on. If we think about Primus, a being associated with life-giving properties, Optimus does his best to ensure a certain quality of life for all those he meets. He would do what he could in the first film to uphold his religious teachings/obligations. “Do not harm humans” was a part of his Primely mantra for so long, but then what happened in the last two films? Optimus slays another Prime, another holy entity; Optimus kills humans out of rage and anguish. And let’s not forget, he has killed Decepticons. Sure, it’s in self defense, but what kind of Prime kills the people he is supposed to protect?

So, what I am getting at here is that Unicron will use this corrosion, this slight, way-less-than-other-Primes-but-still-there corruption of Optimus Prime as a means to enter his psyche. Thus, we get purple-eyed Optimus. And from here I’d like to believe that Megatron only get involved and tries to help our main heroes at some point because he’s under the impression that he can prove his resilience and strength to Unicron, who could then leave Optimus’ body and give him some ultimate power. BUT, right as Megatron is betraying our main group, making his case to Unicron/ Unicron-possessed Optimus, OUT STEPS MOTHERFUCKIN’ GALVATRON FROM THE BUSHES, and oh shit now it’s Megatron vs Galvatron!!!! Cuz Unicron is like “why would I take you, an obsolete original, when I already have the loyalty of your upgraded superior…? Finish him.”

Anywho, I’d also like to toss in some BS and say the Dinobot make a reappearance and are firmly on Team (good) Prime, er… I guess Team Bee at this point. Imma come up with something convoluted like, they imprinted with Optimus, or Optimus broke Unicron’s hold over them in the last movie when he beat them into submission, or whatever. I’d also hold some hope that the human characters might be the ones to give them speech– think about it. Team Bee is isolated from their usual leader, who is actually trying to kill them right now; we’ve got some rando, sort of silly French guy who’s really late to the party; Bumblebee, who might not be ready to lead just yet; and maybe if we’re lucky some bots/Wreckers from the last film. Maybe. Anyways the humans are frustrated because everyone is really lacking in the communication skills. Maybe then, one of the Dinobots walks up and curls around them, and a human companion offhandedly says something like “I wish you could talk, maybe you’d have some more information on Unicron…”

And then, BAM, Cade Yeager and his small friend (who I am gonna assume/hope again the odds is also a super smart engineer person) upgrade the Dinobots with a speech ability. This could explain why Grimlock and pals have limited speech– it was engineered by humans, which of course can only grasp so much of Cybertronian technology…

AN - Y - WAYS

To get to what you were asking about, originally– where is Rodimus Hot Rod gonna fit into all this? I think he’s going to be very similar to Bee in the first movies (I think Bee seems a little more serious now, but that could just be speculation). He and Bee are gonna be BEST BROS. I think he’s going to be fun-loving, a little goofy, and probably really trusting towards humans (after he gets over a phobia of organics, perhaps???) Like Bee will be like “These are humans, they’re our friends” but then Hot Rod and friends are gonna get cornered by the government and Hot Rod is gonna be all “It’s okay, friends! We’re just here doing this-and-that, blah blah illegal things!” and Cade is gonna be like “THOSE guys AREN’T our friends!” Giggles will be had from the audience, they’ll be captured, and heck, maybe some bot is gonna die. IDK.

I think there’s gonna be some heart-to-heart scene while they are captured where Bee is like, being the stern one for once and is like “Take things more seriously!” but then it’s revealed that Hot Rod is always happy-go-lucky as a sort of front, as a way for him to deal with the awful shit he’s seen off-planet. And ANGST ANGST ANGST and PTSD. Like maybe if we look back after this reveal we’ll see signs that he really hates explosions or something– MAYBE when he arrives and he and Bee are being pals, a fight with an enemy group breaks out and it’s revealed that Hot Rod is actually super freaked out by explosions/battle or whatever. Freezes up. Hides. That sort of thing. Bee or other bots are like “What happened to the kick ass guy I used to train with?” and Hot Rod brushes it off with a joke. I wouldn’t put it past Bay since he seems like the kind of guy who would subscribe to the stereotype that French people are cowards.

Another thing Imma spin with: You know those pics of Cybertron crashing into Earth? Well, in Transformers Prime we’ve seen how Cybertron itself is Primus, while Earth is Unicron. Maybe these two planets so close together is what wakes up Unicron. Or maybe it’s the abominable experiments the humans made that have no spark (Galvatron)? Maybe it’s both lol. He could want to break free of his planetary form, and maybe only one Cybertronian god can release/destroy another, so he orchestrates the possession of Optimus Prime so as to use Primus’ own vessel to draw in Cybertron (Primus’ planetary form) until it destroys his planet form, then he would be free to wreak havoc across the universe. Or maybe he does it to destroy himself because he’s bitter and hate the humans crawling all over him. Or maybe it’s another thing that I will get to later.

AIGHT, so anyways I also want to take a moment to think about the title “The Last Knight”. I know Optimus is seen holding a sword, so maybe he’s gonna become a knight? I know that seems obvious, but hear me out on this. Armed with the knowledge that in other continuities, Hot Rod gains the Matrix and becomes Rodimus Prime, what if Optimus is slowly losing his connection to the Matrix? What if at some point Hot Rod does some daring do that then tunes the Matrix to him? Optimus may willingly die to be able to pass on the Matrix to someone else, someone better than his corrupt self. Remember “rethink your heroes”? What if that tag line is like a way to soften the blow of taking Optimus out of the Prime position (like instead of outright killing him in a shocking twist like in the G1 movie and then trying to replace him, they’re giving us a warning this time lol). HOWEVER, knowing Optimus’ life, he could get revived anyways (you know that OP floating in space clip), blessed once again by Primus for recognizing his faults, and instead of crowing two Primes, revives and anoints him to be a Knight of Cybertron. Then it becomes his duty to protect and be a mentor to the new Rodimus Prime. Rodimus gets to learn from one of the best, while forging his own path of Primacy. And his buddy Bee will be there all the way to support him too.

Final misc movie stuff: Cade’s daughter and her BF are never in this one. She’s in college or studying abroad or some BS. Young girl travelling with him NOW is/was a child prodigy of engineering. Bumblebee becomes a leader of his own small team, who peel off from Optimus’ main remaining ‘bots. Megatron and Galvatron’s battle takes them off a cliff, into the ocean where it’s up to the audience (or lol the next film) to find out who won who’s next you decide. Dinobots are turned loose after Grimlock proves to Optimus and Bee and Rodimus that he is a (pretty) intelligent, but capable leader for them, and agrees to keep in touch. aND THEN, OHHHH AND THEN–

I want it to be revealed at the end or implied throughout the film that the Quintessons have been orchestrating the whole thing, giving a set up for the next film. Maybe Quints are what gave Optimus the Unicron bug in the first place– perhaps he is doing some space meditation and feels this connection with a divine source, but he realizes too late that it is Unicron reaching into his mind. Maybe Primus and Unicron were just as much of a creation of theirs as the Cybertronians. Perhaps Cybertron/Primus was created as a factory for these Cybertronians, however it had developed an artificial intelligence which bled into and infected the things it created. Well, artificial/imperfect by their standards at least. So then they made Unicron, a polar opposite to Primus in every way to balance it out. Only something so large could be destroyed by an equal or greater entity, they reasoned. Unicron too developed an AI, but they anticipated this, and programmed him to only ever destroy. Perhaps Unicron becomes aware of this, and thus tries to kill himself and Primus to end his suffering. Or, perhaps the Quints programmed him to enforce a hard reset on their experiments– aka, programmed him with a self-destruct button. Anyways I want a looming threat of the Quints as the next film sets them up to formally “meet their makers” lol. (maybe they can kill one of them this film, and Bee can be like “what the hell was THAT” and Optimus can get all serious and be like “a quintesson”) also lol Primus/Unicron is dead after this flick, weeeee~