#quetzalli answers

[amerricanartwork]

I’m curious, what’s NSH’s reaction to chubby Moon?

He certainly doesn't mind. If anything, having a big chubby girlfriend is an all-around win in his book!

Oh, and funny story, I actually drew a different version of this image first as another opportunity to test out a new sketching style for painting. I definitely think it shows promise, but for now I've decided to keep the thin line sketching style I've been using for asks to express my more comic-type ideas, hence this version above. Let me know if you like the bottom style too, though!

[quetzalpapalotl]

Her ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ 💕

[morninglarkspur]

Future Trio

Dusknoir was annoying to design bwuh. Was trying to not make his weird collar thing look like fur but it looked bad so I just gave up so now he's a little fluffy. Anyways, here they are, the polycule™! Next one will be Darkrai and Cresselia! Might plop Skuntank in there too? probably should. We'll see if I design anyone else, Wigglytuff's Guild is so many characters that I don't wanna even try them dfjgnsk

Anyways character profiles below the cut!

The info in this is from some point between Amp Plains and Crystal Cave so pre-Dusknoir betrayal o/

Quetzal [Grovyle] Species: Grovyle Gender: Male [he/him] Age: 34

Time Gear Thief

Fully aware that Bear [Albert] has beaten them to the past; is extremely worried about Wren's safety

Recognizes that not killing Uxie was extremely stupid of him but it's too late to go back on that decision

Has fainted at least twice from lack of self care; has started imagining Wren's and Finch's reaction to this to motivate him to do better and it surprisingly works

Has a growing collection of stuff that he thinks Wren and Finch would like; recognizes that he'll probably never get to show Finch any of it but isn't really deterred by this

Trans baby!

His feelings towards Bear is complicated

Albert [Dusknoir] Species: Dusknoir Gender: Male [he/him] Age: 36

Renowned Solo Explorer

Actual name is Owl Bear; Oriole has taken to calling him Owl as a nickname

Future holder of the Relic Fragment

Genuinely cares about Oriole; has known Oriole would need to be killed since finding out he is the Relic Fragment holder of the past

Has been mentally preparing himself for having to return to the future since hearing about Treeshroud Forest's time gear

Has also been bidding goodbye to a bunch of acquaintances and friends he's made in the past, albeit vaguely/cryptically

Dislikes Wren in particular; thinks them a hypocrite and still does

He is not 7' 3" because that's just too tall, anyways we'll blame it on the malnutrition growing up

Finch [Celebi] Species: Celebi Gender: Demi-Girl [she/her/it] Age: 31

Inherited Renegade

Time-related abilities are substantially stunted due to being born post collapse of time

Doesn't remember/know much about their predecessor other than the fact that they went rogue after the collapse of time and died a violent death

Was initially wary of Wren but the two of them hit it off well and became close

Misses Wren and Quetzal immensely but puts on a cheerful facade to try and ignore the loneliness

Post Wren and Grovyle going to the past, she was attacked by a spooky dark figure who she initially mistook for Wren; neck scars are from their clawed hand holding her to the ground

Did you know Celebi are 2' tall? I'm throwing that out because her head would be huge if I made her twice as tall as Wren

[indoraptorgirlwind]

For indora (and if it's possible, Kit)

Thoughts about civil war?

Oh... we begin with the polemic civil war 😅

Before anyone read this, please remember this is just my point of view and you may have a totally different one. Please keep respectful with me, anon and everyone else in this.

Well, how do i start this? First of all, i wanna say i think both Steve and Tony were right and wrong, let me explain why:

First, i'll begin with Steve. First of all, for me it was right that he thought the accords were too strict and manipulative. Honestly, i doubt these accords were too human at all. What do i mean with this? That just by the fact of being heroes and being stronger than ordinary people, the avengers could have seen unhumanized by this, only seen as weapons they could use whenever they'd want. He was also right in protecting Bucky, i totally get it. It was his all time friend who we're talking about after all.

However, despite his good intentions and motives, i think Steve went too harsh with other friends of his. It is true that the accords were restrictive, i know. However, he may have been too focused on Bucky to try and deal with it. And i know Bucky is his best friend and was in risk of death. I know. However, Steve was perhaps doing wrong on not explaining correctly the situation to Tony. A person gets more hurt when you hide something to them for a lot of time that when you are sincere with them from the beggining. That's what i mean that Steve failed with.

Keeping with Tony and addressing earlier things. I think he was right in accepting. Why? Because he cared about his team and the people out there. He knew not signing could bring them the problems and persecution they would eventually get in the movie. He knew what Ross was capable of. And he also knew they had to ammend their own mistakes.

And while i get attacking Bucky was inmmoral, Tony just saw him killing his father and mother. They played an important part on his life, and despite his father's bad care, Tony loved him. And what hurts the more is that he never knew this until the recording. And even so Steve still tried to hide it. Tony also saw his friends get hurt in the airport battle, be them team cap or his. Just look at Rhodey. Of course he was going to get mad, everyone would. But please do not confuse with excusal of murder. It was wrong, but it was an impulse rather than a firm choice.

If i have something to say about him being wrong, is that he let his emotions and experiences make him believe it was all his fault. This drove him to extreme meassures to "prevent it" that at the end of the day ended up doing more harm that good.

CONCLUSION:

As i've said before, they were both right and wrong. They made mistakes, but they both meant it for good for their friends. This is not a hate post. I love both characters and i think they deserved better than what they got. Specially Tony. At the end of the day they're humans, and they make mistakes just like everyone.

Now you Kit!

Kit: "uhhhhh. Yeah. What Kit mun said"

[lord-squiggletits]

whats ur fave megop fic uve written?

I'm not sure honestly 😔 I'm one of those people that hates rereading my own writing, and even though I will sometimes reread my own stuff and go "wow, past me was so smart and cool and clever for writing that," I'm not sure I enjoy any fic in particular? It's not just a matter of self-esteem either.

When I write a story it's sort of like me exorcising a set of thoughts from my brain, and once the story is finished I more or less stop thinking about it because when I finished writing the story and posted it, that act allowed me to say everything I had to say and resolve all the thoughts that prompted me to write the story to begin with.

I guess Pay Unto Evil is probably my favorite fic mostly because of how proud I am about it being such a long project (178k words I think) that took me a year and a half to finish, but it's literally the first novel length project I've ever completed. That being said, I'm not really proud of the earlier chapters of PUE (like... 1-4 or 1-5) because I feel like even though they're good, I didn't have as firm of a grasp on the characters back then as I did around chapter 6/7 and onwards. So it's a mixed bag honestly.

[nebuladreamz]

Boop!

WAUGH

[opalofoctober]

1 for Quetzalli, 25 & 26 for Francisco

Do they have any crafting hobbies?

I can see Quetzalli getting into bracelet making, specifically woven bracelets. The weaving would be a good way for her to de-stress after a long day at work, and she'd make a personalized one for everyone at the Kingdom Animalia agency.

25. Do they have a daily/nightly routine?

Francisco's morning routine is a fairly simple but well-structured one:

Wake up and eat breakfast

Exercise and shower

Suit up for work

As for the evenings, if he isn't running a night patrol, it's similar to his morning routine

26. Have they met any of their heroes? Did they regret it?

Meeting Chargeman was the best day of Francisco's life, and working with him was a dream come true.

[puma-or-cougar]

OMG DOES ANYONE REMEMBER HALF SHELL HEROES? Because I do, in fact, I just watched the episodes last night. I always thought that a Pteranodon was a little small for Raph, maybe a Quetzal or a Haztego would have been a better fit for him since they are larger flying reptiles, HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that I haven't fallen in love with this duo.

Sooo cuteee

Wait!

On another note, I have a question, does anyone know if Tumblr has a problem with mild blood or gore? I would really appreciate an answer since I'm working on something that I'm really excited to post here.

[qqueenofhades]

Hello! I think your blog title is absolutely lovely (do flowers go down to the realm of the dead?) and I’d like to ask if that’s a quote of your own or if it’s from something else? It’s such a beautiful quote either way!

It's actually a quote from a late-medieval (15th century) Aztec philosopher-king named Nezahualcoyotl. As I first encountered it:

"Truly do we live on Earth?" asked a poem or song attributed to Nezahualcoyotl (1402-72), a founding figure in Mesoamerican thought and the tlatoani of Texcoco, one of the other two members of the Triple Alliance. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question: Not forever on earth; only a little while here. Be it jade, it shatters. Be it gold, it breaks. Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart. Not forever on earth; only a little while here. In another verse assigned to Nezahualcoyotl this theme emerged even more baldly: Like a painting, we will be erased. Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth. Like plumed vestments of the precious bird, That precious bird with the agile neck, We will come to an end. Contemplating mortality, thinkers in many cultures have drawn solace from the prospect of life after death. This consolation was denied to the Mexica [Aztec], who were agonizingly uncertain about what happened to the soul. "Do flowers go to the region of the dead?" Nezahualcoyotl asked. "In the Beyond, are we still dead or do we live?" Many if not most tlamantine saw existence as Nabokov feared: "a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." -- Charles Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (New York: Vintage Books, 2011), p. 138.

This quote hit me in the heart the first time I read it, as a lovely and achingly poignant question on the nature of eternity, especially since it came from a member of a world and a culture scoured totally out of existence by the conquering, colonizing Spaniards. It is a timeless impulse to wonder whether loved ones are ever truly gone, if beautiful things survive after we have lost them, if they go on existing somewhere, even when we can no longer see or touch them. Astute and/or comprehensive readers may know that this quote is directly referenced in both a Sandman and a Shadow and Bone fic of mine, so yes.

[all-iridescent-birds]

What are the biggest and smallest iridescent birds?

Hello dear Anon! As our bird interest is a bit of a new thing, some research was in order to deduct our answer, and we're still not quite sure. However, we've given you our best attempt. For something perhaps more professional, you might want to go to a-dinosaur-a-day, who we believe is actually qualified to talk about this. We're just a guy obsessed with birds.

Now, explanation out of the way -- the smallest we can tell you with certainty. It is the bee hummingbird, a tiny, the smallest, in fact, bird in the world.

The bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is only 2 inches long. Females are slightly longer, but only by a small fraction, and usually lay two eggs, with them being the size of coffee beans. Let that sink in. While their iridescent feathers are not as notable as their other hummingbird relatives, they are still there, and still as shiny as ever.

Now, here's where it gets tricky. We're not sure what the biggest iridescent bird is. Taking a guess, we'd say it's the peafowl. But when you look this up, you don't get a concrete answer, which makes sense, because no offense, no one ever asks this question. But don't worry! We side with you here -- we're just as curious.

Well, we've been doing some math here. At first, we were thinking of the microraptor, wondering if a prehistoric bird would count before we remembered the peafowl exists. But we put it to the side. Then, we remembered the resplendant quetzal and its ginormous tail -- we looked around different pages and totaled the tallest possible quetzal to be around 4 foot on the higher end, but it still wasn't enough. So we looked up the peafowl.

The peafowl has 3 types -- all sharing traits but all fairly different in ways. The one we're focusing on right now is the green peafowl.

The green peafowl (Pavo muticus) is the largest peafowl of the three. As its name suggests, it is primarily green, while the indian is primarily a bluish color, and congo variants are kind of brown.

This is the bird we're talking about here. While maybe not in height (but probably in height), it's definitely in length. Males, pictured above, can be 5 feet and 11 inches at lowest to 9 feet 10 inches at highest. And its iridescence is everywhere, from its tail to its beak, basically.

Honestly, we'll be shocked if this isn't the biggest. Wikipedia describes the green peafowl as 'perhaps, the longest extant wild bird in total beak-to-tail length', as well.

We hope this answers your and anyone else's questions, Anon!

TL;DR: It's the bee hummingbird and green peafowl. Probably!

[volturialice]

I have a crazy stupid question: if you had to think about the Cullens and Co (or just Jasper and Alice if you'd rather) in terms of a wings!au, daemon!au and soulmate marks!au, what would you give them?? Thinking about Jasper with ragged dangerous looking sandy wings and Alice with humming bird or dove wings, Emmett with a bear familiar, Esme and Carlisle proud of their soulmate marks.... don't mind me, currently obsessed

oh funnnn. love a good AU. I myself have written a short jalice soulmate words piece, and have a (also jalice) soul scars AU in the drafts (because holy shit were they made for that scenario.)

and I happen to know that @goldeneyedgirl has written a daemon AU before! the main thing I remember from it is that Alice's daemon was unsettled into adulthood due to Trauma. I'm gonna try to forget as much as possible about the rest so I can answer without cassandra clare-ing lexie, wish me luck

daemon AU ideas

emmett - you're right, bear is a MUST. specifically a grizzly, let's be real. his daemon fights all his meals before he eats them, and everyone thinks he's a weird cannibal for it

his parents would have named his daemon a rootin tootin mountain/southern gal name. Alma or Luella or Abilene or something, idk

bella - the obvious answer is a deer but I think it would be so funny if her daemon was a sheep. the lion and the lamb!! my next idea was a pelican because of the morbid fact that they will rip off parts of their own bodies to feed their young. extremely bella-coded. I also liked that time in canon when she called herself a sloth. feels right. three-toed for sure. look at his long brown eyes

renee and charlie would have named her daemon something classic but up-and-coming for the era. bonus points if it had a vaguely italian feel, like Luca or Rafael

edward - on the flip side, I think a lion is too obvious an answer for edward, and also not an emo enough animal. his daemon should be a beetle (kafkaesque) or a new world porcupine (solitary, likes to hang out in trees.)

his daemon would have a fancy frilly old-world name, maybe roman-sounding. Priscilla or Portia or something. Faustina would be hilarious

esme - something delicate but cozy. a butterfly? a wren or mourning dove? a guinea pig or rabbit? I'm leaning rabbit. for those of you who insist on girlbossifying esme, she could maybe be a hyena—I've heard that at least one subspecies will adopt and raise orphaned cubs. can't remember if it was spotted or brown? hyena experts weigh in

esme's parents gave her an unusual name for its time and place, so her daemon would probably get the same. Jory or Ari, maybe something more french like Benoit

rosalie - could also get a hyena tbh, since they're girlbosses who are unfairly villainized in fiction. also feel like a tasmanian devil would be a cool mammal option for her. other than that, I could see her with a cool bird of prey daemon, maybe a falcon

her daemon would also get an elegant name, maybe one that hasn't aged well. Maximilian, Isidore, Clement, Reginald

carlisle - my first thought was an orangutan because their 'solitary intellectual' vibes remind me of him during his pre-family era. or maybe something else intelligent but more social, like an elephant. very compassionate guys

and I know carlisle was raised anglican, but i think it would be so funny if his daemon had like a mayflowerass pilgrim name. Temperance or Chastity the elephant

jasper - honestly just like a scarred up, one-eared doberman rescued from a dogfighting ring. I know canon compares him to a lion nearly as often as it does edward, and I guess a big cat could work too (but I wouldn't pick a lion. something more solitary, like a leopard or puma.)

and I think his parents had boring-er name taste than "jasper" suggests. maybe something nicknamey, like Hattie or Lil

alice - a tough one because there are so many possible answers. maybe some kind of flashy bird like a quetzal, or an agile small mammal like a tamarin or lemur. tbh she could just have Mort

his name would also be something vaguely classic. maybe Cecil or Marcel or Claude

(yes I realize I just gave everyone cool birds and mammals. and what about it)

wings AU ideas

you have some fun ideas there too! I'll admit I've never really written or read a wings AU. I think jasper should get some ragged buzzard wings since he's desertcore. alice could totally have hummingbird, or magpie would also be cool since they're kinda mod.

I think esme could get the dove wings, or maybe finch or bluebird. bella would obviously need something brown since that's her favorite color. emmett could get the classic red-tailed hawk coloring, carlisle maybe a barn owl. rosalie something cool like a kestrel

aaaand this post is already way long so I'll save any soulmate mark ideas for a different one. whew! thorough question there anon

[amerricanartwork]

ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?? (positive, of course) YOUR MOON ART IS SO FUCKING CUTE AND IM SO SAD I CANT KISS HER LIL FACE!!! i can’t describe my emotions in words so imma just. this is how i feel when you post thicc moon:

also your understanding of volume and shapes is so good btw

Ah, yes. Of course my chubby Moon escapades would quickly summon Dib, the ultra Looks to the Moon simp (that's a joke by the way). Athough, perhaps to help satisfy your urges, you might want to consider taking up Sig's offer...

Also, thanks for the compliment! I feel like I've really improved at capturing volume, at least in my lines and construction (lighting/shading is still a bit of a work-in-progress). Glad you appreciate the effort I put into it!

[quetzalpapalotl]

If you would be interested in talking about it I would love to know- how do you think IDW1 OP feels about the way Shockwave surgically altered him to carry the Matrix? It's such a wild note to me (both in what it implies about the Matrix and the whole idea of the "chosen leader" being something everyone in power understands you have to artificially construct, and in the sense of how OP understands his duty as a Prime because of it).

I'm always interested in talking about this disaster of a man, thank you.

This ended very long, I went on many tangents and for that I'm sorry, but I hope it does answer your question. Since this is about how I read OP I focused more on his character in the comics as a whole rather than what the authors were thinking.

First, I personally don't think that being altered to have a Matrix compartment really makes any difference on whether one can actually carry the Matrix. It makes it easier, but the Matrix still has a morality lock that a frame modification is not gonna pass. But then again, the morality lock doesn't end up mattering and it doesn't make the Primacy any less of a construct, but we'll get back to that.

Now, we can guess that despite having multiple Prime candidates, Orion was Shockwave's favorite. Shockwave calls him his brightest hope and entrusts him to Zeta in case anything happens to Shockwave. Yet there's a lot Shockwave didn't tell Orion, he didn't tell him about Zeta, he didn't tell him about the other candidates. He did the noncon body modification and is overall an extremely shady dude. But Orion has no distrust of him. Shockwave sort of acts like he expects Orion to rise up to do what Shockwave needs when he asks for it and Orion is perfectly willing to do it (as Roller calls out).

This makes sense, OP is a character who very badly wants to believe in Goodness, Hope, Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice, more than he actually believes in it. In a way, he's playing fake it till you make it with reality and he reacts very intensely whenever the world disappoints him. This leads to him being either very trustful or very cynical depending on the person and situation.

Orion was a very privileged kind of naive. He thought the world was fundamentally good, that all you have to do to stop bad things is to stop the wrongdoers and that everything can be solved through the right channels. His encounter with Megatron shatters this image and makes him realize that he actually doesn't know how the world works.

To this Shockwave presents himself, he genuinely wants to help Cybertron, he understands that which Orion doesn't (Orion directly compares him to Megatron on this) and Shockwave has the idea that to fix the planet they just have to put the right person in power, Shockwave is still working with the system. The last point means that change can come peacefully, which is perfect as Orion wants to avoid a violent revolution (he has ideas on who's allowed to use violence). Shockwave presents himself as the solution to Orion's firts major moral crisis, so it's really no wonder that Orion clings to him so badly.

(Side note, but Shockwave seems to be winging his whole plan. It's unclear if he found out Nominus' Matrix was a fake before Sentiel and Proteus, but he didn't bring that up in CT. So if he ever thought it was real, was his plan to kill Nominus and shove the Matrix in OP's chest hoping it would take? Was that why he had multiple candidates? After he found out he was fake, was he planning on finding the real Matrix or also use a fake? Probably whichever was more viable)

Orion himself never shows any interest in becoming Prime, never even talks about the possibility. He seems just willing to go along with it because he's willing to go along with whatever Shockwave says. He insists to Roller that he's not with Shockwave because he singled him out (tho, I think he certainly likes Shockwave's attention). And after Shockwave dies in spirit, and someone else he trusted shows up to take the Primacy, Orion is happy to go along and serve under him.

(There is a version of events where OP ends up being Shockwave's puppet Prime which makes me insane to think about)

That's right! It's time to talk about IDW1's most important character!! This was a trap!!

Zeta fills in the gap Shockwave left in Orion's life, and he even actually ends functionism!!! (officially that is), so he seems like the right person to put all his hopes in. Despite this, he isn't Shockwave, Orion is not as taken by him and does bring up the fact that this Matrix and Primacy thing is made up to him.

What I want to highlight here is that Zeta not only admits to Orion that the matrix and the primacy are symbols to be used for control, but he also calls Orion himself a symbol, even before he becomes Optimus (but in a way, progressing the path Shockwave put him in by trying to make him a Prime). Zeta jumpstarts OP's mythification by using his image for propaganda.

Orion at first doesn't think that this is very cash money, but on top of being desperate to believe in someone, this questioning happens at the same time that he loses his faith in the Decepticon due to the other stuff happening. So out of good options (at least form his POV), he decided that hey, maybe Zeta has a point. Maybe we can use the symbols for good, since things are such chaos otherwise. And even tho he would later disown Zeta, I think he still learned to wrong lesson from him.

So, Zeta turns out to suck massively, he aids in killing him, Megatron shoots him in the back and he finds the real Matrix. After things didn't work out with the 3 dudes Orion had put his hopes in, it seems that now Optimus has to embody his own values himself. But out of those 3 Shockwave didn't let him down willingly, I think Optimus still wants to pay respect to his memory and their dream. And besides, because OP is prone to question all his life choices and will spent the rest of his life struggling to give up control, I think he does wonder that maybe things wouldn't have gone so far if, instead of blindly trusting Zeta, he had become Prime from the beginning as Shockwave wanted.

Now we know from the end of Mtmte that the Matrix' morality lock reacts to your own feeling. Someone like Rodimus who wanted to prove himself felt good bonding with the Matrix because that's what he expected. Optimus feels pain, he feels the fear of war in all Cybertronians, he calls him a warning about responsibility. This all reflects what Optimus himself thinks of responsibility: that is a burden.

When OP finds the Matrix he was feeling guilty over having followed Zeta, over having let things get this bad. But OP's idea of making amends is to take on more responsibility. Every time he tries to step down he ends up coming back because he feels that's what he has to do. So it's really not so much that because the Matrix choose him that he has to become Prime, but rather that because he can use this power he has to. He morally obliged to do so because what's happening is his fault. Besides, he was already the leader of the Autobot forces going into battle against Megatron (even tho in Autocracy he also acts like a regular cop, this is a mess, but let's roll with it) so this is still his duty. And what's he gonna do? Not try to stop Megatron? (Optimus is someone cannot stay still, but his repertoire of solutions is lacking). He not only chooses to use the literal and symbolic power of the Matrix, but he also chooses to become a symbol himself, one that's supposed to embody all the good in the world. (And this is also part of why he always comes back, he made himself too big on an idea to be able to just fade)

But it is a choice, even if Optimus doesn't think he has a right to refuse. OP always frames everything he does as a choice (at least in retrospective, he can go "you leave me no choice" in the moment). So if it's something that Shockwave wanted him to do, he still did it willingly. This sense of hyperresponsability also has OP never consider himself a victim, he doesn't tend to emphasize the ways in which he has been hurt, he never ever talks about how Zeta used him and lied to him (he has no right, he hurted people). So this aspect of him is why I think he doesn't acknowledge Shockwave violated his bodily autonomy. Shockwave saved him from the Senate, repaired him and made the modifications for the greater good. So really, OP was harmed and is fine.

Anyway, even tho, OP was indeed technically "chosen" by the Matrix, he still sees the whole thing as much of a construct as Zeta's Primacy. He has respect for the Matrix, he knows it can create life, it saved him from death, it gave him a vision and there's all the powers he would use later. Still, he doesn't think it's actually divine or that bonding with it makes him that special. During the course of the war he has made far more use of the Matrix' symbolic power than of its practical uses. (Including saying that the Matrix is giving him a vision to get out of situations dhasgdkjashdas I love that)

(And he's not wrong about the Matrix not making you special. Mtmte shows us that anyone can open it under the right mindset. And even if Zeta, Sentinel and Nominus never carried the real thing, Nova did, so I wouldn't argue it is a good judge of character)

Optimus doesn't feel super comfortable using the idea of the Matrix this way, but this is far from the only and/or worse morally dubious strategy he pulls out for the greater good. He kinda goes back and forth between paying lip serive to the idea that he's Just A Dude, and using the Matrix as an ID card. Until we get to Combiner Wars and onwards where OP is fully, shamelessly cashing on the religious clout of being Prime. But he also seems so struggle managing this internally in that he tries to not buy his own hype but it does get to his head sometimes.

Also, there's something funny going on in that Optimus' Autobots don't seem to have any formally institutionalized religion. I mean, Optimus had authority before the Matrix and I don't recall any official statemen in the Autobot code or anything that the Matrix means one is Primus' chosen and that's who the leader is (Bee could be voted into position, and Optimus stll considered Bee the leader when he got it the matrix back even if he did undermine him). Now the idea certainly exists and I don't doubt it what used for propaganda, but Autobots seem to be left to their own devices in matters of faith and everyone has their own beliefs.

But even if not everyone thinks that Optimus' is Primus' chosen exactly, the idea that the Matrix is... something and that it choosing Optimus means he is special is certainly the prevalent notion. In this sense, the Matrix becomes part of Optimus' mythos rather than the other way around. Optimus idealization is so real it causes people to develop delusions. And Optimus himself doesn't do much to avoid this. Sure, this kind of thing is often beyond one's hands, especially when you're one of the few people who can go toe-to-toe with Megatron (who also mythicized himself), but even if he denies being special when asked directly (which is usually to his closer friends who already idealize him less than the average bot), I doubt he has ever gone on official record like "My fellow Autobots, the Matrix doesn't mean shit". On the most charitable of takes, this kind of thing serves for morale, which would be needed when battling a figure like Megatron.

So Optimus is always under the shadow of himself. An idea he created from the dregs of a rotten legacy that he has to live up to because it's his duty to do so, because he can't not do anything and this is what he knows what do to. And this all ties back to Barber's broader themes of symbols, stories and Optimus as an idea as well as a person. And as we know, the ultimate conclusion Optimus reaches is that yeah, no, the Primacy cannot be salvaged, no one should have that much power regarldess of intentions, it needs to die so Cybertronians can move on, so he takes it to the grave with him.

[indoraptorgirlwind]

OUR FUTURE...

((As some may have discovered, it's true.

Kit will die. Ookin will kill her. And then he'll become the body for Tezcatlipoca; brother of Quetzalcoatl. He will reign what he thinks was his, centuries ago.))

[ask-dawnanddusk]

(asktheisle) Quetzal approached the Lugia, eyeing the injuries that were sustained.

"Ouch, you're going to need to get that checked out... do you know who would try to do this to you?"

"No, I have no idea. Whilst I know I've had less then pleasant interactions with others before, none of them have gone as far as attacking me in such a manner as to attempt to kill. The battles I usually have are just to help others blow off steam."

"I... suppose it could have been someone new to this realm. A powerful legend could cause this damage, and it's not unheard of for new legends to enter this world. Would explain why I recognized nothing about them."

"Argh, but what reason would they have to attack? Did I startle them? I know I look far different then a standard lugia in other realms, did that throw them off? And the fire, the draining... Individually I could think of a couple mon's who fit the role, but together? This whole thing just raises more questions then answers."

"Never mind. For now, I need to get back to my family and discuss this with them. Maybe they'll have better ideas then I do. Luckily their attack missed the wing joint... mostly. It's enough for me to swim at least."

@asktheisle

[salon-maiden-anabel]

8, 14, 35? (if you haven’t answered those already, so if you have!!)

8: I blame the anime for it specifically destiny deoxys but I really do like Munchlax. Like thats just a little guy living his life. And we love him for it

14: answered here!

35: Chimchar in pokemon pearl!!!! While I don't have him anymore due to cartridge corrosion I do remember him fondly :] I was 4 when i got the game so his name was a keysmash but nowadays i just call him Quetzal.