#that's no reason to give up and despair

[icryyoumercy]

one thing that always trips me up is when i offer food to people who have food restrictions is how delighted they are when they learn it is a food they can eat?

like. if i bring food for everyone to share, it seems only polite to make sure everyone can in fact share it? that on its own shouldn't be grounds for thanks or anything? i feel like that should just be the normal thing people do?

[ducktracy]

there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love

[thebirdandhersong]

sometimes I think the wisest thing to do. Is give up. For real this time.

[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.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

kinda wild to me that one of the most compelling aspects of both Chuuya and Kunikida's characters to me, that I never really see talked about, is how they're heavily set on a doomed crash course towards complete and utter destruction, and how I am so, so worried for them both.....

[carnival-core]

Hey not to make a political post but does it ever feel like we can just never win and the suffering will be forever and we're always going to have to fight with moments of peace being fleeting and not worth looking forward to

[well-dressed-sewer-rat]

(tw blood)

just a silly little guy <3

(explanation in the tags + more stuff under the cut because i’m indecisive as hell)

[lesbiansforboromir]

oh OH hO spicey ohhh having a spicey little tantrum about the boromir tag don't listen to me at all do NOT listen I mean it I mean it this is so petty

[alstroemerian-dragon]

chiaki is such a good and interesting character. wish she was in a better game

[give-me-one-good-reason]

I pretty much never draw Luigi with his hat, and this is not due to design preferences but my complete inability to draw hats with brims. Baseball caps and flatcaps (the Mario Bros.' hats seem to be a middle ground) are the bane of my existence.

[tardis--dreams]

I actually realized i hate work. Won't be putting any effort into this anymore ♡

[princescar]

spoilers in tags for TPYP but:

Something I hammered hard into the og writing for TPYP was that Junko didn't predict the outcome.

I'm a big believer in the idea that she knew what would happen in THH, what each motive would bring out which killers and victims, and it was about the despair and death not so much the unpredictability of the game.

But one thing that Dr0 has taught us is that she can't fully predict everything Ryoko will do.

And because of that, even when she fed the script to ai Junko and Mukuro, she still lost in the end. Because Ryoko did one thing that Junko didn't factor and that completely changed the story.

Then I add in Remnant Matsuda-

And it completely recontextualized the entire fic.

[creative-robot]

It’s so easy to forget that The Social Experiments was, above all else, chats experiment, was Showfall experimenting with the audience, that Hetch ran this whole thing and Ranboo was the lone Hero put through the horrors and Hetch’s main goal wasn’t even fully focused on him, it was how the audience would react and what the audience would decide. That was the real test. And man, did we pass with flying colors

[mangocheesecakes]

i really do think go youn jung could have pulled off the whole appearance switch and done Naksu justice IF SHE WAS GIVEN SOMETHING TO WORK WITH

[quietwingsinthesky]

the song remains the same au where Anna lives somehow, Michael didn’t finish the job or something, and it’s Dean being told he gets no choice, nothing but his destiny as Michael’s vessel, and he’s back where he was in Heaven and Hell with both Anna and Sam under threat, but god, this time he’s saving both of them, he has to. Pushed further towards saying yes not just because of his own failing faith that they can stop the Apocalypse, but because in that moment, he promises he will, if Michael will send Anna back with them. Reasons that she doesn’t belong there any more than him and Sam do, and maybe she’s been hurt so badly that she’s been knocked back down to practically human.

But the point is that Anna lives, and she tried to kill Dean’s parents, and failed, but at the same time, he gets it. He just tried to convince his own mom not to have him or Sam, and it all got erased. They are more like pawns than they ever have been, but they could still try to find something in each other. Some bit of lost tenderness. It’s the end of the world. Any night could be the last night.

[creature-once-removed]

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