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inkskinned · 2 years

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hey it's nanowrimo. i have tips bc i've done it about 34 times.

Don't edit. Ever. Stop it. If you just decide to start a new project half thru this one with all new characters, no problem. pick up and keep writing as if you'd already written the first half of that.

"but i spelled it wrong" whatever. "but the grammar" whatever. make it exist first. no time for sense. think like you're working on a typewriter. no backspace. only forward go.

Don't re-read further than a paragraph or two backwards. "did i mention the gun before?" listen - it doesn't matter. if you need there to be a gun there, the gun is there. put it back in once you finish the book.

"i forgot the specifics of X thing i already wrote" whatever. change it, make a note/comment to figure it out later, and just write what makes sense for the moment. "no raquel it's legit the characters name and origin" idc that character is now reborn as Claudius from Elsewhere. it's fine.

only you see your mistakes. nobody else knows. one of the ways writing and dance overlap - only you know the choreography. nobody else will know if you miss a step, so just keep dancing and pretend you meant to do it like that.

it's an illusion that you need to write linearly - from point A to point B to point C. Nah; that's just timeline propaganda. I've written a LOT of books out of order and just reordered them once i've finished. if you have a scene you'd LOVE to write but can't get there yet because of plot, just fuckin write the scene. I've always found its easier to establish "point F" "point J" and "Point A" and then wiggle my way between those scenes.

write what you WANT to write. 230 pages of smut? of well-researched discussion on bread? whatever. the point is to strengthen muscles however you can.

if you miss a day, a week, whatever. not the end of the world. we all have dry days. also time is a myth so u can do this challenge whenever u want.

as soon as you try to write for a specific audience, you kill your voice. you are writing for yourself. stop thinking about how people will take ur book. it don't matter. what matter is u, enjoying writing. i luv u.

play to your strengths. i have characters talk so much because i don't know how to write a plot if it kills me but i'm really good at dialogue so.

i love a flight of fancy. write a poem in there. shift tactics and write in code. keep it fun for yourself.

see what happens if you shift something major about ur main characters - gender, wealth, superpowers. or if you change point-of-view. or if you kill everyone in a big explosion. do NOT edit anything before this or after it. often these little weird one-off exercises teach me what interests me about what i'm working on. it is never what i thought. plus it is a fun way to add like 1k words.

stretch.

it's for fun and for practice. stop doing that project if it's giving you anxiety. once my nano was literally 50k words of half-started stories. just things i tried and tried and tried and wasn't able to flesh out. oops. but i am now 50k words of a better writer.

add dragons?

read books/listen to books on tape/etc. people often make the mistake of "buckling down" to just write. you need inspiration. you need to like. fill up on words. you need to remember how it feels to lose yourself in a story.

i don't have the time or space to really talk about this in this post but a lot of creative people turn to drugs/alcohol because it can help you be more creative. this is harmful, and walking a blade that only cuts deep. if you notice you and your loved ones are turning more to substances, please know i love you and i hope you are able to get help soon. i feel like this almost never gets mentioned because it's kind of a hazy underbelly to art. you are always more important than the work.

on that note. drink your fukin. water.

don't talk about a story until you've finished it. once you tell the story, it exists already, and isn't about discovery. i usually have a very canned "haha we'll see" response.

grapes :) tasty snack.

i love you be free.

#edit: the command not to talk about it is from personal experience!#i have heard Otherwise in the tags so i will edit to say:#if you've noticed that you tend to like Talk A Lot about ur piece but never WRITE it -#consider voice-to-text #also #u might be like me and ... need to figure it out on the PAGE and not OUT LOUD #i am often an auditory processor so i wont tell people specifics but i'll be like #huh. so i have a character who is in love .... and they don't know it #and my friend will be like ''oh they should kiss' and meanwhile #somehow #saying it out loud im like #yeah thank u ur right the dress SHOULD be purple that's what the problem has been <3 #idk!!! it's up to you!!! my suggestion is to say LESS until you know for a FACT that saying MORE works better for you #-- always better to slowly unspool in ur exploration of that #than to accidentally talk too much and get Bored Of Project #idk idk idk #i have adhd so every book surprises me bc im like #wait where did any of this even COME FROM #and whatever little gremlin in my brain that writes is like :)#''heyyy girlie.......''#WHICH IS A LONG WAY TO SAY:#i didn't know about Not Talking About It as an option until i'd ruined a few projects!!#but there are people who need to do the other thing!!! and i love us both!!!!#wow brains are so funny!!!!

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calypsolemon · 7 months

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Everyone on this website talks about the choice to not have children to end the terrible cycle of familial abuse or whatever but I feel like nobody on here wants to talk about the more mundane and pressing reality of wanting children but being paralyzed by the understanding that bringing them into our current society inherently means traumatizing them in some small way simply because there are no good options.

Like. Dont want to put a child through public school because public school sucks, but homeschool is isolating and private school is not an option for ppl with no money. Dont want to raise a child with a forced gender but attempting to raise a child neutrally may socially isolate them or cause authorities to question your parenting methods. Don't want to raise a child in an isolated suburb where they have nowhere to travel independantly but affordable housing with ample room for families in city environments are basically nonexistent.

It can be hard not to feel judgemental of yourself for wanting to bring a child into the world at all under these conditions. Unlike with refusing to continue the "cursed bloodline" or whatever, there's just no personal pride one can take in deciding not to have kids because the world would force me to make choices that hurt them irregardless of my desires.

#and this isn't me saying i do or don't want kids but rather #these are my main worries with the possibility of having children #also i think this is a seperable issue from worrying about kids just getting hurt in the normal human way #i don't want to shield my future child from any possible negative experiences like #heartbreak and loss and things like that are very normal #but I'm talking institutional. im talking the little violences that made my actual abuse so easy to hide #and the systems that further traumatized me #the fact that id just have to put my potential child through them too just... sucks.

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comradekatara · 15 days

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sokka, katara, and the paradox of “the gifted child”

something i’ve noticed is a tendency to (mis)characterize sokka as someone who is dismissed due to being a nonbender, when that’s only partially true. sokka is certainly dismissed by some for not being a bender (namely, by benders), but i think there’s a key difference between being dismissed and not being valued in one specific way. katara was valued by her tribe for being a waterbender for the very crucial reason that she was the last one left. had she been a dime a dozen in her tribe, which would have been the case were it not for the systemic extermination of her people, she would not be valued as highly for possessing this skill. that said, while sokka clearly does hold some resentment over his lack of bending ability, calling himself “the guy in the group who’s regular,” i think it’s folly to assume that this means that sokka was dismissed and discarded as “average” while katara was put on a pedestal for being special. because while katara obviously was considered special, sokka is also clearly considered special by his family, merely in different ways. and if anything, sokka embodies the archetypal struggle of the so-called "gifted child” far more than katara does.

while sokka clearly believes himself to be disposable and intrinsically worthless, i don’t think that he was actively neglected by his family. even if katara was clearly marked by her bending as embodying the last hope of their tribe, that doesn’t mean that she was seen as more gifted than he was or was designated as her family’s obvious favorite. for example, the way hakoda talks about sokka (saying he trusted him with leading and protecting the tribe when he was thirteen, calling him a genius, and other such insanely high praises to heap on a child) shows that he clearly views his son as particularly exceptional and has never been shy about showing that. sokka is distinctly insecure around his father for assumptions he makes regarding hakoda's faith in his abilities and his insecurities when it comes to his perceived failure in not measuring up as a man, but from the second we meet hakoda, it's evident that these insecurities are entirely internal and completely unfounded, at least in terms of his father's perception of him. hakoda is nothing but incredibly proud of sokka, constantly emphasizing just how capable and brilliant he believes him to be. whether or not sokka is capable of internalizing it is another story, but it's clear that hakoda is not stingy in his praise and affection, not even a little bit.

moreover, while katara is clearly kanna’s favorite on an emotional level, she nonetheless affords sokka far more respect. she admonishes katara and tells her to do her chores, and notably, she also impresses the importance of “listening to her brother,” and backs up sokka’s decision to banish aang from the village. you can claim that sexism plays a factor in how sokka views his own supposed position of authority, but kanna is a woman who traveled the entire globe as a teenager because she wanted to escape patriarchal impositions dictating her life. she’s simply far too smart to treat sokka as any sort of authority within their village if she did not fully entrust him with that responsibility. she treats sokka almost like a peer, as if she is legitimately co-running the village with a fifteen year old boy.

katara is only a couple years younger than sokka at most, but her dynamic with kanna is very different. on one hand, kanna clearly sees more of herself in katara, can identify with her sense of adventure and rebellious spirit, but on the other hand, it means that she views katara as a child to be taken care of, who needs to be reminded to do her chores and bailed out when she gets herself into trouble. sokka doesn't want to be viewed as a child, and so he does everything in his power to position himself as kanna's equal rather than her grandson. he takes his duties and responsibilities very seriously, and is obedient to a fault whenever he is submitting to any authority he actually respects, especially his father and grandmother. to be honest, a lot of what katara considers coddling is probably just sokka never being bossed around by their grandmother because she never actually has to tell him to do his chores. because despite katara's claim that he simply faffs about "playing soldier," sokka's problem is actually that he takes himself too seriously for her liking. and with the exception of kanna saying "be nice to your sister," which is the kind of teasing a parent says to their child, she clearly respects sokka's position in the village. when katara tries to run away with aang, kanna takes sokka's side and forbids her from acting impulsively, but when sokka is the one who packs supplies and plans to save aang, kanna gives them both her blessing.

katara is the only person who takes umbrage with the notion of sokka running the village and telling her what to do all day. and those frustrations have likely accumulated up from a lifetime of being told to “do as her brother says” and “why can’t she be smarter and more responsible and levelheaded blah blah blah.” she clearly thinks that she’s punching up when she yells at or mocks him, which may seem crazy to anyone who understands that sokka’s entire identity and existence revolves around being katara’s protector, but katara doesn’t actually know this. in her mind sokka is merely the perfect child who has always represented this impossible standard of “genius.” and what's more, he's absolutely insufferable about it.

and to be clear, this isn’t to say that katara herself isn’t highly intelligent, capable, competent, and skilled. she’s not only an incredibly talented waterbender, but also clever, quick, witty, creative, resourceful, practical, mature, and thoughtful in other ways. at one point, toph calls her a genius (“a stinky, sweaty genius”). and she is, indeed, an extremely powerful and innovative waterbender, both due to her hard work, but also because she is genuinely brilliant. that said, she’s smart in the realistic way that a kid is smart; she works hard to be good at what she cares about (and she has an existentially devastating reason to care about being a good waterbender, mind you), and she’s also good at thinking on the fly when she needs to. however, unlike sokka, or even toph, her intellect may be impressive, but it isn’t astonishing. sokka’s mind functions completely anomalously. i wouldn't say he's unrealistically intelligent, because i do know some people in real life who are similarly adept at processing all kinds of different information with the ability to deftly apply it near-immediately, but it is certainly abnormal, both for real world standards and within his universe.

i normally bristle at this term and its applications (for multiple reasons), but since it is explicitly stated multiple times across the show, it is important to acknowledge that sokka is referred to as a genius multiple times, including by his father. katara is referred to as being a genius by toph for using her own sweat to waterbend (which, as hama points out an episode later, isn't even that clever because you can literally bend water from the air around you); conversely, sokka is referred to as a genius for helping to invent hot air balloons and for figuring out multiple escape routes from the world's most secure prison in less than a day. we don't know the exact timeframe under which katara trained with pakku and earned the title of master, but she clearly worked incredibly hard to earn that title, not only as a master, but as the greatest waterbender in the entire world. i assume it was any time between a few weeks and a little over a month in which zhao would organize a fleet to arrive at the north pole, which is, of course, extremely impressive in itself and a testament to her passion and determination. however, on the other hand, piandao claims that sokka has basically mastered the sword and is ready to make his own within less than a day. it's important to remember that katara is also brilliant in her own way, and possesses great skills that sokka lacks: not only bending, but also midwifery, and an ability to locate her own emotions and allow herself to be vulnerable with others, two skills which should never be looked down upon for their association with womanhood and femininity, and are also particularly impressive considering just how young katara is. she is brilliant in her own right, and in any other family, katara would easily have been "the smart one." and yet, sokka is simply in a league of his own.

so, yeah, he can stand to get thrown around and yelled at; everyone her entire childhood just kept on impressing how special and perfect and brilliant he is, he can handle it. she has no idea that he is depressed, depersonalizes, loathes himself, and thinks he’ll never be good enough, because he never actually communicates any of that to her. the closest he ever comes is admitting that he’s jealous due to not having bending abilities, and even that shocks katara, even though it’s such a small and obvious admission in the scheme of things. she has no idea what’s going on with him psychologically, how he views himself in relation to others, and specifically in relation to her, so she kind of just assumes he’s entitled because surely he must know how special he is and thus feels owed accolades by the world at every turn. he deserves to be humbled, and she is in fact righteous for humbling him.

when she makes fun of him for being stupid or miserable or paranoid or cynical, she thinks she’s owning him the way a righteous underdog fights against an oppressor. it's similar to how zuko wants to "put azula in her place." in katara and zuko's minds, they are both the valiant underdog siblings who had to fight and struggle against the siblings for whom everything came so easily. and in katara’s mind especially, she is always punching up, and she always has a moral justification in lashing out at anyone she pleases. so she couldn’t fathom that the reason sokka puts up with her antagonism without complaint isn’t because he’s so above her that he can simply ignore her taunts and gibes without a care (if that were the case, he wouldn't bother to taunt and gibe in return), but rather that he feels so detached from his own personhood that he would never think to actually explain his feelings to the person whom he has defined himself through since childhood. and if he did ever, somehow, communicate that to her, she’d have to reevaluate their whole entire lives and dynamic. but he never will communicate that to her, so she’ll never actually have to do that.

moreover, even though katara often does tease sokka and cast doubt upon his competence and abilities in low-stakes situations constantly, whenever they are actually facing a real problem that requires an immediate solution, katara seems to forget that sokka is supposedly an unhelpful, lazy, immature idiot because she immediately turns to him to fix all their issues. and then once that issue is resolved, katara goes back to finding his existence bothersome. sokka, on the other hand, falls into this role of problem solver instinctually, with the one exception that when they actually name him as the idea guy, he jokingly complains that it’s a lot of pressure to be one who is always expected to come up with solutions. and while he is joking during that conversation in “the drill,” he’s being honest to an extent, because his perfectionism and fear of failure is truly dire.

when katara is faced with failure, whether as the consequences for her own actions or otherwise, she simply gets back up and tries again. she can’t be knocked down, she can’t be deterred from achieving her goals. she has a very healthy approach to making mistakes, and while she doesn’t always learn from them in the longterm, she does always try her best to fix them and amend the situation as immediately as possible. katara is someone who is incredibly resilient and is constantly demonstrating the sheer magnitude of her inner strength, especially in particularly difficult moments. she has the ability to fail as many times as it takes without letting that failure affect her own self-esteem or desire to keep striving for what she believes in.

sokka, on the other hand, is very physically resilient (he gets beat up a lot), but his emotional resilience is actually quite pathetic. he has no tools for coping with failure. from even the slightest mistake, like not actually being able to open the doors at the fire temple with his makeshift explosives, to a catastrophic one, like his failed invasion, sokka immediately retreats inward. in “the boiling rock,” sokka demonstrates how his first ever real failure that rests squarely on his own shoulders is so devastating to him that he becomes totally irrational and suicidal in an attempt to “rectify” the situation. he does not know how to cope with failure, because he expects himself to be perfect at all times. and it’s not because sokka is overly proud, but rather that his guilt complex is so profound that he blames himself for every single thing that goes awry at all times, even when it isn’t actually his fault whatsoever. so that guilt and shame is magnified a thousand fold when sokka is actually culpable for those losses.

one of many ways in which it is evident that sokka is the older sibling is that he clearly lives with the mentality that if katara messes up or gets herself in danger due to her own impulsive inclinations, it’s always actually sokka’s fault for not being a better, more attentive brother. when she sets off the booby trap in the banned ship, sokka banishes aang from the village so as to protect katara from herself. when katara experiences the consequences of heedlessly blowing up a factory, sokka gets mad at her for her recklessness, but also immediately finds a way to help her fix this situation, because that’s his job, and in fact, his primary purpose on this earth. this is a dynamic sokka has probably internalized even before he was assigned the role of her sworn protector, because that’s just how being the eldest is.

sokka’s tendency to take responsibility for everyone else’s mistakes and his desire to shoulder everyone else’s pain at all times, coupled with his implicit belief that he, uniquely, cannot afford to mess up ever (if other people make mistakes it’s fine and he can help them fix it, but if he makes mistakes he no longer has a purpose on this planet, goodbye cruel world), definitely indicates that he was held to an incredibly high standard all his life. he expects himself to be able to handle a lot of responsibility with perfect ease because he always has. he isn’t used to making mistakes of any kind. if he puts his mind into learning a new skill, he always masters it within a couple of days, whatever that skill happens to be. unlike katara, sokka is used to things coming easily to him, and what he isn’t used to is failure.

katara and sokka are both exceptional, of course, but in very different ways, and for very different reasons. katara grew up with a lot of external pressure to excel as a waterbender, because she needs to embody her cultural legacy and prove that her mother’s sacrifice was not in vain. it’s an unfathomable burden to place on a child, and the rate at which she improves her waterbending once she is actually given the resources to hone her skills is a testament to her perseverance and untiring dedication. katara becomes the greatest waterbender in the world not because she is a natural prodigy (which is something she bristles at when aang does display prodigious skill), but because she is incredibly determined and no one can outmatch the strength of her heart and unshakable commitment when she is pursuing a goal. as pakku even says, raw talent isn’t everything, and katara’s abilities prove that despite not being “naturally gifted,” hard work and determination is far more important when it comes to excelling in any given domain.

however, if katara’s motivation to be excellent is externally imposed by the tragic circumstances of her life, sokka’s motivations are, at the very least, internally maintained. as aforementioned, i have no doubt that he received a lot of external validation and praise from the adults in his life as a child with a dazzling, brilliant mind. as has been established, sokka is constantly displaying an ability to synthesize new information at a staggering rate, which likely means that before katara had even discovered her ability to waterbend, sokka was probably being fawned over for the impressive rate at which he was picking up new skills as a baby. since pretty much everything (cerebral, at least) comes easily to sokka, i can only imagine that hakoda, who never hesitates to express to his children how proud he is of them, would constantly affirm sokka’s intellect. and by boasting that sokka takes after himself (hakoda also refers to himself as a genius, completely sincerely), he unwittingly plants the first seeds in fostering sokka’s belief that he must be exactly like his father in every way, and that any deviation from hakoda’s image would prove him unworthy. but he will never be the spitting image of hakoda the way that katara is "the spitting image of kanna" because sokka is already the spitting image of kya, if not – perish the thought – his own person entirely.

unlike katara, who spent her whole childhood trying to waterbend by herself with little success (beyond, of course, isolated instances demonstrating her sheer raw power when her bending was being influenced by her incredibly strong and passionate emotions), sokka always felt like he could handle the amount of responsibility he was given, because everything came easily to him. until the day that his life changed forever, and suddenly the stakes were no longer abstract, but tangible and personally devastating. sokka had never learned that it was okay to fail as a child because he never had a reason to, and then suddenly, he could not afford to fail under any circumstances. failure of any kind went from being a (purely hypothetical) blow to the ego, to being something that could directly endanger the lives of his loved ones. and so sokka decides that the only way to not be culpable for his potential failures is to be a martyr.

of course, there are instances in which sokka is proven to be inept, such as on kyoshi island or with piandao, wherein his humility and open-mindedness are put on display and sokka puts aside his own standards of perfection to learn from a master, but i don't think these instances qualify as failures. for one thing, sokka happens to master the forms he is being taught in less than a day, at an unprecedented rate, and thus these initially humiliating blindspots in his knowledge become victories as sokka absorbs new knowledge. sokka is always eager to learn, and willing to acknowledge his lack of expertise in area, humbling himself to learn from others any chance he gets. no, what i mean by "failure" as it relates to sokka's self-perception and ego is not a lack of knowledge, but an inability to protect another. to sokka, his existence is defined by his ability to provide and protect, and thus, a failure is, specifically, when someone gets hurt under his watch. that is what it means to not be able to afford to fail. he is not overly proud (if anything he is overly insecure), but he also understands that the stakes of failure – real failure – are tangible.

so when it comes to failure that carries grave consequences, he would rather be dead than fallible (or, responsible for not adequately protecting his loved ones), one million times over. and so every time someone makes a sacrifice for him, he feels as if he has failed on a fundamental level, because simply being exceptional is not enough, he must also bear the entire world’s suffering alone – as (in his mind) hakoda instructed him to when he left him behind to protect and provide for the village. otherwise he has failed in his promise to be needed, which is his raison d’être. sokka’s complex is very obviously not informed solely by his upbringing as a “gifted kid,” and in fact largely informed by the dehumanizing logic of war as it necessitates sacrifice, but his inability to accept his own fallibility as a product of his self-dehumanization is, at the very least, compounded by his debilitating perfectionism.

thus, katara and sokka's dynamic within their family isn’t “gifted kid and neglected kid,” but rather “two gifted kids who are gifted in different ways, one of those ways being valued more on a cultural level due to its scarcity as a byproduct of genocide.” while katara was put on a pedestal her entire life due to her ability to waterbend, it doesn’t mean that sokka wasn’t put on a pedestal in other ways. if anything, the reason hakoda entrusted a child with the burdens he did was specifically because he put his son on a pedestal. sokka assumes that hakoda didn't think he was capable enough to join his army, but that couldn't be further from the truth. hakoda trusted his thirteen year old son so much that he genuinely thought it best to leave him alone with this duty to defend his village and protect katara at all costs. he didn't leave a single man behind, not even the other teenage boys, because that's how much faith he had in a child to take his responsibilities seriously and perform them competently. and if that decision gave sokka one million different complexes and fucked him up for life, it wasn’t because he wasn’t valued for his abilities, it’s because he was overvalued and given too much responsibility at too young an age.

both he and katara struggled to live up to the expectations placed on them, forced to fulfill the roles of their parents instead of being allowed to exist as children. but crucially, katara sees the injustice in that, and clings to her childhood even as she strives for greatness, and sokka simply doesn't. he's long accepted that injustice, and in fact feels guilty that he cannot better live up to the impossible portrait of an idolized father, an idealized masculinity, an illusory model of the infallible, unshakeable warrior. despite all his achievements and natural giftedness, he nonetheless feels totally inadequate, deeply flawed, and ontologically worthless. perhaps, in a world beyond the pressures of war and its dehumanizing logic, sokka would have internalized the praise he was constantly receiving his whole life for his gifts. but since he was only ever a prodigy in ways that didn’t matter (within that colonized paradigm), he doesn’t actually care about how clever and brilliant and creative and talented and unique and special he is, because that would first require him to see himself as fully human, and he can’t even do that.

#analysis #sokka #katara #katara&sokka #hakoda #kanna #kya #hakoda&sokka #kanna&sokka #kya&sokka #kanna&katara #whew...! 20+ paragraphs about sokka and katara’s childhood. it’s more likely than u think (highly likely at all times)#see but this is why sokka is so clearly a mirror to azula to me #like not just in terms of crippling perfectionism and devastating fear of failure and being a child prodigy who is put on a pedestal #but simultaneously dehumanized etc etc #but also the fact that like. zuko treats her the same way katara treats sokka #he clearly thinks his immediate hostility and aggression towards her is like. him nobly fighting the battle against his tormentor #when that is literally his little sister and she is struggling so much and desperate for support from LITERALLY ANYONE #katara and zuko are like ‘let’s put azula in her place’ and high five #and that’s just so fucking apt because they truly do believe that it’s their duty to put their perfect prodigy siblings ‘in their place’#but those are truly two of the most miserable people on the planet #so to any outside observers it’s just like………. why are you being mean to them they’re literally suicidal and shaking like a leaf #but also everyone already knows that azula is the prodigious gifted sibling bc zuko says it like one million times #so there’s rly no need to argue that #whereas katara loves calling sokka an idiot so i do believe that some clarification is in order #but like. yeah there’s no way sokka was dismissed or neglected as a child #he’s dismissed and neglected by the world at large #but within his tribe he’s like a mini celebrity . he’s their young sheldon (sorry)#anyway im running out of room to write tags but um. perfectionism is a disease get well soon xoxo bye

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sacchiri · 1 month

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Hellsing 2002 calendar illustration.

Ein wunderliche und erschröckliche Hystori von einem großen Wüttrich genant Dracole wayda Der do so ganz unkristenliche marrter hat angelegt die mensche, als mit spissen als auch die leut zu Tod geslyffen

A wondrous and frightening story about a great berserk called Dracula the voivode who inflicted such unchristian tortures such as with stakes and also dragged people to death

#hellsing #alucard #kouta hirano #translation was found in a comment by u/lazyfoxheart on r/Kurrent #fun fact this is the highest quality version of this image that exists online #i know because i've been looking forever for a version that's clear enough to actually read what hirano wrote under '1443'#but there weren't any so i had to take matters into my own hands #the real image on the back of the guidebook is only 2 inches tall so i had to take this with my smartphone and will my hands not to shake #anyway i'm pretty sure it's supposed to say Eğrigöz (the location vlad was imprisoned) so yeah. thank you hirano very cool #if i might rant for a sec it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out because i didn't have the guidebook at first #and in the images i could find online that part was just a blur that looked suspiciously like a person's signature and i was like. who tf #i was thinking matthias corvinus since he issued some political propaganda against vlad iirc but it didn't match his signature on wikipedia #then i thought it might be vlad II dracul's since he probably had to sign an agreement to send his sons over as hostages at some point #but that didnt seem right either so i kept skimming vlad's wiki page #and then i was like goddammit...hirano.....you just misspelled Eğrigöz didn't you.. ....#i maybe should've made a separate post dedicated to this instead of writing a novel in the tags but eh #the hellsing brainrot runs deep #also- i put it in the source link at the bottom of the post but the german inscription is copied off a real woodcut of vlad from 1491 #except instead of depicting him as an adult hirano drew him as a child which gives the inscription a very different feel imo #the one final thing that interests me about this is the fact that hirano published this calendar in 2002 #which is REALLY early in the series. like this was before volume 5 came out??#i have no idea why he decided to do a massive spoiler drop in a random piece of japan-only merch #sandwiched between a drawing of alucard as john travolta from saturday night fever and integra as a fish no less #it makes me really curious to know what the fan response to this was back then. like did people even know who this was #maybe im just an idiot and everyone back then was like 'ah yes its alucard as a 12 year old. how very informative'

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mikesbasementbeets · 7 months

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chekhov's spit swear

#this is all over the place but. a paladin's oath... drawing blood... swapping spit... do you understand what i'm saying here......#btw fun fact the episode of steven univrse in which steven discovers he has healing powers is called 'an indirect kiss'#idk in case you find that interesting for any reason totally unrelated idk why im even bringing it up #also the shot of them. holding hands. behind lucas' back. during the last few minutes of the season when i'm viewing everything #as potential foreshadowing........... probably doesn't mean anything right?#byler #jancy #mikesbasementbeets posts

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funkinmadnesss · 23 days

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Throws these here finally KDMDHSSK

I was. Hoping to have posted more original art of literally anyone else but Mysterio before these saw the light of day but uuuhuuhghhg that didn't happen got bless <3

But huzzah! Earth-4918's Sinister six (Vaguely) TSSM styled (and by Vaguely I mean I put way too much detail in them, there just TSSM shaped)! (+Tinkerer, he's not a member but I'm posting him so it's even. The last member is Sandman but he belongs to my best friend and we haven't got around to making him a TSSM ref like these yet </3)

All references/orginal images I used came from here (x) (x) !

Little facts below cut for those itchrested :]

General info: They were all Human at some point and bonded over the fact they became this way by Norman's hand. Every inhuman feature about them is purely genetic now (Excluding Myst+Tink+Sandman). The whole group bonded over their shared hatred for Osborn in general though.

Adrian: He's an Egyptian Vulture. Tall as HELL, he's the second tallest. He's technically the leader and carries the burden of having a team made up of traumatized mutants while also being a traumatized mutant-

Lizard: Trans woman, Her name is Camila :] She has exactly 5 different lizard species in her DNA (5 points for anyone who can guess them all just from her design)

Rhino: It no longer identifies with anything from its life before getting mutated in an attempt to have some control over its life. Rhino strictly uses It/Its. Aside from Rhino DNA, It also has wooly mammoth DNA.

Lizard and Rhino fuckin HATE eachother. It stepped on her tail ONCE and she never forgave it. Mysterio often has to split the two up with his Alien form.

Electro: Graffiti artist. Has somewhat control over his bio electricity, Gloves and chestplate (which is what that tube attached to the back of his head is connected to.) help maintain that control.

Tinkerer (bc he's there): (My silly, my skrungly, my funny lil old man blorbo hehheghem-) Trans man :] Has a cat he rescued off the streets (bc i kept seeing people give him a cat and its like. Its a good headcanon) He and Beck met during his stuntman days (He was technical support on a movie Beck worked on), He isn't very fond of alot of the sinister six (Him and sandman are chill tho) but he tolerates them for Beck.

Okie thats all mwah/p

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randomwords247 · 6 months

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Cooking and baking

A small pet peeve of mine with cooking and baking is when recipes say the container rather than the amount

Like, instead of saying "500ml of cream" you say "a pot of cream". Or "a whole can of corn". Like okay which kind of can??? What amount???? Corn comes in more than one size you can't just tell me a can. PLEASE i am begging you tell me the WEIGHT

This is especially a problem with recipes from different countries, for example America. Because your stick of butter is different to our butter. STOP SAYING STICK OF BUTTER TELL ME THE QUANTITY IN GRAMS PLEASE I HAVE A FAMILY

that being said I feel like I see this crop up in like american recipes in particular. Idk if I've ever seen a recipe in one of our cookbooks that does this....

anyway please just tell me the gosh darn weight I am dying here I have a family I JUST NEED TO KNOW THE WEIGHT

#ramble post #randy rambles #recipes #cooking #baking #'a stick of butter' is the worst for repeat offender i see that crap everywhere in american recipes #JUST SAY THE AMOUNT #like even if a recipe here uses 250g of butter (our butter is in 250g idk what size american butter is) IT SAYS USE 250G OF BUTTER #actually tbf i think butter size is not something thats like fully conventional cuz i just googled lurpack and it says that one is 200g #fun fact our butter isnt a long weird stick like americans. why is your butter like that that looks awful to get on a knife to spread #ours is still rectangular its just like more square #ALSO LIKE IDM CUPS. I have measuring cups that have cups AND ml. I WOULD GLADLY TAKE MEASURING IN CUPS OVER 'STICK OF BUTTER' 'CAN OF CORN'#also for the record what spurred this on is i asked someone for their recipe of something and half the stuff is quantified in this way.#'1 box jiffy cornbread mix' what the frick is that please i have a family #like no hate to them lemme be clear but also WHY ARE AMERICAN RECIPES LIKE THIS IM CRYING #i could be wrong that its just american recipes but i SWEAR ive never seen this in any of our british cookbooks but everytime i try and loo #up an american recipe online or ask an american friend for a recipe they give me quantities like this and im over here quietly dying as i #try and decipher what the frick they just told me to use. what is going on why are recipes there like this #(also idk if they do it for cream i just wanted to give an example that wasnt just can of corn or can of soup)#(SOUP AND CORN COME IN MULTIPLE CAN SIZES YOURE HELPING NOBODY SAYING JUST 'A CAN')

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revasserium · 6 months

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write. it doesn't have to be good, it doesn't even have to be a story. write a sentence, a fragment, a phrase, a thought. write something. write anything. write.

and be proud of yourself that you did.

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #spilled ink #reminders to self #i've been so busy and exhausted this past week that i've been beating myself up over the fact that i haven't written or read anything #but... i've been living; i've been sitting with my exhaustion #trying to find words to describe it; i've been meeting new people and doing new things #i've been learning to apologize when i say something terrible to someone i love #and aren't these all things that aid in writing? in creation of any kind?#to feel the full spectrum of human emotion -- that's the most important thing for a writer #to feel things so you can take those feelings and experiences and put them in your writing #and in that vein im writing lil headcanon things for zoro and sanji #and also for tears of themis babes LOL #🌧 raindrops

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xero013 · 11 months

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Switcharoo!?🔀(🚇⚡)

#nimbasa trio #submas #nimbasabattleshipping #conductorshipping #elesa #subway boss ingo #subway boss emmet #gym leader elesa #subway boss nobori #subway boss kudari #thirdrailshipping #hello hello i come with some limited time only flavors—#you love a ship so much that you love them in any flavors fr fr #regardless of gender because im here for the cheMISTRY #im gonna say something corny about these three #inwhateveruniversetheyloveeachothersomuch #okay im done #oh! ♀️🚇 are called Ingrid and Emma!#also elios did in fact not handle it😔

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hella1975 · 7 months

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hiiii haha. hello. exceptionally awkward introduction bc idrk how to start something like this so let's just jump right in. im taking a break from this account for a bit. i know i said i wanted taob out before halloween and currently im fine sticking with that deadline, but if i decide i need longer away then i will take longer away. every time ive reassured people that id never abandon a fic and updates will always come eventually i never once considered that my writing and ability to feel safe and comfortable on this site would be actively taken from me, so im not even going to apologise. i dont want this either and more importantly i dont fucking deserve it. i dont know what it is in the past year, if ive hit a certain amount of followers or 'popularity' that's made it so the natural ratio of positive to negative interactions must in turn go up, but there's been a serious uptick in weird asks for me. the annoying part is that a very small amount of them are actually objectively mean and hateful, the rest are just weird and invasive from people who seemingly dont realise that's what they're being. ive reached a point where i dont care if the intentions are good. it's not my job as a 20 year old tumblr user of all things to defend the morality of someone who couldnt even bother to come off anon. unfortunately, after blocking only one or two anons, the weird asks have decreased substantially, which says all you need to know about the fascinating and exhilarating lives led by these people, but ive also gone on to turn anon asks off entirely. this is something i actively fought against doing and had to be pushed into by my mutuals (who have been the coolest people on planet earth during this entire thing). turning off anon was a big deal to me even if it sounds silly. i felt betrayed and like id been backed into a corner because it was so vehmently something i DIDNT WANT that to feel like i had to do it anyway for my own mental health??? that sucks. so even though ive 'fixed' the problem, im still kind of reeling and uncomfortable every time i come on tumblr. i hope it's just something i need time to ease because i'll truly be devastated if this becomes 'ruined' for me. tumblr exists as the only place in the world where i am honestly every facet of myself without shame or hesitation; losing that would be insanely harmful to me. and to the people who cant appeal to the actual human behind the post, let me put that in words you can understand: we wouldn't get any more writing 😦😦😦 riots and fires and sirens, i know. so yeah. to anyone who has sent me an anon ask and you're now wondering if you were part of the problem, im firmly of the belief that you'll know if you are. when i say 'weird asks' i dont mean 'you sent me a para about your personal life just to vent or ask for advice' or 'you sent me a really deep emotional compliment about the impact me and/or my writing has had on you' - i love asks like that, so much that i put off taking a break and turning off anon solely for the joy they bring me. im sorry that it might feel like you're being punished too bc of the actions of what in reality is a HANDFUL of weird people, but this is what i feel like i have to do to feel safe and not go insane every time i log in. love you guys, hopefully ill see you soon x

#seriously another shout out to my mutuals #id particularly like to say thank you to boom who's always right there for me no matter what's happening or how insane im being #and also everyone in our little discord that wound up having to make a whole new channel for venting #bc i was there so often like 'today's weird ask isssss.... telling me about my cupsize!! rip them to shreds!!!'#hannah and theo especially being there and pushing me to finally turn off anon. war is truly over #and of course rori bc the shamelessness u show when hating on my anon asks has been genuinely really cathartic #sometimes u really do just need a rottweiler mutual to tell random people online to kill themselves 😭#okay weird oscar acceptance speechcore gratitude over. i do just rlly love my mutuals #like i went three years not telling anyone about the worse side of internet popularity for fear of looking spoiled and ungrateful #so for the first time to open up about it and be met with outrage on my behalf and people saying in fact it's MORE fucked up #than i initially realised bc ive grown desensitised to it is. yeah cathartic i guess #they are singlehandedly reassuring me of the good this cursed app still holds #so everyone thank them and send them flowers NOW #okay im done i think. see you guys soon. i truly do want to come back asap bc like i said i NEVER EVEN WANTED TO FUCKING LEAVE #SOME ASSHOLES JUST HAD TO PUT GRENADES ON WHAT I ASSUMED WERE VERY UNIVERSAL AND OBVIOUS BOUNDARIES #if you're reading this like 'ohhh fuck i defo sent something invasive lately. i thought it was a joke/we were friends'#then 1) we arent friends if you're on anon. it immediately creates a power imbalance where you know me and any necessary context #but i have no idea who you are or how much you know about me. that's already a fucked dynamic #and 2) I HOPE YOU FEEL BAD. LIKE GENUINELY I HOPE YOU FEEL AWFUL AND HAVE A GOOD LONG LOOK AT YOURSELF #okay i think that's all. ta-ra lads??? how tf do u end something like this #ive queued this to reblog a couple more times throughout the day

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oceanwithouthermoon · 18 days

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i think its weird that i have to make this disclaimer but the internet is crazy so wtvr,, anyway,,

if i say i dont like something, that doesnt mean "that thing is bad and nobody should post it.."

i swear literally every time i even mention that i dislike something, people will go "wow does that mean u fucking hate me cuz i post that thing? ur a fucking stupid bitch and all ur opinions r wrong" LIKE ?? er.. no. just because i say i dont like certain characterizations of certain characters (the saiki k fandom is CRAZY about this cuz i can state an opinion on literally any character and a group of people will still go 'well only we're allowed to post our opinions about them because we're always right!1!1!'), or certain ship tropes (mentioned my hatred of toxic yaoi maybe once or twice on here months ago and people STILL get mad at me as if i said toxic yaoi lovers r evil or something), or certain ships, or WHATEVER, does not mean that i HATE the people who are posting them or that i think they shouldnt post them at all, NO, im just posting about my personal tastes on my personal blog and it would be extremely weird and hypocritical if i decided that i was the ONLY person that was allowed to do that,,

i think the only reason people assume that is because there are a lot of other people on here who ARE like that, and a lot of people toe the line between posting that they dont like something and posting that they think everyone who likes that thing is stupid, annoying, and wrong,, so i guess all i can say is, sorry for whatever made you make these assumptions but they arent true about me so plz leave me alone ʘ��ʘ ur doing the same thing to me that ur accusing me of but i didnt do it in the first place so ur just actively being a dick for no reason

#crazy that the mindset some people on here have is that theyre the only ones allowed to post their opinions #ive repeated this a lot on this blog but i rlly think people forget that the person on the other side of the screen is in fact a person #if ur harassing people and publicly making fun of them then ur just as bad as any real life bully #that shit isnt as funny or harmless as u like to pretend it is #not once have i ever targetted anyone or went on someones blog to harass them over my opinion #yet people think its fine to do the same to me and treat it as if its like. revenge or something #like ? me saying 'i dont like toxic yaoi' is not equivalent to someone going on someone elses page and going 'how tf do u like toxic yaoi'#I DONT CARE !! all ive ever done is sit in my own little bubble and had opinions and that makes people mad #honestly though the people who will publicly talk and post abt it are significantly meaner #and i want to act like im not bothered by it because i know most of them r just angry that someone has a different opinion #and they want all their followers to bandwagon off of them (idk why maybe for validation or whatever-same reasons anyone would bully)#but seriously if u actually do think that something i said was out of line and crossed thise boundaries- just fucking tell me ?#im a person bro. ur solution to disagreeing with me shouldnt be 'lol im gonna post abt this and make everyone harass them'#have a conversation with me dude i dont bite ? if u cant talk to me like a person then just dont fucking say anything wtf #its so cowardly to be like 'well no i didnt wanna say anything to u cuz i didnt wanna be rude.. so instead i publicly made fun of u!'#LIKE WHATTTT STOPPPPP </3333 #ok anyway this post wasnt supposed to get THAT serious.#MY POINT IS just be considerate of other people and dont base ur hatred off of assumptions #ur deflecting the blame onto someone else because u dont want to admit that ur just a fucking bully lol #being inconsiderate on here is something ive also been guilty of back when i first joined the fandom and was clueless #but grown ass adults who have been on here way longer r still doing that shit which is crazy #and i cant say anything because they have so much leverage over me and idk if its on purpose or if they dont even realize #ok im putting fandom tags cuz i want people to see this sorry. this is my one post thats actually targetted but its at a lot of people #so if u look at this and think 'hey i do that' pls evaluate urself<3 #i mean its also targetted at everyone who does this anonomously so i dont know who it is OKOK IM DONE BYE SORRY HOPE THIS IS UNDERSTANDABLE #watch nobody read this fr #saiki k #tdlosk #the disastrous life of saiki k.#meows post

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twinkalicious · 7 months

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no cause the fact that richter thought alucard was a myth is absolutely killing me. he grew up hearing stories of his ancestors' heroism, but for some reason a central figure of those stories was merely a legend to him, an immortal fantasy creature who he never got to meet. honestly i'm willing to bet his own mother and grandfather and any other belmonts before them didn't either. they only told the stories of defeating dracula as their parents did before them, thinking them dramatized and never literal. it became a game of telephone, with each person doubting the existence of a friendly dhampir ally more and more because alucard wasn't there to corroborate it. alucard separated himself from the belmonts at some point. he wasn't there to see trevor and sypha's lineage despite the fact that they merged their houses and literally founded a city together. speculating the when and why is going to drive me absolutely insane, you don't understand.

#i like to think he got sick of watching them all grow old and die #like maybe after he watches trevor and sypha's babies and grandbabies die he says ok i cant keep doing this #dozens and dozens of mortals who all have trevors humor and syphas whit and their eyes and their hair and their faces all bleeding together #alucard probably left after the first few generations because he knew he couldnt keep doing it over and over again #he couldnt lose them time and time again #the fact that richter has trevor's face and sypha's eyes is going to be a problem i think #trephacard #i am feeling angst in this chillis tonight they had BETTER EXPLAIN when and why alucard broke away from the belmont/belnades line #castlevania nocturne #AND ANOTHER THING #wonder if alucard will feel any misplaced guilt about not being there to protect the belmont descendants and their loved ones #god i hope im wrong and richter was just the outlier in not meeting the immortal family friend #also known as the belmonts' living family heirloom that i lowkey headcanon him as 😭

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satsuha · 1 month

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ageswap au made by @tenretsuzan on twitter! there's a brief explanation beneath the readmore

your name is hikari ku, age 30. you were banished from your home nation of ku at a young age and led a failed rebellion against your treacherous brother, laid low by a harsh betrayal.

"even if it means harnessing this darkness... i will see my country freed from war."

marred by scars left by your once erstwhile friends and plagued by a darkness that grows uncontrollable, you grasp onto the small hope that you may one day reclaim your nation once more...

your name is temenos mistral, age 21. you led a peaceful life in flamechurch until one day your brother disappears after leaving you with an ominous message about the church.

"roi... what could have led someone like you down a path like this?"

despite your father's protests, you follow after his footsteps in hopes of uncovering his whereabouts, as well as the church's secrets that forced his departure...

#satsuhart #temehika #octo2 #their goals are still the same it's just at different times #if you think about it hikari's rebellion would realistically take at least a few years lol #but this is after he tries to fight mugen but ends up being betrayed by both ritsu and rai mei and has to retreat to find another way #being alone and significantly less hopeful about his situation he starts leaning into his shadow more and more #temenos' is just a matter of... what if he went after roi immediately instead of choosing to stay #tldr its the 'im gonna fuck that old man' temehika au (30 isnt old but 21y/o teme thinks it is)#yeah teme looks the same but whatever. the light has not left his eyes #also fun(?) fact the english ingame descriptions of each char removed the ages #i can get why because saying 'you are x and you are a 21 year old warrior' sounds a little awkward in eng #but its also like. why i wonder if this is the reason people are way more weird about some of the ages #bc they werent told anytime within the game #meanwhile any jp player immediately going 30 YEARS OLD? 20? 18??? yeah u know who im talking about

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swords-of-a-soilder · 5 months

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I've sleep on it here's my beef

If you wanna log in to participate in a event that fine, I get for some CC's purgatory 2 isn't lore (I mean it clearly is, but some players are choosing not to involve it in their lore.) But when you've made the discussion not to take part in the lore you can't ask about it on screen.

I literally got confused when someone told me bad had a reason and to check there lastest reblog, thinking the book gave them the reason and apologising, this fully left me thinking that the residents where told to return home until I was discussing with someone else and realized I fully misread that (I need to wear my glasses more TBh)

But this play apart of the problem because what I except was a lore reason and I went looking for it, just to find out later there is no lore reason bad just calls himself vactionbadboy halo when he wants to log in.

Look I get playing purgatory for fun, I get wanting to log in to see your friends, Tubbo did it, and Pac did it; but the difference with them being they made up a reason to be there (the boat didn't leave) is a completely valid reason.

I can see them going home and then later being drag back to the boat by the incompetent egg Island workers, but jumping back and forth to the island in the middle of purgatory is problematic.

If you don't want to take part in the lore then don't, don't ask questions about what's happening lore wise (on stream he can always inquire in dms ) , don't do things on the Island that messes with other people's lore or breaks the immersion make it easy for the actual people who care about the lore; Ie: fan fiction writers, artists, role players (I am all these things) to pretend you're not there!

This sounds dumb but I genuinely, when lore is happening take note of every little the to go "how can I explain this in lore, how could I enhance this in lore" to help with my fan art or fan works.

Genuinely I have a list of game mechanics,(chat, tabs list, death messages) and have written ways to explain them in lore, so you can imagine my annoyance when someone who isn't supposed to be involved ask questions fresh of a lore event.

I think the confusion to add to it is that Phil has been trying to do more improv on the spot right now rp; like leaving cuucurhoo the notice of the eye guy and keeping his webcam on until a big event ( and I love him for that, genuinely I love lore so much because it feeds art and fan fiction)

But I feel like im being taken a fool when someone who isn't technically supposed to be there asks questions about something they're not supposed to be awear of and even bounces of it like they're in lore "yeah it looks like we're going to war with you guys." we who? You're supposed to be Vacation halo, you aren't in purgatory right, if so how did you get home?!

Get what I'm saying? It sucks because everyone else so far seemed to-do A decent job of staying out of lore if they want to visit some committing to not coming back to the island at all (cough* bolas *cough ) .

If you don't wanna take part in the lore don't complicate the already existing lore, it annoynes me greatly.

I don't mind the attenting events so much, it's the fail rping of discussing something you shouldn't know not long after it happened. (Metagaming)

#qsmp #qpurgatory 2 #bbh neg #this is why you dont fail rp #like ok i get it its not canon for you #but it is for others #and like you need to respect that #if some players dont have the option to call upon certain people because they been kidnap despite stating they wish they could #i need you to play along and pertend you're not here dont ask about the lore #ignore the image at spawn #is that so much to ask #-50k rp points #you can disagree innthe comments but please dont do it when they intention of getting me to respond and see it your way #i get that you want people to see things your way but let people have opinions #you can state “i disagree cause” but please don't start getting accusatory towards me i domt h #i don't have the time for this #let people have opinions thanks #also if any other creator did this i would be upset #it's not a bbh specific thing its the action that upsets me #i know for a fact to im not the only one who found stuff confusion evem others are saying they cant tell what's canon anymore #like please i need players to work around not wanting to lore #be a good sport please #qsmp discourse

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lord-squiggletits · 1 month

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Thinking about IDW Optimus again and the fandom's aversion to even acknowledging he exists bc he's a cop or whatever and like. Most of the time people literally just replace him in fic with some white bread knockoff archivist/librarian, not even bothering to keep in IDW OP's personality (which just bolsters my theory that the problem isn't him being a cop the problem is that he's too multifaceted but I digress).

And it's annoying because you could totally write IDW Optimus as not a cop while still keeping his canon personality. You just have to realize that the reason IDW OP became a cop in the first place is because his formative experiences when he was young shaped him to basically have two priorities: 1. To help people and 2. To do it by being on the ground actively doing something about the bad things happening to people.

IDW OP would not be a fucking librarian or archivist because even though those are noble pursuits that can help people and change the world, and Optimus is educated/smart enough for the profession, he wouldn't be satisfied just teaching people or spreading information about activism or social-historical studies or whatever. He's a mech of action: he needs to be doing things right now, in front of him, to people he sees/interacts with in his own eyes, improving society with concrete actions rather than indirect action or abstract inspiration.

So basically the alternate job ideas I can think of for IDW Optimus are something like being a firefighter (or any first responder really) or even whatever the equivalent would be to international charity organizations, those ones that send volunteers across the world to do stuff like build housing/infrastructure or distribute food or whatnot. I mean I can't imagine that the equivalents to these things would be exactly the same in IDW Cybertron, so you'd have to get a little creative with it, but these are just some ideas of jobs that would fit IDW Optimus' personality while still filling the niche of "not a cop" for people who are just that opposed to it.

Though I think the revulsion against coptimus is annoying in general tbh because IDW is already a continuity that rejects the idea of easily defined good/evil people or groups. It feels like people really want Optimus to be a good person in a very sanitized and academically approved way, so he has to be nice and squeaky clean but also like, a perfect leftist who knows theory and holds the most progressive opinions on every single issue....

There is no room for the idea that good people join bad institutions, there's no room for the idea that the reason people think cops are good guys who help people is bc of the government propaganda everything is saturated with. Hell there's even later issues of the Optimus Prime series by John Barber where Optimus like, MULTIPLE FUCKING TIMES, is shown in flashbacks grappling with the fact that he as a cop/Zeta's regime that he works for might not actually be improving society like they say they are, and dealing with the fact that he feels more like a lesser evil compared to the Decepticons (perhaps not "lesser" at all).

It's like there's this idea in fandom of like, fictional media and opinions on media having to strictly adhere to progressive ideals at all times. So people just go "cops bad, this character is a cop, therefore they suck" without being willing to engage with the idea of like. IDW OP is born wanting to fight injustice and protect people -> a good way to protect people is to fight the people who are hurting them and committing crimes -> surely following the law is a reliable moral code to guide him in this -> becomes a cop because he's been indoctrinated into a society (much like our own) where he was told that the state/the law exist to protect the people and being a cop means you get to fight bad guys that hurt people. There's really so many interesting concepts there that could be (and CANONICALLY IS) explored about how good, well-intentioned people can be led to harmful actions simply because they have been fed the idea that the things they're doing are good/helpful/noble. Which is especially important for a character like Optimus, I think, who has a cultural icon status as The Irrefutable and Perfect Good, so it's really important actually to use IDW Optimus as an example of how even the most noble people you know have held problematic beliefs or done bad things at some point in their life. You know, because no one is born perfect and ideologically pure, and in fact society is constructed in exactly a manner to make people drink the kool-aid and believe that the systems designed to hurt them/others are just a normal, if flawed, society.

I mean the writing in IDW literally has Optimus deal directly and indirectly with the harm he's done as a cop and how people don't/didn't trust him because of that. I don't know what the fuck else this fandom wants if the source material literally saying "OP realizes that cops suck and he hurt people and earned their disdain by doing the things he did" doesn't stop them from going EW cop bastard sucks and is the worst Optimus. Like the narrative barely stops short of outright saying ACAB and Optimus himself would agree with this sentiment.

At that point, the collective fandom beef with IDW OP isn't because he's a cop and the narrative didn't do enough to condemn that. The problem is literally just that people don't read and don't care

TLDR: Consider the fact that good people can do bad things sometimes especially when living from birth in a corrupt society that thoroughly disguises its vices/oppressive structures as completely normal parts of existence

#squiggposting #idw op love #like honestly just admit that you havent actually read his parts of the story #or that in a continuity of moral grayness you insist OP must be the one person who's perfectly good #bc idk Optimus is supposed to be good and perfect bc nostalgia/marketing/mythology says he should be #also i feel like theres evidence here of a very juvenile mindset of like #to be good a person has to have all the right beliefs and say it in all the right ways #which is the mindset only extremely insular or inexperienced ppl could possibly have lmao #heartbreaking i know but IRL there are very few people who are and always have been progressive and perfect #there are ppl within progressive mvmts that have unaddressed harmful beliefs outside of their Chosen Issue #there are people who wouldnt ID as progressive at all but are still good ppl who act well towards others #like if youve actually interacted with ppl IRL you understand that if you reject everyone who isnt Perfectly Progressive #youll have few if any allies and possibly alienate ppl who would help/ARE HELPING #like idk do you know how many ppl i personally know who i think have some bigoted/problematic beliefs #but im still friends or collaborators w them bc i understand that theyre still good ppl learning and growing #like. learn to understand that 'goodness' doesnt always look like a walking leftist textbook please i'm begging #and in fact sometimes stories. esp adult and mature ones. will present you w problematic ppl #and you have to like. grapple with their flaws and explore the tension between intention and consequences #a bit of a philosophy tangent rather than anything TF related which is why i kept it to the tags

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