#even when he was righteous and good

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

if people were fundamentally good, we would not need Christ

[bonefall]

NEVER STOP!!! everytime I get mad over DOTC I just come onto your page and read your Gray Wing slander and immediately feel better, thanks muchly! 😌✨️

I am but a humble DOTC Slander ranger, riding across the sunlit horizon with a big iron on my hip, putting every hater's formless frustration into the words you felt but did not realize how to say ✨️

[lord-squiggletits]

One of my least favorite parts of how JRO wrote Optimus is that he wanted so badly to continue his dark and gritty world building making the Autobots problematic, but evidently couldn't reconcile this with Optimus being a Heroic Paragon, so instead he leaned way too hard into "oh Prowl was the one who did this and it was behind Optimus' back" which if anything I think makes Optimus look worse, not better. Because then it's like, okay I know Optimus trusted Prowl a lot as his friend but you CANNOT TELL ME that over the course of 4 million years, Optimus as the leader of the Autobot army who literally would have access to 99.9% of all the records they produce, would never notice or question where some of these odd/inconsistent details were pointing. It just seems really inconsistent with how a real military would actually function, especially regarding Optimus' character, who is incredibly thorough and responsible and wouldn't neglect to keep up with all the details of his army.

Hell, Optimus knows who the Wreckers are and had them on call for tricky operations when he needed them (Stormbringer) so he's literally not at all ignorant of/averse to the use of special wartime units composed of dubious individuals. He's the fucking commander of an entire army, of course he knows that War Is Hell (TM) and no one's hands are clean. That's not even getting into all the stuff he got up to in phase 2/3, I mean everything from the annexation of Earth to OP breaking humans out of prison against Council orders shows that Optimus is no stranger to immoral and/or unlawful means.

It also leads to a lot of annoying fanon where people write Optimus (sometimes unintentionally, sometimes not) as like some sort of ignorant fool who's unaware of the machinations of his own army or has some sort of naiveté of "b-but we can't use bad tactics against the enemy! I would never condone the use of morally gray means in war!" No, IDW Optimus knows perfectly well all of the bullshit he's enacted/condoned for the sake of trying to win the war. Some stuff is definitely out of character for him and was only machinated because of Prowl, but I think this fandom REALLY underestimates Optimus' personal agency/responsibility as the commander of a whole ass army and ESPECIALLY underestimates Optimus' capacity to condone morally gray Bullshit Of War while still being a good person individually as well as, comparatively, the lesser evil compared to Megatron/the Decepticons.

Anyways what I'm saying is JRO may be a good writer but he's really hesitant to make Optimus morally gray and does some asspulls sometimes to justify most of the bad things the Autobots did as "Optimus just didn't know," and since the majority of the IDW1 fandom only reads JRO's stuff they go running with this premise of ignorant/uninformed Optimus when there's evidence elsewhere in canon to show that Optimus is, in fact, very highly aware of the bullshit he's allowed "for the greater good" and the only stuff he was "unaware of" was the stuff he would literally never agree to the ethics of, like bombing innocent neutrals disguised as Decepticons to get them to join the Autobots.

[violet-witch-6]

In general I agree with everyone who thought that Jamie reaching out to his dad this episode didn’t sit right because that’s not what forgiveness should really mean in this context. We the viewer know that James Tartt Sr is in rehab which could potentially open up the possibility of Jamie resuming contact with him in a healthy manner (although even that’s deeply fraught) but crucially Jamie doesn’t know that.

That being said, what I don’t agree with is that this is a misstep of the show, because by no means is it ooc for Jaime to want to reach out. Does it muddy the themes of the show somewhat with regards to forgiveness? Yes, but they already demonstrated their point with Rebecca and Rupert. She was able to move on from that relationship and accept the good parts as well as the bad without giving any ground on letting Rupert back into her life. We already have that healthier, more linear model of healing from an abusive relationship. Not every character, and certainly not every person is able to do that perfectly on the first try, and given that Jamie is still young, not angry for probably the first time in his life, and has at least some reason to worry about his dad (with him not being in the stands I certainly thought he was dead until the rehab reveal) it makes sense that Jamie would want to reach out and see if he’s okay.

This show has demonstrated time and again that it’s not about perfect people. Sometimes they misstep or do something stupid and unhealthy because they’re people. Roy was insensitive and selfish when Keeley’s sex tape was leaked, Issac lashed out when what his friend needed was support. These were all dealt with by the show as natural character flaws that arise in moments of conflict or stress, even for our “good guys”. Jamie texting his dad is in the same vein. Hopefully that means the show will address it as such in the finale.

[adrienschat]

*screaming on the top of my lungs* that’s not what Jesus would have wanted

(Venting in tags)

[biblionerd07]

I tried watching some of the Ian/Mickey scenes from season 11 and it made me ill. These are IMPOSTERS. That is not Ian and Mickey!! Especially Mickey!!! Look at how they massacred my boy. But one of the most frustrating parts is that if you watch the deleted scenes it shows that someone in that writers’ room DID know how to write Ian and Mickey but the producers or whoever makes that decision were like “nah, no meaningful conversations that show how much they love and respect each other and are working on their relationship. These fans who’ve been watching the characters struggle for a decade want them to continuously argue and beat the shit out of each other and act like they hate each other!”

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

underrated genre of character playlist entry: songs a character would relate to because they do not understand their situation, themself, or the song itself well enough to realize it is not accurate (and might well straight up be a callout for people like them). which song is your blorbo's fight club

[rivilu]

Ooo...

[maschotch]

You mentioning the fact that they're profilers is so real bc like it honest to god ASTOUNDS me how badly they all read hotch like he so so so so clearly cares for every member of the Bau WAAYYY more than he cares for him self and he's literally never shown otherwise??? Like even the whole drill boss stuff or whatever tf he said he's never aggressive with the group if they mess up he's always understanding but fair and most is pretty much the first one to comfort them (if the script allows) UNLESS he's going through some shit IE the whole divorce plot and foyet AND IT BAFFLES ME HOW EVERYONE FUCKING MISSES IT CONSIDERING ITS THEIR J O B

they’re all kinda bad at profiling each other but istg they have to TRY to understand hotch so poorly… i’m trying to think of a moment where he yells at them when they’re not directly putting themselves in danger or in the immediate aftermath of him getting attacked in his fucking home, but i cant think of anything?? he doesnt like being harsh with them and he learns the hard way with the elle situation that it doesnt get them anywhere. the only time he was unduly upset w someone was with emily in the beginning and that’s only bc he thought she was either a nepotism hire (which she kinda was) or a plant for strauss (which she kinda was)

he’s “strict” but like?? is he?? he does half their paperwork for them and they dont even know it. instead of doing things by the book and getting reid fired, he turned the other way and let him work through his drug problem. maybe he says “no” sometimes, but he usually relents anyway—like when jj has a feeling ab a case or when he calls the fucking vatican for emily. if he was a drill sergeant, would he let garcia keep a bunch of clutter on her desk and dress in bright clothing?? he doesnt coddle them or anything bc that’s not really his personality, but he’s gentle w them and even praises them when he knows they need it. he doesnt always step in and help when he should (i think that honestly has more to do w him being self conscious than anything—he doesnt want a drill sergeant/bully to make things worse), but he keeps a close eye on each of their wellbeing and will quietly urge one of the others to help out if someone’s in a tough spot

sure he doesn’t smile a whole lot and he’s known for his perpetually neutral face, but at the same time it’s not very hard to tell how he’s feeling. he’s effective at his job, he’s good at playing the tough guy, but tbh he let’s things get to him easily. he takes their criticism to heart and does his best to be better. he HATES seeing any of them hurt: ever notice how after what happened with elle he never uses his own agents as bait like that again? he either uses himself (like the fight club episode) or one of the team volunteers and he relents (like emily in the omegaverse swingers episode). they misread his social awkwardness as being cold when really i think he’s just mildly uncomfortable being the center of attention in an unprofessional setting.

it’s wild to me how frequently they misjudge him. i think he kinda knows and almost encourages it?? while still considering their judgements genuine?? morgan is a great example: of all his subordinates, morgan has worked with him the longest, since before he was in charge of the team. so you’d think morgan would have the best insight. but morgan has a complicated relationship w authority figures and tends to be automatically defensive out of habit. essentially, he’s been projecting on hotch since day one and has been blinded by the convoluted series of lenses he sees hotch through: as a constantly rotating mixture of buford, stilinski, and his father. it’s prevented him for actually seeing hotch for who he is, and hotch seems to make no real effort to correct any of those presumptions. but hotch still takes it personally when morgan criticizes him (prob bc it feeds his own negative view of his self worth and uses it as justification for whatever self loathing bullshit he’s on)

basically, hotch knows everyone has skewed perceptions of him and is fine letting their delusions continue uninterrupted—encourages it, even. he’s more comfortable receiving scathing remarks, even if they’re inaccurate, bc it allows him to continue his own delusion ab his place in the world. if they hate him (or if he thinks they hate him), it gives him a reason to hate himself. which is why i think he kinda likes that they’re bad at profiling him. it’s a way to receive that negative attention without actually being vulnerable. it’s a very very passive manipulation—more like he’s allowing them to manipulate themselves—that feeds his self loathing. i think he does it on purpose, so i cant necessarily fault the others for so drastically misunderstanding hotch. especially since they do get better at it over the seasons: they’re able to see through his defense mechanisms a little more, even if they still cant see him clearly

[thyandrawrites]

I want to have faith Horikoshi’s knows what he’s doing but… I can’t. I just can’t. All his writing decisions lately just make me cringe.

I think that's understandable. You didn't ask for advice, but if you were to accept it, I'd suggest taking a break from the manga for a while. In the past few years I've taken breaks too when I felt my frustrations mounting, and it helped me get some distance from the writing and find again my love for the characters and the story overall. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't, but for stuff like this, that plays out in the long term, I find that it's sometimes easier to process a whole arc at once. If you follow it week by week, you spend months worrying about how things will fall into place, or dragging your feet as months go by without the plot going where you see it going eventually. It makes the frustration a lot harder to bear imho

[mostlyanything19]

Oh you guys weren't kidding, the Ashton/Percy confrontation is fantastic

[mikkouille]

I know it makes sense cuz duh, twitter's in the name, but boysplanet-twitter really is the place where taste dies

[gch1995]

Hi! Been thinking about Luke and Vader. How do you think Luke went from wanting to die to believing there was good in Vader? What caused that change/acceptance?

I have a lot of sympathy for Anakin/Darth Vader, and I don’t think it’s fair to place blame on just him for becoming such a deeply dysfunctional and horrifying human disaster as an adult, considering how deeply compromised his agency was his entire life under a series of abusive, hypocritical, and oppressive authority figures within a dystopian galaxy’s fucked up institutions. However, that doesn’t mean Luke wouldn’t have still had absolutely every right to hate his father for hurting him, his friends, and the many other people throughout the galaxy either.

Yet, ultimately Luke didn’t hate his father, even after Darth Vader reached out to him through the force by torturing his son’s friends, stalking him, abducting him, terrorizing him, threatening him, and cutting off his hand to try to coerce him to join the dark side in Empire Strikes Back.

Why?

I think the most obvious reason is that, with a little space and time to recover from the trauma that his father put him through in his efforts to find him and recruit him to the dark side, Luke ultimately sensed the good within Anakin beneath the darkness after he revealed that he was doing all this because Luke was his son, his family, who wanted freedom from Sidious and someone better to bond with than that sadistic asshole his current master was.

Also, in spite of how awful and dangerous it was for Anakin to terrorize Luke, cut off his hand, and threaten him like that on Bespin to try to recruit him to the dark side, he intentionally goes out of his way to avoid outright killing his son by going easy on him battle, giving him chances to escape, and trying to recruit him to the dark side to bond with his son and gain freedom, rather than bringing him to the Emperor.

Yes, he’s being awful, cowardly, and selfish in his methods, but Anakin is also trying to more easily avoid the possibility of one of them getting killed by Palpatine or one another by going after his son to try to recruit him to the dark side to overthrow the Emperor because he knows his master will do worse to Luke and/or himself if he finds out the truth about his son still being alive and a Jedi.

In Empire Strikes Back, Anakin also tells Luke “Don’t make me destroy you” when his son skitters away from him in terror. Though he went about looking for Luke pretty obsessively to try to recruit him for the dark side, once his son actually refuses to be swayed to the dark side by his father on Bespin after being abducted, terrorized, and amputated by him, Anakin notably doesn’t keep hunting down Luke to try to recruit him to the dark side or personally kill him for refusing after he runs away in terror in the movie. He’s upset about it, sure, but he really never wanted for Luke to be killed or hurt long term either.

Then, you also have to examine the fact that Luke didn’t really ever view Owen and Beru Lars as his parents. Though they loved Luke, and he loved them, Owen and Beru still never encouraged Luke to view them as his parents either. They were Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen to Luke, but never mom and dad to him. Luke really wanted someone to be able to identify as his parents. Anakin, flawed as he was, was the first person in Luke’s life to identify themselves as one his parents he had been missing his whole life, which is also why he was particularly desperate to bond with his father and inspire him to turn back to the light side.

If you guys want to chime in, you can!

@abla-soso

@fanfic-lover-girl

@fanfictasia

@komikbookgeek

@yoghurtconsumer

[lord-squiggletits]

You know, I think my thing about liking “asshole Megatron” more than “good Megatron” (speaking in terms of IDW1) isn’t just the fact that I find evil Megatron more entertaining and sexy, but that I suppose I don’t like the way good guy/Autobot Megatron’s personality is?

Like mmmm I’m not trying to be one of those people who goes “he’s OOC!” or “he’s such a wimp!” or “he’s evil and doesn’t deserve to be redeemed,” but there was just something slightly grating about the way Megatron is/acts in MTMTE/LL. If I had to pick a word for it, he just seems very... self-pitying? Ratchet said it perfectly while the DJD were attacking and he told Megatron “Oh of course it’s all about you, what a surprise.”

There’s something about Autobot Megatron that makes me hate him as a person, not like in a “haha what a pathetic bastard” way the way I see villain Megatron, but in a way that’s like “god you are so fucking stuck up and annoying” in a non-enjoyable way. Maybe it’s because Autobot Megatron was a last minute plot change and I’m sensing how JRO “forced” Megatron to be part of the narrative last minute? But that would just be a matter of shoddy writing, and MTMTE/LL aren’t shoddily written.

It’s presumptuous to try and assume the motivation of an author, but I guess it kind of feels like JRO was trying so hard to make Megatron a better person that it backfired and made him more unlikeable in my eyes. Like, Megatron’s dialogue about how if he goes back towards violence he’ll never come back out again because the guilt will be too much is poetic yeah, it’s a very cute notion, but the context is that the fucking DJD (who Megatron made) is attacking and killing members of the Lost Light (who Megatron is in charge of) and was it supposed to make me think of Megatron as noble or pitiable or something? Because instead it just pissed me off and made me want to scream “this isn’t fucking about you Megatron, stop being an angsty mope and DO SOMETHING GOOD FOR ONCE instead of crying about how hard it is for you to not enjoy killing people.”

It’s fucking weird because I of course love the concept of redeemable Megatron, and I’m fascinated with the way in which he adopted violence as a coping mechanism for trauma, but the way he’s written in MTMTE/LL just makes him seem more like he’s a self-justifying asshole trying to make pitiable attempts at good deeds than like he’s actually improving as a person. Which of course is a problem caused by the fact that JRO shoved him into the plot last minute and it didn’t actually make sense for Megatron to be on the Lost Light.

[ante--meridiem]

Sorry for being back on my Podcast bullshit but it occurs to me that the one version of Martin I do like is avatar!Martin because the thing that annoys me most about him is his attachment to normalcy and this forces him to either ditch it or at least end up seriously in conflict with it.

[bbqhooligan]

wrote two giant paragraphs responding someone and then clicked away are you proud of me i chose peace i kept my peace