Respectfully, anyone who believes that Roxas shouldn't have come back in kh3 is wrong and also doesn't know how to make a satisfying end to a characters narrative.
I could maybe forgive thinking Naminé or Xion shouldn't have returned, as they at least got to make the informed decision to return to their counterparts themselves. It would still be wrong but I can at least forgive it.
But Roxas? His entire story is about being allowed to be yourself regardless of what anyone else around you says you should be. It doesn't/shouldn't matter if he comes from Sora, because he is someone else entirely. It's his life, not Sora or anyone elses. Having a story like that end with him being violently forced to return to Sora when he doesn't even know anything about what's going on is flat out bad writing.
Did he accept that he had to die for Sora? Well, sure, but only after getting to beat him within an inch of his life. Only reason he accepts it is because he literally has no other choice but to. He can't keep clinging to the anger and misery at his circumstances forever.
And, you know, it probably helps that the person this was all for also fucking hates it. In no way is Sora happy about what happened to Roxas. Of course he'd bring him back, it's Sora. The situation is so unfair and tragic that having it end with him just staying in Sora forever would literally go against the essence of the entire series.
Kingdom Hearts is, at it's core, a series about bonds. Roxas was established basically immediately as having very important bonds! His best friend literally died for him! He has friends that don't even know it because it was another version of them, but they still feel that bond to him anyway! You really think they should've just thrown away a character whose bonds transcended the boundaries between data and reality just like that? Get real.
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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.
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Do you know this (noncanon) ADHD character?
SPECIFICALLY THE MOVIE VERSION, NOT THE COMICS VERSION
Evidence below the cut!
There were two submissions, presumably from the same person as they used the same image? If not, hilarious coincidence.
Second links this post
First has this to say:
He is impulsive, prone to hyperfocus (or not focusing at all), easily bored, creative, makes leaps from A to Z without much seeming connection (there is, but explaining how would take too long), incredibly energetic/hyper, interrupts when speaking, prone to anxiety, has terrible time management, memory issues, speaks a lot and loudly....so....many...symptoms
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You know, when I think about Arcane I can't help but think about the fact that I'm not a huge fan of how Vander handled things.
I mean his heart was definitely in the right place, he wanted to protect his children and his people, but to be honest there were moments where I felt like he was very confidently doing the wrong thing.
Specially in a child rearing sense. Now I just want to put it out there, that we the audience are shown a biased depiction of Vander.
Just about every scene he's in he's surrounded by his people who (mostly) look to him for protection, his children who adore him, or his enemies who are literal drug lord gang leader bad guys and corrupt policemen. Who are not humanized by the story until after his death.
For one there's Vi's pretty obvious eldest daughter syndrome, which Vander does nothing to try and curb. In fact I feel like in most of their scenes together Vander is treating this unhealthy dynamic as Vi being her sibling's leader and that she therefor needs to take more responsibility for them.
Even though I feel like Vander teaching Vi that way of thinking caused a lot of problems for all of the kids.
Sure it's great when your kids can work together, but there shouldn't be a pecking order among them, and if there is you shouldn't encourage it.
Vander fully expects Vi to take responsibility for Powder(which makes some level of sense considering she's 4-ish years younger than Vi), but also Mylo and Claggor, who are both the same age as her.
Meaning that if Vander trusts Vi to look after herself (and Powder) I feel like he should be able to trust Mylo and Claggor to look after themselves.
Vi should not be saddled with the responsibility of being in charge of her siblings, who are literally the same age as her.
If Vander is going to be reprimanding Vi for getting into trouble, he should be getting on to Mylo and Claggor just as much.
Sure Mylo and Claggor mention that Vander is going to be upset, but it's very obvious that the majority of the responsibility rests on Vi's shoulders.
Which, sure they look up to Vi and listen to what she has to say and what she thinks they should be doing.
But if it's to the point where Vander thinks it's gotten to the point that they will literally blindly follow Vi into dangerous situations because she said so. Then I feel like it's time for Vander to have a sit down with the rest of his kids and have the very important "Thinking for yourself" talk.
It's- You can't raise your children to just blindly follow their oldest sibling their entire life, and raise the oldest child to be the caretaker of the rest of their siblings their entire life.
Yeah, Vi needs to think things through a bit more, because the other kids look up to her a lot, and will go along with whatever her plans are, because they think she knows what she's doing and they trust her.
But also the other kids need to know how to assess things for themselves, rather than just blindly follow whatever it is Vi says, no matter how much they look up to her.
Like this man fully thinks that his 15 year old daughter, who clearly has problems with her temper and being impulsive herself, should also be responsible for her two adoptive brothers who are functionally the same age as her [one with a pretty obvious superiority/inferiority complex], alongside her younger sister who already has problems of some kind of anxiety.
Mylo and Claggor are just fully not held to the same standard as Vi in spite of being the same age, and literally getting into the exact same trouble. Their choice to go along with what Vi planned, is put onto Vi's shoulders when it shouldn't be, because if Vi is old enough to know better in Vander's mind, so are Mylo and Claggor.
If it was just Powder I could somewhat understand. She's younger, more impressionable, she idolizes Vi, she's not as strong or fast as the other three and if Vi forgot that at some point Powder could have gotten left behind or hurt.
You know the general "You need to be a good role model for your younger sibling because they look to you for guidance" stuff.
Like the fact that Vi feels the need to fight Piltover in order to secure a better life for Powder in Act 1 tells me so much just how parentified Vi is when it comes to Powder's care.
Which I do think originated from before Vander adopted the girls, to be fair to Vander. Vi gives off the vibe of looking after Powder having always been her responsibility.
To be unfair to Vander, I don't think he did anything to try and undo Vi's over responsible and over protective mindset when it came to Powder after adopting them.
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