#idw Optimus slander

[ghostingcrows]

Oh my god no because this is the thing I hate MOST about IDW. Is that Optimus is such a bad guy—he leaves his “friends” for dead/to be assailed by humans (Bumblebee, Jazz), he spouts about being better than the Primes who came before but does the exact same thing as them (takes advantage of the Prime label, colonizes an organic planet). But John Barber especially constantly fucking justified his actions. He colonizes Earth bc he can’t actually fix the weapons trade even though that’s what they were sent to do? Justified bc of a titan! He brings humans to Cybertron and they attack and poison Cybertron? Not his fault! There’s a hidden hot spot inside Trypticon? Obviously, that is Starscream’s villainy and Optimus taking it to Earth is righteous and not petty politicking!!! He constantly antagonizes those he view as “opposition” even though it’s peace time. AND OH OH OH when Bumblebee gets leadership, Optimus immediately comes back and says “oh I respect your leadership” but he never does. He still acts like the leader. When he gives Bumblebee the matrix it’s him “entrusting Cybertron to Bumblebee”, not “Bumblebee’s the leader the Autobots voted for, not me” and then he leaves Bumblebee for dead (I wonder why) AND THEN JOHN BARBER WEITES BUMBLEBEE CONSTANTLY DEFENDING OPTIMUS even THOUGH Mika Costa (who also has issues as a writer, but) consistently wrote Bumblebee as being frustrated with Optimus—something that should have only grown as a result of companionship with Starscream!!!! Sorry for the rant this is just one of the things I am very much a hater about (I have ranted about this before and I will again)

YES

THANK YOU

I hate John Barbers writings in IDW

From the horrid way he portrays Optimus to the just rampant character assassination

Soundwave HATES primes for good reason and then while OP is literally blackmailing him he randomly decides that hes friends with OP for NO REASON

The last time Windblade sees Starscream before Unicron she had reached an understanding of who he was and why he was like that

But then during Unicron before he can even say anything she immediately jumps on the hate train

And the most annoying thing ever is that he can't seem to decide if he thinks OP is bad or not'

One moment he has charcter calling out OP and making genuine remarks about his corruption but literally the next panel they'll be like "I'd follow him to the day I die" I hate it OP SUCKS

[skywarpshydroflask]

oh word? good for him

[lord-squiggletits]

The source post/user of this take will go unnamed but

This take is actually infuriating to me because it ALMOST made a good point about Optimus until the person claimed that Optimus "sacrifices" his soldiers for "[his] own higher moral standard."

Because uhhhhh fuck no.

The entire point of Optimus as a leader is that he asks the Autobots to make hard decisions BECAUSE IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

He asks them to protect alien organics, despite the fact that organics hate them and barely see them as sentient, because defending innocent life from being extinguished even if they don't like you is the right thing to do.

He asks the Autobots not to attack humans, even in self-defense, because Cybertronians are the one who brought war to their planet and humans are the victim of their occupation. Because it's the right thing to do.

He asks the Autobots to forgive the atrocities of war and commit to living peacefully with Decepticons and neutrals (even being willing to exile himself and abdicate leadership at one point) because abandoning vengeance so that Cybertron can heal is the right thing to do.

He punishes an Autobot who murders Decepticons/Autobots for their war crimes, not just because of the reasons above, but because as the Autobot leader, he would be a hypocrite for allowing his own soldiers to murder freely while the Decepticons remain outcasts. Was it an easy (or even perfect) choice? No. But it was the right thing to do.

Because doing the right thing often requires making things harder, denying yourself the easy path to victory, and yes, even sacrificing your life. And this is a choice that millions of people have made, in fiction and in real life, because goodness is so precious that it's worth sacrificing for.

I fucking hate this warped logic where apparently, Optimus' virtue is actually just "dangerous" and all he's doing is sacrificing his own people's lives in the pursuit of (presumably) an abstract "moral standard." No. Optimus Prime has a moral code and doesn't just ask others to follow it, but commits to it himself. He places himself in the face of danger and needless inconvenience for the sake of aliens who barely even know him or like him (multiple people think he's super weird for this btw, Optimus' pro-organic stance is actually super radical by Cybertronian standards). Optimus Prime has a moral code and he asks his Autobots to do the right thing and THE AUTOBOTS WILLINGLY FOLLOW HIM because of their unified commitment towards their moral code. Every Autobot who fights the war does so willingly and can leave pretty much at any time. Unlike a certain other leader who has an entire Division dedicated towards murdering people who don't want to fight any more.

[saxandviolins88]

If you have seen them I NEED to know your take on the TFA Constructicons because I don't even have strong feelings about the team in general (they're totally fine! Nice that they're nerds in G1 but they're not my faves or anything) but felt like that was character slander of the utmost degree

TFA CONSTRUCTICONS? YOU SAID TFA CONSTRUCTICONS? OOOOH BOY, THOSE CONSTRUCTION WORKERS THAT SOUND LIKE NEW YORKERS AND DRINK OIL?

THEY- THEY- they're ok actually lol

On their own they're fine! They have their moments but are pretty forgetful overall, their best attribute is being a stepping stone for other characters to bounce off (Meg's gaslighting scene comes to mind.)

In my mindscape, they're just new characters who happen to be named Scrapper and Mixmaster. (especially when the Portuguese name for Scrapper is Tulio, fucking Tulio the Constructicon)

I pondered over this for a long time already, but I've come to the conclusion that hating TFA characters for not being like G1 is kind of stupid, for me to hate the Constructicons, I also need to hate characters like Blitzwing, or Optimus, since they also don't follow their G1 counterparts AT ALL. It's a new continuity, so new characters basically.

But maybe I could find a way to blame the TFA characterization for the biggest sin of all...

IDW CONSTRUCTICONS. That, my dear Anon, is slander of the utmost degree, I feel sick even thinking about them. (I blocked people over them making an offhanded claim that the Constructicons are idiots, G1 Constructicons might I add.)

uh... But I also am not really a big fan of them, they're neat I guess, no strong feelings too /s

[perytonpred]

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Main Romantic F/Os

Ratchet [Transformers Prime]

#🚨 You Make Me Feel Invincible 🚨

Rung [IDW Transformers]

#💾 Hear Me 💾

Milo James Thatch [Atlantis: The Lost Empire]

#📚 Without Love 📚

Lucifer [Hazbin Hotel]

#🕊️ The Nowhere Generation 🕊️

Adam [Hazbin Hotel]

#🎸 Halfway To Hell 🎸

Quirrel [Hollow Knight]

Karl Heisenberg [Resident Evil Village]

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Professor Laventon [Pokémon Legends: Arceus]

Maxie [Pokemon: Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire]

Sentinel Prime [Transformers Animated]

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Karlach [Baldur's Gate 3]

Halsin [Baldur's Gate 3]

Teba [The Legend of Zelda]

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Wheeljack [Transformers Prime]

Soundwave [Transformers Prime]

Lae'zel [Baldur's Gate 3] (kinda as a crush)

Platonic F/Os

Optimus Prime [Transformers Animated]

Gale [Baldur's Gate 3]

List is not entirely finished, I have a habit of completely forgetting characters.

[ghostingcrows]

While I’m thinking about it 

I feel like something people don’t really talk about with OP is the fact that he came from a place of incredible privilege compared to a lot of other characters and it shows

He was considered useful in functionalist cybertron and was in a position of power as a cop (something we see him take advantage of many times)

One of his best friends was a senator

He was practically handed the matrix and the ability to carry it by said senator friend

Then immediately after overthrowing the current corrupt prime his immediate instinct was 

“alright so obviously I’m the prime now”

Which went against the entire point of Megatrons movement and then he was shocked when Megatron turned on him

In the future hes kicked out of cybertron and is exiled but constantly returns to it anyways

He constantly takes advantage of peoples beliefs in the primes, something he doesn’t even believe in, to give himself power he has no right to 

He colonizes earth despite the people making it immensely clear they want him gone 

(The US government shooting his arm off is still one of my favorite panels lmao)

And then he technically gets arrested but doesn’t actual like get arrested and hes just left alone to do his own thing

And I just think its something that need to be pointed out because its infuriating that that a big theme of the comics is equality and freedom for all sentient beings but the person whos spouting all that stuff is literally a privileged asshole who only believes in that stuff when he still gets to be in a position of power

[ghostingcrows]

Thinking about Unicron again and how fucking dumb I think the ending was

Like Optimus had no problem murdering Galvatron but the giant ass planet that ate not only Cybertorn but all of its colonies? NAh lets hug it out man-

Also Soundwave pointless sacrifice that did literally nothing because Optimus didn’t even fight him

He dusted himself to give OP this random ass mystic power (which he literally pulled out of his ass. Like WHERE did he get that?! How did he know how to do that!?!?!!!) so OP could get punched and then hug the guy who destroyed the home they spent the past like decade trying to rebuild

Its so dumb and I hate it

I hate OP

If your gonna make him a shitty asshole who abuses his power and commits police brutality at least make it consistent with his character

[lord-squiggletits]

I want to hear your Thots on idw megatron staying on cybertron vs the lost light. You mentioned that in one of your posts, but not trusting Barber to do it justice (completely true). I was rather disappointed in him being on the LL as well, but I feel JRO did an Okay job considering he didn’t want to write megs in the first place and had to via mandate from hasbro

(Didn't JRO ask to write Megatron? I've spoken to friends about it and they said that JRO actually wanted to have both OP and Megatron on the Lost Light, but Hasbro told him that he could only have one, so JRO picked Megatron to focus on. My lore consultant can probably post the facts if she sees this.)

I actually want to write a MegOP fic with the premise of "Megatron stays on Cybertron instead of going on the Lost Light" sometime in the future, but it's shelved on my list of ideas to do sometime later. I haven't figured out how much of canon I want to keep for that, but I guess I could spit out some general feelings I had regarding Megatron's redemption arc as a whole?

(Putting this under a read-more because this got LONG.)

The thing is that when Megatron is talking to Optimus while he's on trial, Megatron says that in addition to making up for what he did during the war, because of Starscream's slander of him during the trial, Megatron's aim was to secure his legacy by having something positive to be remembered by. Well, what is his greatest legacy except the Decepticon movement itself? Even before he became a gladiator and turned it into a militaristic movement, the Decepticon political movement was born from his words.

The reason Megatron's search for "legacy" stings so much in canon IMO is not that Megatron's decision was selfish-- characters, especially former villains, are allowed to be selfish because that's a realistic flaw-- but because making Megatron's search for redemption an individual quest does not fit the crimes he committed, which were crimes against the species. His meta role is of a history-changing figure, but his redemption arc is purely individual. That is to say, Megatron's harmful actions hurt the rest of Cybertron, so his repentance should have consisted of staying on Cybertron and doing what he does best: working towards systemic change that uplifts the people he represents.

Instead, what JRO gave us in canon was a "redemption" arc that was largely centered around Megatron, embodied at its worst by the existence of the Functionist Universe. Contrary to the aim of showing that the universe was better off without Megatron, JRO creates the FU to show what Cybertron and the galaxy would've been like without Megatron: a dystopian hellhole even worse than what we saw in the regular universe, with a Functionist Council that would have eventually decided to spread functionism through the galaxy via mass genocide of organic species. So in other words, it not only establishes that organic genocide would've happened with or without Megatron (organic genocide being one of Megatron’s most inexcusable and needless crimes), but it also straight up says that without Megatron, Cybertron would've descended into dystopian horrors barely within comprehension. The universe literally revolves around whether or not Megatron exists, and rather than requiring Megatron to demonstrate change in himself, the Functionist Universe simply recontextualizes the entire story in a way that makes Megatron's life seem... inevitable? The best Cybertron/the universe could've gotten? The point is that it changes the context surrounding Megatron in a way that makes him seem less bad, rather than requiring Megatron to change as a person and do something to repair the wrongs he wrought in this universe, his ACTUAL home.

Not to mention that the FU doesn't even place Megatron in a new context he's never experienced before: it's just the same functionist oppression, the same revolution, except this time it's just a free chance for Megatron to "do it all over again, properly" that comes off as incredibly shallow. In real life, people don't get do-overs, they don't get to go back in time or change or un-do what they did. That regret is a crucial part of heel-face turn arcs: the fact that the villain can't make up for what they did and has to live with the mistakes he made and the ire he has earned for his own choices.

Taking Megatron away from Cybertron, the planet (and its people) that he helped ruin, in favor of inventing an entire universe to thrust him into (against his will, so that the readers don't get any funny ideas about this being a cheap narrative) where he can live a brand-new life as his best self where people only ever get to see him as a hero........................ is a sub-par redemption story, I'm sorry. Megatron didn't do anything to help repair the harm he did in this universe; he just got a brand-new universe for him to play the hero in.

And this, by the way, is happening at the same time that on Cybertron, Decepticons are literally living in ghettos outside of Metroplex because everyone sees them as criminals and killers who don't get to have normal jobs or housing. In the face of such social inequality, Megatron's absence from this side of the story-- as a former member of the working class, a former activist, and the founder of the Decepticons-- completely breaks the themes of social justice that Megatron's origins were founded in.

JRO didn't make me feel as if Megatron truly made a difference and demonstrated his change/repentance; he made me feel as if the entire plot was a contrivance, a metaphorical red carpet for Megatron to be steered down as some sort of necessary evil or least worst possible outcome.

The point of a redemption arc isn’t for a villain to 1:1 compensate for all the bad things they did. The point of a redemption arc, IMO, is for the former villain to demonstrate that they have fixed the parts of their hearts that led them to do evil, and that they then do good deeds that serve the society/people they once wronged. Nor do I think that redemption arcs require the villain to suffer (being tortured, being socially ostracized, etc), but I do think that having to face consequences from the people that were wronged is part of a redemption arc

Sure, Megatron’s heart changed, but his good deeds by and large had nothing to do with the society he wronged, and he did not face the weight of his actions to cause the war and use his followers like tools in the way that say, Optimus did.

And that is why Megatron’s redemption arc failed in my eyes, and in some ways actually makes me like him less. I feel like the narrative was contrived to force me to accept him, rather than for me to actually believe that Megatron had done something to compensate for his wrongdoings.

[ghostingcrows]

I have mentioned it like 10 times the past month but why did Optimus have the authority to not only force Megatron onto the Lost Light but make him the CAPTAIN?

He doesn’t own the ship

He is technically not in any position of power as Starscream is the one in charge

Is it a respect thing?

Because even then Rodimus and a lot of the crew didn’t want Megatron on the ship much less the captain

I mean Rodimus makes his displeasure incredibly clear and constantly refers to Megatron as a “co-captain” because yeah it is still his ship technically

I fucking-

IDW Optimus makes me so angry

He gets away with so much shit and no one ever calls him out or is like “Hey you can’t do that” because everyone and their mothers holds him on a pedestal in the comics

He constantly keeps things from his team, makes incredibly questionable decisions and when someone DOES question and criticize him we get scenes like Jazz making fun of Prowl because “hes been yelling like that all day”

 AND?

WHY ARE YOU NOT UPSET

YOUR LEADER JUST LET THE GUY WHO COMMITTED GENOCIDE AND STARTED A 4 MILLION YEAR WAR JOIN YOUR FACTION AND GAVE HIM FREE REIGN OF A SHIP THAT DOESN’T EVEN BELONG TO HIM-

Why are YOU not also arguing and yelling at him with Prowl

I love IDW

The comics made me cry for fucks sake

Over a character I don’t even like

I love the way they do a lot of things

I love the way they frame Starscream and his body dysmorphia

I love the way they handle characters like Windblade and Soundwave stories

I love story arcs like Dark Cybertron

“Remember me as I was” is literally my favorite quote ever!

And for the most part they do a good job showing how character, even the “good guys” are flawed with stuff like Bee delaying the elections until he was sure he could win

But I HATE how they wrote Optimus

[ghostingcrows]

Did I talk about how much I hated the characters assassination in Unicorn for Starscream and his relationships?

Cause like

I hate it

Up until Unicron the last time Star and Windblade talked was when they had this sweet moment of understanding where Windblade tells Starscream that she knows who he really is

During TAAO Bumblebee says that watching Starscream confess was one of the bravest things he’d ever seen and you get the feeling from his interactions with him up until he comes back to life that he’s proud of him

But then in Unicron as soon as Bee is back from the dead him and Windblade go to this weird space of just

Hating Starscream again?

Like they just have this uncalled for bitterness towards him even before he really says much and it just doesn’t feel right

Like I wasn’t expecting them to be like

Super friendly

But the level of annoyance they display at his existence just make no sense in the context of when they last spoke to him

And I hate it so much because Windblade and Starscreams relationship of Windblade having to drag the goodness out of Starscream kicking in screaming is literally my favorite story arc ever

Bumblebee and Starscream have so many touching moments where you can see that Bee really wants Star to be better and that Star actually does care about his presence (like when Bumblebee refused to appear for Starscream until he realized he should in fact help Windblade out of her own mind)

But no

Fuck that character development 

Optimus is here

And his presence makes every one act irrationally out of character  

[ghostingcrows]

Something I also wanna point out is that I think what happens with all the other characters is that they confuse respect for OP as OP being a good leader

They respect him so he’s not doing anything bad in their eyes

But in reality he kinda sucks as a leader

When things stop going his way on Earth he surrenders and mopes in cell while the rest of his team struggles

Then has the audacity to tell Rodimus he should have stepped down even when his ship didn’t want him to

Even tho when he stepped down it cause more problems then it solved

He forgives Megatrons for no real apparent reason other than he decided he wants to turn over a new leaf

He goes into Caminus and shows off the Matrix knowing damn well that they will see him a god

Not someone chosen by god an actual god

He attacks Prowl in a instance of police brutality throwing the first punch and eventually being the reason Prowl gets away

He undermines Starscreams authority multiple times for no reason

Because the thing is WE know Star was doing shady stuff but others didn’t

They just think he might do something bad so that’s good enough for them

I’ve been told he essentially colonizes Earth later on

Optimus is a bad leader

And a bad person

But everyone respects and trusts him so their completely blind to it

Which wouldn’t be a problem if someone snapped out of it and called him out on it

But I’m still yet to see that

[ghostingcrows]

I talked about this like a long time ago

But Rodimus’ arc of asshole to lovable goof in MTMTE is so good because he actually does something about his flaws

Rodimus recognizes that allowing Overlord on the ship was a bad idea and that it was a shit thing to make Drift take the blame. He expresses to Minumus how he doesn’t want to die because its a cheap way out of facing consequences. He allows the crew to vote on whether he stays or not and when hes given the list of people who (supposedly) wanted him off he never acted on it. And most importantly when Drift and Ratchet return to the LL he sits down and has a talk with Drift where he apologizes.

That’s not something we really see with other character who do shitty things

Optimus never apologizes for any of the shit he does. He never faces any consequences for his police brutality or blackmailing Soundwave or conquering of Earth or taking advantage of peoples beliefs. He gets called out on it but in the end no one he actually cares about says it to his face. In MTMTE Ratchet and Rodimus have a moment where Ratchet tells him the list of people who voted for him to leave the LL was fake because he wasn’t on it. That’s an important impactful thing for him to hear because Ratchet is someone he knows and someone who hes friends with. OP never gets that and thus never really shows any regrets for the shit he does.

Chromdomes (a MTMTE character who I have a LOT to say about-) commits this disgusting intrusive violation of privacy against Prowl by forcing his way into his brain and erasing his memory of a threat to tell Rewind. Chromedome never faces ANY consequences for this. He is called out for this in front of the man who is most well known for being a stickler for rules and laws and instead of being questioned Magnus takes his side and literally insult the victim. He actively hides important stuff from his husband and shows no regret for what he did. There’s not even a conversation in the comics where someone is just like “hey man that was kinda fucked up”.

But for Rodimus we do see his regret

We see him actively take steps to atone for his mistakes

and its just

So nice to see

Hes a good character

[ghostingcrows]

No seriously I hate what they did with Soundwaves character

Soundwave suffered at the hands of the Primes

He has good reason to dislike them

Optimus is literally blackmailing him

And at the end he changes his mind about OP for seemingly no reason

At least his turn on Megatron made sense as he was friends with Megatron and fought besides him for millions of years

The writers of Optimus’ story arcs consistently struggle with actually showing why people turn to his side

He continuously shows corruption and is just in general an ass

But characters keep joining/forgiving him for no reason

They do not show enough of him actually doing genuine stuff to help or compel others to join him

They give him bs deus ex machina divine acts instead of just showing him being a good person to get others to like him 

and its just

Its SO annoying 

[ghostingcrows]

Something that really bothers me about the whole Optimus thing is that the writers seem to have some level of self awareness on the matter

They call OP a conqueror in the cover art

They acknowledge multiple times that the people of Earth DO NOT want Optimus there

Multiple different Cybertronians point out that hes literally following in Megatrons footsteps

They even call the segment All Hail Optimus in reference to All Hail Megatron

These are meant to be parallels 

Its meant to show that Optimus is similar to Megatron

He even says things like he wants Soundwave to bow to HIM specifically not anyone else (which is a whole can of worms that its just so bad)

But for some reason the authors are pushing SO hard that when OP does it its fine

That hes in the right cause hes helping

Even if the humans don’t want his help

They just don’t understand

And its so just...weird

Like idk something just feels weird about the fact that someone wrote a story about our own kind being colonized by aliens and was like “this is a GOOD thing”

[ghostingcrows]

SEE LIKE

THE THING IS

THEY LEAN SO HEAVILY ON OPTIMUS BEING CORRUPT

BUT THEY ALSO PUSH SO HARD TO MAKE HIM SEEMS GOOD

ITS LIKE THE WRITER CANT MAKE UP HIS GOD DAMN MIND

THIS IS BUMBLEBEES RECOUNT

HE LITERALLY WATCHED OPTIMUS COMMIT POLICE BRUTALITY AND THEN LIKE 2 SECONDS LATER TALKS ABOUT HOW AWESOME HE IS AND HOW HES FOLLOW HIM THE REST OF HIS LIFE

THE OPTIMUS STORY LINE IS A FUCKING INCONSISTENT SHIT POOL

[ghostingcrows]

Now that I’m farther into OP Soundwave supposed 180 is so much more upsetting

Cause he trying so hard to convince himself that OP isn’t corrupt

He literally says that he says the words but he’s always had a hard to differentiating from his own thoughts

Soundwave is completely overwhelmed and when he talk to Onyx

and what’s worse

The first time he ever calls OP his friend was recently after Ravages death

So Soundwave his going through immense grief at the loss of one of the most important people to him

Is incredibly overwhelmed

and is being blackmailed and manipulated by Optimus

That SUCKS

He doesn’t even get a happy ending

He dies in Unicron

WTF-