#which we most certainly are not

[oatmilkandvellichor]

ya i’m not like other girls. my therapist in high school use to tell me all the time how much better i was than her other teenage patients bc they were ‘just rich drunk kids’ and i had ✨poverty trauma✨ and was sober. of course, i went home and celebrated my metaphorical A+ in therapy by drinking lean and tequila alone in my bedroom, but obvs that’s just cos i’m quirky and different

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...

[front-facing-pokemon]

[petrovna-zamo]

[queerliblib]

How much does one book acquisition cost on average? I'm curious for recurring donations to think of it in terms of how many theoretical books could be bought over time (even if the exact money might go to another organization need at the time, of course)

good question! Hmm on average ebooks are about $30 and audiobooks are about $40. but sometimes we can get books for $5 and other times titles can clear the $100 mark.

What I would say is that any re-occurring donation (even just $5) is extremely helpful over the long run because it helps us have a steadier, more predictable, funding stream that we can purchase new books from. one time donations of $50 or $100 are super exciting, but re-occurring donations truly are our bread & butter.

(if anyone is interested in becoming a one-time or re-occurring donor, you can donate here to support the Queer Liberation Library!)

[lord-squiggletits]

Y'know the thing about writing feral/unhinged versions of Orion/Optimus, is that you can't go too far into the feral/unhinged direction to a point where OP's core character traits are lost or become too diminished. After all, in a multiple-continuity franchise like TF, part of what makes the stories make sense is that even if details change (sometimes major details), the characters are still recognizably themselves to one degree or another. (Although this isn't always the case due to executive meddling or some characters being such blank slates from their initial G1 appearances that there's basically nothing to model them off of, but I digress.)

It's pretty much another reason why I love IDW1 Optimus, bc he literally is a canonical feral/unhinged Optimus who's unhinged as a direct consequence of who he is as a person and what he's been through. Like, he still has those fundamental character traits of trying his best to be moral and make good choices, trying to be a role model, etc, except after 4 million years of war and untreated depression he's basically holding onto his sense of self by his fingertips. So when he "goes feral" e.g. losing his temper and beating up/killing people or saying hurtful things, he's feral in a way that's directly tied to his normal personality and not just as a random quirk he has.

IDW OP's feral moments arise from the gaps between "Optimus' attempts to be who he thinks he needs to be" and "the reality of the world that he can't fix/seems to only make worse" that cause him to lose hope, or become cynical, or lose his temper. But in this case, the unhinged-ness makes perfect sense because it arises out of Optimus trying and failing to be the best person or to make the most morally good choices he's trying to make. Basically, the "feral/unhinged" label is just another way of me trying to say that he's not just unhinged because he's weird or because he's a bad person, but because it's an emotional reaction (more like an emotional explosion due to pent-up emotions) to the context he exists in.

I'd also say that IDW OP's personality being generally reserved/stoic and (trying to be) noble works in tandem with those moments he has of going feral because it makes him more realistic. His psyche is treated in a way where the writers are like, "Hey what if the pressure of having to be everyone's idol and be the best person in the galaxy at all times actually broke Optimus down mentally and emotionally?" It makes IDW OP far more relatable. Instead of naturally being a perfect Christ-like figure who never wavers in his morals or convictions and is just naturally a nice person who always has the wisest and best answer, being a good person is something that IDW OP has to consciously strive to be. Even when he feels like it's useless, or the cycle of violence will never stop, or any attempts he makes to help only ends up with things becoming worse.

And I feel like this does a service not only to IDW Optimus as a character, but also as a sort of moral/philosophical perspective for the reader to ponder upon? I feel like culture at large (or at least my experience of it) tends to believe that "goodness" in a person is simply an innate feature that people are born/not born with, and that being "good" means that you must be good at all times, both in your actions as well as the way you feel emotionally about yourself and the world. Like, there's a tendency for our vision of "a good person" to be good in every aspect at all times without having to try to be a good person. So I think IDW Optimus' character stands as a good example of how someone can be good at heart but still struggle to maintain those feelings of optimism and hope and justice. It's a good idea to have such a paragon of a character (in-universe and out-of-universe) be so conflicted and to even be mistaken, misguided, or make things worse because it shows that goodness is as much about "trying to behave/act in a way that is good" and not just "existing as an innately good person."

It's way more realistic for a person to want to be good, try to be good, and sometimes/often fail than it is for them to just be a good person. I enjoy the fact that IDW Optimus is both a good person at heart, but also has to strive to be a good person and live up to other people's expectations of what they see in him. I like how he wants to be a good person and change society for the better, but he also spends a good amount of time either feeling hopeless and alone or being angry at/detached from other people because of how frustrated they make him. He's realistically portrayed as someone who wants to be good and hopeful and change things for the better, but is also mentally and emotionally broken by that burden because of how impossible it is for him to Fix Everything and be the Perfect Prime/Leader/Autobot that people see him as. It's this fascinating mixture of "yes, this is who he is as a person" but also "there are things he desires to be that he could never possibly become or live up to."

This got really far off based from feral/unhinged Optimus sdklfjaslkdlfkas. The TLDR is that if people want unhinged OP, I feel like they should give IDW OP a chance because he IS unhinged but he's unhinged in a way that's a realistic/thematic representation of how being an Absolute Good is impossible. And how being a good person isn't just about Existing And You Are A Good Person, but rather goodness is a constant state of flux in which you adjust, you make mistakes, you lose your temper and feel hopeless, but then you pick yourself up and try again.

Also IDW OP really likes climbing in dangerous wilderness and jumping out of flying vehicles which I think is very feral and sexy of him to do.

[veerbles]

always fascinated by people's different takes on the language barrier between kaz and the ghafas.

I think my personal opinion is that kerch, being the language of the center of commerce and an overall neutral party in the war, is kind of like english - in that it's an internationally spoken language, but certainly not by everyone. considering jesper spoke it well enough to go to university in ketterdam, even though he was a farm boy, it must be pretty widespread. matthias didn't speak it until hellsgate, but he also grew up very sheltered.

inej didn't speak kerch when she was taken, so it's reasonable to assume her parents didn't either. but maybe they spoke a little of it, like in some countryside places in europe? or maybe they learnt in their efforts to find her? or perhaps they focused their efforts inside ravka, and never learnt a word of it.

it's always suspicious to me that kaz never bothered picking up ravkan, being the strategic businessman that he is. I think he wouldn't hide that ability during the ice court/van eck mission if he had it, so either he can speak very little, or not at all; if not at all, it supports the assumption that kerch is the international business language, which is why he never bothered picking up a second language.

so would the ghafas learn enough kerch to communicate? I don't doubt that using inej as a translator would frustrate kaz to no end; words are his strongest weapon, so he'd definitely put effort into being able to communicate with them. but would he learn suli? or ravkan? suli would be a more personal gesture, which he'd see as a leverage to get the ghafas to like him. ravkan would be more useful in other ways, and we know how much kaz likes having more than one reason to do something.

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville's] piety as queen seems to have been broadly conventional for a fifteenth-century royal, encompassing pilgrimages, membership of various fraternities, a particular devotion to her name saint, notable generosity to the Carthusians, and the foundation of a chantry at Westminster after her son was born there. ['On other occasions she supported planned religious foundations in London, […] made generous gifts to Eton College, and petitioned the pope to extend the circumstances in which indulgences could be acquired by observing the feast of the Visitation']. One possible indicator of a more personal, and more sophisticated, thread in her piety is a book of Hours of the Guardian Angel which Sutton and Visser-Fuchs have argued was commissioned for her, very possibly at her request."

-J.L. Laynesmith, "Elizabeth Woodville: The Knight's Widow", "Later Plantagenet and Wars of the Roses Consorts: Power, Influence, Dynasty"

[skyward-floored]

Not enough fics where Ravio and Legend do weird sibling/twin things like finish each other’s sentences or do things in tandem without even thinking about it and greet each other with indecipherable screeching

[a-s-levynn]

.

[mariocki]

John Levene pops up as Gene Bradley's co-pilot on his private jet, called Tony, (John Levene's character, not the jet) in The Adventurer: I'll Get There Sometime (1.15, ITC, 1973)

[monards]

i know hoyo is setting up rhine to have good intent and whatever in her trying to 'save' khaneri'ah or whatever; but i REALLY hope they stay with the cruel persona thats been built up for her. because it would be so wonderful to see a character who had good intent in the beginning just get absolutely corrupted; with the inability to ever go back to that prior state purely because of what had happened. also because there is NO way in her turning back after all that shit

[front-facing-pokemon]

[altruistic-meme]

me: *existing*

my brain: hey heres another fic idea!!! and another!!!! oh wouldn't it be so cool if you wrote this??? wouldn't you LOVE to plan this fic out??? you should definitely plan this one, i promise you don't even have to write it ;) [<- is lying, knows that i'll want to write it even more if i plan it]

[killerchickadee]

Wanna see the last time I fancy dressed like a girl?

7 years ago lol