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
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i have been working with kids for four years and i had to write my first ever note just now about a seventh grade boy being inappropriate towards me. i don't know what the hell this could possibly lead to or what. he was trying to feel my legs repeatedly to the point where i had to stop sitting next to him (and i was subbing for his one-to-one para!!!). he's got high support needs. in that kind of job, you're supposed to sit next to them all day and look over their work.
the teacher whose classroom this was happening in could also tell something was wrong. the whole class was acting kinda crazy because it was the day before school vacation week and there was another class coming in to share projects. so like, he was swamped with keeping order already. but we were sitting two feet away from his podium at the front of the room. the kid was giving him and me a hard time when he wouldn't take out his chromebook as he was instructed. and then when he did take out his chromebook, he immediately, for some reason, places it on my lap. he had been ogling my legs the whole time. he puts his computer ON MY LAP. and i'm just like, stunned, because what the hell? can you not keep it on your own lap, for some reason? i don't even know what to say, i just hold it a little above my lap while i'm thinking why on earth would this be happening? he would NOT do this to his regular para if she were here, would he? this can't be normal.
and the teacher sees this and within a minute places a stool in front of the kid for him to put his laptop on. and i'm like. oh ok. yeah. he notices exactly what's happening and that that's not appropriate. and then when the other class comes in to share projects he tells me "miss b——, you don't actually have to sit next to c—— this whole period if you don't want to." and he grabs me a chair for me to go sit with the other paras in the back opposite corner of the room. like he KNEW. and thank you mr. d—— for recognizing that because i was just kind of shocked and didn't know if i was overreacting in my head to all of this.
when there's a point in the class where the kids are discussing stuff, i privately mention what's happened to the para who's sitting closest to me. and she says that the thing about him calling me pretty is something he's been known to do, but the fact that he kept trying to touch my legs is new behavior. and that's a completely different class of behavior. i was telling him NO, don't do that, and he kept doing it. and the fact that he was calling me pretty repeatedly, even when i was giving him instructions that he wasn't taking. and this is the second to last class before the end of the day, so she says she'll take a walk with him before learning center and talk to him about it, and i'm grateful for that. she does. the kid apologizes to me as soon as i come into learning center. but like. WHAT the hell.
i'm STILL like what the hell. this is unfathomable to me. the other adults who i told about this or who witnessed it were supportive of me. but. what to do??? i wrote a long note to his regular para about this, because i knew she was going to hear about it at least from the first para i told. the second para i told about it after school had a kind of... i'm not gonna say enabling reaction, but i suppose since it had already been "taken care of" (or at least, he had been spoken to and apologized) she didn't really have much to add in the way of discipline. i told her what happened after school and she was just like... a little bit, laughing? like oh, yup, that dog. she at the very least confirmed he KNEW what he was doing, that that was not an accident. she said to me "i had a feeling he was going to develop a crush on you" (me and these other paras were together for most of the beginning of the day too). but it's like. it's not about that.
i have worked with children for FOUR years. children have had crushes on me before; i'm quite unfazed by it. boys from the ages of 5-to-15 have told me i'm so pretty before and asked me to marry them. i've never had them feeling up my legs before. i've never had them making me physically uncomfortable. it's NOT about this seventh grader having a crush on the pretty substitute. he is NOT unusual for that, at all. but i've never had a boy of any age or education level repeatedly touching my knees and thighs. THAT is problem behavior!!!
because what if i wasn't assertive enough with him to tell him to stop? what if i was a girl his age? worse, what if i was an adult who encouraged this behavior? i don't come to the middle school to be a seductress. i had no intention in putting on a pair of tights and a skirt this morning of being viewed as an attractive object, especially not by a pubescent boy. what if i did though? what if his interpretation of me wasn't so incorrect and offensive? what if i let him keep touching me inappropriately and saying flirtatious things to me? me, an adult in my mid-twenties, towards a middle school boy?
in no world would that be ok. if i had been feeling up and overly-complimenting a CHILD at my place of work, holy shit would there be reports about me. so a child acting that way could never be ok either. if it'd be firable for me to be reciprocating that action, then that action should not be happening to me. ever. and that child should never repeat that action again to any other adult again.
like i am simply not there to be treated as an attractive young woman. i put on a skirt that shows too much knee and get paired with a boy, though, and that's apparently just a natural consequence. hooo-ly shit. like i don't know what to do. first of all, the more time passes since this has happened, the more i am just unable to stop thinking about it. i wasn't "hurt" or too emotional in the moment but i'm just still processing it and it gets worse. i'm just more and more disgusted.
i don't know what i expect to come out of this, or the email i sent to his regular para. like, am i gonna have to attend a fucking meeting? what is the precedent that this sets for him? WHY do i feel BAD for him about this? well, because he's a child, of course. a child who has done wrong he may not be able to understand. but he knows WHAT he did. he just doesn't know WHY it was wrong.
and i couldn't even say something to him that was like, "well, how would you like it if i was touching you like this?" because young boys do not understand how inappropriate it'd be. i'm sure this kid thought he was gonna get away with what he was doing at the very least. but probably not unlikely he (being a child with no concept of how wrong it'd be) thought he could get some sort of "positive" attention for treating me like this. either way he was simply doing what he wanted to do, with no perspective of how it would make me feel or that it could be classified as harassment. teenage boys think it'd be awesome if the older attractive woman would reciprocate their affections. they're wrong. i, as the older attractive woman of his affection, cannot be the one to convince him of that, though.
i don't know. i don't know. like it's just so not ok. but if i didn't tell another adult about this, he would've gotten away with it. he would probably do it again. and him being in trouble for it is not the same as him understanding that it was wrong. unless someone has a REAL talk with him about inappropriate attention and consent, it's not unlikely that he'll just repeat the behavior in a setting where he thinks he won't be caught or told on. THAT'S the problem. me, i could just never have to be this boy's para again. in my email, i didn't say that i would never be ok working with or around him ever again. he already knows i didn't like it and i'm not afraid to tell on him; as far as that lesson applies to me, individually, i think he's become too ashamed to repeat that.
i don't know. i don't know. i very much expressed that i, i guess, "forgave" him in the email that i wrote. i clarified that i was writing it for the sake of having it on the record. i think that could potentially be very important for the purposes of preventing further similar or escalating behavior from him in the future. i don't want him to be in trouble. i don't think i will be blamed for this, especially not with how promptly i acted, although i don't know to what extent this will be framed as me thinking i'm a "victim." i'm not... i don't feel victimized. i feel disgusted. i feel afraid for the sake of what could happen to or with him in the future, if he thinks behavior like his towards me today is ok.
i feel like if i end up having to further respond to this, this will be made about me. in a way it kind of was. is? in the moment it was happening, it was certainly about me. because i was the one this boy was giving all this unwanted attention to. but to make the consequences of this about me and to involve me any further, i also don't want. because i said what i said already, i don't care if a student has a crush on me. this isn't about me being the pretty substitute. i'm the pretty substitute all the time, to tons of people. that's not really something i've been concerned about up until now.
but do i have to reexplain my personal embarrassment? that i was wearing a skirt? that he was ogling my legs? really? what more do i have to gain from sharing that, other than having the adults at my place of work confirm or deny me in their heads as the pretty substitute? i don't know. perhaps that's REALLY overthinking it. but i don't want to be the substitute that caused a problem for this special ed kid. i don't wanna be the reason that he can't be around me anymore, the person people think of when they're monitoring how he's acting around girls and young women. i DON'T want to be the one people think of when they think of his past misbehavior. i'm NOT here for that.
that's just fucking humiliating. and in this being a thing that could follow him, i have to be ogled and touched over and over again in people's minds for this to be taken seriously. but for this to be swept under the rug would be even worse, no? i don't know. i hate this. the principal is a nice guy; i wouldn't be surprised if he and/or people from the special ed department reached out to me sympathetically about this. but i don't wanna be reached out to. i don't wanna have ppl i work with tell me "sorry that kid was just so attracted to you he couldn't help himself" like come on. if the kid himself doesn't change then i don't really care to remember this incident. and no one reaching out to me and saying they've talked to this kid will actually prove to me he understands. this is the kind of inappropriate behavior it takes years for people to understand why it was wrong, especially a child who has no idea. i mean come on.
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