#I also apologized to them in DMs

[the-catboy-minyan]

I'm jewish and followed you recently cos you seem to have pretty good takes. But you attacking a blog calling out antisemites was wierd af. The size of their blog doesn't matter if they are posting antisemitic propaganda

I'm sorry about that, I reacted too harshly.

the post was literally just a random person online who said "ugh zionists on my dash", which is something probably the majority of people on tumblr are gonna say right now, because they don't fucking know what zionism is.

the dude's best performing post had 28 notes, literally nobody knows them, they don't have any influence on that blog and they said nothing antisemitic except "I saw a zionist on my dash". which had 7 notes.

spot-the-antisemitism allowed a submission which was a direct link to that post, that again, didn't really say anything except that op hates zionists or don't want to see zionists on their dash. any person who follows their blog can easily click on the link, go to their blog, and send hate mail to their inbox.

when running a blog that documents antisemitism and calls it out, it's important to discourage others from harassing the people presented (because yeah, nobody deserves death threats this is a hill I will die on).

unless the identity of that person is relevant to the discussion (ex: I-am-a-fish saying they're scared because their country supports "genocide", that one occult blog being buddies with heritageposts, gimmick blogs engaging in politics put of nowhere, etc), or that person said something so bad that it's important to warn others about them, then there's no reason to display the username, and especially link to that post directly.

I shouldn't have attacked the blog, that was extremely shitty of me, but after we experienced the massive "zionist" blocklist that includes people who are literally not zionists and didn't do anything, I feel like we should try our best to not do the same? just a thought? the bar on antisemitism is so low right now (i mean people are so antisemitic) that calling out ever person who said "zionists dni" or reblogged disinformation will just end up calling out 99% of tumblr. callout posts should be reserved for people who are truly causing harm, don't you think?

[lord-squiggletits]

On the MegOP fandom trend of saying "Optimus should apologize to Megatron"

(Speaking specifically for IDW1, though it applies to a lot of MegOP especially ones that do continuity soup with heavy reference to IDW1)

I was talking to a friend in DMs and they mentioned a common headcanon/fanfic trope that I also concurred with, and both of us said it's something that bothers us: a common take in the MegOP fandom goes basically along the lines of "If Optimus had just apologized to Megatron, the war would've ended" (or other variants including "if he'd tried harder to understand Megatron/work in collaboration with him").

And firstly, this is incorrect for a number of reasons:

There were attempts at peace negotiations during the war, but they fell through. So Optimus WAS trying to work with Megatron to the point of participating in formal diplomatic meetings.

Optimus tried multiple times on page to convince Megatron to just stop fighting and work with him for peace (Autocracy, Chaos Theory) that Megatron rejected. Given that these on-page examples take place at the start of the war and at the end of the war respectively, it makes sense that Optimus asking Megatron for collaboration is something he was trying/willing to do the entire time. So again, Optimus was always willing AND ATTEMPTING to work with Megatron and find a joint solution

Even before the war when Optimus was still Orion, he was very explicitly inspired by Megatron's writing and names Megatron as one of the people who "opened his eyes" to the wrongs of Cybertronian society. So how is it that people claim "the war went on for too long because Optimus never tried to understand Megatron" when OP literally named Megatron as one of his biggest idols, thus implying that OP does understand Megatron's ideals

But the primary purpose of this post wasn't to defend Optimus, actually. Even though I personally think Optimus did plenty (dare I say, everything) to try to end the war, there are some who may still think otherwise, so instead of arguing about whether Optimus did "enough", or who should apologize to whom, or who "deserves the blame" for starting/continuing the war, I'd actually rather talk about this:

No matter who is most "to blame" for the war, it's my firm belief that neither Megatron nor Optimus would even expect/demand the other to apologize to them at all.

On Megatron's side, he would never seek to judge Optimus negatively for the decisions to the point of saying "you wronged me, apologize." Whether it's evil Megatron who doesn't care about atrocities and revels in an opportunity to expose Optimus as a hypocrite, or post-war/Autobot Megatron who knows that his own evil actions are irredeemable, the idea of Megatron judging Optimus and demanding an apology for the war specifically strikes me as out-of-character. Why would Megatron demand or even want an apology from Optimus when Megatron knows fully well that he has his own sins to bear, he prolonged the war for his own selfish/material gain, and that he is responsible for an untold amount of suffering? Demanding an apology would imply that Megatron sees himself as the wronged party and Optimus as the wrongdoer, but by the end of the war, Megatron is too aware of his own part in the war to ever demand such a thing of Optimus. Even if he DID think that Optimus was "equally to blame" for the war (which he doesn't/wouldn't, btw), Megatron's own feelings of guilt would prevent him from trying to seek the petty satisfaction of the moral high ground or making Optimus beg for his forgiveness.

Additionally, Megatron knows Optimus very well as a person: he knows that the position of leadership is full of "loneliness [and] agonizing self-doubt" for Optimus (Chaos Theory) and that "when Optimus hurts others, he hurts himself" (MTMTE). Another reason that Megatron wouldn't demand nor want an apology from Optimus is because Megatron knows Optimus so well that he already knows that being a war leader fills Optimus with immense guilt and suffering. Given that Megatron knows about Optimus' self-doubt and guilt, why would he even need an apology when he already knows how much Optimus regrets the war and desperately wishes/wished for it to end?

Then, as established in the previous paragraphs, Optimus is too full of guilt for his part in the war (both before it started and in being unable to stop it sooner) to demand an apology from Megatron. Again, demanding an apology would put Optimus in an implied position of moral superiority and/or victimhood, but Optimus doesn't see himself as morally superior or as a victim (or rather, he sees himself as being responsible for these bad things happening and internalizes this as a duty to do better/fix wrongdoings). In other words, Megatron and Optimus both share this view of themselves and each other: Their hands are so dirty, and they both feel such guilt over this, and they know each other well enough to know that the other feels this way as well. Because both of them feel blame for the war and are acutely aware of their own flaws/part in suffering, both of them feel far too responsible for the war happening for them to ever blame their archnemesis for "not trying harder" or "being responsible for the war."

Hell, if you even look at the socio-political climate of Cybertron before the war started, neither Megatron nor Optimus were the ones who put this conflict into motion. The corrupt legacy of the Primes, Functionism, class issues-- all of these things existed before Megatron and Optimus did. Even once they started doing things like writing about social issues (M) or fighting against the Senate (OP), both of them were "underlings" in sense that they weren't leaders:

Megatron's writings may have inspired the Decepticon movement, but that movement existed as an independent entity with its own leaders and speakers long before Megatron became the "official" ruler of the Decepticons. He wasn't even the leader of the 'Cons until he took control of the gladiator arena and the nonviolent sections of the Decepticons were (presumably) subsumed into the underground, exploitative battle culture that Megatron created.

Optimus-as-Orion was a police officer to start, but even once he started going against the Senate, he mainly worked in collaboration with others like Senator Shockwave and Zeta (later Zeta Prime), who he either saw as his idols or who were literally superior to him in rank due to government/military structures.

So with this in mind, even from a social level, while Megatron and Optimus may have been "catalysts" of a sort that caused the war to escalate to an outright planetary/galactic level, the scenario is too complex to solely lay the blame for the war at either of their feet. I'm not confident in saying that Megatron/Optimus would explicitly think of this when talking to each other, but what I'm trying to say is that M/OP were just catalysts in a long chain of brewing tension that exploded into a war. Even if one could claim that one of them "started" or "escalated" the war, the social issues that caused the war and the positions of power that allowed them to become leaders in the first place were falling into place before either of them actually BECAME leaders.

In other words, this shared fate of being the final reaction that exploded a societal conflict into outright war... Megatron and Optimus both have that in common. And because of this, I really don't think either of them would even think to ask the other to apologize because they're both in such similar positions, with such similar feelings of guilt and responsibility, that they understand each other's feelings without words. To demand an apology would be akin to taking that shared vulnerability/guilt and stepping on it, attempting to claim that one is right/superior and the other is wrong/inferior, and that the inferior one needs to grovel and take responsibility for the bad things that happened.

[555bunnies]

💜💗🌌 New custom :D ! A space themed collie

[notsosecretlyalesbian]

"Nothing like the smell of cigarettes and vinegar. I don't smoke or nothin'. Just, I like being around it. It reminds me of my chidlhood"

Lisa Ann Walter as Melissa Schemmenti in Abbott Elementary | 02×01: Development Day

[ilovetoplay]

hey guys! this is arthur a.k.a. tumblr user @tommybones. as you may or may not know, that blog has been shadowbanned forever ago. the staff still hasn’t responded to the message i sent them 4 months ago now, and so i thought, why am i suffering. i should just move on already.

so this is me moving on. welcome everyone to my new blog, which is exactly the same as my old one, except it will be appearing in your notifications every once in a while!

[desultory-novice]

I don’t have much to show so...more sketches/warm-ups!

[u3pxx]

hey!! your art is amazing!!! i participated in your bad omens doodle exchange a few months ago, and was wondering if youd ever get back to that as i never heard back from you about the exchange! no pressure at all if things changed but i was just wondering if you were planning on going through with it?

oh of course, still on the to-do list, anon!

i was planning to post them in bulk (with all of them done) and managed to get started on a few of them but then i kind of hit an art rut two months ago and now it's finals week orz i am planning to finish them after i get all my school stuff done so never fear, very much still on that! :0]

[boltlightning]

i'm sure disney doesn't want to license any potc merch in the year of our lord and savior 2023, but do they know how much chumps like me would pay to have the dead man's chest/at world's end soundtracks on vinyl. do they know. do they know how much capital i would be willing to put up to hear those soundtracks in slightly worse and scratchy quality on my shitty little $80 record player. have they considered that i have disposable income. do they know

[bunnyboy-juice]

):

[axelaxolotll]

hi guys. at the time of writing this i have forty (40) mutuals, and yet, each time im added to a tag game, i tag the same five people. 3 of which do not want to be tagged most likely. guys pls lmk if i can add u to tag games PLS 😭🫶

[ambersky0319]

I was planning on actually getting work done today but my brain doesn't wanna focus on shit 😮‍💨

I'm gonna try later tonight. If not, then I guess I'm rushing things tomorrow

[nicomrade]

sorry discord friends my heads killin me again + im goin sort of insane (the two r related) and i plain hate being on discord on my phone which is the only thing i have rn so like. ✌🏻👽 im simply not there. full on [tumblr]ina era

rawr

[singsweetmelodies]

k

[astro-inthestars]

I forgot to do something CRUCIAL TODAY so im grinding, BUT your daily counter has returned <33 I now have:

8 [tumblr] asks, 7 discord servers unread, and 811 dMS.... HHHAHAHHH OH MY GOD? I love you all so much. I am going to respond soon I promise. It's almost over.

[masonscig]

oh my god?????? i completely forgot that forever ago i’d commissioned my favorite m scenes from the book 3 demo????? oh my GOD.................

[hannyoontify]

wow. hi.