#how tf do you end things like this

[foreverethereal123]

It's @choicesfandomappreciation week. You guys know what that means....

I GET TO RANT🥰🥰 as if I don't do it anyway

It's been a year lmao! Like it's been a FUCKING year but I'll not get too much into that we don't have enough hours for that hahahahfuckmylife BUT what I do want to talk about is how after this fucked up year Tumblr, or more importantly YOU guys helped me make it a little more bearable!!! I know I've been a sucky reader disappearing for weeks on end and giving some people scares that I died! Lol nope still alive 🙂 but the fact that some of you didn't even care whether or not I was still actively reading and made me feel loved turned me into 🥹 I've gotten a LOT closer to some of you in this last year too and for that I am SO thankful!!! I HOPE you guys know that!!!!

Here are some shoutouts before I start to trauma dump publicly and concern people🥰

In no order but only my memory because I'm ✨so good at remembering✨ so if I missed you I'm sorry jdjdjdjdjkdkskdkdjdjdk

@choiceskatie : I'm texting you as I'm writing this because bitch you better come online for this one! Good God I fucking love you! We're fucked up soulmates for LIFE and nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, will ever change that!!! I am not going to be able to write more about how fucking much you mean to me but thank you for being insane (clinically) and whore (lovingly) with me!!🥹🫶🏻🫶🏻

@ao719 : LMAO can you fucking believe what a weirdo I was when I first talked to you Jesus it's a wonder why you didn't block me 💀 BUT HERE WE ARE! I'm still a weirdo and I get to call you one of my closest friends, not just in Tumblr but irl! Dude you're seriously one of the most AMAZING people I've ever met and I don't just say that because of your phenomenal writing I can practically see you squirming so I won't say much now lmao! I love youuuuuu!!!!🌝🦉🦊🌜🌛

@queenrileyrose : RACHEL!! Dude you've been SUCH a support system to me even when I've put you through some...things this year with my breakdowns🥰 You have seen up close what a rollercoaster it's been and you're STILL here and I can't thank you enough for that🥹🥹🥹 I love our ability to ALWAYS be right and rational and practical and I LOVE YOU!!!!🖤💚🖤💚

@burnsoslow : MA'AM YOU WILL FOREVER BE THE ABSOLUTE TALENTED QUEEN OF OUR FANDOM! I said it. It's final. No arguments accepted! Thank you for writing and sharing your stories and being an overall FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC person! I love you!!!💕

@sfb123 : SFB!🥹🥹🥹 You're such an awesome and talented writer I'LL NEVER STOP TELLING YOU THIS!!💕 I love you and Polly SO MUCH and thank freaking you for being my friend and bearing with me even when I'm conspiring against your husband💀!!

@sincerelyella : LITERALLY NO ONE APPRECIATES MY FUNNY ANIMAL REELS LIKE YOU DO!!! NO ONE!! Ahhhh! I miss our shenanigans! I love you so much, my friend!!!🥹💕💕💕

@kat-tia801 : Kat!! I hope you're doing okay 🥹💕💕 I miss reading your stories and seeing your name on my dash hjfkfjdjdjdjdj! You're so freakishly talented dude I just 🙌🏻 lol!

@charlotteg234 : YOU'RE A FF WRITER NOW! AND A DAMN GOOD ONE AT THAT!!!! Dude you're probably one of the funniest and fabulous and fantastic persons I've ever interacted with on or off Tumblr and we're so fucking lucky to have you!!! Love you!🥹🥹💕💕💕💕

A super special shout-out to EVERYONE else!!!! This fandom is a better place with you and your talent and your constant support of writers in it!!!!

I'm tired now, I'll be sleeping...soo....bye...? Is that...is that how I'm supposed to end this? Idk...

[whywoulditho]

I'm just getting into DC lore and from what i've seen so far i think DC losing in all the "Marvel vs DC" polls is literally their own fault

[drawedherbarium]

forgot to post this

[kavennnn]

coil ch

edit: tumblr stole half of my tags so i put a bad version of the second half of what i was trying to say in my notes :( sorry

[dnangelic]

ppl hate that dark always has a pathetic side they dont want to see it they think its ooc they hate that daisuke in all his insecurities, in all his clumsiness and plainness, is, yes, in fact, absolute, 100% him, they refuse to reconcile the truth with the performance they only ever want the facade the charm they don't actually care about dark's feelings and this is why i'll fight to the death for my pathetic dark rights

[aemiron-main]

Thinking about baby patty 20 dead 40 wounded

[punkeropercyjackson]

Every chronically online cisgirl talks about how much they'd love a punk bf until we start talking about wanting to kill cops and not being cis or genderconforming😔

[hauntingblue]

BACK TO ONE PIECE LETSGOOOOO

[arts-i-enjoy]

AHHHHHH

[stevethehairington]

FUCK APPLE TV LIVES DO NOT GET APPLE TV ITS BULLSHIT

[lord-squiggletits]

Something I keep seeing when I speak to others about MTMTE Megatron is basically the idea that he's going on a personal journey to become a better person, that the point isn't for him to be "redeemed" but for him to get a chance to do good and die as a person he can live with again. That MTMTE presents a unique take on this because being away from Cybertron gives Megatron a chance to be a person rather than a political figure and this is how it gives him more depth as a character. Or just generally pointing out in a narrative sense that Megatron being in MTMTE limits his story options so of course his story is going to be more focused on a personal journey than on politics of him dealing with the Decepticons/Earth/etc and that just because JRO made a choice to take that path with Megatron doesn't mean that it's inherently bad.

And I'm just, mmm like I understand all of those points and acknowledge that they all contributed to the MTMTE Megatron we got. I even think that without JRO writing Megatron we wouldn't have had his lore be as fleshed out and 3D as it ended up becoming.

(Post starts out as a sort of meta analysis or at least me giving a reasoned explanation for my interpretation of the story, ends up being petty bitching in the last 1-2 paragraphs)

I just..... I just personally don't agree with the "he's becoming a better person by getting a chance to relax and experience happiness and trust after a life of trauma" as being the best choice for his character? Because the problem is that maybe if he were a random Decepticon foot soldier that would be appropriate, but he was literally the leader of the Decepticons that made them Like That and has political/cultural/societal responsibility for why things are the way they are? To be completely frank, I don't care about him going on a personal journey for self-peace, I think that he should become a better person by helping to un-fuck all the things he actually screwed up???

Like idc about the debate of whether he can be "redeemed" or if he should've been killed/imprisoned/etc at the ending. It just comes down to the fact that for me personally, I feel that since Megatron's wrongdoings were at a social level, him "being a better person" would've been better shown by him engaging with those people who he wronged instead of just going on a frigging personal journey for his legacy and self-peace???

Especially since in other series (exRID, possibly Windblade) we literally got plots like "the neutrals hate Autobots but they hate Decepticons even more" and "the Decepticons have been taken over by Galvatron and are now invading earth 2 electric boogaloo" and "yeah the Decepticons are literally living in slums because people hate them so much and won't give them any work." It just leaves me wondering why in the hell people are like, "oh Megatron got to be happy and have a chance to be a normal person." I don't want him to be normal! I want him to repay his debts to the people he actually wronged! Like if you want to cast Megatron as a hero of the people so badly (which so many of his stans do as if he actually cared about the Cons) then how do you reconcile the fact that Megatron just fucked off and left the Decepticons to suffer on Cybertron? Including some of them attacking during his trial and getting killed and Megatron is basically like "sorry, I'm not coming with you and this isn't going to work." And then Megatron complains about "toxic Decepticon loyalty" as if he didn't literally make them that way? Like I get that MTMTE Megatron is still an asshole but if you've read something besides MTMTE and know what the Decepticons are going through, it just ends up being really grating.

I just don't see Megatron as being a particularly good hero or having a particularly fulfilling story if he's completely isolated from all the bad things he did on Cybertron/the way the Decepticons are suffering until LL#25 where it's like "ah damn I'm going to trial now, well this is what I deserve so it's fine." Why could we not have seen something like Megatron trying to deradicalize the Decepticons or change their public image so they could integrate into normal Cybertron again? They were living in SLUMS and getting gunned down by Starscream's badgeless enforcers!

The best we got was the Functionist Universe but like.... I'm sorry, but JRO inventing a whole alternate universe for Megatron to save doesn't do jack shit to save or fix the people he left behind in this one. It was especially grating to read because JRO literally wrote in someone saying "you saved billions of lives from the Functionists" as if he was trying really hard to show how good Megatron is because he saved people (and also if not for Megatron existing Cybertron would be even worse and half of your faves would be enslaved or dead, also the Functionist Council was going to genocide organics too so technically they're WORSE than Megatron since they hate organics AND want to enslave their own race).

I read Barber's, JRO's, and MScott's series concurrently using the omnibus + a release order list for phase 3, and after all that I'm kind of puzzled why the fandom seems to ardently love MTMTE Megatron and think he's so well written but then also shit on Optimus for things that he did during the same points in the story? Because, and I know this is a blazing hot take, I honestly think that Optimus makes a better hero of his story than Megatron does for his, and Optimus' personal journey combines his personal and political identities into a narrative that's a lot more gruelling and questioning of his goodness than we got for Megatron in MTMTE. Which is fucking saying something considering Megatron committed crimes against sapient species and Optimus is the guy who tried to stop him from doing that and has always been pro-equal rights for all beings. But people pretty much just cherrypick things like Optimus annexing Earth or beating up Prowl and go "he's bad" and I'm like no??? IDW OP isn't a bad person or a bad character??? It's just that unlike MTMTE Megatron he's placed in a narrative that actually suits the nature of his actions and has themes that match. To the point that IMO sometimes Barber's narrative shits on Optimus excessively or paints him mainly in the most unflattering ways.

But like. It's just funny to me because Optimus spent his entire part of the story doing things like trying to stop Earth from being invaded/colonized yet again. Grappling with his identity as Prime and dealing with the fact that people literally worship him vs. the fact that his upbringing made him see the Primacy as nothing more than a facade of authority/leadership. Having people get mad at him for prioritizing politics over friendship/relationships with other people. Even getting shit on for being a cop a decent amount so people can STFU about IDW OP being "copaganda" or "not held responsible for his actions". The problems that Optimus dealt with were personal because they had to do with his self-doubt, culpability for the war as a leader of one of the armies, distance from his soldiers, etc. But all of these are also POLITICAL struggles. Because Optimus gave up on the chance to just be a normal person having personal struggles when he chose to become a LEADER, which also means that he's held to extremely high standards that he regularly fails at in the eyes of others.

That's why, to me, MTMTE Megatron falls flat in comparison and really as a "hero" or heel-face character in general? Because he also made a decision to be a leader, and IMO once you do things like become the commander of an army and start your own galactic empire, you lose the right to prioritize your personal problems and instead are obligated by the power you've chosen to wield to focus on your POLITICAL problems. If Megatron's power, influence, and crimes are of a social-political nature, then his heel-face turn arc and ways of showing that he's a better person/helping to heal what little damage he possibly can should have been shown with actions that help on a social-political LEVEL. That's why I'm not particularly impressed with his character arc and feel as if it was overhyped by other people in this fandom: sure, the extra character depth and emotion is nice, but I'm not really going to see him as extraordinary or even particularly good when the extent of him "becoming a better person" happens entirely on a random road trip to fuck-off nowhere. Especially not when the ending of LL tried to sell me a "they lived happily ever after" ending while basically leaving the freaking MUTINY as just Rodimus going "oh it's okay you're forgiven, we're all together again" and I guess everyone was fine with Megatron and wanted to spend an eternity on a ship with him just because Getaway died.

This is why I like (the concept/themes of) exRID/OP and the way Optimus' character arc was handled a lot more. Because for Optimus, the personal and the political were as one. He was held accountable for his actions towards others and the disruptive effects they had on a social level, sometimes to a ridiculous extent (the fucking "oh Megatron is an Autobot so now that makes the Autobots colonizers" plot and that stupid colonist screaming about how Optimus is "literally fascist" my beloathed). Even his very personal issues like his relationship with Zeta were still cast in a wider lens of, yeah this is a personal struggle that Orion faced, but he was still part of a Society TM and his actions were sometimes ill-informed or harmful to others. Even if I had a lot of problems with the way Optimus' story was written by Barber (plot holes, little meaningful character interaction, forced conflicts), at least the BASELINE of it was way better than Megatron's in MTMTE. Especially since Optimus' struggle was explictly about things like struggling with responsibility and how he feels he HAS to intervene in political affairs because has to save people/make up for his past mistakes. That's something that a good leader/good person actually does, so I found Optimus to be a better hero (even if his actions weren't all "good") because he was trying to be a good person by actually getting involved with Cybertron/Earth and subjecting himself to something he hates (leadership, war) and dealing with a shitload of criticism instead of just going on a fuckin "personal journey" lksdlkfsd.

Which just makes me extra salty that people hold up MTMTE Megatron as the pinnacle of Megatrons and literally the best Transformers writing evar! while turning up their nose and ignoring or outright despising IDW Optimus. Like okay. I guess since Megatron got handled with silk gloves on while Optimus got put through the wringer of being shit on by every other person in the story, it's easier for you to pretend that Megatron is a poor uwu boy who just needs friendship and love while Optimus is literally the worst bastard to ever exist. Or maybe it's just that since Optimus' story involves him sometimes fucking up, being criticized, or making things worse, that makes him morally bad. As opposed to Megatron who disrupted a lot of other characters' stories in MTMTE, had to have an entire alternate universe invented so that he could "save lives," and got to sail off on a quantum Lost Light happily ever after, so since he's happy and the story says he saved people that means he's a good hero.

[wickedlyqueer]

hi hello salut. do you find that having a tumblr account to promote fanfictions is helpful or do readers find your fics regardless? i am publishing first time ever. thank you greatly, big fan

Yeah, I'd say so.

For one you have another platform to let readers know "hey! there's a new fic of the thing you like!" Not every reader sorts fics on 'most recent' and only go off 'most kudos'ed/viewed/bookmarked'. A new fic will have an incredibly hard time to land a high spot with those filters. Hell, some only go off other people's recs... So any additional place you can let readers know of your fics existence helps.

It also makes it much easier for readers to reblog your fic. If I read a fic and like it, I probably wouldn't make my own post like 'oh this fic i read was really nice'. I would, however, reblog someone's tumblr post. This helps your fic (potentially) read a wider audience.

Just make sure to properly tag your fics so that—even when you don't have many followers—people can still find your fic!

[fruityfroggy]

Sorry that I’m tall and large and has a resting bitch face and don’t wanna talk and sound unenthused when talking to you sometimes and is not very approachable or friendly or have a welcoming aura about me

I’m just tired and introverted

(and probably tired of your shit if you’re being fckin dumb or annoying, like get a grip. I’m doing better than you? In French too? That’s concerning. I don’t want to be here either, but like get your shit together if I have my shit together compared to you istg)

[krotiation]

damn i miss mid-2010 fandom culture

it feels like we went from “like whatever you want and have fun” to “like whatever you want but if you like this specific thing you will be publicly judged and made fun of”. like obviously we had a couple nuts making fun of others back then too but it wasnt as accepted as it is nowadays. seriously, take a fandom that has been declared cringy today and think about how it would be treated 10 years ago

[cattoru]

knew this shit was sad but nobody told me it was going to be this fucking sad

[bambeebirdie]

Alright so I just finished Earthspark and boy fucking howdy do I have opinions, but I’m not talking about those right now because I’m tired and the ending broke me in such a way I no longer care about anything.

What I would like to say though is I think Tanatulas should have been replaced with Shockwave in that on episode he had with Nightshade. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Tanatulas. He was literally so good, I loved his designs and his vibes and the only bad thing about him is that he never said his pronouns back. But really think about it. He didn’t have to be there. Earthspark spends too much time with the Maltos to really develop anyone so the more characters you add the more everything struggles.

Tanatulas showed up for one episode, he’s not even in the finale. Shockwave was there though and vaguely important, but it doesn’t make sense for him to just suddenly be okay with the Maltos. Unless he took Tanatulas role. Then his sudden willingness to help them would have made so much more sense. It also wouldn’t have been a very hard change, just as a whole, because neither Tanatulas or Shockwave are that important.

Just give Nightshade a line about how they should save Shockwave because they trust him and well everyone else acts the same.

Shockwave even fills a similar general role as Tanatulas being a weird scientist who care more about their science than the war. So it really wouldn’t be a hard switch and would make Shockwave make more sense. If you want to go further too Shockwave doesn’t even have a normal vehicle mode so he really could have given similar lines about alt modes to Nightshade.

Obviously Shockwave actual introduction episode would be different or maybe he’d just get replaced entirely but I really don’t think any of those changes would be too hard. Because again, he’s just not important enough for any changes to his character to be hard.

Tanatulas in Earthspark doesn’t validate his existence much as is. I really do love him, but he’s replaceable and just clutters an already poorly handled cast. While I think it would be cool if he was just more important they clearly didn’t want that by not even giving him a finale shot. So I do think just swapping his episode with Shockwave (and whatever other alterations are needed to make that perfect) fixes the problem with having too many underdeveloped characters since it removes one character and in the process developes another.