#tis necessary

[sweetmapple]

Comic wip! I cannot stop thinking about them💀 me in middle of a grocery store: ooo bury a friend or bad guy would be the perfect song for an amv of them!

Get this brain rot outta my head😭😭😭

[neversetyoufree]

Since we'll hopefully be getting out of the VnC hiatus soon, and this new arc seems to finally be turning the spotlight back to Noé and calling out some of his more troubling traits for the first time, I've been thinking a lot about him recently.

I've talked before on this blog about Noé's inability to recognize or process bad things when they happen to him alone. He bounces back from and idealizes almost any experience as soon as it's over, even when he absolutely shouldn't. It's one of my favorite traits of his, and it's been lampshaded a couple of times in-manga. Louis calls out how weird his attitude toward his kidnapping is during the mémoire 9 flashback, and the "be a little bothered" from Vanitas and co in mémoire 57 has the same effect.

We also recently got a whole extended sequence of Vanitas and Domi complaining about how Noé also never anticipates harm before it might come to him. He waltzes into dangerous situations like it's nothing, almost as if he thinks he's unkillable. Combined with the above, this is just more of his strange brand of optimistic denial. Everything is fine in Noéland! It can't possibly not be fine! He always trusts and thinks the best of people and situations by default, never wanting to expect they may do wrong, and so long as a given event doesn't involve harm to external innocents and/or Noé's loved ones that he can't rationalize away, he compartmentalizes and denies harm once it's done. Thus he carries on in blissful ignorance, his past suffering having no effect on the blithe trust with which he treats the world.

But in addition to all that, Noé is also very notably divorced from the consequences of his own actions. It's not that he's *incapable* of considering his own effect on people, and he certainly tries to be kind and decent, but much of the time, it just doesn't seem to occur to him that people will have reactions to the things he does. He does as he sees fit, and when his deeds impact the people around him, especially if they produce a reaction that could upset him, it bounces off his mind in the same way that potential traumas do.

On the more lighthearted end of the spectrum, this leads to things like Noé never noticing when people are attracted to him. It may also have something to do with his airheaded messiness—the way he's always thoughtlessly making a mess of the hotel room and incurring Vanitas's wrath in bonus materials. On the heavier end of the spectrum, this causes a lot of genuine problems for the people around him. He's largely oblivious to the depth of Dominique's mental health problems until she's pushed to her breaking point at the amusement park, despite the fact that he's inextricably entangled in the cause of them. He also completely loses sight of Vanitas's reactions to him when he gets caught up in his protective rage at the start of the vanoé fight, and it takes an outside reminder from Jeanne and a literal mirror to make him realize that his own actions are part of why Vanitas has devolved to such a state.

This lack of self-perception on Noé's part feeds back into the other problems I laid out at the top of this post, his obliviousness toward his interactions with the rest of the world helping to facilitate his denial. It's part of the happy little insulating bubble that he interacts with the world through. And as the other side of that coin, his automatic, unthinking denial of things that could hurt him is part of what enables him to ignore his own impacts on the people around him. You can't reckon with or worry about harming other people when you live in Noéland where everything must be fine. I think the fact that he wants to be a good person that doesn't harm others actually makes it harder for him to confront the truth of how he impacts the world, because him hurting others is a Bad Thing that would cause him mental harm.

We've seen Noé mess up, understand his mistake, and apologize for it before. He apologizes to Vanitas for making assumptions about him after the bal masqué, he apologizes to Vanitas again at the end of the amusement park fight, and he apologizes to Riche for speaking with ignorance about dhampirs. However, I think the bigger a mistake of his is, the more harm it causes other people (and the more understanding would hurt him as a result), the harder it is for Noé to comprehend his wrongs. He's clearly trying to make things right with Domi, and he's told her that he values her, but I don't know if it's yet occurred to him to conceive of their mess as a situation where he's done her active wrong. He also literally passes out on her mid-conversation, leaving Domi and Vanitas to carry him back to bed when he was supposed to be comforting her.

But I think the most fascinating example, the moment where all this comes together into Noé's most feeble and blatant act of denial yet, is the first time he sees Misha after clawing up his face. The anime actually changes this detail, which is its own can of worms to get into, but in the manga, when Noé sees Misha's injuries in the light of day after attacking him, he immediately fucking turns around.

At the end of his wits at the amusement park, Noé claws a child across the face in a fit of anger and protectiveness. I'm not interested in condemning Noé for this, especially given that the child in question was actively trying to stab Vanitas at the time, but I will say that his actions are quite extreme. Given Vanitas's response and the way Misha's injuries are portrayed, I think it's clear that the manga wants us to see how Noé hurts Mikhail as something troubling and extreme. He gives that kid a pretty horrible injury, and Misha will likely have scars on his face for the rest of his life.

And regardless of how justified he may or may not have been in hurting Misha in defense of Vanitas, it's clear that Noé himself is upset by the true extent of what he does to Mikhail's face. When he looks at him in the light of day, when he sees a numb-looking child with his face wrapped in still-bloody bandages, though we only get to see a small segment of his face in that moment, he looks sick. He knows that he's done something troubling, and I'm sure he feels all kinds of heavy and unpleasant emotions.

This is one genuinely bad thing he's done that Noé cannot deny. He can't rationalize this one away and make it all copacetic. He can't conveniently forget the emotional reality of suffering and harm, because that reality is standing ten yards away from him. And he can't just apologize for things either, because apologies cannot undo physical harm, and frankly, I'm not sure he'd be able to give an honest apology for his one. Sickness at the results of his actions doesn't mean he fully regrets hurting Misha, at least not at this moment when emotions are still raw.

But Noé, confronted with this undeniable source of guilt and pain, is still ultimately unable to look the pain he's caused in the eye. A problem piercing through the happy veil of Noéland and forcing him to acknowledge it doesn't mean he's capable of reckoning with that problem. Instead he just. turns away from it.

Noé, forced to acknowledge a harm he's done and unable to employ all the many layers of automatic insulation that usually protect him, physically turns around because he cannot bear to look at the person, the child, that he's hurt. He employs the very last possible form of avoidance available to him, even though it's useless in the ways that matter. Not looking at Misha doesn't mean he gets to un-know the fact that he maimed him, but he simply cannot bring himself to look.

Noé is extremely good at playing "I do not see it" with things that hurt him. He's good enough that I think he has genuinely no idea he's doing it a vast majority of the time. Whatever mental shield he has that's protecting him is automatic enough that the badness that could hurt him doesn't ever even seem to cross his conscious mind. But no matter how automatic and subconscious, this tendency of his is still, and the end of the day, nothing more than an unhealthy coping mechanism, and this moment helps to put that to our attention.

What's the difference, really, between him cheerfully acting like Jean-Jacques and Chloé's assaults never upset him and him turning around so he doesn't have to look at the wounds he gave Mikhail? Noé can't look at pain, can't acknowledge the things he finds upsetting (at least not things that cause him alone pain, as others' pain often triggers his savior complex and spurs action). This scene with Misha throws that into the light, forcing Noé to desperately cling to his avoidance in an obvious and physical way.

Even when there's no way to deny the harsh reality of having done something he finds horrific, Noé Archiviste cannot make himself look directly at a painful truth, be it others wronging him or his own wrongdoing. It takes an external hand to step in and force him to turn his head and acknowledge/reckon with a problem. And even then, who knows if intervention can always be successful.

The start of the dham arc so far has drawn a lot of attention to this pattern of behavior, with Vanitas having to sit Noé down and explain to him in detail why his words said in well-meaning ignorance make Dante so upset. This is Noé being forced to look at a harm he caused because he couldn't or wouldn't look at and comprehend the problem (his fellow vampires' racism) in the situation he was in. But upsetting Dante is ultimately a low stakes problem for Noé. He put his foot in his mouth and offended a peer; he didn't shred Vanitas's little brother. He's able to accept his wrongs and feel his discomfort without resorting to physically turning around and avoiding the issue.

I want to know what Noé will do if/when this arc forces him to confront a source of pain he can't handle in a context that's more high stakes than a social faux pas. I want to see what he'll do when something really forces him beyond his ability to believe that everything is fine. How badly would he have to be hurt to lose his ability to filter an event/events through rose colored glasses? How badly would he have to hurt someone else? Or is his instinctive shield good enough that he'll never get out of it on his own? And if so, who else might step in to make Noé own up to reality?

Teacher and the Archivistes are becoming plot-relevant now, and our attention is being drawn to Noé's issues. I think there might be something coming soon that even Noé can't turn away from and cheerfully pretend isn't hurting him. Teacher even ends his appearance at the amusement park with a little speech about having to "wake and face reality," which makes me even more certain that a wake-up call for Noé is imminent.

Either that, or Noé's going to mess up and hurt somebody even worse than he hurt Misha later this arc, and in that case, we might get to see a feat of denial even worse than him literally turning around to avoid looking at the wounds he caused.

[bruciemilf]

One of my biggest pet peeves is the justice league being labelled as " The Avengers of DC" and its like. No? The avengers are law enforcement. The Justice League are volunteers

[novelconcepts]

While I'm out here dropping unasked-for advice, another one:

Teach yourself how to feel proud of other people instead of disappointed in yourself. It seems like such a small brain shake-up, but learning how to be excited for other people's successes is so much healthier than berating yourself for being "behind" or "failing" in comparison.

[vi-is-badass]

Arcane Season 2 - The Base Violence Necessary for Change

I think this shot is the most interesting part of the trailer. We see a shot of Jinx as a painting on a wall. A symbol. A leader. Her actions stand for revolution in Zaun and I think this could be an interesting expansion of Arcane’s exploration of violence and the idea that there is a base violence necessary for change.

Silco is framed as an antagonist in season 1 because of his actions against the undercity people specifically.

In act 3 he’s not the revolutionary he positioned himself as and is instead hurting the people of Zaun through his leadership. He’s doing as much to hurt topside as Vander was in act 1 (meaning nothing at all). He’s even got the sheriff working with him just like Vander, but, unlike Vander, Silco is hurting his own people to facilitate power and he’s not even fighting for that freedom he claimed to want so much.

We see the damage his actions have wrought. We see the shimmer addicts, forgotten and exploited. We see that he's created a hierarchy rather than a community.

And it’s contrasted with the firelights. People considered terrorists to Piltover, who do use violence to fight back against Silco and topside, and yet offer the biggest glimmer of hope. They aren’t villainized. The act of fighting back isn’t villainized and it shouldn’t be.

Because it’s not the violence in and of itself that’s the issue. It’s what that violence is used for.

The series hammers this idea home through Vander. 

Vander’s staunch stance against violence is flawed as well. It comes from a good place. A desire to protect what he loves rather than destroy what he hates and it did create a time free of the death revolution brings, but it’s made it so no ground could be made to free Zaun and create a better world for the people in it. It created stagnation. 

The people of the undercity are still stuck in a cycle of crushing poverty, growing up without parents, dying young due to pollution or violence wrought by desperate people or oppressive enforcers.

It didn’t move the needle because Piltover and the system in place wasn’t going to change just because the people of the undercity were playing nice.

The unrest and anger felt towards Vander for his ideal was understandable. His views on the cyclical nature of violence and the fact that if you fight you will lose people (“What are you willing to lose”) is correct, but that doesn’t make this option the ideal one.

Which brings me back to that shot in the trailer of that painting of Jinx.

Season 2 looks like it’s going to be a season of opposites and rediscovery where it flips what we expect of Jinx and Vi on its head and further explores these ideas of violence, oppression, and revolution.

And I think this season might possibly do that by reversing how Vi and Jinx reflect Vander and Silco.

In the first season the siblings were direct reflections of their respective father figures, but now they’re inversions. Jinx can become the good to be found in Silco’s ideals and Vi the pitfalls of Vander’s.

Jinx’s actions in season 1 weren’t those of a revolutionary. Her actions weren’t meant to free the people of the undercity or improve their lives. She didn’t steal the hexcrystal to bring hextech to the undercity and improve their lives and she didn’t kill the enforcers on the bridge to get rid of dirty cops. She didn’t kidnap Caitlyn for a greater cause.

But we know that Jinx isn’t only the violence she enacted. That she is “the monster they (the system and people around her) created”. Her actions weren’t heroic in the first season, but they were driven by the life that was forced upon her. Her hurt and anger are justified.

Now that she’s away from Silco, no longer a part of his machine and actively participating in his actions that were hurting the undercity, her actions and anger can take on a new light. She can rediscover herself away from his manipulations (this isn’t to say he didn’t love her but what he did and said isolated her and allowed her issues to fester) and become that symbol we see on the wall.

Jinx could be in a way what Silco could have been if he didn’t let his own self interest get in the way of his ideals. Not quite as forward thinking as Ekko or as idealistic, but still a symbol for resistance that fights for Zaun.

Whereas Vi is sort of on a path to becoming a darker reflection of Vander’s ideals.

Vi becomes a part of the system she used to rage against.

 Based on the season 2 teaser that was released in 2021– 

“Nobody else needs to get hurt.”

–I think it’s likely that Vi believes she can prevent more death or can stop Piltover’s violence against the undercity if she takes Jinx in.

Vi sees herself as a protector who has failed at every turn to protect those she cares about. She lost her parents, Powder, Vander, Mylo, Claggor, etc. and she is constantly desperate to try and save what she loves and that will likely drive her decision to become an enforcer.

Vi, like Vander, wants to save what she loves and as a result isn’t going to fight back against topside. This is a much more extreme version of Vander’s ideals. Where she “compromises” in an attempt to prevent bloodshed but as a result enables (or in her case helps) the system in place.

This decision will have negative consequences (and deservedly so!) because no matter what thoughts or feelings are the driving factor in it she is still siding with her oppressors and ultimately helping the system that is the root cause of that loss and pain in the first place. 

Based on the clip released at Annecy and what people have said the writers explained about Vi’s arc in season 2 it seems like Vi will be ostracized for this decision and deservedly so. She won’t belong anywhere. To the undercity she’s a traitor and to Piltover she’s nothing more than an undercity rat.

She will have lost everything. She will have no one to protect. And who is Vi if she’s not a protector?

Vi will be forced to re-evaluate who she is and what she wants. Just like Jinx, Vi will have to redefine herself when she loses everything.

I can’t wait for season 2 and what the team at Fortiche has in store for us. The way the show tackles complex themes and ideas is incredible and Vi and Jinx are some of the most compelling and complicated characters I’ve seen on tv. I’m looking forward to November.

[qqueenofhades]

Well, the world is a nightmare etc., but at least I have booked myself a fabulous summer holiday/early birthday present and will be out of the country for two whole weeks this summer. Excite.

[markantonys]

rotating potential Mat Show Structures in my brain...........assuming that ebou dar is cut (which feels likely if mat is indeed already having a southwestern coastal roadtrip with elayne and nynaeve in s3), what if:

s3: gets his marriage prophecy, tanchico trip with the girls, meets tuon (without knowing she's Prophecy Wife) but they go their separate ways by the end of the season

s4: returns to rand's side, forms the band, leads the band as part of the dumai's wells rescue mission because dumai's wells needs to involve as many main characters as possible goddammit (and because i need the romance of mat helping rescue rand)

s5: leads a campaign against the seanchan with rand and/or on rand's behalf (depending on what else rand has going on this season), reencounters tuon and kidnaps her (but may or may not yet know she's Prophecy Wife; either way, kidnapping motive is instead something calculating like taking a high-ranking seanchan as a prisoner of war, or something morally righteous like rescuing her from her own people's assassins and taking her off with him to keep her safe)

this would be adding mat into rand's TPOD storyline, of course, but at the same time it would ALSO be mat absorbing ituralde's storyline from the next few books. i remember talking once with @butterflydm about how ituralde is basically Knockoff Mat in that he's getting a whole spotlit Clever General storyline while mat, who's supposed to be our main Clever General, is off fucking around in the circus.

so i feel like involving mat in the seanchan campaigns could be an elegant solution all around. mat actually gets to fulfill his narrative role of leading armies on rand's behalf, the seanchan campaign storyline is in the hands of a main character (vs. rand doing it only briefly and then ituralde taking over the bulk of it), mat gets involved with the seanchan in a manner more organic than "author drops a wall on him to force him to encounter them", and it lends a huge amount of much-needed enemies-to-lovers narrative tension to the mat/tuon relationship if he is actively leading military campaigns against her forces (like he did for about.......5 pages in the books).

now wandering off into very-hypothetical ship-related territory thinking of what mat/tuon would look like in this scenario.

i'm thinking mat never finds out during s3 that tuon is a high-ranking seanchan and thinks she's just His Good Buddy Tuon (because she's disguised and undercover). but as the s3 finale stinger, the audience finds out that tuon is mat's Prophecy Wife AND is the heir to the seanchan throne, so we've got some tasty dramatic irony. s4 has tuon doing a solo storyline of seanchan political intrigue, either still in the western westlands or back in the actual court in seanchan (the latter would be sooooo cool, but it depends on how many times they want her zipping back and forth between continents). but her time spent with mat, elayne, and nynaeve (two marath'damane who are in fact people!) in s3 has got the gears turning, and in s4 we get to see tuon in her natural habitat but we also see that she's starting to question and doubt some Seanchan Ways because our kids have expanded her worldview.

in s5, tuon is tasked with heading up the next wave of military efforts in the westlands. so when mat crosses her path again, she is decked out in full seanchan regalia and he realizes that His Good Buddy Tuon is a high-ranking seanchan and must have been using him in s3 when she acted like his friend, so he's all hurt and betrayed (alternately, this reveal could happen as their final scene in s3 and mat is still feeling betrayed when they reunite in s5), but tuon genuinely did like him in s3 so she's hurt that he now hates her but she also can't reveal any of this weakness because he's the enemy general and her people would think she's a traitor if she shows any hints of non-hostile feelings towards him, and despite his anger mat can't help holding onto some non-hostile feelings for her which makes him even more angry with himself, and it's all very delicious.

kidnapping happens, and for s6 they embark on a roadtrip back across the continent (maybe with mat intending to deliver tuon as a hostage to rand; we could even mix the 2 motives i brainstormed, where he impulsively saves her life out of feelings but Then justifies it as taking her with him as a hostage), and all this prior development means several good things for the show being able to sell their relationship as a bona fide romance (and tuon as a dynamic, complex character).

1) tuon having spent time with westlanders and free channelers already in s3 and having spent s4-5 questioning Seanchan Ways on her own means she is now primed for a final push over the edge of unlearning seanchan conditioning and admitting that slavery is wrong (which she has to do IF the show wants mat/tuon to be a bona fide romance rather than a political marriage; a political marriage with an unrepentant tuon would also be a viable route, but show!mat would never ever ever fall in love with an unrepentant slaver so if it's going to be a bona fide romance then she has to repent) and ideally admitting that she herself can channel (feat. tasty scene early in the season of her accidentally channeling for the first time to protect mat). now tuon is a complex character who grows and develops over the course of the story, and it does not defy all reason, credibility, and established characterization that mat could fall for her. improvement!

2) if mat is feeling angry and betrayed by the discovery of tuon's seanchan identity, and if tuon is hurt by this because she genuinely likes him and wasn't faking friendship in s3 and wishes he would believe her, now mat has the "upper hand" in their roadtrip dynamic, so to speak, and tuon is in the position of needing to work to earn mat's trust. so rather than mat nonsensically handing over his loyalty and protectiveness at the drop of a hat to tuon who's used to being worshipped and takes mat doing so as her due and walks all over him with no pushback, now it's a more equal dynamic and a better power balance because tuon has to work hard to give mat (and the audience) a reason to believe she's Better Than Other Seanchan. improvement!

imagine how hard the "you're not my enemy, but your empire is" line would go in this context!

and i haven't even thought about when mat would find out tuon is Prophecy Wife in this structure. i would love for it to be not until after he's already falling for her naturally, but if he's fighting against a seanchan army that she's leading in s5, he might not be able to go very long without hearing the "daughter of the nine moons" title. idk! even if he does find out fairly early, i know that show!mat would not let this information immediately remove his spine from his body, so i have faith either way.

[86future]

[ 2ND CHILDREN / 5TH CHILDREN ]

— The truth is, Unit 02 simply isn’t compatible with the other EVAs. (E14)

— I never imagined this boy could synchronize with Unit 02 without replacing its core. Quite astonishing. (E24)

Death & Rebirth Pamphlet / Cruel Angel’s Thesis OP / EVA-02 wiki / DEATH (TRUE ²) / E16 / E24 / DEATH (TRUE ²) / E22 / 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo Cover / E09 / The End of Evangelion / E09 / E24 / NGE Manga / The End of Evangelion

[rustedleopard]

If you have Clover living with their monster friends, you gotta play up the differences between their biologies and make Clover look like a genuine freak in their eyes. You just gotta.

Starlo thinks he knows humans soooooooo well because he's watched human movies, yet the split second he sees their nose bleeding from the dry air, he's like "Ah shit. Any sort of bleeding is bad. Is this a fatal amount of blood loss? What do I do??? It just keeps coming out!" Ceroba is like "There can't be that many differences between a monster kid and a human kid. I've already raised one, how hard can another one be?" And then they get the flu, and since disease isn't really a thing with monsters, she's concerned that they're starting to Fall Down (<- okay, this one isn't funny). Martlet finds out that humans need to supplement their diet with things like fiber and iron, but apparently you can't just feed them cut up pieces of cloth and iron filings, that'll kill them. They find out that humans have internal organs and are made of cells and they're be simultaneously disgusted and intrigued. Like, you're made of a bunch of little parts? And those parts make up flesh tubes in your body and stuff? And they're doing their own thing all the time?? Without your awareness??? Does it feel weird????

"Oh, Clover has a 105°F fever but that's only a few degrees higher than how warm they usually are, I'm sure they're fine." <- Deranged statement uttered by one of them at some point.

[butchniqabi]

Nature became land, conceivable only in terms of property, laid bare of myth, custom, tradition. Land if it were to function as land, needed not men, nor communities, but so many units of labor-power. The Middle Passage, it must have been assumed, was wide and deep enough to exile the tribal African from all the social customs and traditions that defined him as a man rather than a labor unit.

-Sylvia Wynter, Black Metamorphosis New Natives in a New World

[silkieluv]

Words cannot express my love for Heart2Heart by lightningearth on ao3. It’s one heck of a fanfiction that had me SCREAMING multiple times!!

Especially with the last chapters like (spoilers under the cut)

OH MY GOD WHY COLE. WHY. WHY. WHY. COLE??? COLE. COLE. WHY.

I know why thanks to the last chapter, explaining why COLE BROKE UP WITH JAY.

AND ALL OF A SUDDEN (it’s actually not sudden, there were signs that I read like a pro) THERES ONE SIDED TECHNO??? ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!??? AND JAYA TOO???? JAY IS INTO COLE SO DOES THAT MEAN NYA IS INTO HIM???

JUST ADD ONE SIDED PLASMA AND YOU GOT ALL OF MY FAVORITE SHIPS.

Techno lowkey makes me cry. Before it was confirmed (thanks to the tags AND THE HAND HOLDING???) I like repeated how much that I don’t want Techno to be there because I see how much Jay loves Cole and I was so scared that it was gonna be one sided, until I settled “Nah, you know what. Cole/Zane/Jay exist.” THEN COLE BROKE UP WITH JAY???? And I was like “Oh snap Zane is gonna be a rebound” BUT IM JUST LIKE.

I’m clueless I hate this I don’t want Zane to suffer. I DONT WANT ZANE TO SUFFER. AURGHHHH PELEADE PLEASE. LIGHTNINGEARTH. HAVE MERCY YOU CRAZY AUTHOR

[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.

[phantomsies]

this doordasher!eren fic I’m working on is long as hell for no reason 😭

[ratatatastic]

"what was it like to see ekky drop the gloves and see him just jump in there for you?" [proceeds to say you know and yeah like a lifeline until he can gather his thoughts properly.] "its just cool hes a good guy"

"i appreciate that but you know... yeah i would do the same thing to him"

post practise interview | 11.18.24 (x)

[ravencromwell]

The poem evokes human greatness and human vulnerability. People are “godlike” in their courage and skill, but even the greatest mortals fall and clutch the dust between their bloody fingers. The beautiful word minunthadios , “short-lived,” is used of both Achilles and Hector, and applies to all of us. We die too soon, and there is no adequate recompense for the terrible, inevitable loss of life. Yet through poetry, the words, actions, and feelings of some long-ago brief lives may be remembered even three thousand years later.

--Emily Wilson's introduction to the Iliad

[gingermintpepper]

Day 6: Iaso

Interpretation notes and trivia under the cut!

Okay the first thing I'm going to say is I know she has a criminal lack of jewellry but I really didn't want to draw all the little baubles 😭 She's also missing her headscarf but like,,, shh, it's fine. Actually her design her is very very loose - for example the back of her two scarves should be tucked into her belt, and they should be tied off in front before flaring out again beneath her belt. Also her belt should be clip on with a silver clasp instead of a tied off sash like the greek women HOWEVER, what if I just drew her barely clothed and completely a mess? Okay? Okay mwah mwah mwah. Me committing liberal fashion faux pas aside, I think Iaso is the first true "what the hell does she have to do with the story of Hyacinthus and Apollo" character I've introduced and that makes me very happy, get used to that it will happen again. As the second child of Asclepius, Iaso has spent her life supporting her mother and chasing her father's shadow. Machaon, her older brother, has never disliked the nomadic life their family leads, travelling from place to place, lending their aid where they can and healing whatever sick and afflicted they find but Iaso has only ever wanted to fix her family - to keep her mother happy and to make her father stay with them. When the opportunity comes for her to fix it all, of course she springs for it and rushes off on her own adventure, still that little girl chasing after her father's shadow. Determined, upbeat and kind of precocious, Iaso's the sort of girl to take her fate into her own hands, for better or for worse.

Some assorted trivia:

Has never met her grandfather and doesn't actually care much about being the granddaughter of the Radiant. The only members of her paternal family that she's familiar with are Artemis and Orpheus. Artemis because she frequented Asclepius' home when dealing with The Hippolytus Incident and Orpheus because all of the children, even the twins, know Uncle Orpheus.

Despite her skill with healing and ingenuity when it comes to administering and refining medicinal receipes, she doesn't want to be a doctor and very much wishes she had the freedom to be something else. Hasn't had time to have a hobby but she thinks she'd like horseback riding.

Extremely good runner and fantastic at concocting poisons. Surprisingly hardy and due to handling home affairs for so long as Epione was usually busy for long hours in the healing tent, can haggle and cook with the best of them.

Routinely pilfers a lot of the jewellry Machaon inherited from their father and is especially fond of the bronze snake anklet Asclepius wore on his wedding day. It was originally given to Machaon in the hopes that it would help him find a bride but considering Machaon hasn't yet told his father that he has no interest in such a pursuit, the boy passed the bronze snake to Iaso who wears it religiously. She even says a charm spell each day just in case she finds her special someone while on the road!

Thinks the current world without the Radiant is beautiful enough and that people will ultimately perservere even if the god of light never returns. She hopes her father can understand that divine matters should be left to the gods and that his priority should be the family he built with his own two hands and not his paternal family who can never seem to agree on anything.

Favourite colour is the greenish-yellow of olive oil, favourite season is the lingering fall. Her favourite food is her mother's menemen (without onion).