#why did that hurt to type

[abyssal-ilk]

since i'm talking about bull today, i think its a bit of a mistep to say bull turning against the inquisitor in trespasser is an act of revenge for the death of the chargers. this isn't a result of the inquisitor betraying bull or hurting him. it is a result of the inquisitor reaffirming iron bull's place within the qun. it isn't something that the inquisitor "deserves" for killing a group of beloved soldiers. it is simply the consequence of choosing a political allegiance- the qun- and enforcing the idea that a small part can and should be sacraficed for the greater whole. the chargers can be sacrificed for the inquisiton, the inquisitor (and dorian, and vivienne, and sera, and anyone else bull befriended) can be sacrificed for the qun.

[thesmokinpossum]

If My Body Could Speak, Blythe Baird | The Godfather, Mario Puzo | My Father's House, Sylvia Fraser | To The Daughter Who Secretly Longs For Her Mother’s Affection, Lynne Shako | Storms from Jupiter, Wanda Deglane | DO NOT REPLY, @filmnoirsbian

[valcaine]

Can we see art/sketches of philza lowkey being terrifying?

woe, a sorta old crow man doodle upon ye,

Haven’t really had the energy to draw things recently as my ass ended up in the hospital and it just. Killed Everything I had left in me so apologies for any absence, I hope to get in the drive of making emduo art again. I have Things™️ planned, it is mostly a matter of me gaining the motivation again to finish them lmao

if anyone is interested. please do commission me!

[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.

[pa-pa-plasma]

you just made the scientific discovery of the century & you want to tell everyone & your kids are first on that list but you can't find them. you manage to get a hold of your daughter & she says everything is fine but her voice gets tight when you try to mention your work & she sucks in a breath & says she won't keep you from it any longer than she already has & doesn't say bye as she hangs up the phone. you have a sinking feeling in your gut & you really want to get back to what you were doing but. something's wrong. where are your kids. why was your daughter not surprised when you told her. why was she so quick to hang up on you. your husband has the same type of mind & that's probably why neither of you can ignore this odd turn of events & so you decide to track them down. the research can wait. after all, the spook got away somehow afterwards. it's not like you have anything to go through but data & recordings.

[a-star-that-burns-brightly]

I really want to make a DRDT Confessions account after CH2 is over because I love hearing other people's thoughts and opinions even if I personally disagree with them, I think it would be fun to see what people submit, and I think having spaces like confession accounts is very important when it comes to fandom. but at the same time confession accounts from what I've seen tend to get very out-of-hand (>_>||)

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[the-vibing-ghoul]

some people will be all about mental health awareness and leftist ideals of at least tolerating the mentally ill who show ''ugly'' symptoms until it's someone they know and ''care'' about having a bad day and acting like it in a way they don't find appealing

[enviousbug2]

noo I totally didn't forget I could do traditional art

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

why do all of my joints HURT

[rivercule]

Fascinated by Daniel’s assertion that he doesn’t want to die and the way it seems like he’s lying. Said it in 1973 and Armand didn’t believe him. Said it now and Rashid didn’t seem to believe him. It is a valid question. Why do you keep interviewing guys who want to eat you if you don’t want to be eaten

[ilostyou]

taylor x 5sos parallels - part 6/?

[vriska-serketboard]

do you ever scroll through the tea and secrets blog & pretend/worry that all the anons about hating/falling out of love with someone are about you even if they don’t match up to any of your actual life experiences whatsoever, or pretend/worry that you sent some of the asks and then just forgot, or that you’re living in a different world where this stuff actually happened to you and marches up with your own life experiences & this present moment is just some kind of really long hallucination? Just me? Hahaha ok slay

[todayisafridaynight]

cant stress how obsessed i am with yamaguchis shirt

[that-jack-kline-bestie]

so fucking upset. i looked up what's considered concerning weight loss and got a statistic. i looked up the same question but specified teens and i got a bunch of articles about how to lose weight. what the fuck

[taegularities]

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