Mxtx was so sexy for having shen qingqiu experience the shen jiu flashbacks and still deciding to dislike him. Don't get me wrong I eat up all those awesome fanfics and headcannons of them having some sort of positive relationship like it's breadsticks, but sy!shen qingqiu's canon perception of shen jiu is just so juicy!
Like, you die, you die cursing and screaming some trashfire novel but wake up in your least favorite character's body. But he's not a character anymore, you eventually find out and accept that you and everyone around you is real. This body is real and so was the person who had it before. This body was theirs but now its yours. This body has done real horrendous things to real people that you care about. Some omnipotent system inside you is encouraging and coercing you into doing similar horrendous acts this body would have done, what it used to do. This body is not yours but now it is and now you have to live with it knowing you have to act out this body's role. Hurt your loved ones, distance yourself from your comrades, die a painful death. That is what this body was meant for, this was the original owner's fate, live with it. You are now one of the only people in the whole world that intimately knows how that man was the way he was and why he did the things he did. But that does not make it better, you feel pity, some sort of regret for how things could have been, but you cant forgive and forget because you hate him. You hate the character who turned out to be a man. You hate the man that used to own this body. You hate this body that's yours but not really yours. You hate your role, this narrative, this world, your future circumstances. Your actions of self preservation that have caused great harm. And ultimately, you hate yourself.
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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.
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I was painting and the religious-fanatic teacher came to me and started asking questions about my work. I answered them and I was ready to go on with my day and she goes "we used to talk more when you were well..."
And I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at her like "wtf" because lady you are under 2 wrong assumptions here:
I would let YOU of all people be aware of my mental state or personal life or anything that concerns ME at all.
That we had some kind of amicable relationship to begin with? No, I don't know how you got the wrong impression since I just ever talked to you after I disagreed with your views, criticized you and almost fought with you because you said something both incredibly stupid and triggering... just because I've kept things civil doesn't mean I don't consider you anything other than a pretentious asshole.
The audacity of this woman, to think she can come to me and act all motherly and attentive while trying to get her nose in my personal life while bringing up a past bond which never fricking existed????? What like do you miss our disagreements???
And I just told her, "But... I'm good tho" which is not 100% true, but that's none of her business anyway
And she goes "yeah but you were even better"
BITCH????? No I wasn't? I'm not doing super now but I've vastly improved since last year so idk are you tripping or something???? And then she says something else about my work and keeps talking to me and I'm being civil and cordial because I'm not a rude asshole even if he doesn't even deserve this courtesy for the way she treats us.
Idk what's wrong with her, like she thinks I'm some kind of "problematic kidTM" for the way I look who needs salvation?? Which is not true, I don't need you as a mother. I already have a loving family and friends. Thank you and get the hell away from me????
And even if I were looking for someone's help for anything, I would NEVER in a hundred thousand years go to her for it. Not even for a broken nail lol.
She would probably tell me to go to church and confess or some shit. She already told me to call a confessor for my grandma because she had a little accident when she heard me talking about it with someone else... fkn hell.
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