#if only they were a little better at communicating

[black-crested-jaybird]

I am an American Christian from a non-evangelical, "mainline" tradition. When I was young, my best friend was an evangelical Baptist, and for several years I really tried to fit into that culture - listening to Christian radio, attempting to read the bible and pray daily, and feeling pressure to convert others to Christianity. Fortunately for my conscience nowadays, I was terrible at it - my attempts at proselytizing pretty much consisted of wearing a "Jesus is awesome!" T-shirt to school once a month and feeling hideously self-conscious about it the entire time.

When I was in high school, a girl I was getting to know told me she had two moms. I distinctly remember consciously, if rapidly, weighing the Christianity I already felt uncomfortable with against my growing friendship with her, and choosing her. We soon became fast friends. Within about a year, I left Christianity entirely and joined another religion, one that doesn't proselytize.

But @jessicalprice is right - religion is culture. When my high school friend was killed by a drunk driver six years later, my grief led me to a church I had visited as a child. Just walking in and sitting down in the empty sanctuary filled me with such a strong feeling of familiarity that I burst into tears. Over the next few months, I started attending church again, even as I struggled to reconcile the feeling of rightness and belonging I felt there with the bigotry and oppression that pervades so much of American Protestantism.

Decades later, I am still grappling with the question of what ethical Christianity looks like, for me as an individual and in the context of a religious institution; just as I am working on recognizing and deconstructing racism, white supremacy, and colonialism in myself and in my society. I've learned about cultural Christianity and see it more and more clearly, just as I continue to learn what American culture is (once I got past the first lesson, which is that America has a culture at all, and isn't just the default setting for humans).

I often say that I have a similar relationship with my identity as a U.S. citizen as I do with my identity as a Christian: despite their many problems and the grave harm they have done and too often continue to do, they are my home. @jessicalprice has helped me to realize that this is not a similarity at all. Despite knowing about cultural Christianity, despite seeing it more and more clearly around me and in myself, I didn't realize until now that those "two" identities are really the same identity.

I don't have any earthshaking conclusions to draw from this. No grand unifying theory of culture. I only want to say thank you to @jessicalprice for helping me understand myself, and my Christian culture, a little better today.

ETA: I just read through ALL the notes. They were very interesting, and I just reblogged one particularly interesting set of additions. To avoid doing that AGAIN with this very long post, I'm adding in OP's book recommendation, which I'm hoping will help me and my church community in our work on becoming a better kind of Christianity: J. Cameron Carter's Race: A Theological Perspective.

culture isn’t modular

I did a thread (actually several) on Twitter a few years ago about Christianity’s attempts to paint itself as modular, and I’ve been seeing them referenced here in the cultural christianity Discourse, and a few people have DMed me asking me to post it here, so here’s a rehash of several of those threads:

A big part of why Christian atheists have trouble seeing how culturally Christian they still are is that Christianity advertises itself as being modular, which is not how belief systems have worked for most of human history. 

A selling point of Christianity has always been the idea that it’s plug-and-play: you don’t have to stop being Irish or Korean or Nigerian to be Christian, you don’t have to learn a new language, you keep your culture. 

And you’re just also Christian.

(You can see, then, why so many Christian atheists struggle with the idea that they’re still Christian–to them, Christianity is this modular belief in God and Jesus and a few other tenets, and everything else is… everything else. Which is, not to get ahead of myself, very compatible with some tacit white supremacy: the “everything else” is goes unexamined for its cultural specificity. It’s just Normal. Default. Neutral.)

Evangelicals in particular love to contrast this to Islam, to the idea that you have to learn Arabic and adopt elements of Arab culture to be Muslim, which helps fuel the image of Islam as a Foreign Ideology that’s taking over the West.

The rest of us don’t have that particular jack

Meanwhile, Christians position Christianity as a modular component of your life. Keep your culture, your traditions, your language and just swap out your Other Religion Module for a Christianity Module.

The end game is, in theory, a rainbow of diverse people and cultures that are all one big happy family in Christ. We’re going to come back to how Christianity isn’t actually modular, but for the moment, let’s talk about it as if it had succeeded in that design goal. 

Even if Christianity were successfully modular, if it were something that you could just plug in to the Belief System Receptor in a culture and leave the rest of it undisturbed, the problem is most cultures don’t have a modular Belief System Receptor. Spirituality has, for the entirety of human history, not been something that’s modular. It’s deeply interwoven with the rest of culture and society. You can’t just pull it out and plug something else in and have the culture remain stable.

(And to be clear, even using the term “spirituality” here is a sop to Christianity. What cultures have are worldviews that deal with humanity’s place in the universe/reality; people’s relationships to other people; the idea of individual, societal, or human purpose; how the culture defines membership; etc. These may or may not deal with the supernatural or “spiritual.”)

And so OF COURSE attempting to pull out a culture’s indigenous belief system and replace it with Christianity has almost always had destructive effects on that culture.

Not only is Christianity not representative of “religion” full stop, it’s actually arguably *anomalous* in its attempt to be modular (and thus universal to all cultures) rather than inextricable from culture.

Now, of course, it hasn’t actually succeeded in that–the US is a thoroughly Christian culture–but it does lead to the idea that one can somehow parse out which pieces of culture are “religious” versus which are “secular”. That framing is antithetical to most cultures. E.g. you can’t separate the development of a lot of cultural practices around what people eat and how they get it from elements of their worldview that Christians would probably label “religious.” But that entire *framing* of religious vs. secular is a Christian one.

Is Passover a religious holiday or a secular one? The answer isn’t one or the other, or neither, or both. It’s that the framing of this question is wrong.

And Christianity isn’t a plugin, however much it wants to be

Moreover, Christianity isn’t actually culture-neutral or modular. 

It’s easy for this to get obscured by seeing Christianity as a tool of particular cultures’ colonialism (e.g. the British using Christianity to spread British culture) or of whiteness in general, and not seeing how Christianity itself is colonial. This helps protect the idea that “true” Christianity is good and innocent, and if priests or missionaries are converting people at swordpoint or claiming land for European powers or destroying indigenous cultures, that must be a misuse of Christianity, a “fake” or “corrupted” Christianity.

Never mind that for every other culture, that culture is what its members do. Christianity, uniquely, must be judged on what it says its ideals are, not what it actually is. 

Mistaking the engine for the exhaust

But it’s not just an otherwise innocent tool of colonialism: it’s a driver of it. 

At the end of the day, it’s really hard to construct a version of the Great Commission that isn’t inherently colonial. The end-goal of a world in which everyone is Christian is a world without non-Christian cultures. (As is the end goal of a world in which everyone is atheist by Christian definitions.)

Yet we focus on the way Christianity came with British or Spanish culture when they colonized a place–the churches are here because the Spaniards who conquered this area were Catholic–and miss how Christianity actually has its own cultural tropes that it brings with it. It’s more subtle, of course, when Christianity didn’t come in explicitly as the result of military conquest.

Or put another way, those cultures didn’t just shape the Christianity they brought to places they colonized–they were shaped by it. How much of the commonality between European cultures is because of Christianity?

It’s not all a competition

A lot of Christians (cultural and practicing), if you push them, will eventually paint you a picture of a very Hobbesian world in which all religions, red in tooth and claw, are trying to take over the world. It’s the “natural order” to attempt to eliminate all cultures but your own. 

If you point out to them that belief and worldview are deeply personal, and proselytizing is objectifying, because you’re basically telling the person you’re proselytizing to that who they are is wrong, you often get some version of “that’s how everyone is, though.”

Like we all go through life seeing other humans as incomplete and fundamentally flawed and the only way to “fix” them is to get them to believe what we believe. And, like, that is not how everyone relates to others?

But it’s definitely how both practicing Christians and Christian antitheists relate to others. If, for Christians, your lack of Jesus is a fundamental flaw in you that needs to be fixed, for New Atheists, your “religion” (that is, your non-Christian culture) is a fundamental flaw in you that needs to be fixed. Neither Christians nor New Atheists are able to relate to anyone else as fine as they are. It’s all a Hobbesian zero-sum game. It’s all a game of conversion with only win and loss conditions. You are, essentially, only an NPC worth points.

The idea of being any other way is not only wrong, but impossible to them. If you claim to exist in any other way, you are either deluded or lying.

So, we get Christian atheists claiming that if you identify as Jewish, you can’t really be an atheist. Or sometimes they’ll make an exception for someone who’s “only ethnically Jewish.” If the only way you relate to your Jewishness is as ancestry, then you can be an atheist. Otherwise, you’re lying. 

Or, if you’re not lying, you’re deluded. You just don’t understand that there’s no need for you to keep any dietary practices or continue to engage in any form of ritual or celebrate any of those “religious” Jewish holidays, and by golly, this here “ex”-Christian atheist is here to separate out for you which parts of your culture are “religious” and which ones are “secular.”

Religious/secular is a Christian distinction

A lot of atheists from Christian backgrounds (whether or not they were raised explicitly Christian) have trouble seeing how Christian they are because they’ve accepted the Christian idea that “religion” is modular. (If we define “religion” the way Christians (whether practicing or cultural) define it, Christianity might be the only religion that actually exists. Maybe Islam?)

When people from non-Christian cultures talk about the hegemonically Christian and white supremacist nature of a lot of atheism, it reflects how outside of Christianity, spirituality/worldview isn’t something you can just pull out of a culture.

Christian atheists tend to see the cultural practices of non-Christians as “religious” and think that they should give them up (talk to Jewish atheists who keep kosher about Christian atheist reactions to that). But because Christianity positions itself as modular, people from Christian backgrounds tend not to see how Christian the culture they imagine as “neutral” or “normal” actually is. In their minds, you just pull out the Christianity module and are left with a neutral, secular society.

So, if people from non-Christian backgrounds would just give up their superstitions, they’d look the same as Christian atheists. 

Your secularism is specifically post-Christian

Of course, that culture with the Christianity module pulled out ISN’T neutral. So the idea that that’s what “secular society” should look like ends up following the same pattern as Christian colonialism throughout history: the promise that you can keep your culture and just plug in a different belief system (or, purportedly, a lack of a belief system), which has always, always been a lie. The secular, “enlightened” life that most Christian atheists envision is one that’s still built on white, western Christianity, and the idea that people should conform to it is still attempting to homogenize society to a white Christian ideal. 

For people from cultures that don’t see spirituality as modular, this is pretty obvious. It’s obvious to a lot of people from non-white Christian cultures that have syncretized Christianity in a way that doesn’t truck with the modularity illusion. 

I also think, even though they’re not conceptualizing it in these terms, that it’s actually obvious to a lot of evangelicals. (The difference being that white evangelical Christianity enthusiastically embraces white supremacy, so they see the destruction of non-Christian culture as good.) But I think it’s invisible to a lot of mainline non-evangelical Christians, and it’s definitely invisible to a lot of people who leave Christianity.

And that inability to see culture outside a Christian framing means that American secularism is still shaped like Christianity. It’s basically the same text with a few sentences deleted and some terms replaced.

Which, again, is by design. The idea that you can deconvert to (Christian) atheism and not have to change much besides your opinions about God is the mirror of how easy it’s supposed to be to convert to Christianity.

Human societies don’t follow evolutionary biology

The Victorian Christian framing underlying current Western ideas of enlightened secularism, that religious practice (and human culture in general) is subject to the same sort of unilateral, simple evolution toward a superior state to which they, at the time, largely reduced biological evolution, is deeply white supremacist.

It posits religious evolution as a constantly self-refining process from “primitive” animism and polytheism to monotheism to white European/American Christianity. For Christians, that’s the height of human culture. For ex-Christians, the next step is Christian-derived secularism.

Maybe you’ve seen this comic?

The thing is, animism isn’t more “primitive” than polytheism, and polytheism isn’t more “primitive” than monotheism. Older doesn’t mean less advanced/sophisticated/complex. Hinduism isn’t more “primitive” than Judaism just because it’s polytheistic and Judaism is monotheistic. 

Human cultures continue to change and adapt. (Arguably, older religions are more sophisticated than newer ones because they’ve had a lot more time to refine their practices and ideologies instead of having to define them.) Also, not all cultures are part of the same family tree. Christianity and Islam may be derived from Judaism, but Judaism and Hinduism have no real relationship to one another. 

But in this worldview, Christianity is “normal” religion, which is still more primitive than enlightened secularism, but more advanced than all those other primitive, superstitious, irrational beliefs.

Just like Christians, when Christian atheists do try to make room for cultures that aren’t white and European-derived, the tacit demand is “okay, but you have to separate out the parts of your culture that the Christian sacred-secular divide would deem ‘religious.’”

Either way, people from non-Christian cultures, if they’re to be equals, are supposed to get with the program and assimilate.

You’re not qualified to be a universal arbiter of what culture is good

Christian atheists usually want everyone to unplug that Religion module!

So, for example, you have ex-Christian atheists who are down with pluralism trying to get ex-Christian atheists who aren’t to leave Jews alone by pointing out that you can be atheist and Jewish.

But some of us aren’t atheist. (I’m agnostic by Christian standards.) And the idea that Jews shouldn’t be targets for harassment because they can be atheists and therefore possibly have some common sense is still demanding that people from other cultures conform to one culture’s standard of what being “rational” is.  

Which, like, is kind of galling when y’all don’t even understand what “belief in G-d” means to Jews, and people from a culture that took until the 1800s to figure out that washing their hands was good are setting themselves up as the Universal Arbiters of Rationality.

(BTW, most of this also holds true for non-white Christianity, too. I guarantee you most white Christian atheists don’t have a good sense of what role church plays in the lives of Black communities, so maybe shut up about it.)

In any case, reducing Christianity–a massive, ambient phenomenon inextricable from Western culture–to the specific manifestation of Christian practice that you grew up with is, frankly, absurd. 

And you can’t be any help in deconstructing hegemony when you refuse to perceive it and understand that it isn’t something you can take off like a garment, and you probably won’t ever recognize and uproot all the ways in which it affects you, especially when you are continuing to live within it. 

What hegemony doesn’t want you to know

One of the ways hegemony sustains and perpetuates itself is by reinforcing the idea not so much that other ways of being and knowing are evil (although that’s usually a stage in an ideology becoming hegemonic), but that they’re impossible. That they don’t actually exist. 

See, again, the idea that anyone claiming to live differently is either lying or deluded.

There are few clearer examples of how pervasive Christian hegemony is than Christian atheists being certain every religion works like Christianity. Hegemonic Christianity wants you to think that all cultures work like Christianity because it wants their belief systems to be modular so you can just …swap them. And it wants to pretend that culture/worldview is a free market where it can just outcompete other cultures.

But that’s… not how anything works. 

And the truth of the matter is that white nationalist Christians shoot at synagogues and Sikh temples and mosques because those other ways of being can’t be allowed to exist. 

They don’t shoot at atheist conventions because there’s room in hegemonic Christianity for Christian atheists precisely because Christian atheists are still culturally Christian. Their atheism is Christian-shaped.

They may not like you. They’re definitely going to try to convert you. They may not want you to be able to hold public office or teach their kids.

But the only challenge you’re providing is that of The Existence of Disbelief. And that’s fine. That makes you a really safe Other to have around. You can See The Light and not have to change much.

What you’re not doing is providing an example of a whole other way of being and knowing that (often) predates Christianity and is completely separate from it and has managed to survive it and continue to live and thrive (there’s a reason Christians like to speak of Jews and Judaism in the past tense, and it’s similar to the reason white people like to speak of indigenous peoples of the Americas in the past tense). 

That’s not a criticism–it’s fine to just… be post-Christian. There’s not actually anything wrong with being culturally Christian. The problems come in when you start denying that it’s a thing, or insisting that you, unique among humankind, are above Having A Culture.

But it does mean that you don’t pose the same sort of threat to Christianity that other cultures do, and hence, less violence. 

[abearinthewoods]

One transmasc to another, please reflect on how your actions may cause actual harm to transfems.

A joke made in anger that is entirely unactionable does not warrant tattling to the organizations that are currently trying to strip all of us of our rights, and are looking for any reason to villainize our transfem comrades.

What’s been done cannot be undone, but please for all of our sakes remember that we’re all under the same boot, and licking said boot won’t make it any less likely to crush you too.

It’s our responsibility to take care of each other, learn from each other, and to look long and hard in the mirror when someone says your words and actions are harmful.

Solidarity. Solidarity. Solidarity.

(Most of this is answered here: https://www.tumblr.com/abearinthewoods/770794163004407808/okay-i-dont-know-a-lot-about-the-situation-but-i?source=share)

I need everybody to understand one uncomfortable but super important truth.

Class solidarity means an end to the oppression olympics.

You should never be looking in your neighbor's bowl to see if they have more than you, only to see if they have enough.

Like lets take a step back for a quick moment and recap whats going on here. She made jokes about killing one of the most unsupported and invisible members of the LGBTQ community, because why?

Like no, lets actually address that.

Trans men want to use terms like trans misandry and trans androphobia to talk about their oppression, not terms like trans misogyny and trans emasculation. and for this they got bomb and death threats from other people in the trans community?!?!?!?!?!?

Because trans men want to use words centered around their their hatchling gender, not their egg gender, to describe their oppression, because they don't want to center their discussions about their issues around some axis of women as the most oppressed, they got hit with a massively outsized amount of hate from (a tiny collection of, lets be very fucking clear here.) mostly trans fems who drunk a little too much of radfem's cis-male hate that they decided to transpose onto trans men. All escalating to bomb threats which my inbox is now also full of.

This is your brain on oppression olympics.

This is the threat to class solidarity.

This is the threat to class solidarity.

This is exactly what they want. For us to be fighting over who has it worse. I don't give a fuck who has it better or who has it worse, and i sure as fuck don't care about any narratives that center this question around one's identity or demographics as some kind of universal truths that overrides individually.

Even when I do bring up ways in which cis or trans men have it worse, or ways in which women commit crimes more than men, I try to focus it on purely countering the opposite narrative, to make sure I am only pushing the pendulum back towards the center, nothing more.

No experience is universal and arguments about stats and oppression and privilege tend to paper over peoples individuality.

Solitary means respecting how we are different. How that changes how we all experience the world. You can't tell a trans man you have it worse than him without disrespecting this because you can not know his life, what he went thru, how his brain's chemistry makes minor changes to how he sees or deals with adversity that build up over time, or how the same difficulties may be harder or easier for somebody to handle or overcome based how they were raised or what other experiences they went thru.

There is a reason why countries who are not at war with each other fly their flags all at the same height; never flying their flag above their ally's flag. They stand as one. United. Because that is what solitary actually means.

We stand at a fork. Down one path is trans men using words like trans misandry to talk about their oppression and trans rad fems on tumblr not interjecting with some bullshit, and down the other path is trans men still using words like trans misandry, but also the hostility comes out and you'll get shit like them telling the same trans radfems to stop calling their oppression trans misogyny, and start calling it trans misandry, and the whole world goes blind. Because i've seen how understandably upset trans women have gotten at me when they've mistakenly thought i was actually suggesting that, its not a blow in the gender war we'll come back from if it enters the discourse.

(as an aside thought experiment, its actually kinda hard to truly only be sexist in one direction. like one could argue that slutshaming is implying there is something dirty or unclean about men/manliness that they 'taint' women with by having sex with them. but you'd rightly call me dick if MRAs started showing up to the local feminism meet and interjecting that every time the topic comes up. And as an MRA, So would I. So please lets stop trying to argue over the "true" direction of acts of sexism and let people be individuals who experience and talk about it in their own way.)

((Final aside, it would make things easier for our intersex and enby brothers, sisters, and gender nonspecific siblings to cast aside this gendered concept of oppression))

[love-and-war-on-cybertron]

Teach a bot to Kiss: Metroplex

Shout out to my friend TBean for sending me a Hal900 fic that clearly inspired me. I also made a little reference to a First aid x Metroplex fic that I read awhile ago. If anyone knows of it, Please link me ToT

Metroplex loves when you read aloud to him. It could be a lonely experience as a living city, often forgotten by its residents. It had been no surprise when the news of first contact reached Metroplex, and he requested to meet one of these humans. Being brought into a city, only to be told the city is who wanted to meet you had been an eye opener to just how big Cybertronians could be.

Introducing yourself to a nearly empty room had felt odd and Scamper, an extension of Metroplex, had been offered as a way to adjust. The autonomous troops had made the transition easy once you understood they were simultaneously separate and connected to the Titan. The giant of few words surprised his fellow Autobots with how chatty he was with you. Requests from both of you for visits were frequent, leading to your placement as Ambassador to him and the bots that resided within. Now you lived inside him, and reminded yourself not to word it like that cause it sounded wrong on so many levels.

Friendship blossomed into a crush on what was essentially a faceless living city. Sure, other bots told you he could transform and indeed had a face, but it was very unlikely you would ever see it. The Titan typically remaining dormant. How could you explain to other humans how long conversations about history and reading aloud led to such feelings. Perhaps Cybertronians would better understand. Or not. You keep this crush to yourself, content in being an ambassador. Between you and the Titan, Ambassador was just a fancy way to say friend.

The command center-like space was empty save for you and some observation drones. His brain took up the middle of the room, surrounded by different panels and screens. Some for communication, some for... you weren't going to try and guess. It was a place you were commonly found, performing "ambassador duties". Sitting on one of these empty panels and speaking or like today, reading to him. Metroplex would sometimes interrupt, asking you to explain a concept or word that did not translate well.

"My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand. To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss." You pause to take a breath and Metroplex interrupts.

"What is a kiss?" The voice has no origin, but you can feel it around you. that had taken more time than the rest to get used to. Voices from nowhere.

Explaining things very rarely gave you reason to pause, but this time you hold the open book to your mouth, thinking, feeling cheeks warm as you stall.

"A kiss is a form of affection. Pressing lips together. Like a hug of the mouths." Hugging had been something you explained somewhat recently after he witnessed you and another human hug in greeting. The fact these being, so similar in the value of relationships and connections, had such different ways of expressing it. His auto-troop, Scramble, stood in as a body to demonstrate a hug, and was promptly put to use hugging other autobots. The troops often hugged you when bumping into each other around the Titan's internal routes. You were never sure if it was their own actions or his. Not that you minded. They were always careful with you.

Metroplex often asked for demonstrations, so it was no surprise when the voice, almost timidly, asks for a demonstration of a kiss. Six-gun was nearby, seemingly on standby. Waiting for your answer. Calling out to the bot, he steps closer and kneels to your level. Six-Gun had a permanent battle mask, so you think for a moment.

"Well… Something acceptable between friends is a cheek kiss. In some cultures it is even a common greeting." A small peck to the side of his battle mask. Taking a few steps, you kiss the other side. It felt like kissing a friend.

The visor of Six-Gun lights up, "Well hello to you too!" The extension of Metroplex bumps his battle mask into you gently. A mimicry of your own greeting kiss. You give a smile, and a pat to his face before he moves off again. A quick simple lesson.

"You know Metroplex, I don't feel like I gave you a kiss." You comment as you sit back down, grabbing the book. It was a thought that slipped out.

"Please elaborate."

"It didn't feel like I gave you a kiss. It felt like I kissed Six-gun," Tapping your fingers on the book, rereading the line that made him ask. "I'm not sure where I could even give you a kiss unless you transform." You tried to picture how big he would be. First aid had once told you he was able to stand on the glass over the Titans optics. You would be ant sized!

"The main panel beside you." He speaks after a moment of thought.

You glance over and see a panel that differs from the others. It had never stood out to you before, full of the same buttons and lights everywhere, save for the large one in the center.

"it is a direct interface." He explains, sensing your questioning, "Typically used by my Autonomous troops and drones. Sometimes city speakers."

You slip down from your perch and onto the one indicated. Metroplex speaks again, the lights blinking in time with his words, "I am unsure how to better explain it, but similar to how I see and feel your movements inside of me, but with direct touch with the center."

"I see." Stepping carefully around the smaller lights and buttons, you make way to that center light and kneel in front of it. It pulsates steadily. Placing your hand on it causes the light to ripple. A warmth spreads upwards, the hairs on your arm sticking up.

"I feel you." His voice sounds closer, yet there is still no specific source. "Can you feel me?"

A pulse of light, a pulse of sensation up your arm. Barely there, like a spider crawling up. He was reaching back.

"I think so. Yes, yes I can feel you Metroplex." A sense of giddiness takes over you. You had interreacted with him through various proxies, but this was direct. As face to face as you thought you could be. "I feel you Metroplex."

The pulsing quickens. "I feel you."

The smile can't be helped. Neither can the giggling. "Hello friend."

"Hello friend."

You deduce that it is a sort of feedback loop, or connection. You can feel the edges of his mind. The pleasant curiosity he feels getting to observe you a new way, the glimmer of comfort he feels with you near. Would it be stronger if you were Cybertronian?

Could he feel how you felt about him?

"You are distressed." He states, as if reading your mind, "If it distresses you to kiss me, do not feel obligated."

The way Metroplex says it makes you laugh, "I don't feel obligated. I worry cause-" You run your palm across the glass, watching light follow the motion, "- I shouldn't kiss you. Not without telling you some things." He is silent, waiting for you to continue. "I like you MP."

"I enjoy your presence as well."

"More than friends Metro," You knew that Cybertronians had relationships and love in their own way, "I shouldn't kiss you when I feel this way. Not unless you want to."

"I do want to."

"I mean, feel the same way as me."

"I enjoy your presence greatly, y/n."

The light pulses quickly, and you look up at his brain. It's light, not a solid grasp but you feel it through the connection. A great affection, like a blossom. A reflection of your own heart.

"Oh. Oh!" It's followed by more giddiness as you lean closer. The pulsing quickens, like your own heart beat. Lips against the warm glass. Like the cheek kiss you gave Six-shot. A single chaste peck that leaves a slight smudge. You rub it away with your thumb, watching the light ripple from your touch. His own pulse is slower now.

"May I have another?"

Smiling, hands sliding over the glass, your kiss him again. Slower press of your lips. Followed by a burst of joy, your own and his. Tremors make you pull away, thinking your own excitement was the cause.

It was Metroplex.

His frame shaking, nothing violent, but very notable. Comms started going off, asking the Titan what was going on and if he was okay. You feel his embarrassment, replying to each one and sending out the all clear. You can't resist pressing another kiss to the panel.

[cardiac-agreste]

One thing I like to point out about this movie is that the Bailey business is a building and loan (B&L). These were a type of bank that was widespread before the Great Depression to help people finance home purchases.

Let's talk (American) terminology:

FDIC, NCUA: insurance that protects savings in bank accounts (FDIC) and credit unions (NCUA)

Building & Loan: An older form of a Savings & Loan.

Savings & Loan: A bank that is commonly owned by the people who have accounts there, and it's managed by a board of trustees who are typically elected by people who have accounts at the S&L. These are very commonly locally controlled and exist to serve a local community. George Bailey's father founded the bank and was chairman. Why did Mister Potter have power there? Because he had expertise in the banking industry, and probably no one else in town did (besides George's dad and brother). It makes sense you'd have a bank managed by banking experts.

When George's father dies, Potter wants to dissolve the B&L, and the other trustees are inclined to agree because there's no one else to run the thing. Give everyone back their money, sell the debt to other institutions, and shutter. Far better than running the bank into the ground with mismanagement and losing everyone's money.

But George volunteers to become the new man in charge. The trustees know George is just about the smartest youngster in town and would've grown up learning the ropes. They keep it open because George remains in town. Potter is understandably pissed because he wants to be the only one left in town.

Retail/Commercial Bank: A bank that primarily serves consumers (savings, checking, home loans, car loans). It is in contrast to an investment bank.

Investment Bank: A bank that primarily serves investors. In the US, the Glass-Steagall Act was passed in 1933 as a response to the Great Depression. It prevents commercial banks from investing its customers' funds (read: regular Joe's life savings) in risky speculations, because if they went under, the Federal government (via the FDIC) would be on the hook for a shitload of money, and pre-GD, Regular Joe would just go broke). Commercial bank stockholders: hurt a little after risky speculation with someone else's money, American taxpayers: hurt a lot.

Glass and Steagall were—surprisingly—two Southern Democrats (i.e., fiscal and social conservatives!).

Unfortunately, it was eventually repealed by the Gramm—Leach—Bliley Act (two Southern Republicans and an Iowan, i.e., three fiscal and social conservatives!) and the behest of lobbying firms representing the financial industry that gained so much power under the Reagan Admin. Bill Clinton, another Southerner (centrist by American standards, leftist by American conservative standards, right-wing by the rest of the world's standards) signed the law into office. You can draw a direct line from this repeal to the financial collapse of the early 21st century.

Anyway, B&Ls they got regulated during the Depression because so many of them went under due to financial mismanagement. This is what we see happening with the run on the Bailey B&L in the movie when George has to use his honeymoon savings to keep the bank from going under. Back then, if your bank went under, you lost all your savings.

Recall (as George says in the movie), that the bank doesn't have all the accounts in cash somewhere. You deposit money there, and they invest the money somewhere, and with credit unions it's in loans for people to buy homes and cars, inter alia.

That's why we now have the FDIC (for banks) and NCUA (for credit unions): so if your bank goes under, your savings are insured by the federal government up to a certain amount ($250,000 per person on the account—so, for example, my wife and I have a savings account at our local credit union, and savings up to half a million dollars is protected if the bank were to close down.

SO, they get regulated and become the S&L industry. We leave the movie behind so I'll summarize: in the 1980s and 90s, about a third of S&Ls go under due to runaway inflation, the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to curb inflation, and making borrowing out of reach for a lot of people, reducing the customer base of S&Ls and causing over a thousand to go out of business in less than a decade.

The FSLIC was the S&L version of the FDIC and NCUA, and it couldn't pay all the insurance obligations of these banks going under.

There was considerable fraud at various S&Ls that became apparent during the crisis. The most famous was when the so-called Keating Five (mostly Democrats), compelled by a wealthy Republican donor, pushed an investigation of Keating's S&L under the rug. Another was Neil Bush, son of the first President GHW Bush, brother of the second President GW Bush, and brother of Governor of Florida Jeb Bush.

SO this is a very, very long-winded way of saying the Bailey B&L might have gone out of business during the Reagan administration, aflame in scandal, and maybe one of his children went to prison for fraud. It's a wonderful life!

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) • JIMMY STEWART as George Bailey and LIONEL BARRYMORE as Mr. Potter

[crikitune]

waittt wait imagine the batfam doing the "we listen and we don't judge" trend!? (forgive any formatting errors, first time making a post like this!)

all: we listen and we don't judge!

dick: when I first came to the manor, i used to strategically time whenever I'd do acrobatics -off the chandeliers and stuff, of course- to when bruce was about to walk in just so i could see him look terrified and start freaking out. it was the height of comedy to me

jason: lowkey a mood... damian: tormenting Father seems to be a common passtime with this group.

all: we listen and we don't judge!

barbara: when i first became oracle, i hacked all of my ex-boyfriends devices and gave each one irreversible viruses. now anytime i get bored, i go mess with their replacement electronics in reversible but annoying ways

steph: sounds incredibly healing! cass: as you should.

all: we listen and we don't judge

jason: when i attacked tim in the titans tower, i did it in an adult-sized Robin costume.

steph: PFTT- WHAT duke: ...why, man? just why?

jason: ...I thought it was symbolic and poetic justice.

all, laughing a little: we listen and we don't judge!

cass: When i was still learning to communicate, I'd sometimes pretend not to understand what people told me so that I didn't have to answer their questions and they couldn't pester me about it ☺️

jason, laughing: ohhh cass that is EVIL tim: god, i wish i could do that with the board members...

all: we listen and we don't judge

tim: when i was going to Brentwood during my Robin days, my alcoholic roommate found my Robin costume, put it on, then passed out in it, so I had to literally peel it off of him and then gaslight him into not remembering it.

dick: WHAT. jason: bet you couldn't get that smell out for ages. tim: i really, really couldn't...

all: we... we listen and we don't judge!

steph: when i first met tim, i smacked him in the face with a brick. also i started dating him without knowing his secret ID, so that was pretty brutal...

cass: you deserve better. tim: hey! i wasn't that bad! steph: ehhhh you were, but it's okay cus I love ya and we're over it now!

all: we listen, and we don't judge.

duke: uhm. around when i first started living at the manor i thought it would be funny to pull a prank on Dick, so I put nair in his shampoo. it backfired spectacularly.

dick: THAT WAS YOU!? damian: i thought only Todd would be so idiotic... steph: *breaking down in laughter* tim: you were the one who started the 4 month long prank war!? jason: duke. i'm going to hit you. duke: ...aha, oops?

all: we listen... and we don't judge.

damian: ahem. you all remember the box of kittens i found on patrol a few weeks ago, which father forced me to bring to a shelter? *nods* well i did not give them to the shelter. they are in my room. i let them out everytime you all are out.

steph: ohmygod, dami, whattt jason: damn, you are a delinquent after all!

dick: wait damian. where are the kittens now.

damian, who's hoodie looks suspiciously padded: nowhere.

dick: damian show us the kittens right now-

all, as dick starts wrestling damian to retrieve the kittens: we listen- and we don't judge!

[tunastime]

SEVEN!!! (plus three)

aaaaaaaaaaaaalright, lets see this time what we got...

alright shep this one works great LOL. I remember you sending a whole bunch, so this one ended up perfect :3 a very classic doc song if I do say so myself! (659 words)

Doc pulls his cheek between his teeth.

This would be a lot easier if he could use his other hand. But. Well. As his situation was currently playing out, his other hand was currently sprawled out on the desk in front of him. And his other hand was also, in an odd sort of way, two other hands, who belonged to Etho. Who was not him, but leaned over the workbench at the other side with the same pulled-tight-in-concentration expression as Doc did. Etho tilts his head. Doc can’t see the twist of his mouth, given the scarring across part of his face and the mask he has over his nose and mouth to help with particulates as they work, but he can tell from the rapidly forming crease between Etho’s eyebrows, alongside his own exasperated expression, that. Well.

“Not sure we can work around this next one,” Etho grumbles, wrinkling his nose. Doc sighs out through his teeth, letting his cheek go as he drags his tongue over the spot he’d worried. 

“Code-wise?” Doc asks. “Or is it completely mechanical?”

Etho hums.

“Well, last time we fixed it, we didn’t touch any code, so the way it was communicating touch and feeling was still the same. We just adjusted the hardware so it was better at picking up those signals. Since I remember last time, you were still having issues trying to feel for like… push-pins and pens and little rocks—”

Doc swats at Etho’s head from across the table. Etho barks out a laugh as he winces.

“Aow—kidding!” he wheezes. Doc grumbles, rolling his eyes.

“Whatever man,” he sighs. “Yeah, the signal strength still sucks balls. But you’re saying we can’t fix it, no?”

“Maybe,” Etho hums. “Just going to be hard.”

“Is it going to be hard? Or is it going to take a long time?”

Etho looks over at him, tilting his head not unlike a dog trying to understand common.

“I guess just a long time? It’s a lot to sort through, but it’s not very complex,” he says, shrugging his shoulders slightly.

“Good,” Doc sighs. “We can deal with long, but I don’t think we can deal with tough.”

“You think?” Etho asks, but the way he says it gives Doc more than enough suggestion that he’s being sarcastic. Doc snorts, but doesn’t reply. Instead, he props one knee up on the stool he’s sitting on and uses the leverage to lean over the table. He plants a hand flat on the workbench to balance himself. This is his only arm, again, given that the other is affixed to the table with half its maintenance chambers open and a mess of wires where the metal, magnetic ports usually sit. It’s not like Doc has a gaping wound in his side, and the disabled connection port on his right shoulder isn’t tender or painful to the touch, but the weightlessness of the open port is a constant reminder of what’s sitting on the table in front of him.

To think he used to take it off every night. What a moron.

From this angle, he can see what Etho’s been working on a little better. He’s digging around in all of the maintenance files looking for the most recent update. It was always better to edit the most recent update, patch in whatever code they wanted to alter, and push their newer, self-generated update forward. That way if the technical support team got onto him, he could blame it on a faulty download.

It had worked a couple of times so far, so. 

Doc pulls his cheek between his teeth again, worrying absently. His eyes skip over a fresh section of code and he immediately feels his brain numb. 

Fuck, he sighs through his nose. “This is going to take forever.”

“No time like the present, Doc,” Etho hums, and flicks his wrist, sending a copy of his monitor’s display to the main view-board.

(send me a number between 1-100 and I'll write a little something based on the song!)

[mothmans-left-buttcheek]

This fic is just a treat, I’m dropping my in-time-reactions to it just cause I had a great time reading it😂

“His stride was casual as one could be, whilst battling both midwestern humidity and pit sweat in a white hand-me-down Jimi Hendrix shirt and sleeveless denim vest.” Oh my god… oh, my god.

“until one day your mother caught him by the ear and brought him in to mend his tattered jeans and offer up a hot meal.” HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Go mom!

“and making Stanley Kubrick films your new big boy personalities.” And some people never grow out of it oh my fucking god, on a personal note I went to film school and the film bro stereotype is so real. Now in this fic the reader is fem and there really isn’t a stereotype for women in film to fit into, so there’s hope that she’ll recover and allow Stanley Kubrick to be one of her interests and not her whole personality when she grows up😂

“You had wanted to write about Caligula so you could use the word ‘orgy’ in the report without getting in trouble” oh no

“but Eddie had insisted he had a better idea when he discovered a two years tumultuous ruling of brothers from 209 AD to 211 AD.” Oh no

“Also, here’s a better word for you to learn: fratricide.” OH NO

“Yes! Or the syph!” DOES SHE MEAN SYPHILIS??? WHERE WOULD A MIDDLE SCHOOL BOY GET SYPHILIS FROM????

“The kiss with Cindy was real, unfortunately. It happened way before Cindy was kept home with mono, and you remembered the incident well.” So then where did Cindy get mono that lying little eleven year old bitch???

“and that pretty soon he’d be popping girl’s cherries left and right.” BRO DOESNT GET LAID TILL HIS (first) SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL PLEASE SOMEONE BRING THIS BABY BOYS HOPES DOWN BEFORE HE GETS LOST IN THE STRATOSPHERE

“Yet Cindy and Tommy Hagan swapped spit once, and both were out of commission.” SHUT THE FUCK UP TOMMY HAGAN??? That ass kisser the plot completely forgot about by season three??? Yeah of course he’d get mono in middle school that fucking cuck

“But no one would ever say anything about Tommy Hagan getting mono.” I WOULD!! SHIT I WILL, LEMME PICK ON A MIDDLE SCHOOLER PLEASE

“In a world of traitors— where brothers stabbed brothers in the arms of their mothers, or where violent men disowned each other with drug laced milk bottles to the face, you would always pick instead to be Eddie Munson’s loyal droog.” Okay that went hard af

“I HAVE SHARED OF THE COOTIE WITH A WOMAN-” KANGKANDISJDJDJ

“GOD SANCTIONED DROOG MARRIAGE CO-RULER ULTRA-VIOLENCE! MAZEL TOV!” L’chaim!!

“THE IMPERIAL HUSBAND NOW DEMANDS TO KISS THE DROOG BRIDE!” Eddie screamed, “PLANT ONE ON ME, GODDESS DIVINE OF THE REPUBLIC OF HAWKINS!!” No way, wait, you’re lying

“… when— without warning— you took off towards Eddie, and planted a fat wet kiss on his mouth. He froze for a moment, but returned the kiss with fervor, making an obnoxious hum and wet smack when you pulled away.” Oh my god kids are so gross😂 (this is a really cute moment though)

“Chessie had long since taken off for the gated community of Loch Nora on her bike.” I KNOW THATS RIGHT

“Hey… Only the best and finest gems and refreshments for Empress Droog the First of Hawkins, Indiana.” Eddie said with a confident smile.” Oh my lord I just know that’s gonna stick around till their married and own a house

Who knew a film about freewill, conditioning, and the conscious choices between good or evil could elicit such a sweet romance? It’s so innocent and wholesome, while taking inspiration from a film that’s anything but. But isn’t that just like Eddie and an MC who takes after him? Enjoying dark and taboo subjects while still being pleasant🖤

Be My Wife: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Summary: A “friend” freaks out when you split a Coke with Eddie the Freak.

Warnings: references to A Clockwork Orange, bullying, STI/STD mention, backwash drinking

A/N: So… I know this isn’t a Christmas fic. But I wrote this because I had those times in my youth where someone spread horrid rumors about either me or my friends, and I had to make those split second decisions to determine my loyalty. I always try to be loyal as best I can.

Thank you to @writhingg for giving the green light on this fic. And big thanks to @rxqueenotd and @melodymunson as well. And big thanks to viewers like you. Thank you. ❤️

Resources: @strangergraphics-archive for the dividers.

Taglist: @ali-r3n @melodymunson @twihard28

“Hey droogie, can I have a sip of your Coke?”

You looked up from where you were perched on the pony wall by the Seven Eleven bike rack. You had been chatting with a classmate, Chessie Hagar, about purchasing a purse from her mother’s Avon Colorworks catalog. It was a new collection for the year 1977. Said eye catching magazine with its spread of rainbow themed products was currently held between the two of you, and the pages began to rattle as Chessie shook in fear upon hearing the deep voice.

A flutter-smack sounded from the girl dropping the catalog when Eddie The Freak approached. His stride was casual as one could be, whilst battling both midwestern humidity and pit sweat in a white hand-me-down Jimi Hendrix shirt and sleeveless denim vest. As one of the middle schoolers who had been blessed with a growth spurt, his lanky height, shredded second hand clothes, and shaved head often made those in your grade— and some of those above— piss their pants.

You alone did not fear him.

The Fates had elected to weave you both in a tangled web of coincidences: you had been his project partner in every shared class since you started at Hawkins Middle School together, and you just so happened to live in the same neighborhood on occasion. The distance from Al Munson’s janky two bedroom home to yours was but a hop skip and a jump. Eddie used to ding dong ditch your house when he was six, until one day your mother caught him by the ear and brought him in to mend his tattered jeans and offer up a hot meal.

To any other rando, he was an unstable pariah. But to you, he was just Eddie Munson— the cute boy next door who sometimes ate at your place. And you had become his droog after spending winter 1972 sneaking into the Hawk Theater, and making Stanley Kubrick films your new big boy personalities.

Without thinking, you handed the soft drink over. His fingers brushed against yours as he took the Coke out of your grip and went for a swig, with plush pink lips wrapping around the transparent jade glass of the lip and neck. His protruding Adam’s apple was bobbing with the rhythmic gulping, and you couldn’t stop staring.

“Thanks.” He belched out.

“You said a sip, not half the goddamn bottle!” You whined.

Eddie grinned sheepishly and backwashed a good mouthful. Giving a half assed apology and a promise to pay you back mumbled under his breath, he handed the bottle back.

“Still up for doing last minute project prep?” You asked, swirling the leftovers he’d saved for you.

“Nah, let’s take a break from the train wreck brothers. Catch you tomorrow, though?” He said, scratching a blackhead off his nose and snorting a bit, “I had an idea for the oral report that might earn us a little extra credit. Think you can mimic a British accent?”

“Eh. Can’t do an accent without sounding like fucking Alex DeLarge.” You groused.

“We can work on that. Leave your milk-plus at home, though. Don’t want me own droog reenacting some Roman ultra violence on me.”

“Just don’t go popping out from behind your curtains at me again, that’s a good way to get stabbed in the neck with my mom’s kitchen scissors.” You snorted.

“Ahhh, the droog’s no fun. I guess I can tone down the surprise pop ups, though. If you insist. Catch you later?” Eddie said, waving.

“Later. Peace out, man.”

Chessie let out a shaky, sobbing exhale when you made to drink the dregs of your soda, and you turned and raised an eyebrow.

“Whassamatter?” You asked.

“Are you nuts?! You just shared your drink with the freak!” She blurted out.

… since when the hell was sharing with Eddie a crime?

“Yeah, so? It’s hot out. He looked thirsty.” You said.

“Did you seriously forget everything we’ve heard about him?!” She whisper-screamed, “Don’t you care what everyone talks about?!”

You rolled your eyes. Everyone talked about Eddie. If you hadn’t heard at least one rumor from a faceless student whenever he walked by, you were either stupid or living under a rock. They said he was a bad boy— yes, even with a full vocabulary of slurs and insults available, they still called him a bad boy. Like if he was still in diapers drawing with crayon on the wall, and needed a spanking.

Depending on who you asked, Eddie either did or sold drugs, it was never clear which. Some of the other trailer park kids said he was a mean scrapper when he went to his uncle’s on alternate weeks. Women’s restroom lore stated that he carried a switchblade in the back pocket of his Wrangler jeans, and that he used it to torture animals for his Satanic rituals.

A million and one things were said about him on the daily, but you knew none of them were true in the slightest. None of the talk deterred you from spending time with him. Sometimes he came to your house, more often than not you went to his.

Every other day found the two of you parked in front of his mom’s turntable, jamming to Deep Purple and putting together an elaborate poster board with some spray painted fake leaves made into laurel crowns, along with a block of text about your chosen co-emperor of the early Roman Empire.

You had wanted to write about Caligula so you could use the word ‘orgy’ in the report without getting in trouble, but Eddie had insisted he had a better idea when he discovered a two years tumultuous ruling of brothers from 209 AD to 211 AD.

“As much as I love a good sex party on paper, you just know that’s what everyone else is gonna write about. Let’s write about this nut job Caracalla instead! Dude killed his brother in the arms of his mother, and struck his name from the record. That’s like, the most metal shit ever! Also, here’s a better word for you to learn: fratricide. Apparently there’s a whole list of technical terms for when you kill a family member.”

“… what’s the rumor mill gotta do with my Coke?” You deadpanned.

“If you drink after him, you’re gonna get mono like Cindy! You gotta throw it out!”

Cindy Bishop in your science class had told everyone that had functional ears— swearing up and down on her life— that Eddie Munson had kissed her and given her mononucleosis. A dreaded affliction whose nickname to you sounded like one of the variations of sound formats for any sort of audio.

“Mono…?”

“Yes! Or the syph!”

You knew Eddie had to have heard Chessie’s vitriol. Turning around, you could see him staring at the two of you from across the parking lot, one leg over his bike. There was a stinging look of betrayal on his face. Telltale signs of a wet cherry nose and shameful red cheeks gave away his mistrust; as if he was expecting you to do as your friend told, and throw the bottle he drank from in the trash.

His imaginary affliction was just that: imaginary. You knew that to be gospel.

The kiss with Cindy was real, unfortunately. It happened way before Cindy was kept home with mono, and you remembered the incident well. Eddie had come running to your house just to brag that he’d finally gotten his first kiss, and that pretty soon he’d be popping girl’s cherries left and right.

Just learning about the simple kiss had pissed you off, because the closest you’d ever gotten to kissing Eddie was sharing the same fork whenever you both roasted Vienna sausages on the gas burner in his kitchen. Eddie hadn’t been sick when Cindy stayed home, he came faithfully to school to trap you on the playground and speculate about the thousand and one hidden meanings behind the kiss.

With all the excitement, he never noticed the smallest details like you did. One of the guys in your PE class had been sent home with a rash and a high fever, and it was only a month after Cindy was rumored to have also kissed the collapsed boy that she got sick. You had always shared cups, utensils, and other things requiring mouth use with Eddie and had been fine. Yet Cindy and Tommy Hagan swapped spit once, and both were out of commission.

But no one would ever say anything about Tommy Hagan getting mono. They’d always redirect every disease outbreak to the poor loser who split time between Cherry Street and Forest Hills Trailer Park. The same poor loser who had the misfortune of wasting his first kiss with Cindy; a girl who frenched behind the portable classrooms with anything that had a pulse. People could be so blind and stupid, they failed to notice the sickness timelines were not matching up.

No one deserved their first anything to be with Cindy. Not with the way she stabbed people in the back.

You took a long, hard pause as you stared into Eddie’s wet brown eyes. He was asking you a silent question you already knew the answer to: were you a stinking traitorous droog, or a loyal one? Were you, his one friend in the entire world, going to stand against him?

Without saying a word, you looked at Chessie, then looked back again at Eddie.

In a world of traitors— where brothers stabbed brothers in the arms of their mothers, or where violent men disowned each other with drug laced milk bottles to the face, you would always pick instead to be Eddie Munson’s loyal droog.

You lathed at the lip of the bottle and stuck your tongue down the neck, and shotgunned all of Eddie’s backwash.

Chessie’s mouth dropped open as she began to gag, and Eddie opened his mouth in an obnoxious and breathless laugh as you chugged the entirety of his germs. The carbonation caught up to you, so you let a belch rip before turning back around to face him.

“I GOT YOUR MONO NOW, MUNSON!” You screamed out to him, “NOW YOU GOTTA MARRY ME!”

“IS THAT HOW IT WORKS, DROOGIE?” He shouted back, a shit eating grin stretched across his face, “YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME KNOW BEFORE I TOOK A SWIG, I WOULD HAVE MADE SURE I GOT YOU A RING POP FIRST!”

“IT'S GODDAMN ROMAN CONFARREATIO LAWS, EDDIE! YOU GAVE ME MONO INSTEAD OF SPELT BREAD, NOW YOU GOTTA MARRY ME!” You joked.

You noticed from the big, smart ass grin that he was about to do something outrageous, and your heart began to sing. He immediately got to his knee on the asphalt, everyone in the Seven Eleven parking lot watching as he began to scream like an orator in the colosseum. He used your full government name and everything when he called out to the small parking lot audience.

“HEAR ME, CITIZENS OF HAWKINS! I AM BUT A VESSEL FOR THE GODS, A BEARER, A MESSENGER OF THAT MOST HOLY WORD FROM MOUNT OLYMPUS! I HAVE SHARED OF THE COOTIE WITH A WOMAN, AND THUS OUR MARRIAGE BETWEEN EMPEROR AND DROOG IS SOLEMNIZED-…!”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, FREAK!” Someone called out, immediately flinching back when Eddie rounded on him.

“THE GODS. HAVE. SPOKEN!” Eddie screeched, a glob of spit flying out of his mouth and onto the hot asphalt.

He was wide eyed. Deranged. Eddie lifted up the hem of his denim vest and held it out and to the side, to look like wings unfurling, screaming to the heavens as you began howling with him.

“YEAH!” You screamed out, raising your bottle and shouting every bit of nonsense you could think of, “GOD SANCTIONED DROOG MARRIAGE CO-RULER ULTRA-VIOLENCE! MAZEL TOV!”

“THE IMPERIAL HUSBAND NOW DEMANDS TO KISS THE DROOG BRIDE!” Eddie screamed, “PLANT ONE ON ME, GODDESS DIVINE OF THE REPUBLIC OF HAWKINS!!”

You looked at Chessie, who looked as if she was going to throw up or scream. It wasn’t immediately clear which. Instead of ending the joke, you grinned. Shrugged. The glossy magazine paper pages of the forgotten Avon Colorworks catalog ripped under the tread of your shoes when— without warning— you took off towards Eddie, and planted a fat wet kiss on his mouth. He froze for a moment, but returned the kiss with fervor, making an obnoxious hum and wet smack when you pulled away.

“Yum.” You gushed, licking your lips and changing your cadence to the unhinged Kubrick Cockney, “Them’s tasty cooties, they are, brother sir!”

“Yeah? Them false cytomegalovirus germs are what taste good to ya, droog?” He laughed, wrapping his arms around you and putting on his own terrible accent.

“That they are, sir, that’s what gives all me food and drink that plus flavor.” You grinned.

The two of you cackled, thoroughly enjoying throwing out random quotes and various insanities that to the normal person would put them off of your insanity and edge-lord humor. Chessie had long since taken off for the gated community of Loch Nora on her bike, but you didn’t care. You could live without a selection of eyeshadows, a rainbow tote purse, and all of your false friends if the choice came down to choosing them, or Eddie.

“Wanna go into the gas station and split another bottle of mono before we blow this joint?” You asked.

His grin could have rivaled that of Malcolm McDowell.

“Now, how can I say no to my new wife?” He grinned, holding out his arm for you to take, “But I am a man of my word, so you’re getting a new Coke, plus that Ring Pop so’s we can make this thing official.”

“Spare no expense, huh?” You grinned, and he pulled you in closer. Both of your hips knocking together.

“Hey… Only the best and finest gems and refreshments for Empress Droog the First of Hawkins, Indiana.” Eddie said with a confident smile.

You smiled at him, nudging one another with your bodies all the way into the gas station, until he pulled you in for another sloppy kiss in the middle of the snack aisle.

[aragonlediagon]

Shingyoku lore post [LONG POST]

I made this as a little introduction to my Shingies's personalities headcanons. This is a post for those who wished to know about it because I cant recall making a proper post for that. Orochi and Toru are personal names I give to "the human-like forms" of the Touhou HRtP boss Shingyoku. Fair warning were very much entering OC territory here.

Or rather, this is a resumed introduction. I wont go into details too much here, as Id prefer to share it in a different format. For 2025, Ill introduce it through a series of posts starting from the very beginning of this story, each part with a drawing to go with it, because I think it will be better rather than one post with a massive wall of text.

My direction for Shingyoku is to do a mix of the "2 distinct entities" and "same person/shapeshifter" routes. Usually headcanons pick one of the two takes. I came up with a story which is very headcanon heavy and can be read by people who know nothing about Touhou as it barely refers to its codes or established figures.

(Its important I first state that they lived during edo Japan (early to mid 1800) and not Gensokyo.)

Orochi is from an upper class family. Her family were merchants from west Europe who found success and settled down in Japan before strict laws established regarding oversea traffic. Being the 2nd child, the focus of attention was pushed onto her older brother who would later lead the family. Orochi spent her early childhood raised by her retired great grandfather who gave her a taste for adventures telling of his past oversea travels. He would however pass away of old age, and Orochi would get entrusted to a shrine her family has a long, great partnership with, the "Shrine of Borders", which is the central location of this story, the shrine getting this name due to its location next to mountains speculated as housing entrances to underworlds. Her family often sending funds to the shrine, as their connection had started decades ago at the contruction of large gates said to prevent intervention of the supernatural from said underworlds.

Toru's backstory is long and complicated, as he's a part of the shinto god of the moon Tsukuyomi who landed on Earth, and the unfolding of events which led to this happening needs a post of its own since it dives a lot into shinto mythology. But basically, he landed on the grounds of an isolated fraudulent shrine led by fanatics, and ended up running away with a miko who had already questionned their doings. But later on, due to how harsh life would be at this time for a single adult and a child in the countryside, she wouldnt be able to provide him care and entrusted him to a shrine, which coincidentally, was the Shrine of Borders.

Both of them arrived at the shrine at about the same time (they were 8 years old). Toru was adopted by the shrine's head priest, Orochi was raised in a nearby village by retired mikos, but they got their traditional training at the shrine together. They quickly became very close friends (even if they fought a lot at first).

They underwent their initiation rite in their early teen age. They would communicate for the first time with a deity, "Shingyoku", who claimed to have been in a deep slumber for a very long time, the arrival of the pair wakening it. Shingyoku had no body of its own, but the pair would allow it to join the physical world of the living once they'd each reached enlightement. Orochi and Toru would report it to the head priest, who wasnt familiar with the name "Shingyoku", the Shrine of Borders having a long history of struggles communicating with the local god. In this story, Shingyoku makes it clear that its the deity of the shrine's pond and not the borders gates despite what HRtP make you theorize due to the boss's location; in this take the gates are purely human made. Because Shingyoku had no body of its own, it would try to possess people to use their bodies as a vessel, but because it had only weak powers, it could only possess for a short amount of time like possessing Orochi or Toru to communicate with them, or small animals, its favorite being the pair's pet koi fish from the shrine's pond.

For a couple years, the story focuses on Orochi's and Toru's daily life and duties at the shrine, but is relatively mundane, as I said is detached from Touhou codes and doesnt take place in Gensokyo, so it rather refers to history at that time with a small hint of fantasy with occasional intervention of the supernatural, youkais's appearance following more how they were depicted in art of the time. People also dont have magical abilities, there are no such things as bullet battle and spell cards. Orochi is skilled at some martial art due to a personal intensive physical training; Toru acquire healing abilities only due to his godly nature. They would share tasks and complete each others with what theyre best at.

Once in their early twenties, Orochi was summoned back to her family's home to lead as her older brother perished in battle (indicative to more events happening at the time approaching end edo). She would take Toru as her spouse, but as they would grow so much stress from the marriage's and leading's expectation coupled with the shut in life, they would end up running away without a word 4 years later.

They would escape and live isolated in the mountains close to the Shrine of Borders so they could be remotely close from Shingyoku, where they would dedicate their lives serving their god.

A decade later, they would reach enlightement, but passed away as their mortal bodies couldnt handle it (and the harsh living conditions).

Shingyoku, still using the koi fish's body as a vessel, swam up the mountains to reach the pair whose spirits parted from their bodies and fused into one. Shingyoku absorbed the fused spirit, acquiring the pair's powers, allowing it to transform into a dragon before setting the pair's body on fire (to spare them a trip to the Yomi, the "shinto hell", which has a capital importance later in my whole story but isnt part of Orochi's and Toru's story).

*I use "fusion" as an umbrella term, but as explained here, its not a straight up fusion of the 2 people's body fusing into one. Here the deity and the 2 shrine officiants are distinct people, the officiants serving the deity, and the deity later absorbing the officiants's spirits to acquire their powers after reaching enlightement. Shingyoku the deity shares no DNA with Orochi and Toru, the body of the koi fish, which then transforms into a dragon, ended up being its official DNA. The separation is capital for the following part of the story which focuses on Shingyoku's life after joining the physical world of the living. But this will be for an other post, as the focus here was on the miko and the priest.

[holdupjack]

Jump The Line Pt.1

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Pairing: Hermione Granger x Fem!Reader

AU: 1950s/WWIII/pretend enemies

WARNINGS: None

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Third Person P.O.V:

December 12th, 1965

Y/n stood at her post on the march of a small town in her country. It was just a small wall of barbwire and sandbags, but right on the other side, were hundreds of witches and wizards.

(A/N: A 'March' is just another way to say 'border')

It was kind of surreal to think that something so insignificant, was their only line of defense. Hell, Y/n could jump it with ease if she wanted to.

But, now thinking about it, it really wasn't their only line of defense. There was her. The recruit that was a few months fresh out of boot camp, and was now the sole gun that stood guard on this strip of border.

It was very much terrifying, and a lot to put on one's shoulders. The only other soldier on this street was two blocks away, and he wasn't even awake half the time. So...she just bit her tongue and held her gun by its strap over her shoulder. She would stare at the wall on the other side of the street for almost twelve hours at a time before anyone bothered to relieve her from her post.

Everyone in this small town knew that they needed more soldiers stationed here, but there just wasn't enough to go around. Their enemy outnumbered them here, and they knew that was well, yet they just hovered around the borderline.

Watching, talking amongst one another in hushed voices, or sometimes one of them would walk up and ask her if she had a smoke. It was honestly quite strange, and a little unnerving.

But, there was only one small upside to this whole thing, and it was also an upside that would get her into more trouble than she could ever imagine. There was this certain...witch.

Ugh, it was ridiculous, honestly. She was one of the communication liaisons for their leaders, and they happened to work around the same time every day. From 6 pm to 6 am, Y/n would watch as the brunette went from tent to tent with papers and files tucked under her arms, sometimes even arguing with the higher ranks in the area while doing so.

Y/n never knew what they were arguing about, it was all a bunch of gibberish to her, but the only real thing she had learned was the woman's name.

Hermione.

A wizard had yelled at her for doing his job, to which she immediately stood toe to toe with him, barking back in his face that he should be 'better at it since he was watching her do it for so long'. It took everything in Y/n to not laugh because the man was a good foot higher than her, and yet she held her ground.

Their eyes had met a few times throughout Y/n's new post, but it only lasted a few seconds each time. The soldier thought it meant nothing, and wouldn't be surprised if the liaison cursed her whole lineage in her head.

But then, something mysterious happened.

Y/n had been where she always was, staring at the wall across the way, only really looking across when there was a sudden movement, or something caught her eye. So she was quite spooked when a soft voice called out to her from the left, where the border sat.

"Hello there"

Y/n blinked and looked over to find the intriguing liaison standing right at the edge of the waist-high wall. It was around 3am, and both sides were quiet as church mice, which is what usually happened when the moon came out to greet them.

"Uh, hello" Y/n replied in surprise. She wasn't a hundred percent sure if she was even supposed to be talking to her, but then again, it wasn't her first time talking to the enemy. They were kind enough to feed her during her patrols since she was told repeatedly that she would be reprimanded if she even thought about lifting her eyes away from the border.

You don't even want to know about the bathroom situation.

"May we speak for a moment?" The brunette asked, and Y/n subconsciously leaned on one foot to the other. She hesitated before taking a few tiny steps forward and tightening her grip on the strap of her rifle.

"I don't bite, you know" Hermione laughed softly, and Y/n opened her mouth to say something but ended up just closing it a few seconds later. She was nervous for multiple reasons, which incidentally caused her tongue to shrivel up, but thankfully the other woman was more talkative at the moment.

"My name is Hermione Granger, I am the communications liaison for this battalion, and you are...Y/l/n? Do you perhaps have a first name?" She joked as she read the tag on her uniform, to which the soldier stood up straighter and finally found her voice.

"Y/n, I'm a soldier" she replied and the witch nodded, her eyes flicked up and down the fighter's body a few times, before meeting her gaze again.

"I'm like you, except with powers" Hermione states, and Y/n furrowed her brows in confusion. From what she knew, the enemy was a hidden society that lived under our noses for centuries!

Then again, they are just people as well.

"How so?" Y/n asks as she takes another tiny step forward, her eyes watching carefully as Hermione chuckles and pushes down the wrinkles on her own uniform.

"I was just like you, a regular little girl in London" she explains and the surprises Y/n. Regular? So, she wasn't magical a birth? Fascinating.

"Really?" Y/n asks as she takes another step, a shiver then runs up her spine as snow clouds rippled over the landscape just outside of town. It wouldn't be long before she was stuck in a powdery downpour. God, that's the worst thing about this area of the country around wintertime, it snowed more often at night than it did during the day.

"Truly" Hermione replies as she takes a step forward as well. It wasn't long before they stood directly in front of one another, and there was a strange mix of awkwardness, fear, and curiosity. It felt wrong to even look at the other person, but at the same time, the rush felt very nice.

"How did you know? When you got your abilities, I mean" Y/n stammered as she anxiously held her gun by its strap over her shoulder. Even though there was barely anyone else on the streets, it was still nerve-wracking to think that they both could accidentally start a battle or be severely reprimanded.

"Little things. When I got very emotional, strange moments started to happen. Objects would disappear, change color or size, or even levitate if I was angry enough" Hermione explained as she watched Y/n tilt her head in thought, even tracing the bricks under her feet with the tip of her boot. The witch found it endearing since this was the first soldier she had tried to speak to, that didn't immediately put a gun in her face. So, that was refreshing.

"That's very interesting, but I doubt you've called me over to chitchat about our lives" Y/n replied with a slight smile, the brim of her cap blocked the light from the street lamp from hitting her eyes. Hermione was surprised by the insight but was glad to know that she didn't have to beat around the bush.

"You are right. The real reason I am here is because we would like to send a message to the civilians within the town and any military personnel." Hermione says as she clears her throat and straightens her posture. Perhaps to make herself more official, or maybe just to remind herself that she had a job to do.

"Message?" Y/n mumbled to herself as she furrowed her brows, and noticed as Hermione pulled out a large yellow envelope from somewhere. Maybe she was holding it? Y/n wasn't entirely sure.

"We are giving anyone who would like to leave the area, a chance to do so without problems. We have our forms of transportation that can send them wherever they would like to go." Hermione says in almost one breath, and Y/n is stunned to hear this. Was this...a warning? That something big was about to happen?

"I understand the civilians wanting to leave, but soldiers? You're asking us if we want to abandon our homes? Betray our country?" She asked calmly, but it was obvious she was offended. The brunette quickly shook her head and held the envelope over the waist-high barbed wire.

"No, no. It's just...a suggestion" she says with a slight breath as Y/n has to hold back the urge to snatch the documents from the other girl's hand. Hermione watched as the soldier pulled out the papers and read them over carefully, even stepping back to be directly under the streetlights.

This was big. It was multiple copies of the same thing the witch had said. Anyone who wanted to evacuate was more than willing to come to the border with a bag and would be taken anywhere they'd like. Free of charge.

Y/n stuffed the papers back into the envelope, and turned her back towards Hermione, before giving a loud whistle down the street. The brunette raised an eyebrow in slight confusion before a boy, no older than 18, came jogging down to Y/n. He could barely hold up his weapon, and he seemed very on edge, almost like a deer in headlights.

"Ryland, stay here and guard the border. I have to take these papers to command, immediately" Y/n explains in a hushed tone, watching as the young man nodded, his helmet blocking his eyes for a moment before he quickly pushed it back up. Everything on him was way too big, but it wasn't like the world had time to tailor his uniform right now.

"Yes, of course" he stammers before Y/n quickly runs off into the darkness with the flyers in hand. The young man, Ryland, Hermione thought she heard, quickly pointed his gun at her.

"Back! Or I shoot!" He shouted in between a stutter, and Hermione quickly raised her hands and backed away with an annoyed expression, but then again, he was probably scared out of his mind.

Hermione made her way back into the nearest tent as a cold wind blew just behind her, and then soon the soft shine of snow began to fall onto the thick dark fabric of the shelter. She sighed softly and pulled up a chair to the table in the middle as everyone slept soundly in their cots.

She should get some sleep, but she wanted to speak to that soldier again. She was obviously much kinder, and less likely to jump the gun. Literally.

Hermione jumped as another loud clash of a distant mortar erupted from outside the village, and she couldn't help up laugh at herself softly and lay her face in her hands. She really didn't find it all that funny, but she'd rather laugh than cry.

After spending a few months on the front lines in England, she's found herself very scared of loud noises. It reminded her of grenades, artillery, and the distance fire of tanks.

So, she just laughed it off. The last thing she needed was to be sent back home when she knew she could help end this war sooner than later.

It also didn't help that she had been fighting against other muggle-borns who had chosen the other side. Seeing classmates on the opposite side of the front lines, with nothing but muggle weapons. She had seen a few break their wands before returning home, knowing that it was the only way they could leave the Wizarding World without much resistance.

Speaking of home, her childhood house was destroyed during the invasion of London. Thankfully, she had her parents move into a rented home hidden in the mountains in Europe. They're protected from the battles and hidden by magic, and that's all she could really do.

"Oh Merlin" she whispers softly as she rubs her temples, fighting off sleep as it tries to creep in, feeling her eyes droop closed and then shoot open repeatedly. Finally, she stood up and shook her head in an attempt to awaken herself, but it only made her yawn as she quietly walked over to the flap of the tent, opening it enough to peak out into the snowstorm.

She was surprised to already see Y/n right back at her post, the snow drenching the thin uniform she wore as flakes blew off the brim of her cap. Had Hermione been thinking for that long? No, it must have only been a few minutes, but their base of operations must not be that far from the border.

"She doesn't even have a winter coat on" Hermione grumbled quietly as she took in Y/n's appearance from what she could see due to the low glow of the street light.

"Who doesn't?" The whisper came from behind her, and she instinctively jumped and whipped her head around, but only found Harry with a smile on his lips.

"Harry! Don't do that! When did you even get here?" She states, almost with a hiss in her words from the annoyance that filled her body within a fraction of a second. She hated being scared.

"I just took the portkey from the base in lower France, but you still haven't answered my question" he replied with a chuckle before turning the chair she was sitting in earlier, towards her and taking a seat. Hermione rolled her eyes and turned back to peak through the flap again.

"If you must know, I was speaking about the soldier I had just spoken to" she replied and Harry furrowed his brows in confusion. He sat up slightly and rested his arms on his thighs.

"A soldier spoke to you? Really? They said they must be more open-minded around here" he joked as he watched Hermione continue to stare out into the storm. He sighed softly and stood up as well, walking over to take a peak with her.

"Trust me, I've gotten more barrels in my face today than I'd like to experience in my whole life" she mumbled as she shivered slightly due to the temperature drop. Harry squinted slightly to see better in the darkness, and then he noticed something immediately.

"A woman? Ooo, does Hermione have a piqued interest in the enemy?" He teased and the liaison rolled her eyes at his childlike banter. Sometimes she just wanted to knock him to the ground just so his sarcastic jokes would take a backseat for a while.

"We talked for maybe two minutes, and don't even insinuate that I have any feelings towards the other side! Do you want me to be thrown in Azkaban for treason?" She asked quietly as her eyes darted around the tent at all their sleeping allies and Harry just rolled his eyes at her anxiousness.

"Whatever" he sings softly before plopping down on an empty cot. Hermione sighed in frustration at his nonchalant attitude, acting as if this whole war and situation were nothing to worry over.

Hermione took a deep breath and looked out at Y/n one more time, silently debating a question in her head. Should she, or should she not?

To be or not to be, that is the question.

With a few seconds of pacing, Hermione grumbled to herself as she snatched one of the umbrellas that was leaving against one of the support poles. It popped open almost immediately as she stepped back into the storm, and her eyes zipped back to Y/n.

"You'll catch a cold!" she called out once she was close enough to the border again, which just caused Y/n to jump again. Their eyes met through the onslaught of snow and dim streetlights.

"A cold? I think that's the least of my worries" Y/n replied, having to raise her voice because of how loud the wind was. Hermione chuckled and held the umbrella's handle just a little tighter.

"That is true, but to not even have the proper attire on is a little much" the brunette replied as she rocked from foot to foot, now starting to realize that she should really have thought of some conversation starters before she walked back over here. But maybe she was just nervous, and her causal responses had gone on vacation because of it.

"Sounds like you're trying to get me to leave my post" Y/n murmured, and Hermione stammered so bad, that she stuttered for a solid five seconds. The only thing that snapped her out of it, was the single thought that passed her consciousness.

TODAY WOULD BE NICE!

"Th-That-. Dammit! That's not what I was getting at!" She coughed out, and Y/n didn't even react to the humiliating ten seconds that would haunt Hermione's nights at random points in her life. Instead, the witch only noticed the smirk on the soldier's lips.

She stared at Y/n's side profile for a few seconds, deciding whether to yell at the enemy for the sake of her pride, or take the hit and turn in for the night out of shame. She opted for the latter, but yet, her legs stayed firmly planted where they were.

"That is not funny," she says and Y/n turns enough to catch the other girl's gaze, her smirk barely being held down, the evidence was by the twitching in the corners of her lips.

"I don't know, I enjoyed the way you reacted. It was like watching a baby dear trying to walk on ice" Y/n snickered and the witch coughed out what was almost a laugh, but it sounded more offended than anything.

"Are you trying to start the battle?" Hermione sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes for only a moment, just to clear her racing mind. But when she opened them again, she was greeted by the fact the Y/n now stood directly across from her.

She stepped back slightly out of habit but just as quickly returned her foot to where it was before. Hermione didn't know how Y/n was able to move that quickly, but now it was harder to see her face because the streetlights were behind both of them.

"I am a little bored," Y/n said, but the look in her eyes told the brunette that she was just teasing, and in all honesty, it felt good to hear someone joke about things again. It's not like either of them had a choice in the matter, it was WWIII after all.

When Hermione got her letter from the Ministry, telling her that she had been drafted, it took her through a loop. She was going to just hide out from the drafting, but when Ron made it his whole personality to become a soldier, that's when she and Harry had no choice in the matter.

They couldn't let him die, especially since he has a remarkable ability to run into danger without even realizing so. This is why they both are now begrudgingly on the front lines and why Hermione was even a part of this useless war.

The muggles were going to win, and that was obvious. Their weapons and sheer numbers were enough to destroy the Wizarding World if they kept losing people at this rate. Thankfully, she had heard rumblings of a plan to retreat and go back into hiding, and that's really the only thing they can do, and hopefully think of a way to make the world forget about them again.

"A little bored? You look as if you're about to jump out of your skin" Hermione laughed as Y/n rolled her eyes, but it was true nonetheless. Anyone would be spooked if they were a stone's throw away from the ones who were perceived to be their enemy.

"So do you" she replied and the brunette nodded in agreement since she knew that she was one loud noise away from booking it.

"You got me there," she said as her eyes shifted to the small pile of snow that lay on the brim of the soldier's hat, she was almost tempted to reach out and brush it away.

"So what brings you back over here anyways?" Y/n finally asks, her head tilting to the side for a moment, it seemed like a force of habit whenever she wanted to know the answer to something that intrigued her. Hermione didn't know the answer, sadly.

"Can't blame me for being bored as well, can you?" She asked in return and Y/n just smiled before scanning her eyes across the multiple tents that littered the street on the enemy front.

"I suppose not, it is a ghost town around here" Y/n mumbled before their eyes met again, and she noticed a faint scent of flowers that invaded her senses, as a howl of wind fluttered Hermione's hair in front of her and the cold air nips passed Y/n's bare face.

"You're a native of this country, correct?" The brunette asked and Y/n nodded, her shoulders relaxing as time went on, and Hermione's grip on her umbrella loosened as well.

It wasn't till the sun began to peak in the sky and the snow stopped, did their conversation finally ended, but they both knew that this wasn't the end of their interactions. It was far, far, from over.

——————

December 20th

It was the start of Y/n's shift, and when she stepped around the corner to walk towards her post, she was surprised to find a long line of people from around the town. They were talking quietly amongst each other, all facing towards the border with a suitcase or two in their hands.

"Oh, wow" she whispered under her breath as she slowly walked towards the front of the line.

"Y/l/n! Help me with these civilians!" A voice called out, and her eyes darted to find Ryland and a wizard setting up two planks of wood on both sides to help people walk over the border. Y/n quickly jogged over as Ryland nailed the last of the supports into place, before standing up.

"What's going on?" She asked quietly as she was handed a camera and a clipboard filled with the same form to be filled out multiple times. She was about to ask another question, but the younger boy quickly spoke before her.

"I need you to fill in the information on these people before they cross. We need to find them again once this battle is over" he whispered in her ear as the Wizard across the border gave a thumbs up to them when he finished building his side of the ramp.

"Right. Right. Got it" Y/n said as she took a deep breath, taking a pen out from her chest pocket, and stepping towards the little elderly couple just before her. They gave soft smiles, to which she gave one in return.

Hermione was asleep in the tent nearby, she had worked a double shift that night and had only gotten a few words in with Y/n during that whole time. She hated being a liaison sometimes, due to all the communication screenings she had to do when it came to communication between the village's needs and peace negotiations.

Also, the constant snowfall wasn't helping either during her jogs between the radio communications tent and the tent that was filled with higher-ups and their idiotic plans on how they could possibly take control of the town with minimal loss.

Newsflash, that wasn't possible.

"Hey, get up" Hermione somewhat heard as someone gently shook her shoulder, and she immediately snapped her eyes open in fright. She grasped the person's wrist, but then realized it was just Harry.

"Woah, it's just me," he says quickly. She takes a deep breath and pushes his hand off her shoulder, resting back on the cot and staring at the ceiling of the tent. It was dark out, and the only light was the few lamps and small furnaces around the shelter.

"The civilians are being brought over the border, they want you out there to make sure that everything stays calm between the exchanges," Harry says as he leans over to look down at her, she sighs and covers her face in a silent form of frustration.

"Of course, they need my help" she groans quietly before sitting up with a bit of strain. Her back was aching from being on her feet for so long last night, and she honestly just wanted to sleep for a few more hours. She was so drained.

"What time is it?" She grumbles as Harry decides to pour her a hot cup of coffee and hand it to her, then sits on the empty cot across from hers.

"Twenty past six" he replies as he looks at his watch, his eyes following the second hand as it traveled its sixty ticks around the watch face. Hermione's eyes flicker with intrigue before she hides her interest behind the sip of her coffee.

"Alright, I'll be out in a moment" she hums as she stands to freshen up in the women's facilities tent, but Harry's eyes zipped up to her with a small smirk on his face. She knew that look, and she was already rolling her eyes and groaning as he followed after her.

"You want to see your girl, huh?" He whispered in her ear as they walked out the back of the tent, and she scoffed, pulling her winter coat close to her as they shuffled through the snow.

"You are such a child, she just happens to be the only person with any interesting conversation in this place" she replied defensively as Ron ran up behind them, ringing his arms around their neck as he began to walk with them.

"I see your 'lover girl' is helping with the exchange" he chuckles as Harry snickers and pats his stomach as a silent 'hello'. Hermione glared at them both, before shaking off Ron's arm.

"How did you even know about her? You haven't even been here for a day!" She huffs as she steps into the women's facilities, and quickly stops them both from entering with her. She poked her head out from the flaps of the tent and smirked at their grinning faces.

"I swear, you two gossip more than the old bitties at the tea house. Anyway, I've only known her for eight days. Isn't that a little fast to call it love?" She asks as Ron scoffs and leans against Harry's side with his own. Hermione raised an eyebrow at his immediate dismissal.

"I've fallen in love for less. I once dated a girl because I liked the way she said 'Rutabaga'." He says with a nod and Harry thinks for a moment before turning to him with furrowed brows.

"Wait, was that Mandy? I liked her, she made amazing banana bread" he says and Ron looks back at him with eager agreement,

"I know right? I was thinking about calling her once this whole thing is over" he replies, before they both start reminiscing about Ron's ex, and in all honesty, Hermione doesn't even remember who they're talking about. So she just rolled her eyes and slinked away into the tent while they were distracted.

——————

Y/n yawned softly as she used her torch flashlight to continue to write down all the information about the citizens who were either leaving the country or just going outside of town. She was freezing still, but at least her commander was kind enough to find a coat that had been found in the collection bin. It was just thick enough to protect her from hypothermia, but she was still cold as all hell.

"Name?" She asks a young mother, who had her toddler bundled up on her hip. They both looked exhausted from just waiting in line for so long,

"Ruth Magryn, and Joan Magryn. Joan, wave to the nice soldier" she says with a tired smile as the little girl waves with a small giggle. Y/n grinned and gave the girl a quick tickle to her stomach, which made the kid laugh in excitement and hide her face in her mother's shoulder.

"Hello, Joan. May I know where you two are heading?" Y/n asked as she readied her pen by the 'location' box on the form, but before the mother could respond, a voice called over.

"Y/n!"

Her head snapped behind her, recognizing the voice almost immediately, and she broke out into a small grin when she saw Hermione standing there in a winter coat that looked a little bigger than her. She kinda looks like a kid wearing her parent's coat.

"Ryland, trade spots with me," Y/n said as she watched the young boy help a child over the border, and then immediately run over to take over her post. He took the cupboard and stuttered over his words as he greeted the mom and child.

"Ah, good afternoon Ms.Granger" Y/n said once she was close enough, and Hermione gave a soft laugh as she stepped to the border as well. Formalities? That's new.

"Ms.Granger? Have I done something wrong to be reduced to formalities?" She asks jokingly, even though a part of her brain is slightly panicked about it.

"No, I'm just teasing. How are you? I saw you running around all night yesterday" Y/n asks before she and Hermione help the mother over the border first, with Y/n holding the toddler who looks a little entranced with the soldier.

"Just running useless errands" Hermione sighs before smiling at the mother as she helps her down onto the other side.

"And who is this?" She says with a bit of a laugh as she and Y/n step onto both sides of the ramps, meeting each other in the middle.

Their eyes meet and they fall into a beat of silence as they are now less than an arm's length away. Hermione noticed the snow that was still caught in the crevices of Y/n's jacket, and Y/n noticed how Hermione's hair was slightly damp. She must have just taken a shower.

"Uh...oh! This is Joan" Y/n chuckles as she looks down at the toddler on her hip, before slowly passing the child over to Hermione, who Joan immediately greets her with a little laugh.

Their skin touched, and for only a moment, Y/n's cold fingertips ran against the side of Hermione's hand, and the brunette didn't know if she shivered from the cold or...

No. No! It was cold. This was her enemy, now wasn't the time to play the dating game. She took and deep breath and forced a smile as they both walked back onto their appropriate sides.

"Hello, Joan" Hermione greeted as she playfully shook her little hand before passing the child to her mother's arms. Hermione then pointed to Ron, who stood casually against the wall of a building nearby.

"That is my friend, Ron, he will take you where you need to go," she says before the mother gives a quiet 'thank you' and walks off with her suitcases.

"So, they had you running around all night for useless things? Sounds a bit like a waste of your resources" Y/n says as Hermione steps back towards the edge of the border, her arms crossed over her chest.

"My thoughts exactly" she grumbled before Y/n chuckled to herself, looking over to check on Ryland, who seemed to be as anxious as usual. He really needed to relax, she feared he'd start shaking like a chihuahua soon.

"Hey, can I ask you a completely hypothetical question?" Y/n asks quietly, which causes Hermione to lean in to hear a bit better.

"Let's say, we win the war. What will happen to you....guys? Yeah, you guys" She asks quietly, clearing her throat at the end, before meeting her gaze again. Hermione opened her mouth but shut it just as fast.

What should she say? What CAN she say?

"Well, uh...hypothetically, we'd probably go back into hiding" she whispered, hoping that putting her trust in Y/n won't bite her in the ass in the future.

"Alright, that makes sense...what about you? I'm guessing you'll go home back to London, right?" She asks and Hermione stiffens at the thought of her home, that now laid in ruins. Technically, she had no home to return to.

"No, it's best if I didn't," Hermione says quietly. Y/n furrowed her eyes in confusion, but before she could ask a single question, a large family emerged to be helped across.

That was the end of their conversation for the night, but this particular subject wasn't going to be forgotten.

——————

December 24th

Y/n stood at her post like usual, it was snowing again, but Y/n didn't mind it this time. It was Christmas snow, and it did make up for the lack of people and holiday cheer that was lacking in the town now.

It was only an hour until it was officially Christmas Day, and all this patrolling gave Y/n more than enough time to wallow about missing the holiday season with her family and traditions.  Then again, it wasn't all bad.

"Hungry?"

Y/n turned to find Hermione with two plates of food in her hands, both steaming with a feast of actual food. The MRE packets weren't bad, but they weren't the best either since she's been deployed here.

"Hell yes" Y/n sighed in relief as she walked over to the boarder and graciously took the paper plate and plastic fork. Hermione chuckled softly as she leaned against the wall of the building beside them, and began to eat quietly.

"Thank you, you didn't have to get me a plate" Y/n soon says in a quiet tone, but you could still see the smile that she tried to hide by taking a bite off of her plate.

"I wanted to" Hermione replied simply as they ate together in a comfortable silence, maybe only a minute went by before she decided to speak again.

"Have you spoken to your family? With the holidays and all?" Hermione finally asks, watching as the snowflakes melt from the steam before they hit the plate.

"I've gotten a few letters, but I don't really have time to call as much as I wish I could," Y/n says with a small hum as their eyes finally lock together, and Hermione gives a small smile.

"Well, at least you know they're thinking about you," she says and Y/n nodded in agreement, before leaning against the building as well.

"What about you? Has your family called?" The soldier asked.

"Yes, they called me just a bit ago to wish me a Merry Christmas" Hermione said as she poked at her glaze-covered steamed carrots. Y/n noticed the lack of energy in her response and hesitated for a moment.

"And?" She asked, and Hermione sighed softly.

"And...they wished I was home with them, that they didn't agree with what the Wizarding World was doing to their-...our world," she says as she takes another deep breath, since if she didn't control her breathing, she might cry.

"War has no good or bad side. There are only good and bad leaders" Y/n says and Hermione just chuckled to herself. If that wasn't the truth, then she didn't know what it was.

It was quiet again, both of them now almost halfway through their meals, and Hermione felt a bit of courage run across her soul. Which made her stand up slightly, but before she could ask Y/n something, the soldier spoke first.

"A few days ago, you said that you wouldn't return to London, hypothetically. How come?" Y/n asks and Hermione gives a soft laugh at her attempt to 'hide' their questions still. Nobody was even around to eavesdrop on them. But she'll play alone, just for the soldier.

"Well, hypothetically, if you had been a part of the whole battalion that invaded your hometown, would you want to go back?" She asks in return and Y/n's eyes widen before nodding in understanding. Hell, she probably would have been shot before she even crossed the border if she had done that.

"I see your point" she mumbled as there was another string of silence. They both stared back at their food and quietly finished what was left, and soon their empty plates began to catch the snow that fell from the heavens.

Hermione slipped her gloved hand into her pocket, and pulled out a copper pocket watch, popping it open to see that it was now 5 past 12. It was Christmas Day.

"Happy Holidays, Y/n," she says quietly as she shuts the watch and stuffed it back into her pocket. The soldier smiled to herself as she folded up the plate and threw away the grave in a nearby trash can...or a postal box? She couldn't really see that well in the darkness, and snow.

"Happy Holidays, Hermione" Y/n whispers back as she looks up at the cloud-covered sky for a moment, seeing deep purple ripples between the clouds, almost faint enough to miss if you weren't looking.

"Look, would you possibly...want to share a nightcap? With me? It is Christmas, after all," She added, just in case it wasn't obvious that this was a small invitation. To break the rules, just this once. It was a holiday, and she thought that it wouldn't hurt to have a 'Christmas Truce' between them. Hell, if it worked in 1914, then it could work now.

Y/n blinked in surprise before turning back to Hermione, almost missing her completely. If it wasn't for her silhouette, Y/n might have just ended up talking to a wall.

"A nightcap? Here?" She asks in return and Hermione's back tightens as she stands up straight, slowly walking over to the ramps that were still standing as a walkway over the border.

"Well, I was thinking of a tent nearby? If you just stripped your uniform, nobody would notice" she says quietly as her foot hits the side of the ramp, ever so gently. It was honestly a stupid idea, now that she thought about it. It was crazy to think that Y/n would ever willingly put herself in potential danger-

"Well, maybe just one drink" the soldier replied.

Hermione's eyes widened, and just for a split second, her heart was thrown off its rhythm. This is crazy, she thought. Then she cursed at herself silently for repeating what she already knew to be a fact.

"Are you sure?" Hermione asks, just in case the holiday spirit was messing with Y/n's mind as it was hers, but Y/n didn't even pay it any thought. Instead, she hid her jacket and helmet behind the lamppost, leaving in just a tank top and her military pants and boots.

"Hurry, before you freeze" Hermione laughed in a bit of disbelief as she dropped the plastic plate and fork in the snow. In the back of her mind, she felt bad about littering, but she didn't care that much at the moment. She'll pick it up tomorrow.

She held her hand out as Y/n balanced on the snow-covered bridge, their hands clasping together like magnets in the darkness. There was a sense of excitement as Y/n stumbled slightly onto the other side, making Hermione shush her with a small laugh.

Y/n laughed as well as she began to smile, their hands never disconnecting as Hermione pulled her into a small jog, sticking them close to shadows as they weaved through the spaces between the tents. Hermione would peer around corners and pull the soldier quickly once the coast was clear.

As they sneaked past the biggest tent, there was a bunch of people inside singing carols and drinking together. Hermione pressed her free hand to Y/n's chest, before slipping away from her grasp to slip into the tent herself.

Y/n kept herself in the shadows, shivering slightly, since she was still without her thermal coat. Too bad it made her a walking 'I'm your enemy' type since the colors of her country were on it.

Hermione returned a minute or so later, with an open bottle of wine under her arm and two dixie cups. She grasped Y/n's hand again, noting it was colder than before, and subconsciously picked up their pace.

They found a vacant tent, and Hermione sighed in relief since the furnace was still burning inside. Once Y/n stepped inside, it was more obvious how cold she was, the biggest indicator was the bright red nose.

"You look like Rudolph" Hermione chuckled to herself as she watched Y/n from the corner of her eye, who looked at her with a smirk. There was something about it that had Hermione fighting back a grin.

They both sat down on the two chairs near the furnace, Hermione poured some wine into the two cups and passed one to Y/n. Fingers brushed against skin again, but neither said anything about the flutter between them.

"I have to ask, what's it like to use magic?" Y/n asks quietly, since anyone who overheard them, would know she wasn't on their side in an instant.

"Honestly? It makes regular life a whole hell of a lot easier" she admits as she took a sip from her cup, it wasn't her favorite type of wine, but she didn't have many options.

"Must be nice...you mind casting a spell to do my laundry for me?" Y/n asks playfully, which makes Hermione do her quiet laugh, she leans forward slightly before her quick breaths make a few noises come out.

"Sure, after this is all done" she finally replied as she looked back at Y/n who was leaning back against the chair, her sole attention on Hermione. They both got quiet before the brunette found her bearings and took a quick intake of breath before finishing the last of her wine in the dixie cup.

It wasn't long until one nightcap, turned into two...then three. Before eventually the wine was gone, and their cheeks were rosy pink. They weren't drunk, but they were definitely a little more than tipsy. It was the sweet spot for the subconscious to take over while your conscious took the passenger seat, only piping in when they thought about saying something or doing something stupid.

"I can't wait for this whole thing to be over. I want to go back to simplicity" Y/n sighs as she rests her head against the top of the backrest, her hands interlaced flat against her stomach. Hermione sat beside her watching Y/n with a bit more intensity than either noticed, her arm on the top of her backrest and leaning her head against her knuckles.

"It'll be a while until both worlds return to normal" Hermione added and Y/n nodded in agreement, before sitting up fully to look back at her.

"When that happens, do you think you and I could...meet up? Maybe get dinner or something like that?" Y/n asks, and Hermione blinks in surprise, sitting up as well. They stared at one another as the witch fought the urge to pound on her chest as her heart fluttered like she would do to her old TV that would static at her old home all the time.

"Yes! I mean, uh, sure. I would like that." Hermione breathed out as they both leaned their elbows on their knees, faces too close for anyone to see it other than what it was. Pinning. Yearning. Hesitation.

Slowly, they moved closer. Both have a million thoughts running through their heads, but none of their concerns even fostered their movements. Y/n could smell that flowery perfume even better than that one time before, it was subtle. It was made to only be smelt by the wearer or someone close enough to touch her skin. It was addicting.

Hermione eyes fluttered closed as the distance between them was about to disappear, wondering if this was too soon. If the 'maybe' outweighed the risks. If Y/n could be more than a fun thrill.

But it didn't matter.

Because the air raid sirens began to blare.

[crushpunky]

drew and costar!reader’s inside joke

masterlist

the smiley face story from how drew and costar!reader met

It started at a table read when y/n grabbed a pen and drew a small smiley face in the corner of Drew’s script. His eyes caught it, grinning to himself before taking his pen and doing the same to y/n’s script. From then on, the little smiley face was their way of communicating, letting the other know they were thinking of them without even speaking a word.

From coffees and dressing room mirrors to sticky notes and cakes, their smiley faces appeared just about anywhere. Anytime the two of them were together (and even, miraculously, when they weren’t), a smiley face was bound to appear. So, it was only natural for them to commemorate their favorite doodle eternally in the form of ink on skin.

The two of them were sprawled out on the couch on y/n’s apartment balcony, passing a joint back and forth as they chatted. Below them, the sights and sounds of downtown LA brought a soothing atmosphere that served as white noise to their conversation.

“You ever thought about getting a tattoo?” Y/n asked, taking a hit before slowly blowing out the smoke. Her legs were draped in Drew’s lap, his much longer ones propped up on the coffee table as he let out a small chuckle.

“Maybe in college, but not seriously.” Drew said, taking the joint from y/n. His lips wrapped around it, dragging slowly before exhaling and dabbing it out. The lights from the bustling city below cast shadows onto his face that highlighted his sharpened features.

“Hmm.” Y/n simply hummed, tapping her foot in Drew’s lap. He quirked an eyebrow, his gaze shifting over to look at her.

“What’re you thinking about?” Drew asked, his hand fiddling with the hem of her jeans.

“We should get tattoos.” Y/n said simply, straightening up to better look at Drew. He had a smirk on his face, his cheeks flushed from the heat and the joint they’d just smoked.

“Oh yeah, what?” Drew asked playfully, stretching his arms out before resting them behind his head. The sleeves of his t-shirt dipped slightly, exposing the flex of his biceps as he sunk into the couch.

“The smiley, duh.” Y/n giggled, hitting Drew lightly with her foot. Drew chewed on his lip, mulling over it for a moment.

“Sure, why not.” Drew said with a shrug. Y/n sat up even further, an excited grin on her face. Her hands out quickly, cupping the sides of Drew’s face and playfully shaking it side to side with a squeal. Drew tried to keep a straight face but quickly failed, pushing y/n away with a giggle.

“We’re going first thing in the morning and you’re not wimping out Starkey, a’ight?” Y/n quirked her brow before offering her pinky out. With a dramatic sigh and roll of his eyes, Drew hooked his pinky with hers.

Early the next morning (or at least as early as two hungover people could get up), the two of them wandered to the nearby tattoo shop. As soon as they stopped, Drew ran around and opened his door for her. Y/n stepped out with an exaggerated curtsy before they made their way into the shop. After some short introductions with the girl sitting at the front desk, they found themselves sitting in the back.

“Do you want me to go first?” Drew elbowed y/n playfully. Most of the spontaneity and bravery y/n had felt the night before had evaporated, leaving her a nervous mess as she sat in the chair watching the artist prepare.

“Yeah, you should go first.” Y/n said, swallowing harshly as Drew stood. He sat down in the tattoo chair, relaxing into it with a sigh. Y/n watched as Drew propped his arm up, the artist beginning the process on the spot just behind his elbow. Drew’s face screwed up in pain for a moment before slipping into a smile with a giggle, causing y/n to roll her eyes at his playfulness.

“Alright, your turn, ma’m.” Drew said as the artist finished up. He stood from the seat, flexing his arm, before y/n replaced him in front of the artist. Y/n tried her best to relax into the seat, propping her arm up as she felt her heart pounding in her chest. As the artist swiped her arm with alcohol, y/n let out a small yelp.

“You’re alright, you’re alright.” Drew chuckled lightly, scooting his chair closer and offering her his hand. Hoping to at least put on an air of toughness, y/n shook her head, but Drew’s hand remained open to her. The whir of the tattoo gun filled the air, causing y/n to let in a harsh breath before she felt the sharp prickle on her skin. Y/n’s hand quickly shot out, grabbing onto Drew’s hand and squeezing her eyes shut.

As time ticked on, y/n felt herself relaxing under Drew’s gentle touch and encouraging words. Once the artist finished, she slowly opened her eyes.

“You did it.” Drew grinned, squeezing y/n’s hand lightly before helping her out of the chair. Once she made it to her feet, however, she felt her head spin and knees turn to jelly before blackness clouded her vision.

“Y/n, y/nnnnnnn.” Y/n heard as her eyes blinked open, the harsh light causing her to flinch. As her vision cleared, she could see Drew hovering over her, his eyes filled with worry as they frantically searched her face.

“Drew…” y/n groaned, moving to sit up.

“Wait, wait, let me help you.” Drew said, his arms wrapping around her and helping her to sit up on the floor. Y/n ran a hand down her face, giggling a little bit as she looked around her.

“Oh my god that was so embarrassing.” Y/n said, a small grin coming to Drew’s lips, his expression still clouded with worry. Drew handed her a water bottle, to which she took a small sip.

“Come on, drink. Don’t need you passing out on me again.” Drew said, pushing the water bottle towards her again. Y/n continued drinking before handing it back to him. With Drew’s help, y/n rose to her feet. Still wobbly, she leaned harshly into Drew’s chest as his arms quickly wrapped around her. She tried to break from his grasp, attempting to take a step on her own, but Drew’s grip remained firm on her.

“Drew, I’m fine—” y/n said, but Drew had already swept his arm under her knees, sweeping her feet up to hold her bridal style. Y/n let out a small yelp, groaning as a grin spread across Drew’s lips.

“Don’t want you wobbling around like a drunken person.” Drew mumbled as he carried her out the door. Y/n rolled her eyes, eventually succumbing to Drew’s antics as they made it out to the streets of LA, hoping no paparazzi would catch them in their flushed and giggly state.

[atangledfate]

Truthfully she had tried so hard to manage Tangle's wild spirit but, so far everything had failed. Whisper wasn't much help in that area as Tangle was Tangle in her opinion. But they were still soldiers and they needed to be organized! how could she organized them if Tangle went off and pulled stunts like this? She let out a soft huff and crossed her arms. It was frustrating--- but she did like Tangle she was a good friend. Someone she could rely on and she didn't hate her at all. She just wished she'd listen better, and follow orders.

The Feline fidgeted a little as Reyna's eyes fell on him, and tugged on his tail in a nervous way. He kept eyeing the people they passed and seemed generally jittery compared to the others. But at the teasing tone he did seem to relax if only a little.

" Oh! Honestly it just feels like useless information! I never thought it would come in much use... but happy it can help! if i'm honest you should talk to Miss Belle she probably knows alot more about it then i do... i'm more of a communications guy..."

His eyes fell to his gloves and he tugged on them to make sure they were secure.

" Oh.. no i'll be fine... i wouldn't wanna accidently hurt someone with my claws... maybe i can find a better set of gloves here... if i'd known i was coming i guess i'd have planned for it "

Tangle was standing on her tail to get a better look at the road they were walking down. She was pretty much as tall as Reyna while using her tail! but she as mostly just curious! But her mind was instantly on one thing only!

" Sooo when do we get to try the delicious street food! or local cusine! everybody knows that's the best part of a foreign city! the awesome food! "

Lanolin sighed

" We just ate... if we find time maybe on the way back home... honestly Tangle, you really do think with your stomach first..."

Reyna could understand Lanolin's frustration, but she fears her style is incompatible with Tangle. She knows that discipline is necessary, but it seems like the lemur fears the sheep as much as she respects her. At least when it comes to her ire. Perhaps that's something she can help with later.

"Chaos Drives, hmm? I haven't had the chance to compare them, so I can't make one statement about comparing them one way or the other. Maybe I could learn some new improvements for our Eternal Engines!" She muses aloud, then hears Duo explain a bit of their history. "Ooo, someone's well read, aren't they?" She teases smiling. She then frowns when she notices the gloves.

"Also, Duo, are you sure you wanna wear those gloves here? I don't think those winter mittens in the middle of summer temperatures are gonna be good for you." She points out.

[shannonsketches]

Something I really, really love about super's manga and what I think is so appealing about Vegeta's character arc in general is that it's, in my opinion, good, earnest restorative justice in fiction.

Vegeta has no say in how he's raised, he's conditioned to have a certain mindset and worldview that he has to put in the work to pull himself out of. It's messy. It's ugly. He relapses. He faces it. He works on it. He learns that death and justice aren't the same thing, even when it comes to himself. He grows.

But his backstory never serves to excuse his horrific actions or his shitty behavior. Not by Vegeta himself, and not by the narrative. (At least not in the manga.)

It's never used as a sob story excuse about why he's allowed to be like this. It's never used to explain away why he's a bad person or imply that everyone needs to be nice to him. It's never, as my friend puts the trope, 'Aw, poor little war criminal.' There are people who forgive him and there are people who don't. Obviously the forgiveness of his immediate community affects him in a positive way, but the lack of forgiveness from people he's harmed also affects him in a positive way, and the narrative slowly rewards him because he's making the decision to do and be better, regardless of whether or not anybody claps (in fact, there's a whole bit in BotG that he does not like it when people call attention to and quite literally clap for his decision to do and be better).

He gets an arc about how that has no bearing on his decision to do better. He asks, point-blank, if someone is still angry with him for a horrible thing that harmed them. He's given an honest answer. Rejection doesn't change his determination to help the people who are left to save, not even for a moment. He accepts that it's permanent damage, keeps helping, and does not bring it up again.

The narrative tells us it's no one's responsibility to forgive him, and more importantly the narrative tells us he knows that, and knows that it's entirely his responsibility to keep trying to do better for the people who are still here.

He gets a minor plot bringing attention to the fact that he bears the weight of his father's legacy, and while he gets to deny that his fathers decisions were not his responsibility -- he gets a follow up plot that addresses that he was (and was wholly intending to be) just as bad, if not worse, given a seat of power.

He gets that whole arc to explore how there's nothing he can do to change his past. He is not responsible for the sins of others, but the burden of his past is something he has to take with him into his future, and that guilt is not entirely a bad thing. The guilt is something he chooses to embrace. It gives him empathy he didn't have before. It gives him awareness of himself and his power from the new perspective of self-imposed kindness, and allows him to help someone much like himself be less alone and navigate the anger without making the same isolating mistakes.

(Toriyama's version of) The story starts rewarding him (in terms of his stated, consistent goals) when he starts actively, knowingly, and willingly pursuing kindness toward others on his own, and it becomes his natural response. He's never going to be a sweetheart like Gohan, or the Fun Opponent like Goku, but slowly he becomes the best version of himself, while still very much being Himself. And it's only after his goals are completely freed of malice and insecurity that he's able to meet them.

I just think that's a neat moral and a really well-done way to write restorative justice.

[just-some-friendly-fun]

✦ ꜱᴏɴɢʙɪʀᴅ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪɴᴇꜱ

: ̗̀➛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 1 :ᴀ ɢʟɪɴᴛ ᴏꜰ ꜱᴜɴʟɪɢʜᴛ ʙᴇᴛᴡᴇᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʀᴀᴄᴋꜱ

current, next chapt

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: News often travels fast within the energon mines between every miner. It's become a personal community of sorts. So when news catches wind of a new figure in the mines, D-16 ends up being the last to find out about this matter. And much to his surprise, D-16 comes face to face with the new bot!

■ ᴛᴀɢꜱ/ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: Cursing, brief mentions of death, pre-exile/pre-canon

✎ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 4,972

ׂ╰┈➤ A/N (if needed): Helloo, so with this there might be some inaccuracies? Maybe? It's more of just language-wise and term-usage. I think I might js bounce back and forth with using cybertronian and just standard English-terms for things. I don't want my readers to be bouncing back and forth on the transformers dictionary constantly as much as I did 😭. ALSO, you do NOT understand how many times I had to watch the movie to check how accurate I was on their MINING??? Anyways, enjoy <33

▶︎ ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ʟᴏᴠᴇ - ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀᴄᴄᴀʙᴇᴇꜱ

D-16 considered himself to be one of the more well-informed bots down in the lower sectors when it came to information.

Sometimes.

That is, if you consider the conveniency of how close he accidentally ends up being to one of his fellow peer or two when they've begun to spun up a little rumor-- that just happens to catch his interest, even if a little.

Whether it'd be mentions of a collapsed tunnel, the loss of another miner to said-collapsed tunnels, someone getting promoted--fired--hired, anything really. He'll have heard it, just as much as anybody else had in the operations below ground.

Information was as valuable as it was freely given sometimes, unconditionally--to the ones who humbled themselves as the "non-nosy" type and those who drank every word to the slightest sliver of the news temporarily unheard.

Someone would say something and suddenly, everybody down in every sector would know about that--something.

There wasn't really much to blame though with how rapid news spread about down in the mining operations.

None of the miners really went up to the upper levels, much less to be around in Iacon City, if at all--save face for a few, or if special arrangements and events were being taken place that allowed for the low-caste bots and miners to attend too.

But generally, heading up to the upper sectors was... Almost a privilege in a way. Visits up to the top, were rare and few. Some of the miners he'd known for most of his life cycle had only been outside of the mines solely for work-related measures, and even then it was brief--save space for Orion who'd disappear occasionally to chase after something that'd reprieve his boredom.

Naturally, the question on whether--"is this necessary and/or contributing to work?"--was constantly hardwired into their processor to think on every waking act. And if it wasn't?--Whatever action or initiative was going on should be promptly halted, work in the mines must always come first, that was simply just protocol. (Even if unsavory and neglecting of their own personal wishes and wants to see the floors above, ones devoid of the same faces of work peers, rocks, lifeless machines churning away at the belts, and ore-filled carts.)

So to hear of information often revolving around the mining operations was a rather common practice rather than to hear about anything up on the above ground level, lest it came in the form of a live transmission from Sentinel Prime himself.

And besides, whatever happens in the mines usually stayed down in the mines only, for better or for worse.

Not that anybody from the above ground level cared to pay much of a mind what happens down below, so long as every bot got their energon. They don't bother to ask how the process is done, it's only when do they get it and whether they can at all.

D-16 grunted, his tool struck against the stone, and sparks decorated the space that surrounded. His drill began to pummel its way through the stone in search of ore. The chisel of his drill ate away at the rubble, carving into it and demanding for its very own passage around the designated space until all that came loose in the end was am energon ore, raw and yet to be refined. The jackhammer he bore slowly came to a halt, a soft hiss escaping with his sigh of relief. it was slowly resorting to an idle position once his digits came free from the trigger. He reached forth to collect the bounty, nudging aside loose pebbles and dust to pluck up the cube and examine it.

It was fairly sized, small if anything but it would do. Anything to count for his fair share of the workload... And most of Orion's, as D-16 swept his helm left and right and even spun around to search for the bot but when his eyes scanned no sight of the familiar red and blue mech (even under the darkness of the cave). D-16's optics dimmed in realization that his mining buddy had fled off elsewhere for the time being to avoid the work shift for now, making a mental countdown on how long it'd take before he'd get his skid-plate hauled back into line. It'd been the fourth sudden take-off this month alone.

D-16 started to walk back and lazily chucked his ore in with the rest within the cart, an audible clatter resounded before the pile welcomed the new piece. The mech circled on back to where he first found the ore, burrowing through more of the space in hopes that one small pebble could lead to a bigger vein within.

...

Hours had gone by since his grueling search and so far, D-16 had only managed to find two underwhelming veins that lead to a moderate sized deposit. It was easily cleared out and thrown to the rest within the pile, that was now being pushed right back up to the entrance of the opened channel. He grunted and took to the rear position, having denied the initial assistance from most of the other miners to haul the load back to the entry point for refining.

Despite the heavy weight of the energon, there was also the weight of pride that lingered in his chassis somewhere. In his processor, he knew well that the heavier the cart, the more efficient and productive he'd been today! Which... Sparked some form of happiness in his endeavors, a trickling taste of enthusiasm for the day's accomplishment that would lead him to getting promoted, hopefully... One day, but it was a thought, nonetheless.

D-16 would tell himself the same thing day in and day out, punch in, get as much work done, refuel, and then hit recharge, wake up, repeat, and eventually it'll have been all worth it for something. Whether it was a shiny pin and a promotion to the upper levels, or mere praise from his supervisors (which came very rare to nobody's surprise). It gave him something to work hard for--motivation--an incentive, and with Sentinel Prime's constant emphasis in the importance of their work as miners, it gave him a sliver of motivation. (And perhaps it left D-16 exploring on the dream that maybe one day, he'd be able to hear Sentinel Prime say it himself to D-16 on how proud they were, personally, for his work. His efforts alone. It was a far-fetched idea, but an idea he entertained--embarrassingly than once but he'd never let that secret touch daylight).

It was a thankless job, but through the thick of it, D-16 had to persist. For Iacon, he thought, and if not, for Cybertron.

Soon enough, the cart managed to reach the open entry point and he raised his helm once the cart was taken off of his servos to be guided onto the conveyer belt, a quick "thank you" exchanged here and there. Before he turned around, ready to dive back into the channels until the sounds of a virtual beeping came overhead, and an intermission crackled from the speakers, "All mining units, cease operations. You've got an hour of intermission, refuel, recharge, and then return to work," a gruff voice resounded, before a crackle emitted as the intermission promptly ended with no further regard.

A symphony of relieved sighs could be heard once the announcement ended, and then, a steady line of miners began to pour from the open maw of the tunnels, flying on and marching out in rows. Steady and idle chatter began whilst D-16's shoulders drooped, he'd hoped to had gotten in one more round back in the tunnels but, a break was a break and who was he to deny to that?

After all, with the audible creak that came from his stiff joints and the tension in his wires. D-16 thought it would do him some good to begin some self-maintenance, and refueling sounded quite appealing at the moment.

His yellow optics searched for Orion Pax amidst the traveling sea of helms and workers departing as he slowly merged into one of the lanes, loosely calling out in hopes that the mech had returned from his endeavors, "Orion! Orion where are you??"

No response, yet.

Determined, D-16 continued to pass through the walls and lines of moving bodies, "S'cuse me... Pardon me... I'm so sorry-" Left, right, behind, was where he whipped his helm nearly spinning it while, gently pushing his way through to find his companion, monitoring through the waves that slowly diminished and began to sift itself out as workers broke off to go to their recharging stations, refueling hubs, or anywhere else really. He couldn't care less at the moment, more eager to find Orion Pax at the moment, so long as he hadn't already ran off to indulge in another one of his personal escapades.

He carefully navigated his way through the crowd, keeping his audial receptors and optics peeled for just one particular red and blue bot, picking up most of the conversations here and there:

"... Hey did you hear? There's a new bot down in the mines..."

"... Really? Is it a new miner?... Or just some lame old boss bot like Darkwing?..."

"... Shhh, careful. He might j'st be right behind ya..."

"... Heard she's not from Iacon..."

"... I don't even think she's meant to be down here..."

"... Who'd want to come down to a place like this? Must'a gotten some sort of malfunction up in their processor to-"

Suddenly, something clapped onto his shoulder-plates and pulled him back abruptly, the audible clang nearly ringing into his audial receptors, startling D-16 from his focus as he appeared to have gotten himself too focused on the passing current of whispers, reeling back to reality. The catch of rumors stowed away into the back of his processor. D-16 staggered, then twisted around, meeting to a set of familiar blue optics and a brightened grin. D-16 sighed and shook his helm, "Orion..." He began, almost with a breathless sigh from the near spark-attack, a slight chide in his tone far too exhausted to stand alone in his voice, but relief filled his tired gaze.

"Dee! Hey! I've been looking everywhere for you!" Orion Pax exclaimed, throwing an arm over his shoulder-plating and nudging him closer.

"Looking for me? Pff--I've been looking everywhere for you," D-16 insists after rolling his optics, gently pushing him back, "where the hell were you?"

"Ohh, wait until I tell you this!--" He said, holding D-16 by the pauldrons, suddenly guiding him elsewhere once Orion's blue optics spotted something behind D-16. And before the mech himself could catch a glimpse on what his close friend had seen. He was hurried off in another direction towards the refueling hubs, merging with the bundle of bots nearby.

Most of the miners had been used to Orion's antics, D-16 being the most well aware of them all, and like many would suggest.

Trouble always happens to find Orion more than he found it, and now? One could only guess that the trouble was currently sweeping the working grounds for Orion at the moment, leaving D-16 to place an arm around the back of Orion's neck to play his role of getaway, silently ushering him to move faster.

"C'mon! I wanna get some energon first, and then, I'll tell you all about it, It was crazy!" Orion spoke, lowering his voice as if it'd make them any less suspicious.

"Crazy, huh? No less than usual?" D-16 shook his helm and quietly laughed, looking over to the bot, "Got into some trouble again?"

"Ooh!... You bet, and big time," He said.

"I just hope I don't have to bust my skid-plate to pull you out of it this time..." D-16 noted, a slight drag to his tone, mentally counting just how many times he'd already done just that already--within a week or less so far. Orion Pax chuckled on and guided his mining buddy off down the path, offering little to no reassurance that this wouldn't happen again, but for now?

D-16 indulged to it, looking back every now and then to make sure they hadn't been tailed by any angry-looking bots.

...

The intermission came to a close, and eventually each bot was sent back into the mines. So with that, D-16 took to his drill once again and went down with the rest of the mining crew into the newly opened channels. The very minerals that made up the caves parted far them, presenting open pockets of ore that peaked out from the earth between, to which they went at within the first sight of it with starved drills and cutting edges. Buzzing and minerals chipping away filled the atmosphere around, with the occasional shouts and requests here and there for assistance. The hours dragged on, rolling by within the blink of an eye. Every passing minute was punctuated by the clatter of ore filling the cart until the metal wailed along the journey back up to the exiting point again, only for another to replace the cart soon enough.

D-16 was off on his own occupied chase, drilling into the minerals with desperation, a droplet of coolant ran down the side of his face. He had spotted a trace of a vibrant blue glow pulsating between the crevices and struck down with determination, breaking away the minerals as it forced through the stone, gutting and burrowing deep until he had reached the fruits of his labor, a large chunk of energon became exposed to the open air. It was larger than his last initial findings, nearly around half his frame, "This should do..." He sighed, leaning back for a moment to wipe the condensation off of his forehead, before chipping away at the massive chunk down to sizable halves before leaning his drill to the side to haul it back in his arms. He grunted, lowering for a moment before tossing the chunk over the wall of the cart and then repeated with the other. His success coming off in the sound of harsh crash of chunks and rocks, watching the pieces roll to the edge with a dull thud before it settled.

He dusted his servos off and nearly resumed back to work, only pausing as he collected his drill off from the stone wall to look over to the space beside him, "Hm?"

He paused in his work and glanced over, noticing to a bot who'd been struggling for quite some time, using to the same tools he did but with... Less efficiency, and expertise.

He wasn't sure if they had realized it, but they were holding their drill... Upside down, somehow managing regardless to maintain in using it and scoring a few measly pebbles and a few pieces capable of fitting into a servo, out of shear luck or spite somewhere. He was impressed by the odd sight in a way, nearly speechless.

He continued to stare on for a moment longer, merely marveling at how this bot was even managing as he watched them. They stood in the dark, devoid of using their headlamp, but with gritted teeth and determined optics that pierced the dim lighting around. She persisted.

...

The femme pulled back and for a moment, took to a deep sigh, her digits nearly loosening around the trigger from the coolant build-up, making her palms all slick and gross much to her internal protests and grimaces. She loosened her hold on the item and it settled--or rather slipped onto the ground beside her with a gentle "clunk!" and her shoulders drooped, looking to the fruits of her labor.

She nudged a few crumbled bits of rocks with her digits, trying to check whether any was "good enough" but, the femme hadn't really spent enough time before down below, looking at unprocessed energon ore to know a thing or two on what counted as "good" or "bad", nor the worth.

After a minute or two of fishing around between her remains, all she could find was supposedly one light shard of energon ore and a hundred littler... pieces... pebbles? She shortly estimated their worth to be rather appealing enough to skip across an oil stream at best, watching the pieces fall between the gaps of her fingers.

"... Slag," She whispered, so maybe she had bitten off more than she could chew.

Regardless, she threw her pieces up into the cart above, landing one and losing a couple from a few misses (to which she proceeded to chase and pick up again in mild embarrassment) before spending her time pinpointing accuracies on the arch of her throws. Once done, she steadily returned to her work, wiping the coolant off her palms against her skirt-plate, collecting dust and dirt that clung stubbornly. She huffed at the sight but found it to be useful at least, now that her hands were no longer leaving her tools to slip free from her fingers even if it was a little gross...

Okay, maybe not just a little--very, very dirty and gross.

The femme took to the drill and hoisted it up, accidentally pulling down the trigger for a second and scaring herself halfway to death once it struck against the rock and rattled loudly, leaving her to squeak in surprise. She remained frozen and embarrassed herself once again, internally smacking herself in the processor, before fixing her grip on the weapon and then hurriedly looked to her sides in fretting hopes that nobody had noticed her slip-up.

Once safe and certain, she was about to return to the task, sucking in a breath until, a hesitant hand came into her line of sight, followed by a stream of light.

She paused, looking over to follow the white lighting emitted before meeting to the source, standing in silent shock once she met gazes with a pair of bright, yellow--almost orange optics.

The yellow lenses stared back at her and for a moment, the hue deepened and she found herself lost in watching the rings of their optical lense spin slowly--her own silently responding in turn to take in the light.

And for a moment, all she could think of was how pretty they looked, under the dim lighting and soft, contrasting, blue, darkness that surrounded. She could never quite recall the last time when she'd seen a bot outside of her own family, carry optics such as these.

She lingered in her awe, holding her gaze and softly gasping once she realized she'd been staring too long. The monochromatic mech's servo retracted back at her sucked in breath, just as equally fretful of the idea of spooking her.

They both lingered in awkward silence, before he reached out again, keeping his digits distant from her own. The mech pushed his words out first, hastily before he'd become interjected, "Here, uh. Let me help you," He began, and at her tensed silence.

He reached out and carefully laid his servo over her own, guiding it when she had released the death-grip around the handle. He glided his fingertips along the steel and briefly persuaded her into forfeiting the drill on over to D-16 who rotated it around and handed it back to her. She gazed over with confusion riddling across her expression, the inner rings of her optical receptors glowed and rotated to adjust in the sight of the tool's rotation. She held to it and ran her gaze over what she could, squinting and forcing her optics to brighten a little further to see.

At this point, D-16 grew to notice that the femme before him didn't bear any kind of mining light upon her helm, and leaned forward slightly to focus his helm on positioning the lighting over the handle of her drill so she could see. He awkwardly shuffled close to her back and side to help lift the drill up, taking her servo into his own and securing it around the trigger. He made careful gestures to make sure at the very least not to push down the trigger from gripping her servos too hard,

He could feel her frame stiffen briefly against him and with that he tried to reassure her, "I-It's okay, I just... Need you to hold it like..." He trailed off, lifting the end of the drill up over her shoulder and guided the tip to touch into the slight hole she made earlier during her personal scare. He fixed her servos positionings with his own and she watched to him carefully, nodding with every silent lesson he gave and watched every point he gestured with, "This." D-16, now firmly making sure her position was secure, pulled back to give her a bit of room, and pointed to the back of the equipment.

"The end of the drill's gotta... go here, hovering just over your shoulder. I don't recommend resting it completely onto there unless your servo's off the trigger. It sometimes leaves scratches from the impact and from the intense, repetitive motions... a little," He informed, slowly finding his words, and to that she nodded slowly, glancing to her shoulder-plate to make sure she hadn't suffered that mistake yet and resumed to the position he guided her to take, breathing out slowly. She eyed at the placement in the stone, noticing to the bare glow beneath.

D-16 monitored her, and walked back to retrieve his own drill, marching back once she began to carry her drill with confidence, before pulling the trigger and digging back into the earth,

He watched the sparks fly and with that, he pushed for conversation to help loosen the atmosphere even more, "... First time using it?" He asked.

She anxiously shifted between watching where her drill went and to the mech beside her, giving a meek nod before eyeing back to the cracking stone, "... M-mh, yeah, actually." The femme responded.

D-16 nodded and struck to the sight of a glowing energon ore peaking out on his side, letting his own drill bury through and pursuemthe trail. In the meantime, he wanted to at least get to know the new face beside him as recollections of the rumors he had heard before hand began to resurface at the top of his mind. His optics scanned over her for a moment. Her frame was darkened all over, making her nearly one with the underground environments she was within. Her lack of helm-lights was odd initially, but upon further inspection. She bore no jetpack either.

How was she meant to escape a potential tunnel collapse?--maybe she forgot it up at the surface?

But that's dangerous and unaligned from safety protocols!

Nonetheless, he kept calm with a twinge of concern for the newbie, his expression scrunched, "... First time... Down here in... General?" He asked, tilting the word on his glossa slightly, biting back in cautious hopes he hadn't offended the femme if she wasn't new.

The bot paused in her drilling, and looked over, before avoiding his gaze with a slight purse of her lips, "... Is it... that obvious?" She pushed back, almost defeated, as though her act had already crumbled before it could begin.

"Oh no, not at all. It's just--I-I don't think I've ever seen you around down here before," D-16 said, hoping to ease the defeated look in her optics.

Her lowered optical ridges raised up, and lessened into a more understanding expression, bobbing her helm slowly. Her grip on the implement readjusted once again, raising it up, until D-16 held out a servo to stop her. She froze and looked beneath to where her drill pointed to and hurriedly scanned the area for any mistakes. D-16 lowered his drill again and wandered over, guiding the edge of the drill into the ground and gestured her closer, "Here," He advised, before taking to his own drill to provide example.

"You have to hit it at an angle like--this--so it kind of sinks in properly," He informed once more, pulling back and pointing, "there's nothing wrong with the way you're doing it, but if you want it to stay still a little easier and maybe not carry as much of the weight then, it helps." He shrugged, before stepping back once again to give her some space. She nodded and narrowed her optics, searching for a designated spot to test out the method.

"Hit here," D-16 pointed, tapping the front of his drill against the stone to light a few sparks so she could see it, "and try to go for kind of a slightly tilted angle instead of keeping it directly vertical or straight, maybe like a light degree in-between,"

She bobbed her helm lightly, steeling herself once again and struck into the targeted area, pulling the trigger as it began to fill the air between them with an audible "rat-tat-tat!" sending small stars and sparks up from repetitive collision of steel to stone, as well as dust and pebble.

Moments later, the ore loosened from the stone, crumbling away enough for her to scramble and retrieve to the reward of her achievements with brightened optics and a smile that stretched from one audial receptor to the other. She dropped her drill for a moment and reached down to collect the material, curling her arms around the hefty chunk, a soft "hmmf!" escaped her as she strutted back to the cart, dipping into a crouch to amplify her jump and throw, pacing back and forth until all the ore she had mined out was finally cleared.

The femme looked up happily to D-16, the look of gratitude came in the form of her sparkling optics before the words had even yet to settle, a slow smile mirroring onto his lips from her own. He chuckled and reached down to pick up his own finds, wandering over to the cart to dispose it with the rest.

He looked over to the femme beside him and smiled, "see? All you needed was a little help with your technique. Now you don't have to struggle as much and you'll use less energon while at it,"

She hummed in acknowledgement, hastily nodding, “… T-Thank you kindly,” she remarked, a soft accent tucked beneath her words that tried to hide itself. The need for assistance wounded her sense of independency, but it was warmly welcomed nonetheless. She'd have preferred the help over making herself look like an even bigger fool than she was being mere moments ago. She clasped her servos together, digits entwined and folded formally before her, fidgeting “I-I don’t know how to repay you, stranger,” She admitted truthfully, averting her gaze for a moment, only for it to to light up when she noticed D-16's drill drew nearest to her side, retrieving to it and strutting right back to him.

He tilted his head slightly while he watched her return his tool. He chuckled a little more and crossed his arms, amused by the shy gestures, "you're welcome, though you don't need to pay me back really if that was your intention. I just wanted to help. What's your... Designation, anyways?" He asked, taking to his implement from her servos, leaning it on his shoulder for the time being.

“Silversong…” She replied, finally looking back to D-16. Silversong smiled with her optics, the very edges of her eyes slightly raising with the gentlest pull of her cheeks to perform the warm expression, “… And you, stranger?”

He smiled at her in turn, his expression a little worn out but it didn't stop him from offering a gentle expression back. His optics softening at the sight. He then placed his hand to his chassis, introducing himself, "I'm D-16. Nice to meet you, Silversong."

A trickle of humor ran through him and in the moment. He kept his hand to his chest and bowed his helm, nearly dipping the front of his frame in a regal manner.

Out of surprise, Silversong softly chuckled at his little bow, amused by the rather friendly gesture. She raised a servo to conceal her lips and thought for a moment. She wanted to continue talking, maybe longer if she could but the moment was severed into two and the reminder came in the form of another bot who had arrived, clapping D-16 on the shoulder-plate with a loud "clang!".

Silversong had nearly forgotten that there was work to be done, and internally deflated once the moment of reprieve slipped from her. But still, she persisted in her idle expression, watching the interaction. D-16, in his confused state twisted his helm to listen to--who she assumed was a friend of D-16.

"C'mon, Dee! I just found a rich energon vein over here, if we mine this, we'll probably be able to take the rest of our shift off for the day!” Orion Pax exclaimed optimistically, almost dragging D-16 away, unaware that he was talking to someone.

D-16 stiffened and felt his pedes drag a couple inches into the ground as Orion seemed determined to show him this energon vein, looking up to Silversong, who only bid him farewell in the form of a slow wave and a reserved smile. He would've returned the gesture, but by then she had already looked away.

D-16 slowly turned around to right himself back onto his pedes and fell into line beside Orion, looking behind him before, shaking his helm at Orion's blind optimism. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd hope that Silversong didn't think of his sudden departure as rude or anything... Stealing another quick glance back and--she was gone.

His lips pursed and his optics dimmed, sighing. He looked over to Orion and recovered his expression to an exasperated smile, rolling his optics, "Yeah, yeah..." D-16 cracked his knuckles and briefly went back to pick up his drill, dragging it along.

"I hope you're not just lying so we don't have to mine as much. Let's just just hurry and get this done with,"

[monsamborabutterfly]

There's something almost innocent and childlike about Boston when he's with Nick. I don't think he ever really had that before. Someone who said "hey I see you beyond your flaws and you're worthy of love".

And you can see how much he needed that. And in his very own way that most people just don't get he cherishes that. This is why I don't understand how people can say he never loved Nick. He did. It's written all over his face.

I guess that's one of the main reasons I was so sad for him. The fact that the one person he thought he could trust and open up to, the one person he thought gets him in a way that others don't told him he's better off alone and should stay alone cause he can't love the right way and therefore doesn't deserve love in return.

I don't blame Nick. Of course I don't. He did what was right for him in the moment. And I get why Boston's behavior hurt him. But I'm pretty sure he did break Boston's heart.

[animezinglife]

I had to add this incredible reply from @kittynomsdeplume:

This. It's the sweet reservation mixed with that confident decisiveness once he is given the green light. 🥵

@the-arcane-archivist says it all the time: it's the details of this romance that make it so incredible. It's not just that Cullen is such an interesting, nuanced character. He's both a sweet protector and someone who knows what it means to be hardened by a world he's seen too much of (and the worst of it). He's been impacted and changed forever by that world, and he's trying to become (and succeeding in becoming) a better man. He knows his past actions (or lack thereof) have caused pain and damage.

And what does he do about them? He commits fully to being better and to prevent those things from happening again to the best of his ability. He starts to expand his way of thinking. He takes measures that, for all he knows, might kill him just to regain control over his own mind and life.

He tells a mage Inquisitor (if romancing, at least) that not only is he not proud of the man he became back then, but that it "sickens" him to think he might have once seen her in a different light.

It's the vulnerable, innately human side you see from both of them that neither can ignore no matter what their stations. It's the doubt, the fear, and healing all wrapped into one.

Cullen has worked so hard to heal on his own and not burden anyone, and I love that while the Inquisitor can't fix his troubles, she can choose to stand beside him so he doesn't have to face them alone. I love that she can be "weak" around him, and how he lifts her up and stands beside her, too.

Their brave faces vanish in those moments. Their titles do, too. They become nothing more than two people trying to face and get through this life and chaos while learning they can do so together.

They cannot take each other's problems away, but they can help each other face them.

We also can't talk about this romance without including how much thought and care went into the nonverbal communication, too. It's the looks/expressions. It's the changes in tone. It's those little touches that get more frequent and comfortable as their relationship progresses.

There's exactly enough of everything: just the right amount of sweet, gripping, and sexy.

I love the maturity of it, both unspoken and otherwise. Everyone who handled this romance knew exactly what they were doing. It's definitely not going to appeal to everyone, but for the ones it does, it's so tailor-made and hyper-specific to everything they value that nothing's going to ever top it.

Cullen is the one who teaches you how to love simply by being who he is and what he is. He's not the boy you date. He's the man you marry. He's who you build a home and a life with: the warm fire in your hearth. He has areas where he'll continue to grow, but he has no growing up to do.

He can be a little hard-headed and stubborn, but he's as genuine as they come. He doesn't play games and he's very self-aware. He's from a great family. He's earnest and dedicated in his love, and while I wouldn't say his love is "easy" to earn, it's built to last.

I love Cole's line (and general thoughts overall) about him: protecting and proud.

He's a doll.

I’ll never get over how sweet it is that Cullen needs reassurance that the Inquisitor does in fact want to be with him.

He knows how he feels, and he thinks he knows how she does, too (never mind her hitting him with that look that only ever means one thing).

But he needs to know it’s her choice. That despite her having seen him struggling and at a low point, she still wants this.

That she still wants him.

He’s not ready to move on once this is all over. He’s so clearly ready to put his own feelings on the backburner and for her to change her mind (even though he knows it will devastate him).

When she doesn’t, he finally lets go.

[jesuis-assez]

↠ Tim & Lucy ↳ 5x04 - The Choice