#italian-shitstorm

[askymzbuki]

[bluastro-yellow]

I want the internet to start a discourse over the ending of Da Grande with Renato Pozzetto (1987) because the teacher turns into a kid to stay with her elementary school student who has a crush for her

[chaithetics]

hey I had an idea for a stewy fic! Maybe it’s Roy!reader who gets scared on their wedding day (bc they’re a Roy and are not used to love) and stewy comforts them beforehand? I don’t know if that makes sense haha

Roy-ful Wedding Jitters

Pairing: Stewy Hosseini x Roy Reader

Word count: 2.1K

Author's note: Ah! I'm so, so, so, so, so sorry for how long this was in my inbox. I owe you big time and I'm getting around to the older requests, I really hope you love this and it was worth the note! Not proofread so do enjoy y'all! I think this is ending the biggest gap between fics I've had so I'm sorry, love you all! Also, wear sunscreen!

Chapter/content warning: 18+ MINORS DNI, established relationship, anxiety, not the best self-esteem, Roy childhood dynamics, mild cursing.

****************************

It was a peaceful morning, or it should’ve been, it was a peaceful-looking morning at least. Well peaceful as long as you didn’t look in a mirror and see the fear in your eyes or the growing shake in your hands. The weather was perfect, it was sunny and beautiful but it wasn’t too hot and even though you shouldn’t say it, if somebody forgot to wear sunscreen for a couple of hours, they’d get off burn-free. 

This day had been perfectly chosen, the location, venue, color scheme and of course, the weather to ensure it was the perfect location at the perfect time. Just as everything was when the Roy name was attached and you had a casual perfectionist like Stewy Hosseini as your groom. Your wedding day had been carefully curated as if it were an exhibition at the most pretentious and lauded of museums and galleries. The receipts, emails, and photos could be packaged like Sofia Coppola’s Archive and sold as another overpriced coffee table book that wouldn’t get touched beyond the hands of the wealthy at a ridiculous launch event. 

Despite the sheer perfection of this intimate Italian wedding, you were shaking slightly and there had been a ball of dread growing in your stomach the moment that woke you up. The kind of almost nausea you had that was pre-flying anxiety whenever you had a flight, the one that means you don’t eat the morning of and then feel even more nauseated later because of that. 

You rub your eyes and look at him, sleeping blissfully, completely ignorant of the shitstorm swirling inside of his bride. You’re still feeling anxious. Anxious to be this vulnerable in front of another human being, to be so vulnerable on an intimate level. Love is a weakness, a desire, and you’re declaring in front of everyone and legally that this person, this man holding you right now is your weakness. It’s terrifying. 

You get out of bed and start to pace as you think about how you’re just as cursed as everyone else in your family and all their doomed relationships that were infertile for love and how nobody in the Roy family ever got the memo of what a healthy relationship is. You start to anxiously scratch your neck as you come to the conclusion that just like everything else in your life, this day is doomed. It’s cursed in fact! You can’t help but think. 

Unsure of whether to scream, run away or cry you look around the room. You even think about climbing out of the window of the suite… Why are you thinking this when there’s a door. A goddamn door you could just climb out of! You facepalm yourself and mutter under your breath how stupid you are. These feelings are very real and it’s definitely not a trauma response or form of self-sabotage you think to yourself. 

Stewy wakes up and you hear him whisper that it’s because of your pacing as he looks at you with sleep still in his eyes and his hair handsomely but messily tousled from sleep. It’s only then that you realize that you had been pacing. 

“I need something to drink… juice… fruit juice.” You said as you paced around the room. 

“Fruit juice…?” Stewy asked curiously, he’d only just woken up and he was trying to keep track with the frantic rambling while also calming your nerves. 

“Yeah, fruit juice!” You said it almost defensively and then tried to take a deep breath but the oxygen wouldn’t go all the way down to the pit of your stomach like it should. “Your body absorbs glucose quicker through liquids than solids. ” You added on in a less defensive tone. 

“Um…okay?” Stewy was feeling more confused as he watched you. “Are you going to explain the difference between veins and arteries to me next?” He asked in a curious and gentle tone with a slight inflection of amusement. 

“Maybe my blood sugar’s low.” 

“Low? Your blood sugar? Are you okay?” Stewy’s voice was more concerned now and his face reflected that as his eyes widened and he tilted his head. Stewy quickly poured a drink and handed it to you, you drank it immediately while pacing with your back to him. 

“Maybe today is cursed?” “It’s not cursed, hon-” “But,” you cut him off. “Look at us, we’re sleeping in the same suite, same bed. I woke up as the little spoon Stew. It’s breaking tradition, bad luck, curse-” “That’s like not even a superstition, you’re not wedding superstitious.” He says as he runs a hand through his dark curls. 

“Maybe I should’ve been? This is-” “Honey, it’s a tradition. An outdated one that just doesn’t reflect modern relationships anymore. We live together. Kinda defeats that whole thing, that was when couples didn’t live together, it was arranged marriages and you met at the altar.” “I know.” You whisper, and you do. 

“Fortunately for us, that’s not our situation at all.” He smiles at you and you sigh as you look around, this hasn’t done anything for your anxiety yet though. 

“Did you ever think that-that… that well, anxiety is like a parasite-” You start to say before he cuts you off. 

You’re just taking turns doing it now, he cuts you off to reassure you and then you cut yourself off to catastrophize more. What a morning of the wedding day dynamic you’ll think about in 5 years. “No, I haven’t but-” Stewy sounds mildly flabbergasted but he’s still trying. “And I had this parasite left in me, that they didn’t even know to take out when I was born. An awful little parasite of the parasitic qualities of my parents and it just ate away… fed and grew during every fucking developmental stage Stewy.” “You don’t have a parasite.” He’s being soft and genuine with you as he speaks through all of the worst fears your spitting out at him right now. 

“No, I’ve become the parasite, the poison drips through and it trickled right into feeding and I’m… I’m just like him. I don’t want to be Stew, but I am.” There’s a desperation in your voice but also a resolution. “You’re nothing like your father. Right now, you share his last name and that is it. You are not him and you are not doomed to repeat the cycle.” Stewy says as he looks into your eyes. 

“I’m a parasite and I’m just consumed… I’m going to latch onto you and just ruin you and this is just going to become miserable Stewy. I’m a Roy, it’s just…it’s just how it works. Look at my parents. My dad and his marriages. My dad and every relationship he’s had.” You say as you frantically run your fingers through your hair. 

“Again, you’re not your dad. And you’re not your mother. We’re not your parents or any other weird item they’ve been a part of.” He says as he steps closer to you and tries to gently caress your arms. 

“You get rid of parasites through antiparasitics and antibiotics, not marriage! That’s li-like… that’s like signing away your life for the parasite to chew on!” You spit out nervously. 

“Good thing you’re not a parasite and you can’t marry them. And also for medicine existing.” Stewy says, he puts on a warm smile and his eyes glow as he tries to reassure you. “You’re okay babe, you’re okay. Just talk to me, just some jitters? What’s going on?” 

His voice is so gentle as always and perfect. The way he speaks is just warm and inviting, like a cosy bath you just want to sink into and forget about everything in. His stupidly perfect voice just always had a way of making you melt, whether that was when he was trying to reassure you at your breaking point (right now), flirting with you and even when he was talking Wall St finance bro jargon and rubbish. 

You took a deep breath and looked at him, your eyes were watery. 

“Fuck…Now my eyes are watery and I’m going to get scolded for being puffy when they do make up, Stew.” You wiped your eyes and Stew quickly pulled you into his arms again and you rested your head against his chest as you tried to breathe. 

“Some deep breaths honey, I love you and you love me.” He rubs your back gently in a comforting pattern and you take some deep breaths as you keep your face pressed against his comforting warmth. 

“I do love you.” You whisper against his chest, you’re feeling a bit calmer now and enjoying the circular motions of how he’s gently caressing your back. Your words bring a smile to his face which you don’t see. 

“Uh-huh, that’s why we’re getting married. We love each other lots, and always will. I haven’t seen the dress but I know you’re going to look smoking.” He says sweetly but the playful tone is evident and it makes you smile a little.

There’s still a feeling of terror dwelling inside of you but it’s easing up a bit, you look at him Stewy and you can’t help but be that scary thing, the thing your siblings run from and your father scolds, but vulnerable. 

“What if I fuck it all up? That’s all… That’s all that Roys seems to be able to do.” You say sadly as you look up at him, you love him and it’s all you want to do. 

Stewy gently caresses your face, his soft fingertips dancing across your cheek and he smiles adoringly. 

“Well, it’s a good thing that in a few hours you’ll be a Hosseini.” You both let out a small chuckle at that and your eyes get a little teary at how he knows just how to disarm you perfectly with his big brown eyes, and his sweet and silly humour. “But even if you weren’t,” he adds on tenderly. “It doesn’t mean you’re the people before you, or your siblings. This isn’t bad, this doesn’t make you weak. It’d be such a lonely life if you never let anyone in, honey. Nobody deserves to feel the kind of loneliness you think you deserve because you grew up with that man and never experienced the love you deserved. That wasn’t normal or your fault. You’re worth love, you let me in and I love you. I loved you before you did and I love you even more now, and I’m just going to keep loving you.” His words are earnest and you can’t help but become even more tearier. It’s not from self-doubt or self-hate like it was before. Instead it’s from being so seen and loved by Stewy. Having someone reassure your worries and reactions, confrontations to being loved. Something that’s just so, so, so, so foreign to the Roys. 

You look up at his big beautiful brown eyes and you see that he means every word he’s just said. He’s still hugging you but he caresses your cheek with one hand and you let out a content sigh at that. 

“I’m sorry for… for this… I’m just… I don’t know, scared and-and you know how it gets sometimes. I love you more than anything though Stewy.” You admit as you lift your hand up to sit on his cheek and feel his always perfectly trimmed beard tickle against your palm and fingertips. 

“I know, I know, and I love you.” He says back softly. 

You lean and tilt your head and you two kiss, it starts off soft and you can’t help but deepen it as you once again admit to yourself, the all-consuming love you have for him and the need you have for him. The desire and need that is sparked by his simple existence, his cologne, his beard and how it feels against your face and hands, his voice of warm honey on a cold day. 

His hand is firmly on your waist and he kisses you back, your hand snakes up to caress and run through his hair and you gasp for air against his lips but you don’t dare to pull away. You love him and you’re happy to have him, so happy. You kiss passionately as you know this is the start of the next milestone, the milestone happening today. He genuinely cares about you and you’re loved and you love, you love him. You’re capable of receiving and giving love and as you kiss your groom in your room before the intimate but big-deal ceremony, you know this is right. This is what’s right and you deserve this.

[sinnerista]

Finally hearing him speaking up about the whole thing is a breath of fresh air.. he seems ok.. very grounded as always.. and again he’s not (as we would say in Italian) “putting bandages around his head before even breaking it” regarding his reputation.. I mean.. he often says “we’ll see” but in this specific timeline these simple words are healing words for everyone.. he’s giving the benefit of the doubt to all haters.. a second a third a millionth chance to the public opinion to witness his actions and decide whether he is in fact guilty (then deserving of his reputation being spotted or ruined for good) or actually innocent… we’ll see…

This is why I stand by this guy… I would not be able to be this positive and forgiving after the shitstorm he had to endure the past few days and the last couple of months…

He’s the most “demure” (sorry I couldn’t resist) role model sport will ever have..

I hope I’m not wrong about him because we need some good guys out there

[asimplearchivist]

' 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕘𝕒𝕫𝕚𝕟𝕘 '

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐕 𝐨𝐟 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄, 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊.

[𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓶𝓹𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓬𝓱𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓼𝓽'𝓼 𝓶𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽] [𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓] AO3 | SPOTIFY | PINTEREST summary ✴ ⤏ you find optimus musing about the past while surveying earth's celestial sphere. you try not to let your personal feelings impair your ability to comfort him. pairing ✴ tfp!optimus prime/reader | (past) tfp!optimus prime/elita one word count ✴ 9.9k a/n ✴ ⤏ everything happy always happens in the first season, sometimes part of the second season if you’re lucky. this takes place right before the omega keys arc hits full swing but right after optimus receives the message from alpha trion via the star saber. (around/between “legacy” and “alpha; omega”.) it’s the moment of serenity before the storm, you could say.⤏ I've had this fic gathering dust in my drafts for years bc there should have been three more parts between it and 'yosemite falling,' but I'm updating my docs to word files in preparation to transfer everything off my old pc to a new one (which I haven't had a new pc in nearly fifteen years so I'm anxious as hell bc I don't handle change well but I'm also excited so???) and I figured 'what the hell, I'll go ahead and post it since I've been trying to clean out my drafts anyway. ⤏ the word ‘inamorata’ (italian, I believe) is legitimately perfect for optimus referring to elita one and you can pry that out of my cold, dead hands. t r y m e. (and yes, this also implies that optimus knows latin because he’s a giant n e r d .) ⤏ I also used lots of nods and references towards @ss-shitstorm’s backstory for op and elita in fortuna primigenia because she is optilita god. (the only striking difference is that ‘bee isn’t biologically theirs - they just kind of took him under their wing when he was still fresh off the press.)

Something was off.

You sighed softly and opened your eyes, taking in as much of the darkened hangar as you could before you yawned. The kids were sound asleep, as was the Autobots’ newest recruit (who had somehow managed to curl himself around the haphazard circle of sleeping bags and cots in a rather impressive imitation of a cat), and when you looked over you saw that Ratchet was still tapping studiously away at the main terminal, optics dimmed and distant as he worked. When your eyes adjusted you could see that it wasn’t the Iacon encryptions, but what appeared to be a personnel file. You saw a small picture of Smokescreen on the upper left-hand corner and figured Ratchet was either reading in on Team Prime’s most recent addition or filling out a medical file. Either way, it was way past the medic’s bedtime.

You looked back to the slumbering foursome, taking in how Smokescreen’s doorwings fluttered minutely in time with an occasional ex-vent. You smiled warmly at the sight. The newest recruit hadn’t quite found his place among the Autobot family yet, but with how well he got along with the kids you figured it’d be no time before he wormed his way into the elder soldiers’ hearts. You just hoped he wouldn’t take to Miko too much, because you’d sensed a mischievous streak in him the moment you’d found out he’d managed to convince Jack to pull a Miko.

It’d gotten Optimus the Star Sabre, but...that wasn’t the point.

The girl had wanted to hit off Smokescreen’s arrival with a bang, in the only way she thought suitable for someone who knew nothing about Earth - introducing him to slumber parties. He’d been all for the idea, jumping headfirst into the activities it entailed despite him not knowing a single thing that was going on. He’d loved the movies you four had picked out, and had picked up on the concepts and plots surprisingly quickly.

Ratchet hadn't been too enthused about all the ruckus going on, as one would expect, but Optimus had made it a point to soothe him when the medic would begin to grumble too loudly. It was a brief reprieve for the other Autobots, who’d been rather tense of late and needed a little night of fun, and it served to better acquaint them with their newest addition. Bumblebee seemed to get along with him fairly well, and Arcee seemed to regard him with a constantly exasperated but amused air. Bulkhead...acted amiable enough on the outside, but you worried about him. His near-fatal injury and subsequent recovery had hit him hard, and had hit his spirit harder. You’d thought to call Wheeljack to help lift the green ex-Wrecker’s spirit, but...you didn’t think the others would be nearly so inclined to welcome him back so soon after his day trip with Miko. And you’d seen the way Bulkhead’s demeanor would fall whenever he thought no one was looking - you hoped that he would bounce back soon.

You slowly sat up, being careful to make as little noise as you could manage as you slipped out from beneath the blankets and rose to your feet. You padded silently past the recharging Autobot, holding your breath when he twitched and made a soft noise. He settled down almost immediately after, doorwings flaring and closing slowly. It almost reminded you of a butterfly at rest.

You relaxed when you got closer to the main computer terminal, breathing out softly as you reached out and placed a hand on Ratchet’s pede. He jerked minutely under the unexpected touch, peering down until his optics found you. 

He ex-vented, straightening and returning his attention to the screen. “I’m almost finished. Go back to sleep.”

“You can finish it in the morning,” you murmured back, patting the warm metal beneath your palm affectionately. “A couple more hours of recharge than usual isn’t going to hurt you, Ratchet.”

He paused, his mouth pursing briefly, and you worried that he was just going to shoo you away and keep working. He surprised you by ex-venting long and low, hitting one last button and closing the file before letting his servos fall from the keyboard. 

“Fine,” he muttered, tone weary and all too telling. “Fine.”

You smiled gently. “Get some rest, you stubborn old mech. You’re going to need it if we’re keeping the overgrown puppy over there.”

He scoffed softly, but you didn’t miss the curve of a smile he was trying to hide. “You should as well. Who knows what diabolical plot Miko has devised for tomorrow’s activities.”

“I hope she doesn’t drag out the Monopoly board,” you muttered, smirking up at him. “We may as well kiss another Autobot goodbye.”

You shared a stifled look of amusement before you both cracked and chuckled.

“Sleep well,” he said, turning and walking quietly towards the open corridor.

“Sweet dreams, Ratchet,” you returned, watching him go. A sense of peace settled over you and you gave the hangar a visual sweep. Everything was quiet.

But...something still felt...off. You couldn’t put a finger on it, but…

Well, you were still a bit tired. You wondered if you could catch a few more hours with Optimus - you were already mostly awake, but being able to hear his spark whir and his engine rumble beneath his plating always helped soothe you back to sleep.

Optimus wasn’t in his quarters. Everyone else was (even Ratchet - you’d checked), but the Prime was nowhere to be seen. It was odd because Optimus was always somewhere within the base doing something - the only time he wasn’t was when he went on patrol, but he always let you know when he was leaving and would sometimes invite you to accompany him if it was somewhere with little to no risk-factor. But this was unusual. He’d just...disappeared.

It was irrational to think so, because you knew he wouldn’t have left without pretense - but it was something about how quiet the silo was, dark and empty besides the kids (and Autobot) slumbering in the hangar. You could almost hear Bulkhead snoring from where you were, the sound still ringing in your ears since you’d wandered through the hall leading to each of their quarters. (It’d just about scared you to death, the entire corridor dead quiet then filled with an inhuman roar unlike any you’d heard before - it was only after you’d plastered yourself into the nearest corner, trying to keep your heart from beating itself out from between your ribs, that you realized it sounded like Bulkhead.) But the silence, nigh oppressive in its grip, reminded you too much of the long three months that Optimus had been under Megatron’s influence as his past self, memories gone in wake of spending the energy of the Matrix of Leadership on forcing Unicron back into stasis.

You had a sudden, irrational apprehension bubble low in your stomach, and you began to search the base.

He wasn’t in the corridors, or the relic vault, or the energon refinery. He wasn’t in the storage room, or any of the other massive, unused warehouse-type rooms. He wasn’t even in Ratchet’s private lab, which had been your last idea. You even checked his quarters again, just in case your eyes had been screwing with you and you hadn’t actually seen the gargantuan red and blue titan lying on his berth. The entire base was lacking one Prime, and you were getting worried enough that you were starting to consider going to wake Ratchet up to help you find him when you reentered the main hangar and your eyes alighted upon the large metal platform that served as an elevator of sorts, along with its human-sized counterpart that Fowler used when flying in.

Maybe…

As you climbed the ladder up to the platform and sized up the elevator, you crossed your fingers and hit the button with an upward-pointing arrow. The doors slid open smoothly and without a sound, fortunately, and you breathed a sigh of relief as you cast a brief glance over your shoulder at the kids to make sure they were still asleep. Satisfied to see that they were, you stepped inside and folded your arms as the doors shut again. The machine rumbled to life quietly, and the sudden tug of gravity had you drumming your fingertips anxiously against your arm as you ascended.

A few moments later, it stopped. The doors opened once more and a cool gust of air made you shiver. The night was dark and it took a few moments for your eyes to adjust, but when they did you paused. The sky was an inky black, moon a sliver of a crescent but glimmering a bright ivory all the same. It cast a ghostly silver glow across the relatively flat top of the silo, the sand and stones washed out from their usual rich red. It was a bit difficult to distinguish anything of the horizon from the dark skyline, but the glimmer of metal gleaming under the moon near the edge of the mesa caught your attention.

There he was.

You breathed out softly, suddenly feeling not so confident. He was fine. He was probably just taking a moment to himself, enjoying the peace and quiet. You wished that he was resting, but you understood that having much privacy in the silo was sparse when you had three other giant mechs (now four) and one femme occupying it. Optimus had always been quiet by nature, so it made sense to you that needing it occasionally would be part of it, too. (...It made you wonder why he offered for you to go along with him on his patrols alone, honestly. That was probably the only me-time he ever got, save for moments like these.)

Your worry satisfied for the most part, you debated on returning to your makeshift bed and trying to get a few more hours of sleep. You were tired, and your eyes were heavy, and you weren’t sure why you’d woken up to begin with.

A heavy ex-vent, audible even from where you stood, caught your attention before you heard a soft, low rumble that was unmistakably Optimus’ voice. No one else was out there, so the fact that he must’ve been talking to himself made you pause. His words were unintelligible, and you pondered on whether you should leave him be or confront him. But the note of sadness in his tone made your decision for you.

You padded across the mesa, shivering as the breeze picked up a bit and tugged at your hair teasingly. You wrapped your arms around yourself, rubbing the flesh of your arms with your palms and trying to keep your teeth from chattering. The closer you drew to the Prime, the more distinct his voice became - but you quickly realized that he was not speaking English. It could’ve only been Cybertronian. You’d heard snippets of it before, brief mutterings and stressed exclamations from the others. And you could only describe it as music.

The tones and harmonics of his voice seemed to rise and fall and mingle as he spoke, rolling and chittering and rumbling through syllables that held no meaning to you. It sounded like he even used his engine to add depth to the sounds, his voice cutting through the air with its deep bass. It seemed deeper, somehow - it sounded as though it were coming directly from his chassis and pouring out of his vocalizer.

It was the most beautiful thing you’d ever heard.

You were suddenly struck with the desire to learn it, but you reasoned that it would be practically impossible. Mechanical beings such as the Autobots were simply more capable of producing more sounds that humans could, in that they could use more of their already more flexible vocals than humans were able.

But the thing that struck you most about Optimus’ indecipherable words was how mournful he sounded. The subtle whistles and whirs and trills descending through the syllables were distinctly sad, and you finally stopped walking when you were a few yards behind him.

"Optimus...?"

He stopped abruptly. You watched as he stilled, his digits sinking into the sand beneath them slightly. He slowly turned, and you swallowed when his optics, dim but still brilliant in the dark, focused on you.

"Sorry," you blurted, shame flaring in your face as you dropped your eyes and clutched at your arms. "I - I couldn't find you earlier, so I just - I wanted to make sure you're okay, but I can - I can go now, if-"

He murmured your name, a gentle serenity against your fluster. It calmed you embarrassingly quickly. "...you are not disturbing me. I was...merely pondering aloud." He turned his servo over and made a gesture for you to come closer. "Please, sit."

You did as he bade you, shuffling forward and settling in the dirt a healthy distance away from him. His servo came to rest in the dirt once again, and you were enraptured by the subtle motions of him tracing circles in the fine, dry grains.

"...difficulty sleeping?"

You blinked, craning your neck back to look up at him. His expression was curious, and mildly sympathetic. "Hm? Oh, uh..." You brushed your hair back out of your face, inwardly grimacing at how oily it felt. "I...I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. Thought I'd find you. I...I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not," he responded. "I did tell you that you could seek me out should you ever need me, did I not?"

"Yeah," you said, biting back the urge to 'sir' him. He'd told you before not to worry about formality with him. "I just...I didn't want to irritate you if...y'know. I didn't want to overstay my welcome."

"You could do no such thing," he assured you, his tone almost frustratingly soothing in how it instantly relaxed you. "You are always welcome to confide in me."

You sighed softly, dipping your head in an attempt to hide your smile. "Thanks, Optimus. Really. That means a lot more to me than I can say."

"You are more than welcome." And God, when you looked back up and caught the subtle smile playing at the edges of his optics and mouth, you swore you felt all the blood in your body rush up into your face. "I am here for you, always. Even when it may seem as though I am occupied with other things."

You nodded, his gentle words relaxing you. You shifted closer to him minutely, wondering just how a small, insignificant being in a world full of people such as yourself could've ended up with the privilege to know Optimus and have his support and confidance.

And then you remembered his sorrowful tone from mere moments earlier.

"...You know, I...you can come to me, too," you said tentatively, trying to look at him steadily but failing when he tilted his helm slightly and God he looked absolutely ethereal in moonlight- "I mean, I know I'm not the best person out there for advice, and I probably wouldn't be much help in the long run, but...I like to think I'm a good listener." You bit the inside of your lip and reached out, pressing your palm against the flat planes of the digit nearest you. "I'm here for you, too."

He studied you for a long, silent, nearly suffocating moment, optics taking in your face and form, expression unreadable. Then he ex-vented, long enough that the warm air gushed over you and made you shiver. His demeanor softened and you relaxed with he gave you a warm, grateful look. "I appreciate the sentiment. Thank you."

"You're more than welcome," you echoed with a ghost of a smile, your insides fluttering as he returned it.

After a split moment, you tore your gaze from his and exhaled, taking in the landscape stretching out before you for miles. The moon cast a silver glow across the desert, making it look otherworldly with the long, inky black shadows and subtle traces of nocturnal life stirring. The stars were breathtaking so far out from town, speckling the sky like iridescent dots of paint glittering against the dark expanse of night. A breeze picked up from the east, making you shudder minutely. Optimus turned his servo up on its side, shielding you from its chilly grasp.

"So..." You nibbled your lip, trying to break the silence. "...what do you think of Smokescreen?"

Optimus seemed to stew on your question for a while before responding. "...He seems to have much potential. But...he is young and has much to learn. Earth poses a challenge to him, as well as learning to be discrete among humanity. He doesn't yet understand that there can be dire consequences to war. But..."

You quirked a brow. "But?"

"...But I find his outlook to be good for morale, though unfortunately it seems to be having a negative effect on the others. They consider him naive, and while it holds merit, he is more than that. He still has hope. He still has courage, though it has the tendency to be...misplaced." Optimus paused for a long moment, looking thoughtful. "It gives me faith that there is still a chance we can end the war."

You nodded, folding your hands together and twiddling your thumbs. You studied the gooseflesh on your arms, soaking in his words. You felt his gaze return to you.

“And what do you think of him?”

You directed your gaze to the sky, tilting your head in thought.

You liked Smokescreen, in all honesty. You liked him a lot. He was zealous and bright and energetic and had such a sunny outlook on the world, looking at Earth as something new and fun and adventurous. He’d already made several inquiries to both you and the kids about humans and your culture, listening intently to every answer and explanation. He seemed to absorb everything he heard from everyone, and he was always eager to learn and help the other Autobots with even trivial things. 

Honestly, it was...refreshing. He was fresh meat, you could say, but you hadn’t realized just how exciting getting to know an alien could be - not to say that the others weren’t, just that they’d already had a basic understanding of the high points of human culture when you’d met them (no thanks to Agent Fowler, in all likelihood). You hadn’t had to explain the process of eating or sleeping or going to school to them (excluding the Satan's Waterfall Incident), but Smokescreen was a whole other ballpark. You’d worried he would have a processor crash when he’d asked why ‘those tiny round organics’ were so different, and were they related to you humans? Having to explain a human’s life cycle had never been on your list of ‘Things To Expect When Making Alien Friends’, but Ratchet had mercifully been there to help translate it into something comprehensible to the greenhorn Cybertronian. Luckily he hadn’t gone into the production of said ‘tiny round organics’. You weren’t looking forward to giving a being several hundred years older than you The Talk.

“I think he’s going to fit in well,” you said finally, looking back up and meeting the Prime’s gaze. “We’ll just need to catch him up on Earth stuff first.”

“Jack has made a good effort thus far,” Optimus said, “but Smokescreen still has much to learn of Earth and its inhabitants." He raised an optical ridge. "I have noticed you've been educating him on some things.”

You flushed. "Yeah, I, uh...he always comes to me with questions, for some reason. I'm not really the best person to go to for stuff like that but I try my best."

"You seem to do fine," Optimus told you. "He has come to me, as well, but it seems that he struggles keeping himself composed when in my presence."

You laughed a bit at that, easily perceiving the puzzlement in his tone. "Optimus, he worships the ground you walk on. You're his hero. I can understand why he'd get so flustered around you."

He blinked, optics rounding minutely. He genuinely looked surprised.

"What, did you think people don't admire you?" you asked, a dubious half-smile twisting your lips. "You're inspiring, and honest, and gentle...all of us respect you. It's hard to be as good of a person as you are and we all look up to you because of that. It's hard not to like you."

His optics brightened significantly and he looked away, engine rumbling quietly. He was obviously at a loss for words.

Humble, too, you thought with a soft smile. And entirely too cute.

You gave him time to recollect himself, continuing to take in the quiet, peaceful air around you. It struck you as odd, sometimes, how different things could change between night and day. You were actually chilled, where you'd be sunburnt and struggling for breath had the sun been out instead of the moon. You'd be able to see distant cars on the highway, but instead you could see the faint glow of Jasper City's lights on the horizon. It wasn't enough light pollution to harm the starfield above you, thankfully, and you began to pick out the constellations you knew of that you could see.

Sirius...Ursa Major...Ursa Minor... Your eyes lit upon a familiar row of three stars, and you grinned to yourself. Orion.

"Did you know we have a constellation called Orion?" you asked, glancing up towards the Prime next to you.

"I have heard of it," he responded, seeming to have finally regained his bearings. "Though I have never taken the time to find it myself."

"There," you said, pointing and directing his gaze towards the general vicinity of the formation. "Those three stars in a row. His body is kind of shaped like an hourglass, and his arm's above his head holding a club. See it?"

"...I do." He tilted his helm, seeming to take it in. "It has to do with Grecian mythology, does it not?"

"Yeah," you affirmed enthusiastically. "His full name is Orion the Hunter, and I think the Greeks considered Sirius to be his dog. He battled a bunch of monsters, including Scorpio, but...I don't really know much else." You looked back up to him. "Did your old name just happen to translate to Orion or was it the closest equivalent you could find?"

Optimus' optics lit up slightly at the question. You wondered if he enjoyed discussing languages or if he just liked answering questions in general. "My original name in Cybertronian stood for ‘hunter of peace’, or so I’ve been told. Orion Pax was the most basic translation that could be made.”

You smiled at the knowledge and, recalling the rumble of his native tongue from minutes earlier, you hesitated. “Could you...what does it sound like? In Cybertronian?”

“I spoke Iaconian before the war began, seeing as it was where I was placed after I was forged. I learned Cybertronian Standard after the war began, which became the normal method of communication to prevent misunderstanding.” He shifted minutely, resetting his vocalizer, before letting out a low trill of syllables overlaying each other in a smooth, pleasing roll. "That is my name, in Iaconian, and in a self-identifying context."

Your brows rose with interest. "Does that mean you have different dialects? And different meanings for the same word?"

Optimus' expression warmed. "There were many dialects before the war, but the provinces had their own primary languages. Standard was used for trade and political interactions. And yes, some words or phrases change slightly depending on who is saying them. For example, my name would sound slightly different if Ratchet were to say it as opposed to one of the others because of how long I have known him as my oldest friend." His optical ridges pinched slightly, mouth pursing in thought. "It is...difficult to explain. But Cybertronian is incredibly complex compared to many Earth languages."

"Well, that's probably because you have a different vocal range than we do," you supposed. "I...I heard you, earlier - I wasn't trying to eavesdrop or anything, believe me - and it's not like I could understand anything you were saying anyway," you amended hurriedly. "But I noticed you were using your engine to make sounds, too."

Optimus dipped his helm, optics glowing in praise. "That is a very astute observation. We use it for filler noises of varying sorts."

Relieved that he didn’t seem to have taken offense to your (half) accidental overhearing, you sagged with a soft sigh. You found it in yourself to smile up at him dorkily. “That’s so cool. There’s so much about your culture that I don’t know, and...” You chuckled softly, shaking your head. “It’s kind of overwhelming to think about. I mean, Earth has over seven thousand languages, not to account for all the people and cultures that speak them. Every country has their own dos and don’ts and there’s just so much for just one person to handle. We’re lucky if we can learn more than one or two languages.” You looked out towards the stars again, wondering if you could see Cybertron from so far away. “And then, to think about your planet, too, on top of that…”

He hummed softly. “...Part of what I enjoyed most about being an archivist,” Optimus rumbled, “was that I never stopped learning. There was always new information, or old data waiting to be discovered in the Hall. I was often teased by my coworkers for leaving late and coming early so I would have time to myself among the tomes and files.” You glanced up at him and saw that he, too, was gazing at the starfield stretched out above the both of you. “I...was devastated when Iacon fell, and further still when the Hall did. It felt as though the last vestiges of home - the last semblance of assurance and safety - were taken from me.” He was silent for a moment. “But coming to Earth has helped, in a way. There is still much to learn, and I’ve enjoyed reading what I can about your planet. It...fascinates me, how vastly different everything here is to Cybertron,” he admitted, his optics flashing faintly. “I enjoy being here, despite...despite our circumstances.”

What a nerd, you thought, stifling the creeping sense of sadness low in your belly. At least he didn’t hate his arguable prisonhouse. (You couldn’t say the same for the others, though - particularly Ratchet.)

“I know it’s unlikely that it’ll ever happen again,” you began slowly, tentatively. His optical ridges quirked in curiosity. “But I’d love to see Cybertron if I ever got the chance. You always make it sound so beautiful.”

Optimus, while he looked somewhat pleased with your confession, deflated visibly. “There isn’t much to see, I’m afraid,” he responded quietly. “According to Arcee, time has rendered it in a worse condition than we left it.”

“Still,” you were quick to rebut firmly, “it’s your home. Even if I could just see a snippet of it for myself, it’d be worth it.”

Optimus regarded you a long moment, optics shuttering in thought. Then, his mouth lifted the slightest of margins. “Should that ever happen, unum parvum, I will be the first to show you.”

Something in the way he rolled the ‘r’ in the distinctly foreign word gave you the impression it was Latin or of Latin descent, but you wouldn’t doubt it if it was some sort of Cybertronian word, either. And even though you didn’t remark upon it, for some reason it still flustered you. So, out of your head as you were, the first words that came to mind were the ones that left your lips (unfortunately). “It’s a date, then.”

As soon as you said it, you felt the bottom of your stomach drop out and your face was engulfed in invisible flame. Much to your shock (and relief), however, Optimus merely chuckled - actually chuckled, which - while you were delighted to hear it coming from him for once - didn’t help the butterflies in your stomach at all, dammit-

“...will be sure to keep it in mind, should Alpha Trion’s message hold merit,” he said.

You recalled the events that had happened not too long prior, how the Star Sabre had begun to glow an ethereal blue and, with it, Optimus’ optics. He hadn’t elaborated on it any further than what he’d already shared - the Omega Keys and the possibility of being able to restore Cybertron (at least, not with you or the kids).

Despite your tendency to let the Autobots’ private, important matters lie, you had to admit that you were extremely curious. It could mean the war as you and they knew it.

“What did he say?” you inquired.

Optimus’ mouth pursed and he seemed to consider his words, his digits twitching beside you minutely. “He gave me the information necessary for the acquisition and use of the Omega Keys, but shared little else.”

You narrowed your eyes. Something in the way his optics shifted when he spoke didn’t sit right with you, but you had no right to demand answers from him. You trusted him, and you wanted him to trust you, too - and that included knowing when to keep your mouth shut and your suspicions to yourself.

His shoulders dropped, though, cutting off any words you could’ve said. “It...troubles me,” he admitted, ex-venting heavily. “It seems there has been such little time since my...lapse in memory, and yet so many things have happened since. Time seems to be slipping from my grasp, and…” His digits twitched, as though on reflex. “...there’s little I can do to retrieve it. I have tried accessing the memory banks stored within the Matrix, but it seems that restoring my full memory until I forced Unicron back into stasis overwrote what I experienced on the Nemesis.” His expression pinched. “I would have been able to access the relics much sooner had I been able to remember.”

“Optimus…” You blinked, taken more than a little off-guard at how readily he’d cracked his armor open, even if it was only just a sliver enough to see into his inner thoughts. You just hoped you could offer something worth his time. “...I think in some ways it was for the best.”

That seemed to catch his attention, as his optics refocused on you almost instantly.

“I mean,” you started, your face warming, “I would rather you have a tiny gap in your memory over you not remembering anything at all. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if Jack hadn’t been able to access Vector Sigma in time? Or missed the opportunity to restore your old memory?” You rubbed at your arms, not wanting to dwell on the possibilities of what could have been. “Even if we had managed to have gotten you back without using the Key, I don’t know that things would’ve turned out the same.”

“Most definitely not,” he agreed.

“But…” You dipped your head, studying the sand beneath you. “Everything happens for a reason. We were still able to accomplish what we have since we got you back, and I feel like you’re still as strong as ever, even if you are missing a few memories.” You risked a glance up at him. “And, for what it’s worth...I’m just happy you’re okay, and there wasn’t any severe damage from expending that much energy. It could’ve turned out so much worse, and I think we were blessed to scrape by with such little trouble.”

“I didn’t have the impression that the time I was absent constituted as mere trouble,” he rumbled. His optical ridges were furrowed in worry. “You were all in danger, severely so, and I wasn’t there to…”

“Optimus,” you pressed gently. He fell silent, watching you attentively. You swallowed. “What’s done is done; what’s gone is past. You can’t dwell on what’s happened because even you can’t stop and alter time. As cool as you are.” You squeezed his digit in hopes of it being a comforting gesture. “Just focus on all the good things that have happened since then. We got a new Autobot, and we managed to get ahold of some of the relics. You got your memory back, and you’re home with us and not with the Decepticons.” You tilted your head slightly. “I think we’re blessed, despite the circumstances. I feel blessed.”

Optimus studied you for a long, long moment, optics shuttering and flickering as he thought intensively. After a while, he lifted his helm back up and studied the horizon once again, and you felt that that particular branch of the conversation was now closed. The air shifted, and you shifted closer to his leg in hopes of getting a little warmer.

Silence followed, peaceful and still. You studied the stars, picking out constellations you weren’t normally able to see due to sheer light pollution, even finding your zodiac sign among the glittering expanse at one point. But even though you’d seen his tight expression ease somewhat after you’d finished talking, Optimus still seemed...off. Absent, maybe. Distant. His optics were dull, unfocused, and dimmed. His demeanor was not his usual careful neutrality. Instead, he just seemed...empty. And it worried you.

“Are you okay?” you asked softly, sincerely. He blinked, optics brightening somewhat as he turned his helm to gaze down at you. “You still seem…” You pondered on the right word, nibbling the inside of your cheek before settling on the simplest word that came to mind. “...troubled.”

Optimus remained silent, gaze unwavering. He only returned his optics to the horizon before you both, still oddly emotionless. You began to worry for him in earnest, apprehension bubbling low in your stomach, before his digits clenched minutely on the sandy earth beneath you. In a voice softer than you had ever heard from him, he murmured, “In all the centuries that this war has stretched its hand into, this day remains to be one of the worst that I have known.”

You blinked in surprise, not having expected anything quite like that. You didn’t know what to say, wondering if it had to do with the events in the past week - Smokescreen arriving, the Star Sabre. Maybe it had to do something with Alpha Trion’s message? You’d never heard such plaintive despondency in his normally soothing rumble. It caused sadness to reverberate through your body in an instinctive, sympathetic response.

Optimus, fortunately, did not discontinue his train of thought in lieu of your lack of a reply. “There have been immeasurable losses on both sides,” he continued, softer still. His optics were distant again, unseeing. “So many lost to the tides of bloodshed and hatred - enemies and friends alike. Family.” His helm dipped minutely, the light in his optics fading until you could scarcely make out their glow in the dark. “Inamorata.”

Never before had you heard that particular word, nor were you certain it was even English, but something in the way he said it - the enunciation, the tone, how it left his glossa and lip plating - struck you as deeply intimate and plainly implicative of its only possible meaning.

You lowered your eyes to the hem of your shirt, plucking at the cloth and thread stitching. “I didn’t know you...I didn’t…” You bit your lip. “I...I’m so, so sorry, Optimus.”

He fell silent for a long time, and you were too saddened to risk seeing his expression. You could feel it in your gut - saying the wrong thing, or doing the most minor action could tip this over the edge and result in more hurt than good. Better to let him address it than risk you bungling it up with your...self.

“Your sentiment is greatly appreciated,” he said finally, genuine and quiet. “More than you know.”

You finally plucked up the courage to look at him, and found that his optics had regained some of their normal light. His face was drawn, though. Restrained. As though grasping at his self-control more than he usually did.

You suddenly felt very, very small in comparison to the massive servo resting on the ground between you and his seated form, the long, flat digits dragging shallow but broad furrows into the dirt.

“What was she like?” you asked finally, not knowing what else to say. You almost regretted speaking as soon as the words had left your mouth at the resulting ex-vent that left his frame and washed over your body. You shuddered at the warmth of it, your flesh prickling at the sharp contrast against the cool night air.

You almost didn’t expect him to answer your half-hearted attempt to divert the conversation away from the obviously traumatizing event he’d probably been dwelling on, but he tilted his helm back and focused his gaze on the stars twinkling silently above the both of you.

“She was...everything.” He paused a long moment, seeming to gather his thoughts. “She was brilliant, and bright, and always had an anecdote to offer. She always seemed to smile, no matter the situation.” His optics dimmed suddenly, optical ridges lowering minutely. “I found that she was also a fierce and dedicated warrior when needed.”

You clasped your hands loosely around your arms to fight against the chill of the night seeping into your flesh, studying his demeanor and movements. You’d never thought that Optimus would’ve had someone, even before the war, but now that thought just made you feel ridiculous. Of course Optimus’d had someone - who wouldn’t have wanted him?

“How did you meet?” you asked, trying to fight against the sudden tightness in your throat. “Was it still when you were an archivist?”

You didn’t expect him to respond as quickly and as easily as he did. “Yes. Though it was through rather...unsavory means,” he said slowly. His optics perked back up, however, and you could see the faintest suggestion of a smile softening the lines that had appeared from his frown. “She was a scientist, a naturalist, and a part of a group that was attempting to defend the natural flora and fauna of Cybertron, long before the war when the Council was attempting to expand the cities and populated areas to accommodate for newbuilds. They were protesting outside the Hall, and I was sent by my peers to settle them down and attempt to dissuade them from loitering. They claimed I was the most capable mediator and peacemaker, but I suspect that they simply didn’t wish to deal with the issue themselves.”

“Coworkers,” you remarked.

“Indeed,” he agreed lightly. “When I emerged from the Hall, they were already agitated by a few enforcers trying to get them to leave. I attempted to calm both sides, but someone threw a rather sizeable waste bin at one of the enforcers and struck me accidentally. I woke in the hospital where Ratchet worked, and there was a rather irate femme arguing with him.” Optimus nearly smiled, nearly revealed his denta, and his optics were borderline sparkling. “That was my Ariel.”

Never before had you seen Optimus with such an open expression. No longer was he hiding his inward self under layers and layers of armor and formality and restraint; there weren’t any subtle cracks in his demeanor to hint at what was going on in that helm of his. He feelings were laid bare, open and plain as day to see, and it was something you were struggling to comprehend. And it was nothing like you’d ever been able to draw from him.

“She apologized, once she realized I had come back online,” he continued, seeming not to notice your shell-shocked stare. “Ratchet began to lecture her, but I dissuaded him. It didn’t seem that it had been intentional, though I did admonish her for attempting to harm an enforcer. She claimed she’d simply been attempting to get them to leave.” He tilted his helm back, gazing upwards. “After that, she would visit the Hall occasionally. We discussed our respective fields of study, and she was dedicated to her cause unlike any naturalist I had met. She was fiercely intelligent, witty, and wouldn’t hesitate to let one know exactly what was on her mind.” His digits gripped the ground slightly, as though looking for purchase. “She was the most beautiful femme I’d ever met in my life.”

You pursed your lips, wringing your hands before settling them on your lap in tight fists. “Sounds like she was good for you.”

“It took a long time to build a friendship,” he murmured. “We were similar in some ways, strikingly different in others. But some things are best built gradually.” He looked down to you, catching your eyes. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

You hesitated, biting the inside of your lip fiercely. You tried to quash the low simmer of emotion in your belly, doing your best to offer him a smile. “I do.”

Optimus’ expression shifted minutely, softening, and he released the ground before curling his digits around you carefully. The warmth seeped from his servo into your chilled flesh and you leaned against the firm metal gratefully. Your face warmed with a mixture of shame and puzzlement. There was a knot low in your belly, but you couldn’t determine the cause.

“It sounds like she made you really happy,” you murmured, half to yourself. Optimus hummed quietly.

“We became conjunx endurae shortly before the war began,” he rumbled, a mite more somber. “Sparkmates, I believe is the term you’re more familiar with. A more intimate equivalent to a spouse.” His thumb pressed into the flat of your back, nearly engulfing you, and he began to rub small circles between your shoulder blades that seem half-minded. “She took on the name Elita One when I became Prime. I...I lost her the same day we fled Cybertron. She didn’t make it to the spacecraft in time. She was defending a medical envoy attempting to flee off-world.” When you looked up in concern at the drop in his voice, you saw him grimace and press his other servo to his windshield plating, the faint echoes of pain plainly written on his face. “I felt it, before the reports ever came in. The feeling of my spark being severed from hers, shrinking and dying...it was the worst thing I have ever experienced. Worse than...worse than anything, in all of the war.”

That was something that had never occurred to you before, as obvious as it was. Ratchet had explained the concept of sparkmates to you briefly at your curiosity, and you’d been enraptured by the idea that two mechanical beings with such a unique core as a spark would combine them and, essentially, give pieces of themselves to each other. Over time, the sparks would gradually grow into each other until, potentially, they would be nigh indistinguishable from each the other. But you’d never thought about what would happen if one passed before the other. Ratchet had stated that if sparkmates had been bonded for a long enough time and one of them passed prematurely, it could endanger the surviving spark and potentially drag it down with it.

But here Optimus sat, and that in itself was an assurance that he’d come out of it mostly all right. Physically, at least. The emotion was palpable in his voice, the air felt unbearably heavy around you. His optics had dimmed and his servo was still pressed tightly to his chassis. You wondered if it felt like ghost pains - like when someone lost a limb and their brain still tried convincing them it was there.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, because you honestly didn’t know what else to say. You’d never experienced anything quite like that, couldn’t offer any advice or true sympathies - this was one thing that you couldn’t help him with, but...a part of you was grateful (and more than a little humbled) that he’d still decided that he trusted you enough to share his pain, no matter how old and scarred over, with you of all people.

Optimus seemed to withdraw from his inner thoughts, optics shuttering as they refocused on you. He dropped his other servo to rest on his thigh, the flat of his thumb dropping to the small of your back.

“It was a long, long time ago,” he responded finally, voice more even than it had been. Still, you didn’t miss the lingering, subdued inflection. “It has become...bearable. But…” The corners of his mouth upturned, just so, and you felt an odd, warm prickle - something like static - brush against the back of your neck. It made you shiver. “...being here helps more than one might would think. And...you…” He paused, thoughtful. He dipped his helm. “...you have shown me that it would do no harm to take time to myself, to reflect and decompress, and...I owe you deeply for that. I had forgotten how.” His optics glowed with the smile he would not outwardly show. “You’ve reminded me how to meditate on the past without dwelling on it, when I thought I had lost all meaning of it. Thank you.”

Your face felt as though it were on fire. You floundered for words, mouth dropping open and closing several times before you settled on clenching your teeth together and clutching your shirt for dear life. “I…” You swallowed. “...you’re welcome,” you managed feebly.

Optimus’ engine rumbled, the sound comforting in and of itself, and he returned his gaze to the stars again. You let out a soft exhale, shifting to slump against the solid curve of his thigh. He adjusted his servo accordingly, draping it lightly over your frame to protect you from the chill. You closed your eyes, resting your cheek against the cold metal.

Something occurred to you, silly in that you hadn’t thought of it sooner.

“...You were talking to her, weren’t you?” you murmured.

Optimus was quiet for a while, but you weren’t particularly looking for a verbal answer - his silence was answer enough.

You heard him ex-vent, felt the air shift slightly. His digits tightened over your form minutely. “...I still feel I carry a part of her with me, despite her undoubtedly being one with the Allspark,” he explained softly. “It...helps. Death is a distance unlike any other. Today’s date is...it is when I lost her. When we left Cybertron.”

Nibbling the inside of your lip, you peeked up at him. “You must miss her a lot.”

“I do. But I have accepted it. Perhaps one day I will see her again.” He dropped his helm, gazing down into the desert below the mesa. “I...do not possess supernatural beliefs, despite my ties with Primus. But she made a promise to stay with me, once, before the war began, should she ever be parted from me prematurely.” He let out a quick ex-vent that could’ve been a half of a chuckle. “There have been myths of lingering sparks, that those departed would resist the pull of the Allspark and continue to watch over those they care for, though they are believed to be just that. Rumors of seeing shadows of frames out of the corner of one’s optic, or flashes of light that some believed to be sparks have even been recorded in ancient texts - but science as we know it has proved it to be impossible. Still, I…”

He trailed off, if not a little uncertain, and your expression softened. You tried offering him a wry smile. “That sounds like will-o-the-wisps,” you remarked.

Optimus raised a curious optical ridge.

“It’s an old English myth,” You explained. “A lot of people believed that they were spirits of the dead lingering around to guide people - whether it was to good or bad places depended on different interpretations. But they’re actually just little sparks of discharge in the air.” You shrugged, contemplative. “It’s interesting that we have a similar concept of it.”

The Prime hummed in agreement. “Yet another instance where our culture seems to have passed itself off to yours through time.” He paused. “...Sometimes I feel as though she has been with me. Moments on the cusp of recharge, or overwhelmed in a battlefield. I refuse to believe that she is truly gone.”

“That comes with having faith, I guess,” you murmured, chewing your lip. “Optimus?”

“Yes?”

“You know it’s…” You pressed a hand to his palm, wondering if you should say it. You decided that being plain wouldn’t hurt, just this once. “...it’s okay to grieve, Optimus. No one would be able to hold it against you to mourn for your wife.”

Optimus stared, mouth opened slightly. He went to speak, hesitated, stopped. Then ex-vented shakily. “Perhaps in a different context. But...I am a Prime, the leader of the...I cannot…” He shook his helm, mouth thinning. “I cannot afford to leave those under my command at risk because of personal distractions.”

You blinked, brows rising. “Elita wasn’t a distraction - she was part of you, Optimus,” you told him, as though he needed to be reminded. “She was ripped away from you and they expected you to go on like nothing happened?”

He dropped his helm, tilting it away from you. His optics closed, tightly. “Others who had been bonded far longer than I lost their sparkmates,” he said softly.

“That doesn’t matter,” you persisted, sitting up on your knees and propping yourself on his leg. “You lost the love of your life, and you had to bottle it up, just...just because you were ‘obligated’ to a war you didn’t start. That’s bullshit.”

The armor along his shoulders drooped, tightening against his frame as he cracked his optics open enough to peek down at you. Your heart clenched when you realized he looked confused.

You fumbled for words, opening and closing your mouth fruitlessly. The silence was tense, heavy, and you felt as though you could cut it with a knife.

Finally, you gave him as gentle a look as you could possibly make. And, softly, you said, “You deserve to be taken care of, too, Optimus.”

He looked stricken, wordless as his gaze shifted back towards the desert beyond the mesa. The corners of his optics tensed, his mouth twitching downward. He looked so, so sad, and...it hurt every part of you.

A brief silence. Then Optimus rumbled your name. “...may I ask you a question?”

“Yeah,” you answered softly, closing your eyes and dropping your head.

“How do you do it?”

You frowned. “...Do what?”

“Present yourself with such sincerity. Openness.” The flats of his digits pressed into your front faintly. “You make it seem easy.”

You blushed, turned your head downward. You smoothed your hand over his palm. “I know that if I expect vulnerability from people, I should show myself vulnerable. The same applies to friendliness. Making meaningful connections with people means making compromises, even at the expense of comfort and privacy sometimes.”

Optimus hummed quietly, sounding pensive. You heard his vents hitch briefly, before air gushed from his sides. Your name was low on his lips. “...Would you...assist me in being more vulnerable?”

Your eyes shot open and you lifted your head to stare at him. He met your gaze, optics dim and expression tentative. Then a slow, soft smile wormed its way onto your face.

“You already are,” you told him gently.

He blinked slowly, optical ridges rising faintly, before his mouth lifted just so. “...In that case, I...I owe you thanks.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” you responded, shaking your head.

“You had everything to do with it.” His thumb pressed into your back, a pleasant pressure that cemented his looming presence. “You have shown yourself vulnerable, and...in doing so, reminded me how to be.”

You opened your mouth. You closed it. Opened it again, voice weak. “You can’t use my words against me, Optimus - that’s not fair.”

He chuckled. Honest-to-God chuckled. You felt your heart swell.

“Perhaps,” he responded finally. “Or perhaps I appreciate your thoughts more than you realize.”

You tried offering him a noncommittal shrug, face burning. “Yeah, well, give me credit in your book of memoirs when all this blows over.”

Another chuckle, a little louder and a little longer. “I will certainly remember to do so.”

He paused when you yawned softly, trying to conceal the gaping maw of your mouth by clamping a hand over it. When you glanced up at him, mildly embarrassed, his expression was warm with what you’d dare to say as fondness.

“...You remind me of her, at times,” he told you softly.

You heart jumpstarted. “I...I do…?”

He dipped his helm minutely. “You share similar mannerisms, and you seem to have her innate ability to analyze information and offer the best advice. You have her fire, on occasion, as well,” he chuckled. “But at your core, you have a gentle soul, as she did. It comforts me to see that trait remain in people despite everything I’ve endured. Despite everything that has happened to you.” He paused, regarding your dumbfounded expression, then seemed to become a mite sheepish. “But that isn’t to say you aren’t unique to yourself. You are quite unlike any human I have had the privilege to interact with on a personal level.”

“...’Quite unlike’ good or ‘quite unlike’ bad?” you asked, quirking a brow and trying to smile wryly.

He lifted an optical ridge as well, the corner of his mouth turning upward minutely. “I believe you needn’t my say in it - you are aware of what lies within you better than I.”

You tried rubbing the flush out of your cheeks. “Thanks, Optimus.”

He hummed quietly, stroking a slow circle into the flat of your back. Then he turned his servo over in the sand when you yawned again. “I believe it is time for you to rest,” he told you gently.

“Try to, anyway,” you mumbled, but you crawled into his palm anyway. He curled his fingers around you and you grasped his thumb for support as he cradled you close to his chassis and slowly, carefully righted himself to his feet. Your stomach flip flopped for an entirely different reason then, peering between his flat digits towards the ground that was suddenly very, very far down. Despite this, however, and despite the instinctual fear thrumming beneath your flesh, you knew you were safe. Optimus had never and would never drop you.

But instead of heading for the elevator like you’d expected, he instead stepped closer to the edge of the mesa. You gulped when he lifted his servo and tilted it so you slid slowly against the massive column of his neck. You grappled onto a plate that descended towards his windshields, blinking up at him with your heart rising in your throat. Optimus crouched, turned, and lowered a pede towards one of the small shelves of rock beneath him.

“Optimus?” you pressed, voice hitching into a higher octave as the desert stretched out below you both. “What - what are you doing?”

Optimus hummed, frustratingly soothing. “The elevator is too loud for use at night.”

“So you climb a cliff?” you squeaked, his frame dropping with a slow but inevitable descent and leaving your heart in the roof of your mouth.

“It is something I’ve always enjoyed,” he shared calmly. There was a feline-like quality to his movements, well practiced and assured. Still, it was obvious he was being more cautious - probably on account of you. “I must admit that I climbed many a building I shouldn’t have in my youth.”

“You? Breaking the law?” you said, relaxed just enough to focus on him instead of the ground below you. “Scandalous. What would the others think?”

“I fractured my frame once,” he remarked absently, shaking his helm. “I went to Ratchet for help.” He paused, looked down past you, and his optical ridges furrowed as he considered the available footholds. He steered to the left instead, then took another step downward. “I did not make that mistake again.”

You laughed. “What, falling or going to Ratchet?”

The corners of his mouth lifted, but he did not specify. You laughed again, trying to smother it with your hand. His chassis thrummed and, slowly, he continued to descend the mesa’s side. You peered over his shoulders towards the stars to distract yourself, curling into him as best you could. You both lapsed into a comfortable silence, his optical ridges drawing together in concentration as his optics shuttered and contracting as he focused on his every movement.

It didn’t seem long before he paused, reached up to drape a servo over you protectively, and pushed himself off and away from the mesa. You squeaked as he fell, your stomach jumping into your throat - he landed with a jarring crash, though he allowed his knees to buckle to absorb the impact. You felt woozy, but climbed up onto his shoulder proper as he walked in through the hidden entrance and crept down the corridor with astounding near-silence. You smothered a yawn as he emerged into the hanger, staying close to the edge of the room and lifting a servo for you to climb onto. He lowered you to the ground, and you stumbled on weakened legs before righting yourself. You smiled up at him, hoping you had helped him in some way, to some degree.

The warm glow in his optics and the faint smile on his faceplate told you that you’d succeeded.

You patted his pede quietly. “Goodnight, Optimus. Sleep well.”

“And you as well.”

He stood there as you lingered, hesitating, as you padded across the hanger and returning to your cot. Smokescreen had flipped over at some point, somehow not managing to crush his doorwings in the process, Jack’s mouth was wide open as he drooled, Raf was curled into an unidentifiable ball underneath his blankets, and Miko had lost hers completely, sprawled out like a corpse at a crime scene.

You chuckled to yourself, settling back down and slipping under the blankets with a soft sigh. They were pleasantly cool against your skin, and the cot felt softer than it had before. Maybe it was because you were more tired.

As you pulled the covers over your chest and adjusted your pillow, you cast a look towards the three story metal sentinel in the corner, his optics beacons of light like those fabled wisps of old, silent and waiting. On a whim, you gave him a little wave, offering a shaky smile. You saw the slightest hint of denta before he lifted his servo and returned the gesture before stealing his way into the hall and out of sight like a shadow.

You were glad, because if he’d stayed much longer he would’ve seen how you slowly buried your face into your pillow and wept quietly for him, for everything that had happened to him, for what he’d had to endure for so long without being able to reach out. For the spark-deep weariness that seemed incurable. For the war.

For Elita.

And because part of him would always belong to her.

[notahungryjoke]

Welcome to my hyperfixation over the new Hungarian NT movie that just dropped about the journey to the Euros 2024:

- can't press skip skip skip enough on the Szalai Ádi scenes ( i have a nasty agenda towards him and i can't be swayed on that)

- Domi saying "this is the national team, not Szoboszlai's team" SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK 🗣️

- Ádám Martin is such a simple soul, God bless him. "paraszt gyerek" (~country boy~) self-aware king! 👑🍗🇭🇺

- Mr. Rossi speaking Italian is pure filth. He has such a soothing voice and Italian is beautiful anyways, I could listen to him for hours and I don't even understand a word. 🤌🏼🇮🇹

- Varga Barnabás is extremely "szegény legény" coded [the likeable protagonist in folk-tale, who you are supposed to be rooting for] "ott próbáltám szerencsét" having to try his luck in Austria, give him his Struggle'of Dor!!

- Give Mr. Rossi a life contract, idc!! Also, not Domi exposing him for being stressed and self-conscious in the beginning, what a snitch 😭

- I wonder who approved of these shots, because it feels like I'm watching Eastern-European gay porn. ( Szijjártó and Dzsudzsák probably)

- Sorry Captain Domi, I'm sure you are a great motivational speaker, but I can't listen to this without having second-hand embarrassment😭

- Szalai Attila after his own goal against Serbia in September: "Only I can score against Dini." 😭😭 at least he was being funny about that (it's ok, we ended up winning that one, too!)

- Sigh, I wish I could give you context to this, but there's none. No amount of gaslighting from geography professors will convince me that we are not actually a Balkan country.

- Daddy Dibusz

- Botka saying "minus 10 years from my after this match" after that horrendous last-minute draw against Bulgaria that earned us the qualification. BROTHER, I DON'T WANT TO POINT FINGERS, BUT THAT'S BECAUSE OF YOU. if you dive, at least make it good

- He's just a boy who captained his country to the Euros, don't talk to me and stop cutting onions 🥹🫶🏼

- Dibusz saying "wow, finally, a calm and relaxed match" after that shitstorm against Bulgaria away, with the last minute equaliser, then rolling his eyes .. FATHER SAVE ME, I'M SO MOVED BY SASSY DINI

- This picture feels like I'm looking at the future and I love it!

- The team facetiming the injured Sallai Roli and Séfi after the qualification will never not move me. Family ❤️

- Hungary going into the Euros 2024:

If you are here, thank you for reading this and if you are still interested in this shit team, here's the link. Much love to mighty magyars 🇭🇺🦅

[misdre]

what a disastrous eurovision year, obviously there's the shitstorm outside(literally and figuratively) the contest because of israel but there's a shitstorm INSIDE as well, with the italian channel leaking semifinal televote results that showed 40% of all votes going to israel (which if true as a general sentiment, obviously would reflect that no other country stands a chance whatsoever), and multiple videos of the israeli delegation going around the premises harassing any contestant that's shown pro-palestine sentiments, and (probably unrelatedly) one of the forerunners taken out of the contest yesterday for "investigation" about something they refuse to communicate about whatsoever and the final is supposed to be tonight with him in it,

so the sentiment even with people who do watch is

[ilprinciperosso]

So, if you don’t live in Italy you probably have ever been exposed to the old conservative part of it… which, disgracefully exist in journalism too.

Using Charles’ losses in his life, comparing his loneliness to Carlos, that instead has his father figure next to him, to highlight how he must be broken is peak trash journalism. It’s using someone’s pain to get likes. (Terruzzi I’m looking at you).

Charles’ accident (that was deemed a racing accident by everyone) must be a sign of weakness, of crumbling under pressure of unbearable suffering… it’s just a fucking racing incident! Stop psychoanalysing him

Carlos’ accident (that he was penalised for… the penalty was harsh because of the circumstances that it happened in, but it was fair. He made a mistake and took another driver out) is because he was fighting for a podium, his radio message is an admirable show of human emotion and his petty reaction when interviewed (is the same excuse I use when I want to get out of doing something "I’m not gonna talk cause I wouldn’t be polite") is a show of strong character.

I guess the journalists that are now criticising Charles haven’t been watching f1 for long and neither have they watched the last 3 races. In Bahrain he was doing an exceptional job and he had a dnf (not his fault). In Jeddah he was amazing in quali, but then had limited pace during the race (we’ll never know what he could have done starting 2nd). In Australia he had a shit quali (I’ve already talked about it, but basically Ferrari was Ferraring again) and he got caught in a racing incident on the first lap (could he have been more patient? Sure. Was it a driving mistake? Nope. Was he fucking unlucky? Yep, as usual)

I don’t know why we are going through a journalistic shitstorm again (the same way it happened with all the previous drivers in Ferrari), when the only focus should be on the car. Drivers will make mistakes, they’re human, but they’ll for sure perform better if they don’t have to fight against a mediocre excuse of a car.

I don’t know what’s in the "driver macho figure" that is so loved by Italian journalists… I don’t get why a driver needs to be rude or get angry to be respected… I don’t know why having your father as your manager should be seen as a merit, especially when the same father has been known to try and meddle with the dynamics within the team…

I’m gonna stick with the driver I support… who is always kind and polite, who will blame himself first instead of finding hundreds of different excuses, who (for the ones forgetting about it) has stuck with Ferrari in some of the worst years (performance wise) and has always been amazing. Please, use your brain before saying Charles is washed up a Carlos is our only hope. Right now in Ferrari we don’t need any kind of political shitstorm, we don’t even need a first driver! We need people to work on the car and to let drivers drive.

[sonicjustbecause]

I don't trust 'Taliban' purists.

Why? let me explain where this comes from.

I'm not some anti Japan, as I, for a start, is about 20 years, maybe a little less, that I watch Anime almost exclusively in Japanese. No censorship hassle, also with the original language it creates a sort of ambience that gets missed even with the most loyal translation. Of course the subtitles are in English, I don't speak Japanese. I like however to try to pick the few words I know.

I'm surprised when Japaneses insert magic formulas in Italian or in Latin (the one spoken by Romans)

'QVIA CIVIS ROMANVS' The one who wrote Termae Romae is a Japanese who can speak both Italian and Latin. Posted a manga page because the anime is a bit sour - technically speaking.

After I watched a full Japanese anime I like to see it in Italian too, but I don't get surprised too much as I already saw it. It depensd if I like the VA or not, if is translated from Japanese or from English (Usually anime are translated from Japanese here. They're around since 1960)

My mistrust on 'Taliban' (not referred to Al Qaeda) purists of Sonic comes directly by my experience with them (or with some of them) and after having seen more Sonic Japanese cut scenes.

Liking Japanese Sonic more - or even way more, is perfectly fine. There are a lot of people who like Japanese Sonic around who are great people and always do lovable stuffs I'm looking forward.

The side of Japanese Sonic your average 'Taliban' purist doesn't want you to see.

But there are also nasty ones - the self proclaimed experts who kill joy and decide who is a 'true Sonic fan' and who is a fraud. They also have this 'little' bad habit to make comparision by decontextualizing the Japanese line and share only part of it to make us believe that Japanese lines and English lines are radically different, when more often than not this is not the case. Is clear by their words they don't enjoy sonic at all, they're policing each game, each poligon and each pixel to see if something is off or tainted by 'evil' Ian Flynn. I have been fooled TWICE and the more I happen to look at Japanese material, the more I trust them less and less.

Sonic Adventure 2. Saw some lenghty parts in Japanese, with the full lines (and not only those Taliban purists want you to see). And with the full context, the so often forgotten elements. Worded differently maybe, the lines were really nice, clear and simple, but the ending result was the same I always knew.

When some more balanced fan analize the Japanese script, including the context they always remove and call them out... they leave and remove all internet footprints.

The most hilarious moment is when they fume because Iizuka himself contraddicts what they always said/believed (Not a fan of Iizuka, really, on the contrary. I always complain about him, even if I don't write anything because many people already expressed what I think. But those moments pay :D, especially when the very same people who wrote love letters to Iizuka the moment he contraddicts their beliefs shitstorm him, like little temperamental children, exposing theirselves).

This is what you get if you don't learn to just relax and enjoy your content, whenever is Japanese or English.

[victusinveritas]

Uhhhhhhhh why did you like a post about how all "foreigners" are scum and waste? Tumblr put it on my dash bc you liked it. Xenophobe fascistic shit. Wtf, what gives?

This post here? Honestly, to keep track of it, which feels like a Pete Townsend level of crap excuse, but is the truth. I was hoping the comments would turn into a delightful shitstorm of folks just tearing into this sort of ethnonationalist vomitus--I have a life offline [that's a lie, I do not--nobody does. I had to clean the house top to bottom because my partner was coming home from an unexpected trip--to my credit I got everything except the things that I forgot] and do not have time to tell every fascist, transphobe, xenophobe, homophobe, evangelical, tradcath-integralist, serious monarchist (if you ever want to go down a rabbit hole check out this: https://x.com/CursedKoA --it's the rightwing equivalent of the weird spate of teens obsessed with North Korea as the best place in the world [clearly Albania]) etc on reddit and tumblr to fuck off as much as I would like to, but it is entertaining to watch other folks do so. However...it seems this particular post mostly caught up in a small and noxious echo chamber. There is, so far, one refutation and it is not as eloquent as I was hoping for, just the "wow Fritz is being r*******ed on main, yikes" variety--which, while an understandable reaction to any of the Alternativ fur Deutschland crowd, isn't as good as, say, that wonderful Italian Communist MP who took the fight to the streets and ended up in parliament because folks wanted to exploit a handy law preventing members of parliament from being tried/extradited or something, anyhoo...

[someone-you-do-not-know]

hehehe (I apologize in advance for asking too many questions when you're so busy) 4, 18, 19, 27.

Well, right now I'm trying to avoid doing the dishes, sooooooo. I can definitely answer questions.

4. How many WIPs do you have right now? Don't call me out like this! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 Staaaaaaars! There's A Job Interview, which is the main one. Then there's three... Four...? On the back burner. Then there's four oneshots I switch between... And... The one I just opened a document for earlier today...

18. What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written? I actually don't really like most of my titles. I kinda like the titles for Birdbrains, but I'm sure they're not exactly good to make people read them. I have a WIP on the back burner where I actually really like the title though. It's going to be called "Breaking through the rime frost".

19. Give us a small teaser from one of your WIPs. As we have seen, I have too many of those, so I made you pick one.

It had been a very boring, uneventful meeting, and when America had invited Romano and his brother for dinner, Romano had been ecstatic to do anything other than being in shitty, boring meetings. Until the moment he realised where America was dragging him and Veneziano to.

An Olive Garden. Which was fine for Romano, he loved his food and everything his people had done while they were going around the world, but Veneziano had always been … not quite as accepting, and Romano would rather not have another fight like that, at least not in this century. It was too soon, and he was not ready to deal with all the snide comments.

“Actually, Alfredo, how about we don’t go there–” he started, when his slime ball of a brother interrupted him.

“Come on, I know you’ll love it! It’ll be great!”

“Ve, I have been missing proper Italian food lately,” Veneziano said, and he would, with all the time he spent touring around the world to visit friends – except Romano did not for one second believe that Veneziano was not doing as much cooking as he could even when he was in a different nation. Both of them had always been cooking a lot, it was just their nature. Either way, Romano could read the writing on the wall and his objections had been downvoted. Instead, he was readying himself for the shitstorm that was incoming.

27. Is there a fic you were nervous to post/share? Why? Not yet. I have some WIPs and ideas that I'm very nervous about though. One is inspired by the Shakespeare play Merchant of Venice and the expulsion of Jews from Kingdom of Sicily (Napoli).

[fimproda]

Author talks: (Negative) Opinions and reviews

(Grab some snacks and a drink. This is a chunky boi.)

This post was a long time coming.

I wrote a version of what you're about to read back in, like, 2019, on my Italian Wattpad profile, after years spent dealing with ungrateful authors and being called rude, wrong, and whatever negative adjective you can and cannot think of.

It's time to address this topic yet again, in English, here on Tumblr, hoping to reach as many people as possible and, the writing gods willing, change a mind or two.

The straw that broke the camel's back (or rather, my back) was a series of TikTok videos, made by a bunch of Italian booktokers, either in support or in opposition to another booktoker who had dared to review a pretty popular book that had made its rounds on Wattpad before being self-published on Amazon.

It so happened that I, for one, knew the author from our shared time on Wattpad, and I also knew the book, which wasn't good back then and is not any better now; moreover, I saw the video review and I agreed with the booktoker's every word, especially with the way this girl kept an even, calm, almost professional tone and justified every critique.

So you can imagine my surprise when a veritable swarm of detractors began stitching this booktoker's video, saying that her opinions were wrong, that she was bullying the author, and yadda yadda yadda; thankfully, some other booktokers were on her side, but this also meant that this back-and-forth shitstorm went on for days, and maybe it hasn't even ended yet.

I need to add that the author blocked this poor girl on every social media, and the book's most passionate readers (the ones that the author brought over from Wattpad and the author's friends/family, I assume) flocked to the booktoker's other accounts to keep blaming and disgracing her.

All this over a negative, yes, but overall objective and respectful review.

And it doesn't end here.

Many other straws continued to destroy the camel's back.

For instance, some accounts I follow for fandom content on Instagram or even here on Tumblr, who for the most part are not authors themselves, make a point to regularly remind people not to tag authors in their negative reviews of those authors' books.

On the other side of the coin, I've seen some authors, especially on TikTok, flip their shit over a "negative" review (and I should add even more quotes around the word negative, to be honest). Some even stated that a 3 out of 5 stars rating is a negative one, saying, "What would you think if a person called you 3/5 cute?!"

I don't know about them, or about you, but I would preen like a peacock if someone called me 3/5 cute.

(It'd be different if they said I was 3/10 cute, of course, but we can't really expect basic maths from some people, can we?)

Back in my Wattpad days, I've even stumbled upon someone who said that, seeing as all content on Wattpad is free (which is not even true nowadays, but whatever), no one has any right to leave a negative review. @zoyalannister can vouch for this; in fact, I believe it was her who sent me a screenshot of that comment, and we're still shocked about it years later.

I'm sure that some authors among you will understand how utterly pissed I get when I read, hear about, or get otherwise involved with such things.

So, with all this in mind, let's clear up a few things, shall we?

None of us is writing because we've got a gun to our head. We're writing, posting, interacting with readers, and everything related to this, because we want to.

In wanting this, we make our works public.

Some websites like AO3 allow us to choose if we'd like to "protect" our stories by keeping them out of reach of the unregistered users, but for the most part, everyone can search for our works, read them, and comment on them.

These are the terms and conditions. And yes, nobody really reads the terms and conditions before accepting them, but this doesn't give us a right to bitch about the consequences when they come a' knockin' at our door, does it?

Fuck around and find out, am I right?

Granted, there's comment and comment. If I, reader, come to you, author, and start insulting you, your family, your cow, and the interior designer who remodeled your kitchen, you have every right to call me all kinds of names (I wouldn't do that if I were the author, as it would mean debasing myself to the reader's level, but anyway) and slam-dunk my opinion into the trash.

(Yes, this happened to me. I've been insulted. One girl went as far as offering to, and I quote, "shit on your head, so that you close that sewer of a mouth". Context: I had commented on a story—not this girl's story: she was another reader, the author actually agreed with me—saying that I thought something was cacophonic; in Italian, this word sounds very similar to the verb cagare, which, indeed, means "to shit".)

Same thing if I, reader, come to you, author, and correct your grammar when there's absolutely no reason for me to do so, because your grammar is already correct.

(This happened to me, too. Many, many times. I know I've got an impeccable grammar in Italian; I even scored third in my age category at the nationwide Italian language Olympics when I wasn't even sixteen years old. I've been reading since I was, like, three or four, and "seriously" writing since I was thirteen. But people didn't like when I corrected their grammar, so they felt the need to come and correct mine. One memorable occasion was when a girl declared, in all seriousness, that the second singular person of the imperative of the verb fare must be always written as fa', with the apostrophe, and that my writing it as fai was wrong, because that was the second singular person of the indicative of fare. She ignored both that 1. the indicative and the imperative are the same exact thing in most cases, and 2. fa' and fai are the exact same thing as well, with the apostrophe representing the elision of the final i.)

Or, same as above, but exchanging grammar for, I don't know, a historical event, or a certain piece of information, or that kind of stuff in general, when you author were in the right and it's my sources that were wrong.

(An author, who was in university at the time, told me that she didn't know what inflation and spending power were, and so she hadn't accounted for them in her story. This happened after I mentioned those things when I pointed to her that you wouldn't hire an assassin in the 1960s with the same amount of money you would use nowadays. If I recall correctly, that author was majoring in a STEM field.)

(As a counterpoint, I was positive, for a long-ass time, that the hip bones were in fact a hip bone—meaning, that I should use the singular word, cresta iliaca, instead of the plural version, creste iliache. A reader corrected me on this, and I'm still thanking her today.)

You understand what I mean, right? Don't let me insult your intelligence by spoon-feeding you the meaning of my words.

But.

But.

If I, reader, come to you, author, and either correct your grammar when it's wrong, or a certain piece of information you chose to include in your story that is wrong, or whatever I decide to comment that could be perceived as negative—

—but I justify my point, cite my sources, maybe even linking them if possible, and keep my opinion contextualized and objective, you must at the very least lend me an ear and listen to what I have to say.

Never, in my nine years of roaming the fandom part of the Internet, have I ever written a comment on a fic saying something that I just pulled out of my ass, without checking first if there was any merit to my words. Never.

@zoyalannister can also vouch for this, as she's known me for eight of those nine years and witnessed many, if not all, of my altercations with my fellow Wattpad authors over my opinion of their story (which, allow me to clarify, they had literally asked me for—but again, even if they hadn't, their works were public and open for anyone to comment on, and I still would've been in the right).

Alas, it appears that many authors lack the self-awareness and self-criticism I believe are needed if you want to try your hand at writing, especially if you want to do it professionally.

And, good God, so do many readers.

Why, oh, why do some readers (some non-authors) go around proselitizing that people shouldn't tag authors in their negative reviews?!

Are they close personal friends with an author who doesn't like to be tagged in negative reviews of their books? Are they being paid to push this agenda? Do they have such a terrible relationship with criticism in every way, shape, or form that they feel like it's okay to get mad on someone else's behalf and dictate other people's actions?

These people like to say—parrot, is more like it—that negative reviews either don't benefit anyone, which is such an enormous pile of bullshit that I don't even know where to start dismembering it, or could only benefit the reader, essentially working as a way to help someone decide whether or not to read and/or buy that particular book.

I think negative reviews benefit both the author and the reader.

As an author, particularly as a Wattpad/AO3 author (but, if I understand correctly, self-published authors on Amazon can edit the digital version of their book with more or less the same ease), I cherish each and every correction comes my way, precisely because I can edit my text right away and, by doing that, make it better.

Aside from "small" corrections with regard to grammar or some other objective aspect of my fics, good, chunky, lenghty, justified, contextualized negative reviews in general help me rework my stories and make them better, both retroactively and for the future.

What I just said also applies to the flip side of the coin, when it's me, as a reader, writing the negative review.

Instead, with regards to reading negative reviews, even though I myself never look at reviews when deciding whether or not to add something to my already gargantuan TBR list, I can see why some people would rather read the reviews and survey the ratings before making that choice.

I should warn you, though, if you're one of these people, that very few reviews, be they positive or negative, can be taken at face value.

(In what follows, I will be talking almost exclusively about negative reviews, but everything I say can be applied to positive ones, as well.)

In my twenty-two years of age, I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that not everyone can truly read, and even fewer people can truly write, so the first problem you could run into is this: the person behind the review either understood fuck-all about the book they just read, or they did understand something but cannot put their opinion into words, or they didn't understand the book and cannot put their opinion into words.

The second problem is that some negative reviews are written with a specific purpose in mind, which is entertainment in some cases, clout in some others. Yet again, @zoyalannister knows how many times I barged into our Whatsapp chat to tell her that a SJM detractor on TikTok straight-up invented some stuff to rant about, subsequently getting views and likes and comments and general activity on their account.

Moral of the story: don't believe everything you see or hear about on the Internet, and always, always form your own opinion based on facts, not hearsay.

(Funnily enough, this is how I got hooked on SJM: I wanted to form my own opinion about her books. The rest is history.)

And, moral of the whole story:

Readers: as long as your opinion is not a personal insult to the author or even threatens to spill into that territory, and as long as the author didn't explicitly say that they don't want to be tagged in a negative review, don't ever restrain yourself from writing one and/or tagging the author, whatever other people might tell you.

Readers: stop speaking on authors' behalf. Not every single one of us will lose their mind if confronted with a negative review. Some of us are searching for just that. Let it be, as it should, an individual decision.

Readers: contrary to popular belief, you do not need to suggest an alternative route for all the things you comment negatively on. You do not need to sweeten the pill for the author with the proverbial spoonful of sugar. You do, however, need to explain the reasoning behind everything you say (or at least that's my opinion).

Readers: I will never block, slander, or insult you if you write me a negative review, even if you don't use the same courtesy towards me and your opinion is not justified in any way. In that case, I will only get mad and refute your every point, as I believe is my right to do.

Authors: don't be a bitch and listen to your readers, if they're making sense. Don't try to convince yourself that they're not making sense when they are.

Authors: look at your works with a judging eye. Be your first critic, be your own critic.

Authors: when facing a negative review, don't hide behind half-assed explanations or apologies or, God forbid, suspension of disbelief. If you fucked up, you fucked up. Cherish the reader who told you that, who maybe even told you how to fix it.

Authors: some reviews have to be destructive before they can be constructive. If there's mold on your bathroom ceiling, you don't just paint over it: you remove the mold first, and then paint over it.

Readers and authors: conduct yourself with dignity. Keep your cool, be level-headed, turn on your brain. And always, always, tell the truth.

Aaand I'm done.

A huge thank you (and congratulations) to everyone who got this far. Unfortunately, I'm everything but laconic.

I'd like to hear your thoughs about all this!

[beevean]

I'd argue that changing a character's ethnicity/sexuality is usually a bad move, mostly due to the inevitable shitstorm that it will occurr, but also, specifically in regards to ethnicity swaps, they tend to result in massive design changes which for some characters is a bad thing in general because it can mess up what made their original designs work in the first place

Imagine making Griffith black: his entire design would get fucked because it all revolves around the color white to contrast Guts' mainly black color scheme

Other times it would just clash with the whole story of the character: there's absolutely no way you could make a character like Farnese black or asian or anything else because her whole point is that she comes from a noble family that is very blatantly inspired by old italian aristocracy

In the case of a character like Isaac turning him black doesn't necessarily ruin him in any way (hell black red heads tend to be quite popular in japanese media from what I know)...it's everything else about his design that doesn't feel like Isaac

Isaac is associated with the color red. He has instantly recognizable flaming red hair and his outfit is reddish black. This is important to his character because he's the Red Oni to Hector's Blue Oni: he's wild, passionate and driven by emotions such as rage and bitterness, while Hector is more levelheaded which also what allows him to resist the Curse in the end.

Making him black doesn't affect this. I've seen fanart of black Isaac with his red hair, sometimes in dreadlocks, and ngl he looks very good (the one sacrifice is that his tattoos don't stand out as much, but I'm sure a good artist could work around that). His backstory is also enough to justify why he'd resent mankind and devote himself to Dracula, and being black shouldn't affect this either.

("oh but he'd look unrealistic" N!Isaac already has red eyes for unexplained reasons and N!Hector has grey hair, there's more IRL basis for a black person with red hair)

But for some reason, someone in the crew thought that an insanely devoted black man who thinks of himself as a tool was too problematic (and I can see how it would be seen as such), and instead of leaving him alone, they stripped him away of everything that made him Isaac to make him a "proper" black representation. The balanced relationship between him and Hector is completely gone in the show: both of them are serious and reserved, it's just that Isaac is more cynical and ruthless while Hector is idealistic and naive. Plus, as I have pointed out, the two have the chemistry of two coworkers forced to share the same building, which is boring lol. N!Isaac is still associated with red, mainly in his magic, but it lost all meaning - in fact, his clothes also go from pure black, which looks awful contrasted to Hector's CoD outfit, to blue. Blue! Hector's color! Bruh!

Regardless of how you feel about race swapping, Isaac was not the right character to race swap. Hector was! You know, the guy who is all about realizing that his Master is not someone worth following and taking his own life in his own hands, proudly declaring to be a human being and not a pawn? Just saying! But no, they preferred to gut Isaac like a fish, getting rid of everything that made him recognizable, to cash in those "yay they fixed the bad character!" points.

[lastweeksshirttonight]

What is this?? Lee actually following up on promises of posting longform writing??? I know, I'm scared too.

Last Lee Tonight (wherein Lee quotes noted political commentator Olivia Rodrigo) Season One, Episode Nine

(Original air date: 6/29/2014) Topics covered: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, LGBT rights and discrimination in Uganda

Trigger warning: discussions of homophobia

"That is why I, personally, refuse to pay for Mennonite cabinets. Because Jason Bourne could, conceivably, beat someone to death with one of those things."

Because the last time I posted one of these reviews was (checks notes) August 2023, a brief recap of where we are in terms of the season developing is in order. Episode Eight was the first time the entire main story was put on LWT's YouTube page, after a very... scattershot approach to uploading segments onto social media. The show is also coming into its own - although the recap of the week segments are bouncing between being extremely surface-level, sometimes only one joke long, and closer to the current iteration of a small yet rigorous dive into a relevant topic for a few minutes before the main topic, the main stories are beginning to take longer form, even though they are still tied to the idea of the show being immediately relevant.

This episode is one of the few I think is, with a few exceptions, almost completely available on the LWT YouTube page worldwide. Both major segments are uploaded, as well as an extended interview segment. Looking forward, they do experiment with the idea of breaking up most of the episodes and loading them onto YouTube for the rest of season one. At least they're actually, um, loading the main parts of the episodes on YouTube from here on out. As I've said many times before, no one had any idea what kind of show LWT was supposed to be or what it would become.

Another fun fact - apparently you can no longer screenshot these episodes I bought on YouTube on my desktop with PrtSc. What the fuck. Is up. With that?! (aaaah~) Fuck you business daddy you complete sack of daddy-shaped shit. (Clearly I have my ways of getting around this, even if the screenshots seem a bit blurry to me, but... fucking hell, I'm just trying to take a screenshot OF SOMETHING I PAID FOR.)

ANYWAYS. There's an episode of LWT we're ostensibly discussing!

Our first topic is the 2014 World Cup. England has been knocked out, so the tournament is dead to John. Oh John. So innocent. So full of life. You have no clue about the shitstorm you're gonna drop on FIFA's doorstep next season.

At the World Cup, an Uruguayan player, Luis Suarez, bit an Italian player, something I totally forgot about. He also bit TWO OTHER PEOPLE. John calls the Italian player "a delicious piece of prime Italian steak" - I forgot that chaotic bisexuality has been baked into this show from day one but I love it.

(Based on the only hate comment I've ever received, I know someone will probably deign to tell me that John is not bisexual, which... I know. But the writing of this show has chaotic bisexual energy - in some seasons, like the one where John begs Adam Driver to chokeslam him into a table regularly, energy honestly isn't a strong enough word to describe whatever's going on - and I like acknowledging that element of the show.)

John mentions the week has been awash with depressing terrorism news but leads into a segment about Boko Haram being driven out of their hiding places by snakes and bees, an incredible victory for the scariest parts of nature. John is furious that scorpions have instead decided to hide in bananas in supermarkets instead of fighting terrorism. John's grin after delivering that joke is effervescent. He loves this kind of stupid, "now THAT'S a sentence"-style joke.

He's so happy y'all

We take a hard left turn into discussing Syria, and that the US is looking to send money to "appropriately vetted" rebel soldiers. The obvious question is asked - how do you vet rebel soldiers? John suggests a trade-school-style commercial to recruit potential rebel soldiers. (The offer is open to bees and snakes!) One thing I like about the early episodes that does still come through from time to time on the show are these sorts of Daily Show-style fake commercials and PSAs. They can get repetitive after seeing the segments they're covering, but there's usually some fun twists and chances for some real absurdities and escalations you can't do in the show proper.

Our first real segment follows after this, on Burwell v Hobby Lobby. You may remember this as the court case that allowed for Hobby Lobby, a crappy JoAnn's knockoff run by evangelical Christians who also stole artifacts for a bible museum, to not pay for an employee's birth control through the Affordable Care Act because it went against their religion. As a corporation. Because corporations are people now. God this country sucks.

At the time of airing, this decision hadn't been made yet by the Supreme Court, so John is going over the details of the case, including the questions at the center of it - do corporations have freedom of religion, and are corporations people? John confidently says "no" before realizing he has to actually discuss this, and I really want to live in 2014 John World. This whole segment has a lovely capper extending two ideas to their logical, absurd extremes - government cannot be an a la carte system, something John demonstrates by showing a wild variety of things people don't want to spend their taxes on which starts fairly even-keel but spirals into Fox News talking heads saying that their tax dollars are being spent on Mexican prostitutes. And on the flip-side, if corporations are people, well, people die. Amongst other things.

Something that's been a bit lost about this case in the ten years since is that a Mennonite sect that owned a kitchen cabinet making company also sued the government over providing birth control. I totally forgot about that.

Our "And Now This" segment is on politicians misusing the word 'literally'. Chris Traeger literally adored this segment. (It's short and is exactly what you'd expect. Not much to say here.)

The next segment is on LGBTQIA+ rights in Uganda. Interestingly, John introduces this segment by saying "finally tonight..." despite being only 12 minutes into a 30 minute show. Definitely had me checking the clock in confusion.

I appreciate that John opens this segment not sugarcoating anything happening to LGBTQIA+ individuals in Uganda, even before he gets into the details of the anti-gay laws there. While there's been segments prior that have been obviously extremely serious, this is the first one that feels like John is coming from a place of seriousness first, jokes second. There are plenty of jokes, yes, lots of very funny ones. But when you compare how this segment opens, with no frills or equivocating, to even the Hobby Lobby segment earlier this episode, there's a pretty obvious difference.

People really didn't know how to react to the line "the moral arc of the universe is long, and it bends away from Uganda." There's like one scattered laugh at that. I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be a joke.

A lot of the details of this segment are deeply upsetting, especially post-Trump in a world where it feels like freedoms are rolling back everywhere and extremist hatemongers like Scott Lively are being treated more and more seriously. The fact that he was laughed at here in the past is refreshing, but knowing that he'd likely be a top senate candidate now is so distressing. There's a lot of things that can be seen in this show in hindsight, most of them so far more benign than this. Unfortunately, the exportation of homophobia now looks less like the death throes of a dying political position, as John posits here from 2014, and more like a big factor in sowing the seeds for this last decade's right-wing global surge.

That being said, Pepe Julian Onziema is a true portrait of grace under fire. The interview with Onziema in the show is extremely illuminating, the kind of interview that makes me wish John did more interviews. Onziema is a delight - I love his seriousness in speaking to the realities of living as an LGBT+ person in Uganda, and his bravery in fighting this fight despite the looming threat of severe prison time. Relatedly, "Sorry doesn't cut it" is such a great comeback to John apologizing for being part of two groups of people that brought this wave of homophobia to Uganda.

There is an extended interview with Onziema on YouTube that dives further into some of the specifics of certain social elements, like context into how Ugandan discourse took on elements of American homophobic talking points (like "gay people are recruiting children") and a timeline of Scott Lively's touring of Uganda. John manages to completely break him by singing part of an early hateful song about "the rainbow belonging to God" as well, which made me so happy. Turn those hateful things into ludicrously stupid ones to destroy them.

I do highly recommend watching this interview - it's one of the best things that LWT has ever done, still. This has stayed with me for 10 years.

Other notes:

Hey. Hey Lee. You gonna talk about the fit?: Yes of course I am, the meds didn't change my brain THAT much. We have a light blue shirt with a dark blue tie with lighter piping, and a gray suitjacket. This is a subdued look but I like the neutral slate color combination going on here. 8/10

I haven't mentioned the unique title cards for each episode of LWT yet, mainly because this is the first one I found really funny - it's a picture of Renaldo with the caption "Kickus Ballium". (New name for football ahoy!)

Please enjoy this incredible "I'm so smooth" looking freeze frame that I took while pausing the episode to write. So smooth.

"I've got to be honest, being British is sometimes a little like being an alcoholic. When someone says you did something awful, you find yourself going, 'Honestly, I don't even remember doing that, but yeah, probably, probably. I'm a dick, I'm a dick.'" He slipped so easily into that Ian Duncan mode for this line, I so hope he comes back for the Community movie.

[pressradio]

What is going to be the hardest for me even in 2024 is Italian press vs British press (vs Spanish in 2024). But mostly British as they kind of are the biggest around f1 with the tv coverage etc. And the bias has been ... -_-

2024 is going to be shitstorm, because Charles will be slandered from both - Spain and British press.

It's lovely how many people have already burned Charles' chances. In my 15 years as a sports fan, I've noticed that fans usually pick what they want to believe and don't really care about being objective. So I'm going to sit and wait their meltdown, because I believe in Charles enormously. (But it 100% won't help with press shit).

[wildchildvdm]

Fic! Asks! #9!!!

My writing process. Great great ask baby girl ❤️

Before I write I make myself tea with some butter biscuits.

So first of all I write it in Italian. Because it’s easier for me to put down the emotions and feelings. But before I really start I start to take my notes on that brown faux leather notebook I bought two months ago. Times passed I still love it. There I write the ideas I have before put it on my laptop.

So I put the right music that makes me imagine the scene, sometimes I quote the song during the scene.

Here is an example: when I used to write Heaven is a place on earth there is a flashback scene on the beach where our two main characters where listening to Slade and the song Summer Song (wishing your were here) from the album Slade in Flame (1974) came in especially during that almost kiss scene because the flashback is set in 1983 and I wanted to find the right song for the right feeling of a teenage dream of the time with these two soon to be Pro Wrestlers.

So for me the right song does a lot when writing a scene. Especially during the process to create an OC like when I first created Amelia I used and still use a lot of music from 70s and 80s so Slade, Supertramp, Elton John, Queen, Depeche Mode, Status Quo etc… (I have the playlist on Spotify for who wants to check it out). Or who knows Eva in Shatter and Castigo y Pecado with her is more particular because she is Italian American and I use a lot of Italian and Neapolitan music in her creation process.

And also depends on the scene I am about to write.

Then during the process I also write an order for the paragraphs and scenes because some scenes are long and some are short (but not less important).

When finished the chapter after having breakdowns I send it in Italian to Salvatore and @yukioni02 who are my Betas and they read it and give me advices before I start the translation process.

In the case of Castigo y Pecado when I write in Spanish and on the process of creating Latinos characters I always ask my Hermanita @claymorexpunisher for some help and advices and especially correction in Spanish. Because I don’t want to be in the middle of a shitstorm and there no one I can ask better than a latina to avoid it. My dear Gigi being half Boricua and half Honduran and she explained me a lot of things from food (that I absolutely need the recipes) to simple traditions during festivities. And this because I created a character who is the bestie of Eva and she is actually Boricua and she is also inspired by my bestie of more than 10 years especially how she looks like. And even because it's a fanfiction about Damian Priest so... Here we are. Another people I ask for advices are my Fam on the Server On The Other Side on Discord. I love y'all lots.

My WIP is now also Wild Rose’s Tale the fully Kayfabe alternative of HIAPOE, while this I will keep writing and keep it to myself while Wild Rose’s Tale will be published soon when I finish to write it in Italian. When I translate it I ask you always for advices and soon I start to get on @kayfabebabe nerves and ask him for advices (love you dude).

And when I finished to translate, correcting etc... I publish to both Wattpad and AO3. Great Success.