#silos of ignorance

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/a-fly-buzzed-when/

A Fly Buzzed When...

The fly sitting in the staircase window of my retirement center has been dead for several months.  Unlike me, most folks don’t use the back exit to reach ground level.  They prefer the elevator.  I may be the only person in the building to bear witness to the insect’s slow decay.  I could remove it with a tissue, of course.  But I’m curious to know how long the corpse will remain unnoticed in its sunny location. At peace now, I can imagine an earlier, frenzied time when, without success, the fly buzzed against the glass as it struggled to reach the green world outside.   Flies have a symbolic role in my upcoming memoir, Getting Lost to Find Home. Like the character in one of Emily Dickinson’s poems, I, too, heard a fly buzz at the moment I imagined I was about to die. The sound jarred an awakening within me, the way a glacier dropping snow into an icy bay might stun the ears.  The insect I realized at that moment was my superior. Had I its translucent wings, I could have hoped to escape my fate. Many years have passed but the memory of that fly has never faded. It allowed me to feel empathy for the one that had buzzed itself to death on the windowsill.  This time its wings were of no use. What it required was the ability to reason. “Each to each,” I think every time I pass its still form on the ledge.  Once a defiant point of light against the dark, it has succumbed to it, as must all living things. The reminder earns my respect.  And so, I pause a moment in tribute to the fly each time I make my turn on the landing.  A study on fruitflies confirms that insects are conscious of death. Most creatures are.  Elephants grieve for their lost ones. Crows hold funerals. Alternatively, bees, ants, and terminates designate a specific class among them to clear away corpses from the hive.  When fruitflies encounter death, they have two responses. They die earlier than their peers and the females produce a larger number of eggs under the stress.   Stress, we’ve learned,  leaves a marker in the human brain. Some think the scar may predict a tendency for suicide.  Others insist they require more evidence to confirm the link. Even so, physicians are aware of the debilitating effects of stress and counsel their patients to avoid it.  We already know that what we see, feel, and do alters our relationship with the world.  Think of it as the butterfly effect where a small change in one location alters a larger one. A man dumps used tires into a pristine river.  Others follow his example.  Eventually, the river’s water is too polluted for either human or animal consumption. Flora and fauna die. The green world morphs into a desert. We know our brains generate myriads of impulses. Some are self-destructive. Others work to our benefit. The good or ill in our lives arises from those impulses. It’s doubtful a lily can grow from a dung heap. Those who see justice and vengeance as hospitable companions are the most likely to give way to hate.  House Representatives Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebart are examples.  They see corruption in the fall of a sparrow.  Without trust, how is society to endure? Without trust, hate gives way to insanity–the kind that prompted an individual to salt a garden ripe with vegetables that were intended to feed the poor.   Wanting to do good is a force equal to hate but with positive benefits. Good thoughts increase trust and promote good health.  Both are necessary for a thriving democracy. Because consciousness must succumb to death, each of us faces an overwhelming question. How shall we live? Decisions we make, whether large or small, have outcomes.  They affect our well-being.  They affect our society and our planet. A fly dies on a windowsill, its eyes facing a green world.  Too ignorant to understand the nature of the invisible barrier that stands between it and freedom, it dies in frustration. Humans, too, live in silos of ignorance.  They can respond by being angry, judgmental, and prizing freedom for themselves but not for others. If so, then like the fly, they will never know peace. Or, being human, they can exercise a second option. They can see themselves mirrored in all living things and exercise compassion. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————–   Listen to 1 hour radio interview with Caroline Miller on “Between the Covers.”  

[femmeetart]

Juliette is very good at hide and seek

[theskyexists]

I know that it's pretty revolutionary that the Silo fridges George Wilkinson for Juliette's womanpain but I actually hate it because I really feel like she didn't need that and it's so constantly about him and also her chemistry with him is nonexistent.

[aardvaark]

prentiss: *gets almost killed on a case again*

prentiss 5 mins later: yeah i’m fine lol why wouldn’t i be? oh this gaping wound? nah it’s nothing a little coffee can’t fix haha 🤪🤪🤪

[shipping1addict]

On episode 3 on "Silo".

Screaming, crying, throwing up on the steam turbine thing.

Why was it installed vertically. Is there some form of cycle with a condenser or where does the steam go. How are the turbine blades not damaged after all those years getting hit by hot, accelerated water droplets. How are they just jump starting the turbine without a warm up period. Why does the turbine work without its casing and where is the steam coming from?

WHY ISN'T THERE A BYPASS?!?!

[rosecolouredheart]

Oh!! I took this for myself but in case some of you were wondering about the tillable earth on meadowlands farm type (ignore the barn and silo, but the coop is in its default place) and no one's shared this yet, here ya go.

[ripplestitchskein]

I will never understand the “Me sharing my anti opinion in the main tags is more important than other’s enjoyment”. Mindset

It’s very much showing up at a party where everyone is having a good time, not liking the theme and then standing in the center of the room screaming about how much you hate it.

The person I confronted this morning about it was basically “I am allowed” and “You can keep scrolling” and “it’s just one post”.

People are allowed to be an asshole in a variety of ways everyday, the choice to not be is what makes the difference.

I can keep scrolling, of course I can, but the point of using the tag is that I’m scrolling through what I wanted to see. I specifically chose to scroll through that tag to see it. By putting your anti shit in it people have no way to escape an opinion they specifically chose to not see. It’s a pretty good consent metaphor, people consented to one thing, they declare that consent by using a tag to indicate that’s what they want. Now someone is deliberately ignoring that and forcing themselves into a space they are not welcome or wanted. Tags are a boundary, and part of a social contract you are choosing to ignore, for what?

It’s just one post. But it’s not? It’s multiple a day. You are contributing to an overarching problem. So while we are just trying to see speculations and theories and fun art and angsty head canons about what we’re enjoying we have multiple people a day coming in for no other reason than to ruin that enjoyment.

You are of course welcome to your opinion, and sharing it, but there are tags so that people who enjoy anti and critical content and want to be heard can enjoy it and be heard, and there are tags where people who enjoy pro content and want to find likeminded people can enjoy it and find their people. It’s the entire reason Tumblr is a great community building space and superior in my opinion to other social platforms.

Tumblr is not Twitter or Instagram, the tag system allows people to curate their experience so they don’t have to see content they don’t want to. That’s what the tags are for, so they can enjoy themselves and not be siloed or forced to find people through endless hours of scrolling thorough things they don’t care about. You don’t get more engagement by rage farming on Tumblr. There is no benefit to doing so. It is an entirely malicious action.

It’s not in anyway equivalent in seriousness but if you wouldn’t post triggering content in a trigger warning tag why would you post anti content in a pro tag? They are the same base behavior.

[txttletale]

youve previously spoken about i was a teenage exocolonist and its confused politics, and i agree, and now im thinking, how would one revise the story so as to improve them?

i think the game would have to either not be so proudly About Colonialism or would have to revise its story so that the theming actually matches the events. like imaginining that my proposed rewrite aims to 1. make the game's politics coherent while 2. changing as little as possible and 3. keeping the game's intended themes, i think the things that are most dissonant and jarring are:

the game not understanding what colonialism is but wanting to very much assure you that It's Bad

the game not understanding what fascism is but wanting to very much assure you that It's Bad

the game not understanding what capitalism is &c. &c. &c.

the bizarre unexamined eugenicist elements

so let's start on the first thing. you would want to lean much more heavily on the colonists as 'refugees' rather than 'colonists' -- the game treats 'colonizing' a place the exact same way as 'living there', and that kind of sucks (a common problem when using 'Space Colonization' as a 1-1 metaphor for actual colonization). so while we want to keep the weird culty aspects of the colony's society we'll ditch most of the colonial intentionality until the Helios arrives. secondly, we need to have the planet's indigenous people, like, actually present and not secretly hiding away as supercomputers.

so, like, let's keep the Gardeners as artificial life forms dedicated to protecting the ecosystem, but let's make them biotech. let's make them giant, imposing trees that reach up into the sky, with root networks that span the whole planet. then, rather than the colony being colonialist because it straight up doesnt know indigenous people exist (because they're secret computer people), we can make a much more interesting conflict by having the colonists be ignorant (and, as the game progresses, willingly ignorant) of the gardeners' sentience. have the raids start after the colony fells one of the trees (killing a Gardener) to make room for their own expansion, maybe really lean into the nasty parts of the colonial metaphor by having the Gardener's wood be the construction material of the new wing of the colony.

then Lum arrives as part of an intentional colonization project from the Earth we fled, assumes military command as in the current story, and immediately ramps up existing exploitation and destructive enviromental practices. his administration deliberately suppresses information of the Gardeners' sentience and spreads propaganda about them being 'monster trees'. have Lum clearly backed by Earthbound corporate interests, seeing the colony as an excercise in extracting value and using fascist dictatorship (usurping elections and the council with a permanent state of emergency and martial law) as a tool to maximize that value.

instead of defeating Lum at the ballot box, you can remove him in a coup. you can keep the getting-the-councilors-on-side minigame, you can even make it a bloodless coup if you don't want to put revolutionary violence in the game (but considering how much other violence there is in there, including terrorism, genocide, and murder, seems like a strange omission tbqh). and dont make him your fucking tiktoker put the guy in Jail. hes killed people sol.

have Sym still have his humanboo interests but also hint at an internal power struggle within the Gardeners, make it clear that there is a real and thriving culture among these indigenous gigantic environmentally networked tree-ecosystem-people, make his motivations for seeking peace more multifaceted.

then make the peaceful resolution to the whole colonialism issue to integrate the settlers into Gardener society rather than the weird siloed reservation thing going on in the base game. the head of the settlement or an ambassador (probably Dys) gets to go to the big fancy Gardener meetings where they decide things, the settlement gets permission from the Gardeners to farm and expand sustainably and is integrated into the ecosystem rather than neatly separated from it. the excolonists stop being colonists and become citizens of the planet.

as for the capitalism stuff, you can just drop that from marz' character, honestly. or if you want to make it make more sense without having to get into What Capitalism Is (which i think would be outside the mission statement of these proposals), make her thing wanting opulence and excess (it already kind of us, the game just keeps saying 'Capitalism'), have her excited when Lum starts giving people the opportunity to have that, then have her moment of excitement turn sour when she looks into Earth history and realizes how destructive this kind of extraction is in the long term.

and the eugenics--i think the simplest case here while still keeping all the cool genetic mutant character tics is just to make the genetic mutations a random glitch in an artificial womb system the refugees were using to have kids in space. this lets you keep the weird and wacky stuff going on with tangent and dys without raising questions like 'hey isnt this society insanely fucking dystopian'.

that's my in-a-nutshell rewrite of the game. obvsies an actual rewrite would need to change some more in-depth things, but i think off the top of my head these are the changes to the narrative that would make the heavyhanded attempts at political commentary work for me (that said, you could also go the opposite route, stop trying to draw parallels to colonialism and fascism and keep all the weird shit as is. but i think that's less interesting and more like stuff that already exists)

[tangerine-dream-machine]

do you wanna see the west with me?

Notes below!

This is not a realistic road trip at all, but here are the places/activities shown:

Yorktown Battlefield, Virginia: the site where General Cornwallis surrendered in 1781, bringing the end of the Revolutionary War

Liberty Bell, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: the famous bell with the message "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof", and later a symbol of liberty for abolitionists and suffragists

Drive-in theater: outdoor cinemas that reached their peak in popularity in the 1950s to 60s; the film is The Searchers (1956)

Kayaking: a fun lake/ocean activity

Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: this trail crosses nine states and follows the forced displacement of Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Muscogees, and Seminoles due to the Indian Removal Act in 1830

Traffic (and billboards): a bane to many and common in car-dependent cities

Cedar Hill Cemetery, Vicksburg, Mississippi: one of the oldest cemeteries in the US still being used; predates the Civil War and includes a Confederate burial site

Devil's Tower, Wyoming: a majestic (and sacred) butte and the first US national monument

Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah: a flat, empty salt pan estimated to hold 147 million tons of salt and a popular racing site

Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming: a geyser in the world's first national park known for its reliable eruptions

Gas station, Nowhere, USA

Horseback riding, Montana: no comment, just a fun time

Las Vegas, Nevada: the world renowned Sin City, a place that caters to many vices

Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex, North Dakota: group of missile defense facilities including missile silos and the pyramid-shaped radar system; built in 1975 and decommissioned after one day of operation, a "monument to man's fear and ignorance"

Hoover Dam, Nevada and Arizona: hydroelectric power plant on the Colorado River; the highest dam in the world at the time of its completion in 1935

Space Needle, Seattle, Washington: an observation tower with a revolving restaurant built for the 1962 World Fair "Living in the Space Age", a theme chosen to show the US was not lagging behind the USSR in the Space Race

Sequoia National Park, California: home of the world's largest tree by volume (General Sherman) and the highest point in the contiguous US (Mount Whitney)

Muir Beach Overlook, California: a former base station overlook with dugouts that gained importance immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 as a means to watch for attacks on nearby San Francisco

@usukweek

[essektheylyss]

Conrad and Justin really are so sweet and heartwarming, but there is something that makes me lose my mind about them being friends in particular.

Given Mark Bition having such an influence in the city, with Mayor Logic being elected because, you know, it just made sense, and just Elias Hodge's general career path and interests, Justin could've been running with the big dogs. People who are ambitious and rational, particularly those funneled into siloed scientific development jobs for those traits, often justify their actions extensively. Progress, the momentum of civilizations, the greater good, economic upswing—these are all justifications for scientific and technological development that work well on the people doing the work as much as they do on those funding it. It is a simple story to tell.

But Justin isn't with those people. He's with Conrad, the stunted conscience that has been neglected and ignored out of pain and fear and anxiety for years. He's been encouraging Conrad to act, to speak up, to push through those fears to make a change, and after all of those years, he is still Conrad's best friend.

Even when Conrad thought he had been wrong, Justin didn't. Which means Elias Hodge knew all along that his conscience was right.

[bioethicists]

black women have been grappling for decades with the fact that they organize with + live alongside + love men who are both given only conditional access to male privilege AND wield violent, structural power over them. they have generated libraries worth of compassionate theory which engages with the destructive impact of misogyny on men, the way in which being seen as a Real Man is conditional for marginalized ppl, the dangers of separatism + the importance of leaving nobody behind. these are not new ideas + they are absolutely necessary ideas for moving towards total liberation.

however, most foundational black feminist/intersectional feminist (in the tradition of angela davis) theorists have discussed these concepts without: minimizing or erasing the concept of misogyny, falling back on lesbophobic stereotypes (ugly man hating dykes!), repeating antifeminist propaganda (not all men!), abandoning a focus on structural power + material impact, engaging in bad faith identity politics which silo identities (tokenizing some while ignoring others, constructing weird hierarchies of which oppressions 'cancel each other out'), or individualizing oppression/identity/power (things which happen TO us + AROUND us, not within us).

respectfully, these theories of feminism which include + acknowledge men's pain are already happening- there's a reason those aren't the theories/practices you're exposed to. these theories often do lack trans voices, but you aren't adding our voices to these stories. you are creating a new theory of oppression built on a foundation + critique of white neoliberal feminism + based largely on anecdotal experiences in predominately white communities. you are replicating all of the flaws of white feminism.

[19burstraat]

I love that kaz's revenge kind of... fails. I really love that he doesn't quite get a satisfying revenge on rollins, and I've always thought that was... well, the point. I said more about the specific scene with pekka here but like. it IS a turning point for kaz, it's just not the one he wanted. kaz gets about three narrative warnings/pieces of foreshadowing that it's not going to go how he wants it to go, but he really doesn't heed them until it's too late.

the first is the broken leg from the heist on the bank that helped pekka scam them; while its main narrative purpose is that it's the source of kaz's disability ofc (which feeds into his personal arc and his dynamic with wylan), and it exists outside of the pekka stuff, it arguably has a secondary purpose as the first in a series of 'don't pursue this, it's going to hurt' warnings, which he ignores.

the second warning comes when kaz lets pekka out at hellgate for personal score settling reasons, wastes time and fucks up the plan, and then starts a big domino effect where rollins turns the dregs on him, teams up with van eck, and hires dunyasha to attack inej.

(there are lots of other mini-nods to kaz absolutely refusing to let go of what happened and it informing everything he does; making nina give muzzen fake firepox, the fake pandemic, his interest in fifth harbour being implied to be because that's where he crawled out of the harbour, his dynamics with jesper and wylan, the body boats taking everyone out of the city, etc, but these are the big slip-ups)

the third strike feeds from that; the sweet reef sugar silo job is an almost perfect copy of the second stage of rollins' scam on jordie and kaz; sugar stock prices being driven up due to scarcity. it going so horribly wrong (because pekka anticipated it, of course he did, he made it up) and almost getting inej killed by dunyasha is a final warning to kaz to, effectively, let go or be dragged. if he carries on living in the past like this, he's going to lose his new family, not just his old one.

I think pekka's inability to remember jordie's name was more crushing than kaz admitted to himself, at least on the page; "it was a start" feels almost defeated after all that, and it lacks closure. kaz only gets one more point of view chapter (iirc?) one which feels quite reticent (it's the council of tides one and it's quite short) and he's quite quiet for the rest of the book, at least until the last inej chapter. he gets probably the cruellest wake-up call he could have been given. he doesn't get what he wants, and he'll never get it, because rollins still can't remember jordie's name by the end of the novel. it's time to move on. to his credit, he does it; he does what he always does, which is rise to a challenge. half of kaz's appeal lies in his ability to do that, no matter how hard the task, but it's a hard bandage to rip off.

unfortunately he does not really let go until he's being dragged, when his idea of what his confrontation with pekka should be like, crumbles in the face of pekka just not being able to remember jordie's name, no matter what kaz does. kaz is dragged to the precipice and told, look– here's inej, here's rollins. choose. and that's when he finally has to let go and start doing things for the future and inej, not the past and rollins and jordie. (remember that bit when he's drowning in SOC and he tries to think of revenge, and he can only think of inej instead? he always knew what he was going to pick, really).

he gets rollins out of ketterdam, but it's definitely hollow, in my estimation; the one thing kaz wanted him to remember, and he couldn't, because it wasn't important to him like it was to kaz. there's one final nod to kaz making everything about what happened to him and jordie (sneaking the grisha, colm, and matthias' body out of the city via the bodyboats and 'the bodymen don't bother to rearrange them') but I think inej saying "he doesn't say goodbye. he just lets go" comes at the perfect point; up until then it wasn't true, but now, kaz has finally been forced to (somewhat) let go, having never ever done that before.

but kaz buying inej her ship and a berth at fifth harbour (where he crawled out of the harbour and vowed to start the entire revenge plot) is a nice indication that he is trying to close that part off and move forwards with her, rather than staying in the past. and I really like that it's inej who actually makes the threat against pekka's life, to make sure he stays out of ketterdam; it's hard to know if kaz told her anything that prompted that visit (if he did, I doubt it was much, and I actually suspect he didn't know she'd gone there at all) but no matter what the circumstances, it indicates that he doesn't have to go on alone anymore, and he can finally turn away from that obsession. shared burdens n that. it's not a sad ending, it's honestly a good one for both of them, but it was a pretty rough journey to get there, and he had to fail first.

[thatbadadvice]

Help! My Mother-In-Law Buys A New Outfit Every Time She Pours Jet Fuel on Chilean Sea Bass and Throws Their Carcasses, Flaming, Into the Rainforests from the Open Belly of Her Private Plane

Care and Feeding, Slate, 1 May 2023:

Dear Care and Feeding, My husband and I have two children (2 years and 6 months). We recently moved back to my husband’s hometown to pursue a career opportunity for me. My husband has been home with the kids but was just offered a job. We found a daycare, but it can only take the kids three days a week right now (we’re on waitlists for full-time, but it seems like it could be months or more before we find two full-time spots). My mother-in-law has generously offered to watch the kids for the other two days. Overall, she is a lovely, responsible woman, but we have some significant value differences around environmental issues and I’m not sure how to navigate them. Our household focuses heavily on environmental awareness. We drive electric cars, we compost, we limit our air conditioning, we limit our flying, we eat all leftovers, we avoid plastics whenever possible, and we buy exclusively secondhand clothing. My mother-in-law is a big fan of consumption. Her house is full of plastics. She throws away whatever is left on her plate at the end of a meal, she keeps her house so cold in the summer that I need a sweater and she drives a minivan. I’m concerned about the message it sends to the kids if we stick to our values, except when to do so would be inconvenient. How do I bridge our two very different lifestyles going forward? —Environmentalist Mama in Limbo

Dear Environmentalist Mama,

I'm not sure how you can describe a person who air-conditions her home and drives a minivan as "lovely" and "responsible" but I will assume that this planet-hating harpy has gripped you so tightly in her environmentally irresponsible talons that you cannot see the wildfire-ridden forest for the trees (which she is personally cutting down for fun and profit). Do not let yourself be hoodwinked by promises of familial love and generous offers of free child care, as if these things matter more than assiduously composting! This woman is a monster who is single-handedly destroying the only earth your precious babies have to live on. Imagine the tragedies that will unfold if your children experience a loving connection with a person who purchases items made of plastic? They could come to believe that other humans are whole people with their own interior lives and decision-making apparatuses and values instead of ugly nasty baddies who dare to oppose Mommy's One True And Only Way?

You simply cannot bridge two lifestyles as different as the two you describe here. On the one hand, we have your blameless and perfect eco-conscious little household of brave, Dumpster-diving Oliver Twists, and on the other hand, we have an ethically compromised, unscrupulous, indefensibly ignorant shitbird who probably barbecues her factory-farmed meats over asbestos tiles and flies to Australia to distribute the ashes over the Great Barrier Reef. If Planet Earth does not spin out into an apocalyptic ball of climate disaster by the time your children are old enough to be knifing their peers over tire fires for their share of rat rations, it will be because your uniquely virtuous family had the moral fortitude to drive an electric car and limit your flying. After all, electricity comes from magical climate-neutral fairies and the jet fuel industry is waiting with bated breath for the day that you ground your family and send an international behemoth into wholesale free-fall.

If there is one guaranteed way forward through the climate crisis, it is to silo ourselves into individual categories of "good people" who use paper straws (like you! you are so good!) and "amoral reprobates" (such as your mother-in-law, who sucks!) who do not. The very future of humanity depends on demonizing and shaming other people until they behave as we want them to, privileging individual actions over collective resistance to and accountability for the worst global offenders, and rejecting community-building opportunities in favor of being the only best good person ever.

Build no bridge with this woman! She would probably just drive over it with her minivan, and then the blood of billions will be on your hands.

[starpirateee]

Could I request something where Curt tries to stop Owens fall but instead they both end up falling.

Where they BOTH fall?? Jesus wow, i'm all in! again i'm so sorry that this took an absolute age, i wasn't so confident about this one at first and it did go through a revision or two....

tw for injury detail and blood

The ground was unsturdy beneath their feet as they ran. Curt knew the weight of what he'd done— some confidence that had been present in him before let him completely ignore Owen's bet of four minutes— but he didn't have the time to consider how he could've done anything differently.

"Shit. We gotta run!"

Owen's hand scraped through his hair, exasperated. "For god's-" He cut himself off with a sigh, and shook his head. He was the first to start running past the fallen agents that had collapsed when the ground began to rumble, and sent a sharp gesture to Curt in the hopes that he was following him. "Curt, god only knows you're gonna be the death of me..."

"Nah, no way!" The two of them made a beeline for the stairs, and Curt saw the way Owen's hand had tensed against the railing as he started to ascend. There was going to be two sets of explosions, then. It was a matter of surviving long enough to get out before the second lot threw them off their course again.

He followed Owen closely, briefly glancing behind to check for pursuing agents, and then forced himself to focus. "I'd never let you-"

Owen's foot caught something, and he slipped over the edge of the railing with a cry that perfectly radiated their collective surprise. Curt's eyes went wide, and he scrambled forwards in an attempt to catch him. Just before he could get there, Owen's fingertips scraped the balcony, and he just about managed to catch himself before he fell all the way.

"Jesus Christ-" Curt breathed as he lowered himself quickly, one hand flashing out and grabbing the closest railing for extra stability. "Owen! Take my hand!"

He didn't see the cause of all this, but he had the worst suspicion that he knew exactly what it was... This was the same set of stairs they had been using to make their way down to the main floor, where he had dropped that trash on the grounds that nobody would care if the whole place was gonna be annihilated anyway.

This was the same set of stairs, right?

His heart sank. If Owen was even slightly slower there, he'd have fallen, and it would've been his fault, and he wasn't sure if he'd have ever been able to shake that.

Thankfully, he hadn't. Thankfully, he didn't have to think about that possibility.

Really, he shouldn't have been thinking about that at all, not with what was at stake right now.

Owen struggled to transfer his weight, even after Curt crouched closer to the ground and tried to reach out to his furthest. He could hear people behind them. They were gaining ground quickly, and there they were, looking like they were ready to accept the fate that was to be thrown at them, stuck in a catastrophic balance.

"C'mon, you bastard, it's not gonna end like this! I- said I'd never let you down and I... Damn well mean it!"

Owen reached, and almost slipped again. His eyes were wild with panic, which was unusual for him in itself. It looked so out of place among his otherwise perfect features, and it took Curt a moment to realise it was only multiplying by the second. His other hand was starting to falter, fingertips digging desperately against the edging as he tried to haul himself up.

His effort— their collective effort— was completely in vain. The last time Owen tried to force himself to land a grip and reach up for Curt’s hand, his fingertips gave way with the momentum, and Curt lost him to whichever fate awaited him at the bottom of the silo, carried away by a desperate scream.

Curt stared at the empty void that was the space in which he’d just lost Owen. His breath ran short. His pulse thundered in his ears. Every inch of him was screaming, but he was silent. Too much shock had overrun his body, and he could barely produce a coherent thought, let alone the strength to call out Owen’s name.

He tried to stand, but his legs felt weak. There wasn’t enough time to register the world spinning around him, blurring the edges of his vision, because the moment he managed to struggle to his feet, someone shot at him. The bullet tore through the air from a point on the staircase that he didn’t have the time to locate before it struck him straight in the shoulder.

Blurs of dark colours— shades that all looked the same among the threat of tears that were all too close to falling— flashed through his vision as he stumbled, but he was unable to stop himself, and unable to realise just how little balcony he had left.

He fell. The balcony was left long behind him, and the effort of trying to save himself became too great.

The world went black.

===

Owen was first to wake. He and Curt were in close proximity, but not in the place he recalled falling from. That was an industrial silo they’d been using to make their escape. This was… somewhere else.

What had happened?

His head was pounding with the beat of his heart. Twice to every pulse. Once, twice, and then a beat. Once… Twice… And then another beat. It was agonising, and trying to think about the happenings made it worse. Eventually, he decided to just stop trying and focus on something else.

There was little else available to them besides the ominous chill in the air, and the nettle sting numbness that spread across the surface of his skin. It felt like a canvas, pulled taut against a wooden frame, and stretched beyond limits. The muscles in his face were trying to work against him— he could feel the prevalent twitch near his cheekbone, it was driving him crazy— but on the surface, it was tight, and he could still feel a residual heat.

The tightness— a violent and rather dramatic burn, from the feel of it alone— spread from about halfway down one side of his face, down the length of his neck, and trailed far beyond the line of his singed shirt. He traced it carefully, feeling the line between what his skin should feel like and this new area where sensation ended altogether.

Curt wasn’t conscious. That was enough of a concern in itself, but whatever had happened to them only seemed to make things worse. By the looks of things, he was pretty badly injured too; the most prevalent of which being a large gash that split his hairline from the rest of his face and left a crimson river pooling at the side of his head. Owen pressed a hand gently against the gash, and was relieved beyond measure when his fingers came back relatively clean.

His racing mind wouldn’t let him rest, so instead of straining himself and trying to find out what had happened to them, he gave Curt a quick once over with a glance while they still had the light available to them.

Curt had been burned too, across his shoulders and presumably down his back as well. They’d taken the heat from different angles, but it had struck them both rather harshly.

Owen remembered flashes. An explosion, rescuing Curt from the hands of the Russians, hitting something hard after falling from a height and being surprised when his spine didn’t immediately snap upon impact. He drew his hand away from Curt slowly and slumped back against the closest wall.

One, two, and then a beat.

One… Two… And then another beat.

An uncomfortable silence washed over him as he breathed quietly and hoped to god that Curt was going to wake up. He couldn’t face this unknown alone, not when he knew that Curt was right there, and it would be an injustice for anyone to have kept him alive alongside Curt’s corpse, even if they were both alive when they were left behind.

What he had managed to gather was that the two of them were trapped. They were at someone’s liberty, and logic had to determine it was the same people who had captured Curt the first time.

That meant they hadn't left the facility, but the last he checked, he and Curt were—

They were trying to blow the place up.

That would explain things. It explained this twin set of burns lining both of their bodies, and the excess of heat left simmering underneath his skin like a reserve. They had been trying to rig this place to blow, and they hadn't gotten out in time. There was still a large, empty space there in the blurs and eroded edges of his mind, but he had neither the energy or the capacity to figure it out.

Curt was uncharacteristically still. The more he stared— having given himself no other way to cope— the more he had managed to convince himself that Curt wasn't actually living at all.

Surely they hadn't actually left him with a corpse, had they?

Nobody would dare to be so cold, not in their right minds, anyway. Giving him hope that Curt might pull through, and then ripping it away from him with the cold image of his lover, left frozen in time and forever trapped in the same, non-changing body.

But he didn't look like he was moving, not even a slight rise of the chest. He looked like he'd be cold to touch.

He had to check. He couldn't stay here a second longer without knowing for certain whether Curt was alive. So, he leaned forwards, shifting to get himself in position, and then pushed Curt's collar out of the way and desperately took a pulse.

He's dead. They've left you dealing with the aftermath.

A position change. Another check. A breath held in anticipation.

Owen let the dread speak for itself. He knew only moments had passed, but waiting for something of this weight made the moment stretch out into eternity.

Then there was a beat. Owen didn't think he could physically feel more relieved if he tried. The moment he felt a beat beneath his fingers, he sighed deeply and sat back, letting the absolution wash over him.

Shit. Curt was alive.

He tried again, and again he found that there was a pulse present. Curt was alive. All of his stagnant thoughts would subside on their own in good time now, if he let himself really take in the signs that he was still there with him.

The most prevalent factor trying to make sure that wasn't the case was the gash splitting his forehead near his hairline. Sure, Owen was aware that his fingertips had come back mostly clean from his last check, but there was still the fact of the matter: it was still bleeding.

Most of the remedies he could think of weren't possible in such a space where they had nothing to hand but what was on their person… He couldn't think of a single viable way to tend to it until something in the middle of the blurred expanse of his mind remembered something he should've thought about a long time ago.

Curt was carrying alcohol.

It wasn't ideal, not the best of solutions by any means, but it was a solution of sorts. Curt had whiskey in the pocket of his jacket, and that would at least do something to disinfect the wound… He could use an edge of his own shirt to apply what was left of the whiskey, pain be damned, and he could make sure that at least that factor had been taken care of. 

There was a whole list of things he could've sorted or tried to rationalise, but his thoughts were taking him nowhere but here. He wasn't bleeding himself— not anymore, anyway, not after he'd discovered a split laced just below his bicep and discovered it to be at least healed over with layers of dried blood— so the only thing he could allow himself to focus on was the fact that Curt was.

He shrugged off his jacket— something that took far more effort than it should've— and tore his shirt at the sleeve, where his own gash had produced a sizable hole in the fabric. The bitter chill hit him immediately, and he winced as the air messed with new wounds just below the cutoff and agitated them further. He'd never been the type bothered by the cold, but there was something about this particular strain of cold that just served to make everything worse about the situation itself. Everything became far more terrifying when things that normally weren't bothersome became noticeable…

Owen clenched the fabric of his shirt in his fist until his knuckles paled. He couldn't lose himself now, not when he had something to do. And Curt still wasn't showing signs of coming around, so he still had time to get on with it, too. In fact, there was no better time. Why was he even hesitating? It was sometimes just part of the job to see one's partner sprawled out on the ground, barely breathing and bleeding from the head. That was totally normal, what was he even getting himself worked up about?

His hands shook as he reached for Curt's jacket, trembling fingers fumbling with the zip and only managing to get it down at all because he landed a grip for all of a second. This particular issue transcended agency. Went far beyond the professional, and deep into the personal. Sure, it may not have been out of the blue to see one's partner in a bad way after a particularly rough mission, but it was a little worse when the other definition of partner— the one supposed to be a separate matter from business altogether— was bleeding out on the ground with no end in sight.

Owen reached for the whiskey in Curt's innermost pocket. He couldn't afford to even think if that was the direction his mind was going to take him… At least that would be easier on the aching in his head.

Removing the cap from the flask was certainly not the easiest of tasks, what with the state of him, but he did manage, and immediately poured the alcohol onto the severed sleeve of his shirt.

He muttered an apology to nobody in particular, and immediately pressed the cold, hastily folded fabric onto the wound only not dripping blood into Curt's eyebrow because of the position he was in. His free hand messed with the cap again before anyone who was around noticed that they were carrying supplies, and he just about managed to screw it back on before his frustration boiled over.

Focus, Owen. 

He tucked the flask underneath his jacket for the time being, hoping not to get caught by outside forces, and turned as much of his attention as he could to the repetitive and apparently grounding motion of cleaning the gash on Curt's forehead with his makeshift rubbing alcohol and cloth. 

He almost didn’t notice the fact that it wasn’t one continuous streak of blood until it was too late. The blood was running down the side of his face in a continuous, seemingly unbroken line, but that wasn’t quite the case, as Owen realised when he got close enough to the end of the trail.

Because there was also blood running from his ear.

Owen’s eyes widened the second he noticed that, and he swore he heard his breath catch in his throat. That was never good. That was something that had already caused lasting damage, and was going to have it’s effects later on, if Curt— when Curt— eventually woke up. He couldn’t think about this now. He’d appointed himself a job to make this worsening hell a little easier on both of them, and he couldn’t think about the fact that Curt might have just been close enough to the danger to warrant definitive hearing loss.

That scared him. Why was it so hard to kick his brain into action to produce something coherent on what had happened to them? Why did he have to pull it together from scraps left over from the ashes, and blood, and scars that were going to dig deep and leave an impact?

Nothing he did was enough to be able to account for everything wrong with them or their situation, but he felt slightly more at ease knowing that there was something he could do to alleviate a little of the dread settled deep within his chest, one piece at a time. Even if neither of them would ever recover. Even if both of them had to learn to survive in a different way, in a solidarity with one another deeper than it had ever been before. 

From now, they were the only people who understood. He was right before. This ran far beyond agency, and anything they could comprehend in their limited scope of vision for their agents— no, their assets.

Who cared if a few of them came back battered from a badly done mission? Who in their right minds would even notice if one of them came back with a haunted vacancy in their eyes that was hard to shake, if it was hard for them to concentrate because of what they’d seen?

Who really cared if the scars started multiplying by the day, until the fresh faced recruit who’d walked in through those doors became nothing more than a shell of their former self, with no trace of the spirit that left them the first time they realised they’d be permanently changed by this repetitive purgatory of abuse with no recognition?

===

Curt awoke to the sound of static. It flooded his ears, pulsing through the space left in his brain. He’d been painfully aware of how little time they had left, but he knew that they hadn’t the time to sort it for themselves. This was what he got for vastly underestimating his own overconfidence and openly jeopardising the both of them. The buzz was a little too much for him, but gave way to certain thoughts before he could even think to make a move to dispel them. On either side of his periphery, there was nothing. Everything in his head was too loud to try and prove that theory otherwise, because he couldn’t hear anything from the outside either, so by all logic, that meant he was alone, at least until proven otherwise.

“... Owen?”

His own voice sounded strange, like no more than an echo through the aether that would never be heard. He was with Owen when all of this happened. He was with him, that much was for sure, so if something had happened to him now, if something had gotten them separated…

He pushed himself up against the wall, and immediately winced in pain as the top of his shoulders made contact and some kind of all too recognisable pain shot down his back. It felt heated, and he knew he’d experienced it before, only to a much, much smaller degree.

Fighting through the pain and his own body rebelling against him, he managed to clear his vision enough to see that, in fact, he wasn’t alone at all. There was someone sitting feet away, watching him with a kind of intent. The shadowy nothing gave way to a familiar— albeit bloody— face, framed with familiar waves of dark hair. 

Curt’s relief was palpable. 

“Owen!”

There he was. Tense and beaten and shaken in a way that he had never seen on him, but there all the same. Seeing him made all of this a little more bearable, but such a feeling was instantly eradicated when he registered what had happened. The explosion had hit them both. Owen’s low cut shirt was the only thing that made him see how far it had spread, from a point he didn’t want to imagine on his shoulder, to about halfway up his face, stopping in a vicious series of uneven flashes just beyond his cheekbone.

Owen seemed to make an effort to answer. He looked over, his shoulders dropped as soon as he seemed to register the fact that Curt was conscious, and he sighed. That was about where the familiar, comforting presence ended. He went to say something, but through the violent buzz, Curt couldn’t make anything out but the shape of some of the words as they left him. 

The only thing he could truly make out was the fact that Owen looked strained, and therefore probably sounded a little different to that which he was used to. He tilted his head, trying for all it was worse to fight off the static and the ringing, even though they insisted on getting more violent. “Huh?”

It was easy for him to read what people were saying. That was all part of the job, honing in on conversations of all kinds from a distance, to make a judgement on whether a situation was viable for infiltration. But when Owen was injured— and he was injured— he tended to talk fast without realising it, and that wasn’t exactly making things easier.

It looked like he tried to repeat whatever it was he said, but Curt was getting nothing but the violent mess going on in his head. Either his thoughts were running too fast and he couldn’t discern one thing from another, or something had gone worse than he thought when…

When he too had fallen from the height of the balcony and left himself and Owen to the depths of the explosion that they’d set up.

He couldn’t hear his own breath permeating the air. He couldn’t hear the sound of Owen's breathing. 

He couldn’t hear Owen. 

What was going on in his head? Why was it only getting louder with every passing second? He tried to think, but was stopped by the pain running it’s course through his body, through his mind, pounding inside his skull.

One thing of everything else was certain.

“Owen, I can’t- I can’t hear you!”

The next thing that was said was familiar. Curt knew well the way Owen’s face fell as a fresh wave of surprise flooded him, and could just about make out the “what?!” that followed.

He didn’t need the repetition, it was clear enough that he had heard him, but the only thing that Curt’s suddenly stricken mind could think to do was say the same words again. Maybe it would solidify it in his head a little more. Maybe he would come to accept it if he just said it enough times for it to stick.

“I can’t hear you! I-I can’t hear anything!”

Owen shifted then, until he was sitting in front of him, leaning forwards against his knees. It was always him. He knew how to sense the panic that lay deep inside his chest, and he knew how to quell the flames for long enough that he could finally think for himself. If he could get rid of the static too— if that were even possible— then he would owe him more than just his life.

An offering was made. Simple as Owen holding out his hand. Curt knew what his instinct wanted him to do, but his stiff, slow working mind didn’t want to allow it. But, he made an effort, and Owen met him halfway, hand so carefully laced in hand. He took a breath, clearly in the realms of being aware of the pacing of his own speech, and making a conscious effort to try and slow down.

“Curt… Curt, look at me, okay?”

Curt’s eyes met Owen’s for a moment. For all the world had done to him, there was still a stagnant fire left over in those whiskey depths that refused to burn out. He’d always admired him for that.

“Is this alright?”

Curt just nodded, silent and strangely hopeful. Owen wasn’t a miracle worker, he wasn’t going to be able to fix this, but Curt had the slightest suspicion that he’d at least make it a little more bearable.

Owen nodded too, pressing his lips together for all of a moment. “Alright.” He glanced away, as if there was something on the outside, as if the world was bigger than the two of them, but his eyes were back on Curt in a moment. “I… I’m not going to claim to know what happened to us, but you can’t afford to lose yourself now… I’m here, and whatever the hell this is… We can face it together, like we always have.”

“Right…” 

Too quiet? Too loud? 

Curt never knew how much he’d thoroughly hate not even having a gauge on his own voice. Everything was so violent, and the inside of his mind had never been louder. Maybe it wasn’t static at all… Maybe it was something dragging a sharp instrument directly through the inside of his skull, or a nail being pulled and replaced over and over and over again.

“... Curt?”

Owen looked… Concerned. No. A little more than concerned, actually. For the first time since he’d known him, Owen Carvour looked downright terrified. He had a passionate fear of the unknown, which was why he put everything he had into researching before anything, to make sure he knew as much as he could. He went out of his way to make sure there were no uncertainties, even mid mission, and he was always so careful about it that it was hard to ignore when that hadn’t happened. Curt knew that. He wasn’t sure if anyone else did.

His brow was drawn, and it was obvious that thoughts were running through his mind at a faster rate than he would normally allow for himself. There was something wild in his gaze, and that was worrying Curt enough as it was. He wasn’t going to pretend to have not noticed the fact that his jacket lay discarded on the ground in a hasty crumple, or the fact that he was missing a sleeve, or the fact that said sleeve was covered in blood and laying just beyond their reach.

Clearly, he’d tried to keep himself as busy as possible by ignoring what was going on with himself, and had tried to keep all of his focus on what he could actually see. 

“Sorry…”

He wasn’t quite sure what he was apologising for— whether that be the panic beating a heavy drum against his ribcage, or the fact that it was him who had gotten them both into this mess, or the fact that he’d lost focus— but Owen didn’t seem to want to take it, whatever he was trying to make up for.

“You’ve nothing to apologise for, I just- need you to stay with me…”

The world was bigger than the two of them, but it wasn’t like they had any proof for that in the moment. Curt had Owen. Curt had the feeling of his hand as his fingers brushed his knuckles, and the ghost of his voice, and everything he’d done in the last stretch of time to make sure they both pulled through. 

Owen didn’t have the memory enough to know what had happened, and that was enough to let the dread settle in and mix with the rising panic that just would not go away. It was only a matter of time before he figured out they were only in this mess because of him, and then what? 

Focus, Curt. Stay in the moment. 

He forced a breath. Held it. That felt right to him. It did a little in alleviating the pressure, anyway. On the exhale, he gripped Owen’s hand a little tighter, only to have that squeeze returned. “What’s going on?” He asked, having not had an indicator either way so deciding to keep his voice just so.

Owen grimaced. “I don’t know. It’s been too quiet.”

Curt could only imagine the resignation in his tone. His next breath came a little slower, though he could still feel the drum beat in his chest. “Nothing?”

“No. Not yet.”

“What happened there?” He nodded over to the discarded fabric. Owen turned, as if noticing for the first time that his jacket was missing, and then looked beyond it at the bloodied sleeve of his shirt. He reached back far enough to take his jacket, and slipped something metal into his free hand.

“Had to clean you up.” He shrugged, nonchalant, and handed back the flat metal something.

His flask. Empty of the whiskey that had once been in it, but familiar. And he really needed that right about now.

He nodded his thanks and slipped it clumsily into his pocket. It was a comfort to know that it was there in the first place, it gave him an edge more confidence, which sometimes felt like a foothold on the world itself. “What about you?”

“... I finished it.”

“No, I mean—”

“I’m fine. You were bleeding from the head.”

[butterflydm]

WoT fanon that you disagree with:

There are a few common pieces of WoT fanon that I feel like I can't personally get behind because they feel contradicted by the narrative and I was curious what other pieces of fanon others might also disagree with.

(book spoilers below!)

Here are some of mine that immediately came to mind:

"Egeanin gets deprogrammed from being a hardcore Seanchan believer by meeting Elayne and Nynaeve." It isn't until Tuon humiliates Egeanin by forcibly changing her name that she dedicates herself to the idea of opposing the Empire as it is (and, even then, she's still loyal to the Seanchan Empire, she just wants to try to make it better/more honest). In Winter's Heart, she thinks about how even though she cares about Doman, the idea of marrying either a slave or even a freed slave feels innately wrong to her and it isn't until Knife of Dreams that she's able to let go of that disgust and marry Domon (for all my gripes about how badly written Mat's storyline is in CoT and KoD, there is a good storyline for Egeanin buried in those books; we just barely spend any time on it). She remains deep within the Seanchan mentality for many long books after she has met Nynaeve and Elayne. They kickstart the process, but it's still a long road for her after that. It's possible that the common fanon take is meant to be a humorous exaggeration of the canon events?

"Nynaeve and Min are incredibly supportive to Rand during his emotional descent." Both of them withhold a lot of important information from him during this time -- they both withhold the sul'dam secret, even after they know that he's fighting against the Seanchan; and Nynaeve deliberately chooses not to tell him about Mat being left behind in Ebou Dar (for reasons that she never shares with the reader). And, in the case of Min, there is at least one occasion where she actively avoids being emotionally supportive in favor of distracting Rand with sex instead, because she doesn't want to talk to him about his emotions (iirc, it's in TPoD when he comes back from fighting the Seanchan). A lot of this is likely due to Jordan's apparent hardcore belief that Women And Men Just Can't Communicate With Each Other No Matter How Dire The Circumstances plus his hardcore belief that Rand Isn't Ever Allowed To Know Things but, yeah. They are physically present in Rand's life but could have done a lot more to support Rand as a leader and as a person by simply being willing to actually tell him something every now and then. I do think part of the problem here is that Jordan wanted to silo off every problem away from all the others, and so Min and Nynaeve undergo convenient amnesia when they enter Rand's plotline so that they can't tell him anything useful because Rand needs to Fail At The Seanchan for now, so the narrative has to ignore all the potential solutions that he has at hand (I believe that this is also why, for example, Perrin never sends the Asha'man to ask Rand for help after Faile gets kidnapped - Jordan wanted him to face his dark night of the soul without any other main characters being involved in his story).

"Gawyn got Egwene killed." Literally just straight-up not true, even if it constantly gets circulated on fandom. After Gawyn dies, Egwene bonds another Warder and continues to fight in the Last Battle.

What are some of your pieces of common WoT fanon that you disagree with?

[cyberrose2001]

hnnn I don’t normally ask for requests but my TFP fixation came back swinging, your drabbles have been a great read, and I have a mIGHTY NEEEED.. feel free to ignore this one, though!

Could I possibly request human fem reader that’s usually quiet and laid-back and laughs off their problems, getting caught breaking down because they’ve grown very attached to TFP Optimus (or Ratchet, I’d be happy with either) despite not having a guardian of their own (those two are busy mechs after all😩) and even though they’re ready to fight anyone and anything that threatens the ones they care about they realize they’re too small and weak to help protect them if it came down to it?

TFP Optimus x reader

Hi!! Thank you for requesting! This was very nice to write, I hope that this is something you were looking for… enjoy!! <3

Warnings: SFW/Fluff, very brief description of death, reader has slight crush on OP if you squint hard enough.

Word count: 1046

The problem with happy, go lucky people like yourself is that the highs are high, and the lows are low. Yeah, you’re content with whatever life hurls at you and tend to shake the dust off your shoulders, not bothered by grievances. But sometimes, you wonder what purpose you bring to this surreal life you’ve found yourself cushioned in. It’s a blessing and, unfortunately, a curse.

You met the Autobots about a year ago, another heavy boulder that life had hurled at you, but instead of shattering it into a million pieces just so you could brush it off your back, you found comfort and love in it. Especially Optimus, who of which was the one that suggested you join them after a near miss with Starscream. A robust yet imperturbable mech that you would lay down your life for, a life that is relatively minuscule in comparison to your larger Cybertronian companion.

That’s when your mind tends to drift to your purpose. What was the point of being a part of the Autobots aside from protection? When it comes down to it, there’s really not much you can do to help them significantly. You can’t cock a shotgun and run head-first into a hoard of Decepticons; one wrong step from one of them, and you’d be dead, reduced to smush in the dirt and most likely forgotten.

So you sulk. That’s all you can do. You sulk in one of the many corridors of the silo you’ve tended to call home because there is nothing that you could possibly do to safeguard him or at least return the favour for providing you with sanctuary. The floor is cold, but your tears provide a distracting warmth as they pool onto the arms you’ve buried your head in.

You’ve been sitting here for some time now, and your back is tingly from not moving. You’re entirely focused on crying your heart out that you don’t even notice the rumbling footsteps approaching your pathetic form.

“Y/n? Are you alright?”

Oh shit. It’s Optimus. You can’t face him right now, and you don’t want to. He doesn’t need to see how much you’ve been crying. So, you keep your head in your arms, hoping and praying that he’ll walk away, forget about you like your mind thinks he should.

He doesn’t, which you had expected. Instead, you hear the hydraulics of his pedes in what you’d suspect to be him crouching down and the gentle cold touch of a digit gently prying your arms away from your face.

“Has something happened to you? Why are you upset?” The gentle baritone of his voice is so soothing, yet painful to hear because at least he’s pretending to care about you.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” You croak, wiping the tears away with the back of your hand. It does nothing but smear the salty drops into your hairline. You take the opportunity to glance into his optics, and shit, does he have the most sympathetic look on his face you’ve ever seen from him.

Optimus quirks an optic ridge, then proceeds to sit beside you against the wall with a twang, vibrating the floor beneath you, “I believe I have been around your kind long enough to know that you are hurting,” he turns to face you, “I would not be troubled if you were to indulge me.”

There’s no getting out of this. You need to do what you do best and shrug this off your shoulders.

“I uh,” You sniffle before another barrage of tears flows down your face, “God, Optimus, I’m sorry about this.”

“Do not be,” Optimus reaches down to press a digit to the palm of your hand, an attempt that makes your heart skip a beat, “This is clearly something that is significant to you; take your time and breathe.”

You nod, taking a shaky breath as he orders, “Why do you care so much about me- I mean, us? Why risk your life for a human when you know there’s nothing we can do for you,” Another shaky breath, and you grip his digit, “Why do you do it?”

Optimus’ optics hover over your form, clearly thinking through your words in deep thought. He hums, then turns his helm to the wall before you both, “Tell me, why do you think we protect your kind?”

“Well, we’re pathetic, tiny, primitive meat bags who can’t even-“

“No,” Optimus interrupts you, shaking his helm. A small smile creeps onto his face, “In fact, it is quite the opposite.”

“But how?” You crane your neck to look at him, red, irritated eyes on full display, “How can you say that when we’ve done literally nothing to help your cause?” A pause, and you glance down to the digit that you still cling onto, “I mean- just look. My hand doesn’t even begin to compare to one of your fingers.”

Optimus follows your eyes to his servo, staring at it curiously. He then cups your hand around it, ultimately holding your hand, “It is not the physical differences I am referring to, but the selflessness of providing for us.”

You suck in a breath, blinking away the rest of your tears, “W-What?”

“I do not think you realise your importance to our cause. If not for the valiant efforts to provide us with crucial resources in our battle with the Decepticons, well, we would have no safe place for sanctuary.” Optimus gently squeezes your hand and looks into your reddened windows to your soul, “No place to call home.”

You stare up at him in shock. You never considered that there wouldn’t be a safe place for you to stay if humans hadn't given the Autobots a safe place in the first place. You’re not useless and weak like you think you are. The feeling of relief and disbelief is all too much for you to handle, and you let your tears fall once again, leaning down to rest your head on his servo.

Optimus is unfazed and lets you pour your heart and soul onto him. He closes his optics, basking in your presence as your sobs turn blissful. Content that he can provide you comfort and a safe space, as you have done for him.