#the poetic license people are suddenly taking is wild

[9w1ft]

Wait! Wait! No! I get it. Okay so. Toe WERE married. They divorced. Because remember she has a song about divorce? Then they got back together. And then he realized she's famous. And she dumped him. Sure. Makes sense.

😌

[aellynera]

Goddess (Orestes x Reader)

GODDESS

(Hi. I wrote an Orestes story - it started as a joke about the way Apocalypse says “my goddess”, and then I was like “oh man I want Orestes to call me his goddess” and then as usual, I don’t know how, but this happened. It’s rather different than most things I write, but I quite enjoyed writing it and I hope you like it. Comments, likes, and reblogs always appreciated!)

Word Count: ~4400

Summary: Orestes is a constant in your life and has a particular way of constantly reminding you.

Warnings: Mentions of character death (briefly described but not graphically.) Implied female reader. Definite probable historical inaccuracies taken for poetic license and dramatic effect. ANGST (I made myself cry while I was writing this.) Christians doing morally void but historically accurate things. Fictional timelines.

When you are four years old, your parents leave everything they’ve built in Rome - their jobs in the palace, their lives in the city, your father’s position on the council -upon the orders of the Emperor and move to Alexandria. Your father’s new role is to assist in turning that city into a bastion of the Empire, to help strengthen the government and support the supremacy of Rome. Your mother is to be a gentle guide to the women, in hearth and home and higher society. And because you are theirs, you go with them.

They meet with the prefect upon your arrival and he welcomes your family. He is bright and cheerful, yet loud and pompous and booming, stern but wise, and while he is a kind man, his volume frightens you. You cower behind your mother’s skirts, steadfastly clinging to her and  refusing to join in any pleasantries.

Another woman suddenly appears, a small boy with curly hair and bright dark eyes holding her hand. The boy regards you curiously and asks why you won’t come out and say hello. His mother tells him you’re shy, while your mother encourages you to release your death grip on her gown. Finally, after much coaxing, you relent and she pushes you gently towards the little boy.

His mother says you should go play in the garden while the grown-ups talk, and he reaches a tiny hand out to you, wide-eyed and smiling. His name is Orestes, and he is six.

And when you take his hand with a shy little smile, his voice comes out as a whisper and tells you he thinks you’re a goddess, and he drags you towards the garden to show you the little blue flowers that dot the grass, and you believe him.

***

When you are eight years old, one day you finish your chores early and decide to spend your extra time in the yard, weaving some wildflowers together into a chain while the mid-afternoon sun warms your shoulders.

You are quite happy to be alone and not around the grown-ups for now; they’re so loud, sometimes too loud. You crave the quiet, seek it out often, and you bask in it.

Until a rush of dark curls and bright eyes tears past your house, into your yard, and grabs you by the hand, knocking your flower chain carelessly to the ground. He insists you come play with him on the hill nearby and with a squeal of indignation, you let yourself be dragged along behind him.

Your ire over the discarded flower chain is soon forgotten as your squeals become laughter as you roll and roll down the hill together, grass and dirt sticking to your robes and tufts sticking to his unruly curls. 

When you tell him he looks silly, he tells you he doesn’t, and you insist that he does and he protests that he doesn’t. And so it goes back and forth and back again, until you push him or he pushes you or someone pushes the other and you both go tumbling down that hill, end over head over feet, your descent only stopped by a patch of mud at the bottom.

He might be the son of the prefect, and he might be your best friend, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t an enormous brat sometimes.

For a minute you’re both panting and red-faced and near tears, until he starts to giggle and you can’t help but join in, and only laugh harder at his outraged gasp when you hit him square in the chest with a chunk of mud.

And on the way back to your house, when you’re worrying your bottom lip thinking on how to explain to your mother why you’re covered in dead grass and damp bits of dirt, your robes most likely ruined, he tells you with the kind of confidence only possessed by a boy of ten years that everything will be fine, because you are a goddess and brave and strong, and you believe him.

***

When you are twelve years old, you hear of the school that Hypatia is running, because Orestes tells you about it when he starts going. You don’t like that he’s doing something without you. You don’t like being left behind and left out and you want to go to this school too. 

Your mother would easily say yes, but your father is reluctant, and it’s not that he thinks a woman shouldn’t learn philosophy and how to read and do arithmetic; it’s  more that enough other people in the city do think like this and he is convinced it will not be safe for you.

You care little for your safety. All you want, all you desire, is to be part of this group of scholars and to go to this school and learn. And what danger can possibly be there, when a woman is the one in charge?

So you beg and plead and bargain with your father, until a boy - now a young man - with curls like nighttime and eyes nearly as dark and twinkling with stars, steps in and says he’ll watch over you during your classes, and your father gives his permission. And so you start attending Hypatia’s school.

And when the older boys, boys who were nearly men and should know better, start to bully and deride you for desiring knowledge, when they taunt you and steal your scrolls and yank the ribbons from your hair, he steps in and tells them in no uncertain terms to leave you alone. Neither of your fathers, especially his, are particularly thrilled with the tussles he gets in on your behalf, or the black eye that one petulant snipe Cyrus gives him when he connects a punch when Orestes isn’t properly paying attention.

You frown at him as he sits in a chair next to the washbasin, a clean wet cloth clutched in your hand. He winces as you clean the blood from his cheek and gingerly probe the bruise swelling around his eye.

And when you softly ask why he’d do such a stupid thing, he tells you that even a goddess needs a hero to protect them sometimes, and even though you think him entirely ridiculous and heat comes unbidden to your cheeks, it makes you giddy to believe him.

***

When you are sixteen years old, you watch the boy with the wild ebony curls and liquid chocolate eyes fall in love with a girl. Only it isn’t a girl, it’s a woman, and you realize he’s been doing it for years.

Ever since your first day in the new city, he has always been by your side and you by his, an inseparable duo. You thought that would never change, but here you are, finding yourself forced to watch your best friend slowly but surely let his heart be ensnared by your very own teacher.

All he can talk about now, it seems, is Hypatia and her philosophies; Hypatia and her scrolls and the amazing things she is currently reading; Hypatia and her outlandish theories on the universe and the stars. Always Hypatia, all things Hypatia.

You never knew you could hate someone as amazing and wonderful as Hypatia.

It doesn’t seem to matter that his attentions are not equally returned, that she never fully indulges his lovesick whims and overreaching attempts to gain her attention. She continues to treat him as a student, and outside of class possibly even as a dear friend, and he continues to pine.

One afternoon you’re among the stacks of scrolls at the library, trying to find the parchment necessary to complete an assignment Hypatia has given you. You honestly would rather not find it and not even bother finishing your assigned work right now, and you must have some kind of look on your face because he takes the scroll you’re clutching from your hand and leads you to a mostly hidden nook in the room. And he stops talking about Hypatia for a moment to ask you what is wrong.

You want to tell him you miss him, that you want him back, that he’s making a mistake, but you can’t, you don’t. It takes a bit more coaxing, but you finally tell him you’re lonely and you wish there was someone you could find, someone you had to love as much as he had his person, he smiles and tells you that one day you will, because you’re a goddess and the right person will be pulled to the love and light you always emit. You smile back weakly and blink and look away and you want nothing more than to believe him.

***

When you are twenty years old, the library at Alexandria is destroyed.

It happens on a sunny afternoon not unlike so many others that have passed before, when suddenly the doors are broken down and the Christians rush in and the chaos ensues.

You’re sitting at a table with a quill in your hand, carefully writing your thoughts on a piece of parchment, when you hear the shouting in the entryway. And before you know what’s going on, shelves are being knocked over, papers tossed into the air like so much confetti, scrolls being thrown left and right. The air is beginning to smell acrid; you can see a few people setting small fires in some of the stacks.

The windows above you shatter as others throw rocks and even a chair, and you look around wildly for a way out. You don’t know which way is the right way to go, or even if there is a right way to go.

Everything is madness.

A pair of arms suddenly shoot out and grab you around the waist and your scream pierces the air like the horn on the top of the lighthouse trying to guide a ship to shore. Instead you realize you’re trying to drive this ship to its ruin, to free yourself from its depths with wildly swinging elbows and kicks, until you hear a familiar voice shouting your name over the ruckus.

You take in your assailant, all frantic curls and impossibly wide, dark eyes, and collapse into him in relief. Orestes tells you that you need to go, you need to get out, and to find both your fathers in the nearby council chambers and they’ll know where to go, where it’s safe. You ask him to come with you, but he shakes his head.

He tells you he needs to help save as many of the books and scrolls as he can, and you tell him to give you all you can carry and when you run, you’ll take them with you. So he loads your arms full to bursting, and when a rock flies by inches from your face and you drop the items at the top of the pile, he ignores that and pushes you roughly in the direction of the side exit. He says you must leave now, and he’ll be behind you before you know it.

He presses his lips to your temple ever so briefly, spares you a pained smile, and says you’re a goddess for the small bit of assistance you are giving.

As you run for safety, or what might be further peril, you spare a glance over your shoulder and see him helping Hypatia grab as much of the library’s contents as they can, and you don’t have another second to spare on deciding whether or not to believe him.

***

When you are twenty four, it’s your wedding day and everyone tells you this will be the most joyous day of your life so far. Your mother helps you dress in the softest, most expensively beautiful gown you’ve ever owned, and one of your sisters weaves a crown of laurels for your hair. Another sister makes a chain of wildflowers to wind around your wrist. You have never felt as beautiful as you do on this day.

Your father comes to the door of the chamber where your preparations are taking place, to let you know that the guests have all arrived and the groom is nearly ready, and it is almost time. He gives you a kiss on both cheeks, a gesture not common from him, and tells you he will be waiting out by the garden gate when you are ready. Your mother and sisters each kiss your cheek and leave as well, giving you a moment to yourself to gather your thoughts and emotionally prepare for the ceremony.

The door opens again a few minutes later and you turn to face the person behind it, Your eyes go wide, confused, as you take in the man before you. His dark curls are smoothed back and elegantly styled, his robes are regal and dashing, and his eyes are bright and nervous.

You tell him he shouldn’t be here.

He tells you that he knows, but he can’t help it, he has to see you. That he has been thinking of you all morning, wondering how beautiful you look, how happy you must be, and he just had to see you before you walk down the aisle to take your vows.

You bite your lip and tell him, again, that he shouldn’t be here and you can’t stop your voice from shaking. You turn your head away and look anywhere but at him.

And he repeats that he knows this, and he knows it’s wrong, it goes against all protocols, but he can’t help himself, can’t stop thinking that this is the last time he’s going to see you, see your smile and maybe hear your laugh, might be the last time your eyes can gaze upon each other and the last time he can hold you in his arms as his best friend.

You can’t think of a single thing to say to him, and even if you could, you’re certain your body will not cooperate.

Because he is not the one you are marrying. No, this marriage was arranged by your father and the Emperor, and there is the overwhelming chance that you must go back to Rome, and if you and your new husband leave Alexandria it is not likely you will ever return.

This might be the last time he can tell you that you shine with a light brighter than all the heavens, that you are beautiful and he hopes you will be happy, and you truly are a goddess among mortals.

And so Orestes does. He kisses you softly on your forehead, staying there a bit longer than propriety suggests, and quietly slips from the room. And you can’t see for the tears swimming in your eyes, and you want with all your heart to believe him, but you can’t help but find his words hollow and realize this will be far from the greatest day of your life.

***

When you are barely turned twenty-five, there is a knock on your door in the middle of the night. Perhaps knock is not the correct word, it’s more of an insistent pounding, and you swear under your breath at what could possibly be so important to rouse you out of bed at this unacceptable hour.

You pull a robe over your nightdress and open the door, and all the air leaves your lungs.

Four centurions are standing on your stoop, with a man who looks vaguely familiar; is he a general, maybe, or a captain? You can’t remember where you’ve seen him before, but it doesn’t matter, when he greets you solemnly and begins to speak, and tells you that your husband will not be returning from the front.

You did not return to Rome, as had originally been decreed. You stayed in Alexandria after your marriage because skirmishes had broken out along a few of the empire’s borders, and your new husband was called to action to fight for his ruler and the kingdom. Deep down, you could not have been more glad of it, for though you were born there, Rome had not been your home for over twenty years, and starting a new life there with a new husband would not have made it any more so. 

Your knees give out from under you and you consider for a moment that you should be crying, but you aren’t really sad and it strikes you as odd, but you can’t force the tears to come. You love your husband, in a way, but you’re not sad that he won’t be coming home. You’re relieved, and the instant that thought hits you and sends a jolt through your body, you start to laugh. The general, or captain, or whoever he is and his guards look at each other, then at you, and back to each other in utter confusion as you continue to giggle.

It all happens in mere seconds, and you’re sinking to the stone floor beneath, and a very familiar voice, one you have not heard since the day you were wed, tells the guards to stand aside and strong arms catch you before you can tumble completely.

His hair is wild and curly like he was just pulled out of bed himself, and his dark eyes shine with worry and compassion, and he asks you if you’re alright, and this is what finally breaks you from your laughter and brings wetness to your eyes.

Orestes holds you as you cry into his chest and you don’t see the pointed look he gives to the captain and the guards, nor do you see them pull back enough to close the door and wait outside.

You don’t know how long you sit there on the floor in the front hall, or how you’ve possibly gotten his robes that soggy, but eventually you calm and the thoughts roll through your brain again. You are crying because someone has died, you realize this is true even if you’re not so very sad it was your husband. You’re crying because it was your husband and now there will be the mourning period you must dutifully attend as a grieving widow. And now that you’re a widow, eventually you will be expected to take another husband, if one even dares to want you.

And you’re crying because the one reason you were glad to stay in this forsaken city - in the Alexandria which had become your home - the one reason you hoped every day to lay eyes on again and every night resigned that you never would, was suddenly here, his arms wrapped around you and his voice whispering words of comfort into your hair.

You’re not sure when he picks you up and carries you back to your bed, carefully laying you on your pillows and pulling the sheet up to cover your shoulders. You’re not sure how long he stays, holding your hand and brushing stray tendrils of hair from your face. And you’re not sure how long you drift in and out, emotional exhaustion finally catching up and pulling you into nothingness, but before you fade out completely, you feel his thumb gently brush the remaining tears from your cheek, and feel the soft press of his lips on your forehead as he calls you a goddess and tells you to rest.

And as you finally give yourself to the twilight, you aren’t sure if you imagined it, but you choose to believe him, and you cling to it.

***

You’re not sure when it happens, to be honest. Time starts to blend together after that, you just know that you’re older and that it happens, and it isn’t right and it isn’t moral and it isn’t fair. Not to anyone involved, not to the city, not at all.

Hypatia has died, been murdered in the temple at the hands of those who profess themselves to be righteous saviors, brutally stoned and ripped apart as she stood there, proud and defiant to the end. How anyone could do such a thing to another human, especially one such as her, is beyond your comprehension.

It only gets worse when they burn her corpse on a pyre in effigy in the middle of the agora.

Word comes to you of the horrible events, and your first instinct is to find him, the way he found you, came to you when word of your husband’s death made its way back to the city. You set down the parchment you’re scribbling on the desk in your room and grab a dark cloak, partly to conceal yourself and party to ward off the slight chill from the wind.

You make your way to the prefect’s palace but you’re turned away at the gate by pair of surly-looking guards, and giving your name, and then your father’s name, and then the fact that your father reports directly to Rome makes no difference to them. They have  been told to let no one in, and let no one out.

No one except the person you’re looking for, apparently, because somewhere in the aftermath you discover that Orestes is nowhere to be found.

No one knows where he’s gone, and no one knows when he left, just that it was sometime between Hypatia being murdered and the fake funeral pyre. He had words with Cyril, someone told you, and then after that, no one knows.

And the Christians take over the city, much like the library so many years ago, and more people are burned at the stake, more people are murdered, more progress is halted, all in the name of what is right and what is true.

They will kill you, too, if they find you, or find out you’re looking for Orestes. It’s been years since you’ve really been in his presence in anything but the smallest of ways, especially in public, but you know there are still enough people who know how close you were. And if they know you used to be close, you know they won’t hesitate to come after you the same way they came for the philosopher. 

So you make inquiries as discreetly as possible, ask the gossips that litter the merchants’ stalls in the most innocent way possible, like you’re just a curious citizen asking what’s happened to the rule of order in the city. You even ask your father, once, but he doesn’t reply and his stony gaze makes you certain to never ask again.

And you bury yourself in scrolls and reading, in star charts and theories; in anything, really, that will take your mind off everything that is happening and your lost prefect. Your lost friend, your best friend.

The man you truly love, even if it’s taken you years of self-doubt and missed chances to fully realize and admit it, and now, perhaps do something about it.

One day as you’re sitting at your desk, quill in hand and head in the clouds, you think of something. Something that may be nothing, but it comes to you in a flash and you have an idea of where to go, where to find him, somewhere that few others might know.

You carefully pack a bag with some clothes and supplies, and a crudely drawn map that you sketch from memory and hope you’ve gotten right. It’s been so long since you were there but you’re fairly sure you remember the way. You know that Orestes would remember.

A long day’s journey and a fitful night’s sleep take you into the next day, and the afternoon turns into dusk when the hillside comes into view. It is not the same hill you tumbled down more than once when the two of you got into a scrum, but it’s the one that you would go when you could both sneak away and no one would notice for a few days, and you’d stare at clouds by day and the stars by night.

There is an outcropping set back from the hill, in the base of the mountains nearby, that a person wouldn’t see if they didn’t know where to look. You’d found it one day during a particularly vicious thunderstorm and taken refuge in the cave there, and you’d both commented on how someone had clearly found it once before you, for it was somewhat set up as a living space, with some mats and blankets and  a few rations left on makeshift shelves. Anytime you were on these excursions and it would rain, or you simply wanted to be out of the sun, that was where you would go.

And you hope against hope that this is where your answer lies.

You crest the hill and make your way to the foot of the mountain and you can’t help but smile, just a little, thinking this is where he would have gone, should have gone, as his name means of the mountains. In his abandonment, his escape from the city, could he have taken it literally? You’ve known him so long and it feels like the kind of thing Orestes would do.

The hovel comes into view, and you drop your pack, because he does too. Tending to a fire at the mouth of the cave, his back turned slightly to you, his curls a glorious disaster, and he’s grown a beard since last you’d seen him. It’s a look you’ve not seen on him before, but you quite like it, although you consider for just a moment you’d like any look on him at this moment, because he is real and he is standing right in front of you.

The sound of the pack hitting the ground makes him turn, and his dark eyes shine in the firelight, and he looks at you for long moments but doesn’t say anything. Orestes just stares at you, disbelieving, like you might be some kind of mirage or a trick of the light or even some kind of wicked spirit sent to torment him, and so he just stares.

Until you breathe his name.

He blinks once, and his face is suddenly full of hope and relief, all the tension and disbelief of the previous moments falling away, and your heart soars to the heavens and thumps ever so boldly in your chest, and your smile threatens to crack your lips, and the tears fall freely as words finally leave his mouth.

“My goddess.”

~end~

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[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 19

it’s 2021 now!! time for more transformers 

we start off w/a flashback showing tyrest retrieving ultra magnus’s body from the ship - and we get a look at magnus’s spark, which is the green color of a 0.1%er [eyes emoji]

tyrest punching magnus..... grrrrr leave my dad alone bastard man

‘the divided self’ what a good title 

rodimus is like listen man this is a lot for my poor thot brain to take in

in flashback land, we see tyrest immediately launch into a crazy person spiel about how he can and will edit the law as he sees fit to conform to the situation, because that doesn't seem like a blatant abuse of power or a huge conflict of interest or anything 

oooh the screen in the corner that says ‘thought warfare,’ I see that

oof, poor magnus. its gotta be rough to hear your boss rant about how bad at your job you are....especially bc this is right after overlord called magnus a joke and nearly killed him

its especially brutal bc as magnus says, his job is his life 

augh, I love the panel where the armor is falling off around minimus, and then the one where he’s holding the ultra magnus head...poetic 

its fascinating that there was an ‘original’ magnus who was an actual guy, and then tyrest chose to make him into this legacy symbol - I'm assuming the OG magnus had no say in this, and probably didn't even know that he was gonna become this lawman legacy figure

I do wanna know though - obviously everyone thought that ultra magnus was one dude, but how did the different guys wearing the armor deal w/that? like, did minimus have people coming up to him like ‘hey ultra magnus old buddy! remember when we fought those guys in that one place? good times!’ like, do they have to study up on the lives of the past armor wearers to prepare for the role of ultra magnus?

augh poor minimus, of course he’s been wondering about what happened with overlord after he was KO’d

oof, drift...I feel like minimus looks surprised and a little skeptical at the idea that drift was the one behind the entire overlord thing - which is interesting bc as we saw at the beginning of the story, he doesn't exactly trust drift, but it’s still pretty far-fetched that one person orchestrated the entire thing

tailgate :(

the concept of a load-bearer is SUPER cool, I love it so much

it also puts a much-needed limit on things - as in, there IS a limit to how much weight/mass a normal cybertronian frame can carry, which is why you don't see everybody upgrading to be Massive - bc they actually CANT

oof, the worst part is that tyrest is RIGHT, minimus essentially DID have a nervous breakdown after the war ended bc of the rigid way he views the world

mental health support is clearly in shambles for cybertronians, yikes. they literally have 1 therapist for their entire race, and he’s not even licensed anymore due to hipaa violations. what a mess

the ‘attention deflectors’ thing is so cool and clever and also a great explanation as to why ratchet or anyone else never said ‘hey wait a minute, you're actually a much smaller dude in a trench coat’ 

I love tailgate knowing all the stuff about the autobot code bc of magnus...my BOY

and THATS why minimus was asking about skids specifically earlier!

oh minimus, please don't put so much stock in tyrest being stable and resonable...

aaaand there's skids and swerve! brainstorm says it best - ‘because something unexpected hasn't happened for at least nine seconds.’ lmao ily brainstorm 

finally checking in w/whirl and cyclonus - god I love that. whirl asking cyclonus how many cons he killed and cyc is like psh I wasn't keeping count....................ok it was six

hhhhh cyclonus IS looking for a cure for tailgate, even though he told tg that there wasn’t anything to hope for....excuse me as I go be emo 

and now we flash over to the unethical medical conduct hell zone, where pharma is being weird and horny and ratchet is appropriately horrified 

I seriously love how unhinged pharma looks, the art & colors do such a good job conveying his feral energy 

ratchet has some massive dick energy for taunting pharma when he’s currently just a head and pharma has dual chainsaws for hands 

ugh, I love whirls speech about anger...and I feel like he really does see cyclonus as a peer, despite cyclonus wanting to kill him, which is why he tells cyclonus all of this 

I fuckgin love that cyclonus’s reaction to very suddenly getting stabbed thru the abdomen is to just glance down at the sword, looking mildly inconvenienced 

back over to ratchet - and at first its like oh wow I can’t believe pharma was stupid enough to let ratchet goad him into this contest....but then you see first aid and ambulon and its like UH OH this is gonna be BAD

the idea that getting sliced in half is no big deal for a cybertronian is wild

‘you're gonna let doctor djd cut us in half?’ yeahhhh that's an appropriate reaction, yikes

FUCKING LENGTHWAYS GOD

pharma you piece of shit

poor ambulon :( :( :( that's fucking brutal. amazing panel but....jesus

and like, to further my point from last issue’s liveblog - the fact that this very gore-y panel is okay, but swearing isn't...that's really funny honestly. I guess robo-gore is acceptable, while I'm guessing regular ole run of the mill human gore wouldn't be

then back to cyclonus, who is still looking only vaguely put out by the sword stuck right thru him

and then cyclonus just pulls it right out, which is a very bad idea for humans but probably not as big of a deal for big near-immortal alien robots

circle of light stuck in capitalistic urban hellscape cubicals 

poor skids, being asked to stand trial while having no idea what his crime is due to Big Amnesia 

OH SHITTTT I totally forgot that getaway shows up here

that is super clever though, with chromedome confusing the name ‘getaway’ with the concept ‘needing to escape’

cant believe tyrest is really dumb enough to tell minimus all his evil plans

BUT that means its time for some very important forged vs constructed cold lore

jro spelling ‘program’ as ‘programme’ made me remember when he said that he considers everyone on the lost light to be british, which is perhaps the least valid thing he’s ever said vhbghjsdbfjkhasbjk

the idea that they used the matrix - which is portrayed as kind of a holy object - in reproductive experiments is really interesting

AUGHHHHH this is all so good and interesting...im really fascinated w/this particular brand of like, alien robot racism/constructism/whatever you wanna call it - I feel like it does such a good job as a plot device, where many other ‘fantasy racism’ concepts from other franchises fail, bc there's not really a ‘human metaphor’ being used here (as far as I know/can tell) - as in, this isn't a thinly veiled metaphor for something that happened/could happen in human history

in fact, this type of bigotry (or w/e you wanna call it) isn't something that is even really possible in humans - I guess if there was a stigma against being born via ivf or something...? but there isn't, so there's no obvious real-world equivalent, which I take as a sign of good writing and worldbuilding - it makes the cybertronians feel more Real, bc of course they would have their own types of bigotry based off of completely different things than humans 

additionally - and this is crucial - tyrest is wrong: there’s no like, inherent moral corruption in cold constructed bots. there's no difference at all, other than method of construction. fantasy racism plotlines often flounder here, with the oppressors having a ‘valid reason’ for oppressing the oppressed, but tyrest is just operated on religious zealot bs and some biased science

like, dude, did you ever think that maybe there are other reasons why your trials only condemned cold constructed bots? like, maybe the trial itself was biased? or societal conditions were to blame? correlation is not causation, my dude, especially when the conclusion is ‘cold constructed bots are inherently SINNERS’ lmao 

like, tyrest rlly said ‘FUCK separation of church and state,’ huh

anyways I just think the whole cold construction vs forged thing is really interesting and well-done, and serves as a good precursor to the more fleshed-out functionism stuff we see later 

so tyrest is clearly off his rockers w/the whole drilling thing - dude, you accidentally gave yourself a lobotomy, okay - but I find it kinda funny that he’s right about a lot of that stuff he said at the end, about primus and the guiding hand and stuff being real 

cyclonus saying ‘tailgate and the others’...I see you, man, I see you

also cyclonus looks fine now??? didn't he just get stabbed??? 

ah, tyrest sprinkling a little light genocide onto his plan to find salvation. nice, dude!

MINIMUS NOOOOOOOOO

‘fully deserved’ SHUT UP BIIIIITCH

poor minimus is taking a lot of Ls this arc, geez

oof, great issue! again, as usual....I loved the lore we got this issue, its so interesting...and some good character stuff too. I love minimus, I feel like he’s gonna be my fav this readthru; my first read my fav was brainstorm, second readthru was whirl, and I feel like its minimus/magnus this time. I just love his character arc...

hype af for more B) 

[chiseler]

The Crowd Doesn’t Just Roar, It Thinks: Warner Bros.’ All-Talking Revolution

“Iconic” is a gassy word for a masterwork of unquestioned approval. But it also describes compositions that actually resemble icons in their form and function, “stiff” by inviolate standards embodied in, say, Howard Hawks characters moving fluidly in and out of the frame. Whenever I watch William A. Wellman’s 1933 talkie Wild Boys of the Road, these standards—themselves rigid and unhelpful to understanding—fall away. An entire canonical order based on naturalism withers. 

To summon reality vivid enough for the 1930s—during which 250,000 minors left home in hopeless pursuit of the job that wasn’t—Wellman inserts whispering quietude between explosions, cesuras that seem to last aeons. The film’s gestating silences dominate the rather intrusive New Deal evangelism imposed by executive order from the studio. Amid Warner Bros.’ ballyhooing of a freshly-minted American president, they were unconsciously embracing the wrecking-ball approach to a failed capitalist system. That is, when talkies dream, FDR don’t rate. However, Marxist revolution finds its American icon in Wild Boys’ sixteen-year-old actor Frankie Darro, whose cap becomes a rude little halo, a diminutive lad goaded into class war by a chance encounter with a homeless man. 

“You got an army, ain’t ya?” In the split second before Darro’s “Tommy” realizes the import of these words, the Great Depression flashes before his eyes, and ours. No conspicuous montage—just a fixed image of pain. Until suddenly a collective lurch transmutes job-seeking kids into a polity that knows the enemy’s various guises: railroad detectives, police, galled citizens nosing out scapegoats. Wellman’s crowd scenes are, in effect, tableaux congealing into lucent versions of the real thing. The miracle he performs is a painterly one: he abstracts and pares down in order to create realism.  

Wellman has a way of organizing people into palpable units, expressing one big emotional truth, then detonating all that potential energy. In his assured directorial hands, Wild Boys of the Road sustains powerful rhythmic flux. And yet, other abstractions, the kind life throws at us willy-nilly, only make sense if we trust our instinctive hunches (David Lynch says typically brilliant, and typically cryptic, things on this subject). 

I’m thinking of iconography that invites associations beyond familiar theories, which, in one way or another, try to give movies syntax and rely too heavily on literary ideas like “authorship.” Nobody can corner the market on semantic icons and run up the price. My favorite hot second in Wild Boys of the Road is when young Sidney Miller spits “Chazzer!” (“Pig!”) at a cop. Even the industrial majesty of Warner Bros. will never monopolize chutzpah. The studio does, however, vaunt its own version of socialism, whether consciously or not, in concrete cinematic terms: here, the crowd becomes dramaturgy, a conscious and ethical mass pushing itself into the foreground of working-class poetics. The crowd doesn’t just roar, it thinks. Miller’s volcanic cri de coeur erupts from the collective understanding that capitalism’s gendarmes are out to get us.

Wellman’s Heroes for Sale, hitting screens the same year as Wild Boys, 1933, further advances an endless catalogue of meaning for which no words yet exist. We’re left (fumblingly and woefully after the fact) to describe a rupture. Has the studio system gone stark raving bananas?! Once again, the film’s ostensible agenda is to promote Roosevelt’s economic plan; and, once again, a radical alternative rears its head.

Wellman’s aesthetic constitutes a Dramaturgy of the Crowd. His compositions couldn’t be simpler. I’m reminded of the “grape cluster” method used by anonymous Medieval artists, in which the heads of individual figures seem to emerge from a single shared body, a highly simplified and spiritual mode of constructing space that Arnold Hauser attributes to less bourgeoise societies. 

If the mythos of FDR, the man who transformed capitalism, is just that, a story we Americans tell ourselves, then Heroes for Sale represents another kind of storytelling: one firmly rooted to the soiled experience of the period. Amid portrayals of a nation on the skids—thuggish cops, corrupt bankers, and bone-weary war vets (slogging through more rain and mud than they’d ever encountered on the battlefield)—one rather pointed reference to America’s New Deal drags itself from out of the grime. “It’s just common horse sense,” claims a small voice. Will national leadership ever find another spokesman as convincing as the great Richard Barthelmess, that half-whispered deadpan amplified by a fledgling technology, the Vitaphone? After enduring shrapnel to the spine, dependency on morphine, plus a prison stretch, his character Tom Holmes channels the country’s pain; and his catalog of personal miseries—including the sudden death of his young wife—qualifies him as the voice of wisdom when he explains, “It takes more than one sock in the jaw to lick 120 million people.” How did Barthelmess—owner of the flattest murmur in Talking Pictures, a far distance from the gilded oratory of Franklin Roosevelt, manage to sell this shiny chunk of New Deal propaganda? 

How did he take the film’s almost-crass reduction of America’s economic cataclysm, that metaphorical sock on the jaw, and make it sound reasonable? Barthelmess was 37 when he made Heroes for Sale; an aging juvenile who less than a decade earlier had been one of Hollywood’s biggest box-office titans. But no matter how smoothly he seemed to have survived the transition, his would always be a screen presence more redolent of the just-passed Silent-era than the strange new world of synchronized sound. And yet, through a delivery rich with nuance for generous listeners and a glum piquancy for everyone else, deeply informed by an awareness of his own fading stardom, his slightly unsettling air of a man jousting with ghosts lends tremendous force to the New Deal line. It echoes and resolves itself in the viewer’s consciousness precisely because it is so eerily plainspoken, as if by some half-grinning somnambulist ordering a ham on rye. Through it we are in the presence of a living compound myth, a crisp monotone that brims with vacillating waves of hope and despair.

Tom is “The Dirty Thirties.” A symbolic figure looming bigger than government promises, towering over Capitalism itself, he’s reduced to just another soldier-cum-hobo by the film’s final reel, having relinquished a small fortune to feed thousands before inevitably going “on the bum.” If he emits wretchedness and self-abnegation, it’s because Tom was originally intended to be an overt stand-in for Jesus Christ—a not-so-gentle savior who attends I.W.W. meetings and participates in the Bonus March, even hurling a riotous brick at the police. These strident scenes, along with “heretical” references to the Nazarene, were ultimately dropped; and yet the explosive political messages remain.

More than anything, these key works in the filmography of William A. Wellman present their viewers with competing visions of freedom; a choice, if you will. One can best be described as a fanciful, yet highly addictive dream of personal comfort — the American Century's corrupted fantasy of escape from toil, tranquility, and a material luxury handed down from the then-dying principalities of Western Europe — on gaudy, if still wondrous, display within the vast corpus of Hollywood's Great Depression wish-list movies. The other is rarely acknowledged, let alone essayed, in American Cinema. There are, as always, reasons for this. It is elusive and ever-inspiring; too primal to be called revolutionary. It is a vision of existential freedom made flesh; being unmoored without being alienated; the idea of personal liberation, not as license to indulge, but as a passport to enter the unending, collective struggle to remake human society into a society fit for human beings. 

In one of the boldest examples of this period in American film, the latter vision would manifest itself as a morality play populated by kings and queens of the Commonweal— a creature of the Tammany wilderness, an anarchist nurse, and a gaggle of feral street punks (Dead End Kids before there was a 'Dead End'). Released on June 24, 1933, Archie L. Mayo's The Mayor of Hell stood, not as a standard entry in Warner Bros.’ Social Consciousness ledger, but as an untamed rejoinder to cratering national grief.

by Daniel Riccuito

Special thanks to R.J. Lambert

[shannaraisles]

... Wasn’t Me - Chapter 2

What happens when a Hawke trying to rescue a friend ends up as the Herald of Andraste? With this particular Hawke … anything is possible.

[Read on AO3]

Chapter 2

"So ... am I under arrest, or do you threaten all the men with your impressive accent?"

Cassandra stiffened, halting her long stride along what had once been the Penitents' Path to turn and glare at her companion. It did not help that Callum Hawke was tall and handsome, or that Varric's description of him in both his book and the one-on-one they'd had did not do the Champion of Kirkwall justice. Thinking of Varric gave her glare more potency. She could not believe she had fallen for the dwarf's lies ... but that was a problem for another day.

"You are under suspicion," she informed Callum sharply. "As the only known survivor, and as a man whose opinions on the conflict are well known."

She was surprised to see Callum's blue eyes narrow at her comment.

"Well known, are they?" he asked, the easy-going calm of his voice taking on an edge she had not expected to hear. "Do tell me what my well known opinions are."

Cassandra hesitated, frowning in the face of his unexpected hostility.

"You are known to have taken the side of the mages in Kirkwall," she pointed out. "There is good evidence that you declined to execute the mage Anders when you learned of his actions."

Callum snorted, rolling his eyes as he stepped past.

"So you've decided that I'm obviously pro-mage, with no shades of gray, on that evidence, have you?" he queried, jumping down onto the frozen river before she could answer.

She heard him give a wild yell, and rushed to follow, finding the Champion of Kirkwall engaged in close combat with a pair of shades who had apparently been waiting in ambush. If she'd had the opportunity, Cassandra might have enjoyed watching him fight - Callum Hawke was broad shouldered and strong, but clearly had minute control over each swing of his great sword. Indeed, she had to claim one of the kills from him forcefully, or he would have done all the work while she stood by. She was supposed to be defending him, after all.

He paused, wiping the ichor off his blade as he looked over at her, scarcely out of breath at all.

"Look at it from my point of view," he suggested, carrying on the conversation as though it hadn't been interrupted by a spirited fight. "I had a choice - defend innocent people condemned to death for no good reason, or help kill them. I don't think that's a choice, personally."

"Yet you allowed Anders to live, who killed so many -"

"I didn't give him a second thought," Callum informed her pointedly. "As I said ... protecting innocent people. You seriously want to blame me for not wasting time plunging a knife into a friend's ribs when something more important was going on?"

The Seeker found herself hesitating once again. Put in those terms, the situation seemed far more clear cut. Yet Varric's summary of those events had been so dramatic, so ... She scowled.

"That dwarf was spinning tales," she muttered irritably.

Callum laughed.

"Yeah, he does that," he assured her, ducking under a blast of energy thrown at them from the heights. "You get the shade, I've got the green glowy one!"

Before she could prevent him, he was charging past the shade that swiped at him, mounting the ice covered steps to attack the wraith that had targeted them. Cassandra sighed, setting her shield solidly as she, too, attacked. She had never met anyone who thought to hold a perfectly calm conversation interspersed with violent encounters before now. Varric had certainly never mentioned this as a habit of the Champion, neither in his book nor his interrogation.

Callum was grinning when she joined him at the top of the rise, pocketing what looked like an essence of some kind.

"What else did he lie about?" she asked suddenly.

"I think he'd call it poetic license," Callum told her, but he laughed as he said it. "You want the basics? My brother and sister are still alive, it took five of us to take down the Arishok, and Orsino never turned into a weird blood magic monster. Oh, and I got married."

Cassandra goggled at him, trying to come to terms with three very big pieces of information and one slightly less consequential one. He watched her wrestle with the information, absently tying off a bandage over a bleeding cut on his bare bicep.

"First Enchanter Orsino is alive?" she managed, but Callum shook his head.

"No," he told her, his expression somber. "Meredith cut him down before I even started fighting my way back to Gallows. He was the first victim of her abominable Rite."

"And ... your siblings?"

Callum rolled his eyes, sighing as he met the Seeker's eyes.

"Bethany is in charge of a hidden enclave of mages in the Free Marches, and Carver is Grey Warden investigating something for me right now," he clarified. "They're both thriving. And before you ask, no, I did not marry Isabela. I married a terrifying woman named Cait, who would kill me for giving you her real name, so I would appreciate it if you never mention it. Ever."

He gestured to the next dip in their path.

"That looks like prime ambush territory to me, and it's about time for another drop to fall from that big green butthole up there," he pointed out. "Ready, Seeker?"

Nonplussed by this sudden correction of what she'd thought she knew about him - and quietly impressed with the way he had read the terrain ahead of them - Cassandra pulled herself together, adjusting her grip on her shield.

"We are not far from the first rift," she told him. "It is at the top of those steps."

"And Varric's there, right?" Callum asked as they advanced cautiously down the slope and onto the frozen water.

"Yes." Cassandra's voice grew tense as they watched the Breach contract. "I am sure he is staying alive."

Callum grunted, his whole body seeming to curl in on itself imperceptibly as the mark on his hand flared and crackled in response to the Breach. He swore under his breath as a meteor of Fade-fire crashed into the snow above them, disgorging shades and wraiths, shaking out his sore hand for a moment before setting himself to attack.

"Let's make certain of that, shall we?"

Cassandra did not miss the threat inherent in his tone. If Varric had been harmed, in any way, she did not expect Callum to continue to assist to the extent that he had already. As, indeed, she would expect of him - one thing Varric had clearly understated in his storytelling was just how strong the bond of friendship was between dwarf and man. Callum Hawke had been prepared to infiltrate a camp filled with both mages and templars to rescue his best friend, risking his own freedom for a chance to regain Varric's. In turn, Varric had spent several months spinning elaborate lies about his friend's whereabouts to protect him from the Seeker and her mission. She envied them that bond of trust and comradeship; even more so now that Regalyan was ...

She shook off that thought, slamming her shield into what passed for a face. It would not do to dwell on loss, not yet. When the danger had passed, perhaps there would be time.

As the last shade fell, Callum was already taking the steps two at a time, accelerating toward the sound of snarling demons and clashing weapons above them. She rushed to catch up, not bothering to mention how close they were now - they could hear the fighting, the yells of the soldiers, the crackle of magic, the twang of a very particular crossbow. And she got to see something few people had ever had the privilege to witness from behind.

Callum Hawke leapt down into the ruin and vaulted over Varric's head, landing protectively in front of his friend in the same movement that saw one of the shades cleaved in two with his massive great sword. His stance seemed wrong for just a moment, until Varric fired between Hawke's widely spaced legs, the bolts from Bianca pinning a second shade to the wall. How effective would they have been with others from their party in Kirkwall at their side, Cassandra wondered, hurrying to join the fight and end the struggle, at least for now.

"Quickly!" she heard as the last of the shades fell. "Before more come through!"

She turned to find Solas, the apostate, gripping Hawke's marked hand and thrusting it toward the pulsating rift. She saw the mark flare and spark, an arc of green light connecting palm and rift for just a moment before the rift itself simply ... vanished. Callum pulled his hand back from Solas' grip, looking down at his palm. Then he turned, wriggling his fingers at Varric.

"Look! Magic hand!" he declared, his grin ridiculously out of place given the circumstances.

Varric snorted with laughter, settling Bianca on his back once again.

"Good to know," he told his friend. "I'm sure your wife will be proud."

Callum chuckled back at him, turning to the others cheerfully.

"Oh, goodie, a mage," he said, his smile too genuine for Solas to take offense at his greeting. "Any good at healing?"

Solas' polite smile stayed, but his eyes suggested Callum might have hit his head on something in the last few minutes.

"Not recently," he conceded. "I am more proficient in barriers."

"That'll do." Callum clapped him on the shoulder, nodding to the dwarf. "Varric?"

"Yeah, yeah, protect the mage, I got it," Varric grumbled in amusement. "C'mon, Chuckles, I'll protect you."

"I hardly think I shall need your protection," Solas countered, both of them completely ignored by Callum as he clambered over a broken section of wall and toward the next sound of demons on the loose.

Cassandra let out a disgusted sound as she moved to follow him. Callum just naturally took the lead and she, she realized, had been only too eager to follow. And now he was doing it again, gathering allies as they went. If all went well today ... was this how Divine Justinia's vision was going to come to fruition? A mismatched collection of outcasts with unique skills banding together to change the world? She sighed, shaking those negatively charged thoughts away with one last uplifting recollection.

Why shouldn't it work that way? It had for the Hero of Ferelden. It could for the Inquisition, too. Just so long as the Breach didn't swallow the world whole first.

[norihisahyuga-archived]

Cemetery Nights

Numai Mitsuru & Kiriyama Kazuo Battle Royale 2000~ words. Sfw.

Kazuo asks the Kiriyama Family to come to a cemetery with him, during which he tells them the truth about his biological parents. Mitsuru can’t imagine a world without the Boss, and quite frankly, he doesn’t want to. And he definitely doesn’t want to think about how hard and hopelessly he’s fallen for Kazuo in the process. Modern AU, non-Program. Part of this.

“I think it’s kinda cute that you have a crush on him,” Hiroshi says later that night.

“Shut the fuck up, it’s not a crush.” Ryuhei leans across the backseat of the van and punches Hiroshi so hard on the arm the other boy jumps. “And if I did, it wouldn’t be on fucking Motobuchi.”

Mitsuru rolls his eyes as Ryuhei and Hiroshi commence arguing, Sho jumping into the middle of it because he happens to be sitting between the two of them. They physically fight too much to ever let them sit next to each other, and Sho has been happy to play peacemaker. Besides, it isn’t like Kazuo is ever going to let him drive the van, and it isn’t like Mitsuru is ever going to give up his permanent place in the passenger seat, so the others just have to deal with it.

Mitsuru still remembers when Kazuo first showed them the van, blandly forbidding any of them from trying to have it painted. My father bought it on my request was his placid answer when Mitsuru had asked about it, and he’d left it at that. Kazuo and his father don’t much get along.

“Where are we going, boss?” He drags his head up from where it’s been leaning against the window for the past half an hour. Kazuo had asked them if they were interested in going somewhere with him, and they’d all agreed without even asking where that was.

At fifteen years old, Kazuo should not have a license. Mitsuru knows he has one, though, has seen him hand it to the police on more than one occasion when they’ve been pulled over. Routine traffic stops, always, because Kazuo’s driving is, like everything else he does, perfect. He never speeds, never breaks traffic laws, never gives in to Ryuhei’s backseat, road rage-fueled suggestions. The fact he can do this at such a young age is yet another quality to dazzle Mitsuru.

“We are going to the cemetery,” Kazuo informs him, and the sudden silence that overtakes the vehicle is so thick that a knife might not be able to saw through it. “I have done this alone every year. I think I have known the four of you long enough to tell you the truth.”

The truth? About someone dying? Mitsuru presses his lips together at the thought, but he can’t possibly think of who that person must be. A family member? Probably a grandparent, because in all of the pictures of his family, Kazuo is the only one standing with his parents. Mitsuru has studied those pictures more often than he should have. Maybe a grandparent who resembled Kazuo, because countless hours of studying have failed to reveal a resemblance between Kazuo and his parents.

Ryuhei is the one who clears his throat and tries to break the stillness between the five of them. “Someone close to you die or something, Boss?”

“My parents when I was a child.” Kazuo says this with a perfectly straight face, his voice as banal as ever. “My adoptive father told me when I was quite young. He wanted me to be aware.”

“Holy shit.” Mitsuru speaks without thinking, moves without thinking, his hand stretching out to clasp Kazuo’s shoulder. “Boss, we didn’t… I didn’t have any idea. I’m so sorry.”

“You’ve no need to be concerned about me, Mitsuru. I assure you I’m no worse for the wear.” Kazuo, for the first time in memory, turns his eyes away from the road to meet Mitsuru’s, and he snatches his hand back immediately. “I’m going to take flowers to their grave tonight.”

“Anniversary?” Mitsuru asks. His imagination is running wild; his hand feels like it’s on fire.

“Of my mother’s death, yes. I always bring flowers for both of them on that day. I was told my father was never the same after her passing, so in a way, they both died that day.” Kazuo turns his eyes back to the road, his voice softer, musing. “I was still in my mother’s womb and I am told that I survived by a very slim margin. It was quite an experience to hear about.”

Mitsuru wishes there was something he could say because he feels like this is an experience that warrants a proper reaction. If they weren’t in the car, he might have offered Kazuo a hug just because it’s the thing to do. He has in the past; Kazuo has never been hesitant about accepting.

It jars him, not that Kazuo’s biological parents are dead. They could very well have lost Kazuo.

There is no comment from the backseat for a change and Mitsuru lets his head rest against the window, his mind racing. A world without Kazuo in it… He doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want to think about how close they were to a reality just like that one.

After all, Kazuo had done more than save him from having his entire hand mutilated that day. Kazuo had changed his entire fucking life just by being a part of it.

The cemetery appears not long after, ringed by a wrought-iron fence. There is no need to ask how they’ll get in when it’s clearly after hours; they just find a place where they can climb over, Sho for once offering no complaint about messing up his clothes in the process. It’s normal for Mitsuru to keep his hands on Kazuo’s waist to guide him up and over, but this time, it feels… Different.

Halfway over the fence, Kazuo even looks back at him, looks down from where a few strands of black hair have tumbled over onto his forehead. Without a word, he smoothes them back into place, then slides the rest of the way over the fence; Mitsuru tosses him the flowers before following.

The walk to the graves is a long one, and for once, all five of them are entirely silent.

He wants to say something, offer Kazuo some sort of comfort— comfort he knows Kazuo doesn’t need— but he settles for carrying one of the bouquets of flowers when Kazuo asks him to. It occurs to him that every time Kazuo has done this alone, he’s carried them alone, and Mitsuru feels honored to be able to do this for him, even this small thing. It’s something.

There’s a lot he wishes he could say, and not just about this. Every time he’s close to Kazuo— in the car, walking next to him— he feels that urge to speak, to chase away the silence and tell Kazuo how he feels about him. It feels so certain and strong that it’s almost a tangible thing, something he should be able to reach out and touch, pluck out of the air and drop into Kazuo’s hands. But he can’t. The only way Kazuo will ever know the truth is if he tells him… And he feels awful for thinking about that now when they’re on the way to Kazuo’s parents’ graves.

The headstones are closer to the heart of the cemetery, nestled next to each other in the earth, and Kazuo kneels down before one of them to place one bouquet on the green grass. He doesn’t have to ask Mitsuru to pass him the other one; Mitsuru does it as soon as he holds a hand out.

Part of him wishes he could say something. Not to Kazuo, but to his parents’. Thank them for the wonder, the miracle that is their son, but that would be inappropriate. So he just bows his head.

When Kazuo stands, Mitsuru reaches out to touch his shoulder. “Yes, Mitsuru?”

“It’s… Really too bad that your parents passed away before you got to know them,” he says, feeling something tight in his chest twist. “But I’m glad you made it out of that.”

With only the moon to light this scene, the lights of the city far enough away to have no bearing on the darkness, Mitsuru is reminded of just how beautiful Kazuo is up close. It was something he had noticed the day they met— bleeding from his head, stinking of vomit, his fingers twisted and broken— and something he never fails to notice now. If anyone could be around someone as pretty as Kazuo Kiriyama and not notice it on a regular basis, well, Mitsuru counts them as lucky.

“We’re all glad,” Ryuhei adds after a moment, and Mitsuru is surprised to hear him of all people speak. Even if he can’t quite tear his eyes away from Kazuo’s face. “You’re the best thing to happen to us, Boss, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to you…”

Hiroshi even chimes in. “They’re right. You’re the best, Boss. It’s… It sucks your parents ain’t around anymore, but it’s good that you are. That we got to meet you and all.”

“It’s not very poetic, but they’re right, Kazuo-kun,” Sho adds after a moment. “We’re different people for having met you, and we are very grateful to have you with us.”

One delicate black brow arches, though Kazuo’s voice does not change in tone. “Thank you, I suppose. I had never considered it more than just a fact that I survived that day.”

Mitsuru squeezes his shoulder before letting go. “Y’know, you’re important to m— Us. All of us.”

If Kazuo had noticed his near slip-up, he makes no comment about it. The five of them start their trek back through the cemetery, sans flowers, while Mitsuru tries to mentally calculate how fast the car would have to be going for him to die on impact if he jumped out of it. Almost slipping up in front of Kazuo like that… He can’t believe himself, can’t believe how bad this has gotten.

As per the norm, he gives Kazuo an additional little boost over the fence, then follows behind him, rolling his eyes at Ryuhei bitching about how high the fence is. When Sho bumps his shoulder against Mitsuru, Mitsuru frowns at him, then catches the concern in Sho’s eyes as the taller boy gives him a friendly pat on the back before walking around him toward the van. Of course, Sho knows. Sho probably understands perfectly well where those words had come from. Mitsuru squeezes his eyes shut in horror at the thought, running a hand over his face.

“You seem to be upset about something,” Kazuo says suddenly.

Mitsuru glances behind them, satisfied Ryuhei and Hiroshi are far enough away— and bickering loudly enough— that they won’t pick up on this conversation. “It was a shock hearing you talk about that stuff, I guess. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, Boss.”

“As far as friends go, Mitsuru, you are a good one.” The fact Kazuo just complimented him is almost enough to stop him dead in his tracks, but he forges on just the same. “I suppose I did not think that someone might be concerned to hear about the accident.”

Mitsuru wishes he was good enough with words to explain how he feels, wishes he was half as poetic as Nakagawa was because then he might be able to properly explain to Kazuo just how he feels toward him. But all he has are the abilities he’s always had, and he doesn’t trust himself to not overdo it and give Kazuo reason to start analyzing his behavior to find out what’s actually wrong with him. So he fumbles for something to say, anything, but something that won’t make Kazuo wonder where all of this is coming from so suddenly.

“I’d be concerned if something like that happened, yeah,” he finally says lamely.

Kazuo hums, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jacket, seemingly lost in thought. Mitsuru doesn’t really expect him to speak again, thinks the conversation might be over, when Kazuo looks him in the eye. “I believe that makes you the first person in my life to feel that way.”

“Bullshit,” Mitsuru says, and it’s not that he doesn’t believe Kazuo. It just shouldn’t be that way.

His house is the closest one, but Kazuo still drops him off last, and Mitsuru doesn’t question it, just like he doesn’t question any of the routines the two of them have made together.

As soon as Kazuo’s van is out of sight, Mitsuru screams into the crook of his arm just to let some of everything out, and then walks into his house like his entire life hadn’t changed tonight.