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resident-gay-bitch · 11 months

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Day Seven of @steddie-week - free space / free space / freedom

find the previous day here :)

Fifty years old, and Eddie was doing this.

He didn’t think he’d ever do this. But here he was, doing this.

He took a deep breath and willed away his goddamn tears, and he felt Dustin pat him on the shoulder as the music picked up and everyone stood.

He looked down at himself, fixing the sleeves of his suit and making sure it was buttoned properly, sweeping the long greying hairs out of his face.

He gave Wayne a very excited smile before turning to face everyone.

He took another shaky breath, so fucking nervous.

Down the aisle pranced a little girl, dressed in a pink fluffy princess dress, with her hair done in buns like Princess Laya’s because that’s what she insisted on. She was eight and a half years old, and Eddie couldn’t believe it. She skipped along in her sparkly red shoes - the ones she coaxed Eddie into buying because “they look just like Dorotheys, Daddy!”, and Eddie still didn’t know how to say no to her. She lit up at the sight of Eddie, bright and smiling, she waved at him very excitedly, almost bursting into a run to get to him. Eddie smiled at her and imitated throwing things out of a basket with a wry smile, and she gasped, stopping dead in her tracks. Eddie couldn’t help but laugh. She reached into her little basket and pulled out a handful of confetti and tossed it into the air, and she continued that as she did her fancy aisle walk towards Eddie.

When she got to him, Eddie dropped to his knee and gave her a little kiss on the cheek, “Good job, Princess.”

“Thanks, daddy.” She beamed, plucking out some confetti and tossed it in the air over Eddie, “Do you like the sparkles Auntie Nancy put on me?”

“Hell yeah, kid, you look so cool.”

She giggled and showed off her sparkly skin some more. Oh, Eddie remembered when they first got her, they were there in the delivery room. They got to name the beautiful girl and everything. Her name was Chrissy, and she channels every bit of the dancer Chrissy used to be.

She closed her eyes, “Do you like my eyeshadow too, daddy?” She asked, flashing the bright blue that she’d picked that stood out strong against her dark skin, “I wanted to be like Robin.”

“Looks beautiful, kiddo.” He winked at her, “Now, go stand over there, where we practised, remember?”

She nodded and kissed Eddie on the cheek, leaving a glossy stain in her wake. She skipped over to where she was supposed to stand, and Nancy, who was in the front row, pointed her from where she’d decided to stand into the actual right place. Eddie chuckled softly.

He stood just in time to see his other kid making their way down the aisle. They got Alice ten years ago, when adoption became a possibility for them. She was six when they got her, standing tall at sixteen now. She’d just buzzed their hair off the other week, after coming out to them as Gender Fluid. It took Steve and Eddie a little while to properly understand what it meant, but…. He was a cool kid, and they embraced it. They looked so cool in the suit he’d picked out for herself, green velvet with patterns she embroidered themself all over it.

Eddie winked at him as she went to meet her sister on the other side of the altar.

And then came Steve. He had his arm looped through Robins, who was giving him away in a lovely silk green dress. Steve looked as handsome as ever, if not more, if that was even possible, dressed in a sweet yellow suit. Eddie blushed very bright, he’d told Steve many years ago that it had quickly become his favourite colour after Steve had tossed that goddamned jumper at his face, and then was wearing that same colour when Eddie woke up in the hospital. Steve looked lovely in yellow, and it matched him so perfectly. It was such a happy colour, full of brightness and positivity, and that’s exactly what Steve had bought into his life. Steve’s wardrobe was primarily yellow these days.

He smiled so brightly at Eddie, his hand reaching to find Robins to squeeze when their eyes fixed on eachother. Eddie had to wipe away a tear. They reached the altar, and Robin kissed Steve on the cheek and shot finger guns and a wink at Eddie before going over to stand with Chrissy and Alice. Steve stepped up to the altar and faced Eddie with a wet smile.

They both couldn’t believe they were here, doing this.

This life, the one they had now, seemed impossible all those years ago, but they stuck together anyway. They stuck together, and now Eddie could give Steve his dream. Now they could have normal, in the most unnormal way possible.

They were so happy.

Marriage for them only became legal two days ago, and in that time, Nancy, Steve, Robin, and their girls had worked double time to set up the perfect impromptu wedding. Eddie offered to help, but they all insisted he didn’t because he and Steve would just distract each other with sappy flirtation, and Chrissy insisted her dad had zero taste. Alice promised that if Eddie could find someone to marry them, he’d pull for some metal to play during the reception.

Eddie asked Wayne… immediately.

They both spent five hours sitting behind Steve's computer, trying to figure out how to get ordained online, because Alice said it was easy. It was not easy. Eddie was old, and Wayne was even older. They’d called Scott over to help at one point, because he was super smart and a scientist, but he couldn’t figure out the computer either.

Alice ended up getting it done in ten minutes for them when she got home.

He called them a bunch of “old fucks”, and the three of them went off on a tanget about “this damn younger generation, they think they know everything! I bet you don’t know how to use a VHS tape.”

Alice didn’t give them a bar of it, the sassy kid they were.

Wayne started his speech, and Eddie took his fiance's shaky hands. They had smiles pinned to their faces the whole time, because how could they not.

“Now, do you have vowels?” Wayne asked.

“I gave mine to Steve last night.” Eddie said, and Wayne pulled a very dissatisfied face, “Ew, no!”

There was a laugh from the crowd.

“I wrote him a song and performed it, you oaf.”

Steve laughed, “It was very sweet.”

Eddie smiled bashfully, still feeling like the twenty year old he was when Steve first swept him off his goddamn feet and carried him off into the sunset.

“I’ve got some.” Steve muttered and squeezed Eddie’s hand’s as he cleared his throat, “Twenty five years ago to this day, you and I got ‘pretend’ married, as we called it.”

Eddie sniffled as he laughed.

“I gave a very long vow to you then, so… I’m gonna keep this one super short.” Eddie laughed again, oh how he loved this man. Steve smiled, croaky with wet eyes as he shrugged, “I told you, that night that you proposed, the same thing as I’d told Robin earlier in the day, that you couldn’t give me normal. That I’d gone my whole life with this dream of a wife and six kids- but then I met you, and ‘normal’ seemed like the worst fucking idea on the planet. You were… such a fucking weirdo, and you still are, and I love you so much for it, Ed’s.” Steve smiled and shook his head, “Why would I wan’t ‘normal’ when I can have every bizarre day with you? Every morning I wake up and wonder what weird shit was going to happen today, and everytime I am so delightfully surprised by it. I wanted you, and only you, and that’s all that mattered to me.”

Eddie was ugly crying again, and Steve had to wipe away his goddamned tears that were tinted black from his eyeliner.

“I was happy with it being just us, with our silly little fake marriage, for the rest of our lives- because it was real to us. It was more than enough for us.” He smiled, “But then we got Alice, and Chrissy, and we got more than I could have ever asked for… and now I’m here,” He sobbed a little too, “and were getting married for real. And I love you, from the moment you shoved me up against that boathouse wall with a bottle to my neck, to right now, to forever, I love you.”

“I love you too.” Eddie sobbed, and they kissed, even though they weren’t supposed to yet.

They heard Chrissy shout out, “Ew!” and it made them break away with a laugh, and it gave them a strong sense of deja vu to that time in the hospital, when Dustin woke up to the pair of them having a moment.

It fits very nicely in this moment.

“Getting a bit ahead of yourselves there, boys.” Wayne nodded.

They laughed.

“Hey, kiddo.” Wayne looked over to Chrissy and winked, “You got somethin for ya dads?”

Chrissy gasped and looked up at her big sibling who reached into their pocket to hand something to the little girl. She skipped over with the box and handed it to her grandpa with a bright smile, “Happy wedding, dad and daddy!”

They loved this damn kid.

She skipped back over to her spot, and Alice gave her a big hug and smiled up at their dads.

Wayne held open the ring box, and Steve reached in to take the silver band, and Eddie took the gold one. The same bands Eddie had bought twenty seven years ago, they held too much meaning to switch up. Eddie slid the ring onto Steve's finger for a third time, and Steve slipped one onto Eddie’s, and they were holding hands again.

“You already donnit, but ah… you may kiss the groom.” Wayne grinned, and gave Steve a little wink before stepping over beside Eddie’s groomsmen.

Eddie didn’t hesitate before grabbing Steve and giving him the kiss of his life, dipping him just as he’d done at their non-official wedding all those years ago. Chrissy started gagging at the sight again, and Eddie started laughing into Steve's mouth, and they could both hear Alice trying to shut her up.

And when they stood back up, they were married. For real. They had two beautiful kids, and the house Eddie had bought for Steve (which had rendered Steve in tears and then they had some of the best sex of their goddamned lives whilst breaking the place in) that had a garden, and an open kitchen, and four bedrooms, and a study, and the bed they shared every night.

They still had their bad days; day’s Eddie felt so horrible in his skin that he couldn’t be touched, Steve still got migraines that could render him useless for days, and a lot of the time they fought, though, over little things like the dishes or laundry or what time the kids were supposed to be picked up that afternoon, and some days their fights were a little worse. But they were together, and they were happy, and they had a life and a family and a place of their own. They had a home with each other, and that’s all they needed.

They could drag each other to Hell and back, Eddie didn’t care, just as long as they were together.

thank you for joining me on this years steddie week! it is currently 10.30 in the morning and i have not slept because i've been writing the entirety of my steddie week all night. seriously don't know why i do this to myself, anyway.

if you'd like to read my other steddie week submissions you can find them here :)

\/ here's some dodgey art for you to look at \/

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lord-squiggletits · 4 months

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On the MegOP fandom trend of saying "Optimus should apologize to Megatron"

(Speaking specifically for IDW1, though it applies to a lot of MegOP especially ones that do continuity soup with heavy reference to IDW1)

I was talking to a friend in DMs and they mentioned a common headcanon/fanfic trope that I also concurred with, and both of us said it's something that bothers us: a common take in the MegOP fandom goes basically along the lines of "If Optimus had just apologized to Megatron, the war would've ended" (or other variants including "if he'd tried harder to understand Megatron/work in collaboration with him").

And firstly, this is incorrect for a number of reasons:

There were attempts at peace negotiations during the war, but they fell through. So Optimus WAS trying to work with Megatron to the point of participating in formal diplomatic meetings.

Optimus tried multiple times on page to convince Megatron to just stop fighting and work with him for peace (Autocracy, Chaos Theory) that Megatron rejected. Given that these on-page examples take place at the start of the war and at the end of the war respectively, it makes sense that Optimus asking Megatron for collaboration is something he was trying/willing to do the entire time. So again, Optimus was always willing AND ATTEMPTING to work with Megatron and find a joint solution

Even before the war when Optimus was still Orion, he was very explicitly inspired by Megatron's writing and names Megatron as one of the people who "opened his eyes" to the wrongs of Cybertronian society. So how is it that people claim "the war went on for too long because Optimus never tried to understand Megatron" when OP literally named Megatron as one of his biggest idols, thus implying that OP does understand Megatron's ideals

But the primary purpose of this post wasn't to defend Optimus, actually. Even though I personally think Optimus did plenty (dare I say, everything) to try to end the war, there are some who may still think otherwise, so instead of arguing about whether Optimus did "enough", or who should apologize to whom, or who "deserves the blame" for starting/continuing the war, I'd actually rather talk about this:

No matter who is most "to blame" for the war, it's my firm belief that neither Megatron nor Optimus would even expect/demand the other to apologize to them at all.

On Megatron's side, he would never seek to judge Optimus negatively for the decisions to the point of saying "you wronged me, apologize." Whether it's evil Megatron who doesn't care about atrocities and revels in an opportunity to expose Optimus as a hypocrite, or post-war/Autobot Megatron who knows that his own evil actions are irredeemable, the idea of Megatron judging Optimus and demanding an apology for the war specifically strikes me as out-of-character. Why would Megatron demand or even want an apology from Optimus when Megatron knows fully well that he has his own sins to bear, he prolonged the war for his own selfish/material gain, and that he is responsible for an untold amount of suffering? Demanding an apology would imply that Megatron sees himself as the wronged party and Optimus as the wrongdoer, but by the end of the war, Megatron is too aware of his own part in the war to ever demand such a thing of Optimus. Even if he DID think that Optimus was "equally to blame" for the war (which he doesn't/wouldn't, btw), Megatron's own feelings of guilt would prevent him from trying to seek the petty satisfaction of the moral high ground or making Optimus beg for his forgiveness.

Additionally, Megatron knows Optimus very well as a person: he knows that the position of leadership is full of "loneliness [and] agonizing self-doubt" for Optimus (Chaos Theory) and that "when Optimus hurts others, he hurts himself" (MTMTE). Another reason that Megatron wouldn't demand nor want an apology from Optimus is because Megatron knows Optimus so well that he already knows that being a war leader fills Optimus with immense guilt and suffering. Given that Megatron knows about Optimus' self-doubt and guilt, why would he even need an apology when he already knows how much Optimus regrets the war and desperately wishes/wished for it to end?

Then, as established in the previous paragraphs, Optimus is too full of guilt for his part in the war (both before it started and in being unable to stop it sooner) to demand an apology from Megatron. Again, demanding an apology would put Optimus in an implied position of moral superiority and/or victimhood, but Optimus doesn't see himself as morally superior or as a victim (or rather, he sees himself as being responsible for these bad things happening and internalizes this as a duty to do better/fix wrongdoings). In other words, Megatron and Optimus both share this view of themselves and each other: Their hands are so dirty, and they both feel such guilt over this, and they know each other well enough to know that the other feels this way as well. Because both of them feel blame for the war and are acutely aware of their own flaws/part in suffering, both of them feel far too responsible for the war happening for them to ever blame their archnemesis for "not trying harder" or "being responsible for the war."

Hell, if you even look at the socio-political climate of Cybertron before the war started, neither Megatron nor Optimus were the ones who put this conflict into motion. The corrupt legacy of the Primes, Functionism, class issues-- all of these things existed before Megatron and Optimus did. Even once they started doing things like writing about social issues (M) or fighting against the Senate (OP), both of them were "underlings" in sense that they weren't leaders:

Megatron's writings may have inspired the Decepticon movement, but that movement existed as an independent entity with its own leaders and speakers long before Megatron became the "official" ruler of the Decepticons. He wasn't even the leader of the 'Cons until he took control of the gladiator arena and the nonviolent sections of the Decepticons were (presumably) subsumed into the underground, exploitative battle culture that Megatron created.

Optimus-as-Orion was a police officer to start, but even once he started going against the Senate, he mainly worked in collaboration with others like Senator Shockwave and Zeta (later Zeta Prime), who he either saw as his idols or who were literally superior to him in rank due to government/military structures.

So with this in mind, even from a social level, while Megatron and Optimus may have been "catalysts" of a sort that caused the war to escalate to an outright planetary/galactic level, the scenario is too complex to solely lay the blame for the war at either of their feet. I'm not confident in saying that Megatron/Optimus would explicitly think of this when talking to each other, but what I'm trying to say is that M/OP were just catalysts in a long chain of brewing tension that exploded into a war. Even if one could claim that one of them "started" or "escalated" the war, the social issues that caused the war and the positions of power that allowed them to become leaders in the first place were falling into place before either of them actually BECAME leaders.

In other words, this shared fate of being the final reaction that exploded a societal conflict into outright war... Megatron and Optimus both have that in common. And because of this, I really don't think either of them would even think to ask the other to apologize because they're both in such similar positions, with such similar feelings of guilt and responsibility, that they understand each other's feelings without words. To demand an apology would be akin to taking that shared vulnerability/guilt and stepping on it, attempting to claim that one is right/superior and the other is wrong/inferior, and that the inferior one needs to grovel and take responsibility for the bad things that happened.

#squiggposting #idw megop #idk if this'll get me hate or not but it's something i think about a lot #and verbalizing it to that friend in DMs helped me put into words why that common fanon take bothers me #also. hot take but if any 'apologies' are necessary then it's M who should be apologizing to OP #the war may be both of their faults but M is the one who explicitly did/said things just to hurt OP and break his spirit #i'm tired of ppl who don't understand (or at least don't discuss) how hurt OP is and how he deserves recogniztion of his feelings too #megop #then again this fanon take may just be a consequence of continuity soup culture #where ppl don't have to acknowledge specific things that M or OP did bc they can just selectively include or not include details from canon #so like. i guess in their continuity soup continuties their fanon is technically correct #but in terms of the source material which is the one shared experience we all have and the common language we derive fanon from #this fanon is very incorrect. or at least i hope i've managed to argue that it's incorrect #anyways the thesis of megop is that they're equals and opposites who are inextricably tied to each other #fanon that tries to place the blame on one or castigate one of them is missing the point of megop #the point is that they're equal. equally strong and charismatic and amazing. and equally culpable #even if they're not literally equally responsible for idw megop at least they at least both FEEL responsible #and i don't think idw megops are the type to mince words about who's 'more responsible'#they're both depressed old men who hate themselves and regret basically their whole lives. why would they judge each other like that

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