where did they all go?

Commission for @emperor-kumquat, for his project tf Mercy.

(Which took the eternity 🪦)

(XD)

I am a gay trans immigrant in a deep red state in America. I came here for my partner's sake and have been making the best of it. The culture shock was hard, coming from Canada. In fact, we loved mocking Americans back home so it was hard for me to even like Americans. My instinct was to judge them as stupid. But it is never fair to judge people as all the same for something they can't help like nationality.

Each day, I looked for the goodness in the hearts of Americans. I tried to see that we weren't so different. I started to meet neighbours while taking care of the stray cats. I began volunteering at the city's animal shelter to start making a change. I wanted to see other good people and feel kinship.

Seeing the election results has just... hurt me. I feel so betrayed. I step outside and now know more than half of the adults out there don't care about what happens to me. I will work alongside volunteers, wondering if any of them voted for Trump. I will watch them do good deeds for animals, and wonder, how could you vote for someone who hurt people and the planet?

People in America will lose their rights. Women, immigrants, LGBTQ+, the disabled, and minorities across the board. Wars will be funded and slaughter will increase in other countries. Pollution will skyrocket with Republicans and their love of cars and oil. That affects everyone... Haven't we had enough forest fires and storms? We cannot deny climate change any longer.

I am not running away yet. I am staying. I will not be silent. I will be openly trans. They don't see us enough. They think we are boogeymen. They don't even know us. This is why it is so important to have a Pride flag and wear Pride things. We will not hide and be scared and ashamed. We will not be erased and keep hearing lies about us from the hateful ignorant.

I will protest alone with signs. And if or when things get really bad. I will be LOUD.

Fuck everyone who voted for Trump without a care for people like me. Fuck you to hell. You have no heart. Unfollow me. I assume on Tumblr most people are Democratic so that's all good, but I just have to get this off my chest.

I don't want anything bad to happen to me, but if I disappear, this is why. Republicans are hateful and many are violent. It's not a lie when their campaigns lie and fearmonger about specific groups of people.

It isn't specified in the official Aligned Continuity and the fanfiction stuff is its own thing. Dreadwing and Skyquake do have a sort of sparkbond but that is because they are two halves of one whole spark. There are no cases of bots undergoing a process to bind their sparks for romantic reasons! I'm not sure if it really is possible because to tear or mess with a living bot's spark because it could be like ripping their soul apart (and they will die). But Aligned isn't too specific, although it will include Minicons somehow giving powerups to bigger bots...

Those runaway Minicons in rid2015 might have been connecting to bots' sparks whereas regular Minicons may not be able to (just being short dudes). Maybe those Minicons in particular were special since they could turn into energy. Or if you would like to believe, all Minicons can connect to bots of their choice as an ability passed down from Micronus Prime (the original Minicon who could give powerups to his friends)

Regular bot to bot, I would guess that they cannot bind their sparks

I have a story from when I was around 9. Once, I had a teacher who must have been a rad dude because he made the class play “Autobots and Decepticons”. I did not forget because I was into G1 at the time. Anyway, I randomly recalled it and thought you would think it was cute. Honestly, if someone made the mistake of leaving me with 20 children, I would do the same thing.

This was how the game worked:

The class was split in half to be Autobots and Decepticons, and we were put onto either side of the gym.  We would all run to the centre line to face each other. The teacher would randomly call “Autobots!” or “Decepticons!”. Whoever was called would chase the other side all the way back to the wall. Whoever they tagged would join their side, so the numbers between the sides could dramatically grow or shrink. Basically, it was difficult to win completely if the tables were always being turned. You might get five Decepticons left, then they could double their number next round if they tagged a lot of people. I don’t know if the other kids understood that it was Transformers, but I sure as hell did and was super proud to be a Decepticon either chasing Autobots or retreating like classic G1 style XD