#i like how we agree Kerry’s career decisions are ??? sometimes so this kinda thing could just happen

[swearingcactus]

tried rubbing back. instructions unclear. rubbed salt in wound instead. (partly inspired by some Ker-Bear merch fanart i saw somewhere once!)

[awhalesrider]

What makes Silverv a ship for me

The most interesting thing about this couple is that they don't necessarily think of them as a couple - they feel attraction to each other, but again, none of them really consider the other as a "lover".

I've always unilaterally speculated that, excluding one-night stands, the type of partner Valerie would actually favour is someone a little more gentle, or someone with a relatively weaker aura/energy compared to herself, like Raver, like Takemura  (who she has sent flirty texts to), and Kerry (who is in Johnny's shadow and life confusion) . She feels like someone who cares a lot about autonomy and control and doesn't like to be led around, so she is more used to "loving" and giving a helping hand to the other person. She is gentle and helpful, but in fact she is the one who makes the decisions at the beginning of every relationship.

And even if our self-centred Johnny is not the voice in her head, he will be another force fighting her for the driver's seat. She'd say: what kinda brain-dead gonk would pick a bastard like Johnny for a date? But 419? Could be worth a try. When Panam said that the neurological connection was like booking a double room with only a queen-size bed and a blanket, she was clearly thinking about her current situation with Johnny; and in Pistis Sophia, when she asked him whether he was thinking about sex. Wasn't she thinking about it?

It's even more interesting when you look at it from Johnny's point of view. Unlike V, it seems to me that Johnny doesn't have a high standard for lovers. He is naturally easily attracted to different types of girls. He's happy to have *some* kind of relationship with all kinds of women who are interested in him. Sometimes he is also very comfortable with the adulation of men. But that also means that these rough sexual relationships don't last as long as the friendships he builds with others (and for some reasons the latter is also kinda "toxic"). He almost never understood Alt's career and stubbornly shut himself off from her admonitions; he only knew that Rogue would never say no to him, but he didn't really speak his heart out to her until that movie date in 2077.

But it's real fun when Johnny spends his time with Valerie. On the one hand, Johnny is attracted to her, and from time to time Valerie flirt with him, letting him mumble "we fight like old married couple people", and sometimes even agreeing they are perfect for each other. On the other hand, Relic makes it literlly impossible for their connection to really develop into sexual relationship (I want it for them tho), and they platonically allow two souls and two personalities to reveal themselves to each other, which is instead a more special connection. In Pistis Sophia, Johnny says V is not his type, but these very words help him prove how sincere and pure a commitment those dogtags symbolise. But it would be too narrow-minded to interpret this as "you're not like all the other girls". Valerie is not a lover that Johnny could leave behind. She is more like a comrade in arms that he needed to communicate with, understand and respect at all times; but he couldn't treat her as an ordinary friends either, because spiritual nakedness was much more intimate than a simple physical relationship. No matter how close a partner one has, they always keeps a part of their secret to themselves, while Johnny and V are sharing even that part of themselves with each other.

He would admire her, and she would desire him, yet they are essentially free from the shackles of a physical relationship, removing the inevitable barriers between ordinary friendship and truly building a purely intimate relationship with another person. They are constantly in a dynamic balance of intense debate and mutual compromise, with Johnny constantly asking V to listen to his advice, constantly exporting his views and goals to her, and V sometimes having to give in; but at the same time she is always asserting herself, asserting her own position, and Johnny has to accommodate her stubbornness. In the end no one is able to tip the scales in their favour, but instead they show a certain tendency to give and sacrifice at the same time. This whole process is particularly interesting, and if I were an AI outside the black wall, I would be definetely willing to observe them every day.

If there was a so-called good ending, they would not probably get married or even talk about the whole *relationship* thing. They'll say they're friends, former "roommates", current friends of benefits (define “benefits” as you wish), but everyone knows that what they have is healthier, stronger, more stable and more indestructible than any intimate relationship they've ever had.