#apparently we’ve been on the national news for how hot it is

[allylikethecat]

It is so hot out today, and also humid (or at least our version of humid) and there is absolutely no air movement whatsoever and I 100% just made myself sick riding my horse. He’s totally fine, and has had a cold shower, electrolytes and plenty of water and is how chilling with his fans and misters, but I am unwell.

#allylikethecat #ally’s thoughts #completely unrelated to fandom or fic #i just wanna complain because i think i gave myself some kind of sun or heat poisoning #i was fine while i was actually riding #but the second i got off i was like oh no #thankfully i didnt actually throw up #but it was a close call #apparently we’ve been on the national news for how hot it is #the bestie texted me and was like i saw how hot it was on tv #dont die #and i was like its too late #im going to take a nap with the ac turned to the max #but maybe after i’ll give fictional!matty a touch of sun poisoning #so he can suffer with me

[rapifessor]

Nilou, Cyno, and Candace First Impressions

Because it wasn’t enough that we’re getting three new characters in version 3.0, we’re getting three more in version 3.1 apparently. How I’m going to keep up with all of them, I have no idea, but that’s besides the point. Let’s have a look at them.

We’ve already seen two of the three characters in previous trailers and promotional content for Sumeru, and Nilou is one of them. It’s nice to see another Hydro character as the element is currently underrepresented in Genshin’s roster (currently we have seven Hydro characters while Pyro, Cryo, and Electro all have 10, and Electro is soon to get an eleventh!). I have no idea what her weapon is going to be, but I really hope it’s not another catalyst, seeing as how we already have three of those. What I’d really like to see is a Claymore, but I highly doubt that’s the case.

I don’t have any strong opinions about her character design, but I do think it’s very good. I like that she has red hair; Genshin Impact has been sorely lacking in red-haired girls for a long time and given my apparent fascination with such girls as anime protagonists (I quite liked The Ancient Magus’ Bride and Snow White With the Red Hair) it’s no wonder why Nilou appeals to me.

The second character we’ve already since hints of before, and the first of the Sumeru characters that hail from the desert region. Obviously lots of ancient Egyptian and pharaoh vibes from Cyno here, who appears to be an Electro polearm user. Not a bad combo, but there’s no potential for a missed opportunity here since Electro already has its bases covered when it comes to weapon variety. According to the HoYoLAB post, Cyno is an arbiter of sorts, in that he regularly deals with researchers who have broken the law in some way regarding their work. And he’s pretty ruthless about it, too. Sounds awesome.

I really like this character design, it seems pretty badass. Probably something to do with the white hair contrasting with the darkness of the rest of his outfit. It’s also good that we’re starting to see more characters who aren’t of pasty white complexion, although... it could still be done better. I’m gonna take an aside to rant about Genshin Impact’s lack of diversity here.

It’s no secret that Genshin Impact has an abundance of white people, and we all knew that wasn’t going to change with Sumeru, despite it being the nation that’s literally inspired by Africa. Maybe HoYoverse isn’t interested in making characters of color, or maybe they think that such characters won’t sell Genesis Crystals. Given the popularity of characters like Nessa from Pokemon, this is certainly wrong. Seriously, just make the girls hot and nobody except the most insecure manosphere losers will give a shit what their skin color is.

Desert-dwelling Sumeru characters are at least logically coherent, if nothing else. It makes sense that the people who are exposed to the sun constantly would have darker skin, so HoYoverse gets a little credit for that, at least. It’s just a shame that we’ll most likely never get characters with darker skin tones, since these people treat white like it’s the default skin color. Rant over.

And here we have Candace, who came as a complete surprise to me. I was expecting that we’d see Alhaitham or maybe Dehya this next update, but apparently not. Candace is just as exciting though, but for different reasons.

She’s got the same energy as Cyno in her character design, which seems very fitting considering what kind of character she is, but it seems slightly... off to me. Something tells me that her outfit was originally designed to be somewhat more revealing and was thus censored in a couple ways so as not to be too hot for Genshin Impact. It’s not like it ruins the design or anything, and I can’t exactly prove that this is the case, it’s just a feeling.

I believe this is the first character we’ve had with heterochromia, which is pretty cool. It’s a popular feature to use in fantasy character designs because it adds a layer of variety and I think it’s done pretty well here.

One of the aspects about Candace I’m most excited for is that she appears to be a Hydro polearm user, which we don’t currently have in Genshin Impact. We’re one step closer to having complete coverage of every element/weapon combination in the game. She notably also has a shield, which isn’t going to be a unique piece of equipment of course but that’s also something we haven’t seen in a Genshin character yet, and it probably features in her abilities to some degree. That will be really interesting to see, I think.

Candace also sounds like she’d be really powerful lore-wise, since she’s described as having received the blessing of the gods and being able to conjure up an entire sandstorm. She’s fiercely protective of her village, but also gentle and kind to those without ill intent. I’m very interested to find out more about her because she sounds like such a cool character. I hope her gameplay does the lore justice.

Definitely very happy with this batch of characters, I’m very excited for Cyno and Candace in particular because they seem like they’d be right up my alley and their character designs are fucking rad. Sumeru is going to be a wild ride with all these new characters coming out in quick succession, and I am absolutely here for it.

#genshin impact #thoughts #first impressions #genshin candace #genshin cyno #genshin nilou #nilou genshin #cyno genshin impact #candace genshin #rant #long post #rapifessor rambles #analysis #genshin impact 3.1

[tapejob]

uhh why was china getting kicked out of the olympics

long story short: no but actually yes

currently, china's men's hockey team is the ranked 32rd worldwide, aka the lowest ranked team to qualify for the men's olympics in... a while

+ there's only uhh 12 teams in the men's tournament

now how they qualified at all was because after winning the olympic bid, china was granted automatic berths in both men's and women's hockey tournaments by the iihf

(in theory this is fine: iihf did this for south korea in 2018 + promising move to grow the game in china while also forcing china to buff its hockey programs in general + give china a chance to actually make headway in a major winter sport, which we've been historically abysmal at)

in practice this is very not fine

in preliminary qualifiers for the 2018 olympics, team china came dead last in group L, winning 0 games with a grand -21 goal differential against serbia, spain, and iceland (currently ranked #29, #31, and #35 respectively). it was so brutal i gaslighted myself into totally forgetting about it until i came across it again today

and btw china hasn't played an international game since 2019 bc of COVID

anyway remember back in april when they announced the olympic groupings:

what's that? what's that in the front? we have canada (#1), US (#6), germany (#7) and china (#32). okay.

also, in case you've forgotten (you haven't). daddy bettman is letting the nhl loose on the olympics this year, with crosby and mcdavid definitely out to tear up in team canada and who knows who else in the rest of the group. china gets net zero benefit from this whole ordeal: we have one (1) nhl player currently living his best life in cornell. he spent last year becoming a business analyst.

this isn't even like a regular year. the nhl talent pool alone right now? absolutely off the shits. scmp aptly puts it as "the planet’s most talent-rich ice hockey tournament in eight years"

bringing back this quote from a former coach because i think it sums up quintessential team china hockey:

you have got to help me

so basically no development internationally, abysmal roster at best with little changes at the senior level compared to the last olympics where we got completely rimmed blind

anyway

because the iihf is desperately trying not to rapidly descend into clown representation, we leave china with two options:

get china to recruit some boys from north america/europe with chinese heritage + naturalize them in time for the olympics so we have a decent roster

get kicked out

option 1 sounds pretty good, tbh, except for the fact that the iihf has a rule that players have to play in their new country for at least 2 years before switching nationalities. bit too late for that but this is okay because apparently we are so catastrophically bad that the iihf is willing to bend the eligibility rules to avoid a murder on international ice

option 1 would also sound pretty good because we've actually been recruiting a lot of our heritage boys via Kunlun Red Stars. not a bad choice, since it gives them runtime in the KHL

we are ignoring the fact that they haven't qualified for playoffs since their founding, and had the worst season in their history in 20-21

IT WOULD BE PRETTY GOOD except for the fact that apparently the KRS had a "falling out" with the chinese ice hockey association. now all our potential recruits (read: literally all ethnically chinese players) are unusable until the general administration of sports gets its shit together

you fucked up a perfectly good team is what they did. look at it. it's god anxiety.

"there are reports that players from the Soviet bloc are being considered, perhaps those from Central Asia, who look at least a little “Chinese”" stop stop stop stop stop oh my fucking god

there's also an emergency option which is to beg a ton of white guys to join. this is how we got our coach. we hired a canadian coach for team china hockey. who are we

we're on the trajectory to get pretty historically bodied which is something that the iihf would love to prevent and the US would love to enable. also read this hot take i found that made me start crying

"avoid rubbing it in" you have GOT TO HELP ME

anyway, there was a source from iihf that said there's nothing expected to change with china's participation, but luc tardif said there would be an official decision by end of october as to whether china gets the chopping block out of their very own tournament or face global demolition on the world stage

pray for me besties i am unwell

also bonus for some incredible headlines we got out of this:

#team china #2022 winter olympics #2022 olympics #kunlun red stars #long post #hockey #nhl

[gotnofucks]

Choose

Written for @darkficsyouneveraskedfor Halloween Challenge! This is my first time posting here, so be kind 😊

 Character pairing: dark!Steve x Reader

Summary: Steve realizes he can’t let you go when you’re stuck in a safe house with him.

Quote: I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched

Words: 4.1k

Warnings: Non-con (implied), non-con touching, blackmail, coercion, 18+ only. Please don’t read if you don’t like.

MASTERLIST

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 The rain was falling in torrents and how you made your way through it you would never know. It was only September, but the rain made it much colder and you were so glad that you were in a car with heating on. Steve was driving almost blind and if it were someone else, you would be scared, but it was him and so you let yourself sink into the seat and relax.

 “Take my jacket, you look cold” He said as he shot your slightly shivering form a sharp look.

 You nod and reach behind to take his jacket and wrap it around your body. You do it without hesitation and with no question. Always so trusting and obedient, at least, when it came to him. You were small, in fact positively diminutive when it came to the super soldier sitting beside you and seemed to drown in his jacket. He smiled when he saw you, and you smile back at his cheeky look.

 “How long until we get to the safe house? I am hungry.” You asked, wiggling in your seat.

 “Not long. It’s right in the middle of this clearing. Maybe 10 more minutes”, He answered, reaching over to pat your knee in assurance.

 “You’ve been there before?”

 “Twice. Nat and I set it up just after we took down Shield and then later crashed here with Sam and Buck around 2 years ago. It’s safe and cozy.”

 You hum and played with your fingers. It was only going to be the two of you this time. It didn’t bother you all that much. You would rather it be him than anyone else. Well, maybe Tony, but after him you liked Steve the best. You were one of the younger avengers, having been recruited only two years ago by Clint Barton. You used to work for a covert government organization IMF where Clint was undercover for a few years and seeing your talent with a gun and a computer, he had once asked your help in one of his Avengers missions where you met Tony Stark who immediately took a liking to you and trained you under him.

 You worked as Tony’s tech girl, helping mostly with recon missions for a few months. Then Natasha started training you for field missions and low and behold, you were kicking ass with them for nearly 6 months now. You haven’t done very difficult missions yet, and not a single solo. Mostly you’re paired with Nat and Clint or, as this time, with Steve. Tony assured you he’ll let you do a solo soon, but always lamented that ever since you got outside, he missed his lab buddy.

 You loved these small missions with Steve. He was always patient with you and taught you the drills but didn’t hold back. He would let you take the lead at times and was always proud of even the smallest achievement. At first when you had met, you had been kind if intimidated of his aloofness, but it didn’t take long for you both to bond over cheesy 40s music and your mutual love for art.

 “Y/n, we’re here” Steve announced and got out of the car. You followed, grabbing your small bag and ran through the rain to the porch. It was like a getaway cabin and you were so glad you didn’t have to stay in some dingy hole. You wanted warmth, food, and a comfortable place to sleep.

 Steve shut the door behind you and took off his wet shoes, putting them upside down near the door. You take off his jacket and your shoes too, grateful to be away from the squelching soles.

 “There’s no fireplace” You observe with a pout, and Steve chuckled.

 “Y/n, it’s a safe house. The smoke would let people know someone is living here. We don’t want that now, do we?” He gave you an indulgent smile and walked through to the kitchen, starting to unpack the supplies and food.

 “But I am cold!” You whine, and for that moment Steve realized your age gap. He gestured for you to come to him while he put the water to boil and you slowly approached him with small steps. Once you are in front of him, he looked at your damp hair and clothes, thankful that his jacket had prevented you from getting too wet.

 “You cold, huh?” He asked, hooking a hang around your waist to pull you against his chest. You stumble and steady yourself with both hands against his massive shoulders, your head a couple inches below his shoulder.

 “Yeah” You moan, wrapping your arms around his body. “How the hell are you always warm, eh?”

 Steve chuckles again and continues to cook while hugging you with an arm around your body. This closeness isn’t new. He would never admit it, but Captain Steve Rogers is a serial cuddler and you are his favourite cuddle buddy. He would cuddle you on the couch during movie nights, he would cuddle you after returning from a tough mission and he would cuddle you when you get your period. Steve Rogers was your best friend, and you felt safe with him. But you didn’t know Steve Rogers wanted to be more than just your friend. He wanted you with him when he went to sleep and when he woke up, he wanted you when he cooked and when he took a shower. No, you had no idea that the National treasure of America was in love with you.

 It wasn’t like he was hiding his feelings. He just never came out and said them out loud. Steve often believed that actions spoke louder than words and so he tried to tell you his feelings by doing little somethings for you. He learnt to make your coffee exactly the way you liked, he watched the movies you liked and read the books you read. He learnt to cook vegetarian dishes since you despised any kind of meat. More than anything, he tried to get along with Tony. Tony was your protective big brother/father, and he loved you enough to scare off every man who ever looked at your way. You were the only one in the team to have rooms on the same floor as Tony and you both shared a kitchen. Steve knew that if he wanted you to himself, he needed to get on Tony’s good side. So, he bit his tongue when he wanted to snap and gave his go ahead to things he deeply disapproved of, just to have to build back the old trust. It worked out, since Steve was one of the only people who were allowed a mission with you.

 “Will there be hot water for a shower?” You asked, body being warmed by Steve. He looked down at your face, full of childish innocence and stripped off every hardness after a tired mission.

 “Maybe, but definitely not enough for both of us” Steve commented. The vegetable stew needed to simmer for a while, so he sat you both down on the worn couch in the living room, your head on his shoulder and his arm still around you. He had hoped you would pick up on his feelings, since having you this close did things to him. Your soft body fit so perfectly into his large one that he never wished to part from you. Maybe tonight would be that night.

 “I’ll call Tony and eat. You take that shower and save me some hot water if you can.” You said and took out your phone to let Tony know you were safe and would leave for compound in the morning as planned. Steve looked at you walk away, speaking softly to Tony and wished more than ever that the rain outside would turn into a storm just to prolong your stay. He didn’t get to have you alone a lot at the compound. There were always other people around, always Wanda wanting female company or Peter following you around asking how you impressed Tony. He liked it here in this little cabin, cooking a meal for you after a hard day of work.

 “Tony says to leave early tomorrow so we can reach home by lunch. He wants to take me to meet Stephen Strange” You say suddenly, breaking out Steve from his domestic fantasy.

 “Stephen Strange? Why?”, he asked, frowning.

 “Tony and him and doing some weird wizard-avenger collab in that Nepal place- what is it called, Kamartaj- for a few weeks”, you answer.

 “What’s that got to do with you?” Steve asked, slightly irritated and hands curing into fists.

 “He’s taking me along. Says he doesn’t want me away for so long. Also, this wiz, Dr. Strange, he’s apparently some kind of genius. Tony says I can learn a lot from him. But I think it’s just a ruse. I’m pretty sure they are dating, and he just wants me to meet him”, You say with a fond smile. Steve doesn’t smile or say anything.

 Weeks? You’d be gone for weeks? That too in another country without him. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.

 “You wanna go?” He asked in what he hoped was a normal voice. He wanted you to say no, wanted to see that hesitation in your eyes as you thing of being away from him for weeks, maybe months.

 “Sure, I think it would be fun. I wanna see the Himalayas and maybe I’ll visit India too. I’ve got a pen friend there who I’d love to meet.” Your reply was so nonchalant that for a moment Steve just stares, and then he is angry. Here was a perfect chance for you and him to spend time away from the overbearing presence of Tony Stark, but you would rather see snow covered mountains and meet a pen friend in India? He’d only thought you were being a little oblivious of his feelings, maybe deliberately trying not to acknowledge them as you wanted to take it slow. But it seems like you…it seems like you felt nothing beyond friendship for him at all. After all those months spent hugging and laughing together, and yet you would rather choose Tony over him. A rage settled over him and he needed to clench his jaw and curl his arm tight around the back of the couch to stop himself from grabbing you and…and doing things he had rather not do.

 “Take that shower. Leave your wet clothes outside, I’ll see what I can do with them” Steve said suddenly.

 “You sure you don’t want a shower too? We’ve got layers of grim from crawling through that tunnel.” You asked.

 Steve looked at you for a minute, eyes rowing over your small face. He took in the little acne scars you were so self-conscious about, your slightly chapped lips and those beautiful eyes that reared him in. He nodded.

 “Yeah, you go on. I’ll see if I need one” He said and went to the kitchen while you left for the bedroom with the connected bathroom.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 The bathroom was nicer than you had hoped, probably Nat’s doing if the products where anything to go by. You’d removed your wet clothes outside and stood naked under the stream of warm water, sighing with relief. It was a small mission but brutal on your body. It would have been heaven to have a tub in here, but safe houses were meant to be quick and effective, and this one was way better than others, so you didn’t complain. You were just going to wash your hair when the bathroom door opened, and Steve entered.

 “Steve!” You shouted, hands covering your breast and turning so your back was to him. You looked at him with wide eyes, expecting him to sputter and leave but he stayed, eyes lingering on your ass a bit before meeting your eyes.

 “Got any of that hot water left or have you finished all of it?” He asked, taking off his t-shirt and leaving his chest bare.

 Your mouth opened in surprise as your backed yourself into the corner, trying to make sense of what was happening. Your best friend had just barged into your bathroom while you were showering and showed no signs of leaving.

 “W-what are you doing, Steve?” You asked in a small voice, still covering yourself with your hands the best you could.

 “Taking a shower. I told you we didn’t have enough water for two, so I thought I’d join you. You were right anyway, we are grimy.” He said and fumbling a bit, dropped his pants down too. You panicked, not understanding what was happening as Steve stood in his boxers, taking steps towards you.

 “No. No no no no” You almost chanted that as a mantra, eyes going here and there, not knowing what to do. Steve reached your small body crowded into the corner and slowly, very slowly raised a hand to wipe away the dirty on your cheek. You started at his touch and quickly sidestepped, running towards the door. You didn’t know what had gotten into Steve, but you needed to get out of here. Now.

 You’d taken only two steps before a hand wrapped around your waist and brought you back screeching to a hard chest, back against front.

 “Stop. Steve, let me go. Please.” You said, your tears mingling with the water on your skin, one hand across your chest and other on his wrist trying to pry it off.

 “No sweetheart, you need to take this shower. You’re dirty and tired. Come.” You hated his voice for being soft and soothing still, showing no indication of what he was doing to you. His voice was still your Stevie’s voice, calm, cool, a little commanding and full of affection for you.

 “I- Steve, I don’t want a shower. Not like this, please.” You tried to break away, wiggling and crying but Steve didn’t listen and dragged you back and turned on the water again. You both were bombarded with hot water and stood under it for a minute before Steve turned it off again.

 “Gimme that shampoo, I’ll do your hair.” He said, releasing you from his hold. But it wasn’t any good as you were blocked by the wall on your back and Steve at your front. You hadn’t turned around yet, but now you did. Sobbing, with thighs squeezed tight to hide you down there and hands inefficiently covering your breasts, you looked at him with betrayed eyes. You didn’t try running again. You knew his strength; you have trained with him. He could take you down in seconds.

 “Why are you doing this? What is happening?” Your voice was small and broken, sending a pang through Steve’s heart. He loved you and didn’t want to hurt you, but you needed to see his feelings for you. He couldn’t risk you going away for months. He just couldn’t. His eyes slowly moved down from your face, taking in every inch of your body exposed, not touching, only looking.

 “We’re taking a shower after which we will eat our food while we watch some stupid movie on that laptop of yours. Then, we’ll cuddle and sleep with you on my chest and tomorrow morning you will call Tony and tell him you won’t join him for his trip to Nepal.”

 He was mad. He was insane, you were sure of it. Face burning with humiliation under his gaze, fire began sparking in your eyes. How dare this tall buff blond muffin think it okay to invade your space and demand such things from you? Just who the fuck did he think he was.

 “No. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but you need to stop. Get out, or if you want to shower, let me go out. I’m done with whatever game you are playing.” You sneered at him. Steve had to smile at this, his little spitfire. He didn’t really expect you to give in easily, that’s not the girl he knew and trained. You were with the avengers because you could handle stuff others would wet themselves with. You were strong and he knew that. But he was stronger.

 “What’s gotten into me?” He asked, closing the distance between you so you were against the wall and caged by his arms on either side. His face was inches away and your breathing sped up. He looked cruel and menacing, the blue eyes you loved so much taking on a much darker hue. “You have gotten in me. You got under my skin and in my thoughts and in my heart. Now I want you under me.”

 He bent down and you were sure he was going to force a kiss on your mouth but he surprised you by pressing his lips softly on your forehead like he did when you had nightmares or right before a mission. It was a kiss of reassurance and love, and somehow, that just scared you more. Whatever Steve thought he was doing, he believed it was driven by love. And when Steve loved someone, he loved them without abandon. If he went against everyone to save his friend, what would he do to have you?

 “Steve…please…” You didn’t know what to say or what to do. You wanted to get away from him and cover yourself up to get some control back. You wanted to talk to him and forget this ever happened and get back your best friend.

 “You have two options. First, we both take a bath right now. I won’t touch you where you don’t want me to, we eat, and sleep and you go back with me to the compound like a good girl and tell everyone we are together. Or..” His eyes narrowed here, “Or, I could take you right here, right now and make you mine with little option. I could rail you deep and hard so you will feel me deep inside you for days on end. I know you’re not on birth control and I have no condoms with me, so if you get pregnant, you best believe I’ll have you tied down to myself with a ring on that finger by the end of the month. The choice is yours.”

 Your heart sank. You looked into his eyes, your whole body shaking and knees ready to give up. He was serious! He was absolutely serious, and you had no idea what the fuck happened. Just an hour ago you were sure he was the person who made you feel the safest, but now that sanctuary had been torn apart and some possessive stranger had taken its place.

 “You’re insane. You’ve lost it!” You cry, sliding down the wall as your knees collapsed, folding your knees to hide your nakedness. Steve followed you down and wrapped his arms around your small form.

 “I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched. You own me, my heart and soul. And soon, I’ll have you too. How that happens is your choice. Choose.” His tone bore no argument. You had just one card to play.

 “Tony would never stand for it. He’ll find out, I’ll tell him and then you’ll be done.” You made your tone harsh and full of venom. You don’t know what you expected him to do, but it definitely wasn’t laugh. It was an amused chuckle, like a daddy who was indulging his silly daughter, full of patronizing hilarity.

 “Sweetheart, you don’t think I have a plan for that? Even if I spend months bringing you flowers and singing love ballads from your window, he wouldn’t exactly be convinced. He isn’t exactly fond of me, is he? I had a plan in place for months. I didn’t want to have to use it honestly, I wanted you to come to me of your own violation. But I just thought as a back up plan…” You screamed as he suddenly scooped you up in his arms, still wet and naked and carried you out to the bedroom. He deposited you on the bed and gave you a towel that you hastily covered yourself with. You looked behind you and the door was locked. It wasn’t any use anyway; he could outrun you in his sleep.

 Steve got his phone out and showed you the screen, making your heart drop. There were numerous pictures of you with your family and friends from the past two years. Not just those, pictures of you with your previous team, the IMF, Ethan Hunt, and others. How Steve got these pictures you didn’t know, but it scared you.

 “Everyone, every single person in these pictures has a target on their backs. I have had a sniper after all of them for over a year, mostly just to keep an eye on you and to make sure you are safe. But don’t think for one second that I will hesitate to take them out. There is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do to keep you with me.” He sat beside you on the bed and putting a finger under your chin turned your face towards him. “It doesn’t need to be nasty, sweetheart. I don’t want to be the bad guy. I have never been one and you can keep me from doing anything drastic. All you need to do is convince Tony that you are the one who wants me. You are the only person he actually trusts, so you need to make it believable. He has denied you nothing, and if you come to him yourself and tell him you want me…well…no one has to die, do they.”

 This was a nightmare. Everything that has happened to you today is a nightmare. You didn’t want to believe Steve would hurt anyone, but then you didn’t think him capable of forcing him on you either. If there was even the tiniest bit of chance that he could harm anyone of your friends and family…no. You couldn’t let that happen.

 “Option one”, You whispered softly, eyes downcast and lips trembling.

 “What was that?” Steve asked, turning your face up again so he could look in your eyes.

 “I choose option one. We- We eat and sleep and I call Tony I won’t go with him. Then we can tell everyone we are together.”

 Steve grinned, his happy grin that everyone said only you brought out in him. It unnerved you that a man you loved and respected so much was doing this.

 “My good girl” He praised, and then he leaned down and pressed his mouth on yours. The kiss was gentle and soft, his mouth lazily moving against yours. If it were happening any other way, you would have enjoyed it. He broke away and looked at you with eyes that sparkled. “You’ll love me too, one day. I am yours, and you are mine.”

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 True to his word, you guys ate your dinner and watched a movie as you cuddled like you usually did at movie nights. Steve held you close, sometimes brushing his nose against the side of your neck or rubbing his hand along your sides. Afterwards, he laid down beside you, spooning your small body and holding it snug against his. He was warm, and you didn’t have anymore fight in you for today. The day was too fast and weird for you to process. You vowed to sleep now and to think of a way to get to Tony without arousing Steve’s suspicion. You weren’t ready to give up now.

 You’d been asleep for only a couple hours before you felt cold air around your body. You woke up with a start and found yourself on your back, your t-shirt removed and Steve hovering over you, placing open mouth kisses along your bare chest.

 “Steve! Steve stop!” You screamed, pushing against his chest. He looked at you with eyes blown wide with lust and taking your hands in one of his, he held them up while he tweaked your nipple with his other making you squirm. He bent down and swallowed your protests with a deep kiss, his tongue forcing its way inside your mouth and tasting you while he moaned.

“Steve please,” You were sobbing now, and trashing your legs which he held down with a strong thigh. “You…you promised. You said I get to choose. I chose option one”

 Steve looked at you for a moment then kissed your cheek softly. Moving his hand between your thighs he murmured in your ear, “I’ve changed my mind. I can’t wait anymore”

#rooshalloweenficfest #steve x reader #dark!steve x reader #dark!steve rogers #dark!steve rogers x reader #dark!steve x you #dark!steve rogers x you #dark!fic

[thetriggeredhappy]

day 1 let’s fuckin’ go. everyone listen to butterflies by samsa

Day 1: Pursuit

“You seriously don’t have any better games than this?” Scout complained, looking back down at the board, doubtful. “Not even, like, a deck of cards? To play poker or somethin’?”

“Rather not play two-person poker, and I don’t like gambling anyways,” was Sniper’s reply, not glancing up from shuffling the cards.

“I mean, maybe Go Fish then, or Old Maid, or—or somethin’, not fuckin’… Trivial Pursuit.”

Sniper seemed to mull that over for a moment. “If you don’t want to play,” he started to say, hesitant, and Scout sputtered to cut him off before he could finish that thought.

“I, I mean, I didn’t say that,” he managed, still half-glaring down at the board. “Just, y’know.”

Sniper probably didn’t know, actually. Truthfully, Scout wasn’t much for… book smarts type games. Games that needed quick reflexes, talking quickly, theatrics, those he was a champion at besides his eternally bad luck, but facts and numbers and geography? Those he tended to sort of… fuck up beyond recognition. And he really, really didn’t want to look like a complete idiot in front of Sniper.

Kind of the worst case scenario, actually. But the worse worst case scenario was driving the guy away before even getting to hang out with him, here, the first time he’d ever agreed to one of Scout’s dozens of proposed hangouts.

Hell, he’d honestly gotten used to Sniper always saying no. ‘Nah’ and ‘Not this time’ and ‘Afraid not, sorry mate’ were three phrases Scout had heard at least three and four times a week for months, now. He’d started brushing right through it, stopped letting it hurt his feelings even, although he couldn’t help but get his hopes up, still. Invitations to team drinking nights and poker parties and carpooling with the guys to the movies or a bar or a casino, or more overt invitations to listen to new albums or go out to get fast food or to fairs or to concerts, he’d long since gotten used to those standard, polite rejections.

So he was surprised, then, when he’d delivered his offhanded invitation—“Hey, Snipes, all the other guys bailed on the rec room game night tonight, you wanna be there anyways?”—he hadn’t expected Sniper to hesitate for a few seconds before shrugging and saying sure.

Hell, he was halfway through his ‘yeah no problem no worries man’ before he even realized Sniper said yes, then it was fumbling the whole rest of the way.

Better to be an idiot friend than a distant acquaintance, maybe. That’s what he told himself.

A brief mumbled rundown of the rules went in one ear and out the other as he got preoccupied with looking over one of the cards, mind boggled by what the hell the letters and colors were supposed to mean. A short summary was nodded at vaguely, and apparently his poker face had been terrible all along, because Sniper shrugged and said that they could just play first to six questions right and tally up wins from there. Then they rolled a dice and Sniper, apparently, would go first.

“Alright, uh,” Scout said, squinting down at the little card. “What does a… he-leo-logist, study?”

Sniper thought about it for a second. “Er… the sun,” he replied.

“Yep,” Scout nodded, nudged a piece towards him. Sniper took it. “So, uh, you go again?”

“Yeah. Er… geography, this time,” Sniper mumbled, shuffling some pieces around in a way that probably made sense to people who actually knew how this board game worked.

“Sure. What’s… the country that has South America’s highest and lowest points?”

Another pause. “Bloody… Argentina, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Damn. Okay, next one,” Scout said, less concerned about the fact that Sniper was doing well and more worried at the fact that he was gonna do awful.

“Geography again,” Sniper determined.

“What natural… breakwater, is off the north… eastern, part of Australia?” he read, a little stilted, squinting at the letters, like that would help, for once. Silence, for a pause, then for longer. Scout breathed an internal sigh of relief, smiling a little. “C’mon, it’s your own fuckin’, uh… country, continent, thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s both,” Sniper said, and paused. “It… it’s not talking about the bloody, er… Solomon Islands, is it?”

“Great Barrier Reef,” Scout replied.

Sniper muttered a swear. “Overthought it,” he sighed, nudging the dice over to Scout, who rolled it. Sniper glanced at the number, moved the pieces, looked at a card. “Right. What craft uses a… kiln, and a kick wheel?”

Scout could’ve cried. “That’s, uh, pottery, sculpting,” he said, relieved.

A nod from Sniper, a piece scooped onto his side of the table, the dice rolled a few seconds later when he realized he was supposed to do that. “How many colors are in the rainbow?” he asked next.

Scout had to count off on his fingers for a second. “Uh, seven,” he said, and fist-pumped when Sniper nodded, scooping up another piece. “Even though it’s, uh, kinda bullishit. There should be six.”

Sniper’s eyebrows ticking up in confusion probably was a sign he should drop it, but instead he found himself spouting off.

“Because, uh, like, y’know, there’s—there’s the kinds of colors, right?” he said, backpedaling at his response of furrowed eyebrows. “Like, the basic ones, the, uh, primary colors, that’s red and yellow and blue, y’know? And then the other three, that you get from mixing those, like, uh, red and yellow is, uh… is orange, and then like, green, and purple, you combine ‘em, right?”

Sniper nodded slowly after a moment.

“But then you got, uh, fuckin’… indigo. In the, uh, in the list of colors, fuckin’, Roy G. Biv? Red orange yellow, green, blue indigo violet? And I know it’s, like, blue and dark blue, but I think that still sucks. If we’ve got indigo we’ve gotta have like, the other in- between guys. Know what I mean?”

“Don’t have much of an opinion on it, but, sounds like you’re making points,” Sniper said, and Scout shrugged, glanced down at the table, tapped his fingertips against his knees out of sight to try and let out some nervous energy. “Bloody, er… your turn, or mine?”

“Uh, mine,” Scout said, scrambling to roll the dice.

“Right. Sorry. Er…” Sniper read over the card. “Patron saint of Scotland?”

Scout swore under his breath, deflating a little, coming up blank. “Uh… hey, Demo!” he called, and heard a vague ‘aye’ from the kitchen. “Who’s the patron saint of Scotland?”

“My mum,” Demo called back, and Sniper snickered, at least, which softened the blow to Scout’s confidence considerably.

“Ah, fuck off,” Scout called back, and looked back at Sniper, smiling. “Saint Scrumpy, fuck, I dunno.”

“Saint Andrew, apparently,” Sniper shrugged, rolling the dice. “Sports question. The orange one.”

Scout tried to read the question before starting to say anything out loud, and found himself completely lost anyways. “Who was the first… Ch—Check-uh-slavarian… to win, the… Wimbleton…”

“No idea,” Sniper said outright, shaking his head at himself. “Don’t follow, er… what, the Olympics?”

“Tennis, I guess,” Scout shrugged, rolling the dice.

“Sports for you too. What did… bloody hell. What did second baseman Bill… Wambsganss, do all by himself in the, er… 1920 World Series game?”

“Oh, shit,” Scout laughed, “guy did, like, a triple play, and then hit into a double later that same game. That was the year some guy got hit in the head with a ball and fuckin’ died.”

Sniper was staring at him, clearly shocked.

“What?” Scout asked, rolling the dice. “I know baseball. And it was a whole thing.”

Sniper seemed to shrug it off, shaking his head. “What’s the Taj Mahal made of?”

“Fuckin’, I dunno, chocolate? What, that some kinda dessert? What’s that?” Scout scoffed, trying to play it off.

“It’s… it’s a place. Looks a bit like a castle? Like, er, like the Eiffel Tower, or Big Ben, tourist sort of thing?” Sniper tried, and Scout shrugged, and he shrugged back, rolling the dice. “Fair enough. One of the, er, Science ones. Green one.”

Scout looked at the card for a few seconds. “I… dunno how to say this word. Glue… glay… what’s that?”

Sniper leaned over, and Scout turned it towards him. “Glaucoma. Hits your eyes,” he said, and Scout nodded, and he took a piece, rolled again. “Brown one.”

“What are… catalogued, under the Dewey decimal system?” Scout asked, eyebrows furrowing.

“Books, library books,” Sniper mumbled.

“Jesus, are you—where’s the mirrors, seriously? How are you doing that?” Scout asked, and Sniper huffed something like a laugh, taking the piece, rolling again. “No, no, seriously. How the hell do you know half of these?”

“Geography, blue,” he prompted.

“Alright, I swear to god.” Scout held the card close as he read it, first to himself, then out loud. “What national capital is heated by underground hot springs?”

Sniper, to his credit, paused for a moment before answering. “Iceland’s. Reykjavik, it’s called.”

“I swear to god.” Scout flipped over the card, read the answer. “Oh, what the fuck!”

“I’ve bloody been there!” Sniper defended.

“Nah, fuck off, hold on—“ Scout picked up another card, reading another question. “Where in a tree does photosynthesis happen?”

“Leaves.”

“How do you know that so fast!” Scout demanded.

“That’s just science class in school!”

“Fuckin’—who, fuckin’, rode on the raft with Huck Finn?” Scout asked next.

“The, er… runaway, Jim.”

“Oh, what!” Scout all but shouted.

“Scout, I read.”

“Nah, nah, you’re way too good at this game, either you’re like, cheating, or you on purpose picked this game because you’re, like, weirdly crazy good at it or something!”

Sniper’s expression went from amusement to that blankness again, and it only made Scout even more infuriated.

“I mean, seriously, did you pick this game on purpose because you just know all the cards? Did you just wanna do the game where you’d for sure win?” he demanded.

Sniper was fidgeting with his glasses, now, and to be honest, Scout wasn’t even particularly mad, just confused.

“I mean, shit, you’d think you just wanted too play this one so you could look smart and cool and shit like that,” he said. and saw the way Sniper shrank a little, and the lightbulb went off way too late.

A pause.

“Dude,” Scout said, fighting down a laugh.

Sniper mumbled something he didn’t quite hear, sinking in his chair.

“Alright, seriously, if you wanna look smarter than me, you really don’t gotta pull out the trivia questions. Pretty much any game works, you know that, right? I’ll make an idiot of myself playing, like… Uno,” Scout said. Sniper shrugged, still not looking him in the eye. “Okay. Here’s an idea. How about we play, uh… I dunno, Crazy Eights. And while we play I’m gonna keep grilling you on this random trivia shit because seriously, that’s totally nuts, man.”

Sniper hesitated for a few seconds before he finally nodded and straightened up, and in a way, they both won. Scout because he now at least knew he wasn’t the only one who was a total mess and way too worried about what other people thought, and Sniper because he could keep being impressive about random trivia knowledge. Apparently, he knew a bunch about geography and books and nature, and not a single thing about sports.

Scout accused him of trying to memorize the cards. Sniper laughed, properly, for the first time all night.

#sniperscout #speeding bullet #sniperscout ship week #team fortress 2 #tf2 #shut up me #just this once. SNIPER is the dorkass loser

[write-orflight]

Settle Down: Chapter 4

**Gif Not Mine**

Prev -  Next

Pairings: SpencerXReader (kinda enemies to lovers)  

Rating: M

Words: 2.5K

Warnings: Smut!! (Oral, male receiving. Sexual conduct. language.)

Request: OPEN/CLOSED

Summary:   Y/N and Spencer don’t get along but turn to each other for the one   thing you need someone else for… A baby. You can plantonically start a   family, right?

AN: Unedited because I was scrambling to finish before work. Comment on this chapter or inbox to be on taglist. thanks! much love, Cia.

                Chapter 4: Frozen, fuck you.

Misfortune came in the form of spots in your underwear the following week. You weren’t pregnant despite your best efforts. You took a personal day because of how bummed you were feeling, assuring Hotch that you could do your job from home. So you spent your morning eating terribly and reviewing the files Garcia sent you. Once you finish all your work for the day, you curl up on the couch with a pint of ice cream, bourbon and National Geographic. You’re hours in when you get a knock at your door. You stumble over and open it to reveal Spencer. He looks at you concerned as you very drunkenly head back to your couch, leaving the door open indicating you were inviting him in. He closes the door behind him looking at you concerned. 

“Have you been drinking?” 

“Wow, is this why they say you’re good at your job?” You say, rolling your eyes. 

“Y/N, should you even be drinking? You might be—“ 

“Did you know elephants are pregnant for almost 2 years?” You say pointing at the TV. “Why am I even asking? You know everything.” 

“Do you wanna tell me what’s got you so upset?” Spencer says, kneeling in front of your perch on the couch. 

“Did you know it’s very difficult for female pandas to become pregnant?” You say, you feel your eyes becoming wet but you blink back the tears. “That makes two of us.” You shrug. 

It clicks for Spencer in that moment. “You’re not…” he asks. You shake your head. 

“Spencer, I’m sorry. Maybe you should ask someone else. Maybe someone without a broken uterus.” 

“Y/N, there’s nothing wrong with you.” He says, cupping your cheek with his hand. You can’t help but nuzzle back into it. “I went to the doctor with you. Just because it didn’t happen this time doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Not everyone gets pregnant their first time trying.” 

“But people not trying at all end up pregnant the first time. What’s wrong with me?” The tear that’s been threatening the whole time finally falls down your cheek. Spencer swipes his thumb across it, looking sympathetically at you. 

“We can just try again next month, Y/N. We’ve got time, ok?” He says, you nod. 

“Thank you, Spencer.” You say. 

“No problem. Now come on, lay down.” He says, sitting down on the end of the couch and pulling you down to lay down onto his lap. “And stop watching National Geographic if it’s making you sad. We can even watch that movie with the talking toys if you want?” 

“All three?” 

“God, there’s three?!” 

———————————————

The following weeks are pretty uneventful. You guys caught murders and went to bars afterwards. You were in one bar after a particularly hard case with the team sans Spencer and Hotch when Derek asked you. 

“Ok, apparently you swore my girl to secrecy but I have to know.” He says to you from across the booth. “What is happening between you and Pretty Boy?” 

You throw a pointed look at Garcia, who just looks at you guiltily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Morgan.” 

Emily chimes in at that. “Please! Before the two of you would either never talk or when you would, it’d end in an argument. Now suddenly he’s calling you on cases, not interrupting you when you’re presenting--” 

“Maybe, he just finally got some sense.” You interrupt. 

“See, I would say that too.” Emily says. “If he hadn’t asked me where to get that korean tea you like so much.” 

You knew what she was talking about. When you found out you weren’t pregnant and came back to work. You were still hopped up on extra hormones so when you went to make your favorite tea that morning and realized you had forgotten to get more so you were out. When you saw that, you started crying softly. You just wanted tea. Spencer walked in at that moment and you wiped your face furiously so he wouldn’t see the evidence of your tears before speeding out of the kitchen. The next day you walked into the kitchen, expecting to have to make shitty coffee instead, but there was a new box of your tea. You didn’t think much of it. You assumed Garcia got you the box. 

“He probably just wanted it for himself. The box has been feeling a little light lately.” You lie. “I’m serious though. Nothing’s going on.” We just have really hot sex in hopes of him impregnating me. You think. Everyone let’s it go at that point, changing the subject. You were thankful for that. 

——————————————-

The day came around again and Spencer wordlessly just got in your car after you guys’ shift and you didn’t question it, you knew the drill this time around. Spencer hums along to your music playing in the car. You look at him confused. 

“You know California Dreamin’?” You ask. 

“I uh-I heard you tell Garcia about how you liked The Mamas and Papas so I listened to some of their songs. I thought it’d help me understand you more.” 

You don’t turn towards him. You keep your eyes focused on the road so he wouldn’t see the marshmallow soft look that crossed your face. “Did you learn anything?” You ask. 

He clears his throat. “You listen to a lot of soft melodic music. I wouldn’t have thought that considering how you are.” 

“And how am I, Spencer Reid?” 

“Opinionated, loud.” You narrow your eyes at that one but say nothing. “Yet you listen to soft love songs, your favorite movie is Wizard of Oz and you watch nothing but Disney movies in your spare time. You’re not as scary as you think you are.” He says, getting out of the parked car. You speed out the car after him immediately. 

“I’m plenty scary!” You say as the two of you enter your house. 

“Uh-huh, and which Disney movie are we watching tonight?” 

“Frozen, fuck you.” You say leaving behind a laughing Spencer to go take your ovulation test. 

After discovering you were in fact ovulating you went to the living room to put on Frozen. You were about halfway into the sister’s adventure when you asked. 

“Spencer?” You asked from your perch laying on his shoulder. He turns his head down towards you, humming inquisitively. “Emily told me it was you who got my tea.” 

“I did.” He says. 

“Why?” 

He shrugs. “It was upsetting you.” he says, like it’s obvious. 

“I mean, I was upset I was out, sure but it’s not your job to make sure I’m not upset.” 

“It’s specifically my job to do that, Y/N.” He says, turning so he can look you in the eyes. “Y/N, you’re literally about to be the mother of my child. That makes your happiness just as important as this child’s happiness. I’m going to take care of both of you so if buying a 10 dollar box of tea is what will make you happy, I have no issues doing so.” 

The look he gives you is so sincere and your heart flutters when he says it. You don’t know why but you’re suddenly bombarded with thoughts of kissing him and before you can stop yourself you do just that. Spencer hums in shock for a second. But quickly deepens the kiss, tongue tracing over yours. You moan slightly as his hands come up to cup your face. Eventually, the two of you separate, gasping for breath in the small space between you. 

“What was that for?” He says. 

You couldn’t say the real reason that you kissed him was because you wanted to, so bad. It would make things awkward and ruin what was an amazing plan. You needed to remember that you were doing this for the end goal, a child.

“I’m ovulating, so I figured we should start now.” You say. It was only half a lie. 

Spencer looks slightly disappointed for a second before he shakes it off. He stands and grabs your hand tugging you towards the bedroom wordlessly. Once inside, his mouth is on yours again. You smirk against his lips, hands going for each other’s respective clothes. Once undressed he deposits you on the bed, settling into the space between your legs. He’s leaving open mouth bruises on your neck and chest as his hands travel down your body. You stopped him, it wasn’t that you didn’t want that, but you had other plans. 

He looks at you confused for a second. A look that’s replaced completely with wanton desire when you start trailing a hand up and down is underwear clad length. You watch his eyes flutter shut for a second, relishing in the feeling. You smirk at that. You lean up to speak in his ear. 

“I want to ride you.” You say, you feel Spencer’s member twitch in your palm as you say it. “Can I?” 

Spencer nods fast, moving off of you to lay flat on his back. He goes to take off his underwear but you stop him, wanting to do it yourself. You tugged them down his body and as you crawled your way back up you found yourself face to face with a certain predicament. An intrusive thought pops in your head and before you can stop yourself you ask. 

“Can I?” You whisper, you didn’t finish the question but your face was right next to his dick so you figured he’d get the gist. 

“You don’t have to.” Spencer says, though his dick betrays his words as it violently twitches when you bring your mouth slightly towards it. 

“I know.” You whisper before taking the head into your mouth. You hear Spencer hiss above you as you let your tongue swerve over the head. You moan, taking him deeper into your mouth, hand covering what you couldn’t reach. You hear a strangled gasp above you and opt to look up. Nothing could’ve prepared you for that sight. Spencer’s head was thrown back, face and neck flushed and he was biting on his fist to keep from making too much noise. Spencer was always so complimentary of you during these times and you realized you never said what you thought,  that the man above you was beautiful. You still held your tongue though. It was preoccupied anyway. After sometime, Spencer’s hand cups the side of your face, moaning softly as he feels his member through your cheek. He gently pulled you off of him. 

“I need to be inside you.” He says. “Now.”  

You nod, crawling back up his body to straddle his lap. Spencer moves your hips so you’re right above him, allowing you to sink down on his length. The two of you groan at first contact, Spencer gives you a second to adjust, massive hands circling your waist as you rocked yourself back and forth in his lap. You already felt close despite the short amount of time. You look down at the man and he’s looking up at you with a glassy expression. 

“Fuck, Y/N.” He moans, hands tightening on your waist. “You look so hot like this, I’m not going to last long.” 

“Me neither.” You say, Spencer takes that moment to drift his hand to your clit, thumb drawing small circles on the bundle of nerves. You moan out loud, moving your hips faster as Spencer thrusts his hips up to meet yours. 

“Spencer, fuck, I’m gonna--” you cut yourself off with a moan. Spencer is thrusting up into you faster now. 

“Cum for me, baby.” He says, and as if you were waiting for permission, you release moaning Spencer’s names and expletives. Spencer rides you through it, moving your hips on top of him. Before you know it, you’re on your back and Spencer is thrusting back into you hard. You practically scream out as he sets a fast pace chasing his own release. 

“Fuck, you feel so good baby, I’m gonna- fuck.” He says as you feel him release inside you. He thrusts shallowly inside you, riding out his orgasm before pulling out. You wince slightly, lifting your hips so he can slide the pillow under you, knowing the drill by now. Spencer runs, his fingers through your hair, you hum pushing your head into him, like a cat. 

“You ok?” He whispers. “Do you need anything?” 

You shake your head. “Will you come sleep with me?” You ask. 

Spencer smiles softly at you. “Of course, Y/N.” 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A month passes and cold February winter turns to soft March spring. The weeks that pass are fairly uneventful. You work and come home to an unfortunately empty house. You and Spencer talk about not as much as before and hardly about anything not baby or work related. You could admit that the last time you guys had sex, some lines got blurred and you both needed space from each other to remember that this was still platonic. At least, that’s how you felt and though you never voiced it, Spencer seemed to understand that.

The team was out on a case when you realized. You and Garcia had been on video call with the team when you heard Derek say.    

“Woah, Oz. You look like death warmed over.” 

You roll your eyes. “I’m fine.” 

“She’s not fine.” Garcia butts in. “She’s been throwing up all morning.” 

“L/N, if you’re sick--” Hotch starts. 

“I’m not sick! I feel completely fine, I think I just had some chinese that didn’t sit right. I’ll be fine, can we focus on the case?” You plead, Hotch nods. You see Spencer looking at the screen wide eyed but you don’t understand why. 

“What did you find?” Hotch asks. 

“Ok, Sebastian Henry’s financial records were a little hard to go through. Everything looked pretty normal. So I did a little--” You gag for a second but manage to keep it down. “A little digging and found a s-secret account he’s been m-making large donations to a church that, through more digging, doesn’t exist--” Garcia is already there with the bucket which you snatch and empty your lunch in immediately. 

“We think it’s mafia.” Garcia says, grimacing at the sound of your vomiting. You lift up to see the team giving you empathic looks and Spencer with a deep thinking expression. 

“Great, Garcia, look into that more. And Y/N, go home.” Hotch says. 

“What? Hotch, I’m fine!” 

“And I wasn’t asking.” He says, in that authoritative voice that made you know he meant business. 

“Fine.” you grumble as he ends the call. 

You’re on the way home when you get a call from Spencer. 

“Spencer, what’s up? Does Hotch need me to go back in?” 

“Oh, uh-no.” He says. “Listen, I know you said you’d tell me if something was up but Penelope saying you’d been sick all morning is making me overthink and well, did you take a test?” He asked. 

You look up at that. The two of you had been so busy with cases and work that the one thing you had been waiting for had completely slipped your mind. 

You were late.  

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#spencer x reader smut #spencer reid x you #spencer x you #spencer reid x reader #spencer x reader #spencer reid x reader smut #spencer reid smut #spencer reid #spencer x y/n #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds smut #criminal minds #bau #bau x reader #bau x y/n #criminal minds fluff

[lovebecomeshim]

hello! your zutara posting today has finally motivated me to ask this question because I came to atla very late(last year, to be specific) and I Love It Very Much but am 1000% out of the loop as far as why what remains of fandom (at least that I've seen among my friends) is so very strongly zutara. I'm not opposed to it per se I just don't really know what has driven it to apparently be such a popular ship? can you help me understand and maybe convert me a little bit?

Hey!! Your ICON! :D I can try but I’m not sure how coherent I’ll be; however I AM sure someone a lot more competent will be willing to add to this. Either way, I’m glad you asked because my plan was to drag down as many people as possible with me.

*smacks the hood of zutara* this baby can fit so much mutual love and support!

This got so long, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to put it under a cut on mobile and it already got deleted once so I’m scared to mess with it lol. Moving on.

I’m gonna start this with a disclaimer that im on mobile so formatting is tricky and I’m also really new to atla in that I only completed my first watch through in like 2019??? So some of my info is all just based on what I’ve picked up from Discourse 👀 so anyway the sparknotes version: zutara was wildly popular from the beginning. To the point where the atla crew internally disagreed on which ship should be endgame. (Ex. Bryke [showrunners] asked the writers to rewrite The Southern Raiders to make Zuko seem less ideal for Katara than Aang [which failed, depending on who you ask]; the animation team purposefully created a visual parrallel between Oma and Shu in the Cave of Two Lovers and Zuko and Katara in the catacombs under Ba Sing Se in the Crossroads of Destiny; etc.)

The ship was popular enough that Bryke actually chose to display zk fanart at a con for the sole purpose of mocking the fans, but that’s neither here nor there. The entire episode Ember Island Players, while a love letter to/parody of the whole show, was an opportunity to address zutara’s viability as a canon pairing (while, again, mocking zutaras for romanticizing that catacombs scene). Point is! It’s always been popular but with it not being endgame, there’s got to be something that’s given it staying power.

And that’s honestly got to do with three things: their dynamic, thematic cohesion, and potential.

(You know what... you know what, it’s four things. The fourth is they’re so aesthetically pleasing together and individually. Like, they’re just good looking people [specifically when they’re grown but they’re also cute kids] and that absolutely doesn’t hurt) (but it’s not the Point, it’s just nice to point out sometimes)

The dynamic is hard to get into without also looking at the canon pairings, but I think I can do that without unnecessary bashing. It’s just that part of the magic of zutara is really highlighted by what they give to each other that their other relationships don’t.

First off, it’s classic enemies to (would be) lovers. The absolute truest form of it. It’s not too different from how CS started out: a rogue antagonist with a job to do—but no personal vendetta against the future love interest—who is deeply and emotionally invested in his personal storyline (revenge/redemption) with little regard for how it effects other people after his entire life and genuine good nature are marred by suffering, and a fierce warrior girl with a strong moral compass and her own personal investment in stopping him (protect her family and save the world doing it). Obviously frustration and animosity grew between them by the nature of them being on opposing sides, but that just lends itself to the sweetness of their later reconciliation.

The thing is that while they’re wildly different on the surface (he’s a hot-headed prince of a fascist regime who is trying to capture the Avatar to please his father; she’s a nurturing daughter of the chief who is trying to protect and train the Avatar in order to topple his father’s throne) they find out that they have so much more in common both in their experiences and their personalities.

(What follows is an excessive use of the word “both” and I’m sorry about that)(I can edit it. I can do that. That IS an option............)

They both have an innate sense of justice that they are determined to see done (zuko, at the war meeting, sticking up for the Earth Kingdom kid when the guards torment his family, choosing not to steal from the pregnant couple despite his circumstances, abiding by his word to leave the SWT should Aang come willingly, etc.; katara, literally.... at any point). They both have pretty one-track minds at accomplishing certain goals once they’ve put their mind to it, regardless of a lack of support in that endeavor (it goes without saying I guess, but zuko’s entire hunt; katara’s determination to get the earth benders to fight back, her determination to absolutely destroy Pakku until he agrees to teach her, etc.). They both lost their mothers at young ages. Their worlds are war-torn and traumatizing to them both, if in different ways, but that ultimately forces them to grow up too quickly to be wholly independent individuals. They both have issues with their fathers (for WILDLY different reasons, but). They both hold extreme prejudices that they need to learn to overcome (which ties into thematic cohesion)(bit like Lizzie and Darcy in that way but magnified by a million). They’re both extremely emotional and empathetic—which can and often does result in loud outbursts. Katara’s a bit better adjusted and can temper her anger for longer than S1 Zuko can, but they both feel that anger deeply and have no compunctions expressing it (Katara is, usually, more justified, particularly in S1. Again, S1 Zuko is severely maladjusted but at the point when they could’ve feasibly become a couple, he’s so much better off with the way he carries himself). They both struggle with feelings of inferiority in their bending abilities when confronted with prodigal benders like Aang and Azula, but have the work ethic required to double down and become two of the most powerful benders in the three remaining nations. This is a little more minor but it is a parrallel that appeals to some shippers that they both have these alter egos in the Painted Lady (notably fire nation coded) and the Blue Spirit (water tribe coded) that are pretty different from who they are day-to-day and are useful in accomplishing a purpose that they as themselves cannot.

(I’m.... I just realized that this could potentially get very long. Should I have made a slide show with bullet points??????)

Anyway, similar. I know there’s more but there’s literally so much to love about zutara that I’ll drive myself a little crazy trying to compile all the ways they’re similar. (Just gonna say that at this exact moment I went back to add more similarities.... so okay then)

Once they’ve reconciled, we see how all of these things only lend themselves to a deeper intimacy together than they share with literally anyone else. There’s a steady partnership that positions them as the mom/dad of the gaang, while also providing the support necessary to allow the other to not have to carry so much responsibility. A lot of zutaras will point out how zuko is actually depicted doing the more domestic chores that are normally relegated to Katara once he joins the gaang, since the others in the group are two 12-year-olds and sokka. The one that sticks out the most is how he makes tea for the group and then serves them, while Katara is able to just relax with her friends around the fire. Fanon expands upon this a lot to Zuko helping with the laundry or the cooking or whatever else needs doing since he, as a once-refugee, is used to doing his own domestic tasks. Before Zuko joined, Katara was the one mothering everyone, sewing for them, cooking for them, etc. She’s always tending to the needs of the group, and that includes emotionally. She does the emotional labor for the gaang 99% of the time, but when she’s the one falling apart, she’s usually doing it alone and without the comfort that she normally provides for others. Until Zuko. And that’s before they’re even friends.

Which is WHY people romanticize the catacombs of Ba Sing Se so much. Katara is verbally attacking Zuko out of her own righteous anger but also her own prejudice when Zuko, surprisingly, chooses to be vulnerable with her. He’s been on a journey that’s opened his eyes a bit, but he’s never actively chosen to expose the rawest parts of his past to anyone. But for some reason he chooses to do that with Katara of all people. While she’s yelling at him. He sees her humanity, and for once can look past his prejudice and empathize with her. And this time, when she breaks down, she gets to be comforted. Katara normally talks about her mother when she’s trying to explain to someone else that she sees and understands they’re pain, as a form of comfort to them. Here, Zuko uses the exact same tactic. He sees her and he understands. And for zuko? He’s not being shut down. He’s allowed to articulate his pain regarding his mother without being ignored and made to internalize it, and he’s allowed to process how he feels about his scar out loud without being told that he deserved it. And then he lets her touch his scar, something we’ve seen him actively avoid before. He’s completely open to her and she’s completely open to him and all it took was one five minute conversation. She was about to use the little bit of Spirit water that she had, that she was saving for something Important, to heal the scar that still daily causes him pain just because they had, somehow, connected.

Plus there’s the whole parallel to the star-crossed lovers forbidden from one another, a war divides their people—

And then zuko messes up, he regresses, he gets what he wants and he HATES it. And the sense of justice he had as a child has been restored to him against his will and he can’t think of anything he wants to do more than the Right Thing, so he joins team avatar. Before he does that though, we get to see his relationship with Mai, which is where comparison really comes in. And what we see is Zuko, fresh off of his encounter with Katara in the catacombs, trying to be emotionally honest with Mai... and getting shut down and dismissed. Which is just how Mai is and it’s fine, but not for Zuko. Still, he keeps trying, and he keeps getting ignored or scoffed at or yelled at. Which is really a larger symbol for how he doesn’t fit in his old life anymore, but again that’s about thematic cohesion. He tries to articulate his anxieties about returning home, he tries to make romantic gestures, he tries to explain how morally conflicted he’s feeling—and Mai diverts to some kind of physical affection to shut him up and a parting comment that is pretty much always, in essence, “I don’t wanna talk about this.” So they don’t. On the other hand, once zuko and Katara are friends, we see him again emotionally distraught and caught up in his anxieties about facing Iroh, and it’s Katara who comes to him and listens to him and comforts and encourages him.

Similarly, we have Aang clamming up and getting uncomfortable whenever Katara shows any negative emotion, usually resulting in him making excuses or running away. Or, in the case of the Southern Raiders, lecturing her on how she needs to just let go of her anger about her mother’s murder. People have talked this episode to death and usually better than I ever could, so imma... keep it brief. There’s a serious disconnect between Aang and Katara in his ability to empathize with Katara and her needs that has her tamping down her vulnerability and amping up her anger. He tells her that he was able to forgive his people’s genocide and appa’s kidnapping (petnapping? Theft??), which is blatantly not true but also not an entirely equal parrallel to Katara’s situation, and continues making these little remarks throughout the episode. But it’s Zuko that Katara opens up to. It’s with him that she’s able to talk about the most traumatic day of her life, and it’s with him that she’s able to get the closure she needs, cementing their bond as friends and partners. This disagreement between Aang and Katara is then... never resolved. They just never bring it up and hear what the other is saying.

There’s a fic called The Portraits of Ember Island that has a line that so completely sums up the heart of the matter for why people love their dynamic. For context, zuko has woken up early to help Katara with the cooking and they spend the whole time just letting one another talk, and zuko stops to ask why she always just lets him talk. And so she stops to ask why he’s always helping, and it goes as follows:

There’s just... so much mutual support! Trust! Intimacy!! And it just continues like that from the Southern Raiders on, listening to each other, advising each other, watching each other’s backs! And then! Literally saving each other’s lives!! I will never be over the last Agni kai. Not ever. Zuko may have been willing to jump in front of lightning for anyone, but he actually did it for Katara. And in a show, that’s the thing that really matters. It’s a fulfilled trope usually exclusively applied to romantic pairings, and it ended up applying to Zuko and Katara. And then she ran out into the middle of a fight with tunnel vision just to get to him.

Also!! Also Zuko pushing Katara out of the way of the falling rocks at the Western Air Temple!! And Katara catching him as he fell from the war balloon that he fought Azula on!! Before they’re even getting along, they’re the ones reaching for each other. They come to this place of equal ground, as partners, who watch each other’s backs, call each other out but still listen attentively and understand, and provide the support that the other has been sorely lacking up until they knew each other (whether that be from lack of effort or lack of understanding from others, or an unwillingness to accept it for themselves).

Then, trailing along under the surface of this, we see the themes of the show totally embodied by Zuko and Katara as individuals and in their relationship to one another. There’s a YouTuber, sneezyreviews, who has a, like, 2-hour explanation on why she not only loves zutara but also believes that their endgame would’ve actually elevated the writing of atla to new levels particularly because of thematic cohesion and resolved character arcs. It’s the zutara dissertation I never knew I needed, and it’s funny and eloquent and effective, so I’m just going to sum up her section on thematic cohesion to the best of my abilities and then link it for whenever you have the time. And I HIGHLY recommend it, especially if you want a full understanding of what makes zutara so great and gives it such longevity.

Guru pathik has a line that goes something like this: separation is an illusion; things that seem different are just two parts of the same whole. Iroh also tells Zuko something similar: balance and strength are achieved when the different nations come together and influence one another and celebrate what makes them each unique. And this lesson is a massive central arc that both Zuko and Katara go through, moving past a black-and-white, good guys-vs-bad guys, us-vs-them mentality and into a greyer, more nuanced view of the world. Zuko sees the fire nation from an entirely new perspective and while he still loves and hopes for his nations future, he surrenders his blind loyalty to them in exchange for an unflinching loyalty to peace and love. Katara too had to come to terms with the fact that cruel people exist in the earth kingdom and water tribes, while some fire nation citizens are just regular, kind people who also need and deserve to have someone speak on their behalf. And this is honed in directly on how they view each other. They grow in their individual journeys to be open to the humanity in the other and then, once they’ve found that, they’re able to grow more in compassion for others in a beautiful feedback loop. And this is all matched in the symbolism repeatedly and intentionally associated with them in canon: sun and moon, fire and water, yin and yang, Oma and Shu who found love despite their warring nations. Their individual arcs are completed in each other and complement the themes of atla beautifully.

The canon pairs... just don’t. Which, again, is fine. But the very things that give atla longevity and popularity are anchored in zutara. Kat@ang doesn’t accomplish this. They’re... nice. Sweet. Especially when you erase a good portion of their interactions in S3. It could’ve been just a sweet love story. (Personally, the dynamic between toph and aang accomplish the same thing that zutara does, with complementary personalities that fulfill the theme of opposites blending in harmony) M@iko, on the other hand, is less sweet but I think wasn’t even supposed to last. Zuko’s relationship with Mai seems to represent his relationship with his old life as a whole. He can’t be emotionally vulnerable, he’s goaded into abusing his privileges, his agency and opinions aren’t respected. They just don’t have common ground with which to discuss anything that matters, so they don’t. As far as themes, the relationship doesn’t fit with atla. It’s zuko returning to and sticking with what is (on the surface) like him, what’s expected. Fire nation with fire nation. Fluid water bender with the flexible air bender. Like with like, separated from what is different and challenging and complementary.

And all of these things combined of course lead to the potential for the ship. I don’t know how familiar you are with the post-atla canon but... well, miss “I will never turn my back on people who need me”, miss “I don’t want to heal! I want to fight!” ends up living quietly in the SWT as a designated healer who turns a blind eye to the water tribe civil war happening right outside her front door. Which can be fine! People change! Some people just wanna stay inside. I just wanna stay inside! But the potential future for zutara is so much more satisfying, with Katara becoming the most unconventional Fire Lady the uppity old cads who are stuck on the old ways have ever seen. Fanon has her serving as a voice for the other nations within a kingdom at the point of its biggest political upheaval, as a confidante to Zuko who can actually help him while he’s trying to figure out how to move forward and make reparations. They have the opportunity, together, to accomplish what they both have set on their hearts to fight for: positive change that lends itself to harmony and balance. And the steambabies! A popular headcanon is that their firstborn daughter, the crown princess, is actually a waterbender, which causes such an uproar among the people who are adamantly clinging to the old ways. It’s just a future full of potential to be forces for good together, full of trust, intimacy, joy. The exact era of peace and love and balance that zuko announces that he intends to ring in with the start of his reign as Fire Lord is, again, magnified by the very personal zutara relationship. And we love to see it.

tl;dr zutara isn’t for everyone. Some people just don’t vibe with it. Some are nostalgic. Some love the canon they grew up with. Some have been disappointed for years. Some just see themselves in other characters and want their happiness instead. Whatever the reason, that’s fine. But for me, I love the way these two, from the moment they give each other a fair chance, are able to lower their walls and prejudices to see the other for the kindred spirits they are. They see each other’s humanity, and their response is to pour out love and support and compassion. I love that they’re a power couple in battle. I love the symbolism and, honestly, soulmatism that colors their every interaction. I love that they embody the whole storyline of atla in their relationship and how it develops, which is notably why their seasonal arcs always culminate in each finale with how they relate to one another. I love that zuko adopting a waterbending move is what actually saves his life and then katara’s. I love the chemistry! And I love the future they could’ve had, instead of the ones they were given.

So, in conclusion: I just think they’re neat and I hope you do too, at least a little bit. Even if it’s just respectfully from a disinterested distance cause you do you. And now here is the video I mentioned. I’m sorry this post got so long and then I gave you an even longer homework assignment, but I can’t recommend it enough. She says it all better than I can.

#zutara #atla #zutara rant #like really the way the canon relationships were written throughout s3 #it would’ve been more believable for zutara to happen #or at least be hinted at #all of the major issues presented in those relationship were dug up extensively and then... never resolved #and then they just slapped some kisses on a screen and said ‘there all better’ #and we just kinda had to say ‘oh ok guess it’s all better then’ #this got long I’m sorry #I wrote it all out and then tumblr ate 2/3 of it #which is why it took so long #and what I’ve written now doesn’t even match what I had before #because there’s too much to say about why I love zutara #and the stuff I left out the first time is what came out this time #rip to my original thoughts but this post is different #anyway that’s why this took so long #and I should’ve just made a PowerPoint... #I can do that too if you’d rather not read all of this lol #I won’t be offended #this is incoherent #Alia rambles uselessly #also hoping this doesn’t end up in any wrong tags because I don’t wanna step on toes lol #it’s not anti!! it’s just critical #in a compare/contrast way #I can pinpoint the moment when I started trying to rewrite my points from memory #because everything gets shorter and more succinct #like... I really said all that??? sounds fake and I don’t remember it anyway so here’s the condensed version #with no!! smooth!!! transitions!!!! #also why am I so lazy with proper grammar over text

[thanksjro]

Bayverse: Treating These Movies with More Dignity than They Deserve or Contain, Because I’m a Goddamned Professional - Part One

TRANSFORMERS (2007) - UNCOMFORTABLE SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN TEENAGERS THAT I DIDN’T NEED TO SEE

So.

This is a little different than what I usually do.

Clearly.

God, how did we even get here?

Oh, I remember.

The date was September 17th, 2020, and I was in a stream with nine or ten other people watching the first Bayverse Transformers movie. Why we were watching it doesn’t particularly matter- sometimes you just gotta watch garbage so you can refresh your palate for the good stuff, I suppose. Also, a couple of folks wanted to make goo-goo eyes at Blackout’s rotors.

...It’s not my thing, but I’m glad they’ve got something to make the journey worth taking.

I made some sort of comment about only using my brain for this blog’s content, and someone (you know who you are :)) suggested that I take a proper look at the film. Being who I am, I immediately latched onto this idea, despite it being technically outside of what I write about.

And then I quintuple-downed, because winners don’t quit.

Good to know that my BA in Film Production wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Fun fact, I broke my television trying to watch Transformers for this. I think the universe was trying to stop me, by making me perform surgery on electronics, and also aggravating my carpal tunnel.

This movie came out when I was 13, and it was the first Transformers thing I saw after Cybertron. Yes, the anime one. No, not the one that’s objectively terrible.

Anyway.

How did I feel about Transformers when I saw it the first time? Well… it was okay. I liked the robots. I thought Mikaela was pretty, not that I knew what that meant back then. I watched it a few times, if only because my oldest younger brother kept renting it at Blockbuster. It was fun.

Now I’m older, and wiser, and know feminist theory, so my opinion is less “this exists” and more “blind, murderous rage”.

Our film opens up with some claptrap about the Cube™, a MacGuffin of ultimate power that allows the Transformers to create worlds in their image and populate them. Which means this is how they reproduce.

It always comes back to baby-making, doesn’t it?

The narration goes on about how the Cube™ is very powerful, and some folks wanted it for good, and others for evil. The criteria for being “good” and “evil” isn’t established, and I’m not exactly sure how one would define such a thing, when all the Cube™ does is create life, but, well, we’ve only just begun. Maybe we’ll get some answers later on.

Haha, I doubt it.

So, the Cube™ is the catalyst for our 4 million year war this continuity, and that sucker was lost in the shuffle a while back. This is a problem, because, again, the Cube™ is how the Transformers reproduce. Now everyone’s in a mad scramble to find the thing so their species doesn’t die out.

Three guesses as to where it ended up, and the first two don’t count.

Smashcut to the shit nobody cares about- the humans. We see an Osprey fly over the Qatar desert, carrying a buttload of American soldiers. We get a taste of some good old-fashioned xenophobia, as several soldiers mock a guy for not speaking English and loving his mother’s cooking, going full “funny haha gibberish language” on him. We’re two and a half minutes into the film, and I already want to stab something.

Ed Sheeran breaks into the conversation, I guess because he was feeling left out, revealing that he is the New Yorker stereotype of the film, for some reason. The fellas ask their captain, Lennox, what he’s looking forward to most about getting home from their tour, and he reveals himself to be a family man. While he’s been away, his wife had a baby, who he hasn’t so much as held yet. His men respond by mocking him.

For loving his child.

We’re three minutes into the film, and the toxic masculinity might actually make me have an aneurysm.

The Ospreys land, the lads disembark, and we get a snapshot of what downtime during deployment looks like to Bay. There are a lot of kiddie swimming pools involved. Two men play basketball. We watch multiple men take outdoor showers. A young Qatari boy brings Lennox a camelback water pack with a smile on his face. This lets me know that he’s a prop and not a character in this film. I can’t wait to see how many horrors he’ll be put through to simulate pathos.

We get a shot of a helicopter flying over the desert, one that the US military doesn’t recognize as their own. They send a couple of planes to check it out, and said planes get their shop wrecked. The helicopter is revealed to be the same ‘copter that was shot down several months prior. That’s… not good. Ghost helicopter?

No. Not at all, actually.

Lennox gets on a video chat with his wife and daughter, who is wearing one of the most ridiculous baby outfits I’ve seen in a hot minute. And I used to work in childcare, so I’ve seen a good amount of those. The writing implies that normal bodily functions are unladylike and therefore undesirable… in an infant… and that’s when all hell breaks loose, thankfully saving me from more of Bay trying to make me give a shit about these characters.

The helicopter lands, we get a shot of the mustachioed pilot, who glitches (gasp), and the line “have your crew step out or we will kill you” is uttered. Not even trying to hide the nationalism, are you?

This film hit theaters in 2007, when the xenophobia from 9/11 was still heavy in the air of the general populace, so things like this were more tolerated, and in fact approved of. Of course, it’s not like America has really improved on that subject, or ever really had a point where we weren’t terrible about it, since we live in a world where the military-entertainment complex exists.

See, the Department of Defense and a good chunk of American entertainment industries have a little deal going, and have for the last few decades, and it goes like this: The DoD will allow the use of their vehicles, personnel, and bases, or the likenesses of such, for free, in exchange for their operations being shown in a positive/morally justified light. This is why you never see the armed forces portrayed in a way that makes them out as anything less than heroes- nobody would be able to afford the sets/likenesses without the DoD’s aid. This is also why you see straight-up advertisements for the military branches on televison, in cinemas, and online, and why both the Army and Navy have flirted with having Twitch channels.

It’s all a ploy to get you to join the military, kids. It’s propaganda.

But enough about that, it’s time for our first transformation sequence!

We get a lot of moving parts with this, since it’s realistic CGI in a live-action movie, and it still holds up. It’s hard to tell what’s actually happening, but it, if nothing else, feels alien, surreal, and horrific to behold. They even included the original sound effect in the cacophony, which is nice.

Our ghost helicopter reveals itself to be a Transformer, not that we get that terminology at any point in this film. This specifically is Blackout, a Decepticon. The soldiers start firing on him the moment he starts transforming, then are surprised when the thing they started shooting with several guns retaliates. This is the point where everything ever in this military base explodes, brilliantly and repeatedly, because it wouldn’t be a Bay film without it. There’s a lot of shouting and bright lights, and I’m positively certain that a great deal of people died during this fight.

It’s just a shame that I don’t care.

Blackout rips the top off of a building like it’s a tin of anchovies, and then snags all the hard drives he can, downloading everything. This is a problem, but it seems like nobody was prepared for a giant alien robot hack-attack, because in order to shut down the power to the servers, you need to be able to unlock the breaker box, and no one seems to have the key. They solve the problem with a fire ax.

Lennox is leading the Qatari boy through the base towards safety. I should mention that it’s night now, and several hours seem to have passed since the Ospreys landed, so I don’t know why this kid is still here. He’s got, like, a house and family to go home to.

We get some more tank-throwing action, Sergeant Epps almost gets flattened under Blackout’s foot, then the movie decides it’s going to try to make things more interesting by having each shot cut flash, for whatever reason.

Someone shoots Blackout with a rocket launcher, I think, and this is the point where he throws his tiny little man off his back to go do his job. Yes, Blackout’s got a baby, and that baby is Scorponok, his symbiotic pal who likes to dig into the ground and be a sneaky little bastard.

Blackout blows up a ton more military equipment and personnel, and then it’s time for another smashcut.

Now we’re in high school, just like all those dreams I’ve had where I’ve forgotten my homework. This is where we meet Sam Witwicky, our main character, and also the stand-in for our target demographic. He’s insufferable, and I don’t like him. Mikaela Banes, our love interest, is also present in this scene, but we don’t get to know about her character for, like, another 20 minutes, because who gives a shit about women, right? They’re just props, right?

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

Sam is presenting on his great-great-grandfather, Archibald Witwicky, for his family genealogy report, in front of a class containing maybe three actors who are age appropriate.

I know child labor laws are a good thing, and that hiring adults to play teenagers is just the lay of the land, but I swear some of these students look like they’re old enough to be on their second mortgage and third kid.

Anyway.

Archibald Witwicky was an explorer, one of the first to traverse the Arctic circle, and apparently his crew was made up of folks from 2007, because I swear the clothing for a few of these dudes isn’t period-appropriate. We get a seamen joke, because of course we do, and a sextant joke, because of course we do. Sam is also hawking all this crap he’s brought in for the presentation, because he is a little bastard who has no idea what his peers would want to buy, or really how to relate to them at all. He’s selling these “priceless” artifacts so he can get a car. Mikaela finds this charming, for some fucking reason. Also, her boyfriend is weirdly stroking her shoulder blade with his knuckles the whole time this is happening, and I hate it.

Archibald Witwicky went mad after his expedition, talking about an “ice man” so often that his family ended up locking him in a mental asylum, likely to be forgotten about. Which is sad. But we won’t be getting into the medical mistreatment of the mentally ill in Bayverse, now will we? That’s just Too Deep™.

Sam’s teacher didn’t very much appreciate having his class be turned into an episode of Antiques Roadshow, but still gives Sam an “A” on the project, despite it being a very poor report that lasted all of two minutes. I suspect the teacher has tenure, and therefore no longer gives a shit about academic integrity. This “A” means that Sam’s father will buy him a car.

Which is nice, I suppose, if I gave a damn.

Sam’s father, Ron, picks up his son in a car he probably bought at the crux of his midlife crisis, in a green that reminds me of a school gymnasium floor, then plays a prank on his child by pretending to pull into the Porsche dealership. Sam isn’t getting a Porsche, which is good, because he doesn’t deserve one. As Sam gripes to his father, a yellow Camaro drives by oh so conspicuously. Wonder what’s up with that.

Instead of the Porshe dealership, they head over to the used car lot, which is being run by Bobby Bolivia, who spends his time yelling at his employees and wanting to murder his mother. Sam is incredibly ungrateful about the fact that his dad is helping him get a car, even though it’s his FIRST car, and nobody gets a nice one the first go around. Or, at least, they shouldn’t, given the statistics about accidents with young drivers.

“No sacrifice, no victory” is uttered by Ron, which is the family motto, or so he claims. Archibald Witwicky said the same thing when he had multiple people dying trying to get to the Arctic Circle, so there’s precedence for the phrase, but we’ll see how it holds up throughout the film.

Bobby Bolivia shows Sam and Ron the cars he has for sale, and Sam is immediately drawn to the yellow Camaro in the lot, though there’s a small problem- it’s too expensive for what he and his father agreed to. Also, nobody knows where the hell it came from, so paperwork might be an issue. When Bobby tries to show Sam the yellow Beetle they have right down the line, everything explodes, because this is a Bay film, and fuck the original material this movie was based on. Bobby lets them have the Camaro for a lower price, suddenly fearful of whatever strange powers have just visited his place of business. “The car picks the driver” is suddenly more than a bullshit line to spout off in order to sell cars, and I’m certain that’s shaken the poor man.

Over in Washington, D.C., the Secretary of Defense prepares to address just what the hell happened in Qatar, lamenting on how young the audience he’s going to be speaking to is. In particular, he’s referring to the two dweebs and the hot chick sitting in one of the rows. All the women in this movie who aren’t someone’s mom are made up to be very pretty. And not even in a realistic way. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

So, the military network was hacked. That’s bad. Nobody knows who did it. That’s also bad. The only lead the US has is a soundbite, which is the signal that hacked the network.

Everyone here at the briefing is going to be helping to figure this mess out. This is great, if you like looking at Rachael Taylor for a few seconds at a time, and can compartmentalize hard enough to make that worth the effort of watching this godforsaken film.

Back at the Witwicky household, we meet Mojo, a chihuahua with a cast that doesn’t seem like it’s actually doing anything. I wish he was the main character instead of Sam.

Sam arrives home from the dealership, and says “alright, Mojo, I’ve got the car. Now I need the girl.”

As if ownership of a person is something to aspire to.

As if women are property to be owned.

As if women aren’t people, but rather commodities.

We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.

We’re introduced to Judy, Sam’s mother. She’s shrill, and annoying. This is by design, because none of the women in this film are actually people, but rather archetypes to bounce off of the male characters.

Sam and his father have a moment of what some might consider banter, then Sam gets huffy with his mom over gender roles for the dog. I, for one, think Mojo looks positively dashing in his bedazzled collar, and to hell with whatever Sam says to the contrary.

Sam drives off to go be a misogynist, with the promise to be back by 11PM.

Over in Qatar, the soldiers and that little boy are running from the attack on their base, as Lennox’s wife watches a public announcement on the matter back at home. The Secretary of Defense lets us know that we’re at DEFCON Delta at this point. Lennox Jr. cries, and all I can think about is how they probably pinched that baby to make that happen. They pinched a baby for Transformers (2007).

The soldiers in Qatar talk about shit they have no idea about, Sergeant Epps going on about somehow having been able to see a forcefield around Blackout through his super special binoculars. I don’t know how, or why, he knows this. I don’t know anything anymore.

Ed Sheeran has his doubts about this whole thing, and Lennox is also present in the scene, because I guess he’s important. Through a bit of dramatic irony, Fig- the guy everyone was making fun of for being bilingual at the start of the film- says that this probably isn’t over, as the shape of Scorponok shifts through the sand just beyond them.

Epps is having a minor crisis over the fact that Blackout saw him, but we don’t have time for that, because we’ve got to get to cover. The lads decide to head to the little Qatari boy’s house. Again, I wonder why he was at the base at all, considering that it seems like they’ve been traveling for a good portion of the day.

Back with Sam, he’s picked up his friend Miles, and together they’re going to a lake party. Are they invited to this party? Yes, but also no. It’s public property though, so it should be fine. As they park, Sam notices that Mikaela is here, which is great for him.

Mikaela’s boyfriend, Trent- whose name I had to look up- is a massive tool, and starts pestering the two boys for daring to exist in his airspace. Miles climbs a tree. I’m glad he’s having fun, at least. Sam makes a joke at the expense of people with brain injuries, and this for some reason? Warrants a shot of Mikaela making the blank “pretty girl” face? In response?

Mikaela saves Sam from becoming a wet stain on the grass, which is very kind of her, and more than Sam really deserves. Trent, his boys, and Mikaela start to head off for another party, to get away from Sam and his tree-loving friend. Mikaela offers to drive, and Trent says that she can’t handle his truck, because she’s a ~girl~. This causes Mikaela to ditch him, and start walking home.

The script knows enough about misogyny to know that this would be a nice “take that”. Michael Bay, however, likely fails to see why everything he did with said script involving this character is a goddamned problem.

Because Mikaela, bless her heart, has a lot of problems.

Let’s start with the outfit: a croptop, a jean skirt that BARELY covers her ass, and a pair of wedge heels that are at least four inches tall. On a character that is, at oldest, freshly 18.

Look, I’m all about self-expression and the freedom to choose how you dress for yourself and yourself alone, but this clearly isn’t that. This is a character, not a person, whose wardrobe was designed for the straight male gaze. She’s wearing fucking STRAP HEELS to the lake. This is about oogling. This is about reducing a whole-ass person to the same status as a piece of meat. In fact, who was on wardrobe for this? I’d like to have a few words with-

A woman? Okay, well, what else has she worked on?

You can’t be fucking serious.

ANYWAY.

Miles just called Mikaela an “evil jock concubine.” I don’t like Miles anymore.

As Mikaela walks down the road, strutting hard enough that I’ve got sympathy pains in my hips, the radio in the Camaro turns on, playing “Drive” by the Cars, and giving Sam a hell of an idea; he’s gonna drive Mikaela home, so she doesn’t have to walk the 10 miles to her house. Why he knows how far she lives from the lake isn’t addressed.

Sam kicks Miles out of the car and goes to give Mikaela a ride, which she accepts after a bit of self-deliberation, and also him making an ass of himself. The shot here is framed with Sam like he’s a normal-ass person, and Mikaela from her breasts to the top of her waist. Because of COURSE it is.

She hops in the car and then goes off about her taste in hot guys. Which is weird, and out of left field. Sam is about as confused as I am, then continues to make a fool of himself. This is his nature as a person. Mikaela has no idea who Sam is, even though they’ve gone to the same school for the last 10 years and have multiple classes together. And the fact that she was staring him down all through his genealogy presentation. And at the lake.

This movie isn’t very well thought out, I feel.

It’s at this point the the Camaro turns the key on itself and starts to sputter out and die, as “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye pops on the radio.

I don’t like how this car is trying to get Sam laid.

I don’t like how this car is trying to get Sam laid with a girl who didn’t even know his name five minutes ago.

I don’t like how this car knows what sex is.

The Camaro breaks down on a cliff, and Mikaela hops out to work on the engine, and also to get the hell away from Sam’s sputtering.

As Mikaela admires the sweet engine in this Camaro, showing off her knowledge of cars, we get several shots of her from her breasts to her thighs, while Sam is treated like an actual person. Don’t bother trying to play it off as an artistic choice, Bay, this is blatant horndogging. This adds to NOTHING, other than my ire.

Sam says more stupid shit, and Mikaela, who must be the nicest fucking person in the world, just tells him to fire up the engine so she can try to sort out the problem. Then he asks why she goes for jackasses like Trent, and she decides that she’s hit her limit for today, opting to walk the rest of the way home. Good on you, Mikaela. Don’t take Sam’s bullshit.

Sam, realizing that he’s put his foot in his mouth for the 80th time today, pleads with his Camaro to do him a solid and work, and this actually works out for him. Great. Sam, victorious, once again offers Mikaela a ride, which she, once again, takes.

He drops her off without further incident, and she thanks him for listening. Even though they didn’t really talk that much. I dunno, maybe they had a super deep conversation offscreen. Mikaela asks Sam if he thinks she’s shallow, because clearly all women need approval from the men around them, and Sam says that there’s more to her than meets the eye.

Which made me groan aloud.

Anyway, she gets inside without a problem, and Sam professes his love for his new Camaro for allowing him to talk to a girl. Or at least talk at her.

Back in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon National Military Command Center, we’re making weirdly racist calls on who hacked the military.

Up with Air Force One, a conspicuous boombox transforms into a robot, and then runs off to hack shit. The President of the United States requests some snack cakes. A flight attendant goes down to storage to retrieve said snack cakes, and finds that boombox in the elevator with her. Considering this is Air Force One, you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing, but this is Bayverse, and we don’t think here.

The flight attendant brings the boombox down with her and places it on the counter as she goes to get the presidential snack cakes. The boombox immediately disappears. Now, you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing, but this is Bayverse-

The flight attendant opens up the snack cake package, for some reason, and drops the cake on the floor. She then proceeds to eat it, and then act shocked when it tastes like floor. There’s a robot in her fucking line of sight, and you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing-

She leaves to go feed the President floor cakes, and our little robot friend gets to work stealing government secrets. He, if nothing else, looks pretty cool doing it. He’s a very pointy lad.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie- Rachael Taylor’s character- can hear the hacking. This sends everyone into a panic, because, well, that shouldn’t be happening. The hacking noise is a direct match to the one from Qatar, so that’s obviously a problem.

Back on Air Force One, our little robot friend is looking for “Project Iceman”, which he very quickly finds, and downloads everything they’ve got on it, and also plants a virus. The process seems to be… doing things to him. It’s weird. This movie is weird.

The Pentagon cuts all the system hardlines, stopping the process, but it’s too late- he got what he wanted, just about. Two security personnel come into the room, and the robot kills them both with some spinning blade disc nonsense. Air Force One is forced to land for the safety of everyone on-board. More security detail comes in to deal with the little bastard, but he transforms into a boombox and sits on a shelf to avoid suspicion. Now, you’d perhaps expect-

With the plane grounded, our robot is able to walk his little ass over to a cop car. And when I say walk, I do mean walk; this fucker is in multiple folks’ line of sight and nobody notices a thing. When he enters the car, he’s greeted by the mustachioed driver- the same driver who was operating the helicopter at the beginning of the film. This mustache man is a holographic avatar, one that’s being used by all the Decepticons.

We get our first real taste of Cybertronian language, as our robot- it’s Frenzy, his name is Frenzy- lets everyone know that he’s found a clue to the location of the AllSpark, and, through the power of the internet, knows where to find the guy who’s gonna give them what they need.

Three guesses to who it is, and the first two don’t count.

Back at the Witwicky household, Sam’s car does a runner in the middle of the night. Sam, horrified that his property is being stolen, pursues on a bike, screaming at his dad to call the cops. Sam also calls the cops, as he tears through the neighborhood.

The Camaro breaks into an abandoned building, Sam follows, and we finally get a shot of our audience appeal character. Sam watches in disbelief as a giant yellow space robot shines a beacon into the sky, then makes a video on his flip phone recording the experience. He apologizes to his parents for owning pornographic magazines, and goes to face his probable demise.

However, death does not come from above, instead manifesting itself as two of the strongest junkyard dogs in the known universe, who break their brick-inlaid chains to get at this little dip of a man. Sam is chased through the yard, climbing on top of a couple precarious oil drums, even though there’s a ladder, like, right there. The Camaro rolls in, scaring off the dogs, and Sam bolts, throwing the keys to his ride at his ride. When he gets outside, the cops have arrived, and immediately arrest him.

Back with the US government, the Secretary of State is having a conversation about all the bullshit that just went down with Air Force One. He and his fellow cishet old white men discuss their options, until Maddie comes in to set them straight on some of the facts. They act all indignant about it, because women can’t be smart, right?

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

Anyway, we get a weird little deflection of Maddie’s role in everything, because a woman is nothing without the men around her, then she brings up the point that the bullshit that happened on Air Force One went down in just a few seconds, which isn’t something that anyone can actually do. She brings up quantum mechanics, which everyone blows off as nonsense- not that I wouldn’t as well- and theorizes on a DNA-based computer, which is technically a thing, if not trapped in the realm of speculation. It’s at this point that the Secretary of Defense tells her to come back when she can back these wild claims up, and isn’t just clearly spitballing.

And then he snaps his fingers at her, and any point he might have had leaves my brain so I have more room for being enraged.

Back with Sam, we’re at the police station talking to the cops. His dad is here, and Sam is trying to explain that his car is a dude. Even though he took at a video (one that was likely crap, given how quickly he spun his phone around to show off what he was seeing) the cops, understandably, don’t believe him. Then one of them, not so understandably, starts… threatening Sam? With his sidearm? And daring him to try something? This isn’t any sort of statement on the corruption of American law enforcement, it’s just bizarre.

Back in Qatar, our soldier buddies have found a telephone line, and are going to try to use it to get in contact with the rest of the world. It’s just too bad that Scorponok’s decided to make an entrance, and knock said telephone line the hell down. Ed Sheeran has next to no reaction to this, despite it happening maybe ten feet behind him. Fig speaks Spanish, and Ed Sheeran makes a point to be an asshole about it.

Scorponok is about to stab Lennox with his very pointy tail, when Epps notices- finally, someone with peripheral vision- and starts shooting. Then everyone starts shooting, kicking up enough sand to blind themselves, as Scorponok scuttles away, buries himself, then reappears behind Ed Sheeran.

Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.

The others bolt, not wanting the same to happen to them, and for the fourth time I wonder just why the hell this young boy was at the base in the first place.

Off in the distance, the community of a nearby town wonders just what the shit is going on out in the desert. Our soldiers run into the town, and everyone gets their guns and start firing on Scorponok, who retaliates, because why the hell wouldn’t he?

Lennox demands that the young boy take him to his father, and proceeds to borrow his phone. As shit goes down outside, we have a sort-of gag where Lennox is trying to contact the Pentagon, while a telemarketer tries to get him to buy a phone package. In order for this call to go through, he’s going to need a credit card. This is where the well-known “pocket” scene comes from, as Lennox searches Epps’ pants for his wallet as he fires on Scorponok. It’s probably the best-written thing in this whole film.

With the credit card acquired, Lennox finally gets through to the Pentagon, and tosses Epps the phone so he can talk. Maybe he’s got anxiety about speaking on the phone, I dunno.

Scorponok shows off his disregard for historical architecture, blowing up several buildings, and the US government just watches this all go down. One of the actors in this scene looks like my dad, and it trips me up every time he’s on screen. Anyway, now the Pentagon knows about the giant space robots running around in Qatar. They send over some air support about it. All this manages to do is piss Scorponok off.

So they try it again.

This time it works, sort of.

At the very least, he’s left now.

Tail fell off, though.

Also, Fig’s been grievously wounded. The others, for once, don’t make fun of his native language while they help him hold his blood inside his body.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie’s looking to prove that the bullshit that’s been going on is of the sci-fi variety, and in order to do that, she’s going to need a little outside help. She takes the information from the Pentagon, slaps it into an SD card, hides that shit in her blush compact, and then runs out the door to Glenn Whitmann’s house. Or, rather, his grandma’s house.

Glenn is a hacker, and shouldn’t be seeing anything that Maddie’s brought him, but everyone knows that confidentiality is for nerds, so whatever.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie’s immediately been caught. It’s almost like slapping the military network onto an SD card maybe wasn’t such a hot idea. But what do I know?

Glenn takes a look at the soundbite and figures out that there’s a code embedded in the thing in about two seconds. Good to know our tax dollars are being well-spent on the US military, that some dude in his jammies can figure this shit out faster than a whole team of analysts. They figure out that “Project Iceman” is involved with this somehow, and also the existence of Sector Seven. It’s at this point that the FBI busts in. Good. I kind of want Maddie to go to jail for this, because she was about as stupid as she could be handling the situation.

Glenn’s cousin goes through a closed glass door- don’t worry, it’s tempered- and there’s a weird cut before that exact same shot continues, and he’s tackled into the pool. There was no reason for that to have happened, but here we are.

Back with Sam, we’re treated to him in his boxers, shooting basketballs in his room. He goes into the kitchen, where Mojo is standing on a stool. It’s a very tall stool, the sort you sit on, and he’s just… there. I don’t know how he got there. There’s no one else in the room besides Sam, and I know he didn’t put him there.

Clearly this must mean Mojo is God, and being on that stool is his divine will. I will be approaching the rest of the franchise with this in mind, because it’s clearly the only answer.

Our merciful Lord Mojo jumps up on the kitchen counter and begins growling at something through the window. Sam looks out… the opposite window… to find that his Camaro has returned to him, and is less than thrilled about it, to put it lightly. He drops a jug of milk- luckily it was mostly empty, given the sound it makes when it hits the floor- and gives his buddy Miles a call. You remember Miles, don’t you? If you don’t, it’s fine, because he reestablishes his quirkiness with a single shot, as he sits in a swimsuit and bathes his huge-ass dog in a kiddie pool, and answers the phone with a headset he just happened to be wearing. He must get a lot of calls during Dog Washing Hours.


After giving us one of the most intense voice cracks I’ve ever heard, Sam books it out of his house, hopping on a bike to escape his murderous Camaro. He’s not seen the thing commit any murders, mind you, but he seems pretty convinced that it would do the job, given half a chance. Also, this isn’t the bike he rode the night before; that one is likely being chewed on by those strong-ass junkyard dogs. No, for some reason, the Witwickys have a pastel pink girl’s bike, with the fun little handle tassels and the basket and everything. As far as I can tell, Sam is an only child, and if you think Bay’s going to allow for a teenage boy to have the vulnerability to own a pink bike, you’ve not been paying attention for the last 48.5 minutes.

The Camaro gives chase, rolling after Sam on his bike at a brisk 7 MPH down the friggin’ sidewalk, one of the only scenes in this travesty of a film to actually get me to crack a smile. Sam races through town until city planning puts a stop to him, through the magic of using chunks of cement to decorate the mulch around their trees. He crashes his bike, faceplants into the concrete in front of Mikaela, and promptly dies, thus ending the film.

No, he doesn’t die. I just told a fib. I’m sorry.

Instead, he does a flip and lands on his back, likely receiving a concussion, in front of Mikaela and her friends. Her friends laugh, because everyone hates Sam, as they should, and Mikaela says that what he just did was “really awesome.” Don’t try to be nice, Mikaela, this is Sam we’re talking about; you could stick the dude in the freezer overnight and he still wouldn’t be even remotely cool.

Sam gets back to the whole “running away from a car” deal, and Mikaela decides that this is the sort of thing she’d like to do with her day, so she ditches her friends in the middle of their scheduled Burger King™ time to go see what the hell Sam’s on about.

As Sam is chased by the Camaro who is being chased by Mikaela on her motorized scooter, a cop becomes involved, tearing through the streets to join this ridiculous game of tag. Now, we’ve seen two different flavor of cop so far- the mustachioed avatar cop car that picked up Frenzy from the airport, and the dude who threatened a teenage boy with a gun after accusing him of being under the influence of drugs. Either way, I don’t think this is going to turn out well for Sam.

Sam’s cornered himself under one of those really wide bridges where people can park their cars, which wasn’t terribly smart, but it’s Sam, so this is about par for the course. The Camaro manages to miss him, but the cop car does not. Sam is actually pretty cool with the cops being here, as if they could do anything about “Satan’s Camaro.” I guess he didn’t see the decal on the side of this car that says “to punish and enslave…”

Sam attempts to approach the car for help, and gets clotheslined by a car door for his troubles. He hits his head on the pavement, certainly exasperating the brain injury he received not ten minutes ago. Still, he continues to try to talk to the holographic avatar through the windshield, revealing that the bike he’s been riding is his mother’s. Mystery solved, I suppose.

The cop car doesn’t much appreciate being slapped on the hood, and begins to rev violently at Sam, threatening to run him over several times. Then it explodes into being a robot. Sam, who’s seen a lot of really weird shit in the last 24 hours, nopes out of the situation. It’s at this point that I realize he’s wearing a shirt for the band the Strokes. I don’t know why that stuck out to me, but it did. Guess my brain needed something to latch onto during all this.

Sam is running as fast as his little legs allow, as our newest robot friend takes up a leisurely jog to keep pace. Then he kicks Sam. He kicks Sam’s body like the football. This, of course, instantly turns Sam into a bag of jelly and kills him, thus ending the film.

No, he doesn’t die. I just told another fib. I’m sorry.

Sam somehow survives being punted by a giant metal leg and lands in the windshield of a car that doesn’t turn into a robot. Then he gets yelled at by the cop car. This is Barricade, a member of the Decepticons, and Sam’s got something he wants. Or, should I say “LadiesMan217” has something he wants.

LadiesMan217 is Sam’s Ebay username. This is both stupid because no teenage boy existing beyond the year 1985 would have ever called himself that, and also because it’s just stupid.

Barricade wants the glasses Sam presented for his genealogy report, and he wants them NOW. Seeing as the thing he wants is for sale, and nobody had been bidding on it, one would wonder why Barricade and his associates didn’t just try to purchase them like upstanding citizens. Perhaps Decepticons don’t understand the concept of money, or perhaps they don’t have a stable address to have the glasses shipped to. Or perhaps nobody considered that angle when the script was being put together. Who can say?

Sam gets back to running away from Barricade, we see where Mikaela got to, and the two of them collide. Sam rips Mikaela off of her scooter, and they both fall to the ground. Mikaela, who did not buckle the clasp on her helmet, asks Sam what his fucking problem is. Then his problem shows up, and they take a very long time to get up so they can run. So long, in fact, that the Camaro has to swing in to save them. After much pleading from Sam, Mikaela gets inside Satan’s Camaro, and the two of them are whisked away to safety. Barricade pursues, and then the butt rock starts.

There’s a lot of screaming and yelling, the Camaro busts through a window and several shelves in an abandoned building, there’s some drifting, and then suddenly it’s nighttime. Barricade somehow got in front of the Camaro, and is circling like a shark. The Camaro locks the two teenagers inside itself, though I suppose they could climb out through the still-open windows if they really wanted to. The Camaro cuts the engine off, then cuts it back on and bolts for the exit, and this somehow tricks Barricade long enough for them to get past.

The Camaro dumps Mikaela and Sam out one of the doors and then transforms into that yellow space robot we saw a bit ago. It’s Bumblebee! Nearly an hour in, and we finally get a proper look at the little bastard. I guess that’s what happens when you spend the first 20-something minutes on being xenophobic and appealing to the focus groups that think it’s fine sexualize high schoolers.

Bumblebee- no, he’s not introduced himself yet, but I just can’t keep calling him “the Camaro” anymore- comes out of his transformation ready to square the fuck up. Barricade throws himself at Bumblebee, they roll around on the ground for a bit, then things start sparking and exploding, because this is a Michael Bay film. Frenzy jumps out and starts chasing down Mikaela and Sam, while Bumblebee and Barricade murder death punch each other. Frenzy manages to grab Sam by the ankles, drag him to the ground, and rip his pants off. Not sure how that happened, considering he’s still got his shoes on.

While Sam’s busy being chased by a sentient pile of safety pins, Mikaela’s taken it upon herself to be proactive about her survival, and is raiding a nearby building for power tools. She sprints out holding an electric jig saw and saves Sam by decapitating Frenzy. If you know anything about Transformers, then you know this doesn’t actually kill Frenzy, but good on her for being a badass. Why couldn’t Mikaela be our main character again? Oh, right, because she’s a ~girl~.

Sam punts Frenzy’s head, like, 50 yards, which seems like something he shouldn’t be able to do, given that he’s a massive weenie, but there you are. With that out of the way, Sam takes Mikaela’s hand and they run off to go watch the giant robot fight. The bottom of Frenzy’s head turns into a spider and he crawls his way over to Mikaela’s purse. He’s gonna steal her gum, the fiend!

Mikaela and Sam have, unfortunately, missed the giant robot fight, which means that we, as the audience, have also missed the giant robot fight. Which is unbelievably stupid, seeing as everyone who has ever watched this movie came for the GIANT GODDAMN ROBOTS.

Mikaela asks just who the hell the yellow robot is, I guess because she’s finally had a second to process what the hell’s going on. Sam claims that he’s a super-advanced robot, “probably from Japan.” Whether or not this is a reference to the Japanese origins of the original toy line isn’t clear, though somehow I think it’s more xenophobia. Sam also makes the claim that if Bumblebee had intended to hurt them, he would have done it by now. This is quite the jump from a few hours ago, when he was calling the poor guy “Satan’s Camaro.”

Sam finally, finally asks Bumblebee what his deal is, and we get our first taste of the Bayverse Bumblebee Gimmick. The Gimmick here is that, due to an injury to his vocal processing, Bumblebee cannot communicate through traditional means, i.e. speech. Because of this, he instead strings together sentences by flicking through the radio frequencies and choosing key words. This can lead to some interesting audio design, like describing his fellow Autobots to “rain down like visitors form heaven, Hallelujah!” because a radio sermon fit what he was trying to say best.

This gimmick is one that has been used in other pieces of Transformers media, at least in part. Bumblebee is unable to speak traditionally in Transformers: Prime, and instead communicates in beeps and clicks that his teammates can understand, but not so much the humans, save for Raf. In Bumblebee (2018), the idea was used whole-cloth, with the injury resulting in his inability to speak happening on-camera within the first 10 minutes of the movie, and the idea of “expressing oneself through music” being introduced by his human companion Charlie Watson.

All in all, I rather like the idea going on here; it’s an interesting part of his character that opens up for a lot of interesting and creative moments.

It’s just too bad it was introduced in fucking Bayverse.

But yeah, anyway, the other Autobots are coming to Earth. Shit’s gonna be lit.

Bumblebee turns back into a Camaro, and Sam uses the power of FOMO to get Mikaela to go in the car with him. We get a shot of Barricade fucking dying on the side of the road. Frenzy murders Mikaela’s phone, and then steals its identity, including the little bejeweled heart stickers. Good thing Mikaela remembered to go get her purse, otherwise he probably would have felt very silly doing that.

Mikaela refuses to sit in the driver’s seat, seeing as she now knows Sam’s car is sentient, and sort of feels weird about this whole thing. Sam suggests that she sit in his lap instead, as the camera angles to give us a peek at the cup of Mikaela’s bra. When asked why the hell she should do such a thing, Sam says it’s a concern about her safety, given that the middle console of the car does not have a seatbelt. Sam either fails to recognize that seatbelts going over two layered bodies won’t save either of them in the event of a crash, or he’s just trying to make an excuse to have a pretty girl in his lap.

Given what movie this is, I’m going to guess it’s the latter.

Mikaela has a similar line of thought, but scoots over anyway, saying that the seatbelt line was a “smooth move”. It wasn’t, but if I picked apart every single bad line Sam had in this film, I’d be here all day.

Mikaela questions Bumblebee’s taste in alt-mode, which offends him to the point of dumping both her and Sam out in the street and driving away. He returns, moments later, as a sleek new Camaro, that I’m sure some car aficionados would call “sexy.”

Bumblebee’s alt-mode is a 2009 Chevrolet Camaro, of which there were none during the time of filming. It was put together for this movie in roughly five weeks. Sam is blown away by the fact that he now owns a car that does not currently exist in his universe. Mikaela is impressed, or at least she would be, if women were allowed to show that emotion in a non-horny way in a Bay film.

Judy doesn’t count.

As Bumblebee breaks into yet another restricted area, we get a shot of the Earth from orbit, as several objects rocket towards the planet. Sam and Mikaela watch the Autobots burn up in the atmosphere, and Mikaela tries to hold Sam’s hand as they do, and it’s at this point that I have to address how much I hate these two’s dynamic.

I don’t give a single solitary shit about this romance, because A) it’s poorly written, B) Mikaela could do infinitely better than Sam, C) I dislike Sam so very much, D) Mikaela, who is a way more interesting character, got placed on friggin’ love interest duty because ~girl~, and E) it’s useless padding to try and make me care about what’s happening here, and I just DON’T. I do NOT care about whether these two get together or not.

We see the Autobots crash-land, three out of four of them causing massive amounts of property damage and possibly killing at least one person. Their stasis pods crack open, and they each climb out, completely naked and in desperate need of clothing to hide their shame. With a quick scan of nearby vehicles, they’re once again decent to be seen in public.

Bumblebee drives the kids out to what I can only assume is the warehouse district he sent that beacon out in, as our collection of good guys finally come together at long last. A massive Peterbilt semi-truck stops directly in front of Mikaela and Sam.

We’re over an hour into this film, and we’re just now getting to the quintessential Transformer, Optimus Prime himself.

In the original cartoon, Optimus’s alt-mode was what’s known as a cabover truck, one where the cab- where the driver sits- is seated directly over the engine. These were popular during the days when maximum truck-lengths were much shorter than they are currently. This is why when you look at height charts for Optimus over various continuities, his G1 cartoon counterpart much shorter than his other iterations.

Modern trucks are longer, and don’t need the cab to sit on top of the engine to save on space. The designers chose to use a Peterbilt to make sure that Optimus would have an imposing stature when compared to his fellow Autobots.

Because heaven forbid we not have heightism come into play in this film.

Our Autobots transform, and say what you will about these bastards being visually incomprehensible, the transformations themselves are cool as hell. My personal favorite is Jazz’s, where he does a cool windmill into his root mode.

Optimus crouches like he’s looking at a cool bug on the sidewalk and addresses Sam by name. He doesn’t even acknowledge Mikaela, which I find to be a bit rude, but whatever. He then introduces himself as the leader of the Autobots.

Peter Cullen is back as the voice for Optimus Prime, sounding wonderful as always. He almost wasn’t brought on for this project, because Michael Bay didn’t want him. If the fans hadn’t thrown a hissyfit, who knows who we would have gotten to be our space dad for the next hour and a half?

This is actually an issue that’s recurred several times in the last few years, and not just with Cullen; Frank Welker, the voice of Megatron, as well as many other Transformers, has been refused roles within Transformers properties. In general, this is because both Cullen and Welker are union actors, and Hasbro would prefer to hire sound-alikes than pay more money for the originals. This isn’t to shame the non-union actors, goodness no, just to merely point out less-than-fantastic business practices.

I realize there have been a lot of tangents, but you have to understand that I am suffering as I do this.

Optimus then introduces his team- there’s Jazz, whose first line is “What’s crackin’ little bitches?”, Ironhide, who incorrectly quotes Dirty Harry, and Ratchet, who calls out just how obnoxiously horny Sam’s character is. We also finally get Bumblebee’s name.

Mikaela asks the very good question of why the fuck the Autobots are here on Earth. Optimus explains that the AllSpark is here, and they’ve got to get to it before Megatron does. He then goes on to explain who Megatron is, stating that he “betrayed” the Cybertronian empire.

No, how exactly he did that isn’t addressed. We’ll just have to take Optimus’s word, I suppose.

If you’ve sussed out by this point the the AllSpark and the Cube™ are the same thing, congrats! You win. Megatron followed the AllSpark to Earth, where he promptly was neutralized by the cold of the Arctic circle. This was 110 years prior to the events of this film, and where Archibald Witwicky came in to the story.

When the expedition was happening, Archibald fell through the ice during a collapse, and ended up finding Megatron’s frozen body in an ice cave. He went poking around on this strange metal giant, and ended up activating Megatron’s navigation systems, which imprinted the coordinates of the AllSpark onto Archibald’s glasses.

Don’t ask how that works, it just does.

So, the Autobots need the glasses, so they can find the AllSpark before the Decepticons do, so those guys don’t use it to build an army out of Earth’s machines, which will destroy humanity.

Sounds simple enough, let’s go get that vision correction device!

Back with the military dudes, everyone’s taking a gander at the tail that Scorponok left behind. They theorize that the metal that makes up these giant murder-robots reacts to extreme heat, but elaboration on that point will have to wait, because the tail has begun to flail. They quickly strap it down, then call the military to let them know to strap anti-tank guns onto anything that’s going to be approaching any giant robots.

Meanwhile, in an interrogation room, Maddie and Glen have been left to sweat a bit. Glen takes to stress-eating, while framing it as a psychological tactic to subconsciously prove his innocence to the FBI.

This is a fat joke, with the added nasty layer of Glen being a black man about to be interrogated by one of the most intimidating white cops I’ve seen in a hot minute.

Glen immediately folds, pinning all the blame on Maddie, and claiming that he’s been a perfect angel his whole life. We get some weird purity culture out of him, before Maddie lets the FBI know that she needs to talk to the Secretary of Defense, NOW.

Over at the Witwicky household, Sam’s parents are watching the news, trying to find out what all those loud crashes were about. Optimus Prime drives down their residential street, the rest of the gang in tow, then they all park to wait for Sam to go get the glasses.

For about 20 seconds.

Sam has to physically hold the door shut to prevent his father from coming out and seeing several very tall robots from outer space tip-toeing around his freshly-landscaped yard, I guess because they got antsy. Optimus plods around on the grass and breaks a fountain, and our benevolent god Mojo comes out of the house, assuredly to smite the leader of the Autobots.

Mikaela runs onto the scene, and Sam chastises her for not controlling the robots who didn’t even acknowledge her existence, outside of pointing out Sam was sexually attracted to her.

Mojo pees on Ironhide’s foot, which prompts Ironhide to threaten to shoot the creature. This is why Ironhide isn’t getting into heaven. Sam, one of Mojo’s chosen few, claims that the mortal shell of his god is seen as a beloved pet by many humans. Sam runs into the house, before Mojo can incur his divine wrath on the Autobots.

While Sam goes to get the glasses, the Autobots decide to do a little peeping on the house, watching his parents watch TV. Sam tears his room apart trying to find the glasses, and Optimus thinks that it would be helpful if he brought Mikaela up to help look. It’s at this point that I realize that Sam has an utterly bizarre fish tank.

I mean, legitimately, what the fuck is this? No filter, no plants, might not even have any rocks on the bottom. Is this a comically oversized bong Sam threw a couple fish into? What the fuck.

Mikaela starts looking for the glasses, running into what is likely a box of porn mags, then they both look out the window to find that the Autobots have decided to hide in plain sight by transforming... in the middle of Sam’s backyard. Amazing work, gentlemen.

Sam finally convinces the Autobots to go sit in the alley and wait, only for Ratchet to run into a power line and trip into a greenhouse. The resulting impact is interpreted as an earthquake. Judy does not have the reaction one might expect from someone who’s lived in California for at least ten years.

Ratchet’s fine, by the way.

The power cuts out, and Ron goes up to check on his son, because he’s at least a halfway-decent father. Ratchet’s shining a light to aid in the search for the glasses. Sam’s parents notice this bright light, and bang on Sam’s door to see what’s up.

Sam quickly hides Mikaela and then attempts to salvage the situation, answering the door and trying to control the narrative. Unfortunately, Ron is far too inquisitive for Sam to do this, and then Judy asks if Sam was masturbating.

Judy, is privacy just not a thing to you? Because if not, it really ought to be.

She keeps going with it too, trying to come up with code words, until another one of the Autobots trips and causes Ron to panic again, climbing into Sam’s ancient claw-foot bathtub to protect himself. He looks out the window to check on his beloved yard, lamenting that the earthquake tore it up.

Ironhide is strongly considering killing Sam’s parents. Optimus tells him that they don’t harm humans, and also begins to wonder if he made a mistake bringing this guy along.

Back in Sam’s room, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Sam is an absolutely terrible liar, and Mikaela reveals herself, if only to prevent Judy from trying to talk about self-pleasure again. Of course, now she gets to be subjected to both of Sam’s parents objectifying her, so this might be a lose-lose situation.

Sam is reminded that his backpack is in the kitchen, just in time for the government to show up at his house. Mikaela makes a comment about Judy being nice. I suppose on a surface level, yes, being told that you’re gorgeous by someone’s mom is nice. I do have to question the context that compliment took place in, however.

Sam’s about to hand the glasses over to the Autobots, when someone rings the doorbell. It’s Sector Seven, and they’re here to talk to Sam about his stolen car being part of an issue involving national security. Ron and Judy are more concerned about their yard being torn up, Judy yelling that they “need to get their hands off [her] bush.”

We still have another hour of this movie.

The agent leading this mission asks Sam to come with him for questioning, which his parents are very much against. Mojo also voices his displeasure, but it would seem that Agent Simmons is not a follower of the Tenets of Mojo. Sam gets geigered, and his readings are high enough for Sector Seven to take him and everyone in this house into custody.

As Sam and Mikaela are riding in the back of the car, Simmons brings up Sam’s Ebay account, and also the phone video he took of Bumblebee earlier in the week. Mikaela is rather unimpressed with Sam at the moment, probably because he’s gotten her arrested. She still tries to help him out though, because she really is just the nicest fucking person on the planet.

Alas, the combined efforts of these two teenagers isn’t enough to fool the long arm of the law, especially when it’s a branch of said law that deals with extraterrestrial activity. Simmons threatens to lock up these literal children for life if they don’t start talking. Mikaela isn’t taking the bait, so he goes after her father’s parole hearing instead.

Yep! As it turns out, Mikaela and her father stole cars to get by, and she’s got the record to back that claim up. Simmons calls her a criminal, then says that criminals are hot. Mikaela looks like she’s about to cry, and I don’t blame her in the slightest.

Optimus, I suppose because his dad senses were tingling, takes the opportunity to place his leg in the road for the car to run into, then grabs said car like an unruly cat and lifts it until the roof rips off due to stress. The agents in the other cars pile out and point their guns at the giant space robot. The rest of the Autobots quickly relieve them of their weapons.

Optimus notes that Simmons doesn’t seem surprised that a bunch of giant robots just took all his guys’ guns, and demands that he exit the vehicle, posthaste. Simmons obliges, after a bit more prodding. Mikaela undoes Sam’s handcuffs, and he gets fucking pissy about it, as if this girl he’s had a grand total of three (awkward) conversations with should have told him something as personal as “hey, so my dad’s in jail and I’ve been to juvenile detention.”

Luckily, she doesn’t let him get away with it, calling him out as the spoiled, self-centered, privileged little shithead that he is.

Of course, we don’t get any sort of real acknowledgement from Sam, having to move on with the plot. Perhaps, if we hadn’t spent the last hour and 20 minutes faffing about on drivel, we could have had Sam get an actual moment of self-reflection, and potentially even character growth. However, this is Bayverse, and everyone knows that personal accountability is for fucking sissies.

Mikaela and Sam ask several questions, but get no answers from Agent Simmons. And then Bumblebee pees on him.

I hate that I had to write that. I hate it very much.

Anyway, I don’t know why that had to happen, but it did, and I’m nothing if not thorough.

Optimus tells Bumblebee to cut it out, and with that the Sector Seven agents are cuffs and left on the side of the road. Mikaela orders Simmons to strip, as punishment for threatening her father, then cuffs him to a street lamp.

...Yes, that does sound like a bizarre sexual fantasy, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately for our teen heroes, they forgot to confiscate everyone’s phones, and Sector Seven knows what’s up, thanks to the power of speakerphone. More cars and a couple of helicopters show up basically immediately, and the Autobots decide it’s time to dip.

But not before Ironhide fires off a pulsewave into the ground that causes a five-car pileup.

Optimus, I suppose because he knows he chose a ridiculously flashy alt-mode that is in no way practical, just picks the kids up in and places them on his shoulder like a couple of parakeets, then takes up a leisurely jog to get away from the eyes in the sky. He runs through the city, racking up what is likely millions in property damage, as the helicopters pursue. He passes by a “Legalize LA” billboard, which feels odd to see, given what movie this is.

The ‘copters somehow manage to lose Optimus, despite him being relatively slow, and having a notable radiation level that they’ve been using to track him. He hides inside the scaffolding of a bridge, only for Mikaela and Sam to slip off of his polished body to their deaths, thus ending the film.

No, they don’t die. I just told another fib. I’m sorry.

Bumblebee snatches them up just before they hit the ground, the impact of his metal body catching them at 75 mph, killing them instantly and ending the film.

Nope, that doesn’t happen either.

Mikaela and Sam are fine, some-fucking-how, but Sam’s dropped the MacGuffin glasses. The helicopters swing back around, having noticed the sound of a car crashing into the ground and the screams of two whole adolescents. They break out a fucking harpoon gun and fire on our kid appeal character.

Repeatedly.

They wrap up Bumblebee in a series of cables, as he screams like a moose. Mikaela and Sam are held at gunpoint by what is honestly far too many dudes, and are then arrested for the second time in ten minutes. Bumblebee is smoked... because he’s a bee? Sam, not liking this one bit, finds the strength in his weenie body to push a cop off of himself, run at one of the dudes with the smoke guns, throw him to the ground, and then start smoking him. He’s immediately tackled, but points for trying.

Sam and Mikaela are placed back into custody, and the rest of the Autobots regroup with Optimus to see what the plan is. Optimus says that they can’t save Bumblebee without hurting humans, so I guess Bumblebee is just a POW now. Well, at least they got the glasses. That’s cool.

Back at the Pentagon, things are getting dicey, as the other world powers are starting to suspect that something’s up. The Secretary of Defense is approached by a man with a mustache and a briefcase. He’s from Sector Seven, but the Secretary gives not a fuck about mysterious organizations. All the computers in the room suddenly go down, the virus from earlier working its magic- only this time, the blackout is global.

Mr. Mustache opens his briefcase, while explaining that Sector Seven is something known as a “special access” sector of the government, which is why nobody’s ever heard of it; it’s beyond top secret. Commissioned by President Herbert Hoover 80 years prior, it deals with alien life.

When the Beagle 2 spacecraft was lost on the way to Mars in 2003, the mission was declared a failure. This was a lie. The Beagle 2 recorded several seconds of Mars before being crushed to death by a Transformer. This tidbit is pretty funny, given that the Beagle 2 was rediscovered on Mars in 2014, seven years after this film released. Not a terribly mysterious death anymore, is it?

Comparing the footage from Mars to the footage from Qatar has Sector Seven thinking that these are the same species. Which they are. God, it’d be so fucked up if there were two species of giant robots in this film.

Mr. Mustache theorizes that because the Transformers now know that they can be harmed by human weaponry, they’re being proactive about their safety and shutting down all forms of communication technology with that virus that keeps popping up. It’s only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan for humanity.

Mr. Secretary tells his guys to try going analog with comms, breaking out the short-wave radios, to tell their ships to return home.

Over at an Air Force base, Lennox and the gang have landed, only to be scooped up by a bunch of dudes in suits.

Back with Maddie and Glen, the two of them have fallen asleep in the interrogation room, Maddie still wearing her friggin’ four inch pumps as her legs are propped up on the table, crossed in a way that seems rather uncomfortable. Glen gets to sleep like a normal human being, with his head resting on his forearms. Why this place doesn’t have a holding cell for these situations is beyond me.

Mr. Secretary comes in to bring Maddie on as his advisor. Glen can come too, I guess, considering he’s the one who actually figured out the sound file virus.

We get a little military glorification, and then it’s revealed that Mikaela and Sam, as well as Maddie and Glen, are aboard this helicopter. Their paths cross at last. Our heroes are transported to the Hoover Dam, where Bumblebee is also. They are still smoking him.

Meanwhile, the Autobots are figuring out where to go, with the power of Archibald’s glasses. Ratchet, who I guess is omnipotent, senses that the Decepticons have also figured out the location, and that this is going to be a race against the clock. And I mean, he’s right, but the phrasing is a bit odd.

Jazz wants to know when they’re going to save Bumblebee. Optimus says that they aren’t, and that Bumblebee’s sacrifice is noble, and that he would want the Autobots to leave him and complete the mission. As this is said, we get another shot of Bumblebee getting smoked and trapped in a lab. Yep, this is totally what he would want. He absolutely signed up for this, giving himself up to the government and not at all fighting like mad to not be captured.

I don’t think Bayverse Optimus actually knows what martyrdom is, which is bizarre, given that it’s a major trait in a lot of other iterations of the character.

Ironhide isn’t even sure why they’re bothering to save humanity, given that humans are violent and awful, his point being hammered home as Bumblebee is tortured for scientific reasons. Ironhide seems to have forgotten that Cybertron has been at war for literally millions of years. Optimus has faith in humanity, however, stating that we’re “young”.

And then he says that he’s going to end his own race, by destroying the Cube™, which is how they reproduce, because that’s the only way to end the war.

Which is arguably one of the most hardcore fictional applications of eugenics ever conceived.

Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.

We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.

Optimus then proves that he does, in fact, know what self-sacrifice is, stating that, if all else fails, he’ll shove the AllSpark into his spark, which will destroy them both. He’s pretty chill about it, too.

Up on top of the Hoover Dam, Frenzy has fallen out of Mikaela’s bag.

Mr. Secretary is also at the Hoover Dam now, as is Lennox’s team. Oh, and Agent Simmons, who is thankfully wearing pants. He offers to buy Sam a coffee, as repartitions for threatening his family, arresting him, and being a complete creep to a teenage girl. Sam gives not a fuck about caramel macchiatos with extra foam and chocolate drizzle, however. He only cares about his car.

Mr. Mustache, who is also here, needs Sam to spill the beans on all these friggin’ giant robots that are running around. This is where Sam realizes he has the upper hand for once, and he starts making demands. One such demand is having Mikaela’s record scrubbed clean, which is an actually very nice thing for him to have done for her. We’ll see if his intent comes to fruition. For now, it’s time to talk about Bumblebee.

We get a shot of all these folks heading into the secret base hidden inside the Hoover Dam, and it’s at this point that I notice that Maddie’s shirt is basically see-through.

Inside the Dam, we see that Sector Seven′s been keeping Megatron this entire time, keeping him neutralized with cryo-stasis since 1935. Cryopreservation was invented in the 50′s. This isn’t a nitpick, I just thought it was a neat little fact.

Megatron being on Earth has resulted in most modern technology. This sort of plot point always bothers me, because it takes away agency from the entire human race. We didn’t use our own ingenuity and work ethic to advance society, we plagiarized from a more advanced species. I dunno, it just rubs me the wrong way.

We get the part of the movie where info is hashed out, so that everyone is on the same page, Sam spouting off Autobot propaganda. We can forgive him for this,considering he’s 16, and no one is immune to propaganda, especially when they have zero way of doing their own research to form their own opinion with.

Sector Seven also has the AllSpark, kept in the room next to Megatron’s, like the chumps they will soon find themselves to be. It’s about ten stories tall and the reason the Hoover Dam exists. With so much concrete suppressing its alien energies, surely no one will ever find it!

Except for Frenzy, who came in through a mouse hole. Whoopsie-doodle!

The AllSpark zaps the nasty little man, restoring his body with its weird MacGuffin powers. Frenzy tells all his coworkers that he found what they were looking for, and everyone starts heading over.

Maddie asks Mr. Mustache what exactly he means by “energies”, perhaps worried that this whole thing has been some elaborate ploy to get her to invest in magic healing stones. Mr. Mustache brings everyone into a testing chamber, since the best way to explain how the AllSpark works is through a demonstration.

There’s a big fish tank in the middle of this testing chamber, in which Agent Simmons places a donated device from the crowd- Glen’s Nokia phone, specifically. Simmons makes a geologically-confused comment. When this is pointed out by Maddie, Mr. Secretary hushes her, simply saying that Simmons is a strange man. The tank is locked down, and then the show starts.

Cube™ energies are shot into the tank, and the phone explodes into life, transforming into a gorilla-shaped gremlin creature. Happy birthday, little dude!

Little dude starts shooting at the tank walls, cracking the glass until Simmons pulls the trigger and ends it. Happy deathday, little dude!

The Decepticons are making tracks towards the Hoover Dam, but Starscream- yeah, he’s in this now, don’t worry about it- arrives first, because he is a very fast jet. He transforms, showing off his ridiculous Dorito body, and fires on the base’s generators. The resulting explosions can be heard all the way down in the testing chamber, and Mr. Mustache calls upstairs to see what’s up. Looks like Megatron may be getting warmed up, seeing as his ice bath has been cut off. Lennox asks if there’s an arms room in Sector Seven, which sort of feels like asking a bakery if they have any flour.

Frenzy has entered the room that houses the controls for the cryo-stasis and set that whole system to “no, thank you”.

Mr. Mustache runs through the base, screaming for everyone to get to the Megatron chamber. Off in the distance, the Autobots approach. Could probably used some fliers on your team, huh Optimus?

Back with Frenzy, he’s decided to just straight-up raise Megatron’s core temperature directly. Hope he doesn’t do it too fast; rewarming hypothermia victims recklessly can do some serious damage.

Outside of the base, Lennox and the boys are loading up with weaponry, along with what’s the entirety of Sector Seven′s cannon-fodder department. Oh, and all the main cast. Yep, just got a couple of teenagers chillin’ in the munitions room.

Sam wants Simmons to take him to his car- he hasn’t used Bumblebee’s name in a hot minute, not sure what’s up with that- even though Simmons is currently busy loading a very large gun. Simmons doesn’t want to do that, because he’s got no idea if what Sam mentioned earlier is even true, and he doesn’t want to pin the fate of humanity on a single Camaro. Lennox takes this opportunity to tackle Simmons, despite likely not knowing that Bumblebee is one of the “good guys”. A Sector Seven guy very much doesn’t like that, and points a gun at Lennox, which prompts all of his guys to also start threatening folks with guns.

Mr. Mustache walks in on the scene, but doesn’t do anything, since he isn’t armed and knows better than to tangle with someone who’s packing. Simmons tries to intimidate Lennox, because he must have missed the day of boot camp where they tell you that guns kill people. Lennox is fully committed to shooting this dude in the lungs before Mr. Secretary suggests he give the people what they want, before things get ugly.

Simmons takes everyone to the robot torture department of Sector Seven, where they are still smoking Bumblebee. Geez, you’d think they’d have something in place for if they ever came across another giant robot after Megatron, but I guess not. The gang gets everyone to stop smoking Bumblebee, which allows him to stop moose-screaming and strongly consider murdering everyone involved with his forced captivity. Unfortunately, revenge with have to wait, as we’ve still got to deal with the AllSpark, and the fact that the Decepticons are here.

They take Bumblebee to the AllSpark, where he makes direct contact the thing, causing the AllSpark to transform, compacting itself down into a far more reasonable size that Bumblebee can carry in one hand. It doesn’t seem to weigh more than a grown adult, if his body language is saying anything. I’d make a joke about the conservation of mass being ignored, but since this is Transformers, I can’t really say much. Conservation of mass doesn’t exist for this franchise.

Bumblebee would really like to get this show on the road, and Lennox agrees, quickly formulating a plan to get away from Megatron and taking the AllSpark to Mission City, which is relatively close to their current location, so that they can hide it there.

Lennox, I know this plan is a first draft, and we don’t have a ton of time for revisions, but the whole point of building a whole-ass dam around the Cube™ was because it was very difficult to hide, given its magical MacGuffin powers. Regardless of this flaw, Mr. Secretary agrees. Lennox also asks that the Air Force be involved in this, I guess because the U.S. military wanted more screentime.

Of course, that whole “global blackout” thing is still going on, so we’re going to have to get creative with how we’re going to contact the Air Force. Mr. Secretary and Simmons make a break for the WWII-era radio Sector Seven has, while Lennox and the boys head out to shoot things, and Mikaela and Sam hop into Bumblebee with the Cube™.

This is about the point that Megatron wakes up. The first thing he does is introduce himself, which I thought was very polite of him. Then he breaks out his flail and starts bashing shit around. Not so polite, that.

Over with Bumblebee, we’re shown that the AllSpark, all-powerful object that can create life and is the whole reason this conflict is even happening, is just chillin’ in the back seat by itself. It’s not even buckled up.

Megatron escapes the base, and it’s actually super easy. He just transforms, goes through the tunnel, and he’s free. I feel like we could have at least attempted some security measures for in case the cryo-stasis failed, given that we’ve had this dude in containment for the last 70-something years, but okay.

Starscream comes over to say hi to his boss, not that Megatron gives a shit. He just wants to know where that fucking Cube™ is. When Starscream tells him that the humans have it, Megatron makes a comment about how Starscream has failed him yet again. This is their first interaction in this movie, and Starscream’s been in the story for a grand total of five minutes at this point. I know that this is a reference to their dynamic in just about every installment of the franchise up to this point, but it doesn’t feel earned in the slightest. Even if it’s going to be expanded upon in future sequels, this is a shit-tier way to set their (awful) relationship up.

Not that anyone should ever bank on getting a sequel anyway, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Megatron tells Starscream to retrieve the AllSpark, and then we cut over to the radio plotline. The radio, which is so cobweb-covered I feel like Sector Seven needs to have a serious discussion with their custodial staff, has its nobs and buttons fiddled with by Simmons until it crackles to life. But where are the microphones? Everyone starts looking for the mics, as Simmons pushes Glen into the seat, I guess because hacking modern computers and using Depression-era radio tech are similar enough.

Maddie asks Glen if he can hotwire a 90′s-era computer to transmit a tone through the radio, so that they can send a Morse code message to the Air Force. Which sounds ridiculous to me, but I don’t know enough about radios or computers to know if that sort of thing would be possible. Maybe it’s fine. Or maybe it’s Hollywood bullshit. Who knows?

Back over with Bumblebee, we get a bunch of car commercial shots, of both him and the other Autobots. Aww, the gang’s back together again! Nobody tell Bumblebee that Optimus was completely cool with leaving him to his fate.

Optimus and the gang whip around to join the convoy, and everyone makes their way towards Mission City.

Back at the radio subplot, someone’s bangin’ on the door, trying to get in. The others try to block the intruder, while Glen does his hacking stuff. Mr. Secretary breaks a case and pulls out a gun that’s about as old as he is.

Glen gets the computer working, and Mr. Secretary gives him the Super Secret Military Codewords™ to use to talk to the Air Force. While he does that, Simmons finds a flamethrower and starts burning Frenzy as he attempts to enter the room. The Air Force receives the message for an air strike. Oh, goody.

Over with the convoy, it appears that the Autobots and Lennox’s boys are being pursued by the Decepticons. It’s difficult to tell, seeing as the cameras have gone full Bay-mode, but I’m guessing that’s what’s up. One of the Decepticons flips over a minivan, likely killing a family of five. another causes a multi-car pileup.

Bonecrusher transforms, then Optimus transforms. Bonecrusher iceskates across the highway, slamming into a bus so hard it just straight-up explodes. He is on fire. He tackles Optimus, and they proceed to fall off the side of the raised highway they’re on. Then they beat the shit out of each other, until Optimus decapitates Bonecrusher with his arm-sword.

Yeah, space dad is a little intense in the Bayverse.

Back at Sector Seven, Frenzy’s decided to leave the door alone, and instead is crawling through the ventilation shaft. Mr. Secretary and Simmons fire off shots into the duct above them, as if bullets would do anything against this nasty little pile of needles.

Frenzy bursts through the bottom of the duct and crash-lands into a glass case, taking cover behind a pillar and fires on the humans on the other side of the room. While this shootout is happening, Glen receives a response from the Air Force, just in time for Frenzy to accidentally decapitate himself with one of his own spinning blades of death. This time, he does not survive losing his head.

The Air Force will be sending fighter planes to Mission City, and to establish this, we get several shots of what some might call “military porn.”

Over in the city, the convoy has arrived. Lennox hands several short-wave radios over to Epps, telling him to use them to direct the Air Force when they arrive, so they can take the AllSpark... somewhere, I guess. Above, an F-22 zooms across the sky. It is not one of the Air Force’s F-22s.

Ironhide recognizes Starscream, and gets ready to throw down. Bumblebee grabs a nearby Furby truck and hoists it up to use as a shield. This marginally works, as the missile that hits the truck doesn’t immediately kill him, though it probably did all those Furbies inside.

The resulting explosion throws all the humans around, Mikaela getting weird heaven lighting as she lies unconscious on the pavement. Sam gets it too, though, so I suppose I can’t complain too much about this particular shot. They touch hands. I really wish that I could take this moment of vulnerability as being anything other than an attempt to set up a romance between these two teens who have known each other for maybe half a week. This movie has so starved me of genuine human interaction I'm jumping at the smallest of scraps.

Bumblebee actually didn’t get out of that missile-strike unscathed, his legs having been blown off. All those Furbies died for nothing. Tragic. Sam asks Bumblebee if he’s alright, and immediately tells him to get up. Sam then remembers that Bumblebee’s legs are off, so he yells for Ratchet.

Over with Lennox and Epps, they’ve realized that the plane they saw wasn’t one of theirs. Which, you know, has already been established, but points for getting caught up, fellas. Sam is crying and still telling Bumblebee to get up. Bumblebee is dragging himself across the pavement and whimpering. It’s awful. Where the fuck is Ratchet? This is basically the only reason he’s in this film, and he’s nowhere to be found.

The actual Air Force calls on the radio, asking for their location. Brawl, who is a tank, starts firing on Lennox’s gang. Jazz and Ratchet race through the city streets. How they were separated from the rest of the team is anyone’s guess.

Sam takes a little sit on the pavement to be with Bumblebee, while Mikaela decides to problem-solve and heads for a nearby tow truck. Bumblebee hands Sam the Cube™ because, as the designated protagonist, it’s his job to handle it in the climax of the film.

Ironhide is shot at several times by Brawl, narrowly avoiding being hit each time. This, of course, means that the people he drives by in this shot are almost assuredly dead, since they’re right next to the explosions. He transforms and does a flip, as the film goes slow-mo on a shot of a woman in a low-cut dress watching him flip. She screams. Ironhide screams. I scream, though probably for a different reason.

Jazz jumps on Brawl, managing to kick off a couple pieces of kibble before Brawl grabs him and throws him into the side of a building. Ironhide, Optimus, and Ratchet descend on Brawl, and so does Lennox’s team, Brawl losing a hand and getting thrown into his own building as a result.

Mikaela breaks into the tow truck and starts to hotwire that shit. Wow, a relevant back story that culminates in her being able to save the day, thus completing her arc and staying on-theme for her character. Why isn’t Mikaela the protagonist again?

Oh, right, because ~girl~.

Megatron lands in a nearby alleyway, and Ratchet, knowing this dude is bad news, tells everyone to head for the hills. Jazz isn’t fast enough, however, and gets shot for his troubles.

Mikaela drives the truck over to Sam, who is still sitting there with the Cube™, and tells him to get his ass in gear.

Jazz gets taken to the top of a nearby building and is ripped in two by Megatron, who acts like a bird of prey the whole sequence. Down on the ground, Brawl is starting to get back up from his smackdown. Blackout appears on a nearby skyscraper. Things are looking grim for humanity.

Mikaela and Sam hook Bumblebee up to the tow line as Lennox approaches them. Sam has left the AllSpark out of his line of sight, like a fool. Despite seeing this, Lennox still gives him the flare to let the military know where to pick up the AllSpark. Doesn’t even acknowledge Mikaela. He tells Sam to head for the white building with statues on top of it and set the flare on top of the roof. Lennox can’t leave his men, because he’s the head of his operation. Why he can’t send literally anyone else who isn’t a 16 year-old boy isn’t made clear.

Sam really doesn’t want to do this, probably because he’s a child, but Lennox has recruited him to the military against his will, so he must. Lennox then attempts to make Mikaela leave for her own good, but she tells him to fuck off, because she’s gonna save Bumblebee. Clearly, this is a win for feminism.

Epps radios the choppers coming from the Air Force to let them know they’ll be picking up a package from a teenager, thus locking Sam into the job. Ironhide and Ratchet vow to protect Sam from the Decepticons on his way to the pickup point. Not one single person has pointed out how fucked up this is.

Sam starts to run off, when Mikaela stops him to let him know that she’s glad she got in the car with him roughly an hour ago. They don’t kiss goodbye, which, honestly? Good. This fucking movie hasn’t earned that. Sam for sure hasn’t earned that, even if he did clear her juvie record. No word on that having actually been done, by the way. Sam never got confirmation, and I feel like he’s not really the type to follow up on things.

Brawl fires off some shots and makes things explode. Ratchet and Ironhide provide cover fire as Sam sprints down the road. Yep, they’re making this idiot WALK to the pickup point. Sure hope the elevators are working today, otherwise this is going to take forever.

Sam carries the AllSpark like a football, and in a better movie, this would have been foreshadowed by Sam having actually been a football player prior to the events of the film, perhaps removed from the team for some character flaw he’s since grown from/accepted. However, this is Bayverse, and well, men don’t have to justify their existence in the story with things like themes and having even an ounce of thought put into their character.

Back with Mikaela, Lennox has refused to learn her name, calling her “girl” as he screams at her to get Bumblebee hooked up to the tow truck. Which she was already doing when he got here. Lennox, dude, you’ve got a daughter now, you’re super extra not allowed to treat women like this.

Optimus Prime pulls through an alleyway and crashes into a pile of garbage. I can forgive him being late, seeing as he is a big rig, and probably had to take the long way into town so he didn’t get stuck in too-low tunnels. Don’t worry about how we briefly saw him during the Brawl take-down. This is his for real entrance into the climax.

He whips around and transforms, ready to throw the fuck down. Megatron spots him from his perch and descends.

Y’know.

Like a vast, predatory bird.

Megatron shoots at Optimus in his alt-mode, and Optimus catches him like a frisbee. Unfortunately for Optimus, it would appear that the horsepower on a Cybertronian flightcraft is hella intense, and he’s carried away. The two of them crash through an office building, then roll around in the streets punching each other in the face, debating the worth of humanity as they do so. Wish I actually gave a shit about either of these people, but alas! The film spent most of its runtime objectifying women and insulting minorities. I know nothing about Optimus, and even less about Megatron.

Megatron transforms his arms into a laser gun, and Optimus does the same. They shoot at each other. Optimus gets thrown into a building, then lands on the sidewalk below, definitely crushing a dude underneath him, but I guess we didn’t check that the shot was clear for where the CGI was gonna go, so he’s fine.

Sam’s still running through the streets, while Blackout murders, like, so many people behind him. Starscream lands in front of Sam, running into roughly 30 cars as he skids to a halt. Ratchet and Ironhide fire on him, as Sam takes a breather behind a car. Starscream transforms and blasts off. He was here for about 15 seconds. Sam begins running again.

Megatron is now following Sam, because he wants that Cube™. Sam is hit by a car- not an evil one, just a regular car- and trips. The impact makes the AllSpark activate, which grants several machines in the vicinity the gift of life, including the car full of bitchy women that just hit Sam, who are upset that hitting a human being might have scratched the paint.

I get it, you hate women, can we PLEASE stop beating this dead horse?

Sam finally gets to the pickup building, which turns out to be abandoned and fenced off. Good thing the gate was open, otherwise things could get really complicated. He heads inside, Megatron crashing through a floor-to-ceiling window shortly behind him. Megatron makes the claim that he can smell where Sam is. I’m going to choose to believe that he isn’t lying here, since Ratchet did something similar earlier.

Sam finds the stairs, and Megatron calls him a slur.

He doesn’t, really, but the voice modulation certainly makes it sound that way.

While this is happening, Mikaela is driving the tow truck down an alley, dragging Bumblebee behind her with the tow cable. She stops for a moment to have a short breakdown, seeing as she is a teenager in what is currently a warzone.

Sam is still running up the stairs. Outside, the military shoots at one of the Decepticons. It is, of course, doing absolutely nothing to the giant metal space robot. Mikaela concludes her moment, looking back at Bumblebee, who gives her the okay to keep going with dragging his ass across the pavement. She whips the truck around and tells Bumblebee “I’ll drive, you shoot.”

Mikaela then proceeds to speed down a main road of this sizable city backwards, running into cars and more or less shoving Bumblebee along to his destination.

The military has finally realized that their efforts have been pointless, but it’s okay because Bumblebee is here with his superior firepower. Bumblebee proceeds to shoot Brawl in the chest, which kills him. After this, he tries to act cute, lifting up his battle mask in a very “did I do that?” way, as if he’s not the same guy who ripped Barricade apart earlier.

Sam, meanwhile, has finally reached the top of this dilapidated building. Helicopters are approaching his location, but will they make it to him before Megatron does? Honestly, I’d be more worried about Starscream on the building just due East.

Sam is just about to hand the AllSpark over, when Starscream fires at the ‘copter, causing it to crash and nearly chop Sam to pieces. Optimus Prime runs towards the scene, on a roof that I refuse to believe could actually support him. Megatron punches thought the roof from the bottom and asks Sam some philosophical questions. Sam can’t answer, given that he’s hiding on the edge of this building, his flimsy grip on one of the angel statues being the only thing keeping him from falling.

Megatron tells him to give him the AllSpark, and in exchange he might not kill him immediately. Sam tells him to fuck off, and Megatron flails the chunk of building he was hanging on to, causing Sam to fall to his death, thus ending the film.

I’m lying to you. Michael Bay is making me into a liar.

No, Sam is, instead, caught by Optimus, very likely breaking several ribs on impact. This is the point where I realize that they’ve given Optimus fingernails. Sam clings to him like a baby koala, as Optimus parkours down the sides of two buildings, Megatron in pursuit. Megatron actually lands on Optimus 2/3rds of the way down, causing the both of them to fall onto the pavement below. How Sam survives this is a mystery.

Megatron recovers from the fall first, flicking a human away from him for having the audacity to exist in his space. The flicked person hits a car, and is almost assuredly dead. At least, I sure hope so, given that this is the director cameo by the Bayman himself.

Feminist icon Megatron?

Feminist icon Megatron.

Optimus comments on the fact that Sam almost fucking died to get the AllSpark out of dodge, and we get the return of “No Sacrifice, No Victory”. Which, I mean, I guess he’s allowed to say that, since he’s actually had to do something that warranted it. His dad doesn’t get to, though.

Optimus then tells this teenage boy, who has already had a hell of a day, to kill him by shoving the AllSpark into his robot-soul-heart, should he be unable to defeat Megatron.

I dunno, I just feel like it’s a bit of an ask.

Sam climbs off of Optimus so the Prime and Megatron can rumble. He runs through the ruined infrastructure of the city, so he’s less likely to be crushed. Optimus tells Megatron to square the fuck up, stating that “one shall stand, one shall fall.”

Then he gets ragdolled around a bunch, so maybe he should have saved the talk for later in the game.

The military is running around some more, stopping in an alley to see Blackout transform to root mode. Yes, the goo-goo eyes were indeed made by several members of the watch party that started this whole thing. People went wild for Rotor-Cape Johnson.

The fighter jets from the US military are arriving in a minute. Epps warns them to aim for the robots that aren’t evil. Lennox and the gang spread out, reminding each other to aim for the underboob, since Transformers’ armor is weak there. Epps marks Blackout with a little green light, which Blackout almost immediately notices. Blackout fires on the military.

Lennox has stolen a motorcycle and is driving through the streets to circle back around and jump off of the bike, sliding on his back to shoot Blackout directly in his underboob. Wonder what his uniform is rated for for road rash.

Sam is watching as Optimus gets his ass handed to him. Up in the sky, Starscream commits identity theft, and then attacks the Air Force. The Air Force can multitask however, and light Megatron the fuck up. Sam has, for some reason, come out of hiding, and Megatron uses this to his advantage, trying to take the AllSpark from him.

Optimus tells Sam to put the AllSpark in his chest, but Sam has a better idea. He shoves it into Megatron’s chest, which has been basically shot open at this point. Megatron makes a Space Invader noise, convulses a bit, then falls over dead.

Congrats on your first murder, Sam.

Optimus tells Megatron’s corpse that he got what was coming to him, then implies that they’re brothers. What flavor of brother isn’t established, but neither was basically anything between the two main faces of the franchise in this film, so it’s fine.

Ironhide walks up holding the two halves of Jazz. Optimus informs Sam that he now has a life-debt to this child. Whether or not Sam is absorbing any information at this point is up in the air. Mikaela shows up, with Bumblebee in tow.

In tow.

In tow-

Sam stares at her blankly. Mikaela stares back, making the pretty girl face. Man, what a great dynamic these two have.

Jazz is dead. That sucks. Optimus is handed his corpse to hold, while he thanks his new friends for helping out.

Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.

Sam is obviously shocked by the fact that Bumblebee is British able to talk now, since not talking has been his whole thing up to this point. Optimus doesn’t let it phase him. Neither does Ratchet, despite having been working on Bumblebee’s throat injury for centuries at this point.

Bumblebee wants to stay on Earth with Sam. Optimus is just like whatever. Sam agrees to have a sweet Camaro from outer space.

Optimus pulls what is left of the AllSpark out of Megatron’s chest. I’m sure that’s not a setup for potential conflicts, not in the slightest.

Over in Washington, D.C., the US President has ordered Sector Seven be terminated, and all the Transformer corpses be disposed of. And by “disposed of” they mean “thrown into the ocean.” Dang, sure hope Earth signed some sort of agreement with the Transformers so that they never come to Earth again. You know, just be proactive about our galactic safety.

The Linkin Park kicks on, as Optimus gives us our bookend narration, telling us what the Autobots plan to do now that their race is at a genological dead end. As he does, we see Lennox reunite with his wife and child, who I had genuinely forgotten were in this movie.

Optimus is pretty chill with Cybertron dying out, because now they know about Earth. We get a shot of Sam and Mikaela making out, a shot that becomes more and more horrifying the further they zoom out, because they’re making out on top of Bumblebee. Who they KNOW is a sentient creature at this point.

And then it gets even worse, because the shot changes, and oh hey! Turns out that the rest of the Autobots were just chillin’ off to the side while this went down. Optimus continues his monologue, just walking around in his root mode as he tells all of Makeout Point how they’re “robots in disguise” now.

The monologue is actually a transmission he’s sending out into space, inviting any of his leftover pals to come kick it on Earth with them, because Earth is pretty cool.

And that’s where they leave us.

IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.

So. Bayverse 1. A film showcasing xenophobia, misogyny, and toxic nationalism. It’s rough. Is it the worst film I’ve ever seen? Not even close, but it’s bad, and it was a huge deal at the time of release. Everyone was seeing it, everyone knew the actors and robots, everyone had a scene that they liked. Everyone was exposed to Bayverse, and as a result, a lot of people entered the Transformers franchise thinking that it was all like this.

And really, how far off would they have been in 2007?

When a franchise refuses to introduce female characters until years after being established, when all those female characters have the exact same body type, when a franchise hires misogynists to write stories, when it allows shit like “Prime’s Rib!” to be published- no wonder Michael Bay was approached to direct.

What a mess.

--------------------------

COMING SOON:

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009) - MEGAN FOX I AM SO FUCKING SORRY

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (2011) - WILL YOU JUST STAY DEAD

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (2014) - SHUT UP ABOUT THE LAW SHUT UP ABOUT THE LAW

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (2017) - ACTUALLY, FUCK CONTINUITY

#transformers #bayverse #part one #maccadam #Hannzreads #Hannzwatches #text post #long post #film analysis #off topic

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

💙Fri 11 Dec ‘20◟̽◞̽

Louis' big show is TOMORROW but that may not even be all we have to look forward to from him! Producer Alex Oriet (half of the duo Saltwives, who have worked with Zayn a lot, and he got his start working with 1D) reposted Louis' “new song” tweet to his insta with a caption- “soon”. OMG. Billboard had a 'year in livestreams' feature and wrapped up with Louis', saying “the best is yet to come” and reporting that Louis' show is Veeps' bestselling of the year “in excess of $1 million” (so either over a mil so far or a mil over the next best, hard to say, but it'll be well over a million by the end for sure so either makes sense).“I can't wait for tomorrow!” Louis tweeted, SAME, and “feels so good to be back with the boys getting ready. Can't wait for you all to see what we've been working on!” He included the brand new special Live From London twiiter emoji (!), it's a really cute lil vintage TV with the xx smiley on it, and a pic-- it's him looking over the backstage prep (so many screens) and you can see his hair flowing free and long and lovely! You can also see a piece of paper in front of him with 20 lines on it-- even if it is a set list I imagine some lines say “banter with crowd” and such like (as we saw on Louis' tour set list) but that's still soooo many lovely songs :))). Charlie Lightening says “this is going to be special, can’t wait for people to see what we have planned” and LTHQoffical is hitting us hard with the hype, posting another rehearsal pic (he's holding a beer and they didn't even scribble it out! wow almost like there's nothing wrong with that), and a time zone guide showing 66 cities around the world, and a digital fan pack, and they said more merch will be out tomorrow (heeelllp), and there's a show day itinerary-- ticket sales cut off 4 hours before the stream but much more interestingly, don't reopen (for the 28 hours of rewatch) until TWO HOURS after the start time. While they could (probably should) be allowing time for technical difficulties I much prefer to believe it's because we're getting a LONG SHOW YES PLEASE! I like my Louis shows like I like his hair, as long as he can possibly manage!! So that's plenty that we DO know to be excited about at the moment but the mystery of Louis new label also remains a hot topic nonetheless, with the known high cost of a twitter emoji stirring questions of who footed the bill (not something we're ever likely to find out sadly). If his team really understood us in the least they'd set up a viral video style Q and A where every Q pulled out of the bowl was an intensely detailed bookkeeping or promo strategy type query- tbh the faces Louis (or any one of the boys) would make would be 100x more entertaining than they get from any tired trying-to-be-cheeky standard Q and the answers sure would be!

Harry's prerecorded (months ago!) Jingle Ball performance aired at last and OH MY GOSH! SO GOOD! I think we can all agree (I know right?? I can't believe it either) that the backing band, Free Nationals, were phenomenal, and Harry's performance was terrific, just simply next level versions of the songs and Harry's sound in general. What more could we ask? For me, not much. For the Jingle Bell Ball organizers, well, they might have liked something Christmassy I suppose, maybe a holiday cover song, or a “tour of his home and holiday traditions.” LOL too bad! Whatever, they DID get vocal variations all over the place and oh did they work, a little lyric change in Golden (“I'm hoping someday I'll open”?), Harry in a sunny LA backyard (whose? who knows!) and everyone in not remotely festive Gucci. There were some decorations though! Not xmassy though- they were, can you guess, yes that's right: sky blue. And there was TRUMPET! A horn section, like revenge, is best served cold apparently: all these years on we can only assume Julian Bulian is good and sorry for denying Harry his trumpets cause DAMN did that sound GOOD. Julian may not say it but I will: you were SO RIGHT Harry, trumpets on every song!! Please! In fact, if you just took that guy on tour with you... or any of those people really? He can just have a really BIG backing band how about, then we won't have to argue about whether wanting this to be his band is mean to the old band. Anyway I hope the fan who ran into him in LA this morning told him how much we liked the show-- she did take a distanced pic, Harry is in his running gear (mostly black but bright fruity shoes) and holding a beverage. Oh yeah and Fine Line is now available to stream in “3D audio” (there's a moving in a New Direction from 1D joke in here headline writers, have at it) which is something that apparently only works with an Amazon device and is strange because physicists assure me that all sound is 3D, but what do they know. Anyway I'm sure it sounds great to those who can access it but luckily for me the album sounds great in plebian unbranded sound as well.

In the wake of Liam's no-show livestream yesterday fans are full of theories about what could be going on to cause such a thing, except actually it's only one theory; everyone is quick to ascribe the glitch to management struggles. May I simply say: there are so very very many things that could be happening in a person's life, even in a 1D member's life, that could cause a missed event and reducing any of them to 1 Dimensional figures who only have work related problems does them (and rigorous theorizing) a disservice. I hope we can all agree on wanting what's best for Liam, and that that extends to supporting him even if things are going on that are less glamorous than management villainy. I will ascribe one thing to management though-- I do believe the guys do the bulk of their own tweeting etc nearly always, but @Liam's tweet that yesterday's live didn't happen due to “technical difficulties” and they are “looking to reschedule” is one that I will make the exception for, sometimes you can just feel the PR person behind the screen! Tik Tok said it was rescheduled for next Tuesday, but the tweet was after that sooo hmm. The Billboard article about Veeps of course also talked about Liam (his Halloween show had 3.7 BILLION chat messages my god) and Liam's prerecorded alarm content today is Roman teaching Liam to do a Harry impression. How come when Roman does it it sounds like Harry but when Liam does it he sounds like Roman? Tip to Liam, just call it a Roman impression and you've GOT it!

Meanwhile, Lewis Capaldi weighs in on Niall and whether he (Lewis) enjoys golf with uncharaceristic delicacy; “we have different interests,” he says, and he sympathizes with a fan who said they'd slap him to meet Harry: “I understand.”

#Louis Tomlinson #Harry Styles #Liam Payne #me as Lewis on both counts #I assume the tags will be all I DON'T AGREE I DID NOT LIKE well everyone I SAW seemed enthused okay and I LOVED THEM #about harry's band #Harry: my new album Fine Line #Fine Line: is an actual year old tomorrow but you know what I agree time has been totally compressed this year I'll accept it #todays louis pic was by charlie not stuart at least the first one #the green cup sleeve in the Harry pic is current for xmas #it's one million per emoji not per hashtag it attaches to #talk about finding opportunity in a bad year Louis was like this is my one chance ever to completely hide the awkward stage #and just appear with long hair I'm ON IT #liam #louis #harry #lewis capaldi #11 dec 20 #charlie lightening #roman kemp #veeps

[okay-j-hannah]

That’s My Wife

Harry Potter : Fic

Charlie x Reader

Word Count: 3049

Warnings: SEXY TALK! Charlie is just all over you and your quidditch uniform 😂 Also I know I keep using different gifs for Charlie fics... I just look up ‘hot ginger man’ and pick one I like 🥰

Request: “Hey could I have a story where you are Charlie Weasleys wife and a professional quidditch player? In goblet of fire when they go to the world cup instead of Ireland vs Krum it's your team versus Krum and Charlie is so proud to have Weasley on your uniform and is showing you off to everyone and idk I really just think of Charlie as a very proud guy but humble. Thanks so much!” - Anon

A/N: There’s nothing quite like having your husband be your biggest supporter, especially with the Quidditch World Cup fast approaching

Shifting beneath the covers, (Y/N) sighed as her brain began to wake up. There were a number of thumps happening outside their bedroom and she groaned.

“Charlie?”

Thankfully, a hand came sneakily around her waist, pulling her to him, “What’s the point of apparating if we don’t even get to sleep in?”

“They’re excited,” (Y/N) replied in a quiet voice, keeping her eyes closed as she turned towards her husband, “And people are a bit careless when they’re tired.”

Footsteps could be heard going down the creaky stairs and (Y/N) peered behind Charlie to see that the moon was still basking their window. It had to have been nearly daybreak for the others to be up and about.

“I’ll have to get ready anyway,” she mumbled, resting back into Charlie’s embrace, “The team wants to do warmups and standard procedure before the majority of the crowds…”

Charlie suddenly held her tighter, silencing her with a grin, “Later, sweetheart – I won’t be able to see you all day. I want to hold you for a little while before you fly off.”

She couldn’t help the giggle that escape her with him cradling her against his chest. Though the World Cup was hours away, she knew her captain wouldn’t let her out of his sight until the game started. With the narrow win England made to be entered into the cup, there was immense pressure to deliver a swift and skillful victory for the team.

Being the rising star of “Quidditch Weekly,” there was a lot on (Y/N)’s shoulders to carry the team. It was that thought that began to swell within her when a sudden shout came from downstairs.

“George! What is that in your pocket?”

Charlie laughed low in his throat, his grisly morning voice doing it justice, “Looks like mum found those joke shop toffees.”

“Nothing!”

“Don’t you lie to me!”

(Y/N) took a deep breath, allowing Charlie’s natural scents relax her; worn leather, old newspaper, rain-soaked grass. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do without him giving her pep talks between penalty shots and time outs.

More than anything she wished he could be on the grounds with the referees instead of up in the stands.

With the anxiety filling her up as it usually did before a big game, she reached for his hand wrapped around her. Lacing their fingers together, she could feel him lean into her neck and plant a kiss behind her ear.

“You’re going to be incredible, sweetheart.”

She sighed into a smile, closing her eyes once more and allowing a few more moments of peace.

“Accio! Accio! Accio!” Came from downstairs, and she laughed out loud that time.

~~~

The sun crept higher and higher as the team lay on the pitch, doing stretches. Their captain Edric Vosper was pacing along the team benches.

“England hasn’t been a part of the Quidditch World Cup since 1981,” he intertwined his fingers in front of him, “And with us scraping that win against Transylvania last month… there’s too much at stake.”

“We know, Vosper,” came the voices of some of (Y/N)’s best friends – the beaters of the team, Dawn and Indira.

“We’ve had this same speech at every practice since that win,” (Y/N) added, smirking and straightening her arm braces, “I’m not sure there’s much else you can say to prepare us.” Her fellow chasers Avery and Keaton snickered behind their hands.

Vosper seemed at a loss of a comeback, finally sitting on one of the benches, “You’re right, of course. I just had a talk with Ludo Bagman and have basically every coin in my account betted for England being the winning team.”

“Why would you do that?” Dawn cried, slumping onto the grassy ground, “I’m worried enough about the game without knowing you’ll be broke if we lose.”

“And will probably have to crash at my place for the rest of the year,” Avery rolled his eyes.

Vosper put his face in his hands and took a deep breath, making the team all refrain from smiling sarcastically. (Y/N) stood and folded her arms, leaning forward slightly to speak.

“I say we take a break before the match starts – go enjoy some time with our families until the whistle blows.”

Keaton flexed his fingers, “Yeah, if I have to practice another quaffle pass I pretty sure my fingertips will snap.”

The team all laughed, evidently trying to make it as lighthearted as possible with the amount of pressure all nestled on their shoulders. (Y/N) secretly believed that a pep talk from all their close friends and family would motivate and improve the teams morale.

But she also knew that if she voiced that much of her opinion, then the players would just tease her about becoming the next great captain for the team. And she was too good of friends with Edric to make him doubt the authority of his position.

“Hey, guys, we’ve been practicing every day for weeks,” Indira stated, pulling a knee to her chest for a stretch. “Maybe enjoying our last meal with our families would relieve some stress.”

“Why are you saying it like we’ve all got death sentences? Our last meal?” Avery laughed, leaning over to push her away playfully.

She shrugged her shoulders, “Way to improve the mood, Hawksworth.”

The rest of the team laughed again, waiting for Vosper to lift his head from his hands. When he did he focused his attention to the opposing team across the quidditch pitch. The brutal Bulgarian team was conducting a number of routines with quaffle passes and snitch spotting.

They donned scarlet robes with black and gold lettering, which reminded (Y/N) of her Gryffindor house back at Hogwarts. It made her frown to see them arrogantly flashing those colors as they sped on their similarly tinted Firebolts.

Peering down at her own uniform, she relished in the bright white and complementary cherry red accents. The proud emblem of golden dragons blazoned the front and brought a fiery desire to beat Bulgaria with every bit of will power she had.

“I think we are over exhausting ourselves,” Vosper concluded, resting his elbows on his knees. “How about this – you all are free to do whatever you please until the match, as long as you deliver the Rowntree Counter.” He stared pointedly at (Y/N), saying, “If we can execute that as perfectly as you did with Transylvania, we’ll have this game in the bag.”

With slight hesitation, she gulped and nodded. She knew there were scouts in the crowd, recruiters that were looking for talent. If she could make a spotlight of their team, they could go far in quidditch history.

It was this thought that dwelled with her as she left the pitch and made her way through the crowds to find the tent grounds the Weasley’s had rented.

She quickly found herself distracted by numerous fans; now, with the sun newly risen and the mist lifting, she could see the city of tents that stretched in every direction. She made her way slowly through the rows, staring eagerly around.

Many of the campers were starting to wake up. First to stir were the families with small children; a tiny boy no older than two was crouched outside a large pyramid-shaped tent, holding a wand and poking happily at a slug in the grass, which was swelling slowly to the size of a salami.

“Excuse me, miss,” came a timid voice nearby, “Are you (Y/N) Weasley?”

She turned her shoulder and saw a young girl and boy standing on their tip toes and wringing their hands excitedly.

“Yes, ma’am, that’s me.”

“The chaser for England’s National team?” the boy added on, somewhat disregarding her previous response.

(Y/N) peered down at her uniform and shrugged her shoulders, “I’m pretty sure that’s what my robes say.”

There was a squeal behind her, and then another and another. Whispers, then shouts, began appearing all around her as exclamations said:

“Is that…?”

“Mum! It’s the England chaser!”

“She was on the cover of Quidditch Weekly yesterday.”

“Do you think I could get a signature?”

“Wait… (Y/N) Weasley?”

“I don’t have a quill… would she mind using my body paint?”

And it was twenty minutes before she was able to extract herself from the growing crowd. She had signed robes, arms, books, tents, and English flags with everything from paint to lipstick. There was even a little girl that bought a miniature figurine of (Y/N) that padded along her palm, even laughing the same full body laugh that (Y/N) usually did, which she signed the back of.

She had to apologize to everyone as she pushed through, saying she’d like to get to her family before the day was through. It didn’t stop the stares, gasps, and waves, but she was grateful for not being followed as closely anymore.

A short way farther on, she saw two little witches, who were riding toy broomsticks that rose only high enough for the girls’ toes to skim the dewy grass. Here and there adult wizards and witches were emerging from their tents to claim a breakfast. Some, with furtive looks around them, conjured fires with their wands; others were striking matches with dubious looks on their faces, as though sure this couldn’t work.

As she neared the other side of the fields, she noticed the colors changing drastically from black and scarlet to white and cherry. This new patch of tents were all covered with thick clusters of dragon themed décor; blue, red, and white flags flew all around the campers. Dragon kites, dragon statues, dragon emblems, dragon puppets, and even dragon hide was covering most other surfaces.

It really showed the loyalty, as well as the increase of more fans trying to get her attention. One began waving a moving poster of herself crossing her arms and smiling broadly. But just beyond she noticed the exact family she was looking for.

“Charlie!”

One of the redheads sitting around the morning fire stood and whipped around to see who was calling for him. When he spotted his beloved, he called out, urging her forward.

The nearer she got, she noticed that it wasn’t just the Weasley’s, Harry, and Hermione – Ludo Bagman and Mr. Barty Crouch were there too.

“I thought you were going to be on the pitch all day!” Charlie cried, reaching her and pulling her into a bone-crushing hug. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until after the game.”

She giggled happily as he lifted her enough that she was on her toes, “We convinced Vosper that we could use a break to gather our senses.” She nuzzled into his shoulder as they continued to hold each other close – that calming smell of rainfall and old, weathered book pages whelmed her again.

Charlie moved a hand to the side of her face where he could direct her attention to his eyes, “God, you’re so beautiful.”

She smiled, her eyes suspicious, “Even in this sweaty updo?”

“What can I say? I can’t resist a woman in uniform.” He gave her a seductive gaze and bit his lip, leaning his forehead against hers.

She moved her hands up his torso and around his neck, sighing deep in her chest, “Not until I knock Bulgaria on their ass.”

Charlie closed his eyes and breathed deeply, “You just got a whole lot sexier.” And he practically growled as he dipped for a kiss, a hungry kiss. The intensity took (Y/N) slightly off guard, accidentally pulling a moan out of her.

“Okay, woah, woah!” came the boisterous voices of Fred and George, “Lock it up, this isn’t your honeymoon.”

They could hear Ginny laughing with Bill, and Percy was muttering things like, “Right in front of Mr. Crouch,” under his breath.

“Now, Charlie,” Mr. Weasley stated in a nervously loud tone, “We’ve got guests.”

(Y/N) had to be the one to pull away, finding her breath was taken away by the moment. Charlie grinned and waved a hand over his shoulder.

“Paparazzi,” she muttered, “We’re surrounded by witnesses.”

“It would be ridiculous to hide my feelings for you, (Y/N). Why shouldn’t the public know we have a perfectly wonderful marriage.” He held her by her shoulders, “I’m proud to have you by my side, so what if the Daily Prophet knows we kiss… guess what? We’re married!”

She couldn’t help but laugh, “Still I’d like to keep a few things… hello!” Behind Charlie’s shoulder she could see the entire Weasley family, and guests, watching them closely.

Charlie twirled around and put an arm around (Y/N), “Mr. Crouch, Ludo – may I introduce my wife, (Y/N) Weasley. THE best chaser that England has known these last few years.”

Ludo Bagman, a jolly man with rosy cheeks and a boyish charm, stood immediately and came to shake hands, “An introduction long overdue I’m sure you feel as well. You know I’ve got a pretty penny on your head to get England the win tonight.”

“Us too,” Fred yelled over the many heads, “So don’t fall off your broom.”

“Oh, you’ve seen nothing until you’ve seen (Y/N) play on the pitch,” Charlie stated, leaning towards the group, “She’s like a snitch herself, whipping through the air.”

“Yes,” agreed Ludo, “The biggest hope England has had in over a decade.”

Charlie beamed, moving his loving gaze to his wife. He simply stood there admiring the praise and talent, silently wondering how it was possible she had chosen him to be her husband.

“Thank you, Mr. Bagman,” (Y/N) replied, “Though you should look at England as the team it is – I’m just one person; it takes all of us to win the cup.”

Charlie grinned even wider if it was possible. Admiration wasn’t enough to describe how in awe he was of her. It was like she was in total denial that she was plainly the one carrying the national team. Though it was incredibly endearing and only made him more in love with the fact that she was with him.

“Oh, please, don’t neglect your talents,” Ludo exclaimed, “We all know you were the one that got the qualification from the Transylvania win!”

“Even with that illegal shot by the bludger,” Ron interjected, sneaking the rest of Hermione’s breakfast sausages, “Those scheming, biased referees.”

Bill clapped his hands together, “This is exactly the problem, if we can’t find the right people to observe the field, then what’s the point of having good players? They’ll be disregarded completely with a biased referee!”

And the family continued the conversation of the prospects of the upcoming game. Percy and Mr. Weasley tried to continue remarks with Mr. Crouch before he left and shortly followed by Bagman.

And all Charlie could do was stare at his wife and wonder… wonder how he got so lucky.

~~~

She could hear the sounds of thousands of people moving around them, shouts and laughter, snatches of singing. The atmosphere of feverish excitement was highly infectious; Dawn and Avery couldn’t stop grinning.

The roaring voice of Ludo Bagman could be heard magically magnified across the sea of people.

“Ladies and gentlemen… welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!”

The spectators screamed and clapped. Thousands of flags waved, adding their discordant national anthems to the racket. A huge blackboard opposite them showed BULGARIA: 0, ENGLAND: 0.

After a presentation of entrancing Veela and a few soaring dragon fireworks, Ludo began to announce the Bulgarian quidditch team members; next came England.

“Presenting – Vosper, Frisby, Choudry, Withey, Flitney, Hawksworth, and Weasley!”

Seven gleaming robed players came whizzing out of the stands on white golden Firebolts. The Weasley family cheered and shook their top box voraciously.  

“That’s her, that’s her!” yelled Charlie, waving his English flag and pushing into Bill and Ron. His brother followed her with his Omnioculars.

“Theeeeeeeey’re OFF!” screamed Bagman. “And it’s Weasley! Hawksworth! Flitney! Dimitrov! Back to Weasley! Hawksworth! Levski! Flitney!”

The speed of the players was incredible – the chasers were throwing the quaffle to one another so fast that Bagman only had time to say their names. Charlie reached over to fight Ron’s Omnioculars off him but failed as he heard the name Weasley again.

The chasers had fallen into their Rowntree Counter, their signature move. They flew into a straight dive as red, white, and blue colors came streaming out of the back of their brooms – signifying the flag of the United Kingdom.

They knocked two of the opposing Bulgarian players teetering on their brooms and distracted the beaters. Flitney passed the quaffle to Hawksworth, who kicked it around before passing it back to Weasley.

(Y/N) did a magnificent overhead kick into the hoop on the far left.

“WEASLEY SCORES!” roared Bagman, and the stadium shuddered with a roar of applause and cheers. “Ten zero to England!”

Charlie jumped and waved his arms, screaming himself hoarse, “THAT’S MY WIFE! WEASLEY IS MY WIFE!”

Bill reached over and stuffed his UK flag over Charlie’s face to shut him up, and Ginny laughed, giving him her white and red rosette.

(Y/N) did a lap of honor around the field and threw a kiss towards the top box where Charlie waved his hands toward her, “I love you, baby!”

The England chasers were superb. They worked as a seamless team, their movements so well coordinated that they appeared to be reading one another’s minds as they positioned themselves, and the rosette now on Charlie’s chest kept squeaking their names: “Flitney – Weasley – Hawksworth!” And within ten minutes, England had scored twice more, bringing their lead to thirty-zero and causing a thunderous tide of roars and applause from the white-clad supporters.

Charlie watched as (Y/N) performed miraculous moves toward the goal posts. The continuous overhead kicks, the usage of the butt-end of her broom like a beater bat, and the intense throw of her arm was mesmerizing.

Charlie yelled and screamed until his face turned red, shouting his praise for his wife. The other members in the top box had to accept the fact that Charlie wasn’t going to shut up about his incredible player on the field.

It was just a continuous strain of, “THAT’S MY WIFE!” with a splendid look of pride and admiration on his cheery face.

“WEASLEY IS MY WIFE!”

~~~

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[theclockworkmonk]

Desire and Will

This is the most popular fic in my "Aang/Katara Missing Moments" series on AO3. This is the first time I'm posting it to tumblr.

Summary: With Aang still having trouble letting loose with his firebending, Zuko asks an alarming question:

"Have you ever kissed a girl?"

Words: 3,944

Read on AO3

FF.net

*******

Katara was awoken by what was, to her, the scariest sound in the world: the sound of Aang in pain.

"OW!" she heard him cry out, and she wrenched her eyelids open and rolled to face where his voice was coming from. There, she saw Aang still laying on the ground where he had been sleeping, rubbing his backside like it had been kicked. Towering over him, fists clenched and face scowling...was Zuko.

A jolt a fear cut through Katara's still half-asleep mind as she reached over for her bending skin and flicked it open with her thumb. She was ready to fight, ready to—

"You're burning daylight!" Zuko barked at Aang, "Get up! Twenty hot squats, now!"

Katara's sleep fog finally cleared and she remembered why Zuko was here in their camp. She remembered their whole reluctant arrangement to have Zuko teach Aang firebending, and the nerve-wracking few days they had disappeared together and apparently danced with dragons.

Katara groggily collapsed back onto her pillow, too tired to even growl at Zuko that the rest of them didn't have to train to defeat his evil dad, thankyouverymuch, so maybe bark his orders more quietly at absurd hours in the morning.

Aang seemed to be feeling the same way, because he just moaned in response. Zuko squatted down next to Aang and pointed out into the canyon that contained the Western Air Temple, where the sky was already turning blood red.

"You see that? That's sunrise, Avatar. That's the sign of a firebender's inner strength coming to life with a new day." He grabbed Aang by the shoulder and started shaking him, "Can you feel it, Aang? Can you feel your inner fire starting to reignite?"

"No," grunted Aang plainly.

Katara was remembering more now, and becoming more annoyed. Right, what had Zuko said to her at the north pole? "You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun?" of course it made perfect sense that on top of being cruel, bloodthirsty monsters, firebenders were also something far worse: morning people. Ugh, did this mean that Aang was also going to be a morning person from now on?

"Well we've got to fix that," said Zuko, and he practically dragged Aang to his feet and started pushing him off towards the courtyard that they used to train, that jutted out from underneath the rock overhang so they were actually in the sun. With their sleeping area quiet again, Katara tried to go back to sleep, but now the knowledge that Aang was off with Zuko, alone, at the other end of the temple was nagging at her brain. It wasn't like she thought Zuko would suddenly attack him or something; she had accepted by now that this wasn't some kind of absurdly elaborate plot against them—mainly because she didn't think Zuko was clever enough to pull off something like that. But still, whenever she thought about Aang with no one around him but Zuko, she found that she...didn't like it.

After a few minutes, she accepted that she wasn't getting any more sleep, so she got herself up and started making her way in the same direction Zuko and Aang had gone. As she was rounding the last corner before the courtyard, she started to hear their voices.

"So if my firebending wakes me up with the sun, and my waterbending keeps me up with the moon, when exactly am I supposed to sleep?"

"You slept for a hundred years, isn't that enough?"

Aang laughed, but Katara recognized it as his uncomfortable laugh. Aang never liked being reminded of all that time he wasn't there for the world, which Zuko would know if he wasn't such a heartless jerk and a terrible teacher. The fact that he barely knew Aang and had no way of knowing what he was uncomfortable with was entirely beside the point.

Katara decided to not announce her presence and instead leaned against one of the stone pillars within the shade of the overhang, while they were out in the increasingly bright morning sun. She was far enough away and in enough shade that they were unlikely to notice her, but if they did happen to look her way then she could plausibly deny she was snooping. She didn't like the idea of leaving Aang alone with Zuko, but she still realized hovering would interfere with them. Aang was always trying to impress her and Zuko was still visibly terrified of her ever since she threatened to kill him the day he joined their team (which she definitely didn't take any pride in).

Aang and Zuko finished their warm-ups and faced a target at the far end of the courtyard, a few wooden logs they had haphazardly nailed together in the vague shape of a human.

"Okay, let's see if that trip to almost get eaten by dragons was worth it," said Zuko, "set your stance..."

Aang positioned himself in a sideways battle stance in opposition to the dummy.

"Now, control your breathing…"

Aang drew in a deep breath and slowly released it.

"Now…STRIKE!"

Aang punched his right first towards the dummy, and a single fireball erupted from his knuckles, traveling about 10 yards to the dummy, briefly engulfing it in flames before dissipating. After the fire and smoke had quickly cleared, Katara saw that the dummy was slightly singed, with a few spots glowing orange for a few seconds before cooling down. Katara could feel the heat of the blast from where she was standing.

Zuko, however, didn't look impressed, "Well that was...certainly better, I guess."

"You guess!?" Aang incredulously asked out loud, and Katara incredulously asked in her head at the same time, "Come on, that was the biggest blast I've ever made!"

"Yeah, and if you were any other novice, we'd call that a really promising start. Heck, you might even be called a prodigy. People would be saying you could become a master in just a few years."

Aang's shoulders slumped in disappointment.

"But we don't have a few years, obviously, so sorry, but we need to find a way to fast-track this."

Aang threw his hands in the air, "Well what more can I possibly do!"

Zuko frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "Well to be honest, I think you're still being too timid and restrained. You're certainly doing a lot better than before our trip, but I still sense a lot of energy in you that you're not letting out."

Aang looked confused and started to get defensive, "Well of course I'm holding a little back, I'm trying to stay in control! Jong Jong said that firebending requires constant discipline or fire will destroy you. He didn't even let me shoot fire, he had me try to stop a bit of fire from growing, and when I didn't listen to him—" Aang managed to cut off his own rambling and managed to take a deep breath and closed his eyes, "that was when I burned Katara."

Zuko's face cycled through several different expressions as a lot of things suddenly started making sense.

"...Oh," was the only thing he could say.

Aang continued, "I hated that version of myself, even more than when I've gone into the Avatar State. After that, I promised myself I would never firebend at all!"

Katara tried to keep track of all the different emotions she was feeling. She was touched by the fact that Aang cared about her so much that the memory of hurting her still got him to be this upset, annoyed at him for being this worked up over something that happened months ago, she had long since forgiven, and was really not important in the context of their mission, and guilty that her getting hurt and the way she reacted had caused him this much heartache, even while she knew that she hadn't really done anything wrong.

Zuko sighed, raised his hand, and after a few seconds of hesitation, lightly patted Aang's shoulder in the most awkward, panicked "there-there" gesture Katara had ever seen.

"Look Aang," said Zuko, "I can't speak to what this 'Jong Jong' guy taught you. Maybe his way is better, I don't know, but it sounds like it takes a lot longer, and we don't have the luxury of being patient and deliberate about this."

He pulled on Aang's shoulder and turned him around so he would stop looking at his feet in self-pity and look his teacher in the face again, "The people of the world don't need their Avatar to be a wizened sage right now, they need a stick of dynamite."

Zuko took a few steps away and tried his best to pretend to be a wizened sage himself, "I can only teach you how I was taught, and I was taught that even when it's not fuelled by anger and rage, all firebending is still fuelled by strong emotion. When teaching me about the elements, my uncle said—let's see if I can get this right…"

He started rubbing his hand on an invisible large belly, stroking an invisible beard, and speaking in an old man's raspy voice in his best impersonation of his uncle.

"Fire is the element of Power. The people of the Fire Nation have Desire and Will, and the energy and drive to achieve what they want."

Aang chuckled at the impression, his mood clearly improving, while Zuko looked really impressed with himself. Katara wouldn't have been surprised to learn that this was the first time in his life the dour prince had made someone laugh.

"See what I mean? Remember what we learned with the dragons. Fire is Life. And passion for life is what fuels firebending. You need to stop thinking like a monk and use your passion."

Aang didn't look frustrated or dejected anymore, but he did look puzzled.

"Um...okay," Aang said, thoughtfully scratching his head, "How am I supposed to do that?"

Now it was Zuko's turn to get frustrated. He hadn't anticipated one of his jobs as a teacher being having to explain how to feel things to this guy. That was something he was not qualified for.

"I don't know," said Zuko, not hiding the annoyance in his voice, "just think about it. Try to recreate those emotions when you're channeling your energy for your bending, and it might make your firebending more powerful. Hasn't there ever been something you...desired? Coveted, even? Something that you needed to have or to win more than anything?"

Katara almost laughed out loud, boy are you barking up the wrong tree.

Aang spent a few seconds earnestly considering Zuko's question, "I don't think so. My people believed that worldly material possessions were meaningless, and attachment to them was the source of suffering. We didn't really have anything beyond what we needed and a few toys that we shared. I played games with all my friends, but I didn't really care much if I won, I just tried to make sure everybody had fun."

Katara was grinning at what an unbelievable dork the mighty savior of the world was.

Zuko, however, groaned and dragged both hands down his face, "Yeah, of course you did." It seemed to Katara that this was the first time Zuko was having to relate to someone who was actually a good person.

Aang just shrugged at Zuko's exasperation, "Sorry, hotman."

"Stop calling me that!" Zuko thought for several more seconds before his eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers with an idea, but then immediately looked like he regretted having the idea, and started looking deeply uncomfortable.

"Hey...can I ask you a personal question? It's going to sound weird and unrelated, but just trust me, okay?"

Aang raised an eyebrow, "Uh….sure?"

"Have you ever kissed a girl?"

Aang's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, his face turning bright pink, and Katara's heart seemed to stop in its tracks.

After what seemed like an eternity, Aang finally found his voice again, but all he could manage was a weak, "Uh...what?"

"Just bear with me for a second," pressed Zuko.

"Um," Aang squeaked, "Yes. Yes I have." and his face moved past pink into deep scarlet.

"Okay," breathed Zuko, "Now, I know I'm sounding like a gossiping school girl, but I promise I'm going somewhere with this. Ugh."

He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, like this conversation was physically painful. "Tell me about your first kiss," he finished in a too-deep voice, very transparently overcompensating.

Katara was positively screaming inside her own head, No Aang, do not, under ANY circumstances, tell him about your first kiss.

She felt like her heart and stomach had completely removed from her body. She refused to believe that these were the circumstances where The Incident between she and Aang was finally getting verbalized. Aang hadn't even bothered to talk to her about it yet, there was no way he was going to spill it all to Zuko. The fact that the main reason Aang hadn't talked to her about it was the fact that she had been avoiding him non-stop was entirely beside the point.

Katara started running through a hundred scenarios to try to find some way to stop this conversation. Should she rush in and pretend to be sick? Say that they're under attack? Just stay hidden and bloodbend them both unconscious? But before she could decide on one, to her horror, Aang started talking.

"Well," Aang began, his cheeks still red, "it was back at the Southern Air Temple—"

All of Katara's panic seemed to instantly vanish and be replaced with confusion.

Wait, what? Why is he telling him that? Katara thought, We barely knew each other at the Southern Temple….Does he THINK we kissed at the Southern Temple? I guess that would explain a lot. Did he hallucinate or something while in the Avatar State—

"—and she was part of a visiting caravan."

….Oh.

Oh.

"We got along really well while she was there, she was really good at all of my favorite games, and while we were saying goodbye she just kissed me."

OH.

"By the time I realized what was going on, she just giggled and jumped up on her bison."

Katara was simultaneously feeling unbelievable relief that her big secret wasn't being talked about and unbelievable white-hot fury at Aang. She had just spent several weeks believing that her first kiss had also been Aang's, and now she finds out that she's just the latest? Latest of how many? Exactly how friendly had he gotten with those fangirls on Kyoshi Island? She was two years older than him, by all rights she should be on at least equal footing with him in this mess between them, who gave him permission to have more experience with kissing than her? The fact that he had never once told her that he had never kissed a girl before was entirely beside the point.

But Katara cycled through all these thoughts in just a split second before calming herself down and realizing that she had no reason to care about this. What did it matter if Aang had kissed some girl a hundred years ago? It's not like she thought of Aang that way. Aang had clearly just misunderstood her platonic affections. It's not like she had ever seriously thought about kissing him (especially not during some of the more recent times she had kissed him on the cheek). In fact, she doubted that even he had given any serious thought to kissing. He just had a little crush and the intensity of the moment got to his head. So this is fine.

It's fine.

Seriously, it's fine.

It's completely fine. Whatever she was feeling certainly wasn't jeal—

"Wait, she kissed you?" Zuko interrupted Aang's rambling and yanked Katara back to reality, "I asked you if you had ever kissed a girl."

"Well you also asked me to tell you about my first kiss!" Aang yelled with his hands in the air, frustrated again, "Which one is it!" He was clearly angry that in his panic he had revealed an embarrassing story for no reason.

Zuko put his palms up defensively, "Okay, okay, sorry, bad wording on my part. So, to clarify: have you ever kissed someone else? Have you ever been the one to take the initiative?"

Katara's heart started racing again. Why couldn't Zuko get distracted and drop this?

"Um…" Aang's face had been red before, but now all the color seemed to drain from it and he looked like a ghost, "...yes. But I don't think dwelling on that will help fix my problem. In fact, it's kind of a downer, actually."

"Why, was she an airbender too?" Zuko asked. He supposed dwelling on a girl he had feelings for that had been killed a hundred years ago would be counterproductive in fueling Aang's inner fire.

Despite how angry she had gotten at Aang's kissing experience, Katara now found herself hoping this girl was another airbender.

"No," Aang responded, rubbing the back of his neck, "this was after I came out of the ice. Pretty recent, in fact…"

No such luck.

"Okay, so what's the problem?" asked Zuko.

"Well...it didn't exactly work out well for me. She didn't really kiss me back."

Katara scowled, well that's not fair, she thought with more than a little bitterness. It's not like she had a chance to. You're not allowed to act upset if someone doesn't kiss you back when you spring a kiss on them with no warning and then fly away before they even know what's going on. If he hadn't been so dramatic and used his actual words then she would have—

Katara let out a gasp of fear at where her train of thought was leading her. She would have….what, exactly? If she had known the kiss was coming ahead of time, what would she have done? Let him down easy? Told him to focus on the mission? Thrown him into the ocean?...or would she have kissed him back?

No.

Well…

Certainly not.

Maybe?

Perhaps if they tried again wow where did THAT thought come from?

Meanwhile, back in reality, Zuko was waving away Aang's concerns, "That doesn't matter. Don't think about anything that happened afterward. Just bring yourself back to that one moment, where you overcame caution and went after what you wanted. Set your stance."

Aang faced the dummy and resumed his fighting stance.

Katara couldn't help but inch a little closer away from her "hiding" spot. Now that Zuko had stopped pressing Aang for details and was doing his job, she felt like she could observe with a nervous curiosity instead of outright panic.

"Now," instructed Zuko, "take a deep breath, close your eyes, and picture this girl, how she looked in that moment."

Aang's eyes closed and drew in a breath.

Katara swallowed hard. At this moment, there was no more uncertainty about Aang. He was thinking about her, in that way, right now. And that knowledge made her hold her breath and made her face get a little warm.

"Try to remember how you felt immediately beforehand. How she made you feel. Try to recreate how your heartbeat was affected. It's starting to get faster and harder. How your breathing changed—remember, it's your breath that creates energy in the body for firebending. Yours is getting shallower and more intense. Remember how your stomach muscles reacted. They're tensing in anticipation. Now, in your mind's eye, make your move and kiss her, and at the same time….STRIKE!"

Aang punched his right fist towards the dummy, and his hand exploded.

There was no whoosh like with the previous fireball, but a roar as a conical wave of fire erupted from Aang's knuckles, completely enveloping the dummy 10 yards away and continuing onward to blast past the outer railing of the stone courtyard into the vast expanse of the canyon. And to Katara's alarm, it kept going. It wasn't a single blast but a continuous, monstrous stream of fire easily 15 feet wide at its biggest and so hot that Katara had to turn away and shield her eyes.

Several seconds later, the flames finally died down and Aang blinked his eyes open, looking equal parts proud and terrified of himself. The wooden dummy….did not exist anymore. There was no way to tell if Aang had burned it to ashes or simply blasted it backwards into the canyon. The previously white stones that made up the part of the courtyard that had been in front of Aang were now blackened and cracked.

Zuko had reflexively thrown up his arms to shield his face, stumbling backward. He was still sitting on the ground, eyes widened to the size of Appa's, and his mouth hanging open in shock. He sat there for several more silent seconds until Aang gave an awkward cough, then his face split into the biggest grin Katara had ever seen on him and he started cackling with delirious relief and excitement.

"All right!" Zuko exclaimed, jumping to his feet, "Now that's what I'm talking about!" he loudly clapped his hand on Aang's back, who had returned to looking embarrassed.

"No, don't you clam up again," warned Zuko, "hold onto that feeling. Come on, I'll show you how to make a flame whip."

Katara slinked backward away from her pillar and began a very undignified scurry back to their sleeping area. The fire had long since dissipated, but her face still felt hot and flustered, and her stomach felt like it was doing somersaults. Her mind was filled up by the same three words, repeating over and over again:

I did that.

Thinking about her made Aang able to do that. She could no longer simplify things by telling herself that this was just a confusing crush he had let get to his head. For most of the time she had known Aang, the thought that he would have any….desires like that for anyone simply didn't compute for her. He was too selfless, too kind, too pure. He was a monk for crying out loud.

But what she just saw Zuko coax out of her sweet, innocent friend was….not pure. Had he had this inside of him the entire time? And what brought this out of him was thinking about her. Thinking about kissing her. As much as she tried to deny it, when she thought about this power she had over him….she liked it. She was now able to see Aang in a new light, and at least consider the possibility of being more than friends with him.

But she still fought against it, because that realization was absolutely terrifying.

Katara shook her head and splashed some of her bending water on her face. She resolved to keep doing what she had been doing: focusing on their mission. She could sort out all this confusion when the war was over.

Although….

If the goal was to help Aang defeat the Fire Lord and end the war, then naturally they all had an obligation to assist Aang with his bending in any way they could, right? So she supposed it couldn't hurt to give Aang the occasional extra-tight hug now and then. Purely for training purposes, of course.

After all, she thought with a slight smirk as she arrived back at camp, everyone else still sound asleep, what kind of teacher would I be if I didn't give my student the attention he needed?

#kataang #aang x katara #katara and aang #avatar aang #aang #katara #zuko #avatar #avatar: the last airbender #avatar: tla #atla #atla fanfic #missing scene #one shot #feelings #tsundere #avatar fanfiction

[natromanxoff]

Queen live at National Bowl in Milton Keynes, UK - June 5, 1982 (Part-1)

(x)

It was originally intended for the band to play this concert at Arsenal Stadium in Highbury, but it was moved to Milton Keynes for the same reason the Leeds show wasn't played at the famed Old Trafford. It's also worth noting that the band wanted to play at London's famous Royal Albert Hall as well, but the plan was never orchestrated as there was much fear that the weight of Queen's lighting rig would make the ceiling cave in. An early tour itinerary listed two London shows (June 4 and 5) on the agenda. The Teardrop Explodes were among the bands (the same line-up as last week in Leeds) who opened for Queen at this show. Their guitarist, Julian Cope, stood before about 40 thousand Queen fans and introduced the next song as being probably the best song they had ever heard, prompting someone near the stage to throw a toilet seat at him, which missed (people are known to bring cameras and certain substances to concerts, but toilet seats?). Lemonade bottles were then thrown at the guitarist which he tossed back into the audience. The complete Queen concert was filmed. A shortened video was shown on UK TV on a show called "The Tube" in January 1983 (omitting Action This Day, the bit of Las Palabras de Amor, Back Chat, Get Down Make Love, part of the guitar solo, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Another One Bites The Dust, and Sheer Heart Attack), and on MTV in the US in August 1983 (the latter was a simulcast, with the audio being broadcast on FM radio in stereo, on the west coast, at least). The video was edited by Gavin Taylor, who was later invited by the band to direct the now famous video at Wembley Stadium in 1986. An even shorter version (about 50 minutes long) of the Milton Keynes video was shown on UK TV in 2001 (and many times since). Both the Milton Keynes and Wembley shows would eventually be released on DVD uncut. The 2004 official release of this show (both on CD and DVD) is called "Queen On Fire: Live At The Bowl". The DVD is a beautiful document of Queen's show at the time, packed full of classic Queen moments. There are also extras from 1982 shows in Vienna and Tokyo. After a great version of Play The Game, Freddie essentially apologizes to the audience for much of the latest album's content: "Now most of you know that we've got some new songs out in the last week. For what it's worth we're gonna do a few songs in the funk/black category, whatever you call it. That doesn't mean we've lost our rock and roll feel, okay? I mean it's only a bloody record. People get so excited about these things! We just wanna try out a few songs. This is Staying Power." For some reason part of the speech was removed for the CD release of "Live At The Bowl." Without a doubt this is his definitive live delivery of the song, pulling off all of the stops. Mercury is at his peak tonight. Somebody To Love has been a vocal adventure of Freddie's for the past couple years. His intro is different every night, as is his solo spot towards the end. The version captured here on film is surely one of his best. Before launching into the familiar piano theme, he asks the audience in a moment for the ages, "Are you ready?" And in excitement, "Huh? Are you ready brothers and sisters?" Part way through his vocal exchange with the audience in Now I'm Here, Freddie says, "C'mon, we're gonna make you sing like Aretha Franklin." At the end of the successful duel, he jokingly says, "Right, you can join the band!" The r&b influence is never more evident than it is here, and it makes for a classic version of the song. Brian breaks a string just before his guitar solo in Dragon Attack. While he switches to a Red Special copy, John Deacon gets to play the bass solo as it's heard on the record - the one and only time he has the chance to do it. It's on the fly, and he nails it note for note. "Las Palabras de Amor" was released as a single a few days ago, and Brian plays a small bit of it on his 12-string acoustic before Love Of My Life. He then mentions how the band won't be playing their "song of peace" tonight, as he calls it. This remains the only show where the Hot Space ballad would be referenced. Brian's guitar briefly cuts out during his solo spot, a moment that was edited out of the 1983 TV broadcasts (and slightly edited on the CD release) but seen uncut on the DVD. Brian's guitar tech is seen rushing on and off stage within seconds, having quickly resolved the issue (it was likely a sticky pickup switch). About half way through Sheer Heart Attack, Brian sneaks in the riff from I Go Crazy an octave up, and much faster, to match the tempo of the energetic News Of The World rocker. The song would be dropped from the set after this show, only to emerge again late in the pending North American tour. This would be Morgan Fisher's last show with the band as the touring keyboardist. A number of theories abound about his departure, including butting heads with Mercury's personal manager Paul Prenter or his apparent fear of flying, but it was simply a case of him moving on to other gigs (Fisher confirmed in a 2009 interview that he has never been afraid of airplanes). The CD and DVD releases would be patched up a bit, most notably in the third verse of Fat Bottomed Girls where Freddie's voice cracked badly on "locality," as well as for "now I'm here, now I'm there." Roger's timing with the guitar delays at the end of May's solo spot was bit off at the show, but this is fixed up as well. The sound quality as a whole is much better than the broadcasts, but there are a couple differences in the mix - some of Brian's backing vocals (particularly at the end of Somebody To Love) can be clearly heard in the broadcast mix but were brought down for the official releases, and compression has been added to Roger's snare drum, giving it a much fatter sound compared to Queen Rock Montreal. Brian May and Roger Taylor are interviewed before the show, as shown on the Bowl DVD and the original TV broadcasts. Brian reveals that he really enjoys playing Play The Game. He explains, "You've done your leaping about, and you've made your statement on your entry. And then you can settle down and start really playing something." Roger says his current favourite is Under Pressure. On the day before this show Freddie's boyfriend at the time had bitten him between his thumb and forefinger during a fight, causing it to bleed profusely and require stitches. On the DVD, Freddie is seen tossing the bandage around just before coming on stage. The sixth picture was submitted by Fabio Minero, and the eighth is from Alessio Rizzitelli. The second set was taken by Brenski.

(x)

Fan Stories

“At the time, I was living on the Mull Of Kintyre on the West coast of Scotland. I remember being elated at getting tickets for the last gig of the UK tour. I always tried to get 'last night' tickets, because the band were famous for always going a little more 'over the top' on each of their tour's final nights. So, we drove down from Scotland, which took an eternity with fuel and meal stops, and stayed at the in-law's on the south coast of England. The next day we set for the 'new-town' of Milton Keynes, about 100 miles or so, away. We got there quite early before the gates opened and the weather was unsettled, lightly raining for about five minutes nearly every other hour. The support bands for the day were 'Teardrop Explodes', who had a fairly big hit with a song called 'Reward'. I quite liked Julian Cope and his band, but this WAS a rock gig, and the audience weren't generally as receptive to this brass backed 'new romantic' style of music. The customary sea of lemonade bottles headed towards the stage ensued. Now it was over twenty years ago, and the memory starts to fade a bit after a while, so I'm not sure whether 'Heart' were next on, or 'Joan Jett and the Blackhearts'. Either way, both bands played well, and were most enjoyable. Joan Jett had recently had a very big hit with 'I Love Rock'n'Roll' (very recently covered by Britney Spears), and the crowd loved that one. This was prior to 'Heart' having a major hit in the UK, but they were at that time an established and well known band. Looking at the stage, there were these items that looked like little vehicles hanging from the gantry, we later found out that these were individual self contained lighting platforms with a guy sat in each directing three spotlights wherever they were required to do so. The Queen set itself started with an extended backing tape from the intro of Flash Gordon. Most of you will have seen the video of this gig, so I won't labour on about what they played too much. Only that the crowd, as a whole, weren't into the 'Hot Space' numbers that much. Personally, I was watching my favourite band, so I didn't really care what they played, as long as it was theirs. The bits cut out of the video, included an intro to 'Las Palabras De Amor' from Brian, (just before 'Love Of My Life'), though they never actually played the whole song, Brian announced that they were not doing their song of peace tonight. Brian's two-day guitar solo was edited out, as was 'Fat Bottomed Girls', the intro harmonies on this did come across as pretty iffy, and of all songs, they also edited out 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love', much to my disappointment, as I'd heckled Freddie about his ability as a guitarist, and 'stone me', he only went and answered me. Knebworth '86 was a much better show, but I know I'm lucky enough to have had the honour to be able to compare them.”  - Steve_C/Kes

Part-2

Part-3

#queen #queen band #roger taylor #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon #queen concerts

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Home Bound (Part 2)

Summary: With some help from Samson, Dean makes it back to the bunker and starts to process everything that’s happened...

Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x reader

Word Count: 2,700ish

Warnings: language, angst, injury, mention of character death, mourning, supernatural events

A/N: Written entirely in Dean’s POV. Enjoy!

______

“Morning,” said Sam as I groggily sat up. He was cooking in the kitchen, humming a happy tune to himself.

“God, it’s barely seven in the morning,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

“I’ve already been up for an hour,” he said. “Eggs?”

“If you’re offering,” I said, stumbling over to his bathroom. I changed back into my clothes, yawning as I sat down at the table. He put down a cup of coffee and plate of scrambled eggs along with some hot sauce. 

“You got any money to get by?” he asked, standing at his counter eating.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, wolfing down my food. 

“Here,” he said, pushing an envelope towards me. I leaned over and grabbed it, opening it up to find a wad of money. “It’s about five hundred. S’all I got laying around the house. That enough to get you home?”

“Samson I can’t accept this,” I said, putting the envelope back.

“I wasn’t really asking,” he said, setting it down on the table next to me. “I’d let you take my car but I need it for work.”

“Sam, it doesn’t look like you got much. I’m not taking your life savings,” I said.

“I have a bank account, jackass. It’s not my savings. Don’t worry about it. Go home, take care of what needs to be done and yourself. You’re getting closer to popping. Pay it forward some day,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said, drinking down the last of my coffee. I tucked the envelope in my pocket and he set his mug down.

“I’ll drive you to the bus station,” he said. I put on my boots by the front door as he rummaged around in a closet. He pulled out a black winter coat and held it out to me. “For if you decide you need a walk again.”

“Write down your address,” I said, handing him back the envelope.

“Alright. I don’t want any money or the jacket back. Send me a Christmas card or something,” he said. He returned it after a moment and grabbed his keys as I slipped into the coat. “Better?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks man.”

“S’no problem. Let’s get you home.”

36 Hours Later

My hands were shoved in the fleece lined pockets as I walked up the dirt road to the bunker. The ice storm in Colorado had followed me all the way back to Kansas but the hooded winter coat made all the difference in the world. I couldn’t wait to take a hot shower and curl up in bed with one of Y/N’s blankets. 

What happened after...I wasn’t going to be able to put off later for much longer. Now that I was home though, I could let go and get my head on straight in the morning to figure out what had happened.

With a deep breath I stepped down to the door and opened it up. The heat had been left on and the hallway was cozy. I stepped through to the other door inside and found the lights were on too, exactly as they were when we’d all headed out. Just in case, Y/N said. She didn’t want to come home to a dark house.

I headed down the stairs and cut into the library, the space feeling far too big for just me.

“I miss you,” I said. I pinched my nose and heard a creak behind me. I spun around, eyes wide.

“Dean?” said Sam. My Sam, the one that must have died, must have, was right there, in pajamas and with a bowl of chips in his hand.

“I die and now you eat the crap, Sammy?” I said. He set the bowl down and rushed over, giving me a hug. “I’m getting you all wet.”

“Don’t care,” he said. He squeezed me hard and I let out a tiny gasp, Sam giving me some room after that. He looked confused though and shook his head. “How…”

“Was gonna ask you the same thing,” I said.

“I didn’t die. You pushed me out of the way,” he said.

“I don’t remember that,” I said. “You were right there. Since I woke up I assumed…”

Sam was smiling at me still but the hunter in him finally kicked in. I nodded to the cabinet where everything he’d need to test me was. Three minutes later he was hugging me too hard again.

“Relax, Sammy. Gonna pop my shoulder back out,” I said. He immediately released me and I cradled my arm. “I fixed it already.”

“Still. You should wear the sling Y/N bought,” he said. We wandered over to the infirmary and he dug around in a drawer until he pulled it out.

“Is she…” I said, taking off my jackets and slipping it on over my head. Sam shook his head and I sighed. “You don’t know that for sure. Up until five minutes ago you thought I was dead too.”

“True but, you know,” he said. I nodded, staring at the floor. “Cas is alright. Billie got him back from the empty. He’s up in heaven trying to help keep that going. They’re trying out this new method or something.”

“Not your memories?” I asked, heading for the kitchen.

“No. I mean kinda. More like, collective afterlife? It uses a lot less power I guess,” said Sam. “They’re doing small test groups right now he said. I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“How’s he alive again?” I asked.

“Billie brought him back,” he said as we walked over to the kitchen.

“How’s Jack?”

“He’s doing okay. He got pretty hurt during the fight. I took care of him for a few weeks before he headed out. New God and all. He’s still learning.”

“He bring me back?” I asked.

“He doesn’t know how to do that yet. He says he feels like he will be able to someday, like it’s in his bones but he doesn’t know quite right now how to pull it off,” said Sam.

“So how am I back?”

“I honestly have no idea,” he said. I took a seat at the table, catching Y/N’s mug sat at the end in her usual spot. “We gave you guys a hunter’s funeral. There’s a little marker up in the woods a ways, in that clearing you two used to go have dates in.”

“There’s no body then.”

“No. Where’d you wake up?” he asked, taking two beers out of the fridge.

“Middle of nowhere Colorado,” I said. “Any idea why?”

“No, not really. Any place we ever hunt?”

“No. I met a guy. Samson, apparently dad and I saved his folks back in the day while you were at school. But they didn’t live there. I never...I never met the guy,” I said. “He knew who I was but he’d never met me.”

“You think he was lying?”

“He was nice to me when I was an ass. I don’t think he was playing at anything. How would he know what I looked like though?”

“It’s possible I suppose that he reached out to other hunters and learned more about you? I mean the girls got pictures of us. Maybe Eileen?”

“Maybe,” I said, shaking my head. “Shit, Sam. How’s-”

“She’s good,” said Sam with a small smile. “She’s over in Lawrence at the moment actually. She’s looking at houses for us.”

“You guys deserve to finally be together,” I said. “She’s good for you.”

“I know.”

“Gonna stop hunting?”

“I don’t really need to anymore. We kind of turned them all human,” said Sam. I cocked my head and he shrugged. “The hail mary? It worked. No more monsters.”

“That’s great,” I said, forcing a smile. Great. I couldn’t even bury myself in hunting to feel slightly less crappy. I was worthless.

“I’m heading out to meet Eileen in a few days. Come with me.”

“Nah, I don’t wanna intrude or-”

“You can have some space but you’re not staying here alone,” he said.

“Y/N’s dead. I have no job now. I’m not gonna be the brooding mope sitting at the end of your couch when you finally get to be with your girl.”

“Dean,” said Sam as I stood up.

“I really want to shower and sleep, Sammy. I’m cold and exhausted. Please,” I said.

“You’re gonna come with,” he said. I clenched my fist and glared over my shoulder. “Y/N wrote you a letter for if she didn’t make it back. It’s in your room. When I thought you both...I read it in case she wanted something to be done after she was gone. You know the only thing she said? You need to go live your life. She loves you and wants you to be happy.”

“Easy for her to say. She’s not here,” I said.

“Dean. I know this is raw for you and I’ve had four months to deal you didn’t. Don’t disrespect what she wanted.”

“Oh fuck you,” I said. I stormed out, pausing around the corner. I heard him behind me and slumped my shoulders down. “I’m sorry.”

“S’okay,” he said.

“She was supposed to live, not me,” I said. “Cause she’s stronger than I am and I can’t deal with her not being in that bedroom when I go down this hall.”

“Dean. Grieve. Please. For the first time in your life, grieve properly. When you’re ready, you and me will go out to Lawrence. I’m gonna call Eileen and make sure she finds a place where you got a big room and your own bathroom and garage and all that. Until then, I’m gonna stay here. Ignore me, yell at me, whatever. I’m staying. Alright?”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I want a pool too.”

“Dean.”

“Hot tub.”

“We’ll put one in.”

“Fine,” I said. He ruffled my hair and I headed down to the bathroom. I slipped out of my clothes, pulling out the envelope with a few hundred dollars left. “Sammy.”

“What?” he called back.

“Figure out who this guy was,” I said, holding the envelope out the door. “That’s his name and address.”

“Whiltiston,” said Sam, making a face. “You sure this is his name?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You wouldn’t know. About two months back, the Whiltiston family was in the news. National news. They’d been reunited with their daughter who was kidnapped as an infant. She was safe. The people who took her pretended to be her parents. They were real sickos. I’d hunt ‘em down if they weren’t already dead,” said Sam.

“So this guy’s her brother?” I asked.

“Yeah, there was a brother Sam I remember mentioned at the press conference. They didn’t show anyone but the dad but they were all really happy to be back together,” he said.

“Still doesn’t explain how he knows what I look like.”

“They said the girl has a sketchy memory of certain things. I mean they were bad people, Dean. It’s possible we worked her case and didn’t know?” he said.

“See if you can dig up a phone number for me too,” I said.

“Yeah. I’ll see if...you know, we’ve been in the national news before too. It’s entirely possible that one of his parents saw us on the news and told him that was you.”

“Oh. That’s...a lot more likely,” I said, frowning to myself. “Forget about it. Could you just slip in some extra cash in there for me? I’ll send it back along with the coat. The guy didn’t have much.”

“No problem. I’ll get you the phone number too. I know you’ll drive yourself nuts if you don’t know for sure.”

“Sam,” I said as he started to leave. “I’m really happy you’re not dead.”

“Me too. Take your shower. I’ll put out some pajamas for you.”

I nodded and shut the door, resting my head against the back of it. After a moment I went to the shower and turned the water on, forgetting about the prickly heat until my skin turned a slight pink and started to warm up. Somehow I got through with washing myself before I saw Y/N’s shampoo staring back at me in the cubby. I swallowed and picked it up, flipping open the cap and taking a deep inhale.

It took awhile and one concerned knock at the door to realize at some point I’d sat down with my knees in my chest, Y/N’s shampoo sat on the ground beside me.

“Dean? You okay? You’ve been in there for an hour,” said Sam. I buried my head down and heard the door creek open. “Dean? Answer me or I’m coming in.”

“I’m fine,” I said, voice raw and cracking with every syllable. Sam didn’t open the door anymore but he was still there.

“Turn off the water,” he said. I reached up and hit it off, wiping the back of my hand across my nose. “You have one minute to dry off and put on a towel.”

The door shut and I forced myself to get up. I patted myself off and got a towel around my waist, trying to wash my face off before Sam saw me.

“I’m coming in,” said Sam. One look at him said more than enough and I looked away. “I told you to grieve.”

“Her freaking shampoo bottle,” I said. Sam looked over to the shower and saw it on the ground, running his hand through his hair. “Why can’t I shove it down like every other time?”

“You know why. There’s no chance of you getting her back and she wouldn’t want you to do something stupid. You loved her. You’re always gonna love her. Dean, I’ve been there with Jessica. It’s gonna fuck you up real good for a while. I thought I’d never be happy again, not like that, and then I found Eileen. It feels like the end of your life but it’s not,” he said. “It’s not going away if you shove it down so just feel it.”

“Yeah,” I said. I brushed past him and went to my room, shutting the door to change. I left it closed and sat on the edge of the bed, catching his shadow under the door. It moved away after a minute and I let out a sigh. The room smelled musty which I appreciated. It was something different to focus on. 

I rolled over to Y/N’s side of the bed and saw the letter Sam had mentioned on her nightstand. I ripped it off and found it wasn’t as long as I’d expected. She probably did it last minute.

De, I love you. I’m always going to love you. I need you to try to keep loving and not shut the world out. Find some happiness again or I’m gonna haunt you like I’m your own personal Casper. Okay? You’ll get there someday. My big green flannel is in the closet if you need it. Be safe (I’ll keep an eye out for you though, promise).

My head glanced up and over to the closet, staring before I stood and opened it. At the end was her big oversized green flannel. She’d stolen so many of my clothes over the years she’d decided to get something of hers I could take for myself.

I pulled it off the hook and brought it back to bed, tugging it on before I lay back on the mattress.

It too was a little musty but there was the faint scent of her shampoo again filling the air. 

“Fuck, I miss you,” I said. I shut my eyes and turned off the light, hoping exhaustion would put me to sleep quickly.

_______

A/N: Read the Final Part here!

#dean winchester #supernatural #spn #dean x reader #spn reader insert #supernatural reader insert #dean x #spn fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester x reader #dean series

[blush-and-books]

🥳🎉 Congrats on 1.5k followers!!!🎉🥳

My four word prompt for you is

One: famous au

Two: fluff

Three: meeting

Four: autographs

And anything you come up with will be amazing 💕💕ily

once again i got carried away. but who is surprised??? this was so much fun!!!

Luke Patterson was excited to be at the Grammys for many, many reasons -- but only part of it (a big part) was because Sunset Curve was nominated.

Best Rock Album, Record of the Year, and Best Rock Performance were their three nominations for their third album, Demo Tapes, and specifically their singles Now Or Never (rock performance) and Unsaid Emily (record of the year). It was all that the boys had been working towards, seeing as this was their first time around after a near revolt towards the academy last year for snubbing their sophomore, self-titled album. The four of them were beaming with excitement in their custom suits -- God, custom, as uppity as it was, Luke couldn’t deny he looked hot. 

However, besides the fact that the four boys were rocking their suits and were going to be honored to perform Now Or Never on the same stage that their inspirations had done decades before -- Luke couldn’t help the bubbling in his stomach that he might run into Julie Molina on the red carpet. 

Yes, the Julie Molina. 

After revealing during a round of Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts on the Late-Late Show that Julie was Luke’s raging celebrity crush, and she exposed the same truth about him while playing Plead The Fifth on Watch What Happens Live, Luke had been itching to meet her in person. 

Both of them seemed to be on the other sides of the country -- hell, even the world -- at different times, from running the talk show circuit to world touring. He knew they were both from LA, but it never felt like they were home at the same time. 

Tonight, she was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Pop Vocal Performance, and yes; Record of the Year, too. And this was only for her sophomore album, Wake Up, and her leading single of the same name. The single had debuted at #1 on the charts and knocked Now Or Never to #3 (it was competing with All Eyes On Me, by Dirty Candi), while the album had been switching with Demo Tapes on the charts for the last month. 

He was honestly hoping that they would get the chance to communicate, or even collab, at some point -- as many avid fans online were urging -- because he was pretty sure she was one of the most talented songwriters in the next generation of the music industry.

He thought they could make each other even better. 

His plan was honestly to try and track her down on the red carpet, and if that didn’t work, he would find her in the auditorium. She would probably be in the front row next to Adele or Beyonce anyways, seeing as how she was (as deserved) America’s Darling. 

“Dude,” Alex elbows him in the gut and gestures to the line of paparazzi and reporters with flashing cameras in microphones. “Stop staring into space and smile. And walk us on, lead guitarist.”

The nickname is said with spite and a smirk, but Luke is overall grateful that Alex centered him in the moment once again and got him to quit looking for Julie. 

She probably wasn’t even there yet, so he shouldn’t worry about it. 

(Even though he’s definitely been fantasizing about how stunning she’ll look tonight.)

Him and the boys walk up to a few reporters to hyperactively answer a few questions while finding time in between to pause for photos of all of them together, and some individual shots. They are in the middle of being ushered down the red carpet when he hears it:

“Julie! Julie Molina! Come here darling, I would love to talk to you!”

There are a few people in between them, but she’s there -- in a stunning, bright purple dress covered in sparkles and small diamonds. Her curls are flawlessly pulled back but still twirling down behind her head, and to be blunt -- she takes his breath away, even though he can’t see her clearly. 

“Luke! Luke!” A photographer is calling out to him, so he is sure to face back and sling his left arm around Reggie as the band poses for a few more group shots. Once again, a technician is guiding them to walk right to proceed along the carpet, and Luke catches that Julie is still being interviewed. 

He doesn’t realize he’s staring when a reporter, the same reporter that’s interviewing Julie, is calling him over. 

And Julie is still standing there, visibly blushing under layers of makeup and sending him a sheepish, apologetic smile. 

Without hesitation, he jogs over, and hugs the reporter. 

“Hi, Grace! It’s good to see you!”

“Luke Patterson, you are the talk of the night -- besides my other guest, Miss Julie Molina, of course.” Grace gestures to both of them, and Luke sees that Julie is still avoiding her eyes, and even though they are currently broadcast on national television he just wants to talk to her. 

“Yes, of course, I’ve been looking forward to getting to officially meet her all night.”

Julie’s head whips to the left to look at him -- he meets her eyes with his classic, joyous Luke Patterson grin. When she reflects it, he feels like the final nail has been hammered into his coffin. 

“No, you have not!” She slaps his arm playfully. “I should have known you’d be a flirt when I met you.”

“So what you’re saying is… You’ve thought about meeting me too?”

Their moment is interrupted by the reporter. “Wait, you two haven’t met before? That’s impossible!”

“And incredibly disappointing,” Luke jumps in. “All of our fans keep asking us to meet but we’ve been touring at the same times, and the timing’s just never been right.”

“I just told Marie Claire last week that Lu- Sunset Curve, sorry, was my dream collab for the future. Our sounds could blend so well!”

Luke’s heart just about shoots out of his chest, so he tries to control himself by biting his lip with a smile. The reporter doesn’t miss it. “Luke, you look happy about that!”

“I- I-” His stutter emerges, but he quickly swallows and changes directions. “It’s just really cool to hear that, we listen to Julie’s music all the time at home, and I have spent an unhealthy amount of time imagining a collaboration, so hearing she feels the same way tells me already that we would creatively blend really well.”

At his side, Julie beams at him. His cheeks hurt from smiling so much, and she’s giggling at his sweet words, and in the split moment that the reporter tries to regain their focus -- their hands brush together as they spin back to face Grace. 

In a bold move, Luke raises his fingers towards hers like they are magnets, and holds his breath while he waits for a reaction. 

He can finally breathe when her fingers link in his; her soft skin brushing along and sending sparks up his arm. 

“Well, I should let you guys go,” Grace says with a sigh, “but thank you both so much for taking the time! Can we expect a possible Julie Molina/Sunset Curve collab anytime soon?”

Surprisingly, Julie takes the lead on this one, her fingers tightening around his hand. 

“If it’s not the next song that I release, then somethings wrong and you guys will need to send help.”

You have a band, Luke tells himself, a band that you need to talk to about-

“I second that,” he finds himself saying with a squeeze to Julie’s hand. 

As the reporter hypes up their announcement while facing the camera, they start to walk away, and Luke realizes he has to rejoin the band on the carpet and not get to stand here and hold Julie’s hand and tell every reporter that he is holding Julie Molina’s hand! 

Julie turns to him. “See you in there?”

“See you in there,” Luke smirks, “I’ll be the one on my feet when you sing.”

“And I’ll be the one holding the Grammy.”

And with a wink, as Luke shakes his head with an awed grin, she makes her way back to the carpet.

--

As it turns out, they do find each other later. Shockingly, Julie asks the band for an autograph, because -- despite Luke’s teasing -- her little brother is apparently a huge fan.

She is the victor in the competition for Record of the Year, but Sunset Curve pulls away with two trophies from their other nominations, and Luke can’t find it in him to be anything but overjoyed for themselves and Julie -- especially as he watches her sing, captivate the entire audience, and get everyone on their feet at the end. 

In a burst of impulsiveness, she joins them in their van after the ceremony; but instead of going to an afterparty, they drive to the boys’ house on the beach and Luke finds himself curled up on the couch in his custom suit right next to Julie (who is almost on top of him), furiously writing down new songs and beginning their collaboration then and there. 

It turns out, they were wrong about one thing. 

The next song released by the two artists isn’t the collab -- the next album is. Julie and the Phantoms becomes their official collaboration project, and spirals into more of a hit than their individual groups. 

Twelve months later, they are back at the Grammys, and everything is the same -- only they are no longer competing. They are a team. And Luke couldn’t be happier about it; especially when he shows up on Julie’s arm.

@willexx @unsaid-emily  

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #jatp fanfic #juke #juke fanfic

[awkwardemons]

(this is all based on rp!) Okay, before I get into this I want to say I love Phil, both the character and the content creator! And in this, I am talking not about the meta reasoning for things, but the in-world reasoning for things. That being said the whole “Wilbur was lying in the letters and so Phil did not know that anything was wrong until the letters stopped” just does not make sense based on what has been previously shown.

Now I didn’t see the full stream where Phil talked about the letters, but from what I gathered here are the main points

- Tubbo became the president during the elections, being given the presidency after Wilbur won

- Wilbur left L’Manberg of his own choice

- Phil does not know Schlatt other than him being dead

- Was not aware of Wlbur’s mental state

- Was not aware of the button room

- Was not aware of Willbur’s plan to blow up L’Manberg

So that’s all well and good. However, here is a line by line analysis of the Button Room scene that now makes absolutely zero sense with this hot new spin on it. Now, you could argue that anything Phil said before he logs onto the server is not canon. I disagree, but I understand. I would argue that because he joins the server because of what happens right before, and what he hears, that it is canon. I will be starting slightly before he physically joins, so bear with me

Tubbo: I’m gonna be honest, I really don’t know what a president does! [everyone, including Phil, laughs]

Wilbur: I’ll be back, I’ll be back.

Phil: Wait, where’s Will going?

Wilbur, who cannot hear Phil: Chekhov's Gun. Chekhov's Gun.

Phil: Is he done? Is he done streaming?

Wilbur: I’ll be honest with you, chat. I’ve been wondering this whole time if it still works.

Now, this is important. Wilbur does not say any specifics. He says “it’. This sentence is extremely vague. Anyone who did not know exactly what he was talking about would have no clue.

Phil: [music cuts out] Oh no....

This reaction doesn’t make any sense unless Phil knows what Wilbur is planning. Theoretically, he should not be concerned by this.

Wilbur: I’ve been thinking to myself would- would it- does it still- Because I fixed it up for today, but [Phil: Mate...] as you know before someone- someone- Last time i pressed it someone had removed the redstone.

Alright, so, now all Phil should know is there is some button that is/was connected to redstone. That could mean so many different things.

Wilbur: There's um... I always- Whenever I’m here I’m reminded of the song that I’ve scribbled on the walls. Then, you know.. That there was a special place, there was. Was a special place where men could go and emancipate, you know? And there was definitely that special did exist once, it did, it did. But even with- I- Even with Tubbo in charge, I don’t think it can exist again.

Once again a reference to Tubbo just now becoming the president.

Phil: [Phil has deafened] Oh this motherfucker. This motherfucker. He’s gonna do it... Is he gonna fuckin do it? [Phil goes to join the server]

Is he gonna do what, Phil? How are you aware of what WIlbur was planning, but promised not to do? Because there should be no way he knows what’s happening based on what he heard.

Alright and this also marks the spot where it can’t be argued that the things said aren’t technically canon.

Wilbur: [we hear the end of his sentence after Phil undeafens] It’s over.

Phil: What are you doing.

Wilbur: Phil?

Phil: What are you doing.

Wilbur: Phil, where are you?

Phil: I’m joining the server right now.

WIlbur: Wait, you’re- How?? You- This is-

Phil: I’m hacking in.

Wilbur: [while laughing] What do you mean you’re hacking in? What??

Phil: I’m getting in, dude.

Wilbur: Do you want- Do i need to go get you from spawn? What? Is it...

Phil: It’s taking a while to load...

Wilbur: [seemingly remembering Phil’s original question and stuttering through his answer] I’m not- I wasn’t doing anything. We just- We just made Tubbo president. We- We um- We (led to?) Tubbo president and we won! We won the war. Schaltt’s gone. Schlatt’s gone, Phil, so it’s uh

Now there’s a lot to unpack here. The highlights are “We just made Tubbo president” which should not line up with what Phil believes is true, “We won the war” and “Schlatt’s gone”. Both of the last quotes, Wilbur is addressing Phil as if he knows the situation. As if he knew they were going to have a war with Schlatt. Phil, apparently, does not know who Schlatt is, nor would he have any reason to think there would be another war. But Wilbur certainly seems to be under the impression that Phil knows what’s going on. And, Phil himself appears to be completely in the loop.

Phil: [disbelieving, and overlapping Wilbur still stuttering] Uh huh. Uh huh. So [Wilbur: It’s good.] You are where exactly now?

Bit of an odd question with an odd tone of voice for someone who does not know what’s happening.

Wilbur: [unconvincingly] In... L’Manberg.... There’s so- The area- You wouldn’t know, I don’t think you’ve been here, but it’s the area around L’Manberg. It’s complicated. It’s geo- geography and that, you know it’s- it’s- it’s geography and stuff and- [Phil joins the server in the hallway leading up to the button room]

Okay, but WIlbur isn’t wrong. Philza should have absolutely no idea where to find Wilbur. The entrance was just on the side of a mountain, if I remember correctly. Phil should have no idea where he is. And yet he’s able to find him very quickly. Now, I know this was for dramatic effect. I know that. However, again I am looking at the in-canon consequences and explanation for things. Most of the server members didn’t even know where the button room was. So, How does Phil know?

WIlbur: Phil?

Phil: Mmhm.

Wilbur: Uh....

Phil: Yeah... “In L’Manberg” you said.

Wilbur: The- This is L’Man- The-... Okay. I will admit... Do you know what this button is?

Phil: [without hesitation:] Uh huh. I do.

There. Without a shadow of a doubt. Phil knows what the button is. How would he know that? This absolutely does not line up with what he’s saying now. And it’s a logical next step to assume that if he knows what the button is, he knows that WIlbur made it. And if he knew that WIlbur made it, he is at least decently aware of WIlbur’s mental state.

Wilbur: Have you heard the- the song on the walls? Before? Have you heard the song? I was just saying- I made this big point, and it was poignant, and it was that there was a special place where men can go- But it’s not there anymore, it’s not.

Phil: It is there. You’ve j- just won it back, Will.

Once again showing that he was aware of the Schlatt situation. That Wilbur had to win L’Manberg back, that he didn’t just leave to start over.

WIlbur: Phil, I’m always so close to pressing this button, Phil. I have been- have been here like seven or eight times I have been here. Seven or eight times. [Phil sighs] Oh they’re gonna come and- I need to block this off. I don’t want them in here. [Phil laughs. We begin to hear fireworks.] I don’t want them in here. Phil, I- I have been here so many times... They’re fighting. They’re fighting!

Phil: And you want to just blow it all up?

Make note this is the first anyone has said about blowing anything up. I know I’m repeating myself, but this just further shows that Phil knows exactly what the button does and what Wilbur’s intentions are.

Wilbur: [sighing] I do... I think- I-

Phil: You fought so hard to get this- this land back. So hard.

Once again referencing conflict he should not know about.

Wilbur: I don’t even- I don’t even know if it works anymore, Phil. I don’t even know if the button works. I could- I could press it, and it might...

Phil: Do you really want to take that risk? [he laughs] There is a lot of TNT potentially connected to that button.

How does he know that? (Also this is technically the first mention of specifically TNT)

Wilbur: Phil. There was a saying, Phil- I’m gonna turn down these bloody fireworks- Phil... [Phil laughs] There- There was a saying, Phil, by a traitor. Uh once part of L’Manberg. A traitor, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Eret?

Phil: Yeah.

Wilbur: He had a saying, Phil. “It was never meant to be.” [Wilbur presses the button]

Phil: Oh my god... You didn’t. [L’Manberg blows up.] Ohhhh my god... [Phil looks at the destruction] Will! It’s all gone! [Phil laughs]

Wilbur: My L’manberg, Phil! My unfinished symphony, forever unfinished! If I can’t have this, no one can, Phil!

Phil: Oh my god.

I could go on to explain how the next moments show inconsistency with Phil’s character and Doomsday, but hey. So yeah in conclusion, the story just does not line up, it doesn’t make sense with what we’ve seen. This entire scene does not make sense with this new angle. Everything from the tone, the characters actions and reactions, and just fully the scene itself would need to be completely different. Also, Just throwing it out there: If all Philza knew about the situation was:

- Wibur stopped writing

- Tubbo is president

- Wilbur just blew up his nation that isn’t even his anymore

- Wilbur wants me to kill him for what he’s done, but I don’t have very crucial information

to understand the situation

Then him murdering Wilbur is so much worse. Then, it only takes 30 seconds of convincing for Phil to blindly kill his son. It just doesn’t make any sense

If you want the letters to make sense, I think it would fit that Wilbur stopped writing the day of the Manberg festival. Then, Phil could have gotten letters from Wilbur, already spiraling further, detailing the button, the button room, where it is, his intentions, and his mental state. But, hey!

#dream smp #/roleplay #philza critcal #i guess?? #wilbur soot #dsmp #philza minecraft #ph1lza #i dunno team #i never post on here #but i had some thoughts #thank you for reading #xoxo

[5lazarus]

Dragon Eyes: an Avatar-The Last Airbender Fanfic

Dragon Eyes

On a diplomatic mission to the Fire Nation, Katara leaves the children with Aang to have tea with Zuko and Mai. But the two of them have something they want to talk about. They've lived enough of fathers neglecting one child for the other, and they have seen enough.

Katara wishes they had propositioned her, rather than bring this up. Read on Archive of Our Own here.

Years of travel in the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation have not made handling the heat any easier. Katara rejoices in shedding her layers, showing off some skin. Aang is entertaining all the kids—all of them, not just Tenzin, and Zuko’s daughter, too. She is relieved to have them out of her hair, to have the time to sit down and comb through her hair. She twists her hair into her old Fire Nation fashion and grins at herself in the mirror. She loves her hair loopies, but it’s nice to shake things up a bit.

Aang is taking the kids through the palace and tormenting the tour guide Zuko sent them with Ty Lee. Katara is taking advantage of the break. Zuko told her he’ll be in the garden with Mai, doing a tea meditation. Apparently they do that every morning, to keep a finger on each other’s pulse. At first Katara was nonplussed, wondering if that was a euphemism, and was slightly alarmed when he invited her to join them. Aang has talked about how the Air Nomads practiced polyamory. The Water Tribe does not. Katara does not.

It is terribly, terribly hot, humidity a caress on the skin, and she bends it cooler around her limbs, swiping the sweat away. Barefoot she walks down the tile path into the courtyard. Mai and Zuko are sitting by the turtleducks, drinking tea. Mai sees her first and raises a small cup in welcome.

Zuko says, “I told you she’d come.”

Mai rolls her eyes. “Hot tea on a hot day? Only offer this to Katara, not any other officials from the Water Tribe.”

“Fair,” Zuko says. He smiles at her. “Aang’s got the kids?”

Katara settles down at the tea table, one of those elegantly-carved pieces of wood that look deceptively simple and thus cost a fortune. Zuko uses wooden prongs to place a small porcelain cup before her and Mai. She touches it, eggshell thin. It’s warm.

“The tea tastes better that way,” Zuko says. Mai looks at him fondly. “Easier now that I don’t have to hide the fire bending.”

Katara smiles. “I really am surprised we didn’t run into each other earlier. Your uncle’s tea shop was so popular!”

Zuko hides his face behind his hair, and Mai puts her hand on his arm. Iroh’s death is still raw on him. She takes the tongs from him and begins pulling thin, silvery green leaves from a jar. She places them in a scoop made from bamboo.

“Bai hao yin zhen,” Mai says. “Early spring.” An eagerness underlays her usual drawl. Katara raises an eyebrow. She really likes the tea. Mai says, “Here. Smell.”

Katara leans forward. “The things I do for diplomacy!” She grins, and takes a cautious sniff. Her eyes widen, and she inhales deeper, drunk on the scent. “That’s like the sun!”

Mai smiles, and Zuko shakes himself out of his reverie to say, “Uncle always said the tasting notes were honey and sun fruits, after the rain. This is the new buds of a tea tree. There are other white teas, just as exquisite, that include the leaves, but I’ve always loved this one. It’s a treat.”

Katara says, “Well, thank you for sharing with me. If it tastes anything like it smells….”

“Uncle always served you red tea, right?” Zuko takes an open pot and closes a hand gently around its handle. The water begins to bubble. “He thought you’d like a deeper flavor. It’s good for the cold. But white tea cools me down.”

Katara leans back on her haunches, raising her face to the sun. She listens to the burble of the koi pond behind her, where Zuko has placed a shrine to Yue. Reparations, she thinks. Not enough: Sokka and Suki broke up, of course, and he has never quite been able to settle down since. She’s there, silent in the bright sky, and while it is not enough, at least the world is whole.

The courtyard is gritty under her hands, and she wipes at them, wincing at the soreness in the joints. She’s been stressed. These family trips are always stressful. Aang, for all his meditation, never seems to be able to focus on packing and he makes Bumi’s inattention worse, and then Kya gets upset that Bumi is bothering her and kicks up a fuss, and then Tenzin of course cries, and Appa covers him in slobber trying to comfort him, which makes him cry worse, and then he needs a bath, and then Bumi and Kya get upset, because the baby is the baby and the Airbender and everything, as Kya once screamed. She sighs. It is good to have some time in the sun, while Aang takes care of the kids, and have some intelligent conversation besides when she was having her next baby. She wasn’t. Three and a husband were enough.

Mai says, apropos of nothing, “Dragon eyes.” She slides the tea from the scoop into a gaiwan, shaking the leaves to spread them on the bottom.

Katara opens her eyes. “What?”

Mai says, “It means the water’s boiling. When the bubbles are that large, like dragon eyes. It means it’s the temperature that’s good for this kind of white tea. Though some brew it cooler—with crab eyes, rather than dragon eyes.”

Zuko takes his hand from the pot and skillfully pours the boiling water into the waiting gaiwan. He places its lid on the top, and pours it swiftly into another exquisite porcelain pitcher, almost translucently blue. Like blood, Katara thinks, and then banishes the thought. Hama wouldn’t like her here. The honeysuckle smell fills the garden. Zuko pours the tea, almost silver-green, into her cup.

He says, “Don’t drink. Just smell.”

Katara looks at him doubtfully. It seems like such a waste of such wonderful-smelling tea. The Fire Nation court has always struck her as excessive, though she is leery of people who prattle on about decadence.

Mai says, “You can drink it. But it’s the rinse, you rinse leaves like this the way you do rice.”

Katara says, “You ever cooked rice?” Zuko laughs, and Mai rolls her eyes.

“Very funny,” she drawls. “When we searched for Ursa. Eventually I got it right.” Zuko grins in a way that makes Katara think that perhaps she never did.

He points to the figure, painted in blue, sitting serenely at the center of the tea table. “Or you can offer it to her.” Katara picks up the porcelain figurine. It’s of a woman, a mother, holding a child close. She catches Mai’s eye. Zuko still hurts for his mother, for his father, for his cousin and his sister and his uncle. It manifests in such obvious ways, how he grieves his family. She doesn’t even need to hear it, but Zuko says it anyway. “It was my mother’s. Noriko, I mean.”

“Have you spoken to her recently?” Katara says carefully. She places the figurine back onto the table and unceremoniously dumps her cup over it, hoping it scalds through the paint. Families are complicated, Zuko’s insanely so. Mai gives her an amused look and does the same.

Zuko shrugs. “I just wish she’d talk to Azula. She hasn’t visited her once. And I know it’s hard, and you never really know when the lucid period will end, but—“

Mai says, “Loving Azula isn’t easy. It might get better when Ozai dies.”

Then they are silent as Zuko picks up the pot again and flash-brews the tea. It is hard to be sour with such a sweet smell filling the air. They don’t need to say it. It would have been better if Aang had killed Ozai. It is easier to come to peace with the dead father than the living disposed king and his mad daughter.

Zuko pours the honey-sweet tea into her little cup. She sips it, lost in its clear light taste. This is what the dew hidden in a flower tastes like, she thinks. She tries to slow down sipping at this minuscule cup, but too fast, the tea is gone. Zuko is smiling.

“Another cup?” he says, and she nods eagerly. “This was one of my uncle’s favorites. One of the many things he loved from the Earth Kingdom.”

They drink, reveling in the sheer loveliness of it. It’s like drinking light, Katara thinks. Earth and fire and water, in one cup. The warm porcelain soothes her aching hands. A muscle relaxes in her neck, and she lets her shoulders down. She rolls them, happy in their mobility.

Mai looks at her with an acupuncturist’s eye. “Pinched nerve?” she asks. “I can look at that. If you’re comfortable.”

Katara stops, cup halfway to her mouth. She’s going back to her original thought that they were hitting on her, which is flattering, but no. Absolutely not. She’s got enough going on, even if Aang wouldn’t mind, or even be into it. No.

Zuko leans forward. “There’s something we’ve been wanting to ask her.”

Katara’s heart stops. She puts the cup down, a little too hard. “I—uh—“

“Have things been alright with Aang?”

Mai’s mouth twitches. “I think she thought we were going to ask her something else.”

“Everything’s fine!” Katara blurts. Mai can be such a troll sometimes. “I mean. Traveling with the kids is always…a lot, but—why?” She’s irritated now. She has not been pleased with Aang, but three small children take a toll on communication in a marriage. She’s embarrassed that it has been that obvious. She fiddles with the figurine on the table.

Zuko and Mai exchange a look. They look like they’re waiting for the other to speak. Finally, Mai heaves a sigh.

“Bumi wrote Izumi something in a letter,” Mai says. She folds her hands in her lap. “You know how they’re friends. And it made her very upset.”

“Well,” Katara says. “If he was nasty to her, I’ll speak to him, but I don’t see what this has to do with my marriage. Bumi is—“ She stops. Bumi is always in the middle of things, fussing around, crashing into walls just like his namesake. She loses patience with him too often, she knows that, but Kya’s easy to distract with a waterbending lesson, and Tenzin just sits with his scrolls when Aang isn’t putting him through his paces. He’s so much like his father, an absolute whirlwind of energy. She’s privately thought it’s a shame he didn’t inherit his father’s bending, rather than Tenzin, but that is something she can not let herself think for long.

“He says he doesn’t think his father loves him, because he’s not a bender,” Zuko says. “Which I know is not right. But I have been in that position before. And he told her that Aang is never around, that he just travels from temple to temple with Tenzin, and he and Kya are just left at home. And that he’s worried about you too. It was a very…” He trails off, and looks at Mai.

Mai finishes, “The ink was smudge. He’d been crying. So we wanted to talk to you, because it scared Izumi. Because we both know what it is like to be ignored by our fathers.” She smiles thinly. “And the toll it took on our mothers.”

Zuko says, “I’m sorry if we overstepped, it was just—hard to read.”

Katara says, “Why didn’t he tell me? It’s—he does his best to present for the kids, but Aang has his Avatar duties, and as the last airbender, there’s so much he needs to teach Tenzin, so it’s just easier for him to bring only him along. Have you tried to move three children around the world on bison-back?”

Zuko looks wry for a second. “Well,” he says. “It depends if you count Sokka as a child.”

Mai puts her hand on his arm: not the time.

Katara says, “I wish it was better, but I knew I wasn’t walking into something that was easy. From the start. He could be a better father, but what can I do? What can I do?” She’s furious now, tears rising to her eyes, and she looses a ragged breath, surprised at her own fervor. Wordlessly Zuko pours her another cup. She downs it, barely tasting it.

Mai says, “If he’s not being a good father to your children and a good husband to you, you can leave. We’re not our mothers, Katara.” Zuko looks at her warningly. “Sorry. I don’t know how it was in the Southern Water Tribe, but for my mother, she thought she had no choice. But there is always a choice. Even if it isn’t easy. I don’t—“

Zuko says firmly, “You deserve better. Bumi and Kya deserve better. And Tenzin too. That sort of resentment between siblings is poison. I should know.”

Katara would have preferred that they proposition her. She closes her eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispers. Louder, she continues, “I know Bumi deserves better. From both of us. I know it hurts them. I can see it in the way they treat Tenzin. Kya already barely speaks to Aang. But. Tenzin is my son, too. And of course he and Aang would be closer. It’s just—if I take my children and go, I’m taking Aang’s family away. And I know the Air Nomads were different, he wasn’t raised to stay in one place, if you were a bender and a boy you’d be sent to the temple and that was it, but—“

“Bumi is Southern Water Tribe,” Mai says. “And even if his father is an Air Nomad, only his brother counts as one. Because of bending. And that isn’t fair for him. For Kya either, because they are both. And you know you need to do something about it.” Katara looks up, surprised at the emotion in her voice. Mai stares at her steadily. “Katara, you saved the world. You’re the hero of the Fire Nation, the Painted Lady, the chief of the Southern Water Tribe. You deserve a husband who is a coparent to all your children, not just one.”

Katara says, “You don’t—“ and then there is a crash and a scream and the sound of raucous laughter as Aang comes running in on an air ball, Tenzin nipping at his heels.

“C’mon,” he yells behind him, “faster, you snail sloths!” He and Tenzin pause, perched on the air they so effortlessly bend. Tenzin looks a little harried. Bumi comes running in, panting, then Kya, and Izumi at a more sedate pace.

“That’s…cheating,” Kya says. She grips at the wall. “That wasn’t fair!” She is genuinely angry, almost at the brink of tears, and Izumi bumps her reassuringly. Bumi throws himself on the ground.

Tenzin says pedantically, “You didn’t say no bending.”

Izumi snaps, “Maybe it didn’t need to be said!”

Aang jumps onto his feet, and Tenzin follows. Kya is crouching over Bumi now, muttering to him. Mai’s face is a stone. Zuko is blushing.

“What’s up?” Aang says, grinning. “Did I miss anything fun?”

Katara pours herself a cup rather than answering. She considered the heat and sweetness in the air. With a flick of her risk, she bends it over the mother figurine, washing her clean.

“Oh, you know,” she says. “Diplomacy. We’ll talk about it when we get home.”

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