#that said: if the cube does end up being a more Positive thing without more negative connotations | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imthatchishiyasimp · 3 years

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HELLOOOOO!!!

I'm freaking out this is my first post, like the first one shot I post and write about AIB and Chishiya.

I really hope you all like it, please please please tell me what you think about it and whatever you want to tell me.

It's long (4444 words), I know, but I hate small things because I get upset. It's very close to the story and it doesn't have lot's of changes, I wanted to try first to write about something I know. In the future I will write more original and new stuff. Also, I wanted to get used to the universe and to the characters first.

HAVE A NICE READ 💚

“THIS WAY TO THE GAME ARENA”

The sign flashes all around the city. I slowly walk towards the Toei Sendagaya block apartment, focused on the cube in my hands. Due to having no electricity, I’ve gotten used to pick random things from stores to entertain myself.

It’s still shocking to feel the city so silent and calm, and at the same time it feels terrifying. One would think that being that people die every day, the streets would be forgiving. You can’t even lower your guard now. Even since the first day, I’ve liked walking around the streets, checking out shops and random apartments. I kinda feel powerful, but it’s something that deep inside I know it’s just fake and limited. And I’m not giving up, but at least I’m going to enjoy now that I can, until ‘they’ decide that I’m not needed around anymore.

The tall complex shines between the bushes and buildings, its lights on every floor lighted on. I place myself a few meters hidden behind the stairs leading to the central lobby. From there, I sit and watch people climb the stairs. A couple of them look pretty scared and lost, showing signs of this being their first game. The rest all look shaken up but used to this. When it looks like no one else will come, I get up and get to the crowd around the phones.

There’s thirteen people waiting and all of them look at me while I pick the phone from the table. When the facial recognition is finished I can see that there’s only a few seconds left for the game to start. Almost didn’t make it. Would have been stupid to die because I was daydreaming.

‘Move aside’ I say to Chishiya, elbowing him after not having a response. He looks at me annoyed and slips off his earphones. He finally moves to let me place my back at the wall and get my hair in a bun.

“REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED. THERE ARE A TOTAL OF 14 PARTICIPANTS. THE GAME WILL NOW COMMENCE.”

It’s so easy to point out who the newcomers are and the ones that are sick of playing. You can also name who’s going to be willing to put themselves first and who’s going to scary run the whole game.

I start rolling the sleeves of my sweatshirt up when a boy with a cap starts talking to some guys. They look lost, but not new to this. Might be the first week here. I eye them from my spot, not saying a thing but listening to the whole exchange.

“Excuse me, do you know what this is?” He asks a black haired boy. Honestly, he looks a mess, like he has just gotten up from bed and hasn't changed in a few days. “I ended up here and I have no idea what’s going on”.

“It’s a game” He answers. At the same time, the blonde man next to him, probably his friend, tells him to stop it. I chuckle and cover it up with a cough, earning myself a glare from both Chishiya and Aguni. I might be prone to get in trouble with people and they won’t be happy if I screw a game up. Better be quiet.

The blonde guy whispers to his friend and I try to pick something up from the conversation. Not get close to the new ones and something else.

“DIFFICULTY: FIVE OF SPADES”

The card flashes on our phones, telling us the kind of game and the level of difficulty. I was so curious about the card when I got to my first game, I didn’t know what it meant and what I was supposed to do with it. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I admire the cleverness behind the rules and the method of the games. It’s the work of both a psycho and a genius.

A sporty girl starts to stretch just after the card shows, so she must know what it means. She’s calm and collected and I bet she’s willing to put all of us on the killing zone before she goes down. We could be friends, I think.

I hear a sigh next to me and I catch a glimpse of Chishiya rolling his eyes. He doesn’t exactly hate physical games, but they sometimes mean having to run or climb and he’s not a fan of working out. And, even though he won’t admit it, he doesn’t like having his white hoodie dirty. Not going to judge, I don’t love spades games either, but I will choose them over the hearts ones a million times.

I get down to tie my shoes tighter just in case. I would hate tripping like the clown I really am in front of all these people. Some guy in a hat starts explaining to the two friends from before what it means a spades game. Club games are hard if there are more newcomers than experienced people. I mean, if it's a game where team work means everything, you bet you prefer working with someone who knows the way around the games. Diamond ones are a bit weird: being clever will get you through them, but sometimes the answer is so straightforward that you get lost looking for the catch. Heart games are the worst. They will kill you even if you survive, and pray that you don’t get to play with a friend or someone you know.

“GAME: A GAME OF TAG.”

“RULE: RUN AWAY FROM THE TAGGER.”

“CLEAR CONDITION: DISCOVER THE SAFEZONE HIDDEN IN ONE OF THE BUILDING ROOMS WITHIN THE TIME LIMIT. YOU CLEAR THE GAME WHEN THIS OBJECTIVE IS FULFILLED.”

“TIME LIMIT: 20 MINUTES.”

“AFTER 20 MINUTES HAS PASSED, THE TIME BOMB HIDDEN IN THE BUILDING WILL EXPLODE.”

I turn around to face Chishiya, grinning like a mad girl. He doesn’t even flinch when he stops me from talking. “No, I’m not racing you to the top.”

“But…” I sigh and watch as everyone starts running to the stairs like lost puppies. “You are so mean”. I punch him in the shoulder and cross my arms, walking towards the lift. No need running seven floors up and wasting energy if I’m not even going to be able to brag about having won a race.

Chishiya follows closely behind, probably guessing I’m going to try and leave him there.

“TWO MINUTES BEFORE THE GAME STARTS.”

We get inside the lift and silently wait until we get to the seventh floor. It’s been a long time since I used one, not everyday you get to play in a building apartment. Feels nice, and like we’re back to normal.

Once we get to the top, we both choose a position that lets us have a good look at the whole complex. He goes to one wing while I leave for the other one. No point leaving a flank unseen. I take my cube out and restart it, keeping an eye on the people looking around scattered through the floors. I don’t get why someone would choose saying in the lower ground when a tagger is supposed to chase you through the whole building. Dude, that’s the most critical place to start.

“Hey, don’t get distracted with those games of yours.”

“Don’t be mean, Chishiya. You know I’m paying attention.” Anyway, once I finish the cube, I keep it in my pocket and rest my arms on the banister.

Aguni and his new friend get to the seventh floor and both of us wave towards him. Like always, he completely ignores us and keeps walking towards another high point.

“That’s nasty” Chishiya says and I nod along. Aguni is always so serious during games, it’s boring.

“I place my bet on those two guys and the sporty girl surviving”. I firmly say. They look like they will make it, but not without having a rough time.

He has the audacity to snort and laugh at me and I look at him surprised. “You’re joking. Everyone looks like they’re about to die, as usual. Just look at them, they don’t know shit about what to do”.

“Were you this calm in your first games? Don’t be mean, they are trying their best. No one wants to die.”

“But, where you that stupid?” He says while pointing to a couple of girls on the second floor who are touching their phones desperately. “I’m not saying you gotta be a genius from the start, but if you don’t collect yourself quickly, you are already dead.”

“Well, my majesty, not all of us are like you, and some people need a little more time, and a little more help.”

Chishiya looks at me and, as if I had imagined, a caring and sorry look crosses his eyes. He probably remembers the first time he saw me get through the games and how I completely lost it once. It wasn’t easy.

“THE GAME WILL NOW COMMENCE.”

He nudges my arm with his elbow and I look at him.

“THE TIME LIMIT IS 20 MINUTES.”

“Hey” He says with a soft voice.

“GAME START.”

“Don’t die this time.”

“Wasn't planning to.”

“THE TAGGER IS NOW ON THE MOVE.”

As if we all had planned it, the whole complex goes silent, trying to locate this said tagger. A trumpet goes off and everyone looks scared, ready to bolt to wherever they can.

The sound of the lift’s doors can be heard from our position, so the tagger is probably on the sixth or fifth floor.

Not a penny drop can be heard. Not a breath.

Some people start walking and try to open doors. The rest are all watching closely until something happens.

And it does.

Gunshots run through the dense air that surrounds us. I try to see where they come from and I finally catch sight of the tagger. Probably a man, judging for the height, with a horse head and a really mean gun. He’s on the sixth floor, just in front of the stairs.

I point at him and nudge Chishiya, but I already know that he has seen him.

There’s now thirteen of us.

And then shots are fired again and we can see the two friends and the one with the hat running down the stairs, away from the tagger.

“Told you, they are gonna get killed.” Chishiya says with a smirk.

“Oh shut up, this is not a TV show we are talking about. And I have faith in them”.

They split up on the third floor, the hat man keeps going down while the other two try to hide in the hallway. Not long after, on the ground floor that the tagger chases and shots the first one and finds another man freaking out. I don’t know if it’s better that he died because he went off the game zone instead of being shot by the tagger. Anyway, he’s also dead. And that makes three dead players.

Eleven participants left.

“See, they are smart. At least the cute one”. I say smiling.

Chishiya looks at me and raises an eyebrow, silently questioning just what I said.

“What? It’s not like I’m lying; he is cute, and smart.” I laugh and wink at him, cutting eye contact with him. If we are going to have an awkward moment, please don’t be while we are playing for our lives.

The killing spree of the tagger continues with the pretty and lost two girls. They sure are on their first game, because they look so freaking scared and unprepared. I mean, who would have come with heels and handbags. I scoff and shake my head watching how one of them falls dead and the other one wastes an incredible opportunity of getting away while the tagger reloads. Well, not all of us are strong enough to leave our friend and not panic at the same time. Shame she has to die, anyway.

So now we are nine players still alive.

Looks like everything’s gone silent again, until shouts break the silence and we all look for the source. It’s the cute guy and I laugh when I understand what he’s saying.

“Everyone! The tagger is currently at the second level of the central area! The tagger has bad vision because of his mask! Let’s inform each other of the tagger’s location and search for the safezone together!”

“Oh my god, did he seriously turn a spades game into a club’s one?” I laugh again and Chishiya scoffs under his hood. “I want to be best friends with him”.

“Don’t be stupid.” Chishiya says. We move a bit to see where they are going now that they are all running. “It’s a good idea, not going to lie, but no one will answer him.”

He mutters something else, but I don’t really catch it. I think I saw the tagger doubt his step when he heard the guy shouting, but he definitely looks annoyed when the sporty girl shouts back.

“The tagger is moving from the fourth level of the central area! Anyone nearby, run!”

I celebrate and raise my hands, clapping and laughing in Chishiya’s face. He looks surprised and tells me to shut it.

The girl runs from the tagger and finds an elderly woman in the hallway. With the tagger on their back, they are probably going to get killed. I grip the banister and hold my breath. She seems friendly and clever, I’m internally rooting for her.

Suddenly she jumps off the balcony and starts climbing the pipes up to the next floor. The other woman dies behind her, and the tagger tries to catch the girl but fails.

“She’s pretty good.” Chishiya mutters. “You just wish you could do that. It’s called envy”.

“As if you could do that too. You are just as weak as me.”

“Hey! Don’t throw me in the same casket!”

“EIGHT MINUTES UNTIL THE GAME ENDS.”

“THERE ARE CURRENTLY EIGHT SURVIVORS.”

Already? We should start moving.

I look at Chishiya under my hair and he frowns at something. I follow his gaze and see the tagger looking at the cap boy from an upside floor. What’s shocking it’s him starting to shoot from there. He has been killing just people he casually finds while walking around, not shooting from that distance.

The boy goes down, but looks unharmed. The two friends are on the same floor and get to him, running away from the door he was trying to open.

Not bothering to ask Chishiya if he got that, I start jumping on the place and keep my phone in my pockets. He slides off the hood and shoves me towards the stairs.

“Shall we, ma’am?”

“THERE ARE FIVE MINUTES REMAINING.”

From the corner of my eye I catch Aguni intercepting the boys and I make a face. It doesn’t always go well when he does that, he tends to let them die in order to have his way. The sporty girl stops to talk to them and she starts jumping from floor to floor.

“Do you think someone’s going to get it too?” I ask out loud. Chishiya shrugs and keeps on walking. I tsk and stay behind him when we get to the hallway. I turn around and watch my back, even though I heard a fight somewhere near. Probably Aguni, who are we kidding.

Just when we are arriving at the safezone apartment, the cute boy appears from the other side.

“Cute boy! I’m glad you realized it!” I happily say without thinking. I mouth a silent sorry when he looks at me a bit perplexed. Chishiya elbows me, hard, and I whine a bit. That’s mean.

He picks the doorknob first, but doesn’t open it. The three of us are watching closely, and honestly I’m a bit nervous about the time. I don’t like risking it as much as Chishiya.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” he asks.

The boy answers a couple of seconds after, lost in his thoughts “Why did the tagger chase us? He could have just waited here.”

He is onto something. Now, I’m not liking this at all.

“Seems like there’s something else we don’t know.” Chishiya says, keeping his calm exterior. He’s going to use this poor boy in case he has any doubt of a risk. “However,” he adds, taking his phone out “if you don’t open it…”

There are three minutes left.

Sweat starts running down my back, making me shiver and hold my breath while I watch the boy start turning the doorknob. All our phones beep announcing the time left until we all die with the bomb.

Slowly, he opens the door with caution. We all walk inside, in silence and with darkness surrounding us. It 's empty. No furniture, neither personal objects nor some leftovers of someone’s life. A few steps in we notice a door at the end of the room and we all walk towards it.

It’s not until we are too far inside that another tagger walks out behind the door.

“Look out!” the boy screams and pushes us out of the shot range.

Gunshots fly around the apartment and I duck behind the bathroom door. Chishiya uses the taser and the tagger goes down, but recovers quickly and starts shooting again. I scream when a bullet gazes at my arm. It fucking hurts, but at least the bullet didn’t got me completely.

I can hear the apartment door being shut and the other door at the end closing too. They must have gotten through them. I hope they aren’t harmed.

I wait, trying not to make any sound in case the tagger comes to finish me off. I search through the room, but nothing seems lethal enough to use like a weapon. I hate bringing weapons to games, I don’t really want to kill anyone if I can help it.

Gunshots are fired and I cover myself up, even though they are not directed towards me. Fighting blade weapons? I’m okay with that. Fighting people? Not against it. But, I have nothing towards a gun. I mean, it can take me from a long distance! No point.

“Everyone! The safezone is in apartment 406! It’s impossible to clear the game alone! We need two people to do this!”

Are you kidding? This is so mean. What if you were the only survivor? Not fair, not at all.

Well, it seems like I should get moving and try to do something useful in this game. I haven’t done shit, now that I think about it.

Slowly, I open the door just in time to see the tagger shoot the door and break the safelock. I take small steps following it, ready to throw myself to placate it. Just when the gun is going up I jump and kick the tagger in the knee, managing to bring it to the floor.

I hear a scream coming from the tagger and a lady cursing from behind the mask. She starts shooting and I scream trying to cover myself without being hit. The guy bolts and tries to help me get her off the gun, but she keeps fighting like a mad person.

We both go down before she gets us with the bullets and I catch a glimpse of Chishiya at the door, trying to help but having to cover himself because of the lost shots.

The phones all inform us of the ten seconds remaining at the same time that the sporty girl jumps through the glass of the balcony. The tagger kicks me and gets the gun pointing at my face and I panic just a bit before I push back. The other guy tries to help me, but with no help.

“Hey!” Chishiya shouts.

I’m on the floor fighting the tagger with the gun under my chin, trying to get it off my face, but I see him throwing the taser to the girl and she quickly gets the tagger down.

I let out a sigh before I heard the time almost coming to an end. My eyes search for him and we lock our gazes. I can feel the breath we are both holding and the silent words running through our minds. My fingers clench and I swallow, accepting death like a forgotten friend, saying goodbye with a blink.

But, just like that, with a blink, it all finishes. The buttons are pressed on the last second and we all hear the beeps from our phones.

“GAME CLEAR.”

“CONGRATULATIONS.”

In that same moment, the tagger gets the mask off and we can see an old lady crying looking at us. The collar in her neck starts beeping faster and faster and I scramble to get away from her. Chishiya grabs both my arms and I scream at the touch in the bullet gaze from before, but he doesn’t let go and gets me away at the same time that the collar explodes, killing the lady.

My whole back is covered in blood and I roughly grab Chishiya’s hoodie. I don’t want to look at her and see what we did, even though it was unintended. She was also playing, and she died because we won.

Chishiya and I are left in the room with the dead tagger, and he grips my hand and makes me let go of him. He starts checking the pockets of the lady and gets something out, but I don’t register exactly what.

I get out of the apartment to breathe. I hate this part where we really think about what went down here. Lots of people died, and we got a few days to live just to have to risk it again in the next game. Could have we saved someone? Not really, I know that. But it doesn’t make it easier anyway.

“I’m Arisu.” Someone says beside me. I turn and the cute boy is there, watching me from a distance. “I wanted to thank you, for risking yourself back there. We are alive thanks to all of you.” He sticks out his hand to me and waits.

I’m speechless. No one has thanked me like this in any game. I didn’t really do a thing, but he’s thanking me. I should be the one doing it, he cooperated with the other girl and they stopped the bomb. We could have died there.

I let out a small laugh and shake his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Arisu. And thanks to you, you did the dirty work inside the room.”

I look back inside and watch Chishiya stick the paper in his hoodie and walk towards us.

“I look forward to meeting you somewhere else, hopefully not dead in a game. Be careful and enjoy the warm water in the ocean now that we are all alone in the city.”

With a wink, I walk out of the apartment building with Chishiya not too far behind. I think he heard me talking to Arisu, but he doesn’t comment on it.

We walk, and we walk, and we walk. Neither of us likes to go back to the Beach in the cars, so we always take a stroll through the streets, enjoying the silence and the stars shining above us.

“Does it hurt?” he asks.

“Mmh?” I look at him questioning and he nods to my bleeding arm. “Oh, yes, like a bitch. But I’ll have to wait until we get there.”

He tsks and grabs my arm, leading us to a pharmacy around the corner. I don’t say anything, knowing he will shut me up and will only be a waste of time. We get inside and he starts looking for some disinfectant and bandages.

He knows his stuff. I was surprised at first to discover he knows his way around the medical grounds; and I’m glad he does. It doesn't hurt having someone nearby capable of dealing with nasty wounds.

He silently works and I watch him closely. He’s handsome. And he knows it, that’s why he smirks feeling my gaze on his face. I trace his features taking my time. His eyes are the most scary thing I’ve ever met. They hold so much knowledge and feelings. I always feel like he could take me apart just with his eyes. He mostly covers his emotions, so even though you search for micro expressions, you will come empty handed almost always.

I bring my free hand up and run my fingers through his hair. I love it, it’s so smooth and soft. And the fact that he always wears white to match his hair makes me smile like an idiot.

Chishiya clears his throat and starts covering up the wound. My hand drops and rests in his arm, basking in the heat he’s making.

Once he’s done, he brings down my sleeves and looks me in the eye, silently checking if I’m okay. I nod and take his hand, quickly gripping and, just as fast, letting go. I can hear him sigh behind me, and he follows behind.

“You know, I’m glad I met you here, but I would have prefered meeting you in the real world.”

“Why?”

“Because I know I will be safer here with you, but I also know the probability of us having a happy ending is minimal while we are here.”

“You are not wrong.” A couple of minutes goes by until he adds: “But that doesn’t mean you can’t try and make the most of it while you are alive. It will hurt more, but at this point, who cares?”

I let out a breathy laugh and turn around to hug him. Hard. He stops and lets me hug him, finally giving in and hugging me back. I hide my face in his neck, breathing deep and closing my eyes. I can feel his pulse and his chin coming down on my head, his hand running through my back.

“You are an idiot.”

“And you are mean. Deal with it.”

I swear I can feel his lips kissing the top of my head, but it’s so fast I can’t be sure. He starts walking again and I run to catch him before I lose him.

We may have a complicated relationship, if you can call it that. We are there for each other, not sure of what to do, what to give, what to take. But we do not give up. I’m just glad I’m not alone, and thankful that I have someone looking out for me.

I smile all the way to the Beach.

#chishiya #chishiya shuntaro #chishiya x reader #aib #alice in borderland #fic #oneshot #reader insert #fanfic #arisu

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thanksjro · 3 years

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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

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creweemmaeec11 · 3 years

Text

The Gift of Panic Pt#2

First part

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After a moment of silence, the villain finially spoke.

"The last birthday present I got..." they started in a quiet, almost whispered tone, "was a bomb..."

"What!?" the hero replied in shock.

"Someone I cared about... though it would be funny to open my present before me as a joke..." they took a deep breath, "they didn't..."

Their voice cracked before they trailed off, and the quickly wiped at their face, abruptly standing up, keeping their back to the hero.

"I don't even know..." the hero replied, trailing off as well. They didnt know what to say, how to respond, what to do. What could they?

"Its fine I just," the villain started, before taking a deep, recomposing breath, "Sorry, I've never told anyone about it,"

"No no, it's okay. God, I can't even imagine..."

"Its alright, I got my revenge in the end," the villain replied, turning back toward the hero.

"Really? How?"

The villain looked at them with a confused expression, before it shifted into an amused smirk, "For legal reasons, and because I don't want to prolong my time in here, I probably shouldn't tell you,"

The hero laughed, "fair point. For what it's worth, I'm glad you got justice, even if it probably isn't the kind of justice I'd agree with,"

"Really? You think I deserve justice?"

"Of course, I think everyone does," the hero said in confusion, as if that was obvious.

The villain huffed a half laugh, giving a small smile, "I need to remember who I'm talking to,"

Both their gazes fell back to the long discarded present on the floor.

"I can take it, if you'd like, but-"

"No no, it's okay, I... I cant believe the words 'I trust you' are coming out of my mouth but I at least trust you didnt gift me a bomb,"

"I don't know if I'm hurt or flattered,"

The villain laughed again, walking over to hesitantly pick up the gift. They turned back to face the hero, holding the box with both hands as they just stared at it.

"The question still remains..." they drawled, before looking up at the hero that was still sat on the bed, "Why would you get me a birthday present?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why would you get me a gift? Why would you do something like that? For me? I dont think I'm very... deserving of a gift. Especially from you. Unless whatever is in here is some form of mockery- I mean- I guess I shouldn't assume..."

Their eyes dimmed slightly, as if they realized the only thing that could be in the box was something mocking, a heros form of bragging that they had won.

"Okay now I'm definitely hurt,"

The villain looked back up at them.

"Your my friend, I realized your birthday was coming up, so I thought back on our previous conversations, and tried to get something I thought youd like," the hero replied, moving to sit it a more casual position, "There wasnt any more thought put into it then that,"

The villain was now staring at them with wide eyes.

They blinked, seemingly trying to process what they'd just heard.

"I... have questions..."

The hero smirked, tilting their head as a prompt to continue, amused at the normally silver tounged villain being thrown so off their game by something so simple.

"Friend?" The villain responded almost instantly.

"Oh I'm sorry, what would you call this? Marriage?"

"I'd call this me tolerating your visits, whenever you decide to drop by because you've nothing better to do,"

"Maybe at first, but I've seen the way you recently light up whenever I come in,"

"Then you've *recently* begun going blind. I'd suggest seeing an optometrist,"

The hero laughed, "also, for your information, I make time for these visits, I dont just swing by cuz 'I'm bored',"

The villain squinted at that, "You... make time... for me?"

"Yes, that's what friends do,"

"I am not your friend," the villain replied stubbornly.

"Oh yeah? When was the last time you let someone hug you? I have to have passed the friend mark by now,"

The villain blushed, realizing they *had* allowed the hero to hug them, and they couldnt remeber the last time anyone else had even tried, nevermind been *allowed*.

"this is a dysfunctional work relationship at best"

The hero snorted another laugh at that.

The villain glanced down at the box once more.

Finially they knelt down onto the floor, placing the box infront of them. The stared at it for a few seconds, hands shaking slightly as they hovered over it, before taking a deep breath and tearing the wrapping off.

It was a simple brown box with a lid.

The villain chuckled under their breath slightly at that.

"What?" The hero questioned, not seeing anything funny.

"No, sorry I just-, had a thought,"

The hero raised an eyebrow at them.

"I just thought how funny it would be if after all this it turned out to be empty, but that would be cruel, even for-"

Their sentence came to a halt as the lid came off and they saw what was inside.

Now their wasnt anything incredible inside, it wasnt like they had gotten a new iphone, but there was *many* things inside.

They looked up at the hero, mouth open slightly, not even attempting to hide their shock.

The hero just smiled.

Slowly, the villain began taking things out of the box. A book of puzzles, like crosswords and word searches, a small sketch book and a pack of markers to go with them. A small puzzle, showing the picture of a fox, which was the villains favourite animal. There was also a rubix cube that was already messed up, and a set of other small puzzles. At the bottom, there were two more boxes, one much bigger then the other.

The bigger box contained the Harry Potter book series. The second, contained a small device that looked like an airpod, along with earbuds.

It was fascinating for the hero to watch the villain open their gift. One would expect a villain to be clumsy, rushed, or aggressive, ripping into their present, but they were the opposite. They removed every item slowly, delicately, like it was a peice of glass that could break, examining it with the same gentleness before laying it down carefully beside them.

When they had opened the last item, they looked back up at the hero, completely flabbergasted, jaw on the floor and eyes wide.

The hero laughed quietly, "do you like it?"

"I..." the villain sat back onto their heels from where they were kneeling, looking over the items like they were unsure what to do now, "what..."

They blinked, gathering their thoughts, "how did you...? I mean what-"

They picked up the puzzle as they spoke.

"That's your favourite animal right? A fox? Now I wasnt sure what kind of fox but-"

"How?" The villain asked, almost breathlessly, looking back at the hero.

"How did I know that? You mentioned it, once. I was talking about being a cat or dog person, and you said youd always been a fox person, something about them being 'sly and underestimated, yet smart enough to know when to strike'" they recited, making quotations in the air.

The villains jaw hit the floor again.

"That was actually one of the first things you ever told me about yourself,"

"You bothered... to remeber that...?" they muttered under their breath.

"Yep. The rubix cube is because you bragged to me once you were good at puzzles and could do one, and I didn't believe you," the hero smirked, "still don't,"

The villain huffed a small laugh, before glancing over at the books.

"the puzzle book and sketch book are just something to do, I know markers arnt ideal, but obviously I wasnt allowed to give you any pencils or pens,"

The villain nodded in understanding.

"the books are because I was talking about game of thrones one day, and you said youd always preferred Harry Potter,"

The villain smiled, and shook their head at that, chuckling, "I've never actually read them, I just wanted to disagree with you," they joked.

They both laughed.

"What's this?" The villain asked, picking up the small device with the ear buds.

"Its a little mini portable radio. I didnt know what songs you liked, and obviously, I'm not allowed to give you anything with acsess to the internet, but at least now you can choose what station you want,"

The villain sat back again, looking over everything with the same stunned, almost lost expression.

"You... remebered all those little details... and here I thought I was doing a good job at not letting anything about myself slip..."

"Oh you have been, trying to figure out what to get you was near impossible, but I managed to remeber a couple little things youd mentioned,"

They picked up the rubix cube, playing with it aimlessly, "I... don't even know what to say..."

"Well, most people would say thankyou,"

The villain shook their head, "that dosent seem like enough. I... I cant even remeber the last time someone gave me a gift, nevermind one without strings attached, and esspecially nevermind one with actual thought put into it,"

"I get the feeling you need better friends," the hero joked, trying to keep the mood light.

"Yeah well, I guess I'm on the right track, I've already got one," they replied, but couldnt bring themselves to look at the hero while they did.

The hero in question was lit up like a christmas tree, heart swelling happily in their chest.

"I hate to cut this short, but don't have long today, I'm going to have to get going, I just wanted to make sure I got to swing by today," the hero said, looking at their watch.

"Oh! Yeah, of course, you -"

"Do not have 'more important' things to do, I simply have *other* things I need to do," the hero interrupted sternly, giving the villain, who blushed, a pointed look.

"yeah, that."

The villain stood up, standing awkwardly in the middle of all their gifts, watching the hero leave through the finger print locked cell door. They approached the switch to turn on the force field, when the villain stopped them.

"Oh, hey, wait!"

"What's up?" The hero asked.

Suddenly the villain tossed something through the bars with effortless perfect aim. The hero caught it, and this time it was their jaw that hit the floor.

It was a completed rubix cube.

They looked back at the villain in shock, who laughed, giving them a real, large, and although greatly amused, no less genuine smile. The first real, true smile they'd ever seen on the villain. They couldnt help but stare in awe for a moment.

"What..?" The villain asked after a moment.

The hero shook their head to snap them out of it, "sorry! It's just, that's the first time I think I've ever seen you actually smile,"

Instantly the smile vanished as the villain steeled their features, crossing their arms and shrugging, trying to ignore the blush on their face, "yeah well, that's cuz it dosent happen often, so,"

"I'm honored,"

"Shut up,"

The hero laughed, before looking at the cube in their hand again,"this is like, actually really impressive though, that was so fast!"

The villain shrugged again, "the 3 by 3 ones are easy, the 4 by 4 or 5 ones arnt that much more difficult, the 6 and 7 ones take me a while though, 8 is an actual challenge, and I dont think I've ever done above that before,"

The hero was still staring at them wide eyed.

The villain just chuckled and shrugged at them again, "I was an outcast kid, had alot of time on my hands. Anyway, get going,"

"Yeah, right," the hero replied, tossing the cube back before flicking on the force field. They began walking toward the door, before the villain spoke out to them one last time,

"By the way... thank you... really..."

The hero smiled, "your welcome," they replied, before disappearing out the door.

The next time they visited, they would make sure to bring a 9 by 9 rubix cube, and a fox calendar.

Third part

#heros and villains #heros #hero x villain #villains #snippet #writers on tumblr #writing

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seekingseven · 3 years

Note

All I would like to request is Legend and Sky hanging out, maybe being friends. Also, love you lots Seeking! Hope you're taking care of yourself and having a good day. It's what you deserve ^u^

Linked Universe Prompt Requests #3!

First of all, I appreciate you so much, Silver! And second, here you go!

(You can also read the fic here on Ao3)

~~~~~~

Legend leaned against his kitchen counter, chin in his palm and nose scrunched against the breeze leaking through the window.

"Foul ball, that was a foul ball!"

"Wha- no it wasn't! You can't call a foul ball whenever we score!"

Warriors and Twilight glowered at each other. On the far side of the backyard, Wind dribbled a spotted ball between his ankles and made small talk with Wild, who was trying to wipe away the sweat pooling under his arms with the end of his ponytail. Legend scrunched his nose in disgust. Apparently the champion's bright idea to host a ball game in the hottest hour of the afternoon had come back to bite him.

His focus drifted over to the other side of his backyard, where Hyrule stood forlornly between two wooden posts. His team's poor excuse for a goal, most likely.

"You tried to trip me!"

"I did not! Stop whining, would you? If you wanted to win you should have learned the rules of the game beforehand."

"Cut me some slack, Twi. It's my first time playing!"

"Not an excuse. If you wanted to learn you could have just stayed inside with Sky and Legend or gone to the market with Four!"

Warriors took a few quick steps forward. Twilight stood his ground and puffed up his chest.

"That's enough, you two." Time said, voice snapping from his spot on a nearby bench. Legend grunted. What kind of referee watched from a bench? This was why there was an argument happening in the first place.

Behind him, the kettle began to whistle. Legend pushed himself off his elbows and turned to shut off the stove top, only partially ignoring the sounds of athletic revelry from the backyard. Porcelain clinked as Legend pulled a cup off the drying rack, then, glancing across the room, pulled off another.

If Sky was bothered by any of the commotion outside or the domestic ambience inside, he didn't show it. Instead, he sat at a table by the porch window, filing idly through the mounds of miscellaneous letters and trinkets piled around him. An overhead cuckoo clock wheedled out a dinky tune as Sky scrutinized an oddly-shaped mask.

"Coffee?" Legend asked.

Sky looked up from the table, then smiled.

"Yes, please!"

"Wrong, it's tea. What kind do you want?"

Sky's eyebrows furrowed for a moment before he caught on.

"Oh, haha! You got me. Uh, I don't really know. Surprise me."

Legend nodded to himself as he poured the kettle into the two cups. "You like sweet stuff?"

"Yeah, big fan. Can't drink anything too hot, though. Hurts my face. You got any iced tea or something?"

Steam plumed from the cups. Legend let out a small snort.

"Would have been nice to know that earlier."

Sky scratched the back of his neck and had the decency to offer up an apologetic smile. With a roll of his eyes, Legend set the kettle down and hoisted himself onto the kitchen counter.

He knew he stored the ice cubes in one of the overhead cabinets, but which one? Cabinets opened and closed as Legend balanced precariously on the countertop. Where was it? Had he really been gone so long that he didn't know where his own things were?

"Hey Legend, what's this?"

Paper rustled. The legs of Sky's chair squeaked as he leaned back, and in the corner of his eye Legend saw his companion hold something up to his face.

"Little busy here," Legend mumbled, closing yet another cabinet full of pots and pans. Maybe he should give some to Ravio; the guy needed some things for his new place, anyway. "Can you describe it to me?"

A snicker, then a stifled sound of agreement. Legend would have turned around to glare at Sky if he wasn't busy gloating over his find; the ice, at last! The countertop groaned as Legend plopped the bag of ice atop it and hopped onto the floor.

"It's a letter," Sky began, his voice uncharacteristically suave. Legend's eyes narrowed. "It's in this little pink envelope, and there's a little heart sticker on it. Says on the back....'from Elise.' Oh ho ho! Who's Elise? And there's another one here! This one's white, and it has a flower sticker on the lip. Very, very cute. Is this from Elise, too? Let me see...oh goddesses! 'From Carmen!' Carmen! Now tell me, does Elise know about this Carmen?"

Sky looked up at him with an impossibly smug grin. Legend pressed the corners of his lips down as he pulled out the rest of the ingredients for the tea.

"They're just girls," Legend began. "Just-"

"Just girls? What kind of philosophy is that? And to think you criticize Warriors for his womanizing tendencies..."

"You didn't let me finish! They're just girls who work at the bakery in Castle Town. I don't know how they got my address, but one day they all started sending me letters like that."

Sky's eyebrows piqued upwards. It might have looked innocent if not for the devious smile on his face.

"Oh, I see. So why did you keep them? Elise and Carmen must have been very sorry to have not received any response," Sky said, rifling through the stack of pink and red and crème colored letters and flipping them over to read the names on the back. Legend pretended he didn't see Sky's grin widen. "And I'm guessing the same is true for poor Lisa...and Donatella...and Trish..."

It was a good thing that Legend was preoccupied with measuring out sugar and honey, because if he had been any closer to the ice cubes, they might have melted from the heat radiating off Legend's face.

"I'm serious, Sky! I don't know any of them. I don't know why they kept sending the letters -- I never even gave them my address! I mean, I'm sure they're all really nice girls, but I'm just not, you know, in the position to be in a relationship right now...with the traveling and heroics and all that..."

Silverware clattered as Legend pulled open a drawer and retrieved a fruit knife. The sound of shouting and running echoed from outside. Light streamed through the kitchen window, and the breeze pushed along dust bunnies on the floor. Sky studied Legend, watching with unusual intensity as the latter skinned and diced a peach, then folded his hands behind his head.

"Fine, fine. But one more question, then."

Legend made a vague sound that could have been read as either grateful or irritated; most likely, it was a combination of both. Sky pushed forward anyway.

"Why'd you keep them?"

"What?"

"The cards. Why did you keep them? Did you just not have a chance to throw them away or something?"

"Throw them away? Of course not! Did you see the paper they're made of? That sort of high quality cardstock doesn't come from just anywhere! If I can find a way to bleach the paper without damaging it, I can use it for all sorts of things!"

Sky snorted, smiled, and tossed a handful of pink cards back onto the table. Hoarder, indeed.

"I think that Ravio friend of yours is starting to rub off on you."

"He is not," Legend insisted, placing a spoon and straw in both cups before walking over to the table. Only after Sky brushed away the cards in front of him did Legend hand him his tea. "He would have tried to sell them off as antiques or something. Guy wouldn't know what a real antique was even if it was staring him in the face."

Sky hummed. The sound bubbled into his tea and set little capsules of air drifting across the frothy surface. "Hey, did you put peaches in this?"

"Yeah, you like it?"

Outside, Warriors cried foul and Hyrule said something about headshots. Sky sipped his drink again, then grinned. "Mmmm, delicious. Yeah, I love it! Give me the recipe sometime, huh?"

"Heh, will do. Glad you like it."

"And speaking of Ravio, where is he? Didn't you say he used to squat here?"

Legend nodded, hands cupped around his drink and goosebumps flaring from its soothing coolness. "He did, but he just moved out. Got his own shop by the castle, with a big nice sign out in front. Professionally made. It looks pretty good, honestly. I haven't seen him in a while, but I might drop by sometime to say hi."

"Ah, I see," Sky said, absently threading one of the love letters through his fingers. Legend shot him a dirty glare, but he paid it no mind. "Hey, you said that these girls somehow figured your address, right? Do you think Ravio might have given it out? Maybe while you were gone or something?"

"Ravio? That's ridiculous. He's not the sort of guy to do that. For the longest time he's been telling me to...to..."

Legend's eyes widened. The goosebumps along his arms grew more pronounced, and this time it wasn't from his chilly drink.

"He what?" Sky prompted.

"He's been telling me to get a girlfriend for the longest time and...he...he set me up. He set me up! He gave out my address to those girls. I know it! He...this is his fault!"

Sky burst into laughter. Tea sprayed across the table, splattering across rose-colored envelopes and sparkling cardstock. Legend punched him in the shoulder, hard, but Sky didn't stop.

"Ravio! Ravio as your wingman, I would have never thought! Doing the goddesses' work, he is!"

"Oh, shut up, would you? I'm not going to make you tea again!"

Their punching and tousling cooled when the front door swung open. A moment later, Four stepped inside, arms laden with groceries and a peculiar grin on his face.

"You're back!" Sky said. Legend mumbled something about Sky stating the obvious before placing his cup to his cheek, trying to smother his burning blush.

"Sorry to interrupt whatever was going on here," Four said. That odd smile was still on his face. "I’m just about to put all these groceries away, but there's something I need to give to Legend first."

"Me?" Legend asked. Four's grin widened; it looked unnervingly similar to the one Sky had worn just minutes ago.

"Yes, special delivery. From a certain 'Amelia'. It's the red box, yeah, that one."

Legend picked up the box gently, sandwiching it between his forearm and bicep, and shuddered. Sky and Four traded a sidelong look before the latter darted off into the kitchen.

"Well? What do you think it is?" Sky asked.

"I don't want to know," Legend whispered. He took a seat by the table before tossing the box by his cup. Something rustled inside.

"Open it..."

"Open it!" Four chimed from the kitchen. His voice was unusually high.

With a world weary sigh, Legend edged his fingers under the box cover and slowly lifted it upwards.

"Well? What is it?"

"Wait, would you? I can't tell..."

Legend leaned forward, squinting.

His eyes widened.

With an undignified BANG, he slammed the box shut and launched it across the room. His face was stained a dangerous color of scarlet.

"...well?" Sky repeated, "what was it?"

Legend let out a short breath, then leaned over to cradle his head in his hands.

"...remind me to kill Ravio the next time I see him," he growled.

Sky and Four burst into laughter, and even Legend couldn't fully stifle a smile.

~~ Fine ~~ I hope you enjoyed! Thank you so much for reading! [Previous Request] - [Next Request]

#linked universe Sky #linkeduniverse #linkeduniverse fanfic #linked universe legend #please dont rb as raviolink!#all platonic stuff here <3 #seeking's prompt requests!

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ff-imagines · 3 years

Note

Can i request some nsfw headcanons for mantis shrimp? I read through your blog and let me just say: I'm a big fan. Btw if you dont wanna do them thats fine as well

Salt and pepper shrimp: nsfw alphabet

I did the whole alphabet bc? Why not! Side note I rly wanna write a fic going off my thoughts ab his experience level >:)

A - aftercare

Look, getting him to release you from his hold to go to the bathroom on a regular night is a battle enough. After sex? Phew I wish you luck. Might wanna just put some water on your night stand beforehand. You would be able to convince him to take a bath with you pretty easily though, he likes how the warm water feels very much. Make sure to cuddle him in the bath still, he's in a very vulnerable state right now and he really needs some good old tlc.

B- body parts

he’s got a weird fixation with your hands. He likes to compare hand sizes, whether your hands are bigger or smaller isn’t what he likes, he just likes to admire them. He loves sucking/biting your fingers while he’s got you in his lap. Lacing your fingers with his with one hand while bringing the other to his cheek, nuzzling into your hand while he bounces you on his cock.

On himself, there is tragically little that he genuinely likes. He views himself as a weapon, getting him to unlearn that will not be an easy process, trust me, Boston has tried. Complimenting his eyes does seem to make him a little more flustered than other praises, and he has a hard time staring you in the eye during sex…. maybe we can start there.

C - cum

His cum is pretty thin but there’s a shit ton of it. Enough that if he cums inside you swear you can feel the warmth as his cock pours rope and rope of his seed into you.

He doesn’t actually care where he cums, just ask him and he’ll comply.

inside you? sounds good.

On your back? Say less.

On the floor? You’re cleaning it, but sure.

He did discover he’s got an affinity for watching his cum on your tongue. I don’t know how you’d be able to swallow it all, but any attempt you make will be met with shrimp getting hard all over again.

D - dirty secret

He secretly thinks it’d be really hot for you to dom him. It’s gonna take a very long time before he’s comfortable letting you have that Linda control over him, just the thought of being tied up, hands behind his back while you praise him for being such a good boy, its a fantasy he’s visited on many sleepless nights.

E - experience

Nope. Nada. To be frank, I think he’s the definition of Demisexual, and he has yet to meet anyone besides Boston and the anti-human gang who he genuinely wants to get to know better. He definitely hasn’t met anyone who wants to get to know better for romantic reasons.

He doesn’t know enough about human customs to know that it can be embarrassing for someone to be inexperienced, but he does feel very very nervous the first few times. He’ll need a lot of reassurance, give him praise and he’s putty in your hands.

F - favorite position

I'm gonna be boring and say missionary. It’s simple, easy, and since he’s brand new to all of this it’s the least mentally overstimulating. He very much likes that he can see your face.

If he’s feeling extra spicy he might grab onto the inside of your knees and push you into the mating press, though he really only does this if he’s upset or jealous.

If you ask nicely he might let you sit in his lap, as a treat. Bouncing on his cock as he litters your chest with bite marks, what a treat it is <3

G - goofy

…. yea for sure definitely. He’s a real jokester.

On a serious note, he himself is not a goofy person whatsoever, but he would actually like it if you were. Outright making fun of him or harsh teasing is an immediate turn off, but light jokes to ease his nerves is for sure welcomed since he’s very tense the first few times.

Give him time and you might even catch him cracking a small joke himself, all the while giving you a weak, nervous smile.

H- hair

He doesn’t trim or shave anything lmao. He’s busy, and also doesn’t care literally at all. He’s got a thin happy trail that can be easy to miss since he's blonde.

He’s got the same energy with your body hair, he doesn’t care. If you do shave he might ask why, just out of curiosity. If your reason is insecurity, he’ll probably suggest you let it grow, he doesn’t care and he’s the only one who’ll ever see it lmao

I- intimacy

It’s an awkward “i hope to fuck I’m doing this right” kind of intimacy. He fumbles and messes up a lot, he might even accidentally miss when thrusting and end up just kinda rubbing himself on you but he’s really trying. Just from the fact he’s willing to try this at all with you is a big sign that he’s really trying his best to be as intimate as he can with you.

J- jerk off

Before meeting you, not a lot actually. He mostly just did it if he ever woke up from a wet dream and knew that if he didn’t take care of it now he’d never be able to get back to sleep.

After your first time together, his first time, he thinks back the immeasurable pleasure a lot, finding himself in need of relief a lot more than he ever did before. You are the catalyst to his drive, and you are also the only thing he can think about that can help him cum. It’s kinda sweet in a perverted way.

K- Kinks

He will bite you. It’s just so easy to bruise you and it makes your relationship status to others so obvious, he can’t just… not bite you.

Marking, going along with the biting kink. This goes both ways, he’d love for you to scratch at his back enough to leave red marks, to bite as his collarbone, grip his hips tight enough to bruise. He likes looking at the marks later, they remind him that he did good, he made you feel good, that’s all he really wants.

He doesn’t exactly have a breeding kink as much as this goes along with the marking aspect. Suggest to him that he cum deep inside you to mark your insides… he might give you 2-3 loads just to make sure you're nice and full, completely claimed.

He also kinda likes to make you cry. Overstimulating you to the point of tears gives him a sense of pride he hasn’t really felt before.

He really likes temperature play as well, dragging ice cubes and hot wax across your skin and watching you flinch and squirm just does something to him.

And of course, light bondage. He probably found out it was a thing after reading some kinda erotic fiction and immediately went to you like “why did you not tell me about this?????” He adores how to look all tied up and stuck, right in the palm of his hands. It makes him feel emotional as well, that you’re willing to give him such a powerful amount of control over you.

Last but not least, please praise him. During sex as well as day to day. Let him know he’s so pretty, he’s doing so good, he’s cock feels so so good, he might cum on the spot.

L- location

The first time he’d really need it to be in a secluded, safe area. He’s gotta feel comfy if he’s gonna get into the mood.

Every other time? Babes you’ve awakened a beast, he’ll get random spikes of “if I don’t at least try to fuck them I will scream”. You could be in the middle of a forest running from an axe wielding murderer and this horny bastard would still find a way to pull you aside and rail you against a tree.

There most likely isn’t a spot in your home that he hasn’t fucked you against.

Peaceful moment of washing dishes? Think again, he’s plopping you on the kitchen counter and diving to mouth at your neck.

Writing some papers? Just sit on his lap, you’ll feel much less stressed with his cock buried to the hilt, won’t you?

Doing laundry? Might have to rewash them cause now he’s using the clothes as a bed to fuck you on. He’ll apologize and help you fold them after they’re rewashed bc he feels bad lmao

M- motivation

Like I said, he’s set off by the smallest things. A little stretch, wiping some water off on your pants, humming a song, all of it can randomly make him feel the need to fuck you.

The most intense and quickest way to rile him up is either playing with his hair, or massaging his back. It starts out innocent but he just can’t take the thought of your pretty hands working so lovingly and not at least trying to reciprocate and make you feel good too.

N- no

No sharing. He doesn’t want someone else to see you, and he doesn’t want someone else to see him. It’s just not something he likes.

He also hates humiliation. He… would tolerate it if you asked for it, even if he doesn’t get why you’d want him to outright insult you. But for himself? Fuck no, he hates it so fuckin much. He’s a sensitive insecure puppy that wants your attention very badly, pls don’t hurt him like that :(

O- oral

Oh please give him oral. He’s begging. Well, he’d never outright beg but the way his eyes fixate on your mouth a lot is his way of silently pleading for you to wrap your lips around his cock. His soul ascends a little every time he sees his cum dribbling down your face, he might be even willing to make out with his cum still on your tongue.

As for giving, he’s got no clue what the hell he’s doing but he’s nervously eager to try. Guide him as best you can, he’s good at measuring your reactions so he can handle the rest. Tug on his hair a little bit if you wanna drive him crazy.

He’ll get a lot better with time, his eagerness to please however, does not leave him in the slightest.

P- pace

The first time? Slow and unsure, then he realizes “oh fuck this feels stupid good” and his pace becomes almost punishing. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, he’s unknowingly going deeper and harder than you've ever been dicked down in your life. If you want him to, somehow, go harder? Grab his hand and place it over your stomach to make him feel his cock enter you through your skin, his hand slides down to grip your hips and slams into you, wiggling his hips without withdrawing to gain some of his sanity back before he’s back to a punishing pace.

Q- quickies

Oh hell yea. He lives for them. Sudden moments of horniness come to him all the time and since this spike in desire is brand new, he hasn’t really… learned to live with it yet. He pulls you aside into closets and alleyways all the time, he can’t help that you feel so warm and snug :(

R- risk

He doesn’t exactly enjoy the thought of a voyeur, he really doesn’t want to share you with anyone. But… there is a deeper part of him that finds a sense of pride if someone were to hear you getting absolutely pounded by him, desperately crying out and whining for him to go deeper, even better if they were someone who pined for you….

S- stamina

Well, to be frank he cums pretty quickly. It’s all so brand new to him, he really can’t help it. Lucky for you, his refractory time is crazy low. He can cum once, watch you do some mindless motion you always do and he’s right back to being hard again in minutes.

T- toys

Not against it, but is again, brand new to all this shit. He’s very interested in using your own toys against you though. Would definetly use a vibrater to edge and overstim you. He’d be interested in a cock ring, only if you were willing to endure a vibrator while he fucks you, he doesn’t wanna be the only one struggling lmao

U- unfair

He can be, yea. He kinda likes edging you, but not as much as he likes overstimulating you.

He loves to hear how you beg under him when he’s pulling you so close to the edge, keeping you just far enough to drive you insane.

Overstimming though? The way you twitch and beg, how your chest heaves and your mouth hangs open into a silent scream, eyes shut tight and watering, now that’s the good shit.

V- volume

Doesn’t talk much, but for sure gives out a lot of groans. This is something he’s never felt before in his life, the first few times you're going to get a lot of whines and surprised yelps, check up on him and make sure he’s still doing alright, he’s just very nervous.

As he gets more comfortable, he gives you quiet praises and promises to make you feel good. He also groans quite a lot, but since his voice is deeper it can be hard to catch.

W- wild card

He really wants to try using his prosthetic arm for temperature play, he’s just not at all confident in himself enough to bring it up. He likes the thought of you jumping and squirming under his touch, for now he can just stick to wax play.

X- X Ray

Mans is actually pretty fuckin big. He’s got no idea how big he is though. If you were surprised and a little nervous about his size he’d be pretty confused, is there something wrong? Did you change your mind? The concept of him being well above average is something you’ll have to explain later. It boosts his ego quite bit, even if he’d never admit it.

Whine about him being too big and you can just see the pride swelling in his chest, giving you no mercy with his thrusts.

Y- yearning

Often. Very very often. He’d fuck you multiple times every day if he had the time. However, you’re both busy, and you’d probably get a UTI with how many times this man wants to dick you down lmao. He’s got his cock buried in you at least 4-5 times a week.

Z- zzz

Actually pretty quickly. Even if he prefers being in control during sex, he kinda likes being the little spoon as he drifts to sleep. Give him some soft praises about how well he did and he’s turning into jello in your hold.

#food fantasy #food fantasy x reader #ff salt and pepper shrimp #ff salt and pepper shrimp x reader

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krappykawa · 4 years

Text

ಌ i mildly like you more than like (p.5)

— in which an incessant fan girl, a kiss, and a little bit of denial makes oikawa tooru realize he might mildly like you more than like

description. you’ve been in love with oikawa tooru for longer than you can remember. having known him for the better part of nearly 11 years, you’ve come to accept that you’ll never be more than a best friend to him. but with the help of a few irritatingly persistent fangirls and a kiss that was only meant to drive them away, a tale of unrequited love might just prove to be something more.

warnings. language

word count. 4.6k

oikawa tooru x f!reader, childhood best friends to lovers, fluff, some angst

parts. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

author’s note. second to last part 😼😼 idk if you could call this angst but whatever it is will end next chap bc next chap will probably be teeth-rotting 😄

previously ...

“ You can feel Hanamaki stand straighter and you’re sure that he has the stupidest triumphant grin on his face. “No. Not until you stop crying over captain pretty face.”

“Y/N-chan’s crying over who now?”

You feel Makki freeze in the middle of his marching. Awkwardly, you turn to see Oikawa’s figure at the door from your position thrown over Hanamaki’s shoulder. You forgot that he was the only one that doesn’t knock.

Something in Oikawa’s expression is odd.

“Makki, fix this or I cut off your dick,” you whisper into his ear. He gulps.

“Oh, hey Shittykawa. We’re just helping Y/N with her captain pretty face problems,” Hanamaki says. You already don’t like the way that this is heading.

“Who … exactly is .. captain pretty face?” Oikawa’s eyes are on you. The irony of the nickname is not lost on you. You can only hope that the words that come out of Hanamaki’s mouth next are not the words you’re dreading.

“Don’t worry. You’re not captain pretty face. Kaoru is!” The world does not seem to be on your side.

Oikawa’s smile drops and suddenly you have the urge to cut Makki’s dick off anyways, because he just made this a lot, lot worse. “

“Ah, so I’ve been replaced by another captain pretty face? Y/N-chan I’m wounded!” Oikawa closes the door behind him as he laughs, but the sound is hollowed and not at all what a genuine laugh of his sounds like. You shoot a look to Iwaizumi, but find that he’s scrutinizing Oikawa in the same way that you were just moments ago.

With a light punch to his back from you, Makki slowly sets you back down onto your feet. You lift a hand to tidy your hair.

“Makki’s lying. He’s just being a pain in the ass,” you reply. In saying that, you’re well aware of the fact that you’re potentially diving into dangerous territory. It would be too easy for Oikawa to decide that he wants to know more and possibly ask you the questions that you’re so dreading, but there’s something wrong about having him believe that you actually like Kaoru that you find more dreadful than potentially having to tell him about your year-long love for him.

Oikawa sets his bag down next to a bin full of his things that he’d left over the years before turning back to look at you. The expression he meets you with is almost off-putting. The corners of his mouth are flicked upwards in what might be disapproval, but his eyes reflect something else - something akin to regret. “Is he really? I mean you have been spending quite a bit of time with Kaoru-kun as of late, haven’t you?”

His voice sounds like it’s dripping with lies, though you can’t quite understand why that’s so because he technically wasn’t lying. You decide that maybe you've just gotten so used to the realness of Oikawa that you forget that his natural tongue is fluent in lying. The only people that have ever been able to see right through his tone are all standing in this room.

Inevitably, you find your eyes flicking to Makki’s. Oikawa notices. You see the facade drop the mildest bit.

“I don’t. You know that you would be the first to know if I did,” you say. It’s true. Growing up, he’s always been the first to know about your crushes, no matter how small. He’s known about all crushes, except for one. Him himself.

Something changes in his expression then. It’s a miniscule change - the slight upward tip to his lips that makes the almost imperceptible indent of a dimple peak out - but you’re so attuned to him that you know that means that his smile is genuine. “I’ll hold you to that Y/N-chan. Don’t you go around replacing me.”

The air in the room seems to sigh in relief. You turn your eyes away from him when you feel yourself start to smile. You don’t want to give Makki, Mattsun, or Iwaizumi anything to make fun of you for later on.

“Cut the dramatics in front of them. It’s like you’re asking to get made fun of,” you say instead.

Oikawa just shrugs. “According to Iwa-chan, just having this face is already asking to get made fun of, so there’s really no big difference.”

Iwaizumi snorts from his position on the couch. “I said that your face when you look dumb is asking to get made fun of, but it’s good that you’re self aware.”

Oikawa sticks a tongue out at him.

“As mature as always captain,” Mattsun says.

Oikawa flicks his gaze to Matsukawa before he says, “Hm, that reminds me. Y/N-chan please accompany me to the kitchen.” He’s already walking to the kitchen without waiting for a response.

You exchange looks with Iwaizumi, Matsukawa, and Hanamaki. Hanamaki has the decency to look apologetic. You make hand motions at him that elicits a chuckle from Matsukawa.

When you enter the kitchen, Oikawa has a cup of ice and a handkerchief sitting on the counter. He’s carefully dropping a few ice cubes into the middle of the handkerchief.

“What’s that for?”

He’s quiet as he finishes and wraps the handkerchief around the ice. “Close your eyes,” he says softly as he walks towards you and presses the cold ice against your eyes. “You were crying before I got here.”

You stay quiet. Of course he noticed.

“What happened? Are you sure Makki was lying? You can tell me you know, if something happened with Kaoru.”

You let out a breath and allow the cold of the ice against your eyes ease you into a lie. “I wasn’t crying over Kaoru. They just found out that he walked me home today and decided to roll with it. I’m really just exhausted from classes.”

The hand that Oikawa was using to dab at your eyes suddenly stops. “Kaoru … walked you home? From the bakery?”

Slowly, you let your eyes flutter open, your puffing eyes already missing the cold of the ice against your eyelids. Oikawa’s eyes are trained on you, and you get that odd feeling that he’s searching you for answers. You’ve found that he’s been doing that a lot as of late - this whole reading instinct he uses for people he’s just met. You still aren’t used to him using it on you.

You flick your eyes away from his and break the eye contact. Instead, you look at his hand and reach up to take the ice pack from him. He hands it to you gently and takes a step back. You watch him as he clears his throat and moves to disappear behind the fridge door.

“Yeah, he did walk me home,” you pause, debating with yourself about telling him. “I think he came to ask me on a date, actually.”

You think you imagine Oikawa’s body stopping mid-movement. “Did you say yes?”

“No. He asked if I was free today. I told him that I already made plans with you four.”

“Oh,” Oikawa says as he pulls out a cup of mint chocolate chip.

“Yeah.”

As he makes himself busy with finding a spoon, you lean against the counter and continue to press the ice against your eyes. Oikawa sneaks a glance at you. “If he asked again, and you didn’t have plans. Would you say yes?”

His voice is unnaturally quiet. You aren’t sure what to do with that knowledge.

“Probably not. I broke up with him for a reason.”

A noise of agreement comes from Oikawa. “You said that you two didn’t click.”

“We don’t.”

A comfortable silence engulfs you two as Oikawa leans against the counter next to you. You try not to watch him as he takes a bite of ice cream and unintentionally smiles, his eyes looking serene for the first time in a while. Instead, you make yourself busy with alternating the ice pack between your eyes, though now you were mostly just doing it so that you had something to do other than get the urge to stare at him.

After a moment, Oikawa speaks again. “I still don’t believe for one second that you were only crying because of school.”

You let the hand holding the ice pack finally fall to your side. “Well you better believe it then because it’s the truth.”

“Maybe. But I get the feeling that it’s a half truth.”

“Half truths aren’t all bad.”

“So I’m right.”

You make yourself busy with throwing the ice into the sink as you scramble your head for a decent lie. “Bad day at the bakery. I fucked up the honey buns.”

Oikawa hums. “So now it’s a two-thirds truth.”

The other third is that I’m in love with your dumbass and you’ll never know.

“That’s it. Promise.”

Oikawa switches tactics. “Y/N-channn. You’re lying to me.”

“Tooruuuu. I’m not lying to you,” you say as you roll your eyes.

“Yes you are. You’re doing that thing.”

“What thing?”

“Tapping your right middle finger on your thigh.”

“I do that?” You look down and find that you were indeed tapping your finger against your thigh. You start to wonder how many other times he could detect your lies, but for the sake of your sanity, you decide not to dwell on it.

He reaches down and stops your tapping finger with his own hand. The moment lasts too long -- feels too personal. You pull your hand away and take a step back so that you’re leaning against the opposite counter.

“Whatever. I’m telling the truth.”

“Sure you are.”

“I am!”

“Mhm. Lies, lies , lies,” Oikawa says playfully. “Sorry for not being here earlier. I got caught up in playing this new game Takeru bought. You should’ve called me over. I would’ve come in a heartbeat if I knew that you were having a hard time.”

You make a waving motion with your hand. “It’s fine really. I just got overwhelmed by stuff. No big deal.”

Oikawa frowns. The sight doesn’t look natural on his usually smiling face. “Stop putting yourself down like that. I don’t care how small you think your problem is. If it makes you cry, then it’s worth talking about.”

“Don’t get all team captain ‘Kawa on me. I appreciate it, I really do. But this time it really wasn’t a big deal.”

He scoffs in disbelief. “I walked in and your eyes looked redder than Mattsun’s ass after I accidentally hit him with a serve.”

“How the fuck would you know that?”

“Don’t question what goes on in the locker room.”

A laugh bubbles up from your lips and you have to tip your head back so that Oikawa doesn’t make fun of the way your face contorts as you laugh. When your laughter finally dies down, you look back to see that Oikawa’s staring at you again. He’s looking at you like you’re an opponent he can’t quite get a read on.

“You alright?”

“Yeah. Everything’s fine,” he pauses. “Do you think I should invite Hishoko next time? You know … to be a .. good boyfriend.”

Suddenly it hits you again. It hits you that you can’t just live in this perfect little bubble where you and Oikawa are making jokes at each other in your kitchen forever. It hits you that this Oikawa - the Oikawa that’s so very real and rough around the edges but makes you laugh louder than anyone - isn’t yours. It hits you that while he might look at you one way, he might look at Hishoko in a completely different way that you have never been privy to.

It rips you back to reality, and suddenly you’re aware of the voices in the living room and how Makki and Iwa seem to be fighting over whatever movie’s better.

“Oh yeah. I don’t mind.” You smile up at him with the most convincing smile you can. Suddenly, the thought of spending one more minute in this kitchen with him and getting lost in this perfect little bubble makes you want to cry all over again. “We should head back. I think hell’s going down over there,” you say lightly.

Before he can even get a word out, you’re already making a beeline for the living room. You try to slow your steps to a normal pace when you start towards where Iwaizumi is now sitting on the floor. You make sure to make him move over so that you can sit on the side where the couch ends so that Oikawa can’t sit next to you.

“Fucking finally. Don’t ever leave me in a room with Makki and Iwaizumi ever again,” Matsukawa says. You laugh a little when you notice that he’s saying that while being sprawled across Makki’s lap.

“It’s not my fault that Hanamaki can’t appreciate a cinematic masterpiece.”

“Hate to break it to you Iwa, but Godzilla vs. The Cosmic Monster isn’t anyone’s favorite movie.”

Oikawa’s voice joins in as you hear steps from the kitchen. “Makki, that movie’s a fucking masterpiece. Please shut your mouth.”

You try not to listen to the way Oikawa’s steady steps back into the living room come to a halt when he notices your choice of seat.

He looks up at the stars twinkling against the blackened blue of the contrasting night sky with a heavy sigh. Oikawa always felt a sense of stability and tranquility when looking up at the sky, as if it was a reminder that his life was just a minuscule dot in the cloth of the universe. That maybe, his worries were something so small that he needn’t have to worry about them.

He remembers the way that the night sky was his company when his father had left so early on in his life, or when his sister had come home crying because she had a human growing inside of her and the man she was supposed to marry left her in the same fashion that their own father had, or when he thought that maybe his love for volleyball would have to be ripped from him after his injury in his first year.

He hopes to look up at the dark indigo of the sky and feel that same tranquility. For just a moment. It does.

But even now, as his chest rises softly, he can still feel the unease weighing on him.

The night went by unnaturally fast for a night with you, Iwaizumi, Hanamaki, and Matsukawa. After a few fights between the guys, all five of you finally sat down and got around to watching the movie (which, to Oikawa’s distaste, was some old film from the 60s that Matsukawa had picked because he was drawn to the odd looking cover).

The movie came and went with more than a few complaints from him. It was the type of movie that he especially hated - the kind with a plot that made absolutely zero sense and had an ending that made Oikawa want to rewind the last two hours because he just couldn’t believe he spent 2 hours of his life trying to figure out what the hell was going on just for it to not have a satisfactory ending.

He wouldn’t put the bad movie down as the reason for his irritable mood, but if anyone asked, it would be the answer that they’d get.

Nobody else seemed to be particularly fond of the horrendous movie either (except for Matsukawa, who insisted that they just simply did not have to brain to appreciate the masterpiece. Makki just insisted that the movie was a pile of shit, which Oikawa found himself agreeing with).

Soon after, the five of you found yourselves cramped into your tiny kitchen, which really should never happen again, if the glass that broke after getting knocked over was any indication. It only really happened because Matsukawa swore that he could create the best soup they’d ever put anywhere near their mouths, but that plan went up in flames. Literally.

The incident of Makki almost setting off the fire alarm seemed to sober everyone up, as if whatever energy had previous possessed the five of you had suddenly run out. Oikawa didn’t mind too much, considering the rest of the night was spent watching reruns of one of your favorite shows that he was particularly fond of.

What he did mind however, was the way that you seemed to decide to avoid him for the entire night. He was sure that Iwa, Mattsun, and Makki must’ve noticed, but by some odd agreement, nobody dared speak a word about it.

He tried not to think about anything whenever he felt his eyes drift down to where you were huddled against Iwaizumi’s side, a position that had been his and yours for as long as he could remember. He tried not to think about it then because he was sure that if he did, he’d end up saying something he didn’t mean to say.

He knew that he’d have to think about this in the silence of his own thoughts where there’s nothing but his own annoying emotions chiming in.

So now he’s here, sitting on a bench in your backyard and staring up at the sky like it’ll give him the answer to whatever question he wanted answered.

He hadn’t meant to bring up Hishoko, he really hadn’t. He just remembered the way his stomach fluttered once more at the sound of your laugh and the way it made him panic, because for the love of everything he wasn’t supposed to feel like that.

“Oikawa?”

Oikawa tears his gaze from the sky and turns to meet Iwaizumi’s head as he slips through the door. He must not have heard the door open. “Hey Iwa-chan. I couldn’t sleep.”

Iwaizumi lets out a low chuckle as he walks to where Oikawa’s seated in the middle of your rock garden. He takes a seat next to Oikawa on the bench. “Leave it to you to be the only one that stays up when everyone else crashed two hours ago.”

“Mhm. Why are you awake? Last I checked you were as passed out as the rest of them,” Oikawa says with his gaze still flickering over the stars.

Iwaizumi shrugs. “Had to use the bathroom and then realized that you weren’t anywhere to be found.”

Oikawa seizes the moment to don his cheeky smile, turning his head from the stars and to Iwaizumi’s sleep-ridden face. “Awe you worried about me Iwa-chan?”

The reaction he gets from Iwaizumi is an eyeroll, but Oikawa doesn’t expect any less. “After you spent the night looking like you were one second away from an existential crisis? Yeah I did.”

Oikawa doesn’t respond to that. He wonders if you noticed too.

“Spit it out.”

He ponders with himself for a moment, wondering if it’s a good idea to finally just talk about it with someone. He decides that if there’s anyone he’d talk about this with, he’s glad it’s with Iwaizumi. “It’s about Y/N and Hishoko.”

Iwa doesn’t miss a beat, as if he was expecting that. “Mm. What about them?”

“I think I made a mistake.”

“You make a lot of those, ‘Kawa.”

“No, I mean, I shouldn’t have accepted Hishoko’s confession when the only reason I did it was because I didn’t know how I was feeling. It’s not fair to her that the only reason I’m with her is because I’m too cowardly to decide how I felt after I ...” Oikawa trails off, unsure if you’d be okay with Iwaizumi knowing.

It seems he doesn’t have to worry because Iwaizumi finishes his sentence for him. “Kissed Y/N?”

Oikawa’s head turns to Iwaizumi. “You know about that?”

“She told me, yeah.”

“Why … why would she tell you that?”

“You’re not fucking dense, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says with a side glance at his best friend. “I think you know the answer to that.”

For a moment Oikawa considers the possibility that you did feel the same way (a fantasy he’s entertained more times than he’s willing to admit), but he knows that he has to get this out now, has to figure it out and solidify what he feels for you now, because he won’t be able to stand it if he has to keep tiptoeing around you because he’s a fool that can’t admit his own feelings to himself.

The question that comes out of his mouth next isn’t exactly what he meant to ask, but now that it’s out in the open, Oikawa guesses that maybe that’s the question that’s been holding him back this whole time. “What if I mess up?”

“Mess up how?”

He sighs. “I don’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to relationships.” So far, out of the six relationships he’s had, only two of them will even look at him without disdain, and one of those is his current girlfriend.

“No shit,” Iwaizumi snorts.

Oikawa fakes a pout before crossing his arms. “You could’ve at least pretended to disagree.”

“When you’re out here moping because of it? No I won’t.”

A silence falls over the two of them. Oikawa can feel his own breathing synced up with Iwaizumi and finds that it clears his head a little bit. He gets the feeling that Iwaizumi isn’t going to talk again until he does.

“Hishoko’s great, really she is,” Oikawa starts again. “But I just-“ He lets out a frustrated sigh, slumping further down against the bench.

Iwaizumi hums. “Don’t like her like that? Because there’s someone else?”

Oikawa blinks, still slumped down like a limp noodle. “When you put it that way it sounds so uncomplicated.”

“Because it is.”

Oikawa ponders that. Maybe it is that simple, but for how confident he is about everything else in life, he’s never had a firm grip on romance or how to deal with it. He always seemed to do the exact opposite of what anyone with a good instinct would do.

He’s read enough shoujo manga with you to know that love isn’t as easy as “kiss and live happily ever after”, especially if that love is with your best friend. A shoujo manga he especially remembered liking in first year was of a story of best friends that fell in love, but as fate had it, they fell in love with the right person at the wrong time.

That manga really shouldn’t be something he compares his own love life to, but he can’t help but worry, especially given his past relationships. Oikawa doesn’t usually feel such anxiety about jumping into relationships (mainly because the relationships he did get into were never relationships he really took as seriously as he should), but now he feels that shadow of insecurity come lurking back like a piece of gum stuck to his shoe. It seems he can never escape his own fear of never being enough.

“But Y/N’s different,” he finally says after a hefty silence. “Most of my exes hate me now because of how badly I keep messing up. I don’t know what I’ll do if I mess up with her.”

Iwaizumi crosses his arms tighter. “Y/N’s been through tons of your bullshit. She won’t give up on you that easily, as long as you don’t colossally fuck up.”

Oikawa nods, but there’s already another question bugging him. “How can I be sure that I love her like that? I mean, I remember thinking that I loved Yua, but now that I look back, I wonder if that was only because she was the only relationship I had that kept me around for so long.”

He doesn’t even want to think about the possibility that he might mess up that badly - that he’ll take back his feelings for you within a few days like he’s been known for in past relationships. Oikawa thinks that that would most definitely count as a colossal fuck up.

“I’m not trying to label your feelings or anything, but I think you’ve been in love with her for a long time now,” Iwaizumi says in the softest voice Oikawa’s ever heard it be in the years he’d known him. “I just think you’re only starting to realize it because well, you said you kissed right?”

“We did.”

“Then yeah, that probably woke your brain up a little.”

“She’s not just a case of raging hormones,” Oikawa replies.

“I know she’s not,” Iwaizumi says mildly. “I’m just saying that sometimes you don’t realize that you feel like that for someone until something happens that forces you to think about it. For you, it was probably that kiss.”

Oikawa knows that Iwaizumi is probably remembering his own experience with Hanamaki. The look of heartbreak on his best friend’s face when they found Matsukawa and Hanamaki with their lips locked against the side of the school building was not one he would easily forget. He wonders if Iwaizumi knew the extent of his feelings before that moment or if he went through something similar to what Oikawa’s going through.

The remembrance of Iwaizumi’s past feelings also makes Oikawa wonder if he’s felt like this toward you even before all this, just like he knew of Iwaizumi’s feelings for Hanamaki before Iwaizumi himself did.

“I think I would’ve noticed if I felt things towards her before all this. Maybe not a lot, but I would’ve noticed to some extent.”

Iwaizumi snorts. “No you wouldn’t. You’ve got the mind of a genius when it comes to volleyball, but when it comes to any aspect of your life that isn’t volleyball, then your brain is like a pile of horseshit.”

“Iwa-chan, so mean!”

“I’m right and you know it.”

“No you aren’t,” Oikawa says, though he’s not so sure he believes himself.

“You’ve centered your whole life on volleyball ‘Kawa. You’ve neglected shit about yourself because of volleyball. I’ve seen it, Y/N’s seen it. Volleyball is the center of your mind and everything kinda revolves around it like a solar system. But once you get used to something being a small little planet in that tiny brain of yours, you just accept it as a natural part of your thinking because the big old volleyball is still vying for your attention.”

“Please, Iwa-chan. It’s two in the morning. Please speak in a language I can understand.”

“You loved her when we were kids, right?” Iwaizumi pauses and Oikawa just nods. “Then your love and feelings for her were put into this nice bubble labeled ‘positive feelings’ and you never realized when you might’ve started looking at her differently because being in love with her is still a positive feeling.”

“And I’ve been so focused on volleyball and practice that I didn’t even notice?”

Iwaizumi raises a brow at Oikawa. “Are you trying to say that you haven’t neglected parts of your life before for volleyball?”

“Okay, good point.”

Iwaizumi’s explanation does make sense to him, now that Oikawa has something to latch his thought process on. He always liked having you around, and you had become one of the anchors that kept him from breaking over the years. He’s always known that being around you gave him ounces of joy, but he never really looked further into it because well .. Iwaizumi was right.

It was in the way where he unknowingly looked for your figure in the stands when he won the Best Setter award back in junior high. He hadn’t really noticed because he thought he’d always done that.

It was in the way that he would sometimes head to your place after a particularly grueling practice just to make rice cakes for the both of you because he was so exhausted that the only thing he wanted to do is see your smile as you compliment his cooking. He hadn’t really noticed that he got giddy at that prospect because he felt as if he’d always felt like that.

It was in the way that he would sometimes lay his head on your shoulder and only focus on your breathing because it calmed him down in ways that nothing else can. He hadn’t really noticed that he was doing so because he’s always done that.

You had become a positive constant in his life and loving you one way or another became the default. He just hadn’t been paying close enough attention to when it was that the hugs, the support, the little glances, and the nights spent falling asleep on each other might have become something more than the childish blind love he held for you as children. And then that kiss came along and hit him like a volleyball to the face.

With that, he finally lets himself admit it to himself, with no qualms or worries about how he might find a way to mess up. He lets himself admit that he might be a tiny bit in love with you.

It almost hits him like a truck then because huh, he’s in love with you. And yet, he doesn’t feel so different, he just feels lighter.

“Huh.”

“You finally figured it out then?”

Oikawa smiles to himself. “Yeah, I think I did.”

A smile finds its way onto Iwaizumi’s lips. “Happy to see it, asshole. Just don’t keep her waiting on you for another three years.”

“I won’t. I don’t plan on wasting any more time now that I finally figured it out.”

“How do you plan on telling her then?”

“That I love her?”

“You love her?” A voice that’s not Iwaizumi’s nearly jolts him from his seat. He’d know that voice anywhere.

He turns to find you standing not far from where he and Iwaizumi are seated and feels the color drain from his face.

taglist. @bumbledunce @angelkogane @waitforitillwritemywayout @mrsbakug0u @salty4tsukki @ppangiiroo @pharvhs @haksblade @whosmorales @yoitsseulgi @seijohreign @intheawks @smellssharpies @my-neighbor-todoro @fightcalum @yatoatyourservice @woo-youngs @fandomlover-universe @cowward @iwaizoom @keitsukki11 @airheadpillar @hockeycoaching @catchmeb-r-awling @gudetamalifestyle @starryhyun @babbykawa @chickentendo315

next chapter is the final chapter :D if you wanna be added to the taglist for the last chap then just send an ask!

#oikawa x reader #oikawa fluff #oikawa angst #oikawa x y/n #oikawa headcanons #oikawa tooru #oikawa tooru x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu headcanons #oikawa #oikawa imagine

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majorsoapfan · 3 years

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Umbrella Academy Season 3 Wish list

This is a long one so buckle up:

Let Klaus and Allison take centre-stage this season in leading the plot. Both are incredible characters and deserve the chance to shine. And I can think of several reasons why they deserve the chance to take centre-stage: out of the whole Academy their powers are some of the most fascinating and in Klaus’ case he has so many that haven’t been revealed yet. They’ve both suffered and lost a lot as well, particularly in season 2 and their hardships tend to get ignored by others. Their relationship together is already really interesting and supportive and they would be an awesome team up. There’s more but I’ll be here forever if I tried to list them.

No Apocalypse. The world ending in eight days was a great plot driver in season 1 and again in season 2 with the reveal that the end of the world actually followed the Umbrella’s back in time. But if the same thing gets repeated over and over then I’m worried that the show will lose it’s edge as a result. In order for the characters to develop new crisis's need to take its place.

Let Five have a rest. Even if it’s just for an episode or two so he can get a solid eight hours sleep if nothing else. For the last two seasons Five has been running around non-stop trying to stop the end of the world and save his family. Without that Five can grow as a person and get a literal break that he really hasn’t gotten in 45 years.

Oh course that doesn’t mean I want Five out of the drama entirely and I do expect to see Reginald and Five scenes in season 3. Five is the only one of his original children that the bastard seemed to tolerate and he did seem to have some form of twisted respect for Five as well. And I wouldn’t put it past the monocle monster to have some twisted plans in store for the eldest member of the Umbrella Academy. He’s had fifty years to plan for the Umbrella’s return after all.

The Sparrows. I just saw the line up of the Sparrows for season three and I am honestly so interested. I can’t wait to see what their powers are like and I already have some ideas. They have so much potential and hopefully they’ll be done well. And so far they seem to be written as the Umbrella’s foils. Marcus is a natural leader who loves his family, while Luther forces himself into the role and alienated his family as a result. Both Ben and Diego long to be the leader but while Diego is more emotional, Ben’s more strategic. Five is driven by his love and desire to protect his family, while Sloane feels held back by hers. Vanya was treated as an outcast and betrayed her siblings trust while Christopher, a literal Cube, is said to be loyal and is treated as a loved family member

That being said though, I don’t want the Sparrows to be the main focus this season or have the attention split between them and the Umbrella’s. Because while I do want to see the Sparrows and their family dynamic and how they interact with the Umbrella’s, I would prefer to see how the Umbrella Hargreeves’ cope with their existent and how this impacts them and how they move forward with this. Or a team up between Sparrows and Umbrella’s would be fine. Or multiple team ups, I’m not picky.

There is a really good fan theory out there about Klaus and Five being twins and while I know that in the comics it’s Luther and Five, the fan theory in season 3 would be so much better in my opinion. And in all honesty it makes so much more sense. Physically they are strikingly similar, especially as children. Their powers both concentrate in their hands and emit a blue glow when they use them. Their powers themselves are literally time and death, which are linked and they have additive personalities, which can be inherited between family members. And I can’t help but feel that this moment:

lends a new level to their relationship then what we see with them as adults. Look at how alike they are! And that fond smile that Five is giving Klaus? Making them twins opens up a wide range of possibilities for Klaus and Five both character and plot wise.

Give Luther a proper love interest. And I can’t believe that this even has to be said but his sister does not count! Literally all of siblings have have romantic interests, all of them so important in the Umbrella’s life in some way or another. It would be nice too to see Luther form a healthy romantic connection for the first time in his life.

While I’m on the subject of Luther and healthy relationships, it also brings me back to the Sparrows and how their number one Marcus seems to be Luther’s foil. And it would be interesting for the show to explore just how seeing the Sparrows and someone so similar to Luther might just affect him. He did spend thirty years of his life after all being Reginald’s little solider and believing that his position as Number One made him the family leader only to find out it was all for nothing. Only Marcus seems to be respected in his position as leader and loves his family dearly, while Luther was mocked and seems to have driven all of his siblings bar Allison away from him because of it. This has incredible potential for Luther’s character arc this season especially if it makes him acknowledge his behaviour to his siblings as they were growing up; particularly to Klaus and Vanya who probably got the worst of it. Allison after all was his closest companion, Diego was his rival (more or less), Ben seemingly got on with everyone and Five would have bitten Luther’s head off if he tried anything. But Reginald’s disappointments Klaus and Vanya? Luther, wanting to impress their dad and follow his orders probably didn’t treat them the best. And I want Luther to admit that and apologise and make the next step in becoming a better person and brother. He’s made incredible progress in season 2, but I don’t want his past treatment of his siblings to be swept under the rug. It needs to be acknowledged and Luther needs to admit it was wrong so he can grow.

Can we get Diego’s season one hair back too? I wondered just how it got that long considering that he was only in the sixties for around three months. Klaus makes sense as he was in the sixties for years. Plenty of time for him to grow it out, not really for Diego. But I really prefer his season one hair so can it make a comeback please?

What I want to see for Vanya this season is for her to realize that she doesn’t need powers to be special. I kinda noticed that she seems to have defined her worth on her powers and that’s not healthy. So a potential scenario: Reginald seems to have made the power-suppressing drug himself, so he may still have it in season 3. Imagine Vanya getting a dose of it that knocks her powers out for a good chunk of time and in the meantime some of her siblings are in danger (I’m picturing Luther and Diego here the himbos) and she ends up saving them. Not with her powers but because of her intelligence and other skills that she has and she realizes that she doesn’t need her powers to be special or to save the day. A logical step in character growth.

Getting some closure on season 2 character like Sissy, Ray, Grace, the Cult (which I really didn’t like) and the Swede and what happened to them once the Umbrella’s left the sixties. And maybe finding out what happened to season one’s characters since the Umbrella’s didn’t exist in this timeline: Agnes, Patch, Leonard, Pogo, Claire.

For Klaus and Umbrella Ben to talk about their issues and make up. I know that our Ben is now up there with the little girl in the sky but that has not stopped Klaus from visiting heaven before. And I think that if Klaus and Ben do not get at least one final conversation to talk through their issues next season then I will sue. They both did crappy things to each other in season two but they both love each other dearly and they deserve the chance to get the closure they both need. I think that Klaus will definitely need it in order to move on completely.

I know I said no Apocalypse but I’m still going to be expecting some major crisis to happen during the last few episodes. An alien invasion or Sparrows trying to kill the Umbrella's maybe? But no matter what the problem is, I really want Klaus to get his moment to shine by being the one to save the day. Reginald said himself that Klaus has untapped potential and we know thanks to the comics what other powers he has. And thanks to Ben’s antics at the family dinner the old bastard has probably written him off as useless and not a threat when making plans to deal with the Umbrella’s. Which means nobody is going to be looking at Klaus or considering him a potential threat to their plans, leaving Klaus relatively safe to start exploring and enhancing his powers. He was supposed to be the one to have done it in season one with the moon and his abilities were brushed to the side completely in season two or used for Ben’s benefit so I think he’s long overdue his moment to shine. And maybe then will the rest of his siblings stop seeing Klaus as a joke.

Lila. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her, her story felt unfinished and she does have a briefcase. She could pop at any moment in the story. She has so much potential and I did love her actress. Imagine her and Five forcing to team up or something? Or maybe her and Allison?

Another character I’d like to see return is Hazel. He’s someone who really grew on me. And there is a chance that he could return and maybe team up with the Umbrella’s this season. Potential scenarios: Five on the hunt for allies to help him restore the timeline hunts down Hazel who in this timeline is working with the Commission and because the Umbrellas don’t exist hasn’t met Agnes yet. Maybe something happened to her because of the Sparrows?

Finally Dave. I’m a huge Dave fan but I really don’t want him to show up in season three. Or if he does then for the smallest amount of time possible just to give Klaus some ‘closure’. Time travel is in the Umbrella Academy universe after all and it’s possible that by Klaus warning Dave about his faith and causing him to enlist earlier and in a different branch as a result he’s saved Dave and opened up the possibility of seeing Commission!Dave later. Which is the perfect storyline for season 4. Season three is only 10 episodes long and there’ll be a lot going on already so shoving Dave into what will already be a pretty packed season won’t give Dave the attention he deserves and will take away from the other focus. Not only that but Klaus’ motivation for the last two seasons is doing something for either Dave or Ben. I want to see Klaus train his powers either for himself or to help someone else. Also, Dave deserves the chance to grow as a character as well and making him a part of season 3 would take away from the main focus of the Umbrella’s and Sparrows. Making him a main focus in season four instead if we get one will give a great opportunity story-wise to develop both him and Klaus as individuals and as a couple.

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kevyfanfics · 3 years

Text

Touch Deprivation: When in Doubt, Hug it Out

Trying this out!! Seen a lot of “tumblr fics” out there so I thought I’d see how if goes :) This is part of my “Irondad Ending in Platonic Cuddles” one shot series!

---

Peter sits on the edge of the sixteen story building, feet dangling towards the street below as cars inch their way through the lunchtime traffic. Golden beams of the midday sun reflect in his lenses, but he doesn’t feel their warmth. It’s not the same. He sighs and a cloud of steam floats through the crisp, winter air.

“May has texted you that she won’t be able to make it home tonight for dinner,” Karen softly relays the message. “Her shift has been extended.” Peter closes his eyes and focuses on the chilled breeze.

“I know.” For once, his voice is ladened with defeat and acceptance. This has been the usual for the past few months. May has to work extra shifts to keep up with the ever-increasing bills, he has school and Spider-Man, mix those two together and they’ve seen each other for a total of four hours in the past week. He’s been counting. He knows keeping track isn't a good sign, but what else is there to do?

“Peter?” Karen’s voice reaches him through the deep thoughts. Peter opens his eyes and hums a response.

“Hm?”

“Are you alright?” He considers the question. Ned and MJ have been asking him that a lot lately, but he hasn’t quite found a good way to answer it. He just…doesn’t know how he feels. He’s not sure he does feel. He just kind of exists.

“I miss…people,” he settles on. It doesn’t feel right, but it doesn’t feel wrong, either. Feelings are difficult and he doesn’t have the energy to decipher them. Instead, he pulls his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around them. The pressure against his chest feels nice. Comforting, even.

“You saw MJ and Ned today,” Karen gently reminds, trying to coax more out of him without pushing it. Peter takes in another deep breath before shrugging.

“I miss May,” he finds he’s able to clarify. He loves his friends, but coming home to an empty house for two months straight is different. If it weren’t for patrols and workshop days, he’d go stir crazy over the break.

“You had dinner with her last night,” Karen attempts, her voice sweeter than usual. “That was nice.” Peter continues to stare at the pedestrians as they cross the street in hordes.

“The only reason we ate together was because we both got home at 2am and had leftover Chinese takeout,” he counters without much thought. Even to his own ears his voice is monotonous. He feels like he lost a part of himself, but it makes him feel selfish. May’s working hard to make sure they can get by and he’s a bit lonely.

Either way, last night was a rough patrol and he ended up unceremoniously climbing through the window at 2:13am all battered and bruised. That’s all he’s gotten recently. Nothing but punches to the face, kicks to the stomach, bruises to the ribs, blood coating his hands. Nothing but violence. He hasn’t had a single, positive touch in two months. No hugs, no loving hand rubbing his back, no lingering touch in his hair, no gentle thumb smoothing over his palm. Nothing but violence violence viole-

“Peter, your alarm is going off.” Karen’s voice pulls him back once more, and it takes him a moment to process what she just said.

“Hm?” He blinks sluggishly, then unfurls his warm legs from his chest, already missing the pressure.

“It’s time to head to the workshop,” Karen patiently provides, an absolute saint as usual. Oh, Peter thinks, it’s already four. It doesn’t feel like 4pm, but he can’t exactly argue with time and space. Rolling out his stiff, aching shoulders, he lazily flings out a web and starts swinging to the Tower. He just goes through the motions: thwip, double tap to release, thwip, double tap to release.

And, in what feels like the blink of any eye, he’s there. His muscles are taut and trembling from the frigid air, but when he slips inside one of the countless windows, the warmth from the Tower at least helps minutely. As soon as he’s clear, he pulls off the mask and breathes in fresh, spandex-free air. His teeth chatter and he warms his arms up with his hands, but besides that he’s no worse for wear.

“Hey, Fri? Where’s Mr. stark?” he asks through chattering teeth hidden behind blue-tinted lips.

“He's down in the shop. I’ve alerted him to your arrival,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. promptly replies and he nods a quick thanks. First, he goes to his room to change into normal clothes, then catches a ride down the elevator. His lips are more of a peach color again, but his teeth still clack against each other as his body tries to generate some warmth. Stupid spiders with their no thermoregulation. The elevator comes to a halt and he walks into the music-ridden, always-bustling workshop.

“Hey, Mr. Stark!” he shouts over both the welder and the guitar solo. Tony’s head pops up and the music lowers at the wave of his hand.

“Hey, kid,” he greets, lifting his goggles with a smile. “How’s your bumps and bruises.” Peter shrugs, hardly remembering the superficial injuries from last night’s fight, before sitting on the nearby stool.

“Don’t really feel them anymore,” he answers honestly as he rubs his hands together. Feeling is hard these days. Tony raises a curious eyebrow, then sets down his tools and saunters over to the teen.

“And is that because of the super spidey healing or the ice cubes you call fingers?” he inquires casually. Peter glances up and tries to put on his best I’m-really-not-in-the-mood-for-this face. Nonetheless, Tony chuckles at the expression. “Alright, alright, just get warm at least.”

“I’m trying.” Peter looks back down as he responds, but then an unexpected touch has him freezing in place, muscles tense.

“Jeez, bud, you’re frozen,” Tony mutters aloud as he rubs Peter’s hands in his own to provide more warmth. It takes more than a few seconds for Peter to register what's happening. But when he does, he slowly looks up at Tony as the man continues to warm the cold hands in his own. For some reason, it makes Peter want to cry. The hands are gentle, carefully moving back and forth and all he can focus on is that it doesn’t hurt. After months of nothing but agony and breaks and blood, there’s finally something full of love and support.

He closes his eyes and his eyebrows pull together…and he starts to cry. He doesn’t mean to, but the tears slip out in a mix of relief and pent-up devastation. His toes curl under in an attempt to regain control, but it’s already too late.

“Peter? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Tony suddenly questions when he sees the tears and Peter’s distraught expression. All Peter can manage is the shake of his head, causing tears to fall from his chin and onto his jeans. He should’ve been more prepared, but he wasn’t expecting the concerned tone or the protective hands encasing his. He didn’t realize he was touch deprived until Tony held his hands, the first positive touch he’s had in two months. Two months. “I need you to talk to me so I can help,” Tony tries to get through to him, kneeling at his level.

“I- I don’t-“ is as far as Peter gets before a sob cuts him off. He wants to curl up in a ball and never face the outside world again. It’s like his armor has cracked and the cruel reality of just how brutal and heartless the world can be is flooding in. It’s breached completely when one of Tony’s hands leaves his and cups his cheek.

He doesn’t hold back the sobs after that.

He simply cries, leaning into the soft touch and grabbing his mentor’s wrist like a lifeline. The thought of losing the contact now is unbearable. He can’t. He just can’t. At the action, Tony seems to catch on. This time, he pulls Peter into his chest and holds the kid tightly in his arms.

“You’re okay,” he assures into Peter’s curls, “I got you.” Peter feels them begin to rock and a hand rubs its way up and down his back in a comforting, predictable motion. He pulls in shuddering, uneven breaths, but his body isn’t ready to calm down. Instead, he grips Tony’s sleeves and buries his head in his chest so that his sobs are muffled by fabric. All the built up emotions force their way out, but being hugged is all he needs. Warm, strong arms keeping him safe. His cries rip Tony apart at the seams and he wonders how he could’ve missed this. It’s a basic human need to have positive, physical affirmation, something Peter evidently hasn’t had for a while.

The hug eases the aching in Peter’s chest and he holds on tighter. He can’t lose this feeling again. After all these weeks of apathy and going through the motions, he’s finally able to feel everything.

“I can't- there’s no-“ Tony gently hushes him, afraid that the teen will work himself into a panic attack if this keeps up. Honestly, it’s the last thing on Peter’s mind. He just knows he doesn’t want to be let go.

“Deep breaths, kiddo,” Tony patiently encourages. Peter can feel him shift and he registers that they somehow made it to the floor while he was focused on gripping the fabric closer. Breathing, Peter recalls, breathing is important. Gotta breathe. Just have to- He takes a deep, shaking breath, but the exhale becomes a sob and he just can’t pull himself together and he hates it and he just wants to be in control again- “I’m so proud of you.” He starts at the quiet, genuine admission. “I’m unbelievably proud of you,” Tony continues. “You don’t have to be so strong all the time. Sometimes strength is asking for help when it’s tough.” Peter’s chin wobbles and fresh tears glide down his cheeks. He nods into Tony’s shoulder, and pulls his legs to his chest for extra comfort.

“It’s, it’s been tough for a while,” he divulges in a hoarse whisper.

“I know, kid,” Tony acknowledges, lightly combing his fingers through Peter’s hair.

“I didn’t,” the teen confesses in a whisper. He really hadn’t seen any of this coming. “I thought I was okay. I, I thought I was fine just doing what I,” he swallows, “what I was doing. I didn’t think it affected me this much. It was just…I didn’t feel anything.” Apathy was probably a more apt description, but it was true. He hadn’t felt any intense emotion in such a long period of time that Tony’s loving, concerned action sent him into overdrive. Tony lets out a deep breath and rests his chin atop Peter’s head, tucking the kid into him to provide as much comfort as possible.

“From a scientific standpoint, lack of human contact decreases cortisol levels and NK cells,” Tony points out. It might seem like a cold and calculating response, but he knows what he’s doing; he’s putting it into perspective for Peter. He’s showing the kid that it isn’t just all in his head. It’s a physical change to a lack of touch. Peter let’s out a breathless chuckle, his wound up muscles starting to relax into the hug.

“A, uh, a hug needs to last at least twenty seconds for dopamine and serotonin to be released. Happy brain chemicals,” he adds with a sniff, closing his eyes. He just needs a moment to take it all in. It’s rare for Tony to be the one to illicit physical contact, so he accepts it while can.

“Well then,” Tony softly starts, “guess we gotta wait til you have enough happy brain chemicals.” He situates them more comfortably on the floor, then tightens his hold. Another trembling breath escapes Peter, emotions still raw and superficial, but manageable. It's a start, and if that start just so happens to be in Tony’s arms, maybe it’s not such a bad one.

#peter parker #peter parker angst #tony stark #irondad #spiderson #fanfiction #fanfic #MCU #Avengers #writing #Iron Man #spider-man

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bubblefina · 3 years

Text

King of Hearts chapter 5

Masterlist

Summary: Reader and Tom meet during their years at Hogwarts, but as the years pass a rivalry grows between the two of them, which leads from soft beginnings to tragic endings.

“Wait, tonight? Are you mad? Meeting that late without having a class will get us in trouble either way, no way am I-”

“You’re such a goody two shoes Riddle. Fine, I'll meet you right outside the dungeons near the Slytherin common room at 11:50, I’ll escort you to the tower. Be there or I won't be happy.”

Pairings: Tom x f!reader

•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧. •̩̩͙*˚⁺‧.˚ *•̩̩͙ ✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧. •̩̩͙*˚⁺‧.˚ *•̩̩͙ ✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧. •̩̩͙*˚⁺‧.˚ *•̩̩͙ ✩

Chapter 5- Blackmail

Around 11:40 at night, you left the dorm room to head to the Astronomy tower for the last class of the “day”. The Astronomy tower was located at the tallest tower at Hogwarts, and the classroom was at the very top, in a wide open space.

Other first years walked beside you on the stairs, the stairway was lit by a few lanterns around every corner, but that still made it a little hard to see.

The Astronomy Tower was spaced out, telescopes around every edge, one for each student. Small desks were placed next to each telescope to accompany it.

“No desks? We have to stand for the whole class period?” a girl you didn’t recognize was complaining to her friends, alerting the teacher.

“Studying stars will not require you to sit down. Welcome to class, in Astronomy you will study stars and the movements of plants. To get started, you will have to find your desk. Each desk has a name card on it, go find it and set your things down.”

The students scattered to find their seats, and one by one each seat was taken. Walking around flipping cards, you couldn’t find your name, luckily after a few more seats you were able to find your seat at the right edge of the tower.

After setting your things down, you heard someone walk behind you and sit down next to you.

“You again?” you ask.

“Stealing my words now? How low, l/n. When I said you should expand your vocabulary, I didn’t mean you should take mine.” Tom Riddle had sat in the seat to your right, tucking the note with his name on it into his robe.

“It’s nice to see you again.” Looking at him for a few seconds, waiting for his response felt like a one-sided staring contest, he never gave you a proper reply other than a hum.

Rolling your eyes, you turned to face the professor who was setting new instructions for the class.

“Let’s get started quickly. Open up your textbook on constellations and stars and go to page 4 and find the constellation, ‘Capricornus’. Find the constellation using your telescope and map out it’s position using the instructions in your textbook. If you need any help, refer to the people around you and as a last resort ask me.”

You looked at the surrounding people, a girl that was talking with her friend on your left, and on your right was Tom, who was already adjusting his telescope.

‘So I'm stuck in between a rock and a hard place,’ you thought, adjusting your telescope to get good luck at the night sky.

The rest of the class time was spent charting nearby stars and filling out small worksheets that the teacher had given out to the students that finished early.

After class ended, the students were led back to their classrooms, being watched closely by prefects so that none of them would loiter around the hallways.

●・○・●・○・●・●・○・●・○・●・

The months passed quickly as Autumn turned into early Winter. It was nearing Christmas, just a few weeks away.

Sitting down in the Great Hall, alone, you were flipping the pages of your Transfiguration textbook, rapidly writing down notes on the wrinkled parchment that you had laying on the table.

Professor Dumbledore had a Transfiguration test during your second period, and it was a written test rather than a physical test.

Was it partially your fault for not studying prior? Yes it is, but it couldn’t be helped that the professors took the holiday time to assign more assignments than they did before, especially professor Binns. His assignments for History of Magic were more boring than his class.

The surrounding students started to leave their seats, signaling that class was starting soon. You had Charms first, and then Transfiguration. It was only Thursday, one more day, and you can relax for the weekend.

After your accident on the first day, you took your time and tried to gain the professor's favor in Charms by excelling in your lessons, and it worked. You might not have had the same level of favor as Tom, but you were getting there.

Being better than those three Slytherin girls made you happy either way, their taunting of your talents made you study and work harder until you were one of the first ones to perfect a Charm in the class.

In the spirit of the snow that was piling on the castle floors outside, the professor had a lesson that resonated with the seasonal changes that were happening.

“An Ice jinx, very simple really. The jinx itself makes a block of ice, but, if you use the stronger version, you can conjure multiple ice structures of different sizes. For now, you will work on one ice block.”

The directions had been simple enough, the incantation was, “Parva Glaciem”, and the students were left to try and succeed with the Charm.

You had a knack for mastering charms, and managed to perfect the charm with ease, earning praise from the professor.

He asked you to go around and help any students that seemed like they were struggling, and your eye was focused on one person in particular.

“Can I be of any help?” you ask.

“Depends, does your help involve hitting me in the face with an ice cube somehow?”

“It was one time, Archer! I’m doing this out of the good of my heart.” You sat down in the empty seat next to him and pulled out your wand.

“You have a heart, y/n? I find that hard to believe.” His teasing comment made you dramatically gasp and clutch your chest as if you had been hurt.

Over the past few months, you and Archer had grown closer. Since your flying skills weren’t the best, he had helped you every Friday after classes near the quidditch pitch. During those ‘tutoring’ times, he had given you tips on how to control your broom, how to stay on your broom if anything happens, and maneuvering techniques.

Most of the time was spent teasing each other about random things. He would make fun of your shaking hands around the broom as you flew higher and higher, and you made fun of him for not paying attention to where he was going when the both of you were flying around, causing him to crash into trees often.

In return for helping you with flying, you gave him tutoring lessons on subjects he struggled with. The main one was Charms, which you were fortunately excellent at.

“You know, I’m still surprised that you aren’t good at Charms, you seem good at everything else.” You motioned your wand as he watched your hand movements closely.

“I think you have me confused with someone else, y/n. I’m nowhere near perfect, maybe you’re thinking of Riddle over there. I heard he’s top of every class.” You looked to where Archer was motioning. The Slytherin area, where Tom was sitting. He had been talking to two other boys, which was odd, you always thought he was antisocial.

Focusing your attention towards Archer, you smiled and continued to help him with the Ice Jinx.

Unfortunately, no matter what you had tried, Archer still couldn’t perform the jinx properly. The most he could do was have a few pieces of cold air wisp from his wand.

“Okay, let's try something different this time,” you grabbed his hand and helped him with the motion of the jinx, the both of you were sitting so close, and to your surprise his hands were really warm, which helped with the coldness of the classroom, “now try it again.” You let go of his hands and watched him do the movement and recite the incantation.

A small block of ice appeared on his desk and he whispered a victorious ‘yes’ as you went back to your seat.

“Don’t even start, Naomi.” you said as you sat down.

“I wasn’t thinking of anything.” She held her hands up in a defensive motion, but the look on her face gave her away.

“I saw you looking at us, don’t say anything about this to Melissa. She’ll grill me for hours about the power of love.”

You made Naomi swear on it. When Melissa had heard about your flying lessons with Archer, it took her hours before she could stop babbling about the potency of your supposed ‘relationship’ with him.

●・○・●・○・●・●・○・●・○・●・

Another week has passed since that Thursday. You were in your bed reviewing the test that had been given back to you from professor Dumbledore.

For a person that didn’t study fully, you still had managed to pass the test. Maybe not to the best of your abilities, but it was still a pass.

Professor Dumbledore had grown fond of your magical abilities. Even if you messed up during class, you were quick enough to not let anyone notice and try again. He admired your willingness to get better, and you quickly became one of his favorite students.

Melissa and Azalea were both fast asleep, but Naomi was still up. She had a book in her hand and was reading it intently with her wand acting as a light.

You got out of your bed and headed towards the door, Astronomy was waiting for you.

“Leaving for class?” Naomi asks.

“Yeah, I’ll be back when it ends. You should get some sleep too, it’s not good to stay awake for this long.” Naomi gave you a small smile.

“I’d love to, but that frog that Azalea got in Diagon Alley is more than likely going to keep me up until it kills me, or I kill it. Don’t tell her that, though.” She held her finger up to her lips and went back to reading her book.

She wasn’t wrong. The frog that was stuck in a cage on Azaleas night stand hadn’t stopped croaking since she bought it, it's been keeping you awake for days.

You had gotten to the Astronomy tower a bit earlier than usual, maybe your tired state made you move quicker? When you opened the tower door, you saw Riddle sitting down on a stool near his desk, scribbling something.

Yes, the teacher had stools sent to the class because too many students had complained about standing through the whole class, some even managed to fall asleep standing up. The late night classes were not everybody’s forte.

“Early as usual, aren't we, Riddle?” you ask him as you slump your way to your seat.

“It's surprising to see you here this early too, l/n,” he stopped writing on his parchment and turned to look you in the face, his usual blank face turned into a disgusted one as he examined you head to toe, “what happened to your...everywhere.”

He most likely noticed your dark circles and lack of care in taking care of your appearance. Taking in a deep breath, you gave out the best explanation you could, “Azalea got a pet frog and it won't stop crying at night, no one's getting any sleep.”

“Why don’t you just.” he waved his wand around in an unknown motion, when you finally caught onto what he was implying you gasped.

“I will not kill a frog, especially one that belongs to a friend.” he rolled his eyes at your response and went back to writing on his parchment.

Taking advantage of the quiet atmosphere, you laid your head upon the table and closed your eyes. Class wouldn’t start for another 10 minutes or so, that was all you needed.

It felt like not even ten seconds had passed before your shoulder was being shaken. Groaning, you turned your head around to see your professor standing with her hands on her hips.

“Miss l/n, my classroom will not be used as a place for sleep. Please catch up with the lesson, and no more snoozing off.” She left the area you were in and went around to the other students who had watched the scene unfold, telling them to start working too.

After your eyes have adjusted to the scenery, you tap Riddle's shoulder rather harshly, making his head whip towards you in irritation.

“What do you want?” He asks.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“It wasn’t my responsibility, serve you right for falling asleep in class.”

It was partially your fault for trusting in him enough to wake you up in the first place.

You took out your textbook from your bag and turned to the page about Jupiter's rotation around the sun.

The class had been mapping different planets for the past few weeks, and learning about their cycle around the orbit system.

You looked into your telescope to find Jupiter, but couldn't see it everywhere. All the other students had been writing things down on their parchment about the placement of the planet, but why can they manage to find it, but you can’t?

Adjusting your telescope a little more, you moved it around until you could see something in the supposed blank sky. After looking a little, you saw something red flash before your eyes as you maneuvered the telescope around.

Quickly turning back to it, you zoomed in on the object and as you looked at it more closely, your mouth gaped.

You once again went back to Riddle's shoulder and slapped it a few times, making him groan in annoyance.

“What could you possibly want now?” He asks irritatingly.

“I found a heart.” was the only reply you could give him.

“A heart? How sweet, maybe you can show it to someone who will believe you, or go back to sleep, maybe you’re still dreaming.” He turned back to his desk, but was interrupted once again when you pulled him over to yours.

“Just look inside, I promise you’ll see it too.”

Reluctantly, he took a hold of your telescope and peered inside. His reaction wasn’t as big as yours,, but you did see a shift in his expression.

“Well, it's not exactly a perfect heart, but it is shaped like one.” he took a step back and continued to stare at the sky.

“Do you know what it is?” you ask him.

“No, why would I?”

“I thought you knew everything.” you mock him sarcastically, which results in him mocking you right back. The both of you didn’t converse all that much afterwards, but you were entranced by what you had just found, and continued to look at it through your telescope until class ended.

You flipped through your textbook to find anything about it, but nothing popped up.

‘Maybe it’s in an advanced copy?’ you would probably be able to find something about it in the library.

●・○・●・○・●・●・○・●・○・●・

The next afternoon was spent in the library, rummaging through multiple books about stars and anything relating to Astronomy, but not being able to find anything.

There had been a stack of books on the table you were sitting at, and they kept getting bigger and bigger.

Reaching for one of the last books in your stack, you noticed the weird title it had.

“Wizard's guide to the dark stars?” you whispered to yourself.

As you skimmed through the pages, you landed on one that talked of a heart shaped nebula that resided in the eastern hemisphere of the sky.

It showed a picture of the nebula. It was similar to the one you had seen last night, although it seemed as if it was painted rather than an actual photo.

Below the photo gave a description of the nebula.

“There has been a phenomenon among young wizards where they have been seeing a heart shaped cluster among the stars at night. Said cluster, only being visible through a telescope, is said to look like a heart. There has been discord among many scholars in trying to explain what it could mean and where it came from. As time has passed, the explanation for the nebula has come to light. It is said that not everyone can view the nebula, only two people can see it at a set time, and only those two people can see it. It has been theorized that if those two people see the nebula together, they-”

The explanation was cut off. The bottom portion of the page was ripped off, and any other continuation was cut off as well. Closing the book, you thought to yourself. It sounded like a potential prophecy in the making, but there hadn’t been any reasonable evidence behind it, and if there were it was cut off.

The paragraph had said something about only two people being able to see it at a set time, you had to tell Tom what you had found.

Stepping out of the library and into the corridors, you walked along the hallways until you found Tom with a small group of Slytherins climbing the stairs to another floor.

“Riddle!” you yell, starting to run after him before he could disappear behind the wall.

He and the other boys looked your way, watching you run towards them in a hurry.

“Well well well, aren’t you a lost little Ravenclaw-”

“Shut it, Malfoy. I don’t have time for you today,” your voice was slightly haughty, making Malfoy's face contort, before he had the chance to say anything, you grabbed Tom’s wrist, “you’re coming with me.” And without a moment to spare, you dragged him to a separate hallway, far away from any students.

“This is considered kidnapping-” Tom barely got to finish his sentence before you suddenly stopped and faced him, your face a little too close to his for comfort.

“I found something.” you say, skimming through the pages of the book you had checked out of the library.

“Found what, and loosen your grip next time, you nearly tore off my wrist.” As Tom rubs his wrist, you push the page with the prophecy near his face.

“Remember that thing we saw last night? The heart. Turns out it’s a nebula, and it says something that sounds like a prophecy, but the rest got torn off. I was thinking, we have enough information to go around and find out what it really means-”

“Hold on. What do you mean, we? I don’t remember giving my permission to be dragged into this.”

“Funny story, since you and I saw the nebula together last night, we’re kind of in it together.”

Tom looked uninterested, which was understandable. He didn’t really have an opinion on what he had seen last night.

“What makes you think I’ll help you? So what if I saw that nebula with you, I didn’t say I’d join this scavenger hunt of yours.” He turned around and started to walk away from you, but he didn’t make it that far before you cut in.

“If you help me, I won't tell anyone that I've seen you in the restricted section of the library late at night.”

Tom paused right in his step, he looked as if he was hit with a freezing jinx. He turned his head to you, his eyes slightly wide.

“How do you…” he began.

“For the past few weeks, I've been falling asleep in the library because of my lack of rest. Sometimes when I wake up I can see someone trying to enter the restricted section, and when I got a closer look, it was you.” you tapped the tip of his nose in a mocking manner.

“Would be a shame if someone like headmaster Dippet heard of a student going in the restricted section.” You crossed your arms and looked around the hallway, a small smirk was curling on your lips as Tom watched you.

“You’re...blackmailing me…?” he took a step back from you, eyes still slightly wide.

You closed the gap again, “Is that a yes or a no?”

You saw his nose scrunch up in anger, taking a breath before he answered, “very well...I’ll help you.”

“Wonderful, we’ll meet at the tower tonight, at midnight.”

“Wait, tonight? Are you mad? Meeting that late without having a class will get us in trouble either way, no way am I-”

“You’re such a goody two shoes Riddle. Fine, I'll meet you right outside the dungeons near the Slytherin common room at 11:50, I’ll escort you to the tower. Be there or I won't be happy.”

You skipped away from him, leaving him dumbfounded and alone in the empty hallway.

#tom riddle #tom riddle imagine #tom riddle x reader #tom riddle x you #tom riddle fanfiction #voldemort #daddy voldy #hogwarts #harry potter #original character #hocrux #King of Hearts

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