#(This was actually written before what happened to my Bio parent not much later.)

[47crayons]

THE WICKED WITHIN—A COMIC SANS WIP REINTRO

!!!!! it's here :D the wip that started to consume me and has been continuing to do so since, now with a much better sense of what exactly is Happening

current tww taglist let me know to be +/- !! @a-completely-normal-writer @writing-is-a-martial-art @wannabeauthorzofija @magic-is-something-we-create @croctears @writeblrfantasy @opes-magnas @author-a-holmes @zoya-writes@fuyugomori @ink-fireplace-coffee

transcript is under the cut!!!

[transcript: a powerpoint presentation of black text on white background, written entirely in comic sans.

start slide one the top left corner reads in red, "warnings (most relevant) war, death, drugs (& addiction), poison". in the center, "the wicked within", and underneath it in smaller font, "a comic sans reintro by @47crayons". the comments around the entire slide read "a family that is so found!!!", "gang rivalry :D and gang content in general", "crime found family basically", "childhood friends to STILL FRIENDS", "all queer cast :p", "eat the rich (not quite, but it’s the right sentiment aldskjfls)", "kickass women, yeah bay bee", "nuanced relationships between different groups :D", "morally grey characters!!!", "so many different governments!!!", "a (mostly alsjflksdj) stable relationship!!!" end slide one

start slide two in the beginning of time… there were four gods: eltenjer, he/him, earth; skari, he/him, fire; aenged, they/them, air; thilda, she/her, water. i didn’t /mean/ for them to have genders, but a quiet breeze whispered “psst. i use they/them.” in the beginning? so you mean… they’re not there anymore? kind of! the gods need followers to survive, and after several unfortunate events, they lost the majority of their followers. the aforementioned unfortunate events: the great ruination, in which natural disasters caused several years of famine and other hardship. the restoration era, in which renovation led people to believe they can live without the gods. if the gods are dead, what’s the point? the gods aren’t /really/ dead, closer to dormant. they can’t actively interact with the mortal realm, but IF they had followers, they would come back to life. oh. did i mention that they control the magic. end slide two

start slide three the dormant gods who can't do... anything control the magic??? hey, no one said magic always has to work. foreshadowing alert huge foreshadowing alert. let’s talk about how magic works, shall we :D people use the Spirit to do magic. people have a Vessel (representation of stamina or how much Sprit can be used at once, can be trained!). people also have a Strength (a type of magic that works well with the user, these have varying frequencies which also depends on location). there’s too much i could say here, but the important thing is the main characters’ Strengths. the right depicts an image of a flowchart showing that gods need followers and produce sprit. people need spirit to do magic. end slide three

start slide four okay but where are we??? where could the magic be so fucked? well, here, of course! the left side shows a line art map, split into five parts going clockwise: portingdale, worchester, the hooks, elderwood, unlabeled. the legend shows that there are mountains in portingdale, forests in elderwood, and rivers that run from portingdale to everywhere else. the place where the four labeled regions meet is called the Inner City. the text on the right reads. welcome to Kjer! there are 3 districts. but wait! there are five? sections? and one isn’t even labelled. worchester used to be a district,,, but it left after the war began. the unlabeled section is the disputed region (re: war). let’s talk more about this war. elderwood wanted easier access to water (see: the rivers in the Wetlands) elderwood & portingdale have been fighting there on and off for over half a century. the hooks has three wards: west (hella rich), south (lower income), north (somewhere in between). end slide four

start slide five whomst. skip to the next slide if you want the actual characters. character basics: the unnecessarily-winded-and-cram-a-lot-of-lore-in version. in the North Ward of The Hooks, there are three main gangs. Kaer Styen, meaning “wicked ones”, Ghetfaer Skarnen, meaning “trickster lords”, Ad Knesten, meaning “the grumbles”. that was so many capital letters i don’t like capital letters alskjdflksjd. they have rivalries and conflicts from time to time, but it’s pretty rare. the tww cast is kaer styen !!! their main means of profit is a drug called jezdin. relieves physical and mental pain. lethal in high. quantities/ when tampered with. can also be addictive. they operate out of a dingy tavern-like building, and they live upstairs!!! okay so this is purely for vibes. how did u know. end slide five

start slide six the Gang. literally :3 Kaer Styen, my beloved. the first thing in each of their bios is their Strength (re: the magic slide). artbreeders!!! i fixed quite a few of them, but my artbreeder skills are questionable at best. this slide is split into three columns. the first column shows a white person with short, brown, curly hair and a firm, but not angry, facial expression. len, he/him, pan. Shifter (can manipulate physical properties). cynical, very cynical (because he has killer instincts). “oh people are dying? am i dying? are you dying? why should i care?” in a relationship with cal. the second column shows a person who appears east asian with long, black, wavy hair and fair skin. chloe, she/her, aroace. Chemist (chemistry but magical). literal archery god. also she’s so quiet it’s SCARY. seems welcoming, emphasis on /seems/ she’ll destroy your ass. knows what you’re feeling. she just. knows. the third column shows a white person with dirty blonde hair. they are smiling. cal, they/them, bi. Whisperer (can persuade others through speech/music). so casually funny all your burdens disappear for a hot minute. gets very attached very deeply. grew up in Portingdale which becomes Important later. end slide six

start slide seven cont. also they have piercings!!!! maybe i will make some picrews later (listen, i KNOW i’ve said this before but. maybe i’m for realsies this time, okay?) this slide is also split into three columns. the first a smiling white female with light blonde hair. eden, she/her?, demi lesbian. Healer (healing magic <3). seen hell and doesn’t want others to suffer. still believes in the gods’ existence. we Don’t talk about her awful parents. raised by a lovely woman in the South Ward, known as Nana. this eye (left) is almost PURPLE which i didn’t do on purpose but is honestly such a cool idea. the second column shows a partially smiling black man with short curly hair. jereth, he/him, gay. powerful life magic thing (will be spoilers if i talk any more). joins them at the beginning. honestly kind of scared of them (who wouldn’t be), but wants to live up to expectations. throws himself into stuff to avoid Thoughts. the third column shows a woman with brown skin, black wavy hair, and a small smile. she is NOT a member of Kaer Styen, but i’m talking about her here all the same. adalaide, she/her, bi (i didn’t like the e in adelaide alskdfjlsj). Melder (metals and the like). heir to the Portingdale throne (assuming her dad doesn’t disown her). Cal’s ex from a few~ years ago she’s still a lil’ hung up on them. technically an antagonist but i love her. so all my characters are queer sue me </3 end slide seven

start slide eight some semblance of plot? coming right up!! the four (jereth isn’t there yet!) are attacked in the Inner City. turns out it’s portingdale soldiers. and then they discover that portingdale has been poisoning the southern rivers (affects worchester and the south ward) because worchester doesn’t really contribute to Kjer as a whole. word gets out, and elderwood, naturally, is even angrier at portingdale (remember, they've been at war). so, they try to stop portingdale from being power hungry enough to poison the entirety of a country while learning about why worchester is so isolated while ALSO trying not to get killed by everyone who hates them. end slide eight

start slide nine memes :> the first is the meme of spongebob reading a sheet of paper and burning it. the paper reads, "going into worchester by yourself is going to get you KILLED", and spongebob is labelled "chloe". the second is the levels of brain template labelled "jereth". from the weakest to most powerful: "trying to figure out his magic", "doing it by accident", "saving everyone's lives". the third is the sleeping person and brain meme. brain: "you're going to portingdale". cal: yeah, i know. brain: you'll see adalaide. cal's eyes are wide open in fear. the fourth says "corporate needs you to find the difference between this image and this image". the first image says, "family", and the second one says, "len, chloe, cal, jereth." eden says, "they're the same picture". the fifth is the spiderman copycat meme where jereth is copying len. end slide nine

/end transcript]

[rouiyan]

𝘊𝘏𝘖𝘊𝘖𝘓𝘈𝘛𝘌 𝘔𝘐𝘓𝘒 [ 𝘩.𝘳𝘫 ]

synopsis: in a town where the seasons always seem to come a little early and the stars seem to shine a little brighter, two introverted idiots, only extroverted for each other, fall in love.

✧ huang renjun x (fem.) reader (mentioned jaemin x reader) ✧ childhood best friends to loverz

✧ genres : fluff, angst, slow burn ✧ word count : 8.4k ✧ disclaimers : swearing, as in h-e-double-hockey-sticks and probably a darn and a damn

✧ author’s note : another one of my fics that’s based off of an obscure item that i somehow managed to romanticize heavily. anyways, this one was written for the lovely hannah (@moonbeamsung​) who said (in some network bio) that she wanted to live in a childhood friends to lovers au so here we are. (please also ignore how this is ever so slightly reminiscent of ‘this shirt of his’) enjoy!

huang renjun. he's tiny, impudent, childish, and not to mention, he's two months younger than you! huang renjun, the boy whose legs are currently kicking at your own from the side. huang renjun who, when you look to your right, has a lopsided smile on his face while he pretends to listen to your teacher drone on about the days of the week. 

you lean in his direction, "would you quit it?" the boy looks over at you, nods, stops for a few minutes, then returns his incessant kicking. anger is lashing across your four-year-old countenance as the teacher calls out that recess is about to begin. you're the first out the door.

to say that you had no friends was an understatement. you had no friends and the other children liked to gang up on you. so when you take the opportunity, as the first one out the door, to run to the slides, the most vied for playspot on the whole playground, you're not surprised when renjun sneaks up behind you. well, you aren't surprised but rather unaware of his presence, until he pushes you, shoves you, absolutely rams you off the top. in the span of four seconds, you've pummeled down the slope at lightning speeds and instead of just hitting the ground, the sheer amount of force that was exerted from one four-year-old to another is astoundingly clear as you fly up and off the bottom ledge of the slide, soaring across the air before landing in a heap on your elbow. the wood chips of the playground floor that you've landed on dig harshly into your calves and one side of your face. 

you don't let on nearly as much as it hurts when the teacher rushes over and asks if you're okay, if you needed to go to the nurses' office. you nod at her while biting back tears of stabbing pain and embarrassment and, to even more of your horror, she assigns renjun to accompany you to the nurses' office claiming that, "the two of you need to work it out anyways."

face pulled into a scowl and lips twisted into a frown, you limp next to the boy who, even now, finds it his job to ridicule you by purposefully walking fast, he knows you can't keep up. "y/n, you idiot," your mouth drops open at the i-word, "we're never going to make it in time at that pace!"

in reality, you're two steps ahead of him, "huang renjun, i am so going to tell on you."

as it so happens, the bell that rings at the end of the school day not only signals your leave, elbow patched up and held in a sling, but also the arrival of parents, specifically mrs. huang. your teacher beats you to it, guiding the woman by the elbow to the side, a small conversation of nods and creased brows. renjun is next to you, watching as well, but his fingers are fiddling with his sweater sleeves and his nose is scrunched in anticipation—no, dread.

"i didn't mean to," his voice is a bare pipsqueak, the two of you all know he tells tales far from the truth. rolling your eyes, you doubt refuting his claims will ever be as easy as now with his mom sneaking worried glances in your direction, scalding ones in his, "yeah sure, huang. tell that to my broken elbow."

"it's not broken, you're just exaggerating-"

his mom turns in his direction, walks, low heels thudding softly with each step. she's quite the nice woman, you were somewhat sure about that though her face was drawn stern at her young son. she crouches by his side and though you feel a slight outburst oncoming, she turns to you instead, smile taut but polite. "y/n, is it?"

you nod.

"i apologize, first on behalf of my son, and second for my own incompetence in raising him," she gives him an eyeful, turning back to you again, "how is your arm, sweetie?"

you smile up at her because, unlike the boy beside you, she is nice. you forgive her, sweetly, telling her your arm would heal soon and well. she leaves with a gentle pat on your head and a strong arm on her son's own elbow. 

it's the next day when renjun is still sitting beside you, the usual scowl on his face replaced with a sheepish grin, snaggletooth and all, as he slides a carton of chocolate milk your way. "this is the one you like right? the brown one?"

you take it from the table and fold back the top, as you had learned, folding forward once again so an opening would slit. taking a sip, you give a hesitant nod somewhat in his direction. truth be told, chocolate milk was not your favorite, certainly the pretty pink strawberry one was, but a part of you didn't have the guts to stand up for yourself and say no, he was apologizing after all, not outright bullying you.

renjun doesn't kick your shins during class, he doesn't so much as utter a word to you, but when recess is called, and yet again you're out the door first, straight to the slides, the boy makes sure he's right behind you, and not for the purposes of shoving you off this time. he sticks around, and it stays that way.

you get your first pair of glasses at the ripe age of seven, only after you'd exclaimed to the class, rather sheepishly, that you couldn't answer the question because the board was too blurry for reasons you'd yet to comprehend. only at the optometrists office did you start to understand the purpose of glasses in the first place.

the next day in class, renjun, who was still your seatmate, pointed and poked fun. you laughed along with him because, well, because it was renjun that was making fun of you. the same reasoning could be applied when later in the day, when a terribly hubristic boy in your class, several inches taller than both you and renjun, had dared to punch you in the face for having such odd, turquoise frames, a pattern you never purchased again. to much of your surprise and even his own, renjun had punched the seven-year-old duche right back in the face. it was actually the chin from his angle, but hey, it's the thought that counts.

you let renjun choose the next pair of glasses you got, and though his preference was much differing to your own, you wore it for the next year and a half until your eyesight worsened once again. 

renjun steals at your food, and gets his hand smacked by the teacher, so you pass him the carrots, which you abhor and he passes you the chocolate milk, which you adore. it's as simple as that, and it stays that way.

fingers wiping at your glasses with the bottom hem of your shirt. you're sprawled back onto renjun's bed, hiking your feet onto the footboard. "what happens when we die, jun?"

the boy swivels in his chair to face you, feet planting at the exact moment. twirling the pen in hand, he places the tip of it at his chin and glances up towards the ceiling in what you think to be rumination. turns out, he's mocking you as always, "hmm, i don't know, why don't you test it out?" you play along gladly, "it'll take a zombie apocalypse to wipe me out, i'm telling you. and when and if that happens i'm bringing you down with me."

your best friend discards his pen back into the abyss of textbooks and notes on his table. he stands and walks and plops himself down on the bed next to you. the two of you are the same height, especially seen when laying down. he's yet to grow past you and you've yet to stop teasing him of it. in fact, you're just about to do so when he beats you to the chase, eyes on the ceiling once again but actually deep in rumination this time, "i hope we get matching tombstones, sorta like best friend necklaces but like- much more cool."

it's the first time you notice the brisk palpitations of your heart when in the aftermath of renjun's words. his words that were also so carefully thought out, witty but not insensitive. eleven-year-old you couldn't bring yourself to accept the fact that renjun was proving to be much more than just your designated bff. cheeks aflame, you turn your head to the left to catch his eyes already on yours. a gulp, a blink, a shift of your sights later and you finally have the words to respond. "that's only if we're not eaten alive first."

you can't help but imagine if the person you were buried by wasn't renjun, and just some man that you'd get to know in college and marry because you're too old to particularly care about notions of love. you can't help but imagine growing up with someone other than renjun by your side. you can't help it but you also struggle to, the reason behind that being you simply can't imagine. (how confusing!) renjun's all you've ever known and you doubt he could ever be replaced in your records. but as much as you wish it to stay that way, it's only a matter of time until things happen, until high school happens, until puberty happens.

it all starts when renjun bounds into your room on the first day of school, seven thirty on the dot and more than ready to take on the day after the absolute feast your mom had cooked up for the two of you. he's about to rattle on about girls and how they always take so damn long to get ready when his mouth is clamped shut at the sight he's met with. the sight he's met with being your reflection in the mirror. 

you forgot to mention to him that you'd gone to the optometrist a few days back, not for a new pair of glasses but to get your first pair of contacts instead. a great struggle came with getting them in and out but with practice, you'd managed to avoid outright stabbing yourself in the eye, hence the perfectly fitting lens right this moment as you blink out the excess solution. in the mirror, you glance in the reflection at the door of which renjun is standing in front of. you fail to notice the dumbstruck look on his face and rather, exclaim in glee at how for once, you could see him in full clarity without anything sitting atop your nose and getting caught in your hair.

renjun only nods along and stares for a lot longer as you collect your backpack lain across your bed and sling it across one shoulder, beckoning the bewildered boy to follow as you led the way to the garage where your mom was waiting in the car. and even in the car, he fails to conceal his gaze that seems to never leave the glistening of your eyes. in his third period, the only class that you sadly do not share with him, his mind is still playing over and over the look of glee that graced your features in a way he's never seen before. or maybe he has seen it before, and this sudden surge of newfound feelings is just an indication of him going crazy. yeah, he decides as he sets his tray down at the table you'd agreed to meet him at for lunch, he's definitely just going crazy, nothing new.

well apparently, you'd experienced something in the new because you're currently across the cafeteria, waving frantically at him for you to join the table you were sat at. renjun narrows his eyes though it's plainly obvious that you had made friends with people other than him. not that he minds, he's actually glad that you've ventured out of your social anxiety enough to get along with others. it's something that he's always been worried about ever since he stopped bullying you himself. he finds that he's still worrying, for other reasons, especially when he walks over to find you next to a girl and two boys, all of which looked to either be of a year older or just a thousand times 'cooler' than him. he looks over at you, who though is seated at the end of the table, fits in perfectly. with a tight-lipped smile, renjun slides in to your right and almost quivers under the gaze of your new friends as they introduce themselves.

he comes to know them as this: jaemin, the one that overtly flirts with you, donghyuck, the one that never stops talking, and jennie, the one that you seem to closest to, although only knowing each other for just a few periods at most. lunch ends in a blur of conversation, none of them seem all that interested in renjun himself, moving on rather quickly after your introduction of him, but they sure are interested in you. that's what it seems like to him, when in reality, you notice that most the times you've look over at him, he's as quiet as never before. you wonder what's gotten into him.

you trail renjun to his locker during passing period and with a hand holding it open for him and another leaning your weight on the locker beside him, you speak over the hustle and bustle of the hallways, "sorry about that." he gives a light glance your way before shoving a biology textbook into the back slot of his backpack, and eyebrow crooked, "sorry for what?"

"i mean, i did say we'd eat lunch together, i just didn't think that…"

"that you'd make some friends?"

"yeah-"

"it's fine, y/n," he gives you a fond smile, "i'm actually glad that you made some friends."

you scrunch your nose at his response and the solemnity that lined your voice is gone, replaced with your usual, playful and upbeat tone, "geez, i didn't think you'd want to get rid of me already, the first day isn't even over!" he slams the locker door shut, almost chopping off your fingers in the process. you draw them back insticutally with an, "oop!" and renjun gives a chuckle and a ruffle to your hair, "come on, let's get to class before we're late."

he takes the seat next to you in biology, and also in ceramics the period afterwards, and really, you hope it stays that way.

the cafeteria is particularly empty today, most the kids have gone to the school assembly that wasn't actually mandatory but had to be advertised as so in order to get people to go. you pride yourself for being one of the few people in your school who knew that fact and as your eyes rove the span of the room, they stop at a familiar silhouette of a boy that you could never mistake. something about how you didn't know he was going to be here and that he was sitting alone made your heart uneasy. 

you set your tray in front of him before he could comprehend who you even are, "renjun, hey, can i sit here?" it's unfathomable, the way you have to ask him but there's the inkling in the back of your mind that tells you it'd be more awkward if you didn't. you wonder how the hell the two of you have reached a point in your relationship where you had to ask to be in each other's presence. and as far as you know, renjun is still your best friend.

"yeah, sure. you're not at the assembly?"

shaking your head, "no. well, seeing as you're here i assume you also know that they're not mandatory, huh." renjun nods his head. truthfully, he did not know and the only reason he was here was because he thought it was mandatory which meant that you would be there. and wherever you were he sought not to be, for reasons that he only he was privy to. that's what made this whole situation unbearable because as you prattled on about your day, he himself giving the bare minimum of reactions and responses, the tightening knot in the pit of his stomach seemed to grow. 

it grew exponentially, just watching you talk about your chemistry exam, and then your friends and then...this, "what about you, jun? how's your love life?" he's always been good at concealing his inner emotions around you, he knows what you notice and what you don't. sometimes being in love with your best friend has its perks, he supposes. "love life? you're serious?"

"yeah, i mean," you lean forward across the table, uttering under your breath so that the four other people in the cafeteria wouldn't hear, "we're in high school now. remember what we talked about?" renjun scoffs at that, at how high school y/n and middle school y/n still shared the same idea that first relationships were supposed to be reserved for the first two years of high school. he gives you an incredulous look, "we're not even a semester in, geez."

"so that's a no, like a no for 'nothing's going on'?" the glimmer of hope that glints in your eyes is indeed caught by the boy, your own first love, but his intuitions, the ones that were wrong from the start, prevents him from seeing into it any further. "yeah, nothing's going on. you?"

"well," you figure this is your chance to shoot your shot, as small of a shot as it may be, "me neither." what you didn't understand at that time was that boys, more specifically renjun, didn't take hints very well. he likes the facts and he likes them placed right under his nose. and what you didn't take into account was that by saying those two words aloud, you've in fact reprogrammed renjun's thought process to think the worst. and it really only gets worse and worse from there on out, until everything you've built up with him is suddenly, suddenly nothing.

you didn't study, plain as day as you stare at the blank whiteboard in the front of the classroom while virtually everyone else has their head downs, pencils scratching. there's three days until winter break, your first since high school has started and your sanity is definitely at stake. you look down, circle a two, a one, and two threes, and look back up, propping your chin upon a hand and tapping a finger along your jaw. perhaps a thinking pose with get your brain into the right mindset to dig for the right information. you're then reminded of how the information wouldn't be there in the first place. it might've been if you ever dared to listen in class. 

groaning aloud, seemingly the whole class turns to give you a look, a glare, even a questioning glance from your teacher who you're almost sure knows exactly what predicament you're in right now. huffing in equal parts regret and exasperation, you're the first to turn in the exam only forty minutes into the period. after all, randomly guessing the answers to two hundred multiple choice questions isn't all that hard when all you have to do is choose a number from one to three.

sitting back down with a soft thud, you debate sleeping for the rest of class but come to the decision that, one: sleep is for the weak, and two: you don't deserve to sleep after an exam, the only people that deserved to sleep were the people that stayed up late to study, not to watch corny minecraft videos under the blankets. it's not nice to judge other people's definitions of time and worthiness but you're really hard on yourself and the things you do for leisure, for obvious reasons.

body slumped over, you get the closest you can to sleeping without actually closing your eyes. in a classroom full of classmates, some friends and others acquaintances, you feel like you're left entirely to yourself, or your thoughts more specifically. they eat at you. and when your eyes roam and land on that one person, in the column to your left and four seats ahead, you can't seem to stop the spiraling. before you know it, renjun is all you can think about.

the way he twirls his pencil in his hand, you were there when he was watching youtube videos on how to do it. the pencil itself, you were by his side while he read out the reviews for it on amazon. the way he bounces his sneakers up and down in the most rhythmic fashion, the same fashion you'd always scold him for. the sneakers, the ones his mom bought him for christmas just under a year ago. you'd know because you were there too. eyes solely on him, you try your best to find one thing about him that you can't tie your name to before you realize it isn't possible. you know renjun through and through. you like to think you do.

but even with everything that you know, you wonder when you started to feel the tug in the back of your mind that kept whispering that he was moving on from you. maybe you were right to feel that way, the signs were all there. late night texts, facetime calls, hell, even instagram photo replies were scarce these days. and although he'd always chalk it up to his workload, you had to hold it in each time you wanted to quip back with the fact that the two of you were in freshman year, some colleges don't even count first year grades. talking to him at school wouldn't be so hard if he'd stop avoiding you, wherever you were he was not and whenever you'd ask to meet up, he'd give the vaguest of excuses. a general meeting for a club you've never heard of, a math study group with a friend you were sat right next to, a blatant lie. just as blatantly, you come to terms with the fact that it's time to accept and forget.

so when the bell rings and you see renjun rush to do his final, quadruple check, you simply move to put your things away. and when you see renjun return to his seat, eyes meeting yours for a split second, you look away with feigned disinterest. and when he turns to exit the classroom, you stop yourself from linking an arm and forcing conversation upon him. you simply follow in tow and turn in the opposite direction. you don't play into your desires because really, as much as you desire them, your fear of his distance is enough to draw a line. your fear of rejection is greater than any feelings you've ever held for him. isn't that how it always is?

sophomore year is two-thirds of the way through when you notice that renjun is taller than you by over three inches. that alone scares you, and saddens you, because it just goes to show that you haven't talked to him in so very long. his familiar smell and the way his fingers loop themselves in the straps of his backpack bring back a lot of feelings that would've made your heart swoon a mere year ago but now makes it stop dead in its tracks. sighing, you clasp your hands behind your back as your lips thin into a tight-lipped smile, "it's been awhile, jun. how have you been?"

renjun's eyes threaten to water at the sound of your voice. he swears the ground will open up beneath him and swallow him whole in response to the way you still call him 'jun.' the only thing he can do is grip his backpack straps a little tighter and try a little harder to conceal his emotions. after all, his efforts in doing so are what led him into this situation in the first place. "i've been good. you?"

with excess vigor, you nod, "i've been pretty good, studying and all that," you give a motion of your head to denote the obvious that was the building to the side of you. you just had to exit the library at the same time as him and his ride just had to be as late as your own. "so," your eyes snap back to him when he speaks, "how's it with uhh...jaemin?" nodding again, this time with less enthusiasm, as your ex-best friend notes, you prattle on, "it's going really well, seven months strong." 

oh hell, what was renjun expecting? even if you hated the living life out of your relationship, he doubts you would have laid it all out for him to see. the two of you haven't held a conversation, much less eye contact, for almost a year now. and by the looks of how your mom's car pulls into view just then and how you leave him standing on the curb with only a wave of your hand, it's about to be a year and counting.

your mom gives you a worried look as soon as the car door shuts behind you, "sweetie, was that renjun?" she veers the car out of the parking lot as you take one big gulp of air only to refute it back out in a dramatic huff. bounding your back against your seat, you strap on the seat belt and frown into the abyss, a clear devastation in your tone, "yeah it was."

"did you start the talking or did he?"

"i did! well, i thought that he would but he didn't!" with a click of her tongue matching the click of the turn signal, your mother gives you the briefest of glances, "darling, if he didn't want to talk to you then, then you shouldn't expect him to talk to you now."

"but it would've been even more awkward to just stand there."

the two of you shake your head for different reasons, your mother's just a bit more reasonable, "it's been a while, y/n. it's clear that he just didn't want to be your friend anymore. and plus, look at you, all moved on from your first love. your second one's quite the catch, huh?"

and she's right. you nod along with the thoughts that renjun's diminished presence was eye opening in many ways. one, it really was about time you got over him, two years was long enough. two, first loves were just that, the first and rarely ever the last. three, you barely had any friends. and four, your life didn't revolve around boys.

na jaemin asked you out three times before you'd said yes. you liked him more than enough during the first two tries but your hesitance was found in the way you didn't trust him nearly as much as you thought you should in a relationship. your phone pings from beside you and you lift it to see the same boy and the ridiculous contact name he had entered for himself, a nana with about fifty different variations of hearts following. 

a finger hovers above it, about to swipe and give a quick reply, when an incoming notification replaces it. the contact name is rather simple, huang renjun. you suck in a breath and immediately click your phone shut, shoving it back into the depths of your backpack. jaemin will have to wait for your damned nerves to calm before you can get to his text, the blockade being renjun.

it isn't until you're home, backpack slung on the footboard of your bed, changed out of your clothes and resting atop three heavy blankets that should've probably been exchanged in the wake of spring, that you steel yourself to look at the preview of your text.

let's catch up sometime, tell me when you're free. punctuation and all.

biting down on your lip, you note that the coffee in front of you, or rather just its aftertaste, is sickeningly sweet. looking up ahead, the regret that pools in your eyes is put full on display, unintentionally of course, but there nonetheless. you regret that you didn't text renjun sooner, that you broke up with jaemin on your one year anniversary, that you stopped talking to your mom about things that so obviously upset you, and that you simply took the path of misfortunes when it seemed like nothing else could possibly go wrong.

but the matter of the fact is that you did text renjun, and not out of desperation or to rekindle an old love that was never reciprocated. you texted renjun because after everything that had happened, you still have no idea where it all started to go wrong, you have no idea what you even did that could render such terrible circumstances and you have not the slightest clue as to how to get yourself back together. in short, in very short, you are in need of a companion and, for the better part of your life, that's exactly what huang renjun is to you.

as much as you would have loved to meet at a more secluded place, perhaps just your house, you also knew how informal that would seem of you after not talking to the dude for almost a year and a half now. he meets your eyes with his own, hesitant at first, but the smallest of smiles is soon to follow and you're left to wonder why, just like that, your world already seems to shift back into place and why his smile seems to make it all...make sense. 

"how are you now?" the laugh in his tone is bare but detectable only to you. being swaddled in familiarity really does a good number or two on your dampened mood. a smile hasn't chanced on your own face but you doubt it'll be long before it does, "pretty terrible, jun. how 'bout you?"

"about the same."

"same as me or...same as last time?"

"same as you."

the two of you nod, slowly and with eyes locked. his eyes are still on yours when he picks up his venti latte for a sip and even still when he puts it back down. yours are still on his when you do the same, and even still in the moments after when your voice breaches the silence once again, "so this is warranted."

this time only he nods, "you mean that this is necessary."

your response comes in the form of a smile, wide and exhilaratingly relieving, as if you've been waiting for a reason to smile and have, at last, been given one. your hands clasp around the paper cup, the contents inside warming your palms, a feeling that you welcome though the summer heat is fast upon you. the sun sets in the backdrop as your now reinstated best friend walks you home. it's nowhere to be seen when he drops you off at your doorstep and leaves with a mumbled, "goodnight, text me later," and the shuffle of quickened steps down your driveway.

that night, you stay up until the hours of early morning, texting the one person that's always had such a hold on you. sloppily spelled out text after text, you're bound to fall asleep until you do, but not before reading the last he'd sent. 

lets hang out tmw. no punctuation needed.

"i got your coffee, even added a ton of sugar," your eyes switch from the floor to the mug in your hands to the boy sat in front of you. instead of being grateful for the painstaking lengths you'd gone to trying to figure out how to get the coffee machine to work, renjun whines, "i only wanted a spoon of sugar."

"but you said you had to stay up late tonight," he takes the mug from your hands, fingers brushing and his eyes peering over the rim as he takes a sniff, "how will i get my caffeine if i can't even drink it?" shrugging, you take it back from him, "then i guess i'll just drink it."

"what? no, you have to go to sleep soon," renjun's brows crease in slight irritation at the proposition. your do the same, a mirror image of your best friend. when you've known someone for so long, slight nuances like these are always shared. "what are you? my mom?"

"no, but if i was, oho, you'd be damned," renjun grabs for the mug and this time takes a sip. he does his best not to scrunch his face when the sweetness hits. "i'm gonna go get ready for bed then, mom." his chuckles resonate from behind.

renjun stays up late to study and, seeing the score you got on the biology final the next day, you probably should have done the same. he looks back from his spot on the desk, the chair being positioned so that his back was to you. it's only been about fifteen minutes since you came from the bathroom with your retainers in and contacts switched out for glasses but it's just that gets his heart beating again, not so unfamiliar to the palpitations it underwent on the first day of high school, all those years ago.

he gets up and crosses the room, sock-clad feet careful not to make too much noise. you're slumped, half on the headboard and half sprawled across the bed itself, passed out already. bending over your figure, renjun slips the phone from your hands and sets it upon the beside table, he pulls your form further down the bed to prevent the worst type of neck aches in the morning, and he draws the blankets to your chin, tucking the ends beneath your figure in the same way you've always liked it.

then he crouches by your side and stares. he stares as your slow breaths fan across his face, lightly billowing the ends of his hair. he stares as the minutes on the blaring red digital clock on the bedside table fly by faster and faster. he stares until the glasses propped on the bridge of your nose bring back all the memories he'd sought to forget, when really, he could never let himself forget.

renjun remembers you crying about it to your mom, in second grade that is, after she'd picked you up with your nose all blotchy and red and renjun's tiny fists scathed. he remembers how much you hated them and wore them the least you could even though you needed them to see practically anything. renjun remembers at the age of eleven, he'd whispered in your ear on the first day of middle school, how much he liked your new frames. he remembers how you always kept them on when it was just you and him at sleepovers, or how you always told him that you didn't care what he thought of you because it was him, renjun. 

he still wonders if you feel that way though if not, he wouldn't mind spending more time with you to make it so. to renjun, you're presence is irreplaceable. and not because you make him happy, but because you also make him sad, because when you're angry, you don't mind that he's angry too, and that when the whole world is turned upon you, he's the only one that can ground you. to renjun, you're the only person that's capable of making him feel like the best and worst person in the world, at the same time, or not at all, or everything in between.

and if renjun has learned anything from his studies on the universe, it's that in the whole scheme of the world, the galaxies and galaxies so big that no one can even come close to fathoming their size, he is just as insignificant as anyone else on this planet. but he if he has found something, a someone, to which he can anchor his worth, his lifetime of feelings to, he has all the reason to live. renjun doesn't mean to be dramatic, but as a second year high school student he thinks he has all the reason to say that his reason to live sorta, maybe, possibly is you.

standing, he hooks two fingers under the sides of the frames of your glasses, lifting them off your face and folding them in a hand, careful not to smudge the lens, he places them on the bedside table as well. he goes back to studying but it doesn't last. how can it when all he can think about is you?

the you who he slips into bed next to instead of sleeping on the floor like usual. the flustered you who he wakes up to. the sleepy you who ruffles his hair before getting up and out of bed. the lovely you who brushes your teeth to the beat of whatever song is playing. the caring you who makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the both of you to share at lunch.

renjun sits in the back seat to your side, his mom smiles at you in the rearview mirror. somewhere in her eyes he can tell that she's glad you're back in his life. maybe because that's how it should've been all along. he looks over to you, now with your head stuck in your textbook trying to (futilely) get some last minute cramming in before the big test. his finger fidget with the loose threads of his sweater, he smiles. and it stays that way.

you're not a fan of the stars, at least not as avid as your best friend but you do your best to recognize the ones he's taught you and learn the ones he's teaching, right now. "that one? i thought that was the chameleon one…," renjun is not the slightest bothered, having the ability to go on and on about the heavens above even if no one was listening. he turns his head towards you, weight propped up on his elbows, "we're not even in the right hemisphere to be seeing the chameleon, y/n."

"oh," you turn your head to face him as well but instead of being on your elbows, you're flat on your back, the grasses that teem over the edge of the blanket brushing your right arm. "do you know how long we've been out here?"

"does it matter? we're literally in your backyard," he sits up to check his phone anyways. "it's barely one, let's stay out for a bit more."

"okay."

renjun lays back down, now also on his back and he stares in appreciation that the little city the two of you grew up in wasn't crowded with light pollution in the summer sky, almost as if him and his star fascinations were meant to be born here. the sounds of ten or so crickets are prevalent but not blaring and the light zephyr that sifts between the houses of your street meets your skin with a warm touch. you're fully convinced that summer nights belong to the young.

breaking the silence, you grasp onto the words that cross your mind in passing, "how was your day?" renjun's head swivels in your direction again. oh how easy it is for him to be sidetracked from his favorite pastime by his favorite distraction. "my day? wasn't i with you the whole day?" your right hand balls a fist of grass and pulls, the blades are plucked sleazily from the ground and fall just as sleazily as you release them into the wind. "well yeah, but like- how was it?"

"it was good, any day with you is a good day."

positioning your body so that it now faces him, there's suddenly many things that are crossing your mind and begging for you to voice them aloud. his curt but sweet answer leaves space for your inquiries. "are you ever going to tell me what happened?" he's turning to face you as well, the blanket beneath the both of you scrunching as he moves and the outlines of his face illuminated by the light of the lantern, a good fifteen feet away. "what exactly are you referring to?"

rejun sees his past being dredged up further and further with each coming word that tumbles from your mouth, "like a year ago." his heart beats a little faster and if he wanted to, he could mouth your next string of words. "you got all...i don't know, distant i guess." swallowing thickly, he can feel your eyes on him as he decides to come clean, half clean.

"that was- that was a weird time for me." a noise of confusion and a, "how so?" gets his brain working double time to feed your curiosities without bearing his heart to you. the mere prospect of telling you his undying love for you is undoubtedly out of the question. "i guess, i was having a hard time getting adjusted to school and i didn't have that much time for...us. that's what happened."

so huang renjun ends up tossing out a blatant lie, something he knows you weren't even close to accepting as the truth but also something he knew you wouldn't question. if he wasn't comfortable with letting you know then so be it. you nod. 

there are things that he wants to know as well, "then can i ask what happened with you and jaemin?" and for reasons all too similar to renjun's you also lie, "just kinda fell out of love with him. nothing spectacular."

but renjun knows more than he lets on. he knows from the rumors, things you've told your friends that have somehow made their way around the school, that have made their way to him. it still holds that he isn't all that trusting of silly gossip but the potency this one piece of information holds, the hopes, the desires, the dreams and the fantasies, it's not something he can so easily pass up. he knows that you broke up with jaemin because yes, you fell out of love with him, but that only happened because you were still in love with him, huang renjun.

where you live, september mornings, even still early in the month, have already succumbed to the edicts of fall. fog gags the clear air and renjun finds it difficult to see three feet in front of him. despite that, the road to school is still the same as always and though his mom was unable to drive him today, making it so he had to wake up half an hour early, he doesn't mind it half as much as he thought it would. in fact, he finds himself thinking more about you than anything on the lone walk there.

hands swinging back and forth, a little crazily in the absence of anyone else on the street, he passes by the convenience store a few blocks down from the school, the one that's open twenty-four hours a day and the one that you and him have been frequenting a lot at three a.m. when the midnight hungers start to kick in. the thought almost slips his mind before he has a chance to act on it.

you decide that junior year is the worst. not even halfway through your first period, the looming presence of empty resumes and college application preparations is already making you queasy. luckily, you share four of your classes with renjun who is currently in the seat next to you. he's focused, as always, while your ap us history teacher reads off of the syllabus to stall time. you really should be paying attention as well but the first day of school, especially one with renjun by your side, seems to transport you into the depths of your memories. your first day of freshman year. there's key differences though. 

let's start out with the obvious. renjun is now a head taller than you, much to your chagrin. he teases you about it just as much as you had when he was the same height as you. also as obvious, you're no longer on talking terms with jennie and donghyuck, whom have since stuck with jaemin. which leads to the biggest turn of events that distinguishes your first day in high school to your second to last, if such a comparison even mattered.

third period ends, this time ap english language, a class that you don't mind at all and are, in fact, so invested in the free write that was assigned that you don't notice that the bell has rung, or that all the people around you are either packing up their things or leaving. you don't notice renjun, who's still beside you, packing up his own things as well. his desk is completely cleared save for one thing, one thing that he picks up hesitantly and holds behind his back, entirely unsure if now was even the right time for him to be carrying through with his plan.

this plan of his had been meticulously thought out during his walk to school, an impulse driven thought that, if not successful, would guarantee a trashy start of his junior year. the corners of the carton are a little bashed up from being jostled around his backpack for so long and he hopes the contents aren't completely spoiled just yet.

your head snaps up in surprise as he crosses over to the front of your desk and you're even more surprised to see that the classroom is completely void of students, your teacher had even rushed out to make the most of his lunchtime. "oh shoot! we're not gonna get a spot at the cafeteria, jun!" with haste, you start shoving your belongings into your backpack, the pencil case still wide open as you toss it in. renjun himself recedes in his thought process, certainly there would be a better time. if only he lived on your side of town, maybe then he could do it while walking you home. or maybe if he had the last period of the day with you, surely catching you after class would be too difficult. or maybe it he should've done it yesterday after the two of you spent the whole night playing games, that would've worked out a little better tha-

"renjun, what's that you're holding?"

his hand that was once behind his back has now dropped to his side, escaping his notice, and you were bent over the side of the desk to yank your backpack closed, giving you the perfect view.

"oh, this," he overcomes his flustered state in a record time of three seconds. it's now or never, he thinks, "this is for you." renjun holds out a carton of chocolate milk to you. "picked it up on the way to school today."

you take it from him graciously, turning it over in your hands as the realization dawns on you, "wait, this is the same brand as- as that one." renjun licks his lips, he shoves his hands into his pockets, takes them back out, sets them atop your desk, "yeah, it is."

your bottom lip is tucked under your front teeth as you look up at him with thoughtful eyes, no longer of appreciation or revelation but rather…, "jun, why did you get this for me?" you fold back the top of the carton, as you had learned, folding forward once again so an opening would slit. bringing it to your lips, you take three sips, the container so small that that already amounts to over half its total.

the window of opportunity has never been set wider than now. you watch as your best friend gulps, visibly, as he blinks, purposefully, as a hand comes to the scruff of his neck and rubs at it, almost forcefully before twelve years of his pent up feelings are regurgitated into the empty english classroom. the cafeteria is surely packed now.

"i like you, y/n. i got it for you because i like you."

backpack left on the ground beside you, you take a step forward, one which he reciprocates with a step back. another step is taken and another until you're in front of him, the desk directly behind. swallowing your nerves, your eyes glisten in the garish yellow lighting, "that's- that's nice to know. because i like you too."

renjun licks his lips one more time before they're on yours, kissing you just as he'd dreamed of ever since he even knew what it was, what it meant. his hand on your waist is as decisive as his steps that push you back and back until your thighs hit the desk, you prop yourself up onto it. renjun uses his height to deepen the kiss, he duly notes the sweet tang of the chocolate milk on your lips and he loves it. he loves the way it tastes, he loves that it's his lips, his tongue, that's tasting it, he loves that it's your lips that he's kissing, he loves how your hand never leaves the spot on his waist, or the other one on his shoulder, and he loves how he gets to kiss you like this however and whenever from then on. or really, he just loves you.

and it stays that way.

copyright © 2020 rouiyan all rights reserved.

✧ end note — my many inspirations for this piece — the song around by niki, the kdrama 'reply 1997' an all time favorite, and of course, hannah! check them all out hehe... hannah babe, i hope you loved this piece as much as i love you. consider it a token of my love HASHAAs but really, you're such a wonderful presence in my life <33

[mama-germany]

~i have been working on this for MONTHS~ 

this is a thus-far comprehensive bio of my edgy emo child Keira.  I’m using her in a Cyberpunk Red campaign so this is her bio as relates to the campaign, so some modifications have been made.  This is not her canon form, but it’s close.  if you’re part of the Swordfish campaign, go away, bc backstory spoilers.  And trigger warnings for, uhh, a lot.

Keira’s the oldest daughter of Joey Youngwood and his wife Olivia.  Her sister Carly comes along two years later, and two years after that, her parents go through a nasty divorce.  Because of Joey’s demanding career as a contract Samurai for Biotechnica, Olivia gets primary custody.  Keira’s childhood, while not particularly eventful, is marked by a distant relationship with her mom.  Keira is a daddy’s girl through and through, she takes after her father, she resembles her father, she cherishes her time with him.  Meanwhile she and her mom have little in common, and her resemblance to her father doesn’t really help.  Keira’s dad teaches her about guns and how to defend herself and plants the seed of a love for rock music.  He buys her her first guitar.

Andrew comes into the picture when Keira’s about 14.  Olivia’s new boyfriend, he started out mediocre enough, but didn’t take well to standing off against the rebellious, petulant, and disobedient teenager, especially compared to her agreeable mother and mild-mannered sister.  Their arguments turned physical more than a few times and Keira’s mother rarely intervened, on the basis of ‘Keira needing discipline’.  For the record, to the best of Keira’s knowledge, Andrew never raised a hand to Carly.

Memories of Keira’s teenage years include studying music, similarly emo (and short lasting) boyfriends, piercing her ears and face by herself or with the help of acquaintances, occasionally stealing cigarettes, hooking up with her boyfriends in shady places, and going to prom in a short quinceanera dress at the behest of her father.

The second Keira turned 18, she moves out of her mother’s home and starts getting tattoos.  She moves into her father’s Biotechnica funded apartment.  While her father is thrilled, he’s also a busy man and Keira can’t really be trusted to keep herself out of trouble.  He asks Skyler to keep an eye on her and keep her from getting herself hurt.  That’s how they meet.  Keira resents this straight-edge man trying to ruin her fun, but at least he’s cute.  Through him she meets the rest of his friends, all elite corporate Samurai and soldiers who’ve been raised most of their lives for this kind of work.  Maddelyn takes a shine to her, fascinated by how different her relatively normal life is by comparison to hers.  Her boyfriend Dean despises her - seeing Keira as a stupid, obnoxious brat just getting in the way - and the feeling is more than mutual.  Alina is ambivalent to her presence.  Luce dislikes her attitude and distrusts her, but eventually they come to friendly terms over some common interests.  Maddelyn and Keira eventually become close, bonding over Keira exposing her to things normal young women tend to do.  They paint their nails, go out to bars, and Maddelyn is always a willing audience whenever Keira wants to practice her guitar.

For a short period of time, Keira’s got a boyfriend, Hunter, whom she meets at a music club.  They manage to last a few months, longer than any fling she had in high school, but they too eventually split.  Keira was spending more and more time with Maddelyn and the rest of the squad and, of course, Skyler.  She’s very good at getting a rise out of this generally very even-tempered man, but at least she’s entertaining.  Turns out that when she’s sort of behaving herself, he doesn’t really mind her company.  He eventually shows an interest in her guitar, he asks her to attempt to teach him, and while he doesn’t take to it easily, it’s not too long before what do you know, Keira’s got a crush.  She secretly considers Bad Company ‘their song’.  

So her life’s pretty good, for a year and a half or so.  Out of an unsafe living situation and spending time with the people that matter to her, and a couple new friends.  That doesn’t last.  Her dad’s essentially a soldier, after all.  One day he leaves for work, and he never comes back.  None of his squad do.  Night City’s dangerous.  Something took them all out.  But Biotechnica’s excuses are pretty thin.  Not that it matters to Keira - at first.  Her father’s dead.  She sees his body sent to the ovens before her eyes.  She doesn’t know what to do, where to go. She won’t go back to her mom. Skyler lets her know that she’s still welcome around them. He and Mad look after her at their headquarters for the next few days.

The next few months after are her worst. She’s erratic. She’s impulsive. She’s drinking and smoking more. When she’s not doing that, she’s attempting to navigate Biotechnica’s departments to find out exactly what happened, what could have taken out an experienced Samurai squad with so little a trace, but Biotechnica is opaque. Maddelyn shares some of Keira’s suspicions, Skyler doesn’t. The others mostly dismiss her as well.

Several months after her father’s death, in that stage where you begin to claim you’re doing better but you’re really not, Keira finds herself with an older boyfriend. A little too much older. More of a sugar daddy, really, someone who can buy her all the liquor and cigarettes she wants. She just wants alcohol and a distraction. He wants a little more from her. One night he plies her with alcohol - she doesn’t exactly make it difficult - and starts touching her and doesn’t really take ‘no’ for an answer. Keira manages to bloody his nose and fight him off, she steals the keys to his motorcycle and leaves on it. But she’s drunk, she’s shaken, her nerves are fried, she barely knows how to drive as it is, and she crashes head-on into a curb. She wakes up in a hospital bed with Maddelyn and Skyler relieved she’s alive but not exactly happy with her. She’s got lots of breaks and dislocations, but at least nothing needs to be removed. Skyler angrily resolves to never let her out of his sight again, and Keira resolves never to let this happen again. She gets wolvers, Wolverine-like retractable claws, implanted into her hand a few days later. 

She stabilizes after that, sort of.  Sobered up, she spends more time with Maddy and Skyler and the others, taking them up on their offer to have a place to go.  She’s grown a lot more attached to Skyler.  A lot.  He’s barely let her out of his sight for months and she does not mind.  Maddy notices.  Oh she notices.  The sisterly pestering begins.  They go out drinking, Mad teases her about her crush on Skyler, maybe it’s a bit more than a crush, and she says Skyler likes her too.  A lot.  And Maddy’s right about everything, all the time, right?  So the day comes when Mad decides she’s had enough of seeing them dance around each other and takes it upon herself to lock them in a room together.  Keira takes the hint and makes her confession.  She loves him.  Skyler........... doesn’t really know what to make of that.  He’s shocked.  Kinda confused.  On the spot.  Doesn’t know how he feels or what to do.  He tells her people say and think crazy things when they’re mourning.  Don’t make big decisions about how you feel like this.  

~so that hurts~ 

Keira takes a deep breath and takes it like a big girl and tells him to forget this conversation ever happened. Forget she told him anything. She will too. And she keeps it to herself, but he’s her best friend. She can’t lose him. She doesn’t have much left. So she won’t press things and make him uncomfortable and alienate him. She’ll back off. Because she loves him. She hates Maddy at the moment tho. So does Skyler. Neither of them talk to her for a little while.

At least things return to normalcy, more or less, after a few weeks of avoidance and non-eye contact. Keira actually spends more time than ever with Alina, because she cares the least about her company. They have so little to bond over, but it’s the most comfortable silence Keira can find around others. But life goes on. Mad and Skyler and Luce are still her friends. As life goes on, Keira’s mind begins to wander to her future. She can’t stay there forever. She isn’t a Samurai. She isn’t one of Night City’s best and brightest, wasn’t born into the elite.  She can’t be one of them.  Over the next few months, Keira starts pulling away from the group bit by bit.  She uses the money her father willed her to move out of his Corpo apartment into a place of her own (it’s small and shit, don’t get excited).  She starts heading back into the chromer nightclubs, starts meeting new people.  She plays a couple of small gigs, the last of which she actually got paid a meager sum for.  Talks of starting a band are swirling around her head.  Her childhood dreams of becoming a Rockerboy begin to resurface. 

till they don’t. 

She’s out on the streets with the squad one night.  She met up with them during a routine patrol.  Hanging out with Maddy, trading insults with Dean, the usual.  They get an impromptu call to deal with a disturbance in the direction of Biotechnica’s offices.  No one’s very worried about it.  But they’re in one of the city’s combat zones and Keira’s a civilian.  She’s gotta go.  The rest of the squad’s written her off as Skyler’s problem, so he gets to escort her out.  The details are hazy, but when the groups part ways, they never come back.  

In Cyberpunk RED In their absence, there’s an explosion and an as-of-yet unknown team picks off the rest of the squad.  Maddy barely survives and Trauma Team manages to put back together what’s left of her, and she goes into hiding while she recovers.  She eventually hears rumors that the story is, she and her friends were eliminated for selling off company secrets.  Framed, of course.  It’s unknown what exactly happens to Keira and Skyler.

In my story canon, that takes place 200 years in the future instead of 20, everyone’s on a spaceship, doing routine things, shooting the shit, and they get that disturbance call.  Keira begins arguing with Dean about his treating her like a pet.  Maddy knocks her out to make everyone’s lives easier, and Skyler leaves with her.  She’s given an oxygen mask while she’s out cold to make the transition to the smaller ship easier.  While Skyler’s bringing her back to base, he begins feeling faint and passes out.  When Keira comes to, and sees Skyler unconscious, she knows something is deeply wrong, and manages to pilot them to a civilian hospital, not the base.  Not on her life.  

Skyler is sequestered and once he comes to, is told that the rest of his teammates are dead.  There was an accident on the ship after he left.  The reality is, time-release gas canisters were planted in the air ducts to dull their senses and knock them out, leaving them unable to defend themselves against another ship blowing them out of the sky.  

It’s been a few days.  Keira’s access to Skyler is restricted.  And he’s not recovering.  Maybe there’s something to the whole thing about dying of a broken heart, but Keira suspects he’s being poisoned instead.  During visiting hours, she asks a hapless nurse to take him for a walk, like an invalid, and she’s allowed to.  Once hidden in a back stairwell, she jams an adrenaline shot into his chest, sets the stairwell on fire with a can of hairspray and a lighter, and they escape as the fire alarms go off.  She brings him back to her apartment and nurses him back to health as best she can, just weaning him off the poison.  

In both stories, at least he’s still alive and he believes her now.  

Back to Cyberpunk RED, after a few days Keira helps Skyler find a place to stay, close to her, and they start trying to pull it together and make a plan of action.  All Skyler can think to do is Solo work, and despite his protests, Keira refuses to let him go it alone.  That’s how they begin their lives alone together in Night City, just trying to stay alive and find out what their loved ones died for.

[ask-theharlequinbrawn]

Angsty Headcanons (AKA Old Posts Rediscovered)

**I came across an old Alonzo bio I made on an RP site ages ago. Sadly the site has died off, and while I’m not completely happy with how this is written, I don’t want it to float off into oblivion either, so I’ll paste it here. (Note: The reason it hardly mentions Victoria is that [if I recall correctly] no one had claimed her yet and so her involvement in the story was *pending* the agreement of whoever would end up playing her. It’s not because Alonzo only loves his brother and ignores his sister’s existence or anything. ;))**

Alonzo, along with his younger sister Victoria and brother Mistoffelees from a later litter, was born to an upperclass queen who mated with a henchtom. He has clear memories of his mother, but only haphazard ones of his father, who had to return to the warehouse for his family's protection. Young as he was, Alonzo declared to his mum that now he was the protector of the family and would look after them all, to which she only laughed indulgently. Despite the father's absence, Alonzo remembers the family making a life for themselves and being mostly happy for at least a short time. However, one day without warning his father burst in shouting something about their needing to leave, to run away immediately. But before he could say more or anything could be done, henchcats attacked their den. When his father first burst into the den saying something about danger, Alonzo had got up a very tough-looking, protective stance, exclaiming that he'd protect his family no matter what came through that door--not that anyone was listening, as they were all trying to understand what his father was on about and what was happening. The moment the big henchcats appeared, however, all of Alonzo's big talk and bravery seemed to vanish. He froze, rooted to the spot, and couldn't seem to do anything, not even as he watched his father finally get overpowered and taken down by the henches. Next his mother confronted the henches, and still Alonzo could only stand frozen and stare at the scene unfolding before him that didn't seem real. As their mother fought on, slowly weakening, Alonzo caught movement in the corner of his eye, which served snap him out of whatever state of shock he'd been in. He saw what looked like his tiny brother Mistoffelees trying to attack the henches himself. Without a second thought, Alonzo threw himself on top of his brother to stop him joining the fight. To his confusion and amazement, there seemed to be a strange sort of heat and glow emanating from the younger tom. There was no time to wonder about it, though. For a moment, Alonzo held onto Misto and stared at the fight still going on in front of them. Half of him desperately wanted to leap into the fray and try to help his mother, the other half - much stronger - wanted desperately to flee the scene. Just before she lost consciousness, his mother hoarsely screamed "Run!" Not staying to deliberate another moment, Alonzo fled the den, dragging his brother and sister along behind him. He could hardly see or think, much less decide where to go, but his paws automatically carried him to their uncle Bustopher’s home, where he babbled out half-unintelligible explanations of what happened, curled up with Misto who still seemed out-of-it, and tried to sleep. The next morning, their uncle gave them the news that their mother was dead. Alonzo had thought so, but the idea hadn't truly hit him until just now. And then the memory of the whole situation and his own cowardly actions came crashing down on him. "I did it, I killed her, it's my fault," he kept muttering. Alonzo and Misto's uncle adopted his sister's kits and was kind as could be, but for quite some time Alonzo was unappreciative of his uncle's care - or, rather, he scarcely noticed it. All he could do most of the day was sit around broodingly, staring at nothing and thinking of his mother and what he ought to have done to save her. The uncle grew weary of this and gave Alonzo a gentle but serious talk about how they couldn't go on like this. Most of his words went over Alonzo's head, but his attention was engaged when the uncle mentioned his brother. "Think of young Mistoffelees, he's got no one but you now. Oh, clumsy old me, I'll of course help as best I can, but mark me words, it's you he's got to look up to and care for him the rest of his life. There's no replacing a brother," and other things of that sort. His words reminded Alonzo of the promise he'd made his mother to protect the family, and he decided then and there that he'd still keep that promise. Alonzo was also reminded of the strange powers his brother seemed to have, and the way the little tom had just thrown himself into danger like that--Alonzo would have to be extra watchful. Things began to look up a bit from there. Taking to heart what his uncle said, Alonzo did his best to look out for his brother and sister and take care of them the way their parents would. He wondered from time to time about the younger kit's powers, but mostly opted to ignore and not mention them, as they made Alonzo rather uneasy. Not long after adopting them, their uncle introduced Alonzo, Victoria, and Misto to the Jellicles and the Junkyard, where they gradually began to spend the majority of their time. This was certainly overall a good thing, as it provided them with a group to belong to, safety in numbers. And then, of course, as they got to know the Jellicles it almost became like a new family. Alonzo certainly began to see them as such. Early on he took a particular liking to Munkustrap, at first mainly because he happened to be the tom closest to his own age, and having never had an older brother and scarcely a father, having another tom to follow around was new and interesting. As they grew older, Alonzo began more and more to view Munkustrap as a hero, almost idolizing him. He aspired to learn all he could from Munkustrap about fighting and protecting. At first this was just from a general desire to become stronger and braver and never again be in a situation like what had happened with his mother--standing by unable to do anything to help. However, it has had more of a specific aim since the Ball and the Macavity attacks. He always had been vaguely aware that the cats who killed his parents worked for Macavity, but it was all very detached until actually meeting the Mystery Cat himself face-to-face. Alonzo did fight, but was knocked down quickly, and doesn't know what he'd have done if the other tribe members hadn't joined in and ganged up until Macavity was forced to flee. This thought shames him and makes him more determined than ever to hone his strength and skills.

[babyjeep]

Back with another part of the Teen Wolf Hogwarts AU! It’s based on the Hogwarts house moodboards that scilessweetheart made! But all of her moodboards are amazing.

This is part 3B and it’s called Two Roads Diverged

Make sure you read the other parts first! Intro, part 1, part 2, part 3A

Twice Stiles had nearly slipped down the set of stone stairs that spun around the outside of the tower. The closer he got to the top, the more unsettled he felt. Not only was he nervous about following Malia Hale, but he also didn’t want to be near the hundreds of birds that lived at the top of the Owlery. Birds had always terrified Stiles a little bit, but birds in the magical world? Those were freaky as hell. Lydia had explained it to him a few times, but he still didn’t understand how they knew where to take the letters just by the name you wrote on the top.

What made these birds different from Muggle birds? How did they understand English? How did they deliver messages to insanely exact locations? Once over summer, Lydia had sent him a letter and the bird flew through his open bedroom window to drop it in his lap. Then, the bird waited for him so that it could return to Lydia with his response. It had glared at him and squawked creepily until he got the hint and wrote his response.

As soon as he rounded the corner on the last step, he ran into something, or rather- someone.

“Are you following me?”

“Ah! Jesus-“ Stiles put a hand over his heart. “Were you- were you just waiting around the corner to scare me?”

“Answer the question,” Malia said darkly.

“N-no! I wasn’t following you!”

“Then what were you doing?”

“I’m. . Sending a letter, obviously. What else would I be doing?”

Finally, Malia stepped out of the way to let Stiles into the Owlery and out of the pouring rain. The boy flinched when a bird swooped close to him. There was an obvious discomfort on his scrunched up face as he scanned the room in search for the right bird.

“Where’s you friend McCall? Wasn’t he with you?” Malia glared out the doorway toward the bridge. There was not another student in sight. The rain did stop most people from venturing out of the castle, but usually a few crazy students were out slinging mud at each other, usually Gryffindors that would later muddy up the halls and loose points for themselves.

“Scott? He’s walking Kira back to the castle. Just me out here sending a letter. . in the middle of a storm. Ah, there you are!” Stiles waved to a particularly stoic bird who didn’t seem too happy he had noticed her. It was taking Stiles an awful long time to find the paper he intended on sending. Then, he got out his quill and ink and started writing.

Malia found that oddly suspicious. “You didn’t have it written before coming here?”

After all, who would want to spend twenty minutes writing a letter against a stone slab that was littered in bird poo? The cacophony of chirping made it hard to even have this conversation at all, let alone focus long enough to write a letter.

“I. . Couldn’t risk anyone seeing what I wrote.” Stiles regretted the excuse as soon as he said it because that opened him up to being asked-

“Why?”

“It’s just. . Embarrassing.” Oh god, the cover story that came to his mind was not a good one. Surely he was going to regret this later, “I’m sending it to Lydia.”

Oh, Lydia Martin. Malia knew of her. They were in the same year. In fact, she and Lydia had been keeping a close eye on each other since first year when Lydia confronted her with the theory that Malia was a werewolf. Lydia was right, of course, Lydia is always right. That’s why she was the Ravenclaw Prefect and rumored to be their Headgirl for their final year.

Malia also knew that ever since they met on the train at age eleven, Stiles Stilinski had been in love with Lydia. Through the years, everyone watched his numerous failed attempts at trying to get her to go on a date with him. Just when it seemed like Lydia might finally be leaning towards having a crush on him as well, Stiles would do something terribly awful like throw a dungbomb into a classroom and unknowingly demolish the small sliver of hope he had.

It was almost painful to watch, but everyone was invested now. If they weren’t together by the end of their seventh year, surely they would be by the time they had a class reunion.

“You must really like her if you can’t even risk McCall knowing about your letter.” Malia rarely saw the pair of boys without each other. Actually, this might have been the first time she was ever having a one-on-one with Stilinski. McCall had said hello to her a few times in passing, but they had never said much.

“Yeah well, I do kinda have this five year plan going, and time is sort of running out. But hey- this year has just begun and there’s always next year.” Stiles seemed satisfied with his answer as he rolled up the letter to attach to the owl. Once he sent it off, he shoved his hands in his pockets and asked, “So. . What are you doing here?”

Malia blinked a couple times and wondered, what the hell was she still doing here? Why was she standing around, watching some dork send a love letter to a girl who would never give him the time of day?

Her morning wasn’t exactly the greatest. The news of her bio parents threw off everything. She had no idea how she was supposed to react to learning that, or how others wanted her to see her react. Some people acted like they were walking on eggshells around her. Others were slightly more excited than they should have been about it. Before the article came out, everyone generally tried to avoid her because of her condition, but now people were coming out of the shadows to ask her how she was. Some even tried to act like they had been friendly before even though Malia didn’t even know their name.

“I was sending a letter. What else would I be doing?”

Stiles scratched behind his ear awkwardly. “Yeah, that’s, yeah. No duh, right? Ha. Anyway, with everything going on, did you want to walk back to the castle together? Safer in numbers and all that.”

“I don’t need protection,” Malia insisted.

“Then why did you wait for me to finish writing my letter?”

“I. .” Shit. Malia didn’t have an answer for that. “I just was hoping the rain would let up a bit.”

“Well, lucky for you-“ Stiles pulled a textbook and his want out of his book bag. “-I happen to have an umbrella.”

And with a quickly wave of his wand, the book he was holding really did turn into an umbrella. Malia’s lips parted in shock. Ravenclaws were notoriously bright, but she hadn’t known Stiles was able to apply his book smart skills for practical use. Transfiguration was one of the hardest forms of magic.

One look at the sky and Malia reluctantly decided to take Stiles up on his offer to walk her back. They had to huddle rather close to stay under the umbrella, close than most people dared to get to Malia. It seemed like the other students were afraid of her randomly shifting into the beast they imagined her as. In reality, Malia had not shifted a single time since going to Hogwarts. Her Potions professor gave her a monthly dose of wolfsbane to help stop the transformation.

When they made it to the covered bridge, Stiles shook as much water as he could off of the umbrella then turned it back into his Herbology book. Surprisingly, Malia was waiting for him to do that instead of running off now that she was safe from the rain.

He decided to try his luck again and played off his questioning like he was teasing, “So, I told you about my embarrassing letter. Who were you urgently writing to in a storm like this? A crush?”

Malia made a face of disgust. “Definitely not. I was just telling my parents what happened. They are muggles, so. . They don’t know much about this world. Dumbledore promised me he would send someone to protect and watch over them from afar so that they wouldn’t freak out.”

Stiles felt his heart fall to his stomach. He hadn’t even thought of how Malia’s adoptive family could be affected by all of this. If Dumbledore sent someone to look after them, did he assume they were in danger? Would Malia’s bio parents target her new family to get to her? Was it safe enough for her to go home for winter break?

The possibly of losing a family member is scary. Stiles knew that first hand. He wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

His eyes were a bit glossed over when he whispered, “I hope they’ll be okay.”

Malia studied his vulnerable expression then looked down at her feet. Suddenly this conversation felt like it was just. . too much. Never in a million years did she think she’d be having a heart to heart with the notorious trouble maker and prankster extraordinaire, Stiles Stilinski.

“Me too,” she mumbled.

Once they got to the tower, Malia put her hand on the door to yank it open, but she found herself pausing and looking over her shoulder at the boy. Out of everyone she had spoken to that day, he was the only one who hadn’t asked a single question about her bio parents.

Stiles caught her intense gaze and quickly went red. His hand flew up to fix the front of his hair, worried it had started drying funny from the rain or something. Why else would she be looking at him like that?

“Is it my hair? Is it messed up?”

“No, it looks good,” she said casually.

Stiles swallowed thickly and somehow went even redder than before. Probably because there was a mandrake leaf now caught in his throat. He tried to clear it and swallowed again, losing the leaf. This had to be a new personal record for how fast he wasted one. All he could manage out was, “Oh. Thanks.”

“Thank you for walking me back,” Malia said quickly before disappearing inside.

[chorusnihili]

I'd love to hear more about the development of your Gaster! :D

BACKSTORY ASK MEME 1. How did you first come up with your muse’s backstory, if you did at all? Continued from here Also asked by @alagaster 

So I left off with the question of just how Gaster's soul ended up in pieces.

I’m actually going to detour at the moment and say that it was around that point that I had decided to make the blog.  I had a vague beginning and an ending, and usually that’s not enough for me to want to start, but I was excited, I had a lot of fun, so I went for it.

Honestly, one of the first things I need to have before I even think of making a blog is a good url.  Urls are super important to me, and generally, whether or not I think of a good one is a key factor in whether or not I actually make the blog.

But in this case, I was too eager to start and I actually just threw together chorusnihil so I could get started on the pages.  The thought process remained the same--the chorus is from Greek plays, the group of characters that narrate the actions occurring in the play.  nihil is Latin for nothing--and I later changed it to nihili, which is Genitive, to roughly make the “chorus of nothing” or “nothing’s chorus,” a reference to the fact that the guy wiped himself out of history, and so there’s no protagonist to narrate.  This was supposed to be a temporary URL, but I got attached to it, for reasons I’ll get to later.  

(And really, isn’t a roleplay blog a modern chorus in it’s own way?)

Also there’s the phonetic pun-- CORE-us, anyone?

So I threw together a lot of the basic bios.  Most of the stat pages are really bland, most of the guts of the story comes from the hidden details, most of which were added on later.  

Something that came up around this point was Gaster’s relationship to Asgore.  A lot of fanon pictures them as really close.  A lot of fanon also portrays Gaster as Gaster as desperately wanting to retake the surface, which...as mentioned previously, my Gaster just, wasn’t into.  

So it sort of put Gaster in between Asgore and Toriel--he wasn’t happy about the decision to go to war with humanity, but he wasn’t going to abandon everyone, even if he did become really reclusive.  

I thought about the idea of the human souls, and I knew that Gaster would immediately hate the idea of working with them.  And that was convenient, too, since it allowed me to further separate Gaster and Alphys’s work.  At first, it was just a heavy disagreement.  The idea that Gaster killed Asgore accidentally came a great deal later, but it honestly served to be a rather critical piece of the story. 

The design of the DT Extractor and Sans and Papyrus were also very vague concepts at this point. 

Revisiting the idea of his fall.  We know from the canon dialogue that he fell into his own invention and that he was scatted across space and time.  

The CORE is the common culprit and it was what I had chosen, too.  But how?  How could an energy source... do that? 

So the idea occurred to me that maybe--maybe that was exactly as it was designed to do.  After all, even in the real world, we have power plants that operate by ripping apart molecules.  So... magic.  Why not magic?  A machine that derives power out of ripping apart magical energy.

And monsters are made out of magical energy.  

Falling into that sounds like a very grisly fate, indeed.      

The idea of how he got erased from reality isn’t one I really have solidified.  G has a couple of theories, and I’m willing to roll with either of them, but, really?  I’m not super interested in making a hard reason for it.  Namely to adapt to other versions of fanon other muns might have. 

Essentially, the theories say that the CORE destroying him released so much energy that it tore a hole in the Determination that pushes the timeline forward, thus allowing the Void to enter and merge with his soul.  

From there, either, 

A., his Determination very briefly was larger than that of the Timeline, and he himself invoked a Reset, but given that he was outside of the timeline at the moment, it was corrupted and only erased certain parts rather than fully resetting.   I think that this was the original theory that I used in the original RP.  

B., the Void acted as a corrective force trying to correct the hole in the timeline.  In doing so, it erased Gaster from the reality, thus replacing the existing timeline with a new one in which certain things never happened.  

C., something involving the power of Rewrite that Gaster has from the duality of Determination and Void.

D., something else entirely.  

And so we had the scattered Unbound Gaster. 

Which, funfact, the name Unbound Gaster for the form was supposed to be temporary, as well.  It’s a reference to Unbound Hoopa for Pokemon.  (Which is why Provoked Form Gaster isn’t called Unbound Form!)

Within the original RP that I developed most of this lore, Refused Gaster didn’t exist.  In fact, that roleplay ended with Gaster’s permanent death--and being permanently forgotten to the world.  A choice he intentionally made because the damage he did to the timeline by falling into the CORE was still present and only getting worse, and the only way to fix it was to allow his Soul to come together and pass on properly, thus allowing the damage to mend.

It was sad.  I cried.  I got emotional.  

I got attached to a traumatic asshole character I literally had for four days.  

Somewhere in here, I began to think about the origins of Gaster.  Like, way way way in the past.  Some people have Gaster being actively involved in the war, but it didn’t work for my portrayal, of having him be so afraid of humans and the surface.  So for it to work out, I had him really young for the war, really young when everyone got driven underground.  

I killed off his parents because ......

Frankly I didn’t want to design them :|

There’s a lot of varying opinions and interpretations about skeleton monsters, and it’s a section of the fandom I’ve decided to stray away from for now.  

But I didn’t want the loss to be traumatic.  Gaster’s been through a lot already, and I have personal vendettas against characters who solely consist of trauma after trauma.  

So I decided to make the loss very distant--he’s aware he probably had parents, or maybe he came to be some other way--but he doesn’t remember them, there’s no tragic “my parents were killed in front of me,” it’s simply something he didn’t have, and something he never needed given the nature of monsters to be kind and caring.  

...

But it felt like it was missing something.

So I started to toy around with this idea of a mentor, one who played the role of a father-figure, one who would plant the seeds to give Gaster the appreciation of science and knowledge.  Someone who could take this lost and terrified boy and start to turn him into the intelligent and steady doctor we end up with.  

Then came the problem of how he and this mentor would actually meet; Gaster’s scar proved to be a convenient excuse, plus it gave me a backstory for that, as well.  A few humans attacked him and delivered the injury, and Gaster’s mentor found the wounded boy and took care of him.  

The mentor is meant to be a vague entity, and you can view this in action in this memory.  (Only partially because I didn’t want to name them.)  Unfortunately, as per the nature of characters created post hoc, their fate was already sealed.  I made the choice to cut their influence on Gaster’s life short.  

(If they were around longer, who knows?  Maybe they could have prevented some of the stupider things Gaster has done.  Maybe they could have changed fate.  But...  as we’ll get to, everything happened exactly as it had to.)  

Again, I made it a very distant loss.  It’s a rather simple conclusion that not every monster would be happy vacating the surface--Gaster’s mentor had lived there their entire life.  It was their home, they were not leaving, even upon threat of death.  And so it was a bittersweet parting, but one with closure, and Gaster said his farewells and departed to the Underground.  

Honestly, what I find really shocking about this character is just how intensely he wants to do good.  I mean, I’m no stranger to good characters, but few of my characters push it as far as Gaster does, and how quickly that feeling came to me, considering he started in the original roleplay as a ruthless asshole bastard more than willing to fuck over and torture a bunch of children just for a chance at being whole again.  

Most of Gaster’s early life in the Underground found in this post was written on the spot as I wrote that post, so it came really late.  

I still find it hilarious that he used to work in therapy.  You’re well aware you need therapy you fucking bastard.  Quit denying it.  

So, revisiting the idea of Gaster and Asgore.  I do like the idea of them being close, and Gaster even calls Asgore his best friend.  The declaration of war put a huge strain on the relationship.  

I originally thought about the idea of him accidentally killing Asgore for shits n giggles.  At my heart I am indeed an angst gremlin, so I was just thinking about what an alternate timeline where that happened might be like.  After all, Gaster’s angry, Asgore’s full of guilt, with the way monster magic works, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to think that it could happen.  

But the more I thought about it, the more it fit eerily well.  The guilt gave Gaster a reason to create Sans (and later Papyrus) as part of his belief in Karma (creating a life to replace the life he took) and to look into Alphys’s research into Determination enough to create the blueprints for the DT Extractor; both of these things were things that I couldn’t otherwise really fit into his storyline.  

And finally...

His declining mental state and despair over the concept of the DT Extractor was what led to him being distracted enough to make such a critical mistake and fall into the CORE.  

And given that the timeline changes when he falls, I realized that...  I could have this happen, and the current timeline be unaffected.  

Now, given that I said that I wanted to avoid more trauma in Gaster’s life, this decision might seem contradictory.  But, it also served a very important point--Asgore returning to life, that mistake being fixed upon his fall gave Gaster something to hold onto.  Something that made his fate not as awful as it otherwise would have been.  A small piece of solace in hell.  

Plus, Gaster’s guilt at the incident caused him to resign as Royal Scientist, further allowing him and Alphys to have their separate stories. 

And pretty much everything snapped together at that point.  Really, strangely well.  I joked before on this blog if I’m really the one writing it.

If Gaster had not killed Asgore, he would have never created Sans and Papyrus, he would have never created the DT Extractor blueprints; if he did not create the blueprints, he would have never been distracted enough to fall into the CORE, if he never fell into the CORE, the blueprints would have never ended up with Alphys, she could have never created Flowey, and if Flowey was never created, he could have never used the souls to break the barrier and the True Pacifist ending would have never come to pass.  

It all happened exactly as it had to.

It feels oddly poetic, given the way Undertale works.  

In some ways, it’s cruel.  Gaster regularly struggles with the idea that for his people to be happy, he had to literally be wiped out of existence.  But in other ways, it’s a comfort--for at least he knows that his suffering wasn’t for nothing.  That there was a purpose--that even if he had to be erased, he played a vital role in ensuring his people found victory. 

Oh.  One final note...  In finalizing this story, you may notice that Gaster follows a classic pattern.  We have a hero, who’s mostly good, but through his own flaws makes a tragic mistake and seals his own grim fate.

It’s called a tragedy and they’re common in Greek plays.

What was that about a chorus again?

I think that’s just about every important point I could cover.  That being said, if you couldn’t tell, this is a very fascinating topic to me, so if you have any further questions or need any clarifications, feel free to send them in.  

[murdershegoat]

nothing's sweeter than summertime and american honey

(written under the influence)

(also on ao3)

lena thinks she might be hallucinating, because there is no way kara danvers is skateboarding in the luthor family pool.

wait. go back a step.

why is the luthor family pool empty??

it’s the second last week of summer, and lena stands on the back porch, her arms now self-consciously folded across her half-naked body. she stares in confusion as kara danvers appears on one side of the pool and then promptly disappears, only to pop up at the other end moments later.

‘kara, can you quit it?’ comes a gruff, familiar voice. alex danvers from ap bio is fiddling with some pool equipment at the edge of the yard. ‘this is a huge job for dad and you’re gonna get us fired.’ neither girl has noticed lena yet, for which she is very thankful.

‘take a chill pill,’ comes kara’s reply. ‘you just wanna finish quickly so you can go see maggie.’

even from her distance, lena can see how red alex’s face goes. ‘shut up! we’re just friends.’

kara snorts. ‘sure, jt and britney are also “just friends.” just admit you like her.’

lena assumes they’re talking about maggie sawyer, who had transferred into alex’s grade late last year. alex grumbles something in response that isn’t a denial, and lena feels her heart soar. alex danvers is a l-- she likes girls?? lena bites her lip.

this summer has been a nightmare of loneliness, even more so than usual. her mother hasn’t been home in a month and lex had flown in yesterday and spent the day with her, only to fly out early this morning before she woke up. she’s spent the summer sending emails to her penpal jack, lazing by the pool, and clearing her search history of questionable googles. she’s also been grappling with a huge secret, something she can’t tell anybody (not that she has anybody to tell in the first place.) her secret is this: she really wants to kiss somebody. and that somebody happens to be in her grade. and that somebody happens to be a girl.

it happens to be the girl who is now skateboarding in the suspiciously empty luthor pool, the girl who’s impossibly smart and funny and kind. the only person at Midvale High who’s not seemingly shit scared of lena.

the realization has been haunting her all summer, refusing to give her a single moment of peace. and now, knowing that alex is, is also like she is, and hearing the way kara gently teases her about it... well, lena doesn’t feel as lonely anymore. she wants to say hello to the sisters, to ask alex a million questions and ask kara how her summer is going and if she wants to maybe, like, hang out together or something. but just the thought of either thing makes lena’s heart race uncomfortably fast and her mouth go all dry. she turns around and slams open the sliding glass door, but apparently she doesn’t know her own strength. as she steps into the doorway, the door ricochets against the the end of its track and bounces back, hitting her in the side of the head.

‘FUCK,’ she screams, before turning white and whirling around.

both danvers sisters are staring at her. kara looks concerned and alex looks livid.

‘yo, luthor,’ kara calls out. ‘you okay?’

lena wants to say yes, but then she feels something sticky on her temple, and brushes her hand against it.

great. she’s bleeding.

next thing she knows kara has her sitting on one of the deck chairs, and lena’s not sure if she’s got a concussion or if kara just looks extra.... phenomenal today. she’s wearing a basketball jersey and shorts and lena keeps catching glimpses of her sports bra. kara takes off her baseball cap and wipes her brow. 

lena frowns. ‘you cut your hair.’

kara’s gorgeous long hair is no longer, instead it’s short around the sides with a messy tuft on top. 

‘you don’t like it?’ kara asks, running her hand through it. 

‘it looks... dope,’ she replies, immediately regretting her choice of words.

‘i did it out of solidarity with alex,’ kara says, grinning. ‘she wanted to get a buzz cut but she was a bit self conscious.’

alex comes back into view, carrying a first aid kit with her. her hair, too, is shorter than lena remembers it being. alex cleans up the side of lena’s head.

‘look, i don’t think you have a concussion, but you can hang out with kara and i while we finish the pool and i can keep an eye on you.’

‘alex is a junior EMT now,’ kara says proudly. ‘she’s also pretty much single handedly running our dad’s pool company this summer.’

right. the pool. that’s why they’re here.

‘why were you skateboarding in it?’ lena asks.

‘it won’t leave any marks,’ alex says quickly. ‘i promise. don’t worry about a thing.’

‘no,’ lena says, wincing as alex keeps prodding her tender head. ‘i mean, why is it empty in the first place?’

alex averts her eyes. ‘it was empty when we got here. we just gave it a scrub and an acid wash to get rid of some of the, uh, stains at the bottom.’ 

okay. lena thinks she knows what that means. and it also explains why lex left so early this morning. he fucking killed someone in the pool and needs to clean up after himself. fuck. she’s so damn stupid, thinking he’d actually come home to spend time with her. and she feels so embarrassed, having to explain how she’s used to her brother killing people so she’s not surprised or shocked by this.

kara lays a hand on her shoulder and smiles down at her. lena thinks she’s about to comfort her in some way, and she feels her heart start to race again.

‘can i grab something to eat?’ is what kara says instead, and lena’s face falls at the same time Alex whacks her sister’s arm.

‘kara, that’s unprofessional.’ but lena just smiles.

‘what do you want?’

///

lena didn’t think her day would be spent watching the danvers sisters fill her pool and eat sandwiches prepared by bertha the luthors’ cook, but here she is. kara sits on the grass across from lena, her toes digging into the green grass. she has what lena can only assume is a birkenstocks foot tan -- four fat white strips of skin on an otherwise perfectly browned body.

the pool is filling behind them, and alex sits on the other side of the yard, whispering into her cell phone.

‘how’s your summer been?’ kara asks with a mouthful of turkey sandwich.

‘quiet,’ lena replies. ‘my family’s been busy and not around much. i’ve hung out with our staff, but i don’t think it counts if they’re paid to spend time with you.’ she laughs, trying to detract from how sad it sounds. ‘how is yours?’

‘busy. my dad’s been, uh, he’s sick. so alex and i have been doing all the pool jobs. not much time to hang out with friends.’

‘and alex... she’s... with maggie sawyer?’

kara chokes on her sandwich. 

swallowing painfully, she lowers her voice. ‘could you, like, not say anything? i was teasing her and she’s freaking out because she’s not sure if you heard anything or not and it’s still... new and our parents don’t really know and if the school finds out---’

‘don’t worry,’ lena assures her. ‘i won’t say a word.’ her chest swells at the way kara smiles gratefully and lena realises she’s an absolute goner, head over heels for someone who could never like her back. lena almost wants to tell her the truth. maybe it’s the sun beating down on them or the welcoming scratch of grass against her legs or the summer feeling that has finally settled over luthor mansion. but before she can say anything, alex calls out.

‘kara, come help me finish treating the water!’

///

‘it should be good for swimming after about twenty four hours,’ alex says, packing the last of their equipment into the truck. lena hands them both the envelope lex had left, plus a hefty tip for each of them.

‘we can’t accept this,’ kara says, shoving the notes back into lena’s hand. alex doesn’t follow suit.

‘don’t be dumb,’ lena rolls her eyes. ‘my brother left it here for you, and i don’t want it.’ she hands it back to kara, who pockets it angrily. alex looks pleased her sister’s conscience hasn’t cost her the cash.

they climb into the truck and it rumbles to life.

‘catch you later, luthor,’ alex says, giving her a little salute.

‘hey,’ lena says, before she can talk herself out of it. ‘did you guys wanna come hang out tomorrow? the pool’s all clean and it feels like it’s a waste if i’m the only one using it. and you can bring ma-- a friend, if you’d like,’ she directs the last part to just alex.

alex’s eyes bore straight through her, trying to size her up.

‘we should be finished work by the afternoon,’ she says finally. ‘we’ll see you then?’

lena grins. ‘awesome.’

///

the last few weeks of summer fly by with a new routine in place. the danvers sisters finish work in the early afternoon and make their way to lena’s house, picking up maggie on the way. they lounge around the pool and bertha makes them mountains of food and her husband michael teaches them how to barbecue and lena finally understands what summer is supposed to feel like.

alex and maggie give up whatever pretense they were holding onto a few days into the routine, holding hands and stealing kisses whenever they thought the others weren’t looking. kara pretends to be grossed out but lena sees the happy gleam in her eyes as she does so. she wonders if kara can see the wistful look in hers.

spending time with kara feels like a dream. she tries to teach lena how to skateboard on the long, winding driveway that leads up to the house. lena stands as rigid as can be on the board and kara holds onto her waist and guides her along, assuring her that she won’t fall, catching her when she inevitably does. in return, lena teaches kara the basics of fencing because kara seems oddly excited to learn, and it’s the only thing that lena can actually teach her. kara’s skill-set seems exhaustive and incredulous. it’s like she’s a superhero or something. after just a couple of afternoons of practice, she’s better than some of the people lena’s been fencing with for years.

kara, lena is learning, is impossibly great. like, she’s known that for years; they’ve been in the same homeroom for two years, and are in lots of other classes together. she’s seen kara’s brain in action, and her humor and her kindness. but now she’s learned of a different kara, one that isn’t always in a great mood, one that isn’t always trying to please people.

kara still has walls up, lena’s sure of it, but she’s letting lena into the inner fortress, one layer at a time. and in turn, lena welcomes kara into her own heart, desperate to know the girl, and in turn, be known by her.

///

‘you know i’m... i’m... gay, right?’ 

it’s the first time lena’s said it out loud, and the sound of it alone makes her feel warm and comfortable in a way she’s never imagined. it’s a few days before school goes back and they’re floating alone in the pool -- maggie and alex taking the afternoon for themselves. she doesn’t quite know why she’s telling kara; maybe it’s because she knows how accepting kara is of alex and maggie, maybe it’s because she needs kara to figure out her big, overwhelming feelings.

‘i didn’t know,’ kara says with a small smile. ‘but thank you for telling me. i’m glad you feel comfortable enough to tell me.’

‘nobody else knows,’ lena confesses. ‘i mean, i barely know. i only really figured it out earlier in the summer.’

‘what made you realise?’ kara asks, before shaking her head. ‘sorry. you don’t have to answer that.’

‘it’s okay... i just... i realised that the feelings i had for this girl felt more... urgent? than i’ve felt about people before? like, i needed to be near her in a way i don’t usually need to be around friends.’

‘what’s she like?’ kara asks, and lena blushes.

‘she’s beautiful. and she’s wickedly smart. i feel like she would’ve been a handful as a kid, but she’s learned how to balance out that recklessness a bit. and she makes me laugh a lot.’

‘she sounds great,’ kara says, and lena laughs.

‘you have no idea.’

a lull settles between them as they float side by side. the sun begins to disappear behind the woods at the back of the property, and with it goes the warmth of day.

‘you know...’ kara says. ‘alex told me she thought you were gay. said she got a vibe.’

‘really?’ lena doesn’t know if she should be embarrassed or scared or proud.

‘yeah. she also said something else.’

‘what’s that?’

kara leans forward, no longer floating on her back. lena does the same and faces her.

‘she said... she said she thinks you like me.’

lena wonders if drowning herself is a viable way to get out of this conversation. or maybe she can just... swim to the other side of the pool.

‘lena?’ kara prompts.

‘yes?’

‘is she. is alex. is she right?’

lena looks at the water, unable to meet kara’s eyes.

‘yes.’ she says, in an impossibly small voice.

kara closes the space between them. she rests a finger under lena’s chin and tilts her head up. lena bites her lip as she looks into kara’s annoyingly blue eyes.

and before she can register anything else, kara is kissing her. she tastes like chlorine and sunscreen and cola lipsmacker and lena has never tasted anything quite as good. lena’s hands find kara’s neck and kara’s find lena’s hips and they stay like that -- making out in the pool -- until the sun is no longer in the sky and they’re both just slightly shivering.

‘do you want,’ lena says, slightly breathless. ‘do you wanna maybe go up to my room?’

kara grins and kisses her again, chaste and quick. ‘can we stop by the kitchen first?’

[afterspark-podcast]

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Transcript

[This can also be found on AO3!]

[Intro Music]

O: Welcome back to the madness of King Bay or the second live action Transformers movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

S: And our second anniversary episode!

O: [laughs] Yay?

S: I sounded way too perky for that.

O: [laughs] As with the first live-action film if you like Revenge of the Fallen then this may not be the episode for you.  But we'll be back soon with G1 episode 41!  So please join us then.

S: Mm, Revenge of the Fallen came out in 2009, still starring Shia LaBeouf and still directed by Michael Bay-

O: It is- [laughs] Yeah, I know, pity.  Uh, it is frequently considered the worst of the live-action films which is concerning that both Age of Extinction and The Last Knight have even lower ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.

S: That takes some doing.

O: Right!?! [laughs]

S: Uh-huh.  Technically, even Dark of the Moon has a lower audience score than this one, but a higher critic score.  So, um... make of that what you will?

O: Basically, what we're saying is until Bumblebee came out the uh, series hit its peak with its first movie [laughs]

S: Mm-hm.

O: But!  Let's get started today by talking about our initial experiences with this particular film.

S: I don't think I saw this in theaters, and I found it really unmemorable.  Uh, aside from there being a few characters that stood out that I still enjoy, but they're very few and far between.

O: Okay, so if you remember in the last- the previous [Bayverse] episode?  I didn't remember where I saw the first movie.  I remember EXACTLY when I saw this movie because I watched it in theaters for a bachelorette party.  Personally, I found the concept of watching a manly action film for a bachelorette party to be fucking hilarious, and I still do!  But I really wish it had been for a better movie. I don't remember having much of an opinion on it when I watched it, but I also didn't watch the third movie in the series until literally the last couple of years when I was blazing through a fuck ton of Transformers media.  So, I clearly didn't care enough to see the continuation in theaters or even rent or borrow it until well after had been released.

S: We begin, yet again, with narration from the one and only Peter Cullen!

O: According to our opening scene uh, you know, the last movie is not the first time that Earth had been visited by Cybertronians.

S: Ah, shocking!  We are shown some craggy mountains populated by ancient humans with spears.

O: Said ancient humans come across a huge Cybertronian installation of some sort and a bunch of Cybertronians.

S: Mm-hmm.  Ominous.  And then there's a weirdly ancient Egyptian or alien-esque Cybertronian with a staff that's apparently in charge.

O: Several humans are squished, and presumably they're all destroyed before we move on to Shanghai, China in the modern day.

S: Oh, will this be relevant?  Who knows!

O: Maybe!  Maybe!  Maybe.

S: We see the Autobots and the military guys from the last movie now working together to hunt down the remaining Decepticons.

O: The combined group is named N.E.S.T.  Short for, “Non-biological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty.”

S: Oh, that's a mouthful.

O: It is, so hence ‘N.E.S.T.’

S: Yeah.  There have been some additions to the Autobot roster.

O: Which for simplicity's sake we're going to talk about them now, because they don't really do a lot-

S: Yup.

O: -in the movie.  And they do show up (kind of) in that last section but again, very few of them even have lines.  I- I think aside from Optimus, the character with the most lines might actually be Ironhide?

S: Yeah.  Um, Sideswipe, not a lot of his personality from G1 or any other iteration for that matter is carried over in this, unfortunately.  Instead of being a Lamborghini he's apparently decided to channel Tracks and is instead a Corvette Stingray.

O: And yet, still no Sunstreaker to be found, much to my frustration.

S: Jolt, a new character who's not in the movie except at the very end and he has very few fleeting shots in between and has no lines despite his bio saying he's come to Earth to join Optimus’ group in the last two years since the first movie.  He seems to use electric whips. [makes whip noises]

O: [laughs]

S: And ah, promptly dies in the Dark of the Moon prequel comic.

O: So he never really does get to do anything.

S: Yeah.

O: So then we have Arcee, Chromia and Elita One.  They are referred to as the ‘Arcee Sisters,’ or if you want to get really confusing, the ‘Arcee Twins’!?

S: [laughs]

O: Even though there's three of them-- at some point.

S: Yeah.

O: Uh, but instead of, you know, their- them being referred to by individual names.  Apparently, they were written as one entity and while it depends somewhat on what real- related media you're looking at, the three of them are commonly portrayed as a multi-component Transformer much like Reflector.  They have very little personality, and they do very little in the movie.  Their alt modes are all motorcycles.  Arcee is pink or red, depending on the toy, Chromia is blue, and Elita One is purple.  Their robot modes sort of resemble Thrust from Beast Machines as they have no legs and function like weird sentient unicycles.

S: Yep, and then there's Skids and Mudflap.  Oh boy, where do we start with these two?  Well, uh, first, there's definitely someone out there who could have given a better breakdown on this than two random white ladies.  Uh, awkward… sorry.

O: Yeah, just in advance we are both white women, we do not know what we're talking about here from a personal perspective.

S: Yeah, so we're just going to sum it up with an extremely uh- in an extremely generalized way.  There was a lot of backlash for these two characters due to them possessing a number of racist african-american stereotype- stereotypical traits that at worst point to the people involved being racist in their own regard, or at best, really not thinking through how this was going to come across to the audience.  They've been referred to as comic relief in the same vein as Jar Jar Binks at several points.  Which is I think a good comparison for our purposes, and unlike the other five characters we just rattled off, these two will feature somewhat prominently in the movie so we'll talk more about them as they pop up.

O: At least kind of in vague sentences because as we said, none of the characters really do very much in this movie.

S: Yeah…

O: Even the ones that are in there for the bulk of the movie, don't do very much in this movie.

S: Yeah.

O: And then our returning Autobots from the first movie are Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ironhide, and Ratchet.

S: Mm-hm.

O: We see N.E.S.T. surround a construction vehicle that transforms into a huge ass robot mode and begins wrecking shit.

S: Yep.  Things go boom and everything's extremely orange and blue regarding the lighting and environment.  The second car Decepticon is spotted nearby and he tries to evade N.E.S.T. but is almost immediately bisected by Sideswipe.

O: We don't even really get to see his robot mode either- like, he sort of vaguely transformed I think, to like, crash through a building and then was- turned back into a car and was immediately killed by Sideswipe.

S: Yup.  Optimus is fucking airdropped from a plane-

O: [laughs]

S: Uh, to take on the construction vehicle Decepticon.

O: I- I'm pretty sure they just really wanted that shot of a semi driving off a damn plane.

S: Yeah.

O: Which I mean, okay, fair, it's a cool shot but still.  Uh, so then we see Optimus transform midair deploying some parachutes that have the Autobot logo on them... for some reason.

S: Is branding that important to the Autobots or their allies?  Plus, uh, someone's gonna need to go collect those later.

O: I wanna know why he landed in the middle of a highway- in robot mode!

S: No one here seems to think critically about any of this stuff when they're effectively undercover.

O: Apparently not.

S: I mean how many people with cell phones are taking photos and video of this? TONS!

O: Tons!  That becomes somewhat relevant later.

S: Even though people are still being evacuated.

O: Well, yeah- it said people were being evacuated but then to all these- all these shots that happen here, you still see a bunch of cars on the road.

S: Yeah.

O: While this is all happening.

S: And people still in their homes.

O: Yeah!

S: Optimus catches the rogue Decepticon who tells him menacingly, “The Fallen shall rise again!”

O: Hey, if it gets me out of this movie faster I for one welcome our Fallen overlord.

S: Unfortunately, we've got like, another two hours to go.

O: [sighs] Fuck.

S: And now in a completely different movie!  Sam is getting ready to leave for college.

O: His parents are having very different reactions.  His dad can't seem to wait for him to leave, while his mom is tearing up at every little thing that reminds her of Sam.  Apparently, his dad's got plans for his room, and I'm thinking, “Man cave- how creative.”

S: Ah, he wants his personal theater system, I guess.  After being hugged by his sobbing mother, Sam comments that, “You see this Dad?  This is how you're supposed to react when the fruit of your loins goes into- out of the cruel world to fend for himself.”  Okay, god that is such a cringe line.

O: I don't want to think about the fruit of that man's loins.  I don't want to think about that man's loins at all, okay!?

S: Neither do I, that's why it's so cringy.

O: Yeah- yeah, thanks- thanks for that Sam.

S: [sighs] We are treated to an awkward moment when Sam's dad spanks his mom on the butt as she walks away.  Sam is disgusted- I guess he is our audience surrogate in this moment.

O: His dad then tries to play it off as, “It's like a coach,” and NO that does not make it better! [laughs]

S: That actively makes it worse!  Sexual harassment is not okay.  Sam is apparently the first Witwicky to go to college.

O: I have questions.  Again, what the fuck does Sam's dad do that allows them to have this huge house that didn't require a college degree at any point!?  Who knows!  Uh, the Witwicky’s have apparently got another dog since the last movie, uh, so just another thing to add to this movie-- dog humping.

S: Lots of dog humping, in their dog condo.  It's kind of unsettling.

O: I don't know why they thought that this needed to be in the movie, but here we are.

S: Mikaela calls Sam, intending to break up with him- she is the most emotionally mature person in this movie.

O: Yep, pretty much!  They talk, uh, Sam insinuates that they're going to be entering a long-distance relationship while he's at college.

S: While they're talking, Sam pulls out an old ripped t-shirt.  His D-Day shirt as he refers to it.  Which is apparently, the shirt that he was wearing during the battle in Central City from the first movie.

O: This is important!  This is a plot point!

S: Yeah, we also have to assume that he has never washed the nasty shredded clothes from that day.  Because, I suppose, he wants to hold them and relive the memories of being chased by giant alien robots that wanted to murder him.

O: [laughs] No clue.  Uh, Sam does try to convince Mikaela to move near the college he's going to, but she refuses.

S: Her father's been released from jail since the first movie, and she insists on needing to take care of him.  That should not be poor Mikaela's responsibility, but she is the most responsible person in this movie as I said.

O: Well, and I get it, right?  Like, her dad just got out, presumably she has not seen- really been able to live with him for years.  She's both worried about him, and probably wants to spend time with him.

S: Yeah, that's fair.  Convenient plot device is convenient, as a sliver of the AllSpark falls off of Sam's shirt while he's on the phone to Mikaela.

O: It seems to zap Sam and then he drops it.

S: When it lands on the floor it burns its way through the floor and into the kitchen bringing a bunch of kitchen appliances to life.

O: They all attack Sam.

S: How did they get ammo?  Does just being brought to life just give them ammo?

O: Uh, dear god, why does one of these things have a penis?  That's my question.  Furthermore, why is it shooting things OUT OF ITS PENIS!?!

S: Because... Michael Bay.

O: I had- yeah, that's all I got, man.

S: Bumblebee bursts out of the garage and begins shooting at the little Decepticons, saving Sam's sorry ass yet again.

O: Maybe Bee should be trying to smash them instead of shooting at them?  They're on the front lawn at this point so all I can think is- their neighbors have to be able to see this!

S: I thought this was in the back lawn, but I'm not sure.

O: I- they're outside, he's no longer in the kitchen.  He's trying to shoot Decepticons outside the house, it probably is the backyard, but I don't know.  Sam yells at Bee to get in the garage.

S: Way to micromanage your giant robot bodyguard slash friend. [sighs] Again, it's like- you'd yell at a dog or something.

O: [laughs] Bad Bumblebee, bad!  Of course, Bee smashed out of the garage, uh, despite having a perfectly good door in front of him and then re-enters through the hole he had previously made.

S: Sam's mother is not happy about the surprise kitchen renovations, but Sam's dad calms her down by telling her that the government will pay for it all.

O: I'm so glad to know that this is where my taxes would be going to in this universe.

S: Well, it's definitely worse than some of the other things that it could be going for.

O: [sighs] I suppose that's true.

S: Sam's mom is like fine, but I want to pool and a hot tub!  And I quote, “And I'm going to skinny dip, and you can't say shit about it!”

O: And quite frankly that woman's put up with a lot of stuff, I- I respect- you know as long as she's got a good fence- her right to skinny dip in her own yard. [laughs]

S: Yeah, they need that privacy fence.  Sam goes into the garage to tell the audience, I mean uh, Bee, uh, how Bee can't come to college with him.

O: For reference, ignore the bit in the last movie where Bee talked because that's just gonna be ignored for like, three freaking movies.

S: Yeah.  To calm Bee down he says, “You'll always be my first car!”

O: Not even, you're my best friend- you're my first car.

S: “Congratulations Bumblebee, you're my possession!”

O: Pretty much!

S: Oh, that's creepy.  Sam gives the AllSpark shard to Mikaela for some reason, because Mikaela shows up at the end of all of this.

O: Right, you know like, everything has exploded, Mikaela's out there looking lovely with a bouquet of flowers.

S: Yep, instead of calling the Autobots or giving it to Bumblebee, nope it is given to Mikaela for safe keeping.  Well, I mean she is the most sensible person out of the civilians?

O: Everyone here?  Yeah, it's not that it- can't make it that- it's not that I don't think Mikaela can keep it safe.  She manages to do so quite swimmingly through this movie, but it's rather… not that she can use it at all, and it could potentially be dangerous for her to have it on her person!

S: Yeah.

O: And Bee is right there!  It's not like he couldn't give it to Bee and tell Bee to take it to the Autobots.

S: Yeah, like, that would be, uh, a lot more sensible.  Though if they'd done that it might have been put in with the other... another thing that happens later in the movie.

O: [laughs] True.

S: Anyway, they smooch, words are said, and a somewhat sappy 2000 era love song plays.

O: Meanwhile, no one seems to notice the toy remote control truck that's being controlled by no one.

S: A remote controlled truck that is somehow communicating with outer space, and somehow this character will be vaguely important

O: Shush!  My boy is here!

B: [laugh]

S: Ah, Soundwave shows up and takes over a surveillance satellite.

O: I'm sure I've mentioned this before at some point because I know I've said this multiple times, at least to Specs, but yes, I actually like the Bay version of Soundwave.  He's not in the movie much, but having him take over a satellite and spend the rest of the movie gathering intelligence and sending troops out? *chef’s kiss* Feels very in character, keep going baby.  His design is still garbage... just like everybody else though.

 S: And his voice sounds very nice.

O: That's because it's actually Welker!  He's allowed to be in this movie, doing a sizeable chunk of the speaking Decepticons even!  This is not a G1 similarity I necessarily expected, but I do find it hilarious.  Apparently, he also did the voice for Soundwave in a bunch of other language dubs too, which while interesting... I have to question why?  It's not like Soundwave's voice would have necessarily sounded the same in those other languages in the original G1 dub.  It just sounds like an odd decision?

S: Money.

O: Money.  I- kudos to him for attempting it at least?  But I still don't know why they did it.

S: Back at the N.E.S.T. headquarters, we see Mudflap and Skids uh, shenanigans, and they're unloading dozens of bodies!   Presumably, soldiers that died in Shanghai, uh- that's, uh, welcome to the morbid stuff that they don't spend any time on it at all.

O: Uh, why Sideswipe silver?  You had one job movie, one job.  Sideswipe is a little red sports car this is like, his defining characteristic- surely this was doable!

S: I don't think anyone involved in making the movie was a very big fan of G1 or wanted to maintain, you know, artistic integrity with regards to that.

O: [sighs] Yeah, I know, what am I saying?  I think the actual reason is I've heard red is harder to film?

S: Oh, that might be right.

O: Like- but- [sighs] I don't- it could be, because I want to say- I'm sorry if I'm incorrect- I want to say that's actually the reason Optimus’ color scheme got changed around quite a bit?

S: Mm.

O: And why he's got more blue on him.

[According to TFWiki: “When Optimus's design was first revealed, many fans of the Generation 1 series objected to the flames seen on Prime's body. When asked in an interview why he put the flames on, Michael Bay claimed he liked them because it was "cool". It was later revealed on a special featurette on the DVD that the flames were added because, apparently, red is not very good to film on camera, so Bay chose a blue truck but used the flames so that when Optimus transformed, the layout would result in maintaining his iconic red chest.”]

S: So, a jumped up government official shows up at N.E.S.T. headquarters.

O: And I think we all know where this is going.  Uh, this will be our bureaucratic bastard for this evening.

S: Yeah, you know, the wimpy suit who keeps getting in the way of the ARMY men and their REAL job- AMERICA!

B: [laughs]

S: Sorry, um, and here we have a lovely shot of Optimus transforming.  It's like some nice rotating thing.

O: Okay, get the robot transformation porn out of the way, next!

S: [sighs] And the bureaucratic weasel confronts Optimus on why haven't the Decepticons left the planet now that the AllSpark is destroyed, like they thought they would?

O: Optimus seems to take the opinion that Daddy Prime knows best.  Weasel's not super happy about this, but Optimus does say the Autobots will leave Earth if asked.  Neither of these groups are handling this super amazingly.  (Yes, even Optimus.)  Both sides have a point, if they'd stop trying to wave their metaphorical DICKS around and actually talk from a position of respecting each other's expertise, I'm betting this would go a whole lot better.

S: Probably.  The N.E.S.T. members back Optimus up.  Our only returning characters here are Lennox and Epps, both played by the same actors from last time.

O: Though I did not realize this at first.  I totally thought Epps was played by somebody completely different, and I'm gonna blame the writing because Epps is not given a lot of things to do here.

S: He was a very memorable character in the first movie.

O: Yeah.

S: Yeah, and uh, anyway back to college!  College away!

O: Sam's apparently going to Princeton, on the government's dime no less!

S: Oh god, he does absolutely nothing with it in later films.  Again, we're assuming due to the filming locations that Sam lives in Southern California or thereabouts so we're a bit surprised to realize he actually decided to go to college on the other side of the country.

O: It certainly doesn't come across like Mikaela is a priority in his life.

S: Yeah.  I mean seriously, he could have gone to school in California there's plenty of good schools in California.

O: Yup!  But uh, are you ready for some booze and boobs?

S: [sighs] We're introduced to Sam's roommates.

O: The only one that will actually play much of a role in the plot will be our buddy, Leo here.

S: I hope you're being sarcastic.

O: I mean- I mostly mean that he's there.

S: Well, no, I meant with the buddy bit.

O: [speaking while laughing] Uh, yes, that was sarcasm.

S: Yeah.  Uh, Leo runs a conspiracy theory website called The Real Effing Deal which is currently scrambling to get a- footage of the fight from Shanghai.  Uh, from earlier in the movie up on their site.

O: Which again, is ABUNDANT!  Because Optimus landed in the middle of a highway.

S: Yup.

O: Anyway, they're trying to do this until another person, Robo-Warrior, one ups them and gets the footage up, I think on a different site, first.

S: Yeah.  Sam does his best to play cool and blow Leo and his friends off because it's all, “Fake.” [laughs]

O: Also, I'd like to take- take a moment to note the era accurate Naruto poster decor among the sea of boobs.

S: Yeah.  Leo makes a comment that he and Sam are poor.

O: Alright!  Sit down and buckle up because this legitimately pissed me the fuck off.  So to rant for a moment, let's go back down the checklist of Sam's white fucking privilege, shall we?  He lives in a big house in a nice neighborhood.  In what we are assuming is Southern California, which is not a cheap place to live.  His parents have enough time for leisure activities and in fact, go on vacation in Paris after dropping Sam off.

S: Yup.

O: His dad bought him a car in the last movie and yes, he was very much implied to be being a cheap ass at the time, but at no point is there any indication he couldn't have bought Sam a nicer car.

S: And the car that he's driving when he like, jerks him around on what type of car he's going to get him, it looks like it's a fancy expensive car so...

O: That's also true!  Speaking as someone who grew up in a lower income rural area, and I say this not even remotely being the worst off in that area.  Our floors were rotting out, every time we had a heavy rain we had to run to the windows with towels because so many of them leaked, and more applicable in this situation- my family did not have the money to save up for college for me, or any of my siblings.  Yes, I realize the government is apparently paying for his tuition, but that just proves my point even more, because Sam's gonna come out of this with no student loan debt!

S: Yup!

O: So poor my fucking ass!

S: Uh-huh.  Sam's mom shows up in his dorm room high is a goddamn kite because she apparently bought and ate some brownies from the bake sale not realizing that they were weed brownies.

O: And she's just gonna be a punchline for the next several scenes, sorry.

S: Yeah.  To just list a few of the things that his high as a kite mother does: She talks about him losing his virginity loudly, and kind of at length to various women in the hallway.  [nervous laugh] And in the surrounding environs, mentioning that his car is a talking robot, tackles a dude for some frisbees, and petitions Sam's dad for sex on the campus green.  Considering how much she ate it's very likely she will need to go to the hospital because her knees may attempt to kill her.

O: Uh, then we cut the Soundwave, apropos of nothing, uh, ejecting Ravage into space.  Look, I get him for 10 seconds I'm going to fucking enjoy it.

 S: Ravage’s design here is very prominent with the pointy bits and teeth.

O: Rawr. [laughs]

S: And he lands near a US military base and runs over to a pipe sticking out of the ground and basically- uh, ralphs up a bunch of itty-bitty bots?

O: Into the pipe.  Uh, you know.  So I’m just saying uh, Soundwave’s baby had babies, this clearly makes Soundwave a grandad.

B: [laugh]

S: All the bots fall down the pipe and once they're at the other end meld together to form a new bot that is...gah.

O: He's interesting!  At least, visually, in that he is basically flat, so he can be borderline invisible when he's looking head-on at something.

S: He looks like a knife raptor.

O: Uh, this thing's name is Reedman and he doesn't show up except in this one scene.  Uh, he also brings our ‘Decepticons voiced by Frank Welker’ count up to three after Soundwave and Ravage.

S: Reedman?

O: Reedman, yeah!  I looked at the wiki!

S: [laughs]

O: I looked at the wiki, and I was like, “That's a terrible name!” but that's the name!

S: I am judging whoever named that character, so hard.

O: [laughs] Aren't we just judging the entire movie?

S: Oh yes, but…Reedman?

O: Fuck if I know, man.

S: Another piece (aside from Sam's piece) of the AllSpark is being held here so, uh, Reedman gets to work stealing it.

O: Alarms begin to go off and several military guys arrive at the bunker and shoot at our knife raptor.

S: Ravage begins firing at the base to distract them.

O: I'm very amused he's got his tiny little hip missiles too!

S: Meanwhile, back at the plot we're all absolutely dying to continue- cough, cough, no, cough.

O: [laughs]

S: Sam's been dragged to a college frat party by his roommates?

O: It looks like a frat party.  I don't even know why they want to bring Sam uh, they don't even seem to like him.

S: Eh, they want to have someone less cool with them so that basically they can be like, “Hey, look at that lame guy, we're much cooler.”

O: Well, Sam is definitely the least cool person in the area right now due to mommy shenanigans.

S: Yeah, while at the party Sam is missing his first video call with Mikaela.  God, you are such a sucky long distance boyfriend, Sam!

O: Right!?  You had one job!  So we see Mikaela getting ready, taking her hair down and talking to her doggo while getting her computer set up.

S: Sam's- uh, promptly begins to spazz out by the uh, snack table and draws strange symbols with food.

O: These symbols are Cybertronian and the AllSpark fragment has helpfully downloaded a bunch of stuff directly into Sam's brain.

S: [sighs] We've upgraded from they want the glasses to they're going to want the brain, aren't they?

O: Something along those lines, yes!  Quite frankly, again, I think they can have it. [laughs]

S: One partygoer notices Sam's new hobby and saunters over to seduce herself to him.

O: [laughs] Uh, blondie's name is Alice, and don't worry we'll get to see her panties later because what the absolute fucking fuck Bay!?!

S: [sighs] Bay, why- why'd you hurt me so? [sighs] There's a discussion about girlfriends and Sam says, “kind of,” in regards to having one.

O: Kind of?  KIND OF!?!  Sam, you dick waffle!

S: [sighs] The quintessential jock yells, “Who drove the freaking yellow Camaro!?”

O: Sam’s Bee senses tingle, and he leaves the party.

 S: Bee is waiting outside on the lawn, or possibly the bushes but…

O: In that general vicinity! [laughs]

S: Yeah, but Alice follows him down and hops into Bee's passenger seat.

O: Bee attempts to communicate to Sam that this woman is ~baaaad news~ using various voice clips and songs.  And this would have been a really interesting bit if Bee did have his voice back and he had to communicate with Sam like this because he's doing it in front of Alice!

S: Yeah, like, that would have been interesting and a neat way of utilizing his past experience to communicate.

O: Yeah, because I- I don't know remember if we've talked about this super much but there- there's nothing wrong with Bee still relying a bit on that because it is kind of funny and entertaining to see.  It's- just make it so he has to use it in scenarios with other people around?

 S: Yeah, god, he could do so much with musical lyrics.

O: Pretty much!

S: Alice seems to know something is up, as Bee makes her as uncomfortable as physically possible as he can, including spraying her with a icky yellow liquid and slamming her into the dashboard.

O: She exits in a huff before Bumblebee takes Sam to a graveyard where the rest of the Autobots are waiting.

S: So that was night.  Now we are inexplicably in the daytime, I think?

O: Morning.  Early morning it looks like.

S: Yeah.  Optimus tells Sam the last piece (or as much as he is aware) of the AllSpark was stolen and attempts to convince Sam to remind the other humans why the Autobots are necessary and why they're trying to use a college student for this is a big question.

O: I don't know- and Sam says no, because he's just a normal college student.  I don't understand this, I feel like I would jump at a chance like this?  Like, dude, does it have good health insurance?  Does it have a pension?  Yes?  Sign me the fuck up!  But I want to ask, why the heck didn't Sam tell the Autobots here about the fragment he gave to Mikaela!?

S: Because he's a shitty little baby- I mean, obviously.

O: Oh, [unintelligible].  Then out in the middle of the ocean in a different movie… Over the Laurentian Abyss, which is where the dead Cons were dumped in the last movie.  Several Decepticons have stowed away on what looks like a cargo ship.

S: The fact that it's going directly over where they need to go is uh... they probably hacked it.

O: Wouldn't shock me.

S: Yeah, so who the Decepticons are is absolutely unimportant.  The only recognizable one is Ravage.

O: And I think only one other one will actually get named.

S: Yeah.

O: Uh, so they all jump off the ship and into the water, and I have to you know, bring up- they specifically said they dumped the dead bodies into this trench because of the pressure and cold in the last movie.  So, why are all these Cons just perfectly fine with a little skinny dipping?

S: I mean, maybe it's just supposed to keep- I don't know, whatever self-repair systems the dead ones have from working and it doesn't do shit to like, perfectly fine robots?  I don’t know.

O: They were using cold as a weapon against them in one though. Like, against Bee.

S: That's absolutely true, but I mean, if cold didn't [did] do anything to them how would they operate in space?

O: I don't know, but they clearly had Megatron on ice.

S: Who knows... yeah.

O: And he got frozen in the Arctic!

S: Yeah, I know, the entire thing is garbage.  It may be- maybe water- maybe frozen water is their kryptonite?  God. [laughs]

O: Welcome to Earth! [laughs]

S: Why didn't they dismember the Decepticons, or incinerate them?  Or you know, take important parts, crush them, destroy them or whatever.  Like, throw them in 100 different places- that would work a lot better than this!  Run them through a trash compactor or something, before they dump them down into the Laurentian tre- Abyss.

 O: I’ll tell you exactly why.  Uh, because the government put out a bid for trash removal and the lowest bidder won.

S: The government does stupid things, many times. [sighs] We see a military sub monitoring this area, reading the five Cybertronian life signs.

O: They reach Megatron and a little doctor bot (whose name is Scalpel), starts uh, poking around at his corpse.

 S: [sighs] He shouts about his need for parts, and one of the nameless Constructicons is offed.  The parts and the AllSpark fragment are all shoved into Megatron.

O: So Megatron's back.

S: Yup.

O: And yet, still voiced by Hugo Weaving so I don't care.  No offense, Hugo Weaving.  Uh, get back to me in two movies.  Also notice they didn't kill Ravage here, because I'm entirely convinced Soundwave would end them.

S: Probably, because I mean, they did like- the little doctor boss specified, “Kill the little one!”

O:  It- to- pointing to a random Constructicon.

S: Yeah.  Fun bout of bad continuity, the radar shows the five life signs, as Ravage and Scalpel are both too small to show up, and then uh, when they come up they have six life signs but uh, you'll remember they had to kill a Constructicon down there.  So uh, it should be this same number, even with Megatron in tow.  Or maybe they brought the other Con- Decepticons back to life, I don't know?

O: I don't think so, we never see them.  They could have brought Blackout back to life, but we'll get into why they didn't later.

S: I mean maybe they brought uh, shoot- Scorponok?

O: No, Scorponok never died in the first movie.

S: Oh… well… yeah.

O: He just- they got his tail like-

S: Oh, that’s right.

O: The- the army guys cut off his tail but then he disappeared.

S: Oh, that's right.  Mm.

O: Megatron's apparently salty enough at humans though, in general, to smash through this- the military sub on his way up, so all those people are dead now.

S: He'd do that even if he wasn't feeling salty, you know that.

O: Oh yeah, he's a bastard, but you know.

S: Uh, Megatron flies to one of Saturn's moons where the Nemesis is being uh, well, it's parked and is used as a base by some of the remaining Decepticons, which includes our old buddy Starscream.  And he knocks Starscream around for taking over the Decepticons while he was ‘away’.

O: You know, while he was literally fucking dead. [laughs]

S: And so we are introduced to the Darth Sidious to Megatron's Darth Maul.

O: Including liberal use of the word ‘disciple’!

S: [sighs] So much sighing.  This is the Fallen whose name we will not find out in the movie itself because it would be really fucking confusing to have Megatron, and his master, Megatronus, running around.

O: Also, um, a bunch of little baby robots in pods?  On the wall.

S: Robot eggs.  So many robot eggs.

O: But no really, I'm not sure we can explain that any better than we just did- so just roll with it.

S: Yeah.  Anyway, the Fallen isn't shown to have an alt mode in this, but once you see him you do realize he was the Transformer that was shown at the very beginning of the movie while Optimus was monologuing.

O: And as kind of mentioned previously, he looks vaguely like the queen from Alien, but you know, with eyes and a huge staff he fights with.

S: And less arms and no tail.

O: Yeah.  Apparently though, only a Prime can kill the Fallen.  Don't ask us how the fuck that works!

S: I guess only a Prime can kill a Prime?  Because wasn't the Fallen a Prime?

O: Yes, he was considered a Prime but I don't- I still don't know how the mechanics of that work is what I'm getting at.

S: Is it just a weird cultural hangup?

O: I- I don't know!  That's what I'm saying, it's never explained!

S: I know, I know.  This will get weird in a bit.

O: [laughs]

S: It will! [sighs]

O: But they're like, “So if we remove that one pesky remaining Prime we’ll be off scot-free!” [laughs]

S: Yep.  The Fallen explains that the AllSpark cannot be destroyed it can merely be transformed.

O: Everything transforms on Cybertron, but right now the AllSpark is currently living rent free in Sam's head.

S: And I think he wants some goddamn rent, but I think we all want some goddamn rent for having this living rent free in our heads.

O: [laughs] Right!?!  Bay, you should pay us for watching this movie!

S: [sighs] So, the Decepticons are going to go after Sam (again), kill Optimus, or at least make another attempt at it (again), and presumably somehow use Sam's brain as they AllSpark.

O: But then Starscream walks in holding a dead robot baby, waving it around and saying they need more Energon or all the hatchlings will continue to die.

S: Well, someone apparently… uh.

O: I just don't know why this is here. I'm sorry, I don't- I don't know why they felt the need to have Starscream motioning while holding a dead baby!

S: [laughs] Being a very bad nurse maid-

O: Yes!  But now it's time to go back to school.

S: I already want to hit someone in this class well, multiple someones.  Sam is setting it in on his physics class.

O: With the absolute creepiest, filthiest, fucking professor I have seen in a good long while.

S: Ah, innuendos, a god complex, this man is so many sexual harassment lawsuits, and a restraining order waiting to happen.

O: This is not appealing!  Who the fuck does this appeal to?

S: I don't know but I'm ace, so I'm possibly not the best person to ask.

O: Is this a straight woman thing!?  Where the hell are we gonna find one of those this time of night?

B: [laugh]

S: Sam starts freaking out like he was uh, doing at the party, writing equations, and stuff all over the board.  He basically gets up, and bowls his way into- up to the front of the class and basically shows up the shitty professor.

O: Uh, Bulkhead did this in Prime, I'd like to personally nominate Bulkhead as our main character instead of Sam.

S: Oh yeah, Bulkhead would be a much more fun character.  Sam is promptly kicked out of the class uh, because showing up the professor and also the fact that the dean is apparently there.  So he's been- that professor has been like this while the dean is there.

O: Yes, so, uh, obviously he's sleeping with the old lady too, is what I'm getting from this.

S: That's creepy, it's even worse!  I mean, this is a female dean.

O: Yeah, female dean not just a random like, male dean, I mean an older female dean!

S: [sighs] Oh god.  Sam calls Mikaela mid freak out, and realizes that the AllSpark has caused his little problem.

O: Uh, so he asks her to bring the AllSpark fragment to him on the East Coast.  Uh, by the way I would just like to take a moment to tell you this very important information, Mikaela's dog's name is Bones.

S: Uh, the little remote controlled truck Decepticon, who we regret to inform you is this universe's version of Wheelie, uhh, is stalking around the garage where Mikaela is.

O: Wheelie, uh, clearly hasn't gotten the memo on you know, Mikaela taking out a Decepticon with a power tool in the first movie, decides to be a dumbass and say, “You're hot, but you're not too bright,” as he attempts to steal the AllSpark fragment.

S: The fact that Wheelie has some sort of metric for human um, attractiveness is honestly, really concerning.

O: Just a little bit.

S: [sighs]

O: Uh, predictably though, Mikaela fucks him up with a welding torch, including taking out one of his optics.

S: Wheelie begs for mercy from the Warrior Goddess.

O: At last Mikaela is given a proper title.

S: Uh-huh, and then Mikaela shoves him in a box and hops on a plane.

O: Metal box, I feel like it's important it does actually hold him.

S: Yeah, a metal box, and hops on a plane with him and the AllSpark.  And honestly this feels like something that she couldn't successfully do after 9/11.

O: Which is hilarious, because this was definitely filmed after 9/11.  So we just have to go with she's so sexy that she was able to get the big metal box on the plane without having to go through an x-ray.

S: Except that everything that goes on the plane when you check it should go through x-ray…

O: I know, I know!

S: Or-

O: Boobs!  The power of boobs!

S: Never mind that the power of boobs should not, you know, somehow affect the people that do not get exposed to the boobs.

O: See- see this is why uh, this movie would have been stopped in its tracks if one of the TSA agents had been a woman- a straight woman.

S: Or one of the people who sorts stuff or- because like, just imag-

O: It looked like it was her carry-on.

S: Now I'm just imagining that the people, because like you know how they sometimes go and randomly open bags to go through the contents? [laugh] I'm just imagining someone doing that and then there being a major freak out because out comes a stupid remote controlled car that’s yelling at everyone.

O: [laughs] Yeah… yeah.

S: Uh, then we cut to a short segment showing that all the Autobots are heading to locations on the East Coast as the rest of N.E.S.T. mobilizes.

O: But wait!  Decepticon pretenders are afoot at Princeton!

S: That's not ominous at all.  Sam is in his room going nuts and writing stuff on the wall.

O: Uh, and then Alice pushes her way into Sam's room and attempts a rather forceful seduction. 

S: She straight up picks him up and tosses him on the bed.

O: Which really should have been his first clue that something was very wrong!

S: Yeah, because Alice is not uh, portrayed as a…

O: A big woman.

S: Yes.

O: She's very slight and conventionally attractive.

S: Yeah, so she gets on top of him, and then we get the most awkward shot of Decepticon panties as the metal tail comes out from underneath Alice's extremely short dress.

O: Thanks for that Michael Bay.  I always, always wondered what brand of underpants Decepticons were wear, given the chance.

S: [sighs] She kisses Sam, apparently with tongue, and Mikaela walks in and is understandably pissed.

O: Alice asks if she's his girlfriend and Mikaela just says, “Ex,” and walks out, and I'm just like, “Yes, girl DRAG him!”

S: And meanwhile, Leo is sort of fluttering around in the background.

O: Yes, uh, because Alice pushed past him to get into their dorm room.

S: Sam attempts to follow, but Alice is 99% done with his dumb ass.

O: Uh, she attempts to strangle him with her suddenly very long and metal tongue.

S: Ah, that has apparently been places I do not want to think about.

O: I do not want to think about any of this, yeah.

S: Yeah.  Sam is able to escape, and we see Alice transform into a very obvious robot.

O: Sam, Mikaela, and Leo run into a nearby library where Sam and Mikaela begin having a whisper argument.

S: They're busy whisper shouting this entire time.  Alice catches up and smashes through the library, still chasing them.

O: I'm surprised this thing still has hair in robot mode.

S: Hair?  I mean its still got boobs!

O: Bay, what the fuck!?

B: [laugh]

O: So they hop in the car, Mikaela saves both their butts by hot wiring it, and slamming Alice into a lamp post before running her over again with the car.

S: Where was Bumblebee during all of this?

O: Uh, he was actually with the Autobots a few- the other Autobots a few scenes back, so he's definitely not here.

S: Yeah unfortunately Sam and company don't get very far and are captured by Grindor who picks them up like, so you know those uh, claw machines-

O: [laughs]

S: At grocery stores?  Grindor basically does that and then he carries them off, like- they’re his claw machine loot.  Nearly losing one in the process.

O: I mean, truely, they kind of are.  So, uh, you- to- get- you know how I just mentioned that they definitely couldn't have brought Blackout back to life?  That is because Grindor looks exactly like Blackout, but he's not Blackout.  Because Blackout died at the end of the last movie, and we totally thought he was Blackout and he's even listed as Blackout on some of the toys and a good chunk of promotional material, but- but he's a different character.  I don't know why they did this.

S: I don't know they wanted to keep the trademark in use, maybe?

O: [groans]

S: For the Grindor name, because they used it- I think, in anime- Armada.  I think they used it in Armada, so this was probably just blatant patent-

O: It was bad though. [laughs]

S: Oh yeah, I know.  Or um, trade- name trademarks?  I don't know.

O: But he makes a Decepticon number four voiced by Welker.

S: Mm-hm.  So, the car is dropped into some kind of warehouse where Sam is confronted by the now very alive Megatron.

O: Who's definitely holding a grudge against Sam for the whole ‘killing him in the last movie’ thing.

S: Yep, Sam is laid out on a concrete slab and Scalpel gets to work.  Starting with shoving a metal squid down Sam's throat, uhh…

O: No, no, no!  No, no, no, no, NOPITY, nope, nope, nope nope!

S: Yeah, this is uh, pretty gross and I don't like it and I don't think anyone else likes it either.  A metal squid uh, exits his mouth and projects images of what's in Sam's brain. [groans]

O: But!  This is apparently not all the information in his brain, as Scalpel definitely intends to remove it from his head.

S: Sam is saved just in time by the Autobots.

O: I want to know how Megatron even got into this warehouse.  There's not any like, big holes that we can see or anything, aside from the one Grindor- when Grindor dropped the car through.

S: Yeah, there really don't seem to be any openings big enough for him that we can see.

O: Okay, just going to assume mass shifting in this continuity for no good reason, okay.

S: Either that or he did the stupid ‘I'm a contortionist’ through the door, which seems way more respect for the -

O: [laughs] Robot limbo!

S: That seems to be way more uh, respect for the integrity of this building than Megatron should feel.

O: Yes!

S: Ah, so, um, Leo and Mikaela escape in Bee while Optimus takes Sam.

O: So they're separated, and Optimus has to fight Megatron alone.  And Megatron turns into a tank for a split second!  I didn't even realize this version of him could BE a tank!

S: Yeah, he's a multiformer?

O: Apparently!

[In the background crowd noises are heard as the hosts begin speaking like sports announcers.]

O: But now, it's the match of the century here at the Forest Fighting arenaaaa!

S: It's Megatron versus Optimus tonight, folks!

O: The Warlord himself versus Optimus Fucking Prime! [laughs]

[A wrestling bell rings in the background to signify the start of the match.]

S: Optimus gets a good right hook in.

O: Right before being tackled by Megatron!

S: Is that legal?

O: Hell if I know!  It's giant robots, it's all the same amount of legal!

S: Oh!  He's got the tree!

[The crowd increases in volume.]

S: Optimus has got the tree!

O: What a hit, you know that one must have hurt!

S: And now it's a sword fight?  They both are up and swinging away!

O: It just turned into a three-on-one match, folks!

[The crowd begins booing.]

S: Oh no- no, Optimus- Starscream and Grindor have joined the fray!

O: Wait, somehow a human's gotten into the arena.

S: Starscream and Megatron are chasing him down.

[The crowd increases in volume]

O: But Optimus has intercepted them and has taken them both on!

S: Starscream has been tossed out of the arena- out of bounds, out of bounds!

O: Optimus has gone through a tree!

S: Now the Cons are all just taking turns hitting him.  You hate to see it folks, you hate to see it!

O: Optimus is eatin’ dirt!

S: But he's back and now dual wielding blades!

O: Grindor’s lost an arm!

S: Megatron’s taken a good one to the kneecap.

O: And hit to the face!

S: That's it!  That's it for Grindor!  Hook, line and sinker!

[The crowd roars.]

O: Oh, he must have a splittin’ headache!

S: Or at least he would if he still had a head.

O: But Optimus is distracted before taking the blade to the chest!

[A wrestling bell sounds to signify the end of the match.]

O: That's it!  It's all over!  Optimus is down, I repeat- Optimus is down!  Megatron's the winner!

[Applause and the crowd noise fades out]

O: No really, Optimus is dead now, because Bay wants to make us feel things.

S: Except very badly, and unfortunately, this Optimus didn’t back up his brain on a floppy disk.  And I mean there is no pathos here!

O: Of course somehow during all of this no one ends our suffering by squishing Sam accidentally or otherwise.

S: [sighs]

O: [laughs]

S: The rest of the Autobots drive up just in time to see Optimus body.

O: Where the fuck were they!?!

S: Being useless.

O: Yeah, that checks out.

S: Megatron and Starscream flee and land on a skyscraper in the middle of a city, and then argue about what to do next.  And we cut to Soundwave doing what he does best, remotely managing resources.

O: Which in this case means tracking Sam's parents down in Paris as they enjoy some fine parisian food, and prank calling them.

S: Yeah, his mom is not impressed about the heavy breathing.  Such as it is.

O: We then see several Decepticons, including The Fallen, fall to Earth taking out several air carriers and buildings as they land.

S: One of these Decepticons captures Sam's parents.

O: The Fallen sends out a tv broadcast basically spelling out that he wants Sam turned over to him in order to spare the rest of the planet.

S:  Ah, the news story is shown, letting us know that worldwide the number of casualties is in the ballpark of seven thousand, and well, that's not as horrifying as it came across initially, but mmm…

O: Just seven thousand, for the entire world?  I, for one, welcome our Decepticon overlords.  In case you're watching this in the future, we're recording this at the tail end of 2020 and we live in the US.  That's literally less than 30% of the US’ current Covid death count at this point- eh- while we were researching this episode.  It's probably more now.

S: Sam, Mikaela, Leo, Bee, and the Twins are hiding out in, and around some abandoned buildings.

O: Leo's upset, but Sam tells him to suck it up because he's involved now.

S: A helicopter dumps Optimus’ body over at N.E.S.T., and that was not a respectful handling of a dead body.

O: To be fair, he is very big, and the humans are very small, and that was not an Autobot helicopter.

S: Yeah, but that was effectively a world leader.

O: Yeah, Ironhide is upset and uh, begins to get antsy with his guns.

S: Mr. Government Weasel shows up and shuts N.E.S.T. down.  Lennox gets upset when he realizes the US government is planning out to hand Sam over.

O: And they're right to consider it!  You should (theoretically speaking) hand over one person if has the possibility of stopping a massive amount of death!

S: The problem is it wouldn't stop the massive amount of death, and it would just let them basically strip mine the planet because the Decepticons- the name starts with deception.

O: Fair, but the only ones who would know that are the Autobots and possibly members of N.E.S.T.  From the perspective of government officials, who do not have this information, it makes sense.

S: Yeah.  Skids and Mudflap clue the group in on trying to find someone who can read the Cybertronian text the AllSpark downloaded into Sam's brain.

O: Leo has decided to join them on their uh, “adventure”.

S: In quotation marks.  Which is probably uh, for the best because he knows a guy who might be able to help.

O: Remember the rival internet guy from before?

S: Guess who's back from the first movie, and it might not be your first thought!

O: That's right, Agent Simmons from the first movie, who is no longer- is a no longer an agent, is Robo-Warrior.

S: I feel like the tech guy from the first movie would have probably made a better Robo-Warrior.

O: Yeah, I do too... I do too.

S: [sighs] So, Sam and company arrive at Simmons’ mom's deli, or possibly his deli that his mom works at too or something?  I don't know it…

O: It's not very clear.

S: Yeah.

O: Uh, come to find out that Simmons has held on to some old Sector 7 documents.

S: Not just some, uh, he stole a lot of shit from Sector 7.  Like, enough to fill like a sub basement.

O: [snorts] Uh, now Mikaela pulls out Wheelie, who has been in tow in the metal box.

S: Uh-huh.

O: Uh, smooth talking him into helping them.

S: Wheelie also can't read the writing from before, saying that it's in the ‘language of the Primes’ and that they need a Seeker.

O: I had completely forgotten they referred to these guys as Seekers until we watched this again.  I kind of had a ‘what the fuck’ moment.

S: Same.  Seekers, in this continuity are ancient Cybertronians that had been tasked with traveling the galaxy, looking for stars to use as energy sources for the AllSpark.  This is a little bit of a hint, hint, hint, for uh, something that might happen later.

O: In a convenient coinkydink, some of Simmons’ old documents show several of these Seekers in their alt modes.

S: Wheelie is able to identify an SR-71 Blackbird in the National Air and Space Museum as a Seeker.

O: So off the gang goes to Washington DC.

S: Outside the National Air and Space Museum, Simmons rips off his pants, revealing the Sector 7 thong to the audience... and then turns around so we can get the view from every angle.  That’s-

O: No, no, no.  I did not need to see robot balls.  I did not need to see hairy man balls, and I certainly did not need to see hairy man ass!  I'm not even sure why he did this!?  I assume he changed pants but I don't know why he did that right here, in a parking lot, in front of everyone!

S: For the pain, I don't know.

O: [laughs]

S: And thus, they come up with the most amazing scheme to get into the museum as it's closing.  Leo's being a coward and Simmons intimidates him a bit.

O: Oh god!  That man is pressing his man meat against that man's meat!

S: [sighs] Inside the museum, Leo comes out of the bathroom with his pants… mmm, like, down around his ankles, looking for toilet paper.

O: Why did they want to do this to me?  I am feeling personally attacked by the quantity of hairy man I am seeing in this movie!

S: Why are they doing this to us?  It’s not just to you-

O: Why are they doing this to everyone!?! [laughs]

S: Yeah.  The security guard escorts Leo back into the bathroom, chastising him about how this is a family museum.

O: Yeah, the only one guy doing their job here is the security guard, okay?

S: Yeah, and [he] attempts to hand them toilet paper over the top of the stall.

O: Leo then zaps him with a taser and the man falls to the ground.

S: Of course Leo manages to uh, taze himself with the taser too and falls down, kind of by the guy, and is unable to move.

O: Simmons comes in and drags Leo, still twitching, out of the bathroom.

S: I am hoping that his pants are up, but god who knows with this movie-

O: I don't think they were when he started dragging him. [laughs]

S: God, why?

O: Oh, there was butt- his butt cheeks were ALL over that floor.

S: [sighs] So, they run through the museum and find the correct jet, and then Sam uses the AllSpark fragment on that jet.

O: You would think that perhaps, perhaps, before using an AllSpark fragment to wake a Cybertronian up you might check his goddamn faction badge first but, NOOOO!  It’s only after the jet begins to transform they notice the goddamn Decepticon symbol.

S: We are introduced to easily what is not only the best robot character in this movie, but quite possibly the best character in the movie, period.

O: Meet Jetfire!  He's old, he's cranky, he's a delight, and he's got a pretty sweet looking beard.

S: Yep, and a cane made from his alt mode’s landing gear.  You know, for extra old man points.

O: Now bit of a tangent, but in G1 you will remember Skyfire.  Our big sweetie pie scientist.

S: Starscream’s ex, you can't forget that.

O: Can’t forget that, and also frequently utilized as a taxi service by the Autobots.

S: Well, Skyfire is often named Jetfire instead, depending on the continuity.  You know, name stuff is weird...

O: Yeah, and- but this Jetfire doesn't have too much in common with our big old scientist, I just wanted to point out that he was clearly referencing him.  Um, but the one thing he does have in common and the most important thing to the idiots we're following, is that he is a Decepticon defector.

S: Mm-hmm.  Jetfire attempts to fire at a large door to get outside but is uh, having some uh, ‘performance issues’ with his equipment.

O: [laughs] Uh, he is able to get outside, so our party follows him um... into Arizona.  And yes, we know that movies often have to be shot at other locations, or fudge locations and make certain events work.  But I find this one particularly jarring as they are clearly in a desert with mountains off in the distance which does not line up with the geography around Washington DC.

S: Yeah, considering that it was what, a swamp?

B: [laugh]

O: Definitely not a desert with mountains!

S: Yeah, ah, this part was actually filmed at the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, or The Boneyard, in Tuscan, Arizona.

O: Jetfire gives a speech about how being an Autobot or a Decepticon is a choice.

S: An intensely personal choice, even.  And Wheelie's like, “Holy shit it IS!?!”

O: And proceeds to start humping Mikaela's leg, charming.

S: [long drawn out sigh] So many sighs.

O: [laughs] I don't understand all the humping in this movie Bay, I really don't.

S: Juvenile male humor?

O: I guess?

S: Guys think humping shit is funny, somehow?  I don't know. [sighs] Jetfire shows his uh, senility a little bit talking about his parents.

O: “My father?  Why he was a wheel!  The first wheel, and you know what he transformed into?  Nothing!  But he did so with honor- dignity, damn it!”

S: And that is a direct quote-

O: [laughs]

S: Straight from the man himself!

O: He's a delight.

S: [sighs] Sam pulls out a knife and begins carving the uh, Cybertronian symbols into the ground.  I mean, where- where'd he get the knife?  I have questions.

O: Thong man?  Probably?

S: Disconcerting- disconcertingly, yes, that is probable.  Um, Jetfire blabbers off about the Dagger's Tip before generating a space bridge, and teleporting everyone to Egypt with uh, very little warning.  I mean the only warning he gives them is, “Hold on or you'll die!” to the nearby squishies

O: I also feel like we need to preface, Dagger's Tip as in a location, not talking about the- the knife Sam is holding.  Realize that might be a little confusion without- confusing without context.

S: Yeah, and are Bumblebee and the Twins… are also here?

O: The Twins are also here translated- trans- translated?  Transported.

S: Okay, because yeah, they apparently showed up after they they exited and mass translocated to Arizona. [sighs] Life is weird in this movie.

O: Yeah, so uh, then Jetfire informs us that once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away… The original seven Primes had arrived on Earth to build a device called a Star Harvester which can create Energon by destroying suns.  Wait, seven!?!  Did they just pick a number at random!?

S: Probably.  I don't think whoever it was making this movie cared about the lore that was in other parts of the series.

O: At least seven is also a prime number…

S: Yeah... I mean, heck, I don't remember if they had a different number in [the] Cybertron [tv series]?  Because Cybertron I think, did have a list of Primes.

O: I think the number’s are usually 13.

S: Yeah, but it's just- I don't remember when that number came up-

O: Mm- that’s fair.

S: If it was before or after this.

[Okay, this is mildly confusing, (as Transformers lore often is) but the rough concept for The Thirteen has been around since 1999, but was really only solidified in 2004-2005 into specifically, Thirteen Primes.  All that being said, even if that wasn’t established in the first movie, it certainly would have been by the time they were creating the sequel. Also, several adaptations of this movie do have thirteen Primes, not seven, and designs had been created for 12 (non-Fallen) Prime heads, so who knows what the heck happened with this behind the scenes. ~O]

S: Yeah, and while they had a rule about not destroying suns that supported life, the Fallen decided that the humans sucked, and tried to turn it on anyway because-

O: He's a dick! [laughs]

S: He was basically the equivalent of a pissy house proud lady who, with a- whose house had a mouse infestation and he wanted to demolish it anyway but… The humans are the mice in this metaphor.

O: [laughs] Uh, the Primes tried to fight him but were unable to actually defeat him.

S: Considering that only a Prime is supposed to be able to defeat the Fallen this is somehow extremely disappointing.  So they took the Matrix of Leadership and sealed it in a tomb made of their own bodies.

O: The Matrix of Leadership is a reoccurring McGuffin in the Transformers lore, but for some inexplicable reason in this continuity it is basically just a ‘key’ for the Star Harvester.

S: Well, I think it also has some other purposes, considering what they end up using it for later… but yeah, it's primarily just the horse- blah, the Star Harvester key.  Jetfire conveys that Sam needs to find the Matrix of Leadership or they're all fucked.  I mean, what happened?  Did turning on Jetfire completely destroy the AllSpark fragment or is it just... dead now?  Could they use that to re-awaken Optimus body?

O: I mean yeah, you would think right!?  Because like, they- they did- they- that's how they brought Megatron back but nobody thought of this!

S: I mean didn't they already have a thing that they could have used to just, wake Optimus up?

O: Maybe?  I don't know.  I don't know.  Moving right along!  Um-

S: I want answers!  Sorry...

O:  We're not gonna get ‘em.  And then presumably, they leave Jetfire in the desert because he needs a good long nap after generating a whole ass space bridge.

S: Well, he basically tells them to get lost before any Auto- before any Decepticons show up.

O: Yeah, because assumably he's gonna take a nap.

S: Yeah, I mean- I think another Decepticon does show up at some point in the novelization, but who knows. I think grandpa beats his pants- or beats his ass.  Sam reaches the conclusion that if the Matrix of Leadership can activate the Sun Harvester then maybe it could reactivate Optimus, like some sort of robot activating skeleton key.

O: Seems like a bit of a reach, but alright.

S: No one knows what's going on here, so I guess, sure!  Let's run with it.

S: They stop by a nearby village allowing Simmons to contact N.E.S.T. and somewhat covertly tell them that they need to bring Optimus’ corpse over to Egypt.

O: [laughs]

S: [sighs] Oh, this is going to be so many… ugh, so many problems.

O: Soundwave is still able to figure out what the fuck they're saying though, and deploys the Decepticons to the same location that Simmons had given N.E.S.T.  You know, do you think his back hurts?  You know, from carrying his entire faction?

S: Probably, but I mean, he's in space so there's not much weight up there right now.

O: [laughs] Probably lessens the feeling a little bit.

S: Using some gibberish about the ‘three kings’ and also, astrological knowledge, Sam is able to figure out where the Primes’ tomb is and uh, the group heads towards the mountains of Petra.

O: Lennox's group has also brought the government weasel with them along on their ‘Definitely Not Transporting a Giant Robot Corpse’ mission, and then they fool him into jumping out of the plane.  So they can carry on without interruption.

S: Slightly less jumping out of the plane and slightly more uh, fooling him into opening the damn parachute that uh, they got the man to wear and then he gets swept out because--

O: It was a parachute. [laughs]

S: Moving plane, open door, there goes the- there goes the parachute.  Oops!  So much wind.

O: And it really might be one of the funniest scenes in the entire movie.  It also reads entirely too close to something our DND group would pull.

S: Oh yeah, yeah.

B: [laugh]

O: Ask our DM!

S: Oh, any one of our DMs.

O: Any one of our DMs, but I'm particularly talking about when my poor husband had to DM.

S: Yeah, I'm thinking about the ‘whale’ incident.

[My husband regretted that our party had the ability to summon large creatures and portals on that day. ~O]

So Sam and company arrive at Petra.

O: For the non-documentary nerds among us, uh, Petra is an ancient city in Southern Jordan.  While it does contain more structures than the treasury (which is what I think they show here) uh, this is probably one of the most famous.  You may recognize it as the resting place of the Holy Grail in the Indiana Jones movies.  And as we were watching, I had a minor panic attack at the giant robots possibly breaking things.

S: Oh, and the giant robots definitely break things.  The Twins fight, and hit a wall or a fresco.  Revealing a hollow area behind it with uh, very noticeable giant robot bits.

O: [laughs] Then Bee takes aim at the wall and I have another panic attack.  Though to be fair, he's got very good aim and only makes what is arguably a very small hole.

S: Through the giant robot bits.  Sam enters the new hole in the wall and finds the Matrix of Leadership on the floor.  I guess, cradled in the hands of the Prime corpses?  Which- this is super morbid!

O: [laughs]

S: When he picks it up, uh, it crumbles into dust.  So, Sam does the only thing he can think of, he sweeps all that dust into his sock.

O: Time to go resurrect Optimus with dirty sock dust!

S: Is it the sock of destiny?

O: It is now.

S: I guess it awakens giant robots, but leaves buildings standing.

O: [snorts]

S: All the while uh, he talks about there having to be some sort of reason for everything that's happening.

O: Uh, to quote a much better character, “It's possible to commit no mistakes and still lose,” so Sam you're full of shit.

S: Yep, back with N.E.S.T. uh, they yeet Optimus’ corpse out of the plane and I believe Optimus has parachutes again here?

O: Probably.

S: I mean, if he doesn't that is just so much corpse desecration.

O: [laughs] And it seems like we arrive back where we started in the first movie, as it looks like they're back in that little desert town where the fight with Scorponok took place.  You know, they just- they're just gotta destroy it again.

S: And if that's not that same town it looks extremely similar.

O: Starscream begins firing on Sam and co as they head to the rendezvous location with N.E.S.T.

S: [sighs] The group splits up in order to draw the fire away from Sam.

O: Leo, Simmons, and the twins head off. Bee heads off in another direction, and then Sam and Mikaela head towards Optimus’ location on foot.

S: This seems like a bad allocation of resources but, ohh-kay.

O: [chuckles]

S: N.E.S.T. also spots Starscream, but he has released an EMP burst, cutting off all their communication.

O: Government weasel however, has landed safe and sound and is able to reach (and annoy!) the N.E.S.T. headquarters.

S: Yep and N.E.S.T. uh, headquarters is frustrated that weasel can contact them but they can't contact Lennox's group.

O: Simmons group stops uh, once they realize Starscream has stopped following them.

S: Megatron and Starscream (none too gently) land on the Great Pyramid.

O: God damn, more defacing world heritage sites?

S: Well, the Egyptian authorities would definitely have um, a case against them for this.  Because you know, they they charge people with doing dumb ill-advised things on the pyramids

O: I dunno how you're gonna get money out of Megatron but, alright! [laughs]

S: Eh, I'd go with the blood from the stone thing, and literally selling off materials from his body, but who knows?  That's also very morbid.  Um, Megatron orders an attack and Devastator forms out of more than the requisite number of constructicons from G1.

O: And Devastator makes our last Welker voiced Con for the day, bringing our number up to five-

S: And it’s-

O: -out of 12.

S: And spoiler alert uh, Devastator looks nothing like G1 Devastator, and also this is in like- the same location that Simmons and Leo are at.

O: Yep.  Sam and Mikaela though are continuing their march towards N.E.S.T.  All the while trying to avoid Decepticons, and thus hide in one of the nearby houses.

S: Ah, I like the lighting in the scene, the lighting is very nice.  So one wall is mostly structured from uh, glass bottles.  You know, provides some very nice ambient lighting without the need of electricity.  It just- it's very pleasant.  It's a very pretty look

O: Then we get a really nifty scene of the Decepticons looking for them that's basically, one big long continuous shot of it going out of a hole Sam is looking out, going around the scene and then going back through I think, the keyhole?  For the door to the house they're in.

S: Yeah, that sort of continuous shot's very nice.  You don't see those very often.  Sam catches a tiny Decepticon bug that comes through the hole, leading to them being found, and the house's roof being ripped off by Starscream.

O: They attempt to escape.

S: The Twins uh, begin to fight Devastator, while the combiner tries to eat everybody with his horrifying trash-compactor-crusher mouth.

O: Mudflap is eaten, but doesn't go down easy and punches his way out of Devastator's mouth.

S: The Decepticons reveal that they are holding Sam's parents hostage.

O: But they're all saved by the timely arrival of Bee.

S: Ravage is killed when Bee rips his entire body off his spine??

O: How does Ravage keep ending up in two pieces in these things?

S: I think technically he might be in more than two pieces, but ughhh...

O: Meh, I'm just saying- there was the spine in one hand, and the rest of them in the other hand, at least from my memory.

S: I know, it's just- god, unfortunately this feels a whole lot like shucking an ear of corn.

O: [laugh] Oh, god- yeah... yeah... yeah.

S: [sighs] I'm sorry for that image.

O: Sam uh, tells Bee to take his parents out of danger once they- he- they've gotten them away from the Cons.

S: Uh, Sam's dad argues with him in what we're assuming is supposed to be a counter to his no caring attitude about Sam going off to college in the movie.  One of the only positive things is his dad's care- for his dad's character is that he does seem to want to take care of- take care of his son.

O: Pity doesn't show more.

S: Yeah.

O: Okay, tangent, but you may have noticed we're being less descriptive about things that are happening at this point in the story.  That's because we basically hit a point where the remainder is a gigantic action scene and not really much else.

S: Yeah, it's a whole lot of punch, punch, switch scene, punch, punch, switch scene.

O: Yeah, so-

S: Shoot, shoot, shoot.

O: We're trying, but if something doesn't really make sense it's because stuff is swapping and not a lot is happening.  Oddly enough this movie is actually a good example of why you should keep things simple, from a storytelling perspective.  And yeah, I know if you examine the basis of this movie's plot it is pretty simple, but instead of just, you know, actually going from point a to point b there's just a ton of waypoints kind of getting in the way of the action that’s actually happening.  Uh, like, “Oh well, we'd better go over to this set for yet another action sequence!”  Nothing that's happened in the last 30 or so minutes has really mattered to the overall plot because it's just action sequence, action sequence, action sequence.

S: Yup, dirt, explosions, running, falling down.

O: Rinse and repeat.

S: There is nothing of substance here.  Speaking of pointless, it's back to Simmons for absolutely no reason.

O: Uh, Megatron's been on top of the Great Pyramid doing nothing this entire freaking time and now he chooses to shoot down a helicopter.

S: I don't think he's even been monologuing.

O: Yeah, he hasn't!  He has- that's what I mean, nothing!  He's not even doing anything interesting!

S: Simmons takes the radio from the pilot of said downed helicopter and follows after Devastator as he heads toward the Great Pyramid.

O: American Army porn.

S: And Air Force.  And Navy, [sighs] probably?

O: [groans]

S: Sam and Mikaela are spotted by Ironhide and the three Arcees.

O: Two Arcees are downed by some Cons after their one speaking line in the entire freaking movie.

S: Devastator begins climbing the Great Pyramid.

O: Is Megatron waiting up there for Devastator?!  Is- is it just too much work to wreck the pyramid by himself?

S: He's got all of these lackeys, he wants the lackeys to do shit for him.

O: Oh, lord.

S: Simmons follows and contacts the Navy.

O: Okay- okay, the only thing I can think of here is that they needed Simmons to do something.  Otherwise, why the heck do they call in military reinforcements then call in yet more military reinforcements!?

S: More American Army porn.

O: [sighs] Devastator demolishes the top of the pyramid.  Yes, yes, destroying more history, yes, yes.

S: Yet more American Army porn!

O: And then Megatron chases Sam and Mikaela as they approach N.E.S.T.

S: After many, many, MANY, explosions, Sam and Mikaela reach Lennox.

O: Who's like, “You'd better have a good reason for us to be here!”

S: “I got a sock full of dust!”

O: [laughs] Yes, you do Sam.  Yes, you do.

S: [sighs] Jetfire shows up, taking out a Con with his cane.

O: Then Scorponok, you know, from the first movie, immediately shows up just to stab Jetfire and ruin all of our days.

S: You know, his triumphant return after disappearance in the last half of the previous movie.

O: And now for the moment you- we-

S: [sighs]

O: We've all been waiting for!

S: Ugh… [unintelligable]

O: Do you want me to do it?

S: Yes, please.

O: Simmons says, “I'm directly below the enemy scrotum.”  Why would you say that?  Why would you say it like this?  Why wouldn't you just say, “I am directly below the enemy”!?  Why did you feel the need to add the word ‘scrotum’ to that sentence!?! [laughs]

S: The enemy's anatomy should not be that important, but I guess Bay thinks balls are important- er, hilarious.

O: Important and hilarious.

S: God.

[I am furious that we didn’t know about this clip until AFTER we did this episode, but yeah, this exists.  Bay was SO proud of this joke. ~O]

O: Uh, Devastator comes to pieces after being hit by an experimental Navy railgun from the ship that Simmons has been contacting.

S: Yeah, back with Lennox and company, Epps proves yet again to have one of the best lines in the entire movie.

O: They throw some smoke grenades to provide a target for the Air Force.

S: Unfortunately, this smoke's just a teensy bit too close to the party.

O: Epps responds with, “It wasn't my best toss, okay!?”

S: [sighs] In the ensuing chaos of the airstrike, Sam runs ahead to try and get to Optimus and Megatron appears out of the smoke to shoot him.  Or to dramatically close in on him, I guess.

O: Megatron gets pushed back by some of the N.E.S.T. covering fire and nyrooms away very awkwardly.

S: Except, what's this!?  Sam's dead.

O: [loudly] WOOOOOOOOOOO!

S: Mikaela's not so happy about this though.

O: Uh, sad music plays.  Dialogue can be heard faintly as Lennox and the N.E.S.T. crew begins CPR.  His parents show back up... again.  For what purpose exactly?  I think this would have read just fine with Mikaela just being the only one sad about Sam.

S: I don't know.  If this is their attempt at pathos, but it kind of sucks.  I mean, I know that the audience is supposed to feel bad that this guy's dead but-

O: I don't! [laughs]

S: They did a terrible job of making me care, but now is the moment where Mikaela tells Sam that she loves him.

O: They had a whole thing about this earlier in the movie we really didn't go over but they were having kind of an argument on who should say, “I love you,” first.  Blah- blah- blah- blah-

S: Ah.

O: But now, a window into Sam's psyche.

S: What, you mean it's not just going to be boobs, boobs, and more boobs?

O: No- no the seven Primes appear in a vision to Sam.

S: Oh god, does this make Sam a Prime?  I really hope not…

O: Oh my god!  One of the Primes is voiced by Bulkhead!  And by Bulkhead, I of course mean his voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson.  A man with a huge filmography that I guarantee you've heard at least a dozen or so things that he has done, if not more!

S: The Primes tell Sam that he is worthy of being a Prime.

O: Bulk, why do you have to hurt me in this way, and by extension, EVERYONE?

S: The magical sweaty sock dust reconstitutes into the Matrix of Leadership.  And, I mean, I'm kind of concerned that some of the remaining sweaty sock dust is now blowing away, or maybe this sock will be some sort of horrifying museum relic.

O: Considering what he did with his shirt, I wouldn't be surprised.  Um, but I don't really care, because this just means the movie is getting closer to its inevitable conclusion.

S: Fair.  Sam then takes the Matrix and stabs it into Optimus chest.

O: Stabby stab?  We bring him to life by giving him another stab wound?  Magical stabby stab?

S: I think this is how you get robot zombies.

O: Good thing nobody had any Dark Energon on hand.

S: Or the Hate Plague.  Of course, the Matrix is immediately snatched up by the Fallen.

O: Because we want to have our cake and eat it too.  We need to bring Optimus back to life and also to get the giant sun stun gun going too.

S: So, the Fallen activates the Star Harvester.

O: High levels of shut up and die reached as the Fallen finally reveals some amount of fighting prowess with a bitchin’ anti-gravity staff.

S: Yep.  Jetfire, who has been sort of hanging out this entire time having a giant hole in his chest, sacrifices himself to upgrade Optimus so that he can go fight the Fallen.

O: Jetfire, buddy, sir, you deserved better.

S: He did.

O: Here's one of the few scenes where Jolt is visible as he helps Ratchet get Optimus battle worthy.

S: Yeah, um, the electric whips were somehow needed for this for some reason, somehow.

O: Optimus, having gained the power of flight, begins to fight Megatron and the Fallen.

S: But not before destroying the Sun Harvester.

O: Megatron's face is badly damaged as Optimus moves on to the Fallen and rips off the Fallen's face saying, and I quote, “Give me your face!”

S: Then Optimus rams his hand through the Fallen's chest and uh, rips out and crushes the Fallen’s spark.

O: Starscream, being the sane one here, suggests that he and Megatron flee.

S: Megatron, considering that he is dealing with both a head injury and a missing arm from the elbow down, takes Starscream up on his offer.  The Fallen having been defeated, Optimus returns to the ground and shrugs off all of Jetfire's parts

O: [You] couldn't have kept anything?  The gun?  No, nothing.  Was it a frame thing- did you miss the slimmer frame, Optimus?  Just be honest here, you know.

S: I mean, maybe he considered it kind of morbid having like, corpse parts on him?  I mean that would be-

O: Fuck if I know.

S: That would be kind of morbid, but yeah... it feels like it's just showing disrespect to Jetfire's sacrifice. [sighs] Then we move back to Sam and Mikaela, interspersed with shots of N.E.S.T., the Navy, Simmons, etc.

O: Ah, yes, soldiers, brothers in arms, kissing!  Soldiers, brothers in arms, KISSING!

S: [laughs] Sorry, sorry I was just- like, my brain put those together at first and not what it actually was.

O: [laughs] I mean, to be fair, that would probably be a more interesting movie!

S: Yes.  Optimus thanks Sam for saving his life.  And I have many questions Optimus.  Did you have- what did you see Optimus?  What did you see?  And we end with an Optimus monologue about the two races working together in the future.

O: Ohh, Optimus, you’re- you're just going to be discarded in two movies, sweetie.  Um, don't trust the US Military, we do not have a good track record.

S: Yup.  Linkin Park, much like the first film what plays us out as the credits roll.

O: And thus, we are divided from the rest of the movie.  A New Divide if you will.

 S: Oh, is that a name drop?

O: It's the name of the song. [laughs]

S: Or title drop, yeah.

O: [laughs]

S: Alright, so what's your take?

O: Wow, I really don't like that movie.  The last 30 minutes- hour- whatever, felt like an eternity where the only thing happening was explosions, and robots maybe punching each other and I just didn't care about anything that was happening?  The early part wasn't really much better, but at least the characters, you know, were talking to each other.

Um, the writing overall isn't good for like, dialogue and again, some of the events just kind of feel like why did this even need to happen?  And I do think it's worth mentioning that this was filmed during the 2007 writers’ strike.

Additionally, regardless of how bad I personally find the dialogue, I still have to give props to Peter Cullen's performance of Optimus.  Even the first time I saw this movie, I was sad that Optimus died.  And keep in mind at the time I didn't know anything about Transformers, aside from seeing the first movie.  I feel like Cullen puts a lot of heart to his performance of Optimus, and I really can't think of a time where it's felt like he's phoned it in and I really do appreciate that.  Even here, even with the, “Give me your face,” line.

What did you think, Specs?

S: Well, I don't have nearly as much to say as you did.

O: [laughs]

S: Um, I liked Jetfire.  The SR-71 Blackbird is a very neat plane, and I mean, I liked it before this movie came out.  So, I liked him for more than one reason.  But he was cranky, and delightful, and a jet, and the best part of the movie.  Everything else was just kind of painful.  Yeah.

O: Yeah, I think that's fair.

S: Yeah.  I mean, I liked Mikaela too, but...

O: Yeah, she- say goodbye to her because she's not gonna be in the next movie.  This is the last one with Mikaela in it.

S: I think she got the better part of the deal.

O: [laughs] Pity we can't make as graceful as an exit.

S: Yep.

O: But that's it for us now.  Uh, we will be posting another episode.  Uh, where we go into more detail on what we personally would have wanted to see in this movie.  But we know this is running along as it is, and I think based on our estimates this should be around the same length as last year's episode so we're gonna split it.  We are also aware that you personally may not care about us trying to you know basically fanfic- fix this so…

S: Mm-hm.  Remember to check us out on Tumblr or Pillowfort as Afterspark-Podcast for any additional information, show notes, or links we may have mentioned.  You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter @AftersparkPod (all one word).  And various other locations by searching for Afterspark Podcast, such as AO3, iTunes, Spotify, and Youtube, just to name a few.  And feel free to send us questions on Tumblr, Youtube, or AO3.

O: As always, thank you so much for listening.  Happy (probably belated by the time this is posted) holidays to everyone.  2020 has been a hell of a rough year, so please stay safe and we will be back with more normal episodes soon.

S: Toodles.

[Outro Music]

S: Sam grabs out a knife and begins carving the Cybertronian siblings into the ground um, I mean, where did you get the knife?

O: You mean symbols?  You said siblings.

S: [laughs] God- oh god, I can’t talk!

[cutie1365]

The Family We Choose 1/3

Pairing: Sherlock x Reader Mini-Series

Word Count: 1.5k

Request: made by @agentmalfoy24601, I don't want to spoil the ending so I won’t post the actual request here but I’ve decided to turn it into a three part mini-series. It’s all written so I’ll get a solid update schedule for it, maybe one every other day or so.

A/N: Please let me know what you think and what you think will happen in the next parts!

Masterlist in bio. Taglist in the reblogs. MUST COMMENT/REBLOG TO STAY ON.

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“Alright miss?” Your seemingly intimidating interviewer asked with a raised brow.

“Carter.” You answered with a smile.

“Miss Carter, just some routine questions here to begin if you don’t mind.” You nodded and he continued.

“Your age?” He asked, pen in hand to jot down your responses.

“Twenty-six.” You answered.

“Education?”

“Oxford.” You answered, and you could tell he was impressed as he wrote that bit down.

“Parents?” He was really speeding through this wasn’t he. Must be in a rush, or he never really wanted to interview new assistants in the first place.  

“Orphan.” You answered with a somber smile.

“My condolences.” He apologized, although in this job the less family, the better, he thought.

“Of course this isn’t a normal job so a normal job interview would be unfitting. I’m going to ask you some questions to understand your capabilities of thinking outside the box and how quickly you can devise and apply ideas.” He explained, adjusting his position in his plush, black, leather seat.

“So you want to see if I’m clever or not?” You smirked.

“More or less.” He nodded.

“Mr. Holmes, I have an IQ of 170, I hardly think your little brain teasers will be necessary.” You spoke with a cocky smile.

“They weren’t brain teasers...” Sherlock said slightly offended and flustered. He mentally cursing John for telling him that would be a good idea for the interview.

“Of course they weren’t.” You laughed slightly, seeing his reaction to your previous words. “You know your best bet to see if I really am clever or useful would be to take me on a case.”

“Well I don't have anything on right now.” He lied, steepling his hands and examining you.

“Oh come on Sherlock, we both know that’s not true.” You raised a brow to him with a smirk, clearly he was testing you.

“Do we?” He asked, wondering how you knew and wanting you to lay it all out for him.

“Despite the fact that you’re a terrible liar, there are clear signs that you are in the middle of a case. You’ve attempted to clear them away before our little interview but I can still tell. You had papers and pictures tacked above the couch, you removed them in a hurry, ripping one away leaving the tack and remnants of paper.” You pointed above the couch behind you without turning around, meaning you either noticed them when you walked in or saw them through the mirror opposite you. “The couch cushions still are deeply indented in the middle, the last thing that happened to it was you standing on it moments before I arrived. Two computers are opened on your desk, you were doing research, and a lot of it. You keep glancing at your watch, you can’t wait for this interview to be over so you can get back to your case. You actually never wanted to do these interviews in the first place, you’d much rather keep your usual companion. I can be like him if you’d like- pointing out the obvious and constantly being baffled by your conclusions and amazed when you lay it out quite plainly for him.”

“Did my brother send you?” He asked through squinted suspicious eyes.

“No...” You said, curious as to who this brother was. You made a note of that for later.

“How come I've never heard of you before?” He asked, leaning back in his chair, clearly ruling you out as any sort of threat.

“Because I'm nobody.” You shake your head.

“Hmm.” Sherlock looked you over, there was something about you that he couldn't quite put his finger on, “Fine, one case.”

And the rest was history...

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You’d worked with Sherlock on dozens of cases now, to the point where he suggested you move into 221C to make work easier. Purely out of convenience you thought, but truthfully Sherlock enjoyed having you around. You were different, like him. You understood things like he did. You saw the world like he did: one giant puzzle waiting to be solved.

You agreed to move in downstairs, but you didn’t want to step on any toes with Sherlock and John’s relationship. Just because John started a new job at the hospital and was the reason for your recent employment with Sherlock, you didn’t want him to think you were his replacement in every sense of the word.

You suggested to Sherlock that he take John out, a guys night, so that he didn’t feel left out of all the cases the two of you had recently solved. He agreed it was probably a good idea, and remembered there was a new play showing: Terror By Night. A classic murder mystery that for him would probably be quite dull, but might remind John of the good ‘ol days.

Unbeknownst to you, Sherlock purchased three tickets.

“Are you ready to go?” He asked you with a raised brow, as you were making a cup of tea in the kitchen, clearly not dressed to be going out.

“Go where?” You gave him a confused look.

“Terror By Night, remember.” He stated as if it was clear as day.

“I thought that was just going to be you and John, a guys night?” You furrowed your brows.

“If I have to suffer through this, then you do too.” He smirked.

“It doesn’t sound like I have a choice.” You laughed.

“Please come, I’d... I’d like you to be there.” Sherlock muttered nervously. Your jaw dropped open slightly before answering. Was this Sherlock’s way of... flirting?

“Oh, ok. Um, yeah I guess I can go throw something on.” You nodded, looking down at your sweatpants and Oxford tee.

You made your way downstairs to throw on a nicer outfit and slap on a little bit of makeup.

Sherlock was waiting patiently for you, he stood when you entered the room with a nervous smile. You returned it, grabbing your coat off the rack and letting him know you were ready to go.

“John’s going to meet us there, he got held up at work.” Sherlock informed you after giving the cabbie directions to the theatre on the Strand.

Once you arrived at the theatre you saw John standing outside and waved to him.

“So what’s all this about?” John laughed, motioning to the title poster and Sherlock picking up the tickets.

“I just work here.” You shrugged, earning a laugh from John.

“How’s that going by the way?” John asked.

“Oh, you know, never a dull moment.” You smiled, as Sherlock approached the two of you, tickets in hand.

Once you took your seats, each of you on opposite sides of Sherlock, you began to look around the small theatre, examining it.

“You know, if you had told me I was going to be third wheeling I could have brought Sarah.” You heard John whisper to Sherlock, your cheeks turning bright red. So your suspicion from earlier had been confirmed. You didn’t think Sherlock went in for that sort of thing, you never saw him as the relationship type. He’s the definition of the ‘married to his work’ type.

As the play went on, in a very Agatha Christie whodunit fashion, you found yourself enjoying it. You had predicted the ending not too far into the play, but what happened next, none of you could have expected.

In the play the Detective gathered everyone to reveal the murderer, as he explained how the son murdered Lady Margaret Chaplette, in a fit of rage he struck the Detective with his prop crutch. Only it wasn’t a prop. As he struck him across the head, the blow killed him instantly. Your eyes grew wide and you turned to Sherlock as you both immediately realized this was not part of the play, and everyone in the theatre had just witnessed a real murder.

You and Sherlock immediately jumped up, following John who checked the vitals of the actor and confirmed his death. Sherlock gently picked up the prop crutch that was supposed to be made of rubber as you’d observed during the first act, only to find it was aluminum.

“Someone must have switched it during the interval.” Sherlock turned to you and you nodded.

“We need to shut this place down, no one leaves. The murderer is most likely still here.” You explained, Sherlock rushed off to the front of the house.

“Never a dull moment.” John muttered as you both stepped away from the body.

After a night of interrogating all of the cast members you’d discovered that it was ‘the Detective’ himself who had switched the props, causing his own death. He was trying to set up the son to injure him or break his arm so he could sue the theatre or make sure he got fired, after numerous stories of his misconduct and relationship with the director.

The man who played the son, an avid drunk, had had a bit too much to drink that night and when he swung the crutch, struck the detective in the head, unintentionally killing him.

“So our victim is also our murderer.” You nodded to Sherlock.

“I know, exciting right.” Sherlock said, a little too giddy for a crime scene.

“Well this isn’t exactly how I planned my night to go.” You laughed.

“Me either, but this is much better.” He smirked, and you rolled your eyes with a smile.

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Thank you for reading! There’s two more parts- what do you think will happen next?? Comment and let me know!

Taglist in the reblog.

Feedback is so important to writers, just a simple comment can make someone’s day. Thank you!

[thegoddessofliterature]

A pretty long spoiler-filled reveiw of ACOMAF

-posted this reveiw on my goodreads around June and decided to share it now on Tumblr.

Reread this gem and love it even more than the first time. Of course, reading a good book for the first time is always special and you don't know any of the plot twists and turns. Not knowing what is gonna happen in a story is my favorite thing about reading. Sarah blew me away with her captivating writing style and amazing world building that left wanting more .The is the first book that made me cry and I don't easily cry in books which just proves my love for this book. Rhysand stole my heart. I just love him so much. I know most of you probably didn't like him in the first book but once you read this one you will change your mind. You can thank me later.

Moving on, let's dive straight into spoilers, if you adored this book as much as me. Most just me gushing over our precious bat boi.

Sarah did a great job at fooling me. Just like Feyre, I was blind to the red flags that displayed the unhealthy and toxic relationship between Feylin. Upon my second read, I could clearly see all the signs and read between the lines and kept thinking "why didn't I realize this sooner?''

I really liked the lesson that the author taught us about unhealthy and healthy relationships. You usually don't see the latter in most NA or even YA. And I despise Tamlin. He is everything that I hate in a man,controlling,abusive and anti feminist. I was so pissed at him for lying to Feyre that Rhys killed his family. The tool himself, had murdered Rhys family and I will never forgive him for that

Me to Tamlin “ I hope that burn..”

I could write a whole essay on professing my love for Rhysand but even that wouldn't be enough for me.

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. He is no 1 on my fictional boyfriends list. No other male character can compare to him.

Just like Feyre, I wasn't expecting him to be the good guy. And, just as she was unaware of falling for him,I was too. I didn't even realize how attached I grew to Rhys until I got a spoiler that he was going to die. I legit got an ache in my heart and felt like crying. That's the beauty of books when a character feels real even they sadly aren't. Thankfully, he survived and if he didn't then I wouldn't have been able to forgive Sarah/

Why do I adore the Highlord of the Night Court?

He is so precious and a major feminist. He is humble and strong ( even when he has been through so much). My heart breaks for him. His story is too emotional for me to read without crying (on my second time reading). Not only did he lose his parents but his sister too. We never got to know how old she was but she was young. We never got to see his mother and baby sister. That makes my heart shatter in a million pieces but as if that wasn't enough, He didn't see his friends for 50 years. He was trapped under the mountain for so long and raped by that bitch and he endured it just to protect his city and family (the inner circle). As if he didn't have enough on his plate, he watched Feyre be taken away from him twice. He watched the girl he loved be in love with another man (his enemy who had killed his parents and sister) and yet he let her be happy (even if she was mate). After all of this torture and pain, he is still so kind and sweet and caring. He still think he isn't enough even though he sacrificed so much. He would rather put himself in torture than let something happen to Feyre or the Inner Circle.

And what I love most about him, is the freedom he gave Feyre. He isn't controlling like most men. He trusts Feyre and believes she can fight for herself but he will be there to protect if she needed him. Of course he cares for but isn't overprotective. Their relationship is so pure and healthy and I love it. I love how humble he is. Being the most Powerful HighLord of all the seven courts, you would expect him to be a rich snob but he is far from that.

I loved how much Feyre grew from that naive girl to a strong and badass woman. I could barely recognize her while rereading Acotar. It felt as there were two seperate girls in the two books. This is one of the best character development I have ever seen. My heart broke for what she went through. I could relate to her about some stuff minus the under the mountain scene (ofc). And I was so happy when she survived her depression and ptsd all because of Rhysand.

And I got so attached to whole inner circle, as if they were my family too. And I love Mor more than Amren because I could relate to her too besides the fact how sweet and strong she was

The whole book was a pure joy to read but my favorite parts were Starfall, The Summer Court and Court of Nightmares.

Starfall: It was such a beautiful celebration. Unlike, the ones in the spring court despite its pretty name. I loved the idea of stars falling down from the sky. Everyone was at their happiest. It was also sad to read knowing this was the first Starfall Rhys had after Amrantha. The fact that she knew how much it meant to him and yet she made him service her without his consent and on purpose. My hatred is like a burning sun. Moving on, I squealed at the moment when Mor and Feyre were talking and then Rhys came up behind them. My heart burst of joy when Feyre heard his voice and turned around. He took her to the balcony for her to experience Starfall at its prettiest. They had their cute moments and it was the moment when they were falling in love but didn't admit it yet to each other. Rhys hadn't laughed like that in ages, pure and a real laugh like Feyre hadn't smiled filled with pure joy ever since she was turned into a fae.

Summer Court: I loved Tarquin too. And I enjoyed the feysand moments at the court. Their constant back and forth banter and flirting. That's where the famous quote " To all the stars who listen and the dreams that are answered came from.

Court of Nightmares: This scene was so sexy and made my cheeks turn a deep shade of red. I loved how Rhys gave Feyre a choice whether she wanted to join him and the play the part or stay at home. It was her own choice that made her say " I wanna do it" and yet Rhys still felt guilty. Even when it wasn't like he forced or anything. He would never do that. I enjoyed them teasing each other. I was captivated by Rhys beauty. I love the real Rhys but I lust for the "evil" Rhys, the mask that he wears to protect his loved ones.

And that ending, I wasn't expecting that. I feel bad for those who had to wait a year or more for the next book esp after that gripping yet lovely cliffhanger. I didn't had to since the whole serious was already out. It was emotional even when Feyre was pretending to be in Rhys control. They work well so together. Rhys understood her plan through that bond and he acted so well. ( he actually deserves an oscar for his great acting of a bad guy). Tears rolled down my cheeks when the bond snapped and Feyre fell down to her knees, screaming in pain. Even Rhys. Sara tricked us but I was so grateful for that. That chapter in Rhys pov (the only chapter) was so precious. I was shook when he declared that Feyre is his Highlady and equal and the bond was never broken. It was just the bargain. And I loved how cunning Feyre. She is so smart and badass. Pretending to be in love with Tamlin (her ex), only to take him down along with his court.

This book brings me pure joy and reading it for the second time gave me a different perspective. I noticed things I didn't before. This time, I knew about Rhy's backstory so it was more emotional than the first time. And I didn't think of this sooner but I have a theory that Jurain knew all along that Rhys wasn't Amrantha's whore but was raped by her (sobs and gets angry). Esp, when he mentioned that he was forced to watch everything that bitch did due to the ring she made out of his eye. And he was the only one who was shocked when Feyre was pretending to hate Rhys. He knew since he screamed "What?'' when she told the king to break the bond.

Damn, this is the longest review I have ever written. No regrets though.

If you have read this far, be sure to follow my goodreads for more reviews. Link in my bio.

[toloveawarlord]

A Memorable Birthday

You can find my masterlist in my bio!

Event: Arthur’s Birthday Bash [Closed]

Characters: Arthur x Theo & Young Elaine

Requester: @stardust-dreamer13

Tagging: @plumpblueberry ​

A/N: The very first post for Arthur’s birthday! Thank you for the request! Enjoy some small Elaine, who is never to be trusted in a crisis.

There was no haste in her steps as she quietly climbed the staircase to the second floor of the small home. King and Vic right at her heels, as if guarding and guiding their little vampire away from the danger. Socked feet silent as she padded down the carpeted hallway to her parents’ bedroom. From beyond the door, their hushed voices barely heard.

Elaine tapped her knuckles against the wood.

“You’re supposed to be in bed, Elaine.” Theo chastised her from within the bedroom. They had just made coffee and sat down to have some time alone. The six-year-old was already fighting taking a nap during the day. She would regret it later when she wanted to stay up late but was too tired to do so.

“The kitchen is on fire.”

Neither adult heard a drop of concern in those words, as if she’d only come to relay simple information. Theo threw the door open, not a glance given to the child. Arthur following behind him, to assess the situation before drawing any conclusions. Dutch swear words spewing from the scene of the crime.

A small fire but left unattended it could have turned into an inferno. Once it had been snuffed out, Theo rubbed his hands over his face. This child would surely be the death of them. “What even happened?”

The counters coated in melted and burned chocolate, smudged all down the cabinets and onto the floor. It must have been all the chocolate that they owned.

“Well... I wanted to make some fudge for Papa for his birthday.” The words spoken as if it were the most obvious answer that could have been given. No regret. No anxiety over the mess. Elaine had caused a colossal mess and yet it hadn’t fazed her at all. 

“You aren’t supposed to use the stove alone.”

“I didn’t.” 

Frustration written across the art dealer’s features between his furrowed brow. “The stove was on fire, Elaine.” Would she really stand there and lie so blatantly? 

The girl shrugged her shoulders, silent under the intense gaze of her father.

Arthur couldn’t bear it any longer, the laughter bubbling up and spilling out. It was the only thing that filled the quiet space, drawing ire from his husband and confusion from his daughter.

“How in the hell is this funny?” Had everyone lost their minds? Theo threw a pointed glare at the writer.

“I can’t be so cross with her when she looks like that,” Arthur said, regaining control after his laughing fit. He could give quite the guess what actually transpired.

The kitchen wasn’t the only thing slathered in melted chocolate. Elaine had it caked on her, slicked into her copper hair, swiped across her cheeks and nose, and her clothes properly stained dark brown. In the haste to deal with the fire, Theo hadn’t noticed that their child had practically drowned herself in the chocolate.

Elaine dropped her gaze to look at herself. “I tried to wipe it up.” 

“With just your hands?” Theo asked, trying to keep the smile off his lips. Someone had to be the adult in this house, and clearly it wasn’t going to be Arthur in this moment.

“All the towels are in the cabinet up there.” She pointed up, the place they stored them completely out of the short girl’s reach. Climbing on the counter had been impossible with the fire.

Arthur continued to chuckle, the more he looked at her in that state, the funnier it was. “I do believe that this is our fault, Theo.” He crouched in front of Elaine, swiping some of the chocolate from her cheek with his index finger and tasting it. “We must have left the stove on after we boiled the water for the coffee. Isn’t that right, peanut?”

“Yeah, I didn’t turn it on.” 

He reached over to pluck the brown coated candle stick from the counter. “You tried to melt it with a candle, hmm? I give it a gold star for effort, but the metal bowl would get hot with a flame beneath it.”

The truth becoming clearer with each second that ticked by. The pantry door wide open, missing its selection of chocolate. The small stool scooted up as close to as it would go to counter. Metal bowl turned over towards the eye of the stove. A perfectly easy deduction.

“It did start to melt it, but I dropped it when it got too warm.” Elaine bobbed her head in agreement. The heart too much for her to keep a hold of the bowl above the flame.

“And the candle fell over, igniting the stove.” Blue eyes scanned the scorched scene. “I’ll wager the packaging was too close and erupted as well, transferring then to the chocolate. Causing it to melt quicker than you could scoop it up.” The sink splattered with the mess from her attempt at cleaning it up.

Theo sighed. This wouldn’t have happened had Elaine stayed in bed, but it was true that the stove shouldn’t have been left on. He’d have to check more thoroughly. It could have ended much worse than a small fire. “Next time, just ask, Elaine.”

“But then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

“As entertaining as this whole situation is, I do agree. You could have been badly injured from the fire. No more surprises without supervision.” Arthur tapped his finger against her nose. “For now, why don’t we go clean you up and spend a little time in the thermae.”

Violet eyes turned up to his. No remorse for nearly burning their home down, but she did have disappointment reflecting in her eyes. She clearly wanted to do something on her own for him, the independent child always pushing them away to do it herself.

Arthur smiled softly at her. “How about after we get cleaned up, we can sneak into the mansion and use their kitchen? I promise to let you do as much as you can on your own.” 

The bright grin that grew on her lips made both the adults relax. His birthday hadn’t been something he cared much for, although the sentiments given by his friends and family did bring him happiness. This year marked the highest on the list of good celebrations.

A truly memorable birthday.

[tiny-tany-thaanos]

Cameron Joyce for @toxoplasmajuice ‘s Atkins MMBC

He/him, bisexual Book Worm | Computer Whiz | Perfectionist | Brooding | Snob And... he has no lifetime wish selected (my bad) so feel free to choose whatever you feel will suit him.

A young single father from Twinbrook Cameron has been struggling to raise his child and to deal deal with his own sens of uselessness for years when the apocalypse happened. For his daughter’s sake he kept calm and find a solution to save both of them. After a while he came across Clyde Atkins’s BC and after a period of hesitation decided to sign up. Being rather cold (and heartbroken)  he doesn’t really believe that BCs can really bring him love (yet, no doubts, he finds Clyde attractive). He’s oblivious to the all MMBC happening, as he never really was into the topic.

Cameron Joyce comes together with his daughter, Ashley “Ashes” Joyce.

Hair

Private Download

Interview and additional Information  is under the cut in case I found there some embarrassing typos to deal with later.

I wanted a bastard with glasses and then I remembered that I already had one. Oh this one is... something. Wait for it.

So this guy is Phoenix’s Wilde’s biological father. I’ve never shown him there are only hints in Phoenix’s Bio that he’s dead in the “main verse”. I got the idea to send him to the MMBC because... apparently I love making this family miserable? Also the guy existed behind the scenes longer than Phoenix, so it’s time to give him some spotlight (questionable spotlight...)

The initial sim looked way older than YA so I changed him a bit though I couldn’t get rid of “Holier than thou” expression carved into his face. 

The In-Character Portion (questions written by Clyde Atkins himself):

1.      Tell me a little about yourself. Y'know, name, pronouns, age, where you’re from, anything else you might say if I asked you, "Who are you?"

My name’s Cameron Joyce. I use he/him pronounces. I’m 24 years old and come from Twinbrook. I’m a single parent to a daughter called Ashley.

2.      Before the world ended, did you have any long-term goals? Where would you picture yourself in the future if the future didn’t crumble in front of our eyes?

I think my biggest long-lasting goal was to see my girl to grown up healthy and somewhat happy. It would have been nice to finish my college education and make my PhD in Science. I planned to continue my studies when Ashley started school.

 3.      Any talents or skills? What about hobbies?

I’m good at chemistry and physics. Does it count? I don’t really have any hobbies. Does reading count?

OOC: Why yes, he’s pretty intelligent. He just didn’t want to boast about it in this interview.

4.      If you feel like sharing, what was your love life like before this? Totally fine if you don’t wanna talk about it.

I had a girlfriend back in high school and she ended up being my daughter’s mother. What can I say, our prom was really eventful (I feel the need to point out that we both were of age then).  Her dad… wasn’t really fond of me, however, and he also thought that Evelyn was far too young to be a mother. So, he made us break up and basically forced me to take care of Ashley. I suppose he intended to take her back when she’s older and that’s why he didn’t want to give her for adoption. I’m unwilling to go into further details regarding it, I hope, you’ll understand.

As for Evelyn… I actually didn’t get a possibility to talk to her after Mr. O’Queen made us break up. And I don’t want to talk to her, to be honest. If she cared about me and Ashley, she’d find a way to reach out, right?

And I didn’t have time for new partners afterwards as I was busy with my daughter.

5.      Besides the sanctuary part, what made you sign up for this BC?

They say children need two parents? And in these circumstances, I do not have much of an alternative. Right?

6.      Okay, okay, hot take: […] do you have a criminal record?

No, I do not have a criminal record.

OOC: Well, he’s innocent in this verse, but I think I need to point out  some details from Phoenix's story which may be crucial for his character.She doesn’t hate his guts for nothing. He also participated in projects dealing with illegal experiments on humans. In this apocalyptic universe he doesn’t do anything like that but that doesn’t mean he isn’t able to. It’s still the same person, ya know.

7.      Anyway. Random fact about you?

I’m a college drop-out. I abandoned my studies to raise my daughter. I don’t really want to talk about it, why have I even mentioned it?

OOC: Yeah, I think he must be ashamed of not finishing college yet. He understands that he had to do it for Ashley’s sake, but he still cannot forgive himself as he thinks he could combine his studies and raising his daughter. He barely talks about it (I give you the ground for the potential conflict, you see?)

 8.      Is there anything important I should know about you? Health-related stuff, ancient curses following you, that sort of thing?

Sometimes I get migraines but that’s all, I guess?

OOC: when he gets migraines his vision drastically deteriorates, and he may mistake someone for his ex.

 9.      Is there anything or anyone you had to leave behind to come here? (This one’s optional, too.)

*he hesitates* No, no one. My daughter is with me, that’s the most important.

10. What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when things calm down and we can leave the BC house again?

I’ll do whatever my daughter wishes to do.

The Out-Of-Character Portion (questions written by toxoplasmajuice themself):

1.      Usual OOC question 1: may I draw your Sim? (No one’s ever said no to this, but it never hurts to ask, right?)

Sure, you can!

2.      Usual OOC question 2: do you have any tips for writing your Sim that you feel the interview and/or your intro post don’t already give me?

Cameron easily can be snobby and very aware of his intelligence. He’d always make snarky remarks especially towards people whom he sees as inferior to him (in IQ). If he doesn’t like someone, he’d keep passive aggressive and won’t engage into argument unless someone else initiates it. I also feel like his morals may be slightly questionable. I think he wouldn’t use swear words, unless he’s under great stress (which this challenge can easily provide).

And I think he behaves older than he actually is, but I think that’s understandable – he had to grow up and become responsible, he couldn’t afford to be a reckless dumbass.

His relationship with Ashes is friendly and they rarely quarrel, however, they aren’t that close. Ashes may secretly blame Cameron for failing their family and is angry with him for not being able to see her mother. If Cameron survives long enough to see Ashes enter her preteen years, this hidden grudge of hers escalates into an open rebellion. But now Ashes is a little girl and her love for him overweighs.

And I feel like I have to pint this out, Ashes is supposed to be still very young. She’s basically just turned a child, so she’s supposed to be like 5 or 6 years old. The only reason why I made her a child and not a toddler is because I wanted to spare you trouble.

 3.      Time for some new, spicy OOC questions! First of all: I want to start decorating contestants’ rooms this time around. Do you have any pointers as to decorating your Sim’s room? General themes are fine, and if you have any specific objects you want me to put in your Sim’s room (EA content or CC), that’d be great.

I think he likes everything to be neat and rather ascetic. I don’t know whether you want to keep the contestants together with their plus ones, but Ashes are definitely more of a slob (well, she’s a kid). She’s a tomboyish and probably doesn’t really play with toys but she must be really into some fun experiments especially dealing with destroying things. (there must a scientific table for kids in Generations? I don’t know, I never had this EP).

4.      And for the other new, spicy OOC question: will you generally be around for random questions I have regarding your Sim? I might need random bits of information from everyone from time to time... for reasons. :)

Sure, I’ll be around! Not planning on leaving anytime soon.

[pancakesfor2]

And They Were Roommates (4)

Summary: Unforeseen circumstances lead to you needing a roommate; when Bucky steps up, old feelings come back to light. The only problem is that he has a girlfriend.

Warnings: Cursing, cheating

Words: 1383

Written for @babylevines writing challenge! My prompt will be in a later chapter!

Note: So this is definetly my favorite chapter and I’m very excited to see how you all react to it! If the formatting is a little off it’s because I’m on vacation and I’m posting this from my iPad, but I wanted to get it out for Sebastian’s birthday. Let me know if anyone has any issues.

Masterlist and Series Masterlist are in my bio! 

You woke up and for about five seconds everything was fine and then the events of yesterday hit you like a truck. “Fuck…” you muttered, rolling out of bed and trudging to the bathroom to get ready for your day.

“Morning!” called Bucky from the kitchen.

“Morning,” you replied much less enthusiastically, slumping into one of the barstools in front of your kitchen counter.

“You okay? You went to bed without dinner last night,” he asked, pushing a plate of pancakes towards you.

“I ate with Tony,” you lied. “Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you about something.” You tried to keep your face blank, not wanting him to think that anything was wrong even though something definitely was.

“Can it wait until tonight?” Not really “I lost a bet so I gotta pick up breakfast for Sam before class,” he explained.

“Yeah of course!” Fuck. It’d probably be better if he heard the news at the end of the day anyways, you didn’t want to ruin his whole day.

“Great, thanks!” He said, already halfway out the door, leaving you alone with your breakfast.

If someone asked you what you did for the rest of the day you would never be able to tell them. You went to class and learned absolutely nothing. This thing with Dot was taking over your life and it wasn’t even your relationship.

You were glad you had classes today though, you’d probably go crazy if you didn’t have something to do to pass the time before Bucky got home. You usually went to the library to study for a couple of hours after class, but today you knew you wouldn’t get anything done, so you saved yourself the walk and just went home.

It was only four in the afternoon, and Bucky wouldn’t be home for at least a few more hours so you decided to take a nap to pass the time. You let your bag fall onto the floor, and crawled into bed. You reached over to grab your phone from the nightstand to set an alarm to wake you up, but instead of picking it up, you knocked it to the floor. Why was everything going wrong today?

You rolled over the edge of the bed and pulled on the charger cord to pick up the phone, hoping that the screen wasn’t cracked. Luckily it wasn’t, so you set the alarm and let yourself try to fall asleep.

You rolled left and right, getting up to turn over the pillow when it got too warm. When you finally drifted off, it felt like you were only asleep for ten minutes before you were woken up by your phone ringing.

Groggily, you sat up and grabbed the phone, seeing Tony’s face staring back at you from the screen. Why was he calling you? Tony didn’t call anyone. You figured it was probably about the Dot situation, but with Tony it could be anything.

“Hey, everything okay?” You asked.

“Yeah, just wanted to find out how Barnes took the news,” he replied, confirming your suspicions.

“I uh haven’t told him yet.”

“Why not?”

“When I got home he was with Dot and then he was running late this morning and I didn’t wanna ruin his day. But I’ll tell him tonight for sure.” Unless you chickened out again.

“Good luck! Okay I gotta go, Steve’s coming over and I wanna try and make him dinner.”

“Please try not to burn down another building,” you groaned, knowing that Tony had absolutely zero cooking abilities.

“No promises!” he laughed, before hanging up.

It wasn’t long before you heard the click of Bucky’s key in the lock, “Honey I’m home!” he joked, joining you on the couch in your living room. He seemed so happy and carefree and you hated that you’d be the one to ruin his good mood.

“How was your day?” you asked, moving over so he could have more space.

“Pretty great actually, class ended early, so I went to the gym with Sam and Steve, and then afterwards we got ice cream from the new place across the street from Steve’s apartment.” He paused and reached into his backpack, pulling out what looked like a kid’s lunchbox. “I got you some too, but I didn’t want it to melt so I bought this to put it in. Here, lemme stick this in the freezer and then you can tell me what you were gonna tell me this morning?”

Fuck he’s cute. “Sounds good!” you said, hoping your face didn’t show how nervous you were. The refrigerator wasn’t too far, so Bucky was back within less than 30 seconds, putting his feet up into your lap. .

“So what’s up?”

“I––fuck––I don’t know how to tell you this.”

He furrowed his brows, concern all over his face, “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need help? Whatever it is we can get through it,” he said.

“No, no, this has nothing to do with me––shit––it’s about you.”

“Did I do something? If I made you uncomfortable, or you want me to move out that’s totally fine; well not totally fine because I’d be homeless, but this was your space first.”

“No, fuck, uh, I’m just gonna spit it out, IsawDotcheatingonyou,” you rushed out, tripping over your words.

“I’m sorry what?” His face fell, and any chance of his smile returning was crushed when you repeat yourself, albeit a bit slower and with more details.

“I was at the lab yesterday, and you know how my area has those floor to ceiling windows?” He nodded. “Well I saw this couple making out and I was gonna ignore them but then I realized the girl was Dot,” you explained, bracing yourself for his reaction. “I’m so sorry Bucky…”

“You’re sure it was her?” Bucky had always had this larger than life presence, but now he looked like a ten year old whose parents had told him they were getting a divorce. You didn’t know it was possible for him to even look this small, and you hated that it was inadvertently your fault.

You only nodded in response, which was enough for him. Besides, why would you lie to him. You decided not to mention the photos, not wanting to rub salt in the already open wound.

He didn’t deserve this, he was the best guy you knew and he didn’t deserve to be cheated on. Nobody did. It broke your heart to see the tears threatening to spill from the corners of his eyes. He quickly reached up to wipe them away. “Fuck,” he muttered, “Fuck!” he said louder, grabbing onto one of the cushions and squeezing it. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! This fucking sucks!”

You repositioned yourself so that you could wrap your arms around him, trying to give him all the comfort that you could. “It’s okay, let it out,” you rubbed circles into his back and he melted into your embrace.

“It’s not fucking okay!” he yelled, making you flinch at the volume of his voice, “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you,” he said immediately after, noticing your reaction

“It’s okay, I don’t blame you for being angry, but I’m here for you if you wanna talk about it? Or not talk about it, we could watch a movie?” you suggested, willing to do anything to try and make him feel better. You knew if the roles were reversed and you were the one being cheated on that he’d do the same for you.

He shook his head, “No thanks, I think I’m just gonna go to bed,” he said, pulling away from you and getting up off the couch. He slung his backpack over one shoulder and slumped towards his bedroom, the door shutting with a soft bang behind him.

There was a little part of you, the selfish part you wanted to keep hidden deep inside, that was glad Dot was out of the picture. But you knew this wasn’t about you, and you’d have to be there for Bucky for as long as it took for him to feel better. With everything that had just happened, the last thing he needed was you having feelings for him. So you buried them. Again.

Ahh! Please let me know what you think! Reblogs mean faster updates!

Tags in the reblogs! Send an ASK to be tagged.

[terramythos]

uhhhh liveblog reactions of the newest october daye book, #14, a killing frost. don’t look @ me. don’t @ me. 

monumental spoilers for this book & the entire series 

-aw tybalt is taking toby's last name

-SUS AF looks at Patrick and Dianda. 👀 I knew there was a reason we established that Patrick very close to Simon before he went crazy and evil. I feel like that was in Once Broken Faith (#10)?

-LMAO I straight up forgot Rayseline exists.

-great to see sylvester's still a dick.

-still endlessly funny to me that Sylvester's Literal Evil Twin Simon replaced him as Toby's father figure and now sylvester's just like, some asshole who randomly shows up sometimes

-great to see Luna's still a bitch.

-great family

-well it's interesting from a purely academic perspective to see what happens to May when she's literally missing organs. Usually it's Toby!

-hi Simon

-Simon: *is evil*

Toby: you know what? This dude is way more trustworthy than Sylvester!

(She's... not wrong)

-Simon: *is evil*

Toby: come oooon simon you're a good guy cmoooon this is getting boring

-oh cool we're going on a road trip with evil!Simon, that cant possibly go wrong

-*shit goes super wrong like right away* ok

-toby calling may her sister constantly in this book awww

-walther shows up :D I love him

-yaaay the Luidaeg finally my absolute fave absolute queen

-toby: so I went on this big quest on my own and now Quentin is kidnapped and May got elf-shot. It seemed like a good idea at the time so me and/or simon wouldnt get caught in some weird magic contract with you

The Luidaeg: wow, you're a fucking idiot

Toby's narration: this hurt on a personal level because she can't lie so i knew she like REALLY meant it

-ok so theres this weird bit where we learn Stacy is ultra protective of her kids dating. There is some discussion about how that is super weird and doesn't make any sense to toby. Then some more discussion about how a lot of Stacy's past doesn't add up. Specifically, stacy's grandparents were purebloods (who hated her), which actually makes zero sense biologically considering how little fae blood Stacy has. Also worth considering, though not mentioned, TWO of stacy's children are powerful seers which makes no sense from what we know about thin blood in canon.

I think this *might* connect to my ongoing suspicions of Marcia as a character, who is a thinblooded changeling who consistently keeps showing up. Including in this book when she really didn't need to. At this point she has met multiple Firstborn and they initially seem alarmed/disturbed when they see her for no apparent reason. 14 books since her intro and we know nothing about her past or even her heritage, which is unheard of in this series. When that kind of info is obscured its always because there's a big twist associated with it. There is something going on there.

-speaking of. Um. Simon and Sylvester's bio mom was a human? Excuse me? What? Hello?

-sylvester refused to claim her as their legal mother so simon (angry about it) had to reject her too. A whole new layer to the "fuck Sylvester" cake and brings some interesting perspective to him stepping in as a paternal figure for toby, a homeless changeling? What the fuck, Sylvester?

-this is also one reason why not evil!Simon isn't a total asshole to Toby.

-anyway. Toby being turned into an otter and biting The Luidaeg was fucking funny

-wow, evening REALLY sucks.

-dang the tree thing is pretty creepy :( big fuckin yikes

-OK so toby's sacrificing her way home to keep Simon from doing more damage? I guess is the plan? Fuck?

-toby seems to know names of some Roane she's never met and I'm not sure if that's a mistake or not

-oh Quentin is big mad at Simon. Even if this all goes well a lot of people are gonna hate him. Also, he hurt Dean which is gonna piss Patrick and Dianda off

-though it was basically mind control so. SHRUG????

-god, fuck evening

-WAIT. Something was just implied that. wait... if that's where this is going I'm MAD.

- Toby: *takes on the curse*

Simon: *is suddenly not evil*

Simon: toby what the fuck no why did you do that :(((

-i like Simon 😬

-"apparently, the thought of Patrick being angry with him was even more distressing than I'd expected it to be. Interesting." UM. UMMMM. 👀👀👀👀👀

-seeing Toby briefly turn into her book 1 version was funny. Immediately pointing at tybalt, the literal love of her life, and screaming "you FUCKER". Ah, memories.

-ok. Ok yeah that's where this was going. Fuck me. Fuck.

-i am SO MAD. a fucking THROWAWAY LINE ...

-ok so officer Thornton is Oberon. That's cool. Ok.

I immediately went and skimmed the two books he was in and caught two instances of foreshadowing.

In Ashes of Honor (#6) when toby meets him she describes him as familiar in a generic way. Like, she recognizes his voice and face immediately but can't place it.. This is never brought up again. In the final chapter of this book he is described the same way, as generic yet strangely familiar. So. A closer reading might be in order to see how other fae behave around him. It's possible Toby has a stronger reaction since he's her grandfather (and is the perspective character.)

And yeah, the fucking THROWAWAY "lady, let alone" line from The Brightest Fell (#11). At the time that just seemed awkward, or I guess a gratuitous Tam Lin reference. Fuck me. Also explains how he didnt implode or die from being trapped in Annwn.

-and it makes sense there isnt much more than that because it seems "officer thornton" doesnt know he's oberon. Like it's basically the situation Simon was in??? There's a throwaway "why in the world was Oberon disguised as a human and couldn't remember anything?" line but it isn't explored, so I assume its addressed in a future book.

-(oh my god Riordan kept him as like. Some sick pet. For a YEAR. she didn't know he was the literal King of Faerie. Fucking hell.)

-his fucking name. Thornton. THORNton. Perfectly human character here hahahaha fuck off.

-and this makes the whole fucking series setup of "toby will be the one to find oberon" way more funny because. Man, mission fucking accomplished. 8 books ago.

-thematically makes sense that he returns in The Brightest Fell, too. Fuck me. fuck me! Bitter irony that Simon is given the impossible task/curse to find Oberon in that book and he was literally like, zonked out two rooms away

-list of "minor/background" characters in this series who later reveal themselves to be Huge Lore Gamechangers: Evening, The Luidaeg, May, August, Janet, and now FUCKING Oberon.

-an entire chapter of Simon apologizing to everyone

- holy fuck? Canon ot3???? Simon/Patrick/Dianda??? OT3? HELLO?????

-the October daye series has a fucking canon ot3 and they're getting married. Alright. Ok. Thanks seanan for my life

-"simon, amandine is just the worst and doesn't deserve you. Come marry me and my wife" is not where I was expecting this to go but like okay I am on board

-so the divorce happens and toby unsurprisingly picks Simon as her legal parent. But August does too. Amandine is pissed... I'm sure that'll be a whole Thing.

-THIS BOOK LITERALLY ENDS WITH SIMON AND PATRICK AND DIANDA GETTING MARRIED I'M

-"I now declare you husbands and wife" asdfhdkskxj

-well that book was a fucking ride. Holy christ. Toby accidentally found Oberon. That was sort of the big overarching thing. Not sure where the story goes from here. Theres some loose ends I already discussed and Evening is still a threat but yeah!

-ok we still have the novella "Shine In Pearl" which seems to be about Simon and Patrick and Dianda pre-series

-this is mostly VERY angsty (but well written) but 👀 at this novella mentioning Dawn as a character who exists outside of like, an offhand mention in the first book. Also referring to Riordan like she's not a minor background character

-calling tybalt an asshole too lol

-christ. Poor simon. Even more context of literally everyone screwing him over. :(( I'm glad it's better now.

[wintaer-bear]

goldilocks and the three bears of truth

jimin’s in love with you, but like... not that in love with you. or conversely, men that have all the audacity but none of the emotional intelligence!

“No, no, no. Please don’t do that,” Taehyung hushes as he brings his more than big enough hands to your cheeks. You raise your gaze to meet his and his heart hits the floor. He knew you were upset, that much was obvious, what with you throwing the entire contents of the buffet table at him and ruining his Versace tux. He knew you were upset - that was fair. But never did it dawn on him that you were going to cry! It wasn’t fair that you were so pretty when he was trying to break up with you. “Please don’t cry.”

His words mean nothing... all men do is lie and you cry anyway, unmatched foundation leaving tear tracks down your face.

“Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?” You’ve never put on make up before, let alone own a bottle of Fenty, but you were too shy to ask the MUA at Sephora if they had some more opened samples in the back because like hell were you going to pay $35 for the entire bottle. You were desperate that much was true, what with Taehyung springing on prom at the last minute because turns out he was grounded but not like grounded grounded, but you were too smart to be both broke and desperate. You just picked the sample shade one lighter and hoped no one would notice. How were you supposed to know to blend all the way down to the neck? And what was it the mean girls said? Something about flashback?

"Why did you ask me to prom if you didn’t actually want me to come with you? Better yet, why did you ask me to be your girlfriend? You’re mean Taehyung! Just like the rest of your piss for brain friends. Mean!” You’re tearing off your own gas station corsage and slinging it at him. You wish it made you feel better, but it doesn’t. You just wanted him to hurt like you were hurting.

You should have known better. Should have seen it coming. Taehyung was everything your dad told you stay away from. He was head of the art club and missed homeroom too often, but he never got in trouble for it because, we’ll he could smile he way through anything. Your guarded heart included. He literally, got along with everyone, was nice to everyone. You just happened to sit next to him one day.

“__,” he says weakly, picking up the half torn flowers from the pavement. “I... It’s not like that. I didn’t ask -” 

The boy in the shiny sequin dress jacket stops himself because while he knew he was a class A jerk, he wasn’t going to kick someone while they were down. Taehyung wasn’t about to dig himself a deeper grave with the sheriff’s daughter by telling you that he didn’t actually ask you to prom... he had just briefly mentioned that his parents hadn’t grounded for selling the entire contents of their wine cellar when they found out all the proceeds were going towards the  Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 

“Save it,” you say sniffling and grabbing the what’s left of the corsage from his hands and ripping what feels like your entire heart into pieces, what’s left of it anyway. “I don’t care. Jimin was right. You are a Gemini.”

“I don’t know what that means” he says with vehemence, “but I’ve never been to the gym in my entire life and Jimin’s an asshole so -” 

"He's my best friend." You deadpan and cross you arms around your chest. He could break your heart but you wouldn't give him the power to break your carefully forged friendship with Jimin.

"And obviously in love with you so take everything he says about with me a grain a salt."

“Yeah, and you’re a Black Moon Lilith in Gemini and that alone trumps all your good traits. You’re basically 90% fickle with a dash of cunning, but I didn’t know cunning was just the elongated word of cunt.” You emphasize the last words, mostly because you’re hurt, but also because you’re angry and you’re not sure when you’ll get another chance to tell Kim Taehyung off again. “I mean... do you even like me? You  haven’t even done as much as hold my hand since you’ve asked me out.”

“I just asked you out on Monday!”

“Oh come on, Taehyung,” you drag, angry and finding all the hurtful words in your vocabulary. “It’s not like you’re shy! I’ve seen your tongue down so many girls throats you’d think its the cure to lung cancer.” 

“That’s different,” he winces. “And not fair.”

“Not fair?” You repeat, suddenly realizing this was all going in circles. You’ve liked Taehyung for the better of...like, forever. He was so perfect. Almost. He gets the endings of movies wrong and forgets his car keys too often, but Taehyung had a nice smile and ate all his veggies, was a little weird when it came to public speaking but who isn’t? Taehyung was every girl’s dream and... and avoided you like the plague up until you grew tits your senior year because no one wants to bone the sheriff’s daughter. 

No, you were never invited to keg parties or homecomings. Not even your own best gal pals like to hang out with you in broad day light. You had to learn the status quo on your own so shave an eagle and call it bald, you about had a conniption when Taehyung sat down next to you in AP Bio. 

“I like your hair clips,” he said causally. At this point, you weren't even sure he knew you existed. He sits and sports that grin you’ve been familiar with since grade school. The “I’m not in trouble you are” look. “They match your scrunchie.”

And by the end of the period you wonder how it escalated so quickly. Taehyung turned from being your lab mate to your soulmate in less than 90 minutes and you weren’t even mad about it. He was comfortable, he was warm and it was so easy to smile in front of him.

“Not fair?” You say again. “Mules are doomed to be both the genesis and the doom of their hybrid lineage because they're born sterile. That's unfair. No Taehyung this," you point back and forth between the three feet of air between you two "isn't unfair. This is the result of you doing what you do best and acting on a whim instead of examining if there’s going to be repercussions or if you'll hurt someone along the way. I was fine on my own! I had a plan and if you weren't going to be part of it, the least you could of done was to stay out of my way." You run out of air and you hate it because it gives him exactly one second to come back with a counter argument.

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

And you believe him. Because Taehyung wouldn't be dumb enough to ask you to prom on purpose or mean enough to invite you just to overhear him talking about breaking up with you because "you were just too much."

"No one ever means to hurt anyone, Taehyung. Doesn't make the hurt any less," you breathe. You want to hurt him too. Why does he get to walk away unscathed? "Or the perpetrator any less guilty. You're a bad guy Taehyung,” you bite you lower lip to refrain from crying, but it comes out in sobs anyway. “And I hope someone breaks your heart."

You break away and immediately feel the lost of warmth. You didn't realize how close he was to you until he wasn't.

"You okay?" Jimin asks as you slam his passenger door shut. You don’t know how he knew to come get you. You had expected him to be on the other side of town doing God knows what at this hour, but somehow Jimin always knew. 

He leaves the car in park and turns to you when you don't immediately respond.

"I’m fine," you say, going to turn on the radio. He immediately switches it off. 

"Like just bombed your math test but your 6.0 GPA is still salvageable fine or ___ circa second grade with a blister on her hand doing the monkey bars fine?"

"For the the last time I beat you fair and square but I see you’re still eating my dust a decade later with that tone Park."

"Also for the last time. I let you win because you cried when the blister popped on bar three. I practically carried you on my back the rest of the way."

"Did not."

"I still have the scar on forehead where you stepped on me." He pulls back his hair and shoves said forehead in your face. 

"The floor was lava." You shrug.

“Yeah, so is Kim Taehyung, but we’re not ready to talk about that are we?”

It wasn’t a secret that Jimin wasn’t fond of Taehyung. They just ran with different crowds. Always have. Where as Taehyung was president of the art club and volunteering at parks and recreations, Jimin was deciding whether or not to smoke the last ounce of weed he had in his back pocket or to sell it for profit so he could buy a an extra dessert for lunch tomorrow.

“Just as ready as you are to talk about the court summoning I found in hidden in your glove compartment.” 

Jimin sends you a look and if you didn’t know him for the last decade, you’d miss the sliver of shock written on his otherwise impenetrable and cocky face. Jimin gives a low whistle. 

“You could have just said no, but I see I don’t need to worry. 2021 Bitchy ___ is here to put up the walls and save the day. No need for niceties then,” he pins you with a look as he turns the ignition and does that thing boys do where they reverse the car all passively aggressively and hot. “I fucking told you so. I told you Taehyung was out for one thing and one thing only. He’s nothing but a player and -”

“I do not put up walls!” You interrupt and it catches Jimin off guard, he was ready for his Taehyung hating dissertation, to be the best friend you needed and to talk shit about your ex. Jimin was already in the drive thru line to order one of everything off the dollar menu. He was not, however, prepared for whatever the hell this was. 

You’re crying, uncontrollably so, and rubbing your eyes with your palms in his seat. It’s ruining your make up but Jimin has never seen you any more beautiful. He’s never seen you so vulnerable as you hiccup to keep the sadness from escaping your very breath.

“And I’m not bitchy. I’m not sorry I don’t have mommy issues and feel the need to please everyone in her absence. I’m especially not sorry that I’m way too smart to get conned into losing my virginity because I think I’m in love. I’m not. But why can’t I be? Hmm?” And Jimin thinks it’s question for him before you continue.

“Why can’t Taehyung come to me if he’s got a problem with me? If he thought I was,” you air quote, “too much,” end air quote, “then why hang out with me?” You turn you back against the window so you can face Jimin head on, and Jimin wonders why the line is so backed up tonight of all nights. “Why even talk to me in the first place? What? Was I not what he was expecting? Am I too opinionated? Too loud? Too... god, I don’t know? Myself?”

"What?” Jimin says flabbergasted, and takes his yes off the car halted in from of him to make sure he’s hearing this right. Jimin can’t say you were the type run on emotions, but you have also never had a chance to react to such... turbulence. You’ve always been so reserved and in control, a defense mechanism he’s sure you’ve developed over time as the black sheep of the town. He knew you were dumb but he didn’t know you were dumb enough to think it was your fault that Kim Taehyung didn’t like you. 

“Tell me the truth Jimin,” you deadpan. “Am I...,” and you struggle to get out the last part without crying. “Too much?”

“Yes,” he thinks. Completely, utterly, and without a doubt, you were too much. 

You were too good for Taehyung. And too kind. And too pretty. In the winters, you were too warm and your cookies were too soft, your shampoo smelled too clean. You were too good at Catan... and you were...god... too perfect.

Jimin didn’t mean to fall in love with you. Just like he didn’t mean to kiss you the way he is now. Desperately and fervently, like it’s his first time kissing to put someone’s clothes on instead of off. But he doesn’t know how else to stop your thoughts from wandering. He doesn’t know how else to bring you back to the light where you belong. He didn’t want to see you cry. Jimin didn’t like it when you were hurt. But he especially didn’t like that you thought any less of yourself because of a boy.

Jimin takes it upon himself when you don’t immediately pull away and he wishes he would have just taken you home because now his plans were ruined.

There was a plan. Jimin had a plan. 

You were going to go away to college and he was going to get a trade job. You’d come back to visit your dad for the holidays and Jimin would by default pick you up from the airport. He was a patient man. He had it all planned out. The two of you would skip the petty fights that came with individuals growing together and out pacing one another. It was easier that way. The two of you would just meet each other at the end. Jimin wasn’t willing to risk losing you in finding himself in these next few years.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Jimin didn’t want to rush it. He didn’t want to spook you with how much he wanted this, wanted you. Jimin knew. Whether it be ten years from now or several heartbreaks later, Jimin knew he’d accept you any way you came to him. But never in a 100 years he think you’d come like this. Broken and inconsolable in tears. 

“I -” he starts to lie. “I’m high.” 

“Men,” you scoff. “Men have all the audacity but none of the emotional intelligence. Jimin, your court summon is for a urine analysis so you really expect me to believe you’d shoot up and get high right before they’re about to break that beeper on your ankle? Even I know you’re not that desperate for a fix.”

He wishes you were right. You were the hardest drug he’s had and he’s wished he just stay clean because it physically hurt him to see how intangible you are right now. Even in your elaborate scheme to get another man to fall in love with you tonight, Jimin couldn’t help but want you more. You were exactly who you needed to be and he wanted nothing more than to protect that.

“I’ll ask you one more time,” you say with patience you’ve all but scraped up off the floor. “Jimin, do. you. like. me? Like, like like me?”

It wouldn’t be lie if he said no. He doesn’t just like you. Jimin is dumbfoundedly in love with you. He’s so deep in your pussy-sand without actually being in your pants that he wouldn’t know his left from his right.

Jimin debates with himself whether it’s worth the physical distance that awaits him if he denies you or if it’s worth the psychological and emotional damage that will come in confirming your suspicion. You were too good for him, that much was evident, but how was he going to make you believe that?

“___, I-”

“Welcome to McDonald’s, may I take your order?”

“Yeah, I’d like a large order of FACTS please,” you spit out. 

“Sure, a order or fries. What else can I do for you?”

“Maybe a double quarter pounder with a side of truth?”

“I’m sorry, did you say juice?”

You don’t mean to take it out on the employee behind the window. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time when then you realize it’s HER workplace and perhaps you’re making it awkward but you were so hurt, and so confused, and you needed someone to take it out on and Jimin wasn’t helping, what with wallowing in his silence.

“$6.78 at the window.”

Jimin doesn’t know how to fix it. The entire drive back to your house and he can’t come up with the right words to say. He fucked up and he’s so so so scared to lose you. 

[hyruledrift]

The Brilliance of Giorno Giovanna

Before I go ahead and write my review of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Vento Aureo written and illustrated by Hirohiko Araki, I wanted to somehow put into writing why I think that it’s main protagonist, Giorno Giovanna, is truly a brilliant character. There is one more thing I’d like to prefix this character analysis with, and that is how I experienced Vento Aureo.

Vento Aureo was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from November 20, 1995 to April 5, 1999. The anime first premiered in October of 2018 and ran through July 2019. So, I devoted the past couple weeks to both WATCH and read Vento Aureo. Reading the manga, and then watching the episodes that covered the volume(s) I previously read. So I really got to soak in the entire story. I also live tweeted my entire “Readwatch” but thats besides the point. I’m a bit late to the party in terms of covering the series but this is also my first time ever doing something like this, and I thought that there’d be no better place to start rather than breaking down one of my favourite characters across all mediums of fiction, Giorno Giovanna. Needless to say, this character analysis will divulge into spoilers of Vento Aureo.

Giorno Giovanna, born Haruno Shiobana, in Vento Aureo is age 15. He is half Japanese, Half Italian. Giorno as we know is the bastard son of DIO, the Joestar lineage’s sworn enemy across time. Giorno’s stand is Gold Experience, named after the Prince album The Gold Experience. Gold Experience is a close-range Stand, with a range of 2 meters from its user. Gold Experience has many different abilities. The first one being Life Giver. Life Giver gives Gold Experience the ability to endow anything its fists touch with life, which translates into a variety of different effects. It’s second ability is Life Shot. Gold Experience's ability can also be applied to living individuals, causing their thought processes to greatly accelerate. Life Shot basically makes Giorno’s opponent experience a psychedelic trip in the middle of combat. Gold Experience also has the ability to recreate Flesh and Organs. Inspired by Baby Face's ability to transform body parts into inert cubes, Giorno discovered that he could do the reverse and create singular body parts and organs out of inorganic matter. Thus he is able to heal gruesome wounds through various means. Gold Experience also has one more ability, Life Sensor. When he [Giorno/Gold Experience] touches someone or something, he can sense other lifeforms from within, allowing him to check if someone is alive or even determine how many souls there may be inside a given vessel. (Below is a picture of Giorno and Gold Experience)

But the interesting part about Giorno is not only is he the son of DIO, its also the fact that he is also considered a Joestar as he was conceived with Jonathan Joestar’s body, with DIO controlling it (after killing Jonathan Joestar, DIO took over his body to become the ultimate life form 100 years before Stardust Crusaders took place.) 

We don’t get to see the signature Joestar Star Birthmark on Giorno often, but we do get to catch a glimpse of it in the first episode of the anime and the second chapter of the manga during his fight with Leaky Eye Luca. Which cements him as being the 5th main Joestar in Araki’s story. 

Because of his lineage, we know he’s destined to be a special character from the get-go. Inheriting traits and skills from both DIO and Jonathan. Now, I could spend all day pointing out what Giorno has done in the series that he got from DIO, and things he’s done because of the Jonathan in him. But instead of that, I’d rather point out the more notable things he’s done that he’s taken from both his fathers.

We know that DIO was rotten to the core. He had a similar upbringing to Giorno in the sense that their parents neglected him. Dario (DIO’s father) constantly abused DIO calling him both physically and mentally. Whereas, Giorno’s mother neglected him and his step father abused Giorno to no end. Both DIO and Giorno are portrayed to be very smart in their groups. Giorno somehow always knew what animal or insect he’d have to give life to depending on the situation to help him overcome the conflict he was in. For example, in the fight against Man In The Mirror, Giorno also was faced with the issue of Fugo’s stand, Purple Haze and its ability, (A virus that quickly kills you if you inhale it or if your skin comes into contact with it. It also has no cure. Purple Haze is so powerful, that Araki had to write Fugo out of the story.) So to overcome this, Giorno used Gold Experience’s ability Life Giver to give life to an inanimate object (In this case, turning a brick into a Snake - Read left to right i took panels from different pages for the sake of my point)

Also, Both DIO and Giorno are natural leaders, wherever DIO went, be it in Phantom Blood or in Stardust Crusaders, he had followers do his bidding for him. Giorno inherited DIO’s natural ability to lead as later on in Vento Aureo, we all see the team members, inspeseficallfy Guido Mista, in his internal monologue after their battle with White Album, that he sees Giorno being more of a leader than Bruno Bucciarati, the actual leader of the gang at the time. Another attribute that Giorno inherited from DIO, is the need to make his opponent feel powerless. During Giorno’s beatdowns, he is known to shout “MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA” with Muda being a direct translation from Japanese to English meaning “Useless”, something that DIO was known for, in his fight with Jotaro in Stardust Crusaders. Giorno also uses the “WRYYYYYYY” battle cry a couple times in Vento Aureo. Also, Giorno’s hair used to be black, similar to the other Joestars before him, but when Gold Experience awoken in him, it caused his hair to change to the golden yellow colour we see him as throughout the series. One more thing to point out in Giorno that is reminiscent of DIO that separates him further from the rest of the Joestar lineage, is that Giorno ignited his own change. Giorno had a dream that he wanted to see through, whereas the other Joestars reacted to things happening to ones the hold dear to them that made them want to save others. Jonathan reacted to DIO killing his father, Joseph reacted to the Pillar Men awaking, Jotaro reacted to his mother falling ill because of DIO’s awakening, Josuke reacted to Angelo killing his grandfather, so on and so forth. It was Giorno who kicked the events off of Vento Aureo by himself, persuading Bucciarati to take down the Boss of Passione (Diavolo).  

The traits and attributes that Giorno inherited from Jonathan consists of Jonathan’s heart of gold that ultimately guided Giorno down the path he took to heroism, infiltrating Passione and taking down Diavolo. Jonathan’s selflessness also passed onto Giorno. Throughout Vento Aureo, Giorno was willing to sacrifice himself/his body for the benefit of the group despite. Cutting his nose off to spite his face. A great example of this is when Giorno and the gang was on their way to Sardinia. On the flight to Sardinia, they encountered the undead stand named after the world’s biggest rapper at the time, Notorious B.I.G. Giorno deduced how B.I.G was tracking them despite being dead, and it was motion. B.I.G reacted to any and all motion around it, causing the stand to automatically hunt down, attach itself, and attempt to kill whatever surface around it that was the fastest. So, while on the airplane, Giorno selflessly lured B.I.G onto the only arm he had left (Giorno had already lost an arm to B.I.G earlier in the fight and had not used Gold Experience to make himself a new arm) 

Giorno knew it was a gamble, he had cut both arms off to save the team. Naturally, this incapacitated Giorno for the rest of the fight. But before he could cut his arm off, he turned one of his ladybug brooches into a his own hand, which carried the power of Gold Experience. Thanks to this, after the fight was over, he was able to accomplish two things. First, He helped Trish mature as B.I.G came back and Trish ultimately defeated the stand by awakening to her stand, Spice Girl. The other thing that Giorno was able to accomplish was that he was still able to heal himself and the team using the brooch that Trish worked to protect from B.I.G.

Just as Giorno had a similar upbringing to DIO, he also had parts of his childhood that Jonathan went through as well. Giorno was always the kid that got bullied by the other kids, much like Jonathan. But that all changed when he met the man he came to idolize. 

Giorno saved the life of this unknown Gangster, so in return, this Gangster protected Giorno from his abusive step-father, the kids that bullied him, and made sure that young Giorno didn’t go unfed.

Because of the unknown gangster, Giorno was inspired to protect the little guy. In a world of corrupt government and crime, Giorno had a dream of being a GANG-STAR. Instead of using power to benefit himself, he wanted to use his power both literally and figuratively to make sure that nobody would have to go through the same kind of upbringing he had to go through.

Giorno truly is all the best parts of both DIO and Jonathan rolled into one character.

In Giorno’s bio page in the second last chapter in Vento Aureo, it is said that “What Giorno desires most is hope. He has faith that he can reach any destination, as long as he has hope.” This bio page also states that the source of Giorno’s hope and justice was the unknown gangster.

You can argue that his hope was able to manifest itself and what ultimately turned Gold Experience into Gold Experience Requiem (GER) in the final confrontation with Diavolo. Giorno literally becomes unbeatable with GER. GER’s PASSIVE ABILITY is that any hostility directed toward Giorno gets nullified and all action and intent of the attack gets set back to zero, preventing any attack that is directed to him from becoming “real”. (Pictured below is Giorno and Gold Experience Requiem)

You can say that Giorno has hope and faith in himself that nobody will be able to stand in the way of his dream. So Requiem literally makes it so that nobody can harm him.

Giorno’s whole life, he had struggled with finding his own self worth and managed to find self satisfaction in saving a stranger which made him realize what he enjoyed doing in life. Helping others, putting himself in danger to make his own dream come a reality. Giorno’s admiration, spirit, pride, and willpower to fight is contagious and quickly spreads throughout the entire cast of characters in Vento Aureo.

One of the most important characters to Giorno’s development is his right hand man, Bruno Bucciarati who has done even more selfless acts than Giorno has done for the sake of others. 

From the moment they met, they both realized that each other were special people. Bruno from a young age was infatuated with assisting others, easing the burdens of others just to make them happy, much like Giorno, which is what makes their relationship so special.

During the turning point of Vento Aureo, Bucciarati died in his fight with King Crimson. Giorno was going as fast as he could to save Bucciarati from his mortal wounds but it was too late. Or so he thought. In that moment where Giorno healed Bucciarati’s body, his soul had already left his body and was on his way to the after life. However, Bucciarati knew that the job was unfinished. His determination, and sheer willpower to see Giorno’s dream come to fruition kept his body alive for the rest of the series until their fated encounter with Diavolo and King Crimson in Rome. Where Bucciarati was finally able to see that Giorno was capable to finish the job himself.

This steeled Giorno’s resolve in his fight against the brutal, merciless, and thoughtless Diavolo, who killed for his own personal gain, not caring for his victims. Diavolo’s ideals and morals are severely distorted and blatantly evil. He thought that he was the one chosen by god to carry out his will to reign over humans as their king. He believed that he was supposed to be the one to judge humans if they should live or not, killing anyone he didn’t see fit into his plan. His mafia also contributed to his heinous crimes as the main reason that Giorno and Bucciarati connected, was their hatred for the boss’ policy of who the mafia sold drugs to. Passione often sold cocaine to women and children, which led to Bucciarati’s father’s murder, and Giorno’s abuse from his father and the bullies.

The abilities that Gold Experience granted him, let him see his dream come to fruition. That mixed with the attributes that he unconsciously inherited from his two fathers, Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando in combination with Giorno’s will and resolve that was demonstrated to be contagious throughout the events of Vento Aureo. It ultimately affected me on a personal level, which is why I wrote this analysis. I personally deeply admire Giorno and his just dream. Doing anything it takes to see his just dream come true to benefit others despite all his shortcomings in his childhood, and everyone that wronged him in his life. Giorno still believed that he could ignite the change and illuminate the path of those around him to believe his golden dream. Giving others hope, that everything will be alright in the end. 

That, is why Giorno Giovanna is brilliant.