#Horror knows EXACTLY where a human needs to be hit to die so he is NOT happy with the human living and? walking away??

[thebad-lydrawn-sanses]

How would the sanses react when they kill some random human (cause they agitated them or something) and that mf just stands back up and goes on about their day as if a bone didnt just pierce their heart.

Nightmare, absolutely flabbergasted: ———

Killer, upset and confused: ...huh

Dust, offended: i-

Horror, absolutely horrified: WH

Cross, terrified: (meme)

(designs from start of blog used)

[writertothemaximum]

hi i want to request a sfw fic if its okay :3 yuuji with a reader who is anxious at all times and like really easily scared? like huohuo from hsr ( if you play hsr ) headcannons or anything is fine , and male reader please

omg yes it’s very okay!! I do play hsr, huohuo is such a cutie,, (I’m sure you are too anon!) (patpat) Anon, you might really like Kaito Yuki from the jjk mobile game! He has a really cute arc with Yuuji about overcoming his preconceived biases and fear of curses. (i’m really hoping someone translates the main story ;w; but that’s where it is) I hope you enjoy this little story :)

Yuuji x Easily Scared + High Anxiety Reader

// content // sfw, Established relationship, both of you are Juju tech students, reader has compulsive anxiety (thoughts about dying), but it’s okay yuuji will comfort you (and you will comfort him), hurt/comfort, ugly crying, I don't think I actually state the reader's gender anywhere but I was imagining male

-Getting through each day is like a roller coaster for you. Classes are difficult enough, especially when you constantly get compared to your peers, and then missions. Missions are a completely different subject.

-Luckily, your cursed technique isn’t exactly built for combat, but they need your expertise here and there, and every time you’ve gone, you’ve seen your life flash before your eyes. Being a sorcerer isn’t an easy job in any sense of the phrase, but the fact that this is commonplace? That this is normal? You’re saving people. You’re helping people. You’re doing your best, but your best isn’t enough, it never was.

…

You and Yuuji are cuddling on the couch, and a movie plays on the TV. It’s a horror movie that Yuuji’s been begging you to watch with him for a while now, and while horror isn’t your favorite, you’ve had to admit that it’s more enjoyable than you initially expected. A part of it hits too close to home, but there’s also something a bit cathartic about seeing people freak out more than you do. (Well, they are just acting. You’re not.)

Today, though, is a little different. You just knew the moment you got out of bed today that it was going to be a bit of a rough one. There’s just this tension in your fingertips, this rattling in your brain—It’s just not a good day. You’re on edge and you don’t know why. Did you get into an argument with someone? Did you forget to do something? Was it the mission yesterday? Oh god, it has to be the mission yesterday. It wasn’t your fault. Don’t worry about it, it wasn’t your fault.

You could have died. You can die tomorrow. You look right at Yuuji and you feel his heartbeat pumping against you in a steady rhythm. You can lose him. It might even be your fault.

There’s a loud noise on the screen, and the monster jumps up and the screen cuts to red. Somehow, you’re screaming and there’s tears running down your face.

“Hey!” Yuuji shouts out, pausing the movie, turning his attention to you. “Are you alright? What’s up? Hey, come on.”

He’s so sweet, his voice is so sweet you could drown in it. It’s too much. It’s just too much all at once.

You find yourself babbling, tears running down your cheeks. It’s pathetic, god, you’re so fucking pathetic. Yuuji’s looking right at you. What is he thinking? Is he going to hate you? Because you started balling at a stupid fucking jumpscare?

His arms wrap around you, and you sniffle, feeling the soft fabric of his hoodie rub against the back of your neck. “It’s okay. I’m here, it’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” you mumble out, finally getting a grip on human language.

Yuuji just chuckles. “Why are you apologizing? I should be apologizing, I kept pressuring you to put on the movie.”

You squeeze Yuuji back, and his toned body is so soft, you can just sink in for hours. He’s like a furnace, and everything fills you with warmth. “I’m sorry for being pathetic and crying in front of you.”

“You’re not pathetic,” Yuuji says bluntly, his voice firm. There’s a pause, and Yuuji goes still. You feel him tense up just a bit. “You know,” he starts, taking a breath, “I’ve always admired you. Like a lot.”

You bite your lip. That’s a bit hard to believe. Clearly, Yuuji can tell.

“I mean it! Whenever I get scared, I think about you cheering me on. Whenever I doubt myself, I think about how hard you push yourself, and I just…” He’s sniffling now. “Fuck.”

“Yuuji?” you ask, and you turn to look at his face, but he’s wiping it against his hoodie. When he turns to face you, he smiles weakly, and there’s tears rolling down his face.

“I don’t want to lose you, alright?”

You hug him tighter—tighter than you ever have before. “You get scared? I can’t imagine…”

“I do!” he whines back at you, before rubbing his nose against his sleeve again. “Fuck.”

“Yuuji!” you shout out, and he laughs back at you.

“God, I love you,” he mumbles, before nuzzling the bottom of your chin. “I love how strong you are, I love how hard you work, I love how you push yourself to do your best. I love how much you care, I love how much you want to do the right thing.”

You bunch your shoulders up instinctively, pouting your lips. “It’s not…you don’t think it’s pathetic I’m anxious all the time?”

Yuuji chuckles weakly, and now his face is on your chest. His eyes are closed, and he looks at peace. “If you weren’t, it wouldn’t be you. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

If you liked this story, please give the post a reblog, or send me another request :)

Thanks for reading!

[phantoms-lair]

You wanted Red Hood vs Overhaul, you got it

Eri clutched Deku tightly and he sped away, Overhaul right on their trail leaving a swath of destroyed objects and people in his wake. And as soon as he caught up to them, that was going to be Deku. He was going to die because he wanted to protect her.

Deku was wrong. She was a curse. She clutched his shoulders tighter, tears welling in her eyes. Her horn began to glow as her quirk subconsciously activated. Because of her Daddy disappeared, and then Overhaul used her to make his bullets to steal other people's powers. She'd caused nothing but pain and misery, she was the one who should disappear!

Her horn grew as her quirk tried to activate. But much like you can't uninstall a computer program that's running, Rewind couldn't erase itself or it's user while it was activated. Eri's despair tried to force it over and over again. Just as Overhaul's outstretched hand was about to brush Deku's back Rewind divided by zero and they all vanished.

~

It was the smell that hit Midoriya first. The air around him had been full of dust and the scent of blood. Suddenly there was none of that, but an almost nauseating amount of fumes and unwashed humanity. Also they were in free fall.

He quickly assessed. He wasn't in Tokyo anymore. The cars were on the wrong side of the road and the signs in English. But all that quickly was overshadowed by the horror that they were in a residential area.

He had to get Eri to safety while luring Overhaul away from the area. He did his best to get they lay of the land before he'd fallen enough for buildings to block his view. Looked like there was a harbor. Maybe if he could get him there, there'd be less people for him to destroy. And hopefully some local heroes would come to help.

Path set, Midoriya used Full Cowling to kick off a building and launch himself away.

~

"Anyone have eyes on what the Hell is happening?!" Hood demanded over the coms.

"Two metas, Boss. One Robin-aged, one adult. Robin-aged one has what looks to be a small child. He's fleeing from the adult and heading towards the harbor. Small child looks to be injured."

Hood adjusted the route his motorcycle was going in order to better intercept. "How badly injured?"

"Bandages on her arms and legs, but it's hard to get close enough to see more, sorry." His lieutenant sounded apologetic, but from the sounds of Hood could hear from back where he was he couldn't blame her. "Powers?" Might as well know what he was getting into.

"Robin-aged seems to have some green lightning around him, but he's not projecting it. It seems to give him either a strength or speed boost, hard to tell when all he's doing is running. Adult looks like he can destroy or remake anything his touches and - Gah."

"Did you get hit?"

"Negative, sorry for scaring you, sir, Adult caught a piece of his own shrapnel in his eye. He then touched his face with his hand and half of it exploded, then reformed. I wasn't expecting it."

Good to know. Especially because she might have just told him exactly how to take this guy down. "I'm going to intercept the kids. Deploy Code Beta Omega on my mark." Hood's helmet switched modes from camera to radar as he pulled his bike even with the fleeing kid (who was definitely getting a speed boost out of his power if nothing else) as his people set off numerous bright flares right in front of the adult meta's face, followed by wide area smoke bombs. "Need some help?"

"Are you a local hero?" The older kid asked in very heavily Japanese accented English.

"I'm the protector of this area." Thankfully Japanese was one of the languages he was fluent in, so he could speak to the kid in his own language. "Get on."

The boy hopped on, the smaller kid strapped to his back and Hood had to respect his sense of balance. The green lightning vanished as the kid took a breath.

"Can you get Eri to safety?" the boy asked. "I can buy some time with Overhaul. Lure him out to the water where fewer people will get hurt."

The way he said it, it sounded like the cost of that time would be his life. And the littler one, Eri, seemed to pick up on it. "You don't have to do that Deku." she said in a shaky voice. "He won't hurt you if I go back to him. And I'll be fine. He won't kill me, even when he accidently takes too much of my blood, he can just take me apart and put me back together again."

The words were brave but the fear and remembered pain in them was palpable and Hood saw green in a way that had nothing to do with Deku's hair, outfit or lightning. He sharply turned the motor cycle into an alley, where he knew a group of his people would be evacuating civilians. "Get them to the clinic. The girl needs help and the boy probably does too."

The boy looked panicked. "But Overhaul-"

"-is Done." Hood finished. "Overhaul is done."

For a moment the boy looked like he'd bluescreened, then "Overhaul is mysophobia, destroying his mask should get a panic reaction. Especially if you spit on him or something. He's arrogant, sadistic, and enjoys psychological manipulations. He also have some bullets that destroy quirks, so be very wary if he uses a gun over his hands."

"Quirks?" Everything in Hood's soul wanted to get going and destroy the man who'd hurt a child like this.

There was a split second of panic on the boys face as he tried to reword "Powers? His lets him disassemble and reassemble anything he touches in any configuration he chooses."

"Power destroying bullets? Hood laughed. "Kid, I don't think you know where you are. This is Gotham." And with that he left the kids in the hands of his crew and stalked back to where Overhaul was about to meet his end.

The smoke was beginning to clear as Hood strode to Overhaul's location. Deku had given him what information he could, and he appreciated it, really he did. Any other Bat or Bat-Adjacent would have made good use it, especially the mysophobia.

Hood was not going to. He'd already gotten all intel he needed earlier. He took a good look at the man. Huh, when Deku said he had a mask Hood was expecting a standard supervillain mask, not a honest to goodness plague doctor one. He's sure the doctors at Arkham would have a fun time pulling apart this whackjob's psyche.

Not that he was going to give them a chance. Not after hearing a little girl talk about repeatedly being ripped apart and pulled back together.

"Where did they go?" asked Overhaul, in a tone that suggested he was in charge and giving up the intel was the only way Hood would live through the next few minutes.

Cute.

"Doesn't matter. You're never going to see either one ever again." Hood smirked under his helmet. "In fact, enjoy your view of the ass-end of Gotham. It's the last thing you're ever going to see."

Overhaul sneered. "Eri will be so upset. Another person dead because of her. She really is a curse."

The green was overwhelming. The only thing keeping Hood in control was the knowledge that he was going to give the Pit exactly what it wanted.

Overhaul touched the ground and it exploded, rearranging itself as large spikes erupted from the ground. Most people would have been impaled. Most people weren't trained by the Bat, the League of Assassins, and the All-Caste. "You heroes are so annoying. Like any one of you would be able to properly use an asset like her."

"SHE IS A CHILD." Hood roared. One of the spikes nicked him, but only caused surface damage, naturally. It would have been embarrassing to do more than was entirely when one gets hit on purpose. He needed two things. Overhaul provided the presence of absolute evil, and he provided his own blood. With two flashes the All Blades appeared and two hands fell to the ground.

Overhaul stared for a moment. He'd lost arms before and it was easy enough to replace one using the other, but he'd never lost both at once. His mind raced, trying to come up with a solution, and his knees began to buckle.

He never hit the ground however, as Hood caught him by the throat with one hand. With the other he ripped off the mask before pushing Overhauls face into some street sludge. This being Gotham and Crime Alley in particular, who knows what it might have been. Guess he was going to use the kid's info on mysophobia after all.

"It's tempting, you know, to keep you alive just long enough to watch infection set it. But people like you do tend to find a way of rebounding and I'm not going to risk it. I do want to catch up with those kids and make sure they're okay, so I'll give myself...ten minutes? Yeah, ten minutes sounds good. Ten minutes to show you exactly what happens to people who hurt kids in my territory. Ten minutes to make you beg for death, then - like the kind soul I am- answer your prayers."

Overhauls eyes were wide with terror. "But...but you're a hero?"

Hood grinned cruelly under his helmet. "I haven't called myself one of those for a long time. And Babs," he said, seeming to address no one. "I don't want Daddy Bats or any of his crew interfering."

For the next ten minutes, he was going to enjoy himself.

[inhuman-obey-me]

I really....really meant to do this way sooner, I’m so sorry, but I'm finally back with the next segment of characters!! Part 3 will come later, featuring the undateables, but for now, hope you enjoy this one!

Click here for Part 1 - Older Brothers

Part 2 - Younger Brothers

cw: mentions of past abuse + sexual assault, body horror, violence, torture, gore

Or, as these tags so accurately put it last time:

SATAN

When you tell Satan that you have something heavy to share, he is the perfect gentleman about it, making sure you feel safe and comforted and giving you space if/when you need it

He memorizes every word that falls from your lips, holding each one preciously in his mind as he holds you in his arms

His heart breaks as you describe what happened to you, and even though he always keeps his own wrath hidden away as much as he can, he thinks guiltily to the times where it has emerged around you

In that moment, he swears to himself he'll never allow it to happen again -- even if you know what he's like, even if you understand him and his rage, he could never forgive himself if he caused you the kind of pain you're describing now

For any anger you may have about it, however, you can express it as much as you want around him, with his own powers helping you let it out safely and absorbing some of it from you when it seems like it's too much for you

On intimacy, he's always been quite shy with you, but he takes care to be a bit more delicate now as well, a little less abrupt and a little bit more communicative about what he wants to do, stopping immediately to check in if you seem uncomfortable in any way

After a few days, though, the wrath in him is about ready to burst, and for all the rage he feels for what this disgusting human did to you...

No, no, he's not going to immediately tear the fucker to shreds, he can't let them die that quickly, no

No, this person is going to suffer for what they did to you

He starts with just a light curse, as a warmup -- invisible barriers just pop up in their path from time to time, causing them to randomly trip and fall whenever they're walking around

While casting the spell, however, he can't help but grow angrier and angrier thinking about what they did to you

He hits them with no less than twenty-two other curses before he collects himself enough to put the spellbook down, each of which would be fairly minor on their own, but which collectively add up to a very miserable existence of constant embarrassments, humiliations, frustrations, and injuries

When he looks in on the damage a week later, he's rather pleased to find them utterly broken down, covered head-to-toe in little bruises and cuts

He's far from done however, and in the dead of night, he whisks them away to an old, abandoned house said to be haunted by vengeful ghosts, much like the stories of the House of Lamentation

There, he immobilizes them with another curse and sets to work with a sharp-tipped pen, carving every last word of what you told him into your ex's flesh

His hand is steady as the pen slices into their body, but each time he reaches a part that especially infuriates him, he can't help but dig the pen a bit deeper in, taking vicious delight in the way their eyes water in those moments, and the wheeze of pain that emerges from their frozen lips

Once he's written out everything you told him across their body, he does what would be unthinkable to an actual book but what he finds perfectly fitting for this human stain upon the world, and sets up a pulley to gradually lower them into a firepit in the backyard

As they are slowly engulfed by the flames, he reads the whole tale upon their body out loud to them, making sure they hear every last word and know exactly what they did wrong before they finally perish

ASMODEUS

The Avatar of Lust, while he perfectly understands and embodies desire, is not forgiving of those who disregard consent

To him, so much of the fun comes from seeing that desire and pleasure emerge from his partner, so what the fuck is even the point if they don't want it?

But, as the beautiful and beloved Asmodeus, it's his job to keep everyone smiling and bright, and that's exactly what he's going to do for you

As you tell him about your past, he alternates between fussing over you to try to make you feel better, and quietly fuming over what your ex did

Over time, he helps you feel more in control of your own body again as well, empowering you to feel like it's really yours and yours alone, mixing fashion with feelings of safety and comfort, and always ready with the compliments to boost your self-esteem

Gradually, only if you want to, he'll help you get comfortable with intimacy again -- with his sensitivity to lust, he can always tell if something starts to feel wrong to you, and he'll stop immediately if that happens

Whether you want to take it slow, or try out some wild kink that might be therapeutic, or anything else, he's just excited for anything you want to do, and he'll make sure it's the best possible experience for you

As for your ex, he's sure they'll land themselves down in the Devildom eventually anyway, but if you want them taken care of sooner than that, he'll have a blast doing it -- it's been a while since he's had to a good chance to really use his scorpion venom!

And if not, hey, he'll have a chance to wreak his revenge when they eventually do arrive, in any case

He'll even invite you along too, if you'd like a turn at revenge by your own hands <3

Though his eyes can charm anyone, sometimes he finds it almost more fun to shrink them with magic and physically string them up like a puppet, and he's happy to hand you the reins if you want them

For his own fun, he manipulates the marionette strings to have your ex dance their way through any number of dangerous settings -- spikes, lava, fire, swamps, ghostly manors, you name it

He makes sure they hit every trap or flame on the way through, and malevolently flings them into those points in the most painful ways possible

With the strings, he also bends their body in impossibly painful ways, contorting them into bizarre and freakish poses and laughing over how ridiculous they look

If you want to participate, he teaches you how to move them around too

When you decide you've had enough, he drags the limp doll that your ex has become through coals and discards the charred remains into a lake of corrosive acid

There, your ex, still just barely conscious, feels their body slowly breaking down until they dissolve to nothing

BEELZEBUB

Beelzebub, in his ever-protective way, grows angry as you tell him about your abusive ex, but first and foremost his concern is making sure you're okay

He's quiet -- quieter than usual, even -- but fully present for you, reassuring you in the warm comfort of his large embrace

He holds you gently the whole time you're talking, and even for a while after, making sure you're feeling okay before he lets go

As thanks for being brave enough to talk about it, and for trusting him enough to tell him, he takes you out for anything at all that you'd like to eat, showering you with affection

He's perfectly happy to take it slow if/when you do eventually decide to ease into anything sexual, and he's so, so careful about his strength and size

His excellent sense of smell helps to guide him too, able to pick up the scents of happiness, desire, fear, lack thereof if you're dissociating, etc., and he adjusts himself accordingly to keep you feeling safe

And in general, though he may not have known you back then, he's filled with resolve to at least protect you from here on out

He won't fail to keep safe someone he cares about, not again -- and that means taking care of any lingering threats from your old life, too

It takes a bit of searching for Beelzebub to find your ex, but he goes up to the human realm and manages to seek them out soon enough because flies are good at seeking out rotting piles of trash

It takes a lot of restraint not to gobble them up on the spot and be done with it, but for how much they put you through, he thinks they deserve to suffer at least a bit

He snatches them away to a hidden alley behind a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, long after they've closed for the night but with the fragrant scent of meaty burgers still lingering through the air

If the shot of venom didn't already leave their muscles feeling tender, the incessant hits of the brutal physical beating from Beel certainly does

No part of their body is spared from the onslaught of punches and kicks, as joints pop apart and bones start peeking out from flesh through the wounds

Thin, spear-like tubes emerge from Beelzebub's mouth, piercing various veins across their neck and arms so he can drink up all the blood from their veins before it spills out all over the alley floor -- it'd be a waste of a perfectly good drink, after all

Once they're fully drained, he cracks open their carcass, carving each bone loose with knife-like claws for him to crunch on

Then into the restaurant's industrial meat grinder goes the rest of their body

Beel feasts with a certain satisfaction that night upon piles and piles of cheese-world humanburgers human-world cheeseburgers

BELPHEGOR

As you tell Belphegor about your past and your history with your abusive ex, he gives you his full, undivided attention

His stomach drops, as his prior deception and manipulation of you comes into full focus in light of all you had already been through

Holding you close, he whispers words of comfort and strokes your head gently until you fall asleep for the night, holding his own rest at bay until he's sure you've drifted off first

As a quiet, unspoken apology, he places soft and peaceful dreams upon you that night, filling your dream world with all the things he knows you love

If you're open to it, he also later creates dreams for you where things happened differently, quick to pull you out if anything starts going wrong but letting you get a redo on those traumatic moments where you have more power or where you can watch a cartoonish anvil drop on your ex's head to stop them, whatever works really

Intimacy comes gradually, if/when you're ready, happy to follow or take the lead as you prefer, but communicative every step of the way so that you always feel safe

And as for your ex...

Belphegor already held the opinion for a long time that humans were shit -- but until this moment, he had dropped his desires to destroy them, after everything with Lilith had come to light

But you're still a human, after all, and he loves you, so he'll settle for taking care of just this particular shitstain of a human being

Needless to say, your ex never knows a peaceful night's sleep again

Each time they close their eyes to rest, devilish apparitions appear at the edges of their vision, and menacing claws and teeth rip at their ankles, chasing them across worlds

At times, when the teeth manage to catch them in their grasp, their dreams turn to endless loops of being chewed up and spit out over and over on end

The resulting constant exhaustion is a nightmare of its own, as they begin to fear falling asleep and desperately try to wake themselves any time they feel sleep coming on

However, in their waking hours, too, Belphie twists and warps shadows around them, until the lines between life and dreams blur together

They are practically sobbing for death by the time he comes for them personally, though he's not so merciful as to be quick about it even then

He chokes them to unconsciousness but lets go each time they fall unconscious, dragging the sharp prickly parts of his tail across their face to wake them back up before doing it over again

Once their face has been torn up beyond recognition by these repeated cycles, he finishes them off by trampling across their body in cow form and leaving them to suffocate slowly from their punctured lungs

[sassykinzonline]

Rank Naruto across the ages

ok...? objectifying naruto is my favourite pastime

10. Blank Period Naruto

he looks like a dork and a fed, this is what heterosexuality does to a mfer.

luckily he didnt look like this in real life, his face was still pretty round and his hair was longer. he did wear a jacket like that but with an orange uzushio shirt underneath, and orange and blue track pants like obito's.

9. The Last Naruto

he looks like hes in basic training. hate it. once again his face didnt look like that and his hair is stupid. naruto has never been one for fashion but he wouldnt dress like someone's dad at age 19, cmon now. its only slightly better than the blank period one because the scarf is a cute callback to his childhood.

8. Boruto Naruto

the outfit is fine. the haircut is awful. i like that we have matching capes. the face looks more like him than the others did. this one ranks higher than the others because of the dilf appeal but thats really all that redeems it. this scene too.

7. The Naruto that Loved me

after we lost our arms but before we got the implants. we spent a lot of time together before i left, so the manga/anime version of us feels very cold. he also wore a yukata during this time, not pants and a shirt. he said it was more comfortable that way. this is where they get closer to representing naruto as he is, so it ranks higher than the others even though im not too much of a fan.

6. Genin Naruto

hold your shocked gasps until the end. this is the version of naruto i had the most conflict with, it's probably the most painful and distant our relationship has ever been. even when we were apart as teenagers, i felt at peace with how i felt about him compared to this time period. it's just marked with fear, his obliviousness and his own problems with me and himself. but he was still mostly cute and soft here so it ranks high.

5. Enter, Naruto

the naruto you see at the start of the series. i kissed this naruto so there's sentimental value in him. but again, he really hated me and even though i thought it was funny i probably would've just preferred he didnt. the goggles are lame also.

4. Newborn Naruto

adorable and pure. i cried the moment he was born because i knew my life had changed. i want to protect him. he is my dream.

3. Naruto, the village Troublemaker

the naruto that started it all. a total dickhead. the birth of usuratonkachi. but somehow also always bringing me the peace i needed during the worst time of my life. the only reason hes here instead of 2 is because 2 was slightly cuter, but i wish i had been able to hold this version of him too.

2. Naruto, the village Pariah

i cannot understand how anyone can look at this cherub and push him around, pour water on him, scream, hit, and curse at him. he was somehow even purer than how he was as a newborn despite all the horrors he experienced as a child. the manga doesnt go into detail, the anime is more true to life but still doesnt even scratch the surface. there are still things i find out from him now that we're adults. this was the first time i saw him (except he was wearing a scarf then), and everything happened in a flash. the seed was planted in my heart.

Naruto, my hero

this is the naruto i fell in love with the moment i saw him. it's the naruto that blooms into everything he didnt exactly know he wanted, but what he did know he needed. when naruto and i die, this is probably the time period our souls will be stuck in. what else can i say about him? its the naruto who struggles the most, succeeds the most, hurts the most, hurts others the most, but we love the most because he is so human. and it gave us sage mode, which is super hot. and the general mesh shirt/half-naked beach babe vibe he gives off for a bit is also great for the eye. the naruto he is now is just a continuation of this one.

[vulpeskorsak]

Day 21 of Whumptober 2024: The Rug

No. 21: BODY HORROR Tattoo Gun | Spirit Possession | “Let the bedsheet soak up the tears.” (Apparat feat. Soap & Skin, Goodbye)

AO3 got banned in my country and VPNs have not been working well on my PC lately, so I am not going to post these there for now. But hopefully I can do that at some point.

This is taking place in my own DnD/fantasy world.

Dr. Victor Moreau is my mostly human fleshsmith inventor (KibblesTasty Homebrew class).

Ludwig Richter is a tiefling and a former gravedigger turned archeologist who wields a rifle and a battle shovel named Charon.

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

The Rug

When Victor returns to his medical tent, the fresh body they have recovered from the bog is no longer on the surgery table. He hums to himself in intrigued confusion. He did not order anyone to get rid of it or move it. There is plenty more he can uncover about its cause of death and origins. And he himself certainly did not move it. He might be considered a mad scientist, but he is not an amnesiac.

Then where the fuck could it be?

He is fascinated by this small mystery. Small in the grand scheme of their archeological expedition, of course. Disappearing bodies are quite significantly mysterious on their own.

He looks around to see nothing out of the ordinary, so he gets on his hands and knees to check under the beds.

Nothing.

Nothing but a sound of water dripping on the table.

He looks up to finally find it, spread out along the entire ceiling of the large medical tent like a giant flesh rug. Skin, bones and muscles appear to be melted, flattened and stretched out to achieve such thinness. Watered down greenish blood is dripping out of its mouth right above the table. As its half-melted eyes meet Victor's they begin to glow white and the flesh rug begins to emit a gurgling hissing noise. The flesh around where its throat used to be starts to engorge like a balloon with something liquid.

Victor giggles in excitement and waves at the thing. He has not seen a creature this fun in ages. Many emaciated ghouls or bloated zombies, many awakened skeletons and specters but this is… very refreshing. It appears to be some kind of body possession, judging by the glowing eyes, but he wonders if he can make something like that with his alchemical and surgical skills.

He makes a dash for his chemicals cabinet just at the thing vomits a stream the more intensely green liquid in his rough direction. Its aim is piss poor though and it only gets the corner of the table, slowly melting it as it drips down.

The cabinet is full many different pouches, jars and bottles, labeled in barely coherent shorthand but he know exactly what he needs here. Tranquilizer. He could fight acid with acid, he has plenty of that but he cannot let this thing be destroyed before he can study it.

He grabs the bottle he needs as well as his tranquilizer crossbow from the bottom of the cabinet. And quickly slams the door shut as another stream is sent at him. His cabinet can withstand stronger acid than what this thing can muster up but not everything inside it can.

Some of the acid catches him in the shoulder, making him yelp out in pained excitement as it corrodes his skin. Where is the fun in catching a monster like that without some challenge?

He slides under the table and begins loading up his crossbow, preparing to fire several high concentration shots one after another. This thing's bloodstream is spread out all over the place and it will, probably, not die that easily at this point. It might be also immune to being tranquilized but that is a problem for the future Victor.

More acid slams down onto the table, right from the top this time. He will need to acquire a new one quite urgently. Somehow. This expedition has just begun after all. He will have plenty of patients.

He sticks his hand out from under the melting table and begins firing semi-blind shots all over the ceiling. He does not need to worry about hitting it after all.

The gurgling from the above intensifies, sounding a touch distressed at being attacked so many times. The next blast fully melts through the table, making Victor scuttle away on all fours under the nearby sick bed, leaving his crossbow behind. If the tranquilizer works, he will not need to fire any more shots. And if it does not... well, he might have to kill it.

He waits, peeking out a little to see what it is doing.

To his luck, as the flesh rug prepares for another attack, its gurgling starts slowing down and the edges peel off from the ceiling. In a few more seconds it detaches so much that it can no longer hold itself up there, slowly falling down, covering most of the tent like a blanket.

"What the fuck did you do to the body, Victor?!"

He can hear Ludwig's voice muffled by the flesh blanket but he is unsure what it is saying. But he sounds disgusted and very confused.

Victor quickly pushes at the blanket to get it off the bed he is hiding under and climbs out.

"This is not my doing, love!" He reassures the head of the expedition. "This time!"

He is not sure how he is going to study this thing, but it will be a blast.

[recordstellar-official]

A Sword Through The Fog

Scene 3: The Father Principle & Guardian Spirit

"A muffin and two chili dogs please!"

Daniel stood in front of Adrubbahk's forge and grill, the one restaurant that used the smelter as its kitchen. It wasn't sanitary, and most who ate there got sick, but curiously, the human was surprisingly immune.

The forgemaster eyed him suspiciously as he served the dogs on a lead tray. Daniel wasted no time devouring the chili dogs and mopping the leftover chili with the muffin. He burped in satisfaction as he walked out.

Juhn stood in front of the forge's exterior, arms crossed.

"Oh you don't look too happy," his father replied.

"Oh, I don't? Where is your scry-board, father!?"

"I gave it away."

"Gave it away?!" Juhn's eyes widened in disbelief.

"What? You're here in front of me. So it couldn't have been that inconvenient. By the way, how's Raina?"

"Don't try to change the subject! How could you be so irresponsible!"

Daniel blinked in disbelief.

Juhn's ex needed it more, but Juhn didn't know so that could be forgiven.

He shrugged before answering.

"Well, I asked Dulni for a favor and she needed it for that since they confiscated hers when she arrived in Feygard."

Juhn composed himself at the mention of his ex's name. His eyebrow arched as he tried to think up the reasons his father considered her a good candidate.

"She's far better at relic hunting than you give her credit for," Daniel said as if reading his son's mind.

"It's not that. I've never known you to reject an offer from the LHS," Juhn replied.

Daniel stuck his hand through the astral projection. Juhn's mouth widened in astonishment.

"What? I just wanted to see how you got here. What device are you using this time?"

Juhn's eyebrows furrowed.

"It's ritual magic combined with an artifact. I'm outside my study right now in one of the custodial closets."

"Cool. Can I have one?"

"No. I'm sure you'd just give it away," Juhn replied.

"Oh," Daniel's mood dropped as the word escaped his lips.

"So why'd you reject the assignment?"

"Oh because I read Raina's book. It's no wonder she's having nightmares. Ancient Kaihuatan artifacts tend to have that effect."

"And?"

"Well I sent her to you. Because you'd be better help than me. You're more experienced with curses - you get that from your mom. I just play with artifacts."

"Wait, a curse?"

"Oh yeah, that's why I can't go after the relic. I've got to get the curse off of me. I hope you didn't read the book. You read the book, didn't you? You get that from me."

Daniel's wide grin somehow made him punchable. It was one of the rare times Juhn understood what it felt like to want to lay someone out for their smugness. He let the urge die.

"What exactly is this curse?" he asked.

"Just fateful premonitions. How're you feeling?"

Juhn staggered back. Fire consumed the forge behind his father.

"You see the the taco bar, grill and forge on fire too," Daniel stated.

"How exactly are you going to remove the curse?"

"My brother," Daniel replied. "He's got something I can use. But it only works once and I'm sure it wouldn't work on your friend. It might work on you though, but I doubt your mother would approve."

Juhn felt the gravity of that last statement hit him. The possibility that Kadya would encourage him to carry that burden. It was so believable it hurt.

"So uncle Caros has something that can cure you?"

"Yes, it'll hurt though. He'll have to stab me a few times with it. I am not looking forward to it, but these visions are distracting. Oh, hello giant Arnd'thuul crushing the mayor's office. I know you're not real."

Juhn stood terrified as he saw a long, lanky shadow-being strolling nonchalantly among the wanton destruction being wreaked. In an instant the beast, fires, and horror were gone. He took a deep breath. This was what Raina was seeing. By Ora Da, it was no wonder why she was distressed.

"You don't have access to any mages who could help with this?! You work at a college full of them!"

Daniel's voice took on a more serious tone.

"Juhn. That book chose her. And the only reason it's affecting us is because we're also linked to her past. Maybe in ways that are better not known, but still. I saw things. Things I can't tell you about yet, but I promise, after I work things out with my twin, I'll share. Get some chamomile and mix it with ginger. Ginger is known to combat nightmares. And take some for yourself. You'll need it. Oh and I'm supposed to console you or something. But you already know everything is exactly as it needs to be."

Juhn's eyes narrowed in dissatisfaction, but he knew his father was right. Ora Laho damn it, he was right.

Juhn popped back awake in the janitor's closet next door to his office. A hand was on his mouth.

"Don't make a sound. You wouldn't want to worry your girlfriend."

Dorathi. Tonight might as well have been a family reunion.

At this rate, I might as well get everyone in the family in here,Juhn thought to himself.

"Sorry for the pseudo-reunion, but I really needed to get to you."

Juhn's eyes narrowed in annoyance as his cousin dropped her hand from his face.

"Why are you here?"

"I was assigned to assist you with the nightmares you and your crush will be having," Dorathi replied.

"She's not my crush!" Juhn whispered.

"Whatever. Anyways, you're going to need this."

Dorathi handed Juhn a sack.

"This is bird seed! Why would I need bird seed!?"

Today was only getting more confusing. Juhn barged out of the closet and walked back into the room.

"Sorry, reaching father required more.. eccentric methods this time. Why don't we head to my place? I can cook you something there."

"It's ok, I'm done with dinner," she replied.

Raina stood and collected her things. The two walked downstairs to the dining area and informed the advisor and his wife that they'd be leaving. Juhn encouraged Lialka to stay and entertain the guests - she at least owed him that- - and got into his auto-carriage.

The drive was quiet; Juhn was too busy trying to ignore the altered landscape before him. As they journeyed through the winding road, Juhn couldn't help but reflect upon the events of the past week. He pondered the choices he had made and the consequences they had brought upon him. The weight of his decisions felt heavier with each passing mile. The silence between them grew denser, suffocating the air in the carriage. Raina glanced at Juhn, a hint of concern in her eyes, but said nothing. The world outside seemed to mirror the unease within their hearts. The once vibrant scenery that used to bring them joy now appeared dull and lifeless. The trees stood like silent sentinels, their branches drooping with an air of melancholy. Juhn's mind was filled with thoughts of what could have been, regrets and what-ifs swirling around him. He desperately sought solace in the distraction of driving, but found none. The stark reality of their situation was unavoidable, no matter how hard they tried to ignore it; Raina was going through her resonance, a form of elven puberty, far earlier than her kind usually did. And it was far more potent than anything Juhn or any of his elven cousins had experienced. And all from a book. This was big, and the enormity seemed to permeate everything, including the twisted landscape.

The auto-carriage continued its steady pace, its wheels turning on the path carved by their choices. Juhn felt as though he was on a never-ending journey, trapped within the confines of his own mistakes. The weight of responsibility settled heavily upon his shoulders, a constant reminder of the path he had chosen. Raina's presence provided a faint glimmer of hope amidst the darkness that consumed him. Her unwavering support and understanding gave him strength to face the uncertain future that lay ahead. With each passing moment, Juhn's determination grew stronger. He vowed to make amends, to find a way to mend what had been broken. The road stretched out before them, a symbol of the path yet to be traveled. And as they ventured further into the unknown, Juhn knew that the journey would be arduous, but he also knew that he would not face it alone. Together, they would navigate the twists and turns of fate, and emerge stronger on the other side.

[somedayonbroadway]

Criminal Minds au?

Criminal Minds AU

TW: kidnapping, split personality, beatings

Season 2 Episode 15: Revelations

Race sucked in a breath. He rolled his head on his neck and bit back a whimper when he felt a pain surge through his head. It didn’t help that all he could see was a single lightbulb hanging above him. If Jack hadn't made him watch so many horror movies, Race wouldn’t have even given it much thought, but the memories flooded back to him, hitting him hard. The young man quickly reminded himself that now was not the time to be the kid everyone saw him as. He had to be an agent right now. He could do this. He was trained in combat, he knew how to handle a gun, he was the whiz kid. He could be brave too. He didn’t need to be terrified.

But as the unsub looked over him, Race’s heart sped up. He couldn’t fully open his eyes, but he could still see the troubled man before him, scowling at him. Race looked around for Spot, wondering if he’d gotten hurt too. But Race was alone. “They’re gone.”

The young FBI agent winced as the voice split through his brain. It didn’t matter how quiet it was. “Who?”

“It’s just me now.” Just him. Race didn’t know what that meant. He went to reach for his gun, before he realized he wasn’t just sitting in a chair, he was bound to it, wrists at his side and ankles pulled under the chair, neatly cinched together. He could barely move. There was something awful cooking in the corner. Race tried to see what it was, his eyes automatically drifting to the small stove, but the man in front of him grabbed his chin. “Don’t you look away from a man of God, you lousy little demon!”

Fighting the urge to flinch, Race swallowed hard. “Rafael?” he asked. “The angel, right? The lord, he sent you to deal with his sinners.” That’s what the man believed at least. “Wh-what do you have cooking? Sm-smells like fish—“

“You will learn to hold your tongue in the presence of a holy man,” Rafael growled. “Fish heart and liver help keep away the devil, so you can’t see into my mind.”

With a harsh swallow, Race shook his head. He tried to remind himself he could still breathe. “I can’t read your mind, I study human behavior, it’s all just evidence and data…” the boy closed his mouth when he saw the gun in the man’s hand.

A bullet was held right in front of Race’s face. “Do you know what this is?” Race didn’t dare answer. He wasn’t sure a quick quip wouldn’t get him killed, though it was all that came to mind. “This is God’s will.” He placed the single bullet into the revolver and spun it around till he didn’t know where it was. Race lost sight of it too, and tears began welling up.

Then he pointed it right between the young doctor’s eyes. Maybe Race hated being the kid on the team, maybe he hated the jokes and the way the team would never let him go out alone, but he would kill for one of Jack’s hugs right now, a tussle of his hair from Katherine, a pat on the shoulder from their fearless leader. He held back tears. He wasn’t ready to die. He tried to do the math in his head to calculate the odds. 83.3% chance of survival and all Race could focus on was there other 17.7%. “You don’t have to do this, I can help you.”

“That’s exactly what the Devil would say,” Rafael growled before pulling the trigger.

—

“He’s not here,” the words sent chills down Jack’s spine as Spot stared at the cornfield like he wished it would take him too.

Spot shook his head and looked back at the dogs he’d shot down. “It was all a distraction. I was so stupid—“

“You were being attacked, it wasn’t your fault,” Jack insisted, marching out of the room to try and find any kind of clue of where Dr. Anthony Higgins had been taken to.

—

When the door opened again, Race looked up at the man walking in. The same man who had been there before, but something about him was different, the way he carried himself. He had wood for the fire where the fish were being burned to keep the devil away. Race could feel blood trickling down the side of his head. He wiggled a bit in the ropes that held him still and sniffled. “Who are you?” Race asked. “Tobias?” Tobias. That was the man’s name, the real man’s name. Some would call him a host. He was multiple people living in one, twisted brain.

“Shut up, boy,” the man growled. “No talking.”

It was an order and Race knew it, but he couldn’t help himself. “I j-just wanted to thank you for trying to save me, f-for keeping us safe—“

There was no holding back the flinch that wracked Race’s body when his captor threw a piece of wood over his head. The agent ducked to try and keep his head intact. Then the man was hovering over him, hands on either side of Race’s hips. “Don’t try to lie to me, boy.”

This personality seemed older than the body it was in. Race pressed his legs together, not enjoying how helpless he felt beneath the much larger, very violent man who had him in a very hopeless position. “I would never lie to you,” Race insisted.

“Lying is a sin—“

“I’m not a liar, I’m not a liar,” Race tried as the man reached beneath the chair and untied Race’s leg. The boy kicked at him, knowing it wouldn’t do much good. His shoes were slid off of his feet and the man tightly held one of his ankles. He breathed hard. “Wait! Wait! Please!” His heart raced when he saw the man take out a small whip. “Wait!”

“This can be over quickly. Just confess to your sins,” the man instructed.

Still, Race shrugged. He didn’t know what that meant, if it meant the hurting would stop or his life. So he shook his head. “I’m not a sinner, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I can help you if you’ll let me. I can make one phone call and a friend can come out here and we can go confess our sins together—“ Race let out a cry when the whip came down on his foot.

“Shut up or I will have to shut you up myself,” the old man growled.

The young man squeezed his eyes shut when the whip was raised again. “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners!” Race braced himself for pain but it didn’t come. “M-Matthew 9:13…”

The man was staring at him. “You know the Bible?”

Desperately, Race nodded. “Yes! I know the Bible—“

“The devil can read too,” the man remembered, raising up the whip again. The higher the angle, the more it would hurt.

“No! No, it’s not like that, I can recite it to you, the whole Bible, beginning to end,” Race pleaded. “I know it, every word.” It wasn’t even a lie. He did. He’d read it one morning. The man scowled at him. “Please, please, let me recite the Bible. Please let me recite the Bible…”

His captor just brought the whip down on the bottom of the boy’s bare feet.

When the man was done, Race was trying to breathe. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t show the man his scared he was, but when his captor held his face in his hand and thumbed at his tears, Race figured that was already out of the question. Now even if he did get out of the ropes, he couldn’t run, not like this. He glanced at the door waiting for it to be broken down, maybe by Denton or Spot, but all Race really wanted was Jack. He knew it was stupid but Jack was the only big brother he’d ever really had. Ever since they’d known each other, Jack had been the one protecting him with all he had.

When Race forced himself to look back up at his tormentor, he found that someone was gathering ingredients for a sandwich. He tilted his head. “Tobias?” he whispered.

The man turned back, his eyes wide. “Oh, he hurt you,” he noted, looking down at Race’s feet. “I’m sorry.” The apology ended there. Tobias sighed and grabbed the rope that had been around Race’s ankles and began to put them exactly there, tying the agents feet so they couldn’t brush against the ground. They were pulled beneath the chair. “I’m sorry I have to do this, father would kill me if I didn’t—“

“Tobias, you have to let me go,” Race pleaded. “I can help, all you have to do is let me.”

“You help? N-no, I help you,” he insisted, pulling a small vile and a needle out of his pocket and placing them on the floor. Race began to panic at that, struggling when Tobias wrapped a belt around his arm.

“Wait, no, please, please don’t—“

“It’ll help,” Tobias insisted, filling the needle and raising it to the crease of Race’s elbow.

The young blond shook his head. “No, no, I don’t want it, i-it no! No!” he screamed but the liquid was injected into his bloodstream anyway, making his cries and struggles go weak. Soon enough, the doctor’s head pulled back and all Race could do was stare blankly at the ceiling, praying he would be found in time. It wasn’t long till his eyes fell shut.

—

David was typing away at computers, trying like hell to find anything that could lead them to where Race was being kept. Jack had his hands on his shoulders when the screens went dark. “What happened?” Jack asked.

The tech genius shook his head and squinted. “I don’t know—“

They both froze when a clear image of Anthony showed up on each and every screen. Jack’s eyes widened. “Denton! Get in here!” he yelled. Race’s chin was down to his chest. He looked out of it. The whole team came running in and Jack didn’t notice.

The typing of the keyboard was loud as David tried to track the feed but nothing was working. “I can’t get a trace,” he grumbled, still trying.

A hand tightened in Race’s hair and pulled his head up. Race’s head was still beating. In fact, his eye was just about swollen completely. He breathed hard, looking around with his one good eye as the man with a hood over his head walked behind the camera. “He’s been beaten,” Jack noted. “When we find this guy, I’ll have his goddamn head on a stick!”

“Kelly,” Denton warned, a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

Race groaned and blinked slowly, shifting in his restraints. “Good morning, boy,” the old man said, back again it seemed. “Time to be the saving grace you always wanted to be,” he said, pointing at the three screens in front of him. “Two of them will die today. You get to chose who lives.”

The young man breathed hard and shook his head. “No,” he whispered. He could see the camera. It was one. “I’m not choosing. I’m not, please, let me go, we can talk about this—“ A hand tightened around Race’s neck.

“You chose one to save or I kill them all, and you save no one,” the man growled. Race whimpered so his captor shook him more, making the boy flinch. “I’m no liar, boy!” Race was shoved back against his chair with tears in his eyes. “The rest of the devils are watching. You tell me which one to save and they get the address.”

The camera. Race’s eyes flickered to it. They were there. They were watching, his team was watching. It took everything inside Race to remain calm and not immediately start begging them to just come and find him, please come and find him. So he swallowed hard and looked at the screens in front of him. He sniffled and picked, “the far right screen.” All the boy could do was sit and wait as the man wrote down a name and an address and showed the camera.

Race watched the screen go dark and he bit his lip. “Rafael…” he whispered before the man turned the camera off. He let more tears fall as the man left him watching those cameras, waiting for these innocent people to be murdered.

—

It felt like weeks. Race felt lightheaded, like he’d been drugged again. He wouldn’t be surprised. “Anthony? Anthony, if you can hear me, you’re stronger than him. He cannot break you…”

“Todd?” Race whispered. But the voice was gone in a second. Race lifted his gaze to the screens that Tobias was standing in front of. Replaying something. That’s when Race saw them. Todd. Todd Kloppman was trying to comfort him and when Race saw it, he melted, only wanting to cry more. But when Tobias turned to him, Race froze. “N-no, no..” he whimpered, struggling against the ropes once again. “Please, please, I didn’t do anything,” he whimpered.

“How do you read minds?”

“I don’t!” The beating started then. Race didn’t know the camera was on. He didn’t care. He just cried. He didn’t care anymore. He didn’t want to die. “Tobias! Help me, please, Tobias—“

“Tobias can’t help you, boy!”

Race shivered. He shook his head. “Jackie… Jack, please help me, please find me, please help me,” he begged. He didn’t know if Jack could hear him or if anyone would even miss him if he were killed right now, all he could do was hope. “I’m not a sinner, please, please help me…” the beating didn’t stop. Race saw a flash of a gravestone in the corner.

A gun was placed between his eyes again. “Which one of your teammates gets to die now, angel of death? Which one?”

“No! No! I won’t! I won’t choose!” Race cried. “No!” The man began to pull the trigger. 80% chance of survival. 75%. 66.7%. “Wait! Wait! Agent Bryan Denton! D-Denton…” he pleaded. “K-kill him, he’s a narcissist, please. He always tried to pretend like he was a father to me, but he’ll never be my real father—“ He prayed the camera was on. They had to find it, they had to understand.

The man nodded and left Race alone again after turning off the camera.

Only moments later, did he come back, a knife in hand. He sliced through Race’s bonds. “Stand and grab a shovel. Now.”

Race was too scared to protest. He stood and shakily grabbed the shovel as Tobias pointed a gun at him. “Walk…”

—

That’s how Race ended up in a cemetery, digging his own grave. He was trembling, sweating. His feet were screaming out in pain and he just wanted this to be over. “Any coward who turns on family deserves to die. You’ll go in alive as I bury you to give you time to think about what you’ve done.”

Race didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He just squeezed his eyes shut and cried, before he was able to look up at the man. “I’m sorry…” he whimpered. “I’m not st-strong enough ta dig—“

“Don’t talk back to me!“ Race grabbed at the gun on Tobias’s waist as his captor charged at him and he pointed it up at the man. 50% chance of survival. “There’s only one bullet in that gun, boy—“ the man raised up his knife so Race shot. The bullet hit the man right in the chest and Tobias fell to the ground. Race tried desperately to stand.

“Tony!” someone screamed.

Race couldn’t scream back. All he could do was crawl over to the man and hover before reaching into his pocket and stealing the suppressant he’d been using to keep Race subdued. In an instant, arms were around him, pulling him away and laying him down. “Tony, Racer, breathe, okay?”

“Jack,” Race’s hoarse voice managed to get out.

Jack hugged him tightly. “They’ve got him, you’re safe now, you’re safe,” he promised. “Where’re you hurt?”

Race sniffled. “M-my feet…” he whimpered. “I d-don’t know if I can walk…”

Jack nodded and smiled sadly. “That’s okay,” he whispered. “Put your arm around me, yeah?” Race did. It was all he could do. And he let Jack carry him to safety, knowing he may never be let out into the field again if his big brother had anything to say about it.

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

I was looking through your older requests and stuff from 3rd life, and I remembered the one with Scott and Jimmy nearly getting sacrificed to Dogwarts and I thought hmmm...demons, red aesthetics, a generally more powerful side?

Basically, I think it would be cool to have a version of that with Sausage and fWhip trying to sacrifice Jimmy.

(And wow, Jimmy really can't get a break with religious tones after EVO, huh?)

THIS. is genuinely one of my favourite things i've ever written, if not THE favourite. i'm so so proud of it :D

cw beating, blood

…

Jimmy no longer has the energy to scream or fight. Having been beaten periodically throughout the day, his chest and neck are in too much pain for him to move. Sitting slumped in the tiny cell he’s been put in with his hands tied behind his back, all he can do is keep fighting against the dull pain all over his body threatening to drag him into unconsciousness.

All he can do is keep fighting to stay awake.

Finally, they come for him. Led by fWhip, Sausage pulls Jimmy out of the former’s base and out to the altar that’s been set up in the centre of Sausage’s castle.

Jimmy knows exactly what’s coming. Neither fWhip nor Sausage has made any secret of what they intend to do to him. And after a full day of being kept in a cell, hands tied behind him, beaten every time he tried to escape or fight back, he doesn’t have the strength to try and stop it.

As they push him onto the altar, Jimmy stumbles. As a response, Sausage hits him in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. Seconds from passing out, Jimmy is powerless to stop Sausage from pulling him up onto his knees.

Coughing weakly, Jimmy slowly lifts his head to look at his captors. “Wh-Why are you doing this…?” he croaks. “What did I do…?”

“Sorry Jimmy, but Xornoth demands a sacrifice,” fWhip responds, and Jimmy can almost hear a twinge of genuine remorse in his voice.

Jimmy tries to push himself up in one final desperate attempt to escape but his chest and throat are screaming in pain and he’s unable to stop Sausage from pushing him back down and holding him in place.

“Please…!” he rasps, pulling weakly at the ropes binding his wrists. “Please…”

Neither of them respond as Sausage pushes Jimmy’s head down and fWhip lifts the axe.

Tears fall from Jimmy’s bruised eyes. He wishes he could fight back but he barely has the strength to stay conscious. If he has to die, he’ll die with as much dignity as he can.

“STOP!”

Jimmy again lifts his head, and though he can’t see very well through his blurred vision, he can make out a figure standing on the wall several blocks away.

“Pixl,” Sausage growls.

fWhip’s demeanour completely changes. All his remorse and carefulness disappears as he roughly hauls Jimmy to his feet by the scruff of his neck and holds his sword against his throat, angling Jimmy in front of him like a human shield.

“Don’t come any closer,” he says coldly but calmly.

“Let Jimmy go,” Pixl orders, lifting his trident and aiming it directly at fWhip. “Now.”

fWhip’s grip on Jimmy tightens. “You’re in no position to bargain. One quick movement and we’ll see how much blood the Codfather has inside him.”

Nausea rises in Pixl’s stomach at the grisly mental image. “I’m not saying this again, fWhip: LET. JIMMY. GO.”

“How did you know to come here?” Sausage snaps suddenly. “You live thousands of blocks away!”

“I told him.”

It takes Jimmy’s fuzzy mind a moment to recognise this new voice but when he does, his heart skips a beat.

“Scott?” A hint of surprise is audible in fWhip’s voice. “Why would you do that?”

“Because what you’re doing is barbaric,” replies Scott icily. “Now listen to the Copper King and let Jimmy go.”

“What do we do?” whispers Sausage to his ally.

fWhip narrows his eyes, his analytical mind trying to calculate the odds of him winning this fight.

As he does, he twists the sword in his hand and nicks Jimmy’s neck with the sharp blade, causing him to let out a semi-conscious cry of pain.

That sound triggers something in Pixl and he lets his trident fly. His aim is remarkable and it slams into a tiny piece of fWhip’s armour visible just to the side of Jimmy.

fWhip staggers back, releasing his grip on the Cod Empire ruler, who collapses to the floor like a stone. “Retreat,” he hisses to Sausage. “We won’t win this fight.”

Sausage, clearly needing no further encouragement, takes off into the air with his elytra, followed closely by fWhip.

Immediately, Pixl and Scott both rush to the unconscious Jimmy’s side. Scott pulls out his dagger and cleanly slices through the ropes binding Jimmy’s wrists, while Pixl carefully rolls him into a position on his back. 

“Jimmy!” he gently cups his friend’s cheek as he leans close, trying to awaken him. “Jimmy, can you hear me?”

When he gets no reply, a horrifying thought occurs to him and he hurriedly checks Jimmy’s pulse.

“He’s alive,” he says in relief. “But only just.”

“He’s really beaten up,” Scott observes shakily. “How could fWhip and Sausage do this to him…?”

Pixl carefully lifts Jimmy into his arms and straightens up, making sure Jimmy’s head is secure against his chest. When he speaks, his voice is low and barely controlled. “I don’t know. But we need to get his injuries seen to as soon as possible.”

“Take him to his house,” says Scott. “Gem and I have been working on healing magic so I’ll fly over and get some of that to help him.”

“Okay. Good luck.”

“You too.”

As Scott takes off into the air, Pixl rushes back to Jimmy’s house and carefully lays him down on the bed. As he removes Jimmy’s gloves, he spots bulging red burn marks left over from where the ropes dug into his wrists.

This simple sight almost unleashes Pixl’s barely-contained fury. Tears of anger spring to his eyes as he gazes down at the bruised face of his unconscious friend, twisted in pain even in sleep.

He turns his head to look out at the darkness through the window. fWhip and Sausage needed a sacrifice for their stupid demon and they chose the easiest target. It makes Pixl’s blood boil to see them continually pick on Jimmy just because he’s unable to fight back.

A weak cough brings Pixl’s attention back to his injured friend. To his horror, he sees blood pooling at the corner of Jimmy’s mouth, so he leans down and checks his young friend’s breathing.

As he’s doing this, Scott returns, holding a leather pouch in his hands. “How’s he doing?” he asks worriedly.

“He’s not breathing well,” says Pixl quietly. “And he’s coughing up blood. A few more minutes and we may lose him. What have you got?”

“I have a healing crystal,” Scott reports, pulling a magenta crystal out of the pouch in his hands. “It should heal any internal injuries and ease his pain, but external injuries won’t be affected.”

“That’s fine. Do it.”

Scott moves over to Jimmy’s bedside and closes his eyes as he holds the crystal over Jimmy’s body. The crystal glows magenta, and similar-coloured energy starts to flow from it into Jimmy.

Pixl watches this with interest. He’s never had an affinity for nature magic and it intrigues him how crystals can have such magical properties. But soon his interest is outweighed by the relief that the colour has returned to Jimmy’s skin and his chest isn’t heaving so much anymore.

Finally, Scott lowers the crystal, which has stopped glowing, and tucks it back into the bag. “That should help,” he says.

“Good,” murmurs Pixl. “He looks like he’s breathing easier.”

Scott nods, not trusting himself to speak again.

A brief pause follows.

“I want to ask you something,” Pixl says, in a tone that makes it clear he expects no argument. “Why did you call me?”

Scott glances at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“You’re on their side. Why would you want to go against them like that?”

After a moment, Scott looks away. “Because a long time ago, Jimmy told me he didn’t want to look me in the eyes as I get sacrificed on an altar; I realised earlier that I didn’t want the reverse.”

Pixl nods slowly. He, like many others, heard about what happened on 3rd Life and even though he isn’t aware of specifics, he can’t help thinking that Scott’s remark is tied into that.

Scott lifts Jimmy’s limp hand and pushes back his sleeve slightly to reveal the burn marks that Pixl noticed earlier. He gives a deep frown as he tenderly traces the mark with his finger. “I don’t understand how they can do something like this to someone they once called their friend,” he murmurs. “No matter how much things have changed, he… They… You just don’t do that to someone.”

Pixl nods again as Scott carefully places Jimmy’s arm back down on the bed. As he turns to leave, he again glances back at Jimmy and hesitates. After a moment, he reaches out and gently brushes the bruise over Jimmy’s eye with the backs of his fingers, unable to hide a deep frown of worry.

“Why do you treat him so coldly all the time?” Pixl asks. “You clearly care for him a great deal and he cares about you. Why do you continue to push him away?”

Scott takes a moment to compose himself and steady his voice before he replies. “I’ve already gone through the pain of losing him once. I can’t do it again. I’m sorry, but I have to go now.”

Pixl almost argues but thinks better of it. “Okay. Thank you, Scott. For calling me and for helping Jimmy.”

“Of course. Goodnight, Pixl.”

“Goodnight.”

After Scott has left, Pixl locks the door behind him and pulls up a chair next to Jimmy’s bed. His friend’s face is a lot less pale than it was, though the bruise over his left eye and the thin cut in his neck are still very much visible.

Feeling a wave of affection and protectiveness, Pixl gently strokes Jimmy’s shoulder and takes a great deal of relief from seeing a small smile appear on Jimmy’s face in his sleep. Every instinct in his body is urging him to fly out there and enact vicious revenge on the people who did this to his friend.

“I’ll make them pay for hurting you,” he vows quietly. “I swear.”

[mrsmaybank]

My Little Sun - Reid x Reader

“Ridiculously perfect.” I held her tighter as she looked up at me and our eyes locked, “I’ve fallen ridiculously in love with you.” “So my evil plan worked then?” She chirped.

CONTENT WARNINGS: AGE GAP, VIOLENCE, KIDNAPPING, PREGNANCY, STALKING, LANGUAGE probably the misuse of a Russian word  IF THERES MORE LMK 

A/N: Okay, let me be honest rq this idea lowk scared me but the words really just fell out of my brain really easily so, yk fuck it whatever.  ANYWAY, if you like, please let me know! 

pt 2, pt 3 “I love you Spencer.” The words immediately melted me. 

“I know so many things.” She gave me an unapproving look. 

“I don’t mean to sound cocky, but I do! Now for once in your life, listen to me.” She nodded her head in concession.

“I’ve just read more, I’ve written more, I’ve discovered and studied more than the average person. I could tell you a little bit about anything with one hundred percent certainty. I could--and want--to tell you the names of all the stars, I could recite verbatim the entirety of Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus or Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, which you know, speaking of I will ‘cause I still can’t believe you haven’t read it,” Her smile flattened into a straight line, and I laughed. “Orrr, I could also tell you something simple, like why we get the hiccups.” I shook my head. 

“Regardless, I know so many things and I’m rarely taken by surprise because of it. Everything in life is a pattern of change, and as a human, we will always adjust and adapt to whatever situation we are in. For better or worse, we don’t feel the same thing for very long. This is why an addict takes a couple more every time, a sadist hits his second victim harder than the first, they’re searching for the high of the first time, and it will never come.”

She nodded in understanding, 

 “I know this is true, it’s factual, and yet every time I look at you it feels like the first. You’ve broken the laws of human psychology.” 

“First time you saw me was at a gas station Spencer.” 

“No. The first time I looked at you after I knew I loved you.” 

“Where were we?” 

“My car. You were dancing. You looked ridiculous.” 

“Ridiculously sexy? You mean?” She smiled. 

“Ridiculously perfect.” I held her tighter as she looked up at me and our eyes locked, “I’ve fallen ridiculously in love with you.” 

“So my evil plan worked then?” She chirped.

“It did indeed. You’ve become my solnyshko moyo.”

“Tell me that’s Russian dirty talk.” She said with a grin. 

“It’s better. It’s a term of endearment you’ve become the epitome of.” 

“And what’s that Dr. Reid?” she giggled. 

“My little sun. You’ve become my little sun. Following me around and bringing light and warmth.” She snuggled herself impossibly closer into my chest, wrapping one of her legs over mine. 

“Except for your feet!” I shrieked at her freezing toes meeting mine. 

“They’re not that cold you big baby!” she shouted. 

I laughed and kissed her sweetly, “I am not the baby here.” I said.  

“Please,” she started until I interrupted her with a kiss, “If you’re not the baby,” I kissed her again, “That implies I’M the baby,” Kiss, “And I’m not a” Kiss. 

“Shush baby.” I told her, but like always, she didn’t listen, instead sitting up to straddle me. My appreciation for her beauty was like how a prisoner appreciates freedom, and yet it was miniscule into what I found in her character. It blew my mind that a girl so perfect existed. 

“Rarely do great virtue and beauty dwell together. Francesco Petrarch.” I started, my hands making their way onto her hips, “That makes you a rarity.” 

“You’re spoiling me with nice words today Spencer.” “You’ve spoiled me. My frontal lobe is spoiled milk.” She laughed, wondering how I was going to manage to make this one romantic. 

“That’s the part of the brain responsible for sensibility and logical thinking, and you, little girl, have positively ruined it. You make me stupid.”

“I ruined the genius Dr. Reid with the 187 IQ? Makes sense. I’m like, way smarter.” 

“You are. So, so much smarter.” 

“I want that in writing.” she poked my chest. 

I pulled her down and kissed her forehead to whisper in her ear. “Not a chance.”

She pushed herself away and rolled her eyes at me like a bratty child does her nanny, and I continued, “ You’re smarter, but I’m more educated. I have more doctorates than you have years in university.” 

“Whatever…”

I brushed the hair away from her perfect face, “You tired baby?” 

She sighed and laid down, splaying herself on my chest, laying on me like I was the duvet. “Very.” 

I held her impossibly close, breathing in her scent and counting every time her heart thumped, her bpm said she was relaxed. Oh god, I wanted her like this forever. Relaxed in my arms, where nothing could touch us but each other. 

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“Must you work?” I sent the message to Spencer as I rolled over to his side of the bed in anticipation. I breathed in heavy, liking the way the pillow smelled like his laundry.

“Unfortunately.”  he responded. “Think you’ll be home this weekend?” 

“It’s not looking like it, little one. I’m sorry.” 

I didn’t reply. I was too sad to reply. I knew it’d make him feel guilty, which I didn’t want to do, cause like, his job and saving people and shit is important. But, it still wasn’t fair! At all. There was something very important I had to tell him. 

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Total darkness, and then way too much light. My head hurt and I couldn’t move. I was handcuffed to a wooden chair. There were chains around my torso and ankles. The room was a medical sort of bright. It smelled like bleach and rotting fruit. The walls were dilapidated, seeming to be made of tiles that were once white, but have turned yellow. 

What the FUCK? 

“Hello!” I shouted. My voice was so coarse it hurt. Shit. My head pulsed so badly it practically hurt to think, but I still racked my brain. 

Where am I? 

How’d I get here? 

Why am I here? 

I woke up again. Fuck, why can’t I think? Why can’t I do anything? 

“Hey, y/n.” A woman’s voice. A very stoic, cold, sounding female voice.

I’m not alone. Thank god, oh my god, I’m not alone. 

With the little strength I had, I lifted my head to see her. She wasn’t what I thought. She was alright, she wasn’t tied. She did this to me? 

She took a sip from her silver flask, “Do you know who I am?” 

I shook my head. “No.” 

“Typical.” She stood up and grabbed me by the hair, “You fucking disgust me.” Like, she said, she threw my hair away like it disgusted her. 

She sat back down on the bench in front of the chair I was chained to, “My name is Brook Austen. I was a professor at Georgetown last year. Taught a couple seminars at your school, that little university you go to, the students there were nothing like mine. Not nearly as intelligent, but as expected, Georgetown is much more prestigious, obviously.”

I was confused, and she knew, but did not care. 

“You’re not the brightest, y/n. Only slightly above average high school grades, strikingly mediocre academic performance now.”

Where the hell is she going with this? 

“And you know it doesn’t surprise me, per say, because every man on this goddamn planet is a piece of fucking shit! But I thought that, maybe, just maybe, Spencer was different.” 

She grimaced, “I thought he’d want more than just a pretty face! ‘Cause you might be prettier y/n, but I’m smarter.” Her words were laced with utter hatred. 

Her demeanor changed, and it almost started to seem like she was talking to herself. “I'm older. I’m more successful. I’m fucking better.” 

She approached me again, grabbing my face so I was looking her in those scarily light green eyes, and she wrapped her hands around my throat.  “I’m fucking better then you! Better, better, better!” Every time she said better she shook my neck and gripped tighter so I couldn’t breathe. 

“Stop! Please! Please stop!” I shouted, “I’m-I’m pregnant!” 

She began to break down, “You’re pregnant?” A maniacal chuckle left her throat, “You’re pregnant?”  

“Is it Spencer’s?” she asked. 

I nodded. 

“Wow.” She laughed once more, “Fucking wow.” 

“How could Spencer choose this!? You’re nothing like him. You are a pathetic fucking college student. A fucking daddy issue ridden slut! I’m a celebrated academic, just like him!” Tears began to slip from her eyes, “How could he not choose me?”

This woman is NOT well in the head. 

“You--you like Spencer?” I asked. 

“You don’t get to ask the fuckin’ questions here.” She pulled a knife out of her pocket and held it to the tip of my chin, “I do. So you’re gonna answer them.” Or, she started manically laughing, “I’ll kill you.” She swallowed, “And your baby.” 

I screamed at those words, “No,” I sobbed, “NO!” 

I turned my head away so I didn’t have to look at the woman in front of me, there was a timed red dot blinking. A camera. 

“Is that-- is that a camera?” 

She nodded, “I want Spencer to see you and his child die.” 

“He….No! No, please, No!” I choked on a sob and she smiled. 

“He doesn’t know.” She paced, “He doesn’t even fucking know!” 

She waltzed over to the camera and brought it closer to us, “Hey Spencer.” She began waving, “Hey Penelope. Aaron. Derek. Jennifer. Emily.” 

Her demeanor changed once more, into that of a cheerleader of all things, “So, quick recap.” Brook pursed her lips, “Spencer your twenty three year old fucktoy is pregnant. Congrats!” 

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Y/N was two things I didn’t know she was this morning: In serious danger, and the mother of my expected child. I felt frozen in trepidation. 

We all watched in horror as Brook greeted us. All by first name. She knew exactly what she was doing and it freaked me out even more. 

“Reid, you need to step out.” Hotch grabbed my shoulder, “Now.” 

I was sick with fear and ill with rage. I sat down because I could feel my knees go weak. Hotch started again, “We know who she is. We will find her. Y/N will be alright.” He paused, “So will the baby.” 

I replayed the events of the live footage in my head, her screams of pain and terror, her trembles and confusion. I’d failed her. I’d failed her and now I knew I’d also failed our child. 

JJ sat down next to me, “Spencer, when did you meet Brook?” 

“I uh,” I wiped my face, “A year and four months ago. I did uh, I taught uh, I taught a string of seminars at Georgetown. It was biweekly. Her office was next to mine. We spoke for the first time when she offered me a coffee.” 

“What did you say?” 

“What do you think I said?” 

“Yes.” 

“Yeah, I said yeah, I fucking like coffee.” I felt instantaneously guilty for cursing, and especially at JJ but I was too frazzled for it to last long enough to apologize. 

“I know Spence, I’m sorry. Just keep going.” 

“Then, the next week, we got lunch together.” 

“Was it, you know, friendly?” 

“What are you implying Jennifer?” I snapped. 

“No Spence, we just need to know. You know that.” 

“It was-- it was just lunch. A very normal colleague to colleague lunch. We talked about the school’s history. And uh, where we grew up. It was small talk.” 

“Ok, was this the last time you spoke to her?” 

“No. There was one more time. Y/N was there.” 

“Tell me about it Spence.” She grabbed my hand, 

I breathed out, “It was the next week I taught after lunch. About two hours before my class. I was lesson planning, and Y/N was doing homework on my desk. She came in. She asked if I wanted to go get lunch. She saw y/n and--Fuck.” 

“What Spence? What?” 

“She asked me who she was, but it was like, she didn’t want y/n to know she was asking. She thought she was…”

“She thought she was what?” 

“A student.” 

“And what did you tell her?”  

“The truth. That she was my girlfriend.” 

“Did you see her anywhere else after that?”

“No. She never came by my office again. When I would see her by chance, she would scurry away. It was strange.” 

“Think really hard Spence. Did you ever see her again after you stopped teaching at Georgetown.”

I racked my brain, “Yeah. I did. It was two months ago. Three days after I proposed to y/n. She was getting a coffee at this coffee shop by y/n’s school.. I was bringing her some lunch” 

“Spencer she's been stalking you. Your proposal was the stressor.” 

“But--I’m a profiler. I would’ve noticed.” I stood up with a realization.            “What Spence?” JJ asked, standing up as well to look at me. 

“She’s been stalking her, not me. She knew I was a part of the BAU, she knew I would’ve noticed.” 

“I’ll tell the team.” 

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A/N2:  If this doesn’t totally flop, I’ll write PT 2, that elaborates on the reader’s and Spencer’s relationship. I think through flashbacks from both Y/N and Spencer would be a cool way to explore their relationship and of course the whole reader being kidnapped thing plot could develop. Again, if you enjoyed this pls let me know!!

[angry-geese]

Alien Blues

Gojo Satoru x Reader

Warnings: none! sfw. romantic/platonic(interpretable). mainly fluff. mentions of overworking and death, but nothing graphic. gn!reader

Notes: touch-starved Gojo

Word Count: 2.3k

Gojo doesn't get a lot of downtime in his line of work.

It comes with the job. Sorcerers don't exactly work a 9 to 5. This line of work is far from a normal one. Curses don't exorcise themselves, nor do they pick convenient times to show up. He usually has his hands full; be it taking down curses, or dealing with his students. A guy like him really can't take a vacation.

Despite going to the same school—and being only a year younger than him—you didn't meet Gojo until well into your adult life. After graduating, you went off on your own. The typical way of life for sorcerers wasn’t for you. You really didn't want to work with—or under—any of the major clans. At that point, you just wanted to do your own thing. To hell with the school; you’d be fine on your own. And you were.

You spent much of your time exorcising curses across the world, traveling from place to place, not staying in a single town for very long. A lot of it was freelance work. Such jobs were typically frowned upon, or at least looked at strangely. But it really didn't bother you. On your own you were powerful, and an impressive fighter, but you were working in a world that didn't accept you.

So you said to hell with fitting in.

Doing your own thing was the best decision you’d ever made. To this day you’ll stand by that. The jujutsu world is meant for people like Gojo. It demands so much more from you, and in return gives a whole lot less. It demands perfection from you—maybe even more—while he’s the set standard for this perfection. You hold no ill will towards him for it. He didn't make things this way. But it's hard not to envy him at times.

When you came back to the school, you were first assigned a teaching job.

Although you were a talented sorcerer, it was clear from the beginning you weren't meant to be a teacher. Your teaching style was viewed as a bit harsh, as you tended to just throw your students into a situation and let them figure things out for themselves, correcting them where needed. Overall you weren't a bad teacher, but your students got sent to the infirmary often. And by often, it was nearly every day. You just wanted them to be capable. You wanted your students to be prepared. To be the best of the best. How are they supposed to improve if they don't have experience?

To be fair, your students were some of the best in their grade.

For the most part you substitute if needed.

Upon first meeting, he was too eccentric for your tastes. Really, you found him annoying. Your first impression of Gojo was that he was full of himself and out of touch with the world around him. His first impression of you was that you were stuck up and a bit of a bitch.

There wasn't one thing that changed. Maybe he wore you down to the point where you tolerated him. He likes to think it was because of his charming personality. You know otherwise. His charms rarely work on you; if ever. Over time you found yourself less and less repulsed by him. The two of you bonded over harassing Nanami. On your own you weren't much trouble, but when paired with Gojo, Nanami learned to stay out of your way. If you let him. Usually you tracked him down. Your sweet tooth was just as insatiable as his. When you first took up baking, he was always nearby, wanting a taste. You’d drag him along to see new movies or shows or anything you’d think he’d like. He likes co-existing with you. The two of you don't have to even be doing anything. He can sit for hours with you by his side, doing absolutely nothing.

You've gotten to the point in your relationship where you show up unannounced. It's payback for all the times he’s come to your apartment, claiming he has some work for you, only to stay and raid your fridge, conveniently forgetting what he had to tell you. Yes you have scared the absolute hell out of Megumi on several occasions. In Gojo’s defense, he likes your cooking.

He’s not used to having you stay in one place for so long. You’re not used to it either. It feels strange sticking around Tokyo for so long. You hate feeling trapped more than anything. Maybe that’s why you moved around so much. Maybe you’re getting sentimental the older you get. For the first time in years, you feel truly at home. Gojo is one of your closest—if not your closest—friends, and there’s not much you wouldn't do for him.

You guess this is home. The end of the line, or whatever. You don't see yourself leaving for a while.

It's well after dark by the time he gets home.

The place was empty when you got here. Megumi must be out with friends. He's a strange kid. Strange circumstances lead to strange adults—or almost adults in his case. You try not to judge him too hard. You don't have a whole lot to say on his… situation.

He notices your form curled up on the couch, your face illuminated by your phone screen. The tv plays some horror movie you’ve long stopped paying attention to. Your face lights up when you see him.

His hand briefly touches your head, messing up your hair. He looks tired. There's dark circles under his eyes. He was gone for a while this time.

“I brought takeout,” you say, gesturing to the fridge, “I wasn't sure when you’d get home so I put it in there.”

“Did you eat already?” He asks. He makes a note to pay you back for the food later.

“No, I wanted to wait for you.” You say.

A bit of guilt hits him. You really didn't have to wait for him. You know his habit of being chronically late. He says he’s fashionably late, to which you reason he is never fashionable ever. He actually seemed a bit bothered by that one, which only made you tease him more.

Momentarily he disappears into the kitchen, returning with your food. You have his order memorized. There's only a handful of things he’d get anyway. He’s not a picky eater, and usually gets what you get. Pick one of about three things and he’ll probably eat it.

The food is still good even while cold. Gojo talks about his recent job while you eat. He says it was nothing special. But he called Nanami for backup, so you know that’s a lie. He hardly touches his food. Since when doesn't he want to eat? The guy has a pretty impressive appetite at times. Seriously, he could eat you out of house and home.

“Are you done?” He asks.

You nod.

He clears away the empty takeout containers from in front of you, returning the leftovers to the fridge.

When he returns, he sits next to you, throwing his arm over the back of the couch. The leather is an ugly shade. You’re sure if it weren't for Megumi, he would have bought something much worse. His taste—in everything, really—can be tacky. You make sure he knows this. Always have to keep him on his toes. Nanami is right about some things. You never take Gojo’s side for too long.

“You were gone for a while this time.” You say.

A smug looking grin spreads across his face. It's almost enough to make you roll your eyes and groan. “Sounds like you were worried about me.”

Really, you could worry yourself sick thinking about him. It's hard not to. Everyone has their limits, and you constantly wonder when he’ll hit his. Strongest or not; he’s human after all.

“Of course I worry.” As much as you hate to admit it, you care about him. You won't say it. It feels like bad luck to say it out loud.

He knows. He feels the same way. Over time he’s grown jaded and angry with the way things are. He tries not to worry too much about you. This life isn't an easy one, but you can handle yourself. He knows that. Years on your own have proven you're not only a capable sorcerer, but a talented one. The strongest doesn't need to worry about himself, so much as the people around him.

In a weird way he’s proud of you.

You open your arms, instinctively he goes into them.

You pull his head to your chest. He does little to fight against you. Hell, he practically leans into your touch. You take his glasses, setting them on the table beside you. His eyes close when your hands move to his hair, gently pulling it out of his eyes. He’s not quite sure what to do with his arms. Eventually he settles on resting them at his sides. One snakes around your stomach, coming to rest on the fleshy part of your hip. You're awfully comfortable to lay on, he notes.

Your movements are familiar, and oddly comforting. He makes note of the way your heartbeat suddenly drops off, before picking up in pace. From the smell of your shampoo, to the sound of your breathing. He can only describe it as home.

Lots of people will die in this line of work, but he has faith you’ll always be around. You’re too stubborn to die.

Touch in a sense like this is almost foreign to him. Touch in a non fighting context is just bizarre. He never de-activates infinity long enough to get hit. He's had his fair share of one night stands. Hell, he could have anyone he wants. He’s had everything and anything in between. Men and women across the world either want to be him, or be with him. But this—intimacy like this—is strange. The others get kicked out the morning after. But you’ll always be around. He likes to think he’ll be around for you too.

Maybe he’s more touch starved than he thought.

He’s Satoru-fucking-Gojou, a man like him doesn't get touched starved. He feels a wave of shame at his reaction. His face burns. His pride won't allow him to admit how much he enjoys this.

It's the first time you’ve held him close like this. The action is so oddly intimate and it’s not even in a sexual way. Your movements are familiar. He fits so nicely against your chest, he notes.

He practically purrs in delight as your fingers brush a sensitive spot towards the back of his head—where his neck and shoulders meet—sighing softly. Goosebumps rise along his exposed flesh. You take note of his reaction, and focus on that spot more, dragging your fingers across his skin. Your nails are getting long, and feel nice against his scalp. His eyes close as he leans into the crook of your neck.

"Do you want to watch something different?" You ask.

His heart nearly stops when your hand moves to cup his cheek. His face is warm. He's a wimp when it comes to horror movies. He says they don't scare him. They do. You’ve spent plenty of night sitting next to him, watching his body tense with terror.

He wasn't paying attention to the tv until now. He shakes his head, but his eyes remain fixed on the ground and not the screen.

"This is fine." He says.

"You sure?"

He nods.

He fights sleep as long as possible, but eventually he'll have to give in to it. You’ll be there long after he’s fallen asleep. Maybe even after he wakes up. His head nods, his eyes struggling to stay open. His breaths even out, his chest rising slowly.

You're not really sure what to do once he falls asleep on you. Your position isn't the most comfortable, but you suffer through it so as to not wake him up. If he’s fallen asleep on you, then he definitely needs the rest. He’s a light sleeper anyway. Any movement would be sure to wake him up.

It’s not long after that his body heat—and the sound of his steady breathing—lulls you to sleep.

You wake up to a blanket haphazardly tossed over the two of you. The tv is off. Two glasses of water are set out on the coffee table, condensation collecting on the outside. Megumi must have come home. Gojo's drool collects in a small pool on your collarbone, which is a bit gross. You use the corner of the blanket to wipe it away. It’s a bit odd seeing him so at-peace. It's rare he even lets his guard down. You rest your chin on the top of his head. His hair is soft, and tickles your neck. The sight of him makes your chest swell with affection. The intimacy of it all is enough to overwhelm you. It's been a while since you’ve cared so much about someone.

It's nice having him home.

He stirs, stretching out a bit like a cat. You card a hand through his hair. He grumbles something in response. Probably a weak “what?” Your joints are a bit stiff from staying in the same position for so long.

“Do you want coffee?” You ask.

He sleepily mumbles an answer—one which you don't understand. It's just as legible as the first. His eyes don't even open. You take it to mean he wants to go back to sleep. You pull the blanket up around his shoulders, tucking it under his chin. The sun is still barely up. You’re not in a rush to get up. You don't have anything to do today anyway, work can wait. If Nanami calls, you’ll just ignore him. You could stay in all morning if you wanted.

And you just might.

Come hell or high water, you’re staying on this couch.

In a bit you should get up and start breakfast. Most of the food in the house is for Megumi, but there should be enough to make something small. Pancakes sound nice.

[ackerdaddy]

hi! can i request for a oneshot for levi where he and his s/o are in the middle of a reallyyyy nasty fight where levi himself couldn’t help but lose his cool and raises his voice due to sheer frustration. but in the end they were able to find a common ground and made up. the setting will take place in the aot world but if u wanna turn it into modern au that’s fine too. :D i want to see levi lose his composure then return back to his stoic but loving self. also, i just want my angst and fluff 😂😂😂 tysm! 💓

Heya! I definitely made Levi into a soft boi for this one. It turned out to be longer than expected, so hope you enjoy <3

Parings: Levi x Reader

Genre: Angst, fluff

Words: ~1500

Summary: You recklessly put yourself in danger trying to save a friend while out on an expedition and Levi is not so happy about it

You knew you were in shit the moment Levi had glared at you from his horse across the formation as the squads retreated. The sheer intensity of his gaze had you suppressing a shiver that was threatening to run down your spine. You were excited when you were given the news that your squad was running a joint routine with the Levi squad out past wall Rose. Levi, however, had his own opinions on the matter; he hated that you were a part of this operation. It made him incredibly nervous to know his full attention wouldn’t be on keeping everyone else alive because your safety would constantly be lingering in the back of his mind, although he would never admit it.

He only said six words to you the day you left the walls.

“Don’t be stupid out there. Survive,” he tightened his grip on your wrist and sternly reminded you that he needed you to return home with him. While it seemed like he was scolding you, you knew in your heart that he said those words out of pure love and concern.

Everything had been going smoothly until you heard a blood-curdling scream that ripped from the mouth of your best friend. Looking to your left flank, you saw her being squeezed in the massive palm of an 8m titan. Your body reacted before your mind could protest, whipping your horse’s reins and taking off towards her and the beast. Once you were in range, you fired your ODM gear straight at neck of the titan and felt your body being pulled aggressively towards your target.

“Y/n, NO!” your friend screamed as you flew in. You were coming in much too quickly and at a very bad angle, desperate to save your companion.

The warning that fell from her lips was carried by the wind and alerted Levi to your location. Watching in horror from his position some leagues away, he kicked his horse into gear and galloped towards you faster than he’s ever ridden. He was forced to witness as the titan grabbed the wire of your ODM with its other hand, thrashing your body down and into the ground. You were unable to move from the sheer force of the impact, and the titan seized the opportunity. It picked you up, and all you could do was scream and slam your fists into its hand, although you knew your efforts were futile.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion. You looked at your best friend in the titan’s other hand and the two of you exchanged a look of both complete terror and complete love. The wide-eyed expressions on both your faces told each other that you knew your fate had been sealed. At least you were dying together. You scrunched your eyes closed and awaited what you presumed to be your gory demise.

Your eyes sprang open in shock when you felt yourself falling rapidly through the air. The fall left you no time to gather yourself and your back hit the hard ground with a sickening thud. Your tailbone was definitely broken. Wheezing and bloody, you frantically looked around to get your bearings. Footsteps approached you and when you gazed up at your saviour, you were met with those steely eyes looking down at you with an expression you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

You groaned and cringed internally when you saw Levi approaching you as you dismounted your horse.

“My office. Now.” He was using his Captain’s voice, and you knew you had to obey.

“Hey, you wanted to see me?” You said, feigning innocence. You busied yourself with shutting the door behind you and fiddled with the lock for way longer than necessary to avoid looking him in the eyes.

“Y/n, look at me.”

You turned around to face your partner and gave him a sheepish smile, hoping it would melt the ice in his voice, even just a tiny bit.

“What did I tell you?” He asked firmly.

“Not to be stupid,” you replied, voice filled with shame.

“Exactly. And what did you do?” He pressed.

“I was just-”

“The complete opposite of what I asked,” his voice was laced with frustration. He sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose before bringing his piercing gaze back to meet yours. Normally, your boyfriend was so calm and collected, but today there was a something else burning behind those guarded eyes. Nevertheless, it was becoming increasingly bothersome that he was talking to you in such a condescending tone.

“That doesn’t mean you need to treat me like a child,” you snapped, eyes ablaze.

“If you’re going to act like a child then I am going to treat you like a child. It is that simple,” he fired back.

“So you’re saying that I should have just left my best friend to die? Is that it?” you challenged.

“Oh for god sakes y/n!” Levi stated pacing towards you, causing you to back up until your back was flush with the door. Still, he continued, “Do you think I haven’t watched countless people that I care about die? You can’t be throwing yourself directly into the path of a titan without even thinking for a single second about the repercussions!” He shouted, his demeanor becoming increasingly heated. “If I hadn’t gotten there, you would have both been killed. How noble of you to give your life for the cause!” the venom in his voice dripping with sarcasm. His palm whizzed past your head and slammed into the door. The loud clap of his palm against the wood rang in your ear.

Your mouth slightly agape, you turned your head slowly turned to observe the hand that had smacked the door, then back to Levi, whose breathing was ragged and veins were popping out of his forearms. Unable to wipe the incredulous look from your face or form a coherent sentence, you continued to stare at him with wide eyes. You had never seen him this worked up before. His raven bangs fell haphazardly into those normally reserved, cool eyes. Today, there was a fire alight in them. They shimmered with an intensity that felt like it went right through your being, to the core. You felt naked under the vigor of his gaze.

“I’m . . . I’m so sorry Levi,” you choked out, blinking rapidly and trying hard to swallow the lump in your throat. You didn’t usually show this kind of weakness with anyone, and were almost embarrassed that your partner – humanity’s strongest – was seeing you in this state.

The instant that he saw the fear and sadness in your eyes that was threatening to spill over, the fiery light that was in his eyes was completely extinguished. This time, it was replaced by a soft look of compassion and love.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he tugged at your wrist, pulling you swiftly into his chest and resting his chin on top of your head. “I’m not mad, I was just worried. Y/n . . . I can’t lose you,” he admitted, his voice low and soft; almost a whisper. The low rumblings of his voice in his chest reverberated through your own, comforting and grounding you as you relaxed into his embrace and sighed through your nose contently.

“So . . . what you’re saying is I’m special to you?” you asked playfully, the crackling tension that had previously been in the air all but evaporated.

“Oh you’re special alright,” he joked, chuckling as he moved one calloused hand to caress the side of your head, guiding your face to his, your eyes locking. You heart melted when the corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly into that crooked smile you loved so much. “You’re such a brat,” he teased, but the tone of his voice was interwoven with nothing but adoration.

“Yeah but I’m your brat,” you retorted, stretching up on your tippy toes to plant a tiny kiss on the tip of his nose.

“Must be my lucky day,” his voice was soft and warm as he leaned in to capture you lips in his.  

[tsukasalvr]

; 𝙢𝙪𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙨/𝙤

𝗔𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗲/𝗳𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗺: 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗽𝗮

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: 𝗞𝗶𝘆𝗼𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗮, 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗼, 𝗡𝗮𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗼, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗛𝗶𝘆𝗼𝗸𝗼

𝗔𝗡: 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝗹𝘇 𝘀𝗿𝗿𝘆

𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦: 𝗜 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱, 𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗜𝗟𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗩𝟭 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗩𝟮

; ᴋɪʏᴏᴛᴀᴋᴀ ˚*✧˚*•̩̩͙✧•̩̩͙*˚✮

He was looking for you since he wanted to invite you to hang out with him

After Mondos death, he’s been depressed and felt horrible

But you were always there for him to try to cheer him up

And this one of those times he felt like he needed to be with you

He went inside the library to see if you were there

As he peeked over a bookshelf all he could see was your hand against a wall

He had a big smile on his face and walked up to you but that smile quickly faltered as he saw you were pinned up to the wall with a knife through your stomach holding you up

It was a horrible sight for him as fell back on the floor and started screaming and crying

Aoi and Makoto soon walked in because of the screams and were also greeted with the horrible sight

Aoi quickly went to Kiyotaka to comfort him

But that didn’t matter to him you were gone just like Mondo

You were the only other person he was close to and now you were gone

He didn’t care anymore, he lost everything, he didn’t care about the body announcement, he didn’t care about the his friends trying to comfort him, he didn’t care about anything else

He just wants you and Mondo back

; ᴄʜɪʜɪʀᴏ ˚*✧˚*•̩̩͙✧•̩̩͙*˚✮

This killing game has been horrible and depressing

Sayaka and Leon died and ever since, it’s been hard to deal with for everyone

He’s been trying to stay positive and become more manly to protect you

He’s been wanting to talk to Mondo for a while and was planning to meet up with him later

But you were his first priority, he wanted to drink tea with you and hang out

He trusted you a lot since you were the only one in this game to know about him being a boy

He looked all around for you and you were nowhere to be found so he asked some other people if they’ve seen you, some to help finding you

He decided to double check in your room or his but as he was checking he heard a scream and soon Sakura came in his room and told him to follow her

You were in the locker room hanged up by a cord in a cross position

All he could do was just look at your body in horror

He wished that he could protect you, he wished he was manly enough to be there for you

But now you were gone and now he was in a big puddle of guilt

; ɴᴀɢɪᴛᴏ ˚*✧˚*•̩̩͙✧•̩̩͙*˚✮

Nagito always had you, his shining hope by his side

You were the only good thing he hasn’t lost to his bad luck

He was planning the first murder

It didn’t matter to him if he died

He’s already got the knife ready under the table and TeruTeru is most likely planning to stop him

Everything was going perfect

He was going to die for the sake of hope so you could live on with so much hope

Which is why it became such a shock when he felt someone push him off under the table

He was confused as they held onto him by the shoulder but quickly realized who it was when he heard a small whisper saying “N-Nagito..!”

He soon came into the realization you were going to die but before he could move you he heard a small gasp come from you

He realized you were killed as your hand slowly sipped of his shoulder to the ground

He quickly got up and got in place

After everyone found you dead under the table, his mind was somewhere else

You died for the sake of hope, the sake of humanity

He should be happy

But, why was he filled with so much despair? You died for hope good damn it

He stood there looking at your body with conflicted emotions

So much despair, his only hope was gone cus of him and his plan

; ʜɪʏᴏᴋᴏ ˚*✧˚*•̩̩͙✧•̩̩͙*˚✮

This killing game was really bad

Hiyoko was scared, she was scared she was going to be targeted next

So she kept making fun of others to seem strong or stay near you or Mahiru to be safe

Hiyoko just ran out of gummies and wanted to get more badly

She didn’t exactly want to go alone so she decided to go look for you so you can come with her

She checked the cabins, you weren’t there

She asked others, they didn’t know where you were

She decided to look for you around the islands

After looking around her feet were hurting badly

She was definitely going to go off on you when she sees you for making her walk so much

She went to the beach and got inside the beach house

She finally saw you, but you were dead

Blood was stained on the ground and on your head

It was clear you were hit on your head

She started shaking and panicked

She screamed and luckily Hajime and Kazuichi heard her and also found your body

She panicked even more when she heard the body announcement

You were actually dead

She couldn’t protect you

She was too weak to do anything

Too weak and fragile to protect you

You were so nice to her and showed her how to do simple everyday tasks that she never got to learn

You made her so happy and loved, and now you were dead against the wall

If only she wasn’t small or weak then she could’ve had a chance

If only she was with you to be protect you, but she didn’t, she was safe in her own cabin while you were being killed

But it’s too late now and now she’s filled with guilt

People who like, reblog or follow= hot asf💕😍

[thanksjro]

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

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

So.

This is a little different than what I usually do.

Clearly.

God, how did we even get here?

Oh, I remember.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

Haha, I doubt it.

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

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

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

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

For loving his child.

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

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

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

No. Not at all, actually.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s just a shame that I don’t care.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As if women are property to be owned.

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

We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can’t be fucking serious.

ANYWAY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which made me groan aloud.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

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

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

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

Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.

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

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

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

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

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

So they try it again.

This time it works, sort of.

At the very least, he’s left now.

Tail fell off, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judy doesn’t count.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For about 20 seconds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ratchet’s fine, by the way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We still have another hour of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nope, that doesn’t happen either.

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

Repeatedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.

We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, right, because ~girl~.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Y’know.

Like a vast, predatory bird.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feminist icon Megatron?

Feminist icon Megatron.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congrats on your first murder, Sam.

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

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

In tow.

In tow-

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

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

Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s where they leave us.

IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.

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

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

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

What a mess.

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

COMING SOON:

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

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

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

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

[remuscore]

I'm enjoying this au too much lmao I'm sorry for the person I have become but since I cannot draw for awhile, y'all are gonna get small oneshots of them instead.

Warnings: Descriptions of a dead body, a little bit of body horror?? Idk what else. Oh yeah and since pronouns don't matter in this au, I used mostly she/they for Janus just cause that's what I ended up writing

_____________

Virgil remembers little of his rebirth.

He remembers sitting and waiting in a small dim room, filled with sheet covered science equipment and dusty glass tubes. He didn’t have the best hearing after it all― they always felt clogged― but he remembers hearing that smooth voice from the other side of the door talking about things he couldn’t understand. He remembers Janus coming in and wiping their hands on their pants despite their gloves, shaking them out to release some buzzing excitement. They had smiled at Virgil and said it was time to show him off.

After that was a blur of yelling and hands trying to grab him and suddenly Janus had grabbed their arm and they appeared in a little old cabin in a forest.

Virgil had a lot of nightmares of hands and tearing after that night. He would trace the missing fingers that someone had stolen when they grabbed his hand. Now, Janus had gotten him some form of prosthetic so that he could still use his hand, wooden joints and bones melding into the taunt flesh. Virgil often got stuck staring at them, just trying to bend the bark.

“Good morning, Virgil,” Janus said, descending the rickety steps of the cabin. Their cape dragged on the floor and trailed soft yellow petals with it. They didn’t need to step over any loose rocks or twigs, the objects simply moving out of the way when she came near. She smiled at their experiment as they put in their earrings. “How did you rest?”

Virgil kept silent like usual. Talking either caused black gunk to spit from his teeth or was just useless babbling. Most of the time it was both. It was hard to talk when all your muscles were only strong enough to hold your head up. He wanted to talk. It felt like hell not being able to say a single word since he had been awakened.

“Not going to try today?” they asked. Once their earrings were all on, they sat on the steps besides Virgil. She had made some furniture out of wood, but they weren’t the best. Her magic was more about science and spells than making things, hence why Virgil was such a disaster. “Do you want to try a ‘hello’ or maybe a ‘hi’ at the very least?”

Virgil didn’t care about those things. He just wanted to ask one thing. One syllable.

Why.

It was a long struggle on the ‘wh’ just trying to get past that point. It was already gathering spit and falling from his lips, but this is the farthest he’s gotten so far. Janus was grinning nonetheless, pointed teeth barred. Virgil had the sudden thought that maybe Janus thought he had said ‘hi’ but just a really messed up one, so he tried again. Repeating the word with more strength to his broken voice to make it more obvious. Janus just nodded in delight.

“That’s very good, Virgil,” she praised. Their hand came up to wipe away a bit of sludge that had dribbled down his chin and heading towards the stitches in his neck. “I know it must be frustration now with having to relearn these skills from when you were a child, but you’ll get there in―”

“Why?” Virgil interrupted angrily. He jabbed his chest with his stiff fingers, hitting the large stitches in his chest from where his organs had been taken out and put back in. He jabs the same hand into Janus’ chest too, making her pull back in surprise and rub the spot. “Why? Why?”

“Why?” Janus parrots, ears lowering. Her expression turned sad as she looked at how hard Virgil was hitting his chest (he didn’t have any control of his strength now that his nervous system wasn’t working. He was completely numb). “Why… why what?”

“Why!?” Virgil shouts in a volume that shocked even him. His body really is all out of control. He pushes Janus' chest this time, shoving her back against the banister. “Why me? You? Why you— to me?”

It was so humiliating how hard it was to get those words out. He had to swallow pointlessly against the gunk under his tongue. It was pouring out his mouth now. He brought up his hands to try and wipe it away, but he still couldn’t make a fist or turn his wrist to use his palm so all he did was smear the gunk on his fingertips.

Janus gets up suddenly and Virgil doesn’t watch to see where they’re going. He felt like he wanted to cry in anger, but didn’t know if he even could. He hasn’t drank or eaten anything since he was alive. Janus returns to the step and reaches out to him again, wiping away all the drool with a cloth. Virgil let them just because he didn’t feel like trying to do it himself and risked humiliating himself more.

“Why did I bring you back?” Janus said, clarifying that that was what Virgil was trying to say. He nodded with a sharp jerk up and down with his head. They sighed softly. They folded the cloth over to the dry side and continued cleaning his face. “To tell the truth, you were the freshest body on such short notice. They haven't cremated or buried you yet, so it was easy for me to just take you and bring you back. And I know stealing a body isn’t exactly ethical, but I was saving a family from the heartbreak of identifying your body. Sure, it was probably frightening to hear your son died and someone had stolen his body and next thing you know, you’re watching the news and hear about a local manic that had—”

They stopped themself and shook their head, laughing faintly. “Anyways there was no significance on why I chose you. You died from the drug I needed and were healthy enough to keep all original parts. I’m sorry I don’t have a better reason.”

She pulled away finally and took Virgil’s messy mistake, wiping at his fingers. The black sludge was stubbornly sticking to his wooden fingers and Janus had to adjust their grip on it to wipe more furiously. They sighed again in frustration.

“I didn’t expect anything like this,” they said, their normally smooth and controlled voice was now bitter and imperfect, a small lisp slipping through. “I thought my notes would at least be taken into account. They were all so impressed by the doll and yet when I showed them you, no! That is sick and disgusting! I brought a man back to life using the same drug that killed him and that was all they had to say about my findings? It’s ridiculous!”

They stop. Virgil still has stuff in between the cracks in the wood. Janus’ thumb brushes against what would be the nail and Virgil could almost feel it. It was a weird feeling. He wonders if he’ll ever forget what it’s like to feel.

“I’m sorry,” Janus gasps and Virgil looks up. Her eyes are screwed shut and they rub their forehead, mouth pulled down into a harsh frown. “God, I’m so sorry. What have I done?”

Virgil wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t know Janus, they were just forced together now. Janus was a big question mark in the beginning but now they’re an even bigger question mark with how their morals kept switching around. Just seconds ago she was boasting about what she did and now she’s apologizing for it? And Virgil couldn’t bring himself to be angry either way because on one hand they had brought him back to life which was honestly amazing because Virgil distinctly remembered not wanting to die when he was dying, but on the other hand Janus had stolen his body from his family and he is practically a prisoner here because if he were to go back to human society, he would probably be euthanized or worse; dissected and studied like a rat, never to die because his existence is revolutionary.

That’s another reason why Virgil couldn’t bring himself to be mad at them. She practically saved his life.

She was a weirdo freak, but Virgil guessed he was now too.

So he brought up his hand and placed it on their head, making them stop. He dragged his hand slowly through their hair, combing through any small knots and petals stuck in there. They opened their eyes and they looked so sad. Virgil didn’t understand why, but maybe she just felt guilty. Maybe she should be, but Virgil still didn’t want them to be.

“Don’—” spit flew from his mouth and his lip twitched into an annoyed scowl. “Do… no’ cry.”

“I’m not crying, dear,” Janus awed, bringing up her now empty hands and holding Virgil’s face in her hands, pressing against the stitches. He knew she wasn’t crying, but it was easier to say than don’t beat yourself up about it. “At least you’re nice. I don’t know if I could handle a mean little monster.”

Virgil grunted. Guess he was a monster now.

[wormstacheangel]

26 pls 💙 imma sucker for angst

hi anon!! you knew exactly what you were doing when you chose this. decided to make it worse <3

#26 Broken, as you clutch the sleeve of my jacket and beg me not to leave

they were going to die in that room. they didn't have a way out this time but something was still shining in dean. it wasn't hoped--no he looked defeated-- he was accepting their doom with grace.

his body was relaxed as he took a step closer, a heavy sigh relaxed his shoulder as their eyes meet. the pounding at the door kept pace with the pounding in his chest but cas continued to watch deans expression soften.

so beautiful.

how can this be their end? how can this be the end of dean winchester when his life has only begun? when freedom was just around the corner.

he wanted that for him. he wanted him to have that. savor the freedom they have been fighting for since their faithful meeting. one of them should.

cas could feel his vessel--no, this is his body. this is him.--become stiff at the words bouncing around in his head. he needed to say them, taste them on his lips at least once before death takes him one way or another.

dean was standing in front of him now, eyes wide and watery but still so bright. filled with life. a soul that was dragged through a life of heartaches and literal hell and still comes out the other side being the glowing with intense passion.

love.

"cas." his name said in a watery whisper. his heart ached watching his love cry openly in front of him. "i gotta say something."

he didn't know what those words could be but he wasn't sure if he wanted to hear them. he's family. he's a brother. he's a best friend. he is everything to dean except what cas wanted to be. he accepted that already. accepted that his feelings are just more stowed away crap--as dean would say-- and he had to move on.

but this time maybe his feelings will save them.

an angel feeling--an abomination in itself--is what's going to save dean winchester.

"i love you." the words slipped out of his mouth so quickly, ready to come out alongside him. he felt lighter as his body filled up with warmth. he chuckled, the corner of his lips tugging into a smile as he watched dean's eyes widen. he said it again because he can. because it may be the last time. he said it again. "i love you, dean."

"cas, what are you-?" the pounding at the door stopped. billie was inside the room and the gurgling of the empty at their other side, trapping them. dean looked around until he grasped the situation. "cas. cas. please. please don't do this. "

"goodbye, dean."

cas placed a hand on dean's shoulder, ready to shove him out of harm's way. billie was taken first, the sound of the scythe hitting the floor bounced off the walls, and cas knew he didn't have much time. he would be next.

eternal sleep waits for him but at least he got to say it. he got to tell dean.

the empty's quick grip jumped out of the portal and cas closed his eyes, accepting his faith, but the cold grip never got him.

"cas!" dean screamed from where he was pushed and cas turned to see the horror.

no.

"dean!" cas ran to take a hold of dean. "no! no!"

this isn't what was suppose to happen. he was supposed to live. dean is supposed to live!

cas could feel his grace burn inside him, giving him more strength to tug at the human that clung to his body. dean had his arms around cas's neck, face hiding into his neck like he always wished but it wasn't supposed to be like this.

"what are you doing? take me! you are supposed to take me!" cas screamed.

an eerie bubbling voice answered back. "i take your happiness, castiel."

"no!" please.

the pull got stronger and they were being dragged closer to the portal.

"just...just let me go." dean muttered into his skin. "cas. save jack. save sam."

"not without you."

"forget me! do your damn job and be a fucking hero." dean grip started to loosen while cas only tightened his. the goo was now up dean's waist and quickly rising. dean pulled away just enough so their faces could be mere inches apart. "save the world one more time. for me."

"dean."

"save our family."

"i-i can't!" cas struggled, feeling his grace weakening the longer he tries to hold him. "i need you with me."

"you got me." dean dipped his chin forward and their lips meet in tear-filled soft kiss.

cas could feel the darkness wrap around his hands as it raised up dean's body.

a small gasp escaped dean's lips and when cas pulled away from the kiss he watched in horror as goo covered the light of his life.

"dean!"

he continued to grip at the familiar jacket but he could feel it slipping.

"no!" this wasn't supposed to happen. this is not how it was supposed to go. dean wasn't supposed to- "please!"

give him back. give him back. please. please.

gone.

dean was gone.

cas pounded at the wall. a plain wall that didn't look like it just took everything from him. "i love you!" cas punched at it until brick started to fly. "please! i love you!"

cas eventually fell to the floor, sobs shaking his body.

he just killed dean winchester. he just killed him because he fell in love.

angels really should not feel.

it's too painful.

Doing These send me some writing prompts <3

destiel: #15, #22 , 26, #17, #20

megstiel: #29

saileen: 33