#I think some of this might be the best stuff I've ever written

[nobodysdaydreams]

My Fic About a Duckling Imprinting on Daniel Jacobi Has Begun.

A gift for @serial-serializednovelreader because she's awesome! 🥰

Please enjoy:

Chapter Summary: Minkowski grapples with feelings of guilt over what she did to Doctor Maxwell and considers how she might make things right. Meanwhile, Lovelace discovers that Jacobi has found a creative new way to utilize his more violent talents.

[black-and-yellow]

wham bam thank you ma'am, it's chapter 6, coming at you hot out the oven. This bad boy covers the ninth comic (peek the old art from it). If you're a Loudspeaker AU enthusiast, don't be afraid to give it some love.

[soaps-mohawk]

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 36: To The Sea

Summary: It's time to move on. You're not sure where you're going exactly, but anywhere is better than Texas

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Word Count: 7,811 words

Warnings: ANGST, injuries, medical stuff, descriptions of pain and injuries, brief discussion about strangulation, mentions of PTSD and nightmares, so much crying, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, angst, a very little sprinkle of comfort, language, mentions of medications, still very heavy emotionally

A/N: Not actually a lot of warnings for this one. It's a lot of dialogue and inner monologues. Not a lot happens, just mostly setting the scene for the next chunk of the story. Bring tissues though, the last part of the chapter emotionally wrecked me but also might be the best thing I've ever written.

11/30/24: **This Chapter has been edited and rewritten from its original version**

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It’s warm outside. 

Not even the shade from the building can completely shield you from the dome of heat that seems to surround the base. It seeps into the concrete and asphalt that lock it into place, trapping everyone in a bubble that may as well be an oven. It’s always hot in Texas, though. You hate it. You’ve been spoiled by the cold, rainy seasons in England. You’d gladly take that over Texas. 

You’d take anything over Texas. 

The heat prickles at your skin, your arm starting to get sweaty in the sling. It had been Dr. Keller’s idea to keep your shoulder as still as possible so you don’t continue to cause yourself pain when you move. It still hurts, but at least you won’t instinctively try to use your left arm now.

Despite the warmth, there’s still a chill deep in your bones. The warmth of the pain medicine has worn off and you’ve been left with the perpetual ice that has seemed to coat your insides. Dr. Keller says it's the stress giving you a fever. Every nightmare, every flashback sends your body temperature spiking, your heart beating right out of your chest. You’re not out of the woods yet. It can take a long time to recover from that level of distress and the omega taking over. You almost regret it, but there was no guarantee you would have lived either way at that time. You did what you had to do, and it did work out in the end. 

But at what cost? 

Dr. Keller’s phone buzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out, staring down at the screen for a moment. “Kyle wants to come by.” 

You don’t want to see him. You don’t want to see any of them. 

“I think you should see him. Even if it’s just for a moment.” She squeezes your hand. “I’ll be right here.” 

It’s a predicament. Dr. Keller supports your decision to keep them away, putting some distance between all of you for the time being. Yet, she also says being close to your pack will help your healing. Having your pack around will help your omega settle once again. She needs that safety, that security before she finally lets go completely. 

You don’t want to be close to them, but you may not have any other choice. 

You sit there in silence, picking at the fabric of your sweatpants as you wait for Kyle’s arrival. Sweat has started to bead on your back, the day only getting warmer and warmer as the sun moves higher in the sky. You want to go back inside, back into the cool air conditioned building. You want to crawl back onto the hospital bed and lay there for the next few hours. 

You can’t. 

Footsteps approach, but you don’t look up. You know who it is. You don’t want to see him. 

“Kyle.” Dr. Keller greets. 

“Christine.” He says back. It still throws you off, hearing Dr. Keller's first name. She'll always be Dr. Keller to you. Kyle turns his attention to you, still standing a few steps from the bench you're perched on. “Hi, love.” He says. The affectionate nickname almost makes you wince. You don't look up at him. You don’t want to see his face. “I wanted to stop by and see how you’re doing.” 

You don't move, don't give an answer. You don't have an answer to give anyway. You shouldn't have to give an answer. 

He lowers himself onto the bench, sitting as far away from you as he can. “It’s hot today.” He says, adjusting his hat. Always wearing a hat. Maybe that's why he and Price work so well together. 

He stares at you for a long moment but you don't bother moving, your gaze still on your sweatpants. They're starting to get a bit warm, even with your perpetual chill. 

“I’m not here to apologize.” He says, breaking the silence. “You’ve probably heard enough apologies to last you a lifetime.” He shakes his head. “Words can’t fix what we did. Nothing can fix what we did. All we can do is give you what you need, try and make you as comfortable as possible.” 

Tears burn your eyes as you listen to him. He's not wrong, an apology won't fix what happened. No words will ever be able to fix what they put you through. You're not sure there's anything they could do that would make up for it. An apology still would have been nice, despite the fact you know how guilty he is. Their avoidance of you, their willingness to give you such space in an unknown place just proves how guilty they all are. 

That doesn't make things hurt any less. 

You slowly turn away from Kyle, angling yourself towards Dr. Keller. 

He doesn't say anything further in that regard, taking your movement as an answer to his non-apology. He leans forward instead, resting his elbows on his knees. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re getting ready to leave soon. We’ll be heading somewhere safe, somewhere quiet and secluded. I think you’ll like it.” 

Dr. Keller had informed you of that earlier after she went to speak to them. They've decided what to do, what's best for the pack again. You might have protested, except for the fact it meant you were getting to leave Texas. Where exactly they're taking you, you're not sure. You just know it's not Texas. 

“I want you to know that we’re here if you need us.” He stares at you for a moment longer before pushing himself up to stand. 

If, not when. 

Maybe they're finally getting the message. 

Dr. Keller stands, touching your right shoulder gently before she steps away with Kyle, speaking quietly with him, but you can still hear every word in the nearly silent space around you. 

“In an attempt to remain a neutral, professional party in this situation, I feel it would be appropriate for me to tell you not to beat yourself up too much about this.” Dr. Keller says. “The unprofessional side of me has many words I’d like to say to all of you.” She clears her throat. “That being said, on a positive note I can say you’re all doing the right thing for once, prioritizing your omega and fulfilling her needs, even if her needs require you to leave her alone for now. I know it’s hard, I know every instinct is screaming at you to help her, but just take comfort in knowing you are helping her. You’re doing the best thing you can do for her at this time.” Dr. Keller puts a hand on his arm, squeezing it gently. “Even if it is tearing you up inside.” 

“Thanks, Doc.” He says. 

“I’ll see you soon.” She says, patting his arm before she heads back towards your bench. 

You turn your head just slightly, not missing the way Gaz lingers for a brief moment before he turns his back on you, walking back down the sidewalk. 

It hurts. 

You want to cry with every swallow. No matter how much you chew, it doesn’t ease the pain of trying to swallow solid food. Even the worst sore throat you’ve ever had pales in comparison to this pain. Tears burn in your eyes as you eat, unable to refuse this time in favor of choking down some liquid nutrients. Even liquids make your throat ache, but they are easy to chug to get it over with at once. 

This feels like torture. 

Dr. Keller looks guilty as she spoon-feeds you the soup. Chicken noodle, something simple and easy but still something with some substance. It makes you think back to when you were sick as a child, your mother dutifully feeding you homemade chicken noodle soup until you reached the age you could feed yourself. 

You do feel like a child again, unable to even hold the spoon. Well, you could hold it, but it would have come at the expense of some burns from how badly your hand was shaking. 

So instead you sit here, being spoon-fed soup you can barely stand eating. 

“I know.” She says as a tear finally falls, your inhale shaky from the ache in your throat. “You need something in your system for the sedative. It’s a long flight and you’ll be sick when you wake up if you don’t have anything in your stomach. That’s going to hurt a lot worse than eating now.” 

Yeah. You’ve already figured that out. 

“Strangulation is a tough thing to survive.” She says, dragging the bottom of the spoon against the edge of the bowl to wipe off any soup that might drip on you. “Then again, so is getting shot, and distressing to the point of your omega taking over.” She holds the spoon up to your lips, and you’re tempted to refuse. “You’ve survived a lot, more than most could. And to look this good after...” 

You blink up at her, teary eyed and sickly looking, exhausted and bruised. Your left eye is still almost swollen shut, and your hair is tangled perhaps beyond saving, tied up in a bun at the top of your head. All just reminders of what you survived, all reminders of what happened to you. Of what was allowed to happen to you. 

You’re not quite sure when the last time you had a real shower was either. 

“I know.” She says, spooning more soup into your mouth. “You might not feel like it, right now.” 

“I want a shower.” You say, your voice still hoarse and cracking through your throat. A real shower might solve a lot of problems for you right now. It won’t fix much, but being truly clean would make a lot of things feel better. 

“I wholeheartedly agree.” Dr. Keller says. 

You give her a look. You don't smell that bad. She should know, she’s the one that cleaned the blood off of you and the one who gave you the sponge bath this morning. 

She gives you a look back. “I meant it would be nice to take a real shower. Once we get where we’re going, we can work on the logistics of a shower.” 

Right. You can’t exactly stand for a long time on your own, not to mention the problem of only being able to use one arm without bringing blinding pain upon yourself. That’s where the pack would come in handy. 

The thought of one of them seeing you vulnerable like that, putting their hands on you right now makes your skin crawl. 

A shiver runs down your spine, your body shuddering uncontrollably. You grunt as your shoulder screams in pain, another electric jolt burning straight through your nerves and down through your feet. Fuck. You mouth the word, squeezing your eyes shut. It makes your stomach churn, the soup starting to burn a path back up through your esophagus.

“Breathe for me.” Dr. Keller says, putting a gentle hand on your right shoulder. 

In and out. You focus on your breath, the only thing you can do without feeling like you’re going to go insane from the pain. It’s all you can do in this situation. It’s the only thing you can do at all. Breathe. Just keep breathing. 

Sometimes you don’t want to. 

The pain passes as it always does, leaving behind a subtle ache that will linger until the next flare of pain. It’s a constant, never-ending cycle that you can’t escape from. Weeks, Dr. Keller had said. It can take weeks to heal. You’ll be stuck in this cycle for weeks and weeks. What if it never heals? That is a possibility. It’s always a risk with any injury. 

What if the rest of your life is like this? 

You’re crying again, hot tears blazing a path down your cheeks. They won’t stop, they never stop. There’s a constant stream down your face, even in your sleep. You’ve woken to find your face and neck damp from the never ceasing flood of tears. 

How you can’t wait for the time to come when you have none left.

You’d welcome the numbness at this point, greet it like an old friend and invite it in for tea. Anything over the pain and tears that won’t stop. The depression-fueled numbness that had filled you when Price and Gaz left, then Soap and Ghost would be a welcome relief at this point. Anything would be better than the pain. 

You almost wish you were in a coma right now. Then you wouldn’t feel anything at all. 

Dr. Keller puts the spoon back into the soup bowl before rolling the table to the side. She puts a hand on your head, gently stroking your hair as you cry. The room is silent aside from your sniffles, Dr. Keller not having to say a single word. The silence is almost a blessing. You’re tired of hearing words, of hearing people speak. There’s nothing anyone can say that will do anything to help you, to comfort you, to make it better. 

There’s nothing anyone can do to make it better. 

You’re so tired of being like this. 

The sedative is kicking in before you even reach the airfield. She can see the way your head is drooping further and further forward in the car, your body jostling without any complaint. It had started kicking in before you even got into the car, as you offered very little resistance when Kyle helped her mauver you into the front seat. She chose Kyle out of everyone to help her in hopes it would be easiest on you. Your claimed alpha’s beta is a good place to start in rebuilding the bonds within the pack, and his calm demeanor certainly helps. He is a caretaker through and through, that beta trait prominent above the others in him. He would have made a good medic, had he gone that route. 

Your chin drops to your chest as the car comes to a stop in front of the plane, your body slumping to the side against the door. 

“She’s out.” Christine says, unbuckling her seatbelt. 

“Makes this easier.” Kyle says, getting out of the car. 

They maneuver you into the wheelchair, Christine easing your head onto your right shoulder to avoid aggravating the left. The less pain you’re in when you come out of it, the better, though pain will be unavoidable. Kyle pushes the wheelchair up the ramp of the plane, Christine following close behind. She’s glad she gave you the sedative before you left the med center to avoid as much pain as possible. She almost wishes she had given it to you earlier, as getting you into a sweatshirt had been a battle of its own. Though, the longer it stays in your system, the longer you’ll sleep through the flight. The longer you sleep through the flight, the longer they can delay the inevitable emotional storm of being enclosed in a tight space with your pack. 

If you’re lucky, you’ll be out of it long enough for them to reach the cottage without incident. 

John is waiting near the front of the aircraft, his eyes watching carefully as Kyle helps maneuver you into a seat. Even with the turmoil in the pack bonds, an alpha will always feel protective over their omega. There’s some things that can’t be undone, even in such a fragile state. Some instincts can’t be unlearned, no matter what. 

“I gave her a sedative.” Christine explains as she gets you as comfortable as possible in the seat. “It won’t last the whole flight, but it’ll take a while to wear off regardless.” 

“Is that more for her or for us?” John asks. 

“Both.” Christine says. “Mostly for her. It helps with the pain of moving around, but it will also keep her calm in close quarters like this.” 

“Here.” John says, handing her something. It’s a blanket, brand new by the feel of it. “Johnny made a store run this morning. It’s going to get cold in here, so he got the warmest one he could find.” 

Christine takes the blanket, the fabric thick and soft in her hands. It’s a touching gesture, speaking volumes of their desire to still care for you despite everything, their willingness to do what they have to, to keep the pack together. “Perfect.” She says, carefully draping it over you and tucking it around you before John gets you secured in the seat. 

“It’s going to be a long flight.” John says, taking a step back. 

“It is.” Christine says, pulling out her thermometer. She takes your temperature, letting out a hum at the number that pops up on screen. “I need to monitor her temperature.” She explains as John gives her a look. “It’s been spiking when she gets stressed.” 

“She's not quite out of it yet, is she?” John asks.

“Not quite.” She says, putting the thermometer back in her bag. “I’ve only seen two omegas successfully come back from that point, and I know the number across the board isn’t very high. It takes a long time for the body and the brain to get back to normal.” 

“And on top of everything that happened...” 

She stares up at him for a long moment. “She’s very strong. I knew she was a fighter, but to come out the other side even where she is now...” Christine shakes her head. “I didn’t want to say this at the time, but I was expecting the worst. When that call came in about what state she was in...” She bites her lip, holding the emotions back. “Her resilience and fortitude is what kept her alive. That and Simon’s courage to do what needed to be done.” 

“I know.” John says, looking past her. “We all owe a lot to him.” 

Christine puts a gentle hand on his arm. “You’re doing what’s best for her. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how much it goes against every instinct you have, it’s what she needs.” 

“That’s all that matters to us right now.” John says, staring down at her hand for a moment. “There’s nothing else we can do, so it’s time we start putting our priorities where they should have been the whole time.” 

Christine gives him a small smile. “I’m proud of you for that. It takes a lot to unlearn the things you’ve been told since the beginning.” 

The corner of John’s lips twitch before his face falls into the emotionless mask he’s been wearing for the last few days. “It’s about time we get our heads out of our arses.” 

“I can’t blame you totally.” She shrugs. “We were all just doing what the initiative was telling us to do. We couldn’t have known. There wasn’t any room to question it.” 

“I wish we would have figured it out sooner.” He sighs. 

“Things might have been worse if the truth did come out sooner. If you started digging into the initiative too soon, Shepherd might have gotten antsy and taken more drastic measures to stop the truth from coming out entirely.” She glances down at you. “I think this was all inevitable.” She turns her gaze back to John. “What happened, happened. None of us can change that. All we can do is keep moving forward with what we have right now.” 

He stares at her for a long moment. “The more time passes, the more I’ve come to realize why Kate chose you for this position.” 

The corner of her lips turns up in a smile. “Well, I am rather good at my job, which, among other things, involves advocating on behalf of omegas.” 

John huffs. “Wish we would have listened sooner.” 

“You can’t change the past.” She repeats, looking down at you again. “But you can change the future.” 

You woke from your sedation about four hours from Helston. 

Well, ’woke’ might have been too strong of a word for it. Your eyes opened, but you were still hazy, movements sluggish and entirely unaware of the world around you. You floated between sleep and awareness for an hour before finally gaining consciousness completely. Awareness took quite a while to return, though. Not until they were moving you to the car from the plane. 

Even still you’re groggy, slumped against the door in the back seat of the car. You blink slowly, eyes unfocused as you stare out the window at the blur of green passing by. 

“How is she?” John asks from the driver's seat, glancing up at the rearview mirror. 

“Cow.” You say, blinking slowly as the car passes a field of cows. 

“Still out of it.” Christine answers from the back seat where she's sitting next to you. Your response might have been enough to answer that. “Better than being in pain, though.” 

“How long will it take for her to get out of it?” Kyle asks. 

“Hopefully she’ll be more lucid by the time we get there, but it could take a few hours for it to completely wear off.” Christine says, wiping a bit of drool from your chin. “Probably not a bad thing. This is a big change, and with everything that’s happened, it’s going to take some time to settle in.” 

“Things are going to be rough.” Kyle says. 

“Yes.” She agrees. “Being enclosed in a small space with the people you want to see the least in the world isn’t an ideal situation. It’ll be an adjustment for everyone. I trust all of your abilities to adapt, though. Just don't go in expecting things to be the way they were.”

John's hands tighten around the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. Kyle cracks his window open, prepared for the thickening of John's scent in the air. Christine knows she hit a nerve, but it needed to be said. Even if you were open to forgiveness right now, even if they had chosen to go after you right away, things still wouldn't be the same. Things won't ever be the same. It is their fault deep at the root of it. Those cameras were put up because of them, you were taken because of them. You were chosen for the “initiative” because of them, because Kate thought you'd fit in well with them. Their decisions shaped your life, and will continue to shape your life. 

Can you ever come to forgive them? Christine likes to think so. She has the hope that they can put in the work and regain your trust and earn eventual forgiveness. She knows you'll allow them to try once the initial hurt and emotions begin to fade, once the two of you put in enough work to start processing the trauma around the events that happened. It will take time. Probably a long time. 

She'll be there every step of the way. 

“Ashley did some shopping for us, picked up some stuff to get us until we can get into town.” Kyle says, looking at his phone. 

“Good.” John says, his shoulders starting to relax. “Should wait a couple days before going. Get settled in.”

“She's still working on cleaning up. Probably still be there when we get there.” Kyle says, putting his phone back in his pocket. 

“That's fine. We’ll probably have to utilize her a bit.” 

“Doubt she'll complain.” Kyle says, looking out the window. “Be thrilled to have something to do besides work.” 

You let out a quiet groan, shifting against the door. “Hurts.” 

“I know, honey.” Christine says, carefully adjusting your left arm. “I’ll give you more pain meds once we get to the cottage.” 

“We’ll be there in half an hour.” John says, glancing up at the rearview mirror again before turning his eyes back to the road. 

The half hour seems to take the longest as you continue to become more and more lucid and aware. The pain sets in first, your brain picking up on those signals before anything else. John’s knuckles are white around the steering wheel as you begin to whine and whimper around every bend in the road and turn he has to make, every jostle of the car. Every instinct in his body tells him to pull over and comfort you, but he can’t. It’s more important to get to the cottage, and there’s no guarantee you’d even let him. It might make things worse. 

The last thing you need right now is for things to get worse. 

Christine breathes a sigh of relief as they pull up to the cottage, glad she can finally get you somewhere more comfortable. You’ve been in far too many uncomfortable positions today, moved around too much. She would have liked to keep you in Texas a couple more days, but she knew as soon as you were able to travel, the better. The sooner they could get off the grid, the better. 

The sooner they could get out of Texas, the better. 

Kyle is getting the wheelchair out of the trunk when Johnny and Simon pull up, not having been far behind. They likely took a turn around the back roads to ensure no one was following and to keep things from looking too suspicious. 

Christine keeps you from slumping out of the car as she carefully opens the door on your side. You’re more awake than you were, blinking up at her with almost startlingly aware eyes.

“Crutch.” You pout when she pulls the wheelchair closer. 

She gives you a look. “Honey I'm not sure you could even stand right now.” You may be more aware, but that doesn’t mean your body is working as it should.

You let out a defiant noise as you attempt to get your legs out of the car, trying to hide your grunts of pain and discomfort. 

She's tempted to stand there and let you try, but she knows all hell will break loose if she lets you fall. She's not willing to take that risk, not to mention it will cause you more pain to get you up off the ground. 

“Come on,” She says, stopping you before you can get your feet under you. “Nice and slow.” 

You let out a quiet growl of indignation but you allow her to help you, your legs trembling as she eases you up. Kyle is there with the wheelchair, getting it as close to you as possible so she can sit you down quickly. 

“Ow.” You breathe, eyes pinched closed as you breathe through the pain. 

“I know.” She says, patting your good shoulder lightly. She's glad she put you in the sweatshirt before you left Texas. It's chilly outside, chillier than it was further inland a few days ago. 

It's hard to believe it's only been a few days since you were taken. Barely even a week. So much happened in such a short period of time. It feels like it’s been weeks since everything started, but then again, it had been weeks since John and Kyle first left. It had been weeks since you had been around your whole pack together by the time you were taken. The deep depression you sunk into before the events of the last week had been draining you slowly for weeks before this. It had started before John and Kyle were deployed, back to that day when you revealed the cameras and the secret you had been hiding from them. 

How long you’ve gone in such turmoil. 

How far you still have to go. 

The path up to the door is rocky and uneven, the wheelchair jostling as she pushes it up towards the door. She can picture your face, the way it has to be screwed up in pain. You're silent though, holding it all in. She almost wishes you weren't being silent about it. 

The door is already open, light shining from inside as she approaches. Kyle is in the house already, having gone ahead to greet his sister. John is right behind the two of you as Christine turns to wheel you up the steps into the house. His eyes are on you, focused and ready should you fall.  

Christine would never let you fall, and from the way your hand is gripping the arm of the chair for dear life, you probably couldn't anyway. 

She wheels you through the entryway, the inside warmer thanks to a fire that's burning. It's a nice cottage, far nicer than she had been expecting judging from the outside. 

Johnny lets out a low whistle as he enters behind John, looking around. “Yer parents own this?” 

“It was given to our mum by our grandparents. They did some...renovations before they passed it on.” Kyle says. 

“Yer tellin’ me.” Johnny says. 

It looks new inside. New wood floors, freshly painted walls. The furniture looks like she would expect to find in an English seaside cottage, though. Kyle’s parents went to France for summer vacation instead of utilizing the cottage, and none of his siblings had wanted to use it, he told them. It looks almost perfect, like it came right out of a home renovation show. Kyle’s sister must have worked some sort of magic to get it this clean. 

It is a very nice cottage. It’s small, the door opening right to the main area. There’s two couches and a chair in the middle of the room around a coffee table. To the left of the couches is a fireplace, the fire already lit and crackling. It looks original, likely having been untouched in the renovations. There’s a door to the left of the fireplace closer to the main entryway. A bedroom maybe? To the right of the front door are two doors, one on the far wall and one facing the front door. 

The stairs are in the middle of the house, leading up to the second floor where there’s likely more bedrooms. On the far side of the main area is the dining area and beyond that is a sliding glass door. Around the corner on the far side of the stairs is likely the kitchen. She can see the fridge from where she’s standing. It’s new. Very new. Makes her wonder just how long ago it had been renovated. 

“Everyone, this is my sister Ashley.” Kyle says, introducing the other woman in the room. 

“Hello,” she says, giving everyone a wave and a dazzling smile. 

She’s dressed simply in jeans and a t-shirt, her medium box braids pulled up into a bun on top of her head. They look a lot alike, her and Kyle. Tall and slender and stunning. They have the same smile and the same soft brown eyes. She's wearing scent blockers, but Christine can imagine her having a soft scent like lavender or something fresh like mint. 

“There's two rooms down here, and two upstairs.” Kyle says. “The main bedroom is through there.” He points towards a door to their left. “I figure we'll give that to our omega. The bathroom in there has a walk-in shower.” 

“Perfect.” Christine says. That will make getting you in and out of the shower easier at least, and you won’t have to go far to use the bathroom.

“You should take the other room down here.” John says, looking at Christine. “So you can be close in case of an emergency.”

And so you don't have to be too close to them, so you won’t feel like they’re hovering.

He doesn't have to say that part out loud. 

“I put new sheets on all the beds.” Ashley says. “I also picked up everything Kyle sent on the list. Food, some clothes, some other necessities.”

You let out a quiet groan, Christine patting your head gently. You have to be exhausted and sore after the day. She should give you another dose of pain medicine like she said she would. You’re going to need it tonight. 

“Let's get you laying down for a bit.” She says, wheeling you towards the door. 

Kyle opens it for her, revealing a spacious room with a big window looking out towards the sea. You're going to spend a lot of time in front of that window, she thinks. The bed is in the middle of the room, and there’s two chairs facing the window. She’s almost tempted to sit you in one of the chairs, but laying down will be more comfortable for you right now. 

You're still too out of it now to care much as she wheels you to the double bed. With Kyle's help they get you horizontal, Christine draping the blanket at the end of the bed over you. It’s not very soft, but it will do for now. She’ll have to get the guys to pick up some soft blankets for you when they go to town. She has a whole list of things starting in her head she needs them to pick up.

She leans your crutch against the end of the bed just in case you might need it for an emergency. She hopes you’ll yell first, but you always have been stubborn. Being mostly bed-bound has only made that worse. 

“I’m going to go look through the things Ashley picked up.” She says, patting your leg gently. “Get some rest.” 

Christine leaves the door open a crack as she exits, wanting to give you a little privacy as you nap, or at least she hopes you’ll nap. It’s going to be a rough adjustment, and you’re going to need as much rest as you can get. 

“I’m assuming you’re Christine.” Ashley says, walking up to her. 

“I am.” She says, giving Ashley a smile. 

She can’t help but get lost in Ashley’s soft gaze for a moment. The Garrick siblings seem to share the same magnetic energy. There’s something almost ethereal about them. She could easily imagine them with glowing halos and angel wings. It’s almost like she’s being blessed with the opportunity to look upon her. She could spend an hour staring at Ashley’s face and not grow tired of looking at her.

“I picked up the items Kyle said you needed.” She says, motioning to the bags on the coffee table, pulling Christine out of her daze. “I couldn’t find the exact nutrient powder you asked for, so I got one that was as close as I could find.” 

Christine glances through the bags. She was thorough, getting at least two of everything. 

“I got warmer clothes for her too, since it can get chilly out here this time of year. Just some simple things for now until you guys get into town.” Ashley says. “I did some research too and I read that omegas like comforting things so I picked up some extra blankets and pillows” Ashley says, motioning to a couple bags sitting on the couch. “I also picked up this,” She pulls a stuffed dog from one of the bags, holding it up. “It was the softest one I could find. I thought it might help.” 

A small smile forms on Christine’s face, her heart fluttering in her chest from the sweet, thoughtful gesture. Ashley doesn’t even know you, nor did she know exactly what happened to you, and yet she went so far as to pick up some comfort items for you. You have nothing right now, only the borrowed clothes on your back. All of your belongings are still on base, all of the things that you had built to make your perfect nest. Would you want any of them still? Or have they been tainted by the events of the last few weeks? 

That Ashley thought to do this has warmth flooding Christine’s body. You can have some comfort now without having to wait for their trip to town. She almost feels the urge to cry. She wants to hug Ashley, thank her over and over for her kindness. Ashley has no idea how much her small act of kindness means, how much it's going to mean. 

A smile forms on Christine’s face as she stares at the stuffed dog. “It’s perfect.” 

You can hear it. 

In the distance, the quiet roar reaches your ears as you’re dragged from the sweet arms of sleep. It must be a dream, or perhaps the sedative is still clinging to your mind, making you imagine things. 

No. 

You’d know that sound anywhere. 

The effort to push yourself up to sit is a momentous one, every cell in your body protesting after a day of being moved and jostled. The last thing you want is to move right now, but you have to. 

The pain meds have done little to help.

The crutch at the end of your bed must be a thousand miles away as you sit there and stare at it. The ache in your body only increases as you become more and more aware of the pain, almost as if it can tell what it is your mind is planning. 

The door is cracked open, letting in a slit of light from outside. It’s dark in the room, the curtains pulled over the window. It’s a blessing compared to the bright yellow light outside the door. You welcome the darkness as your head begins to throb. You could call for assistance. You’d get more help than you needed. More help than you want. 

No. 

You need to do this. 

The effort it takes to get standing nearly sends you back onto the bed. The pain nearly blinds you as your feet touch the floor, your body leaning against the side of the mattress out of desperation. If you fall, you’ll never be alone again. You can’t afford that. You don’t want that. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

The breaths out of your nose are short and sharp as you reach for the crutch, fingers trembling in the effort to fight the pain threatening to blind you. You’re trembling like a leaf in a storm as your fingers finally wrap around the cool metal. The rubber bottom drags across the floor as you tug it over to you, holding it against your chest for a moment. 

Breathe. That’s what you need to do. Breathe. 

In and out. 

Nice and slow. 

The pain is only a memory. The pain is nothing. The memories forming at the edges of your mind will take over and wipe out the pain and the misery. You just have to be sure. You just have to be certain.

You push yourself upright using the crutch, tucking it under your arm. You should go back to bed. You should rest. 

No. 

You need to know. 

You need to be certain.

The first step you take nearly makes you sick. 

It’s like watching a baby deer walk for the first time, knees wobbling, feet shaking. You lean heavily on the crutch, your determination the only thing keeping you from tumbling to the floor in a heap. That might almost hurt worse than forcing yourself to stand upright. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Inch by inch you move across the floor, silently grateful for the socks on your feet. They allow you to slide across the hardwood, but they also pose a threat. Slide too far and you’ll lose your feet. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

The determination and your desire for certainty is what keeps you sliding inch by inch across the floor towards that strip of blinding light in front of you. It’s hovering before you, threatening you. How do you know there’s not one of them standing guard, waiting for you to try and leave? You can’t know. You don’t have a clue what’s waiting on the other side of that door. It could be nothing. It could be your entire pack. 

Breathe. 

In and out. 

You take a moment at the door, resting your aching feet. Your body is throbbing from the effort to keep yourself upright, the sedative still numbing your brain and your movements. It’s like treading through honey, everything twice as hard as it should be. You can walk. You’ve done it before. You did it in the medical center. 

You can do it here. 

You use the crutch to push the door open more, your free arm still tucked in a sling to keep you from moving it. Reaching for it with that arm would have put you on the floor, would have caused more pain than you needed, would have made you fall. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Breathe. 

The light burns. Explosions of yellows and whites erupt behind your eyelids as you screw them tight against the sudden onslaught. The sun is in the room, shining its rays directly into your sensitive eyes. Your stomach churns, your fingers tightening around the crutch so tight your knuckles begin to ache. The oppressive light makes you want to recede back into the darkness of the room behind you like a vampire shying away from the light of day. 

No. 

You won’t be defeated by the harsh artificial lighting. You need to know. 

You need to be certain.

The others are moving around. You can hear voices around the corner, voices upstairs with thudding footsteps. The air is thick with a mesh of scents, cleaning chemicals, and the burn of scent blocker. Your nose wrinkles at the sudden onslaught against your senses, your sedated brain making it all seem so much worse. 

You need to know. 

The hardwood floors continue and you use them to your advantage as you shuffle your way across the main area. The fire crackles as you pass, the popping of a log making you startle. Your feet slide again, your body pushing up against the crutch to hold yourself steady. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Your target is dead ahead, a mile away but so close you can almost taste it. Just past the dining table and straight on till morning. 

Despite your snail’s pace, no one seems to notice you shuffling your way across the house. It should make you upset, the fact that none of them notice you moving around, but instead it makes you glad. They’d try to stop you if they noticed you, turn you around and shuffle you back to bed. Or worse, they’d carry you. 

How easily you could slip away, though. 

Well...in theory. 

Perhaps that’s why they ‘re not paying you any mind. How far could you really go in your current state? 

Why would you want to stray from the only safe space you have? 

The world outside is more dangerous with the state you’re in. Not just because of your injuries and your status, but also because you know Shepherd is still out there, and for all you know Graves is as well. 

He could be waiting right outside the door. 

No. 

They’d know. 

They’d protect you. 

They failed. 

You push past the fear in favor of certainty as you push forward, passing the dining table in your slow crawl towards the sliding glass door. 

It poses an entirely new threat as you stand before it, staring out the darkened glass. You have to get it open. Getting it open takes strength and you’re down to one hand that’s trying to keep you upright. 

You have to know. 

You have to be certain. 

You lean your weight on the crutch, ignoring the way it digs into your armpit as you reach for the handle. You click the lock, wrapping your fingers around the plastic before pulling. Your body screams with pain as you tug, the door sliding in the track as slowly as you had moved across the small living area. It’s almost as if it's mocking you. 

It’s open only as wide as you need to crutch your way through, doing your best not to knock your left shoulder against the frame. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Breathe. 

You can smell it. 

The salty sea air invades your senses, slipping up through your nose and straight into your brain. Memories come flooding back of childhood vacations back when things were simpler. Back when nothing mattered but the sand and the water and avoiding getting chased by your brothers carrying the piece of seaweed they found. 

Polkadot bathing suits, bright red to be seen easily. Toes in the water, sand everywhere. The nap in the silent car home. 

How simple life was back then. How easy life was. 

Your heart aches for those days again. The days when you could exist without a care in the world, trusting your pack would keep you safe, trusting your family would care for you. Your mind yearns for that sense of safety and security again. 

The world is grey as you hobble across the porch, the grey seeming to go on forever. You missed it, the chill in the air, the gloomy grey overhead. How you yearned for the gloom of England while stuck in the heat of Texas. 

Anything is better than Texas. 

Your forward shuffle pauses at the edge of the deck, your eyes looking out into the grey. Your breath catches in your throat as you stare out into the distance, the ache in your chest intensifying. It blocks out the pain in your body, numbing you to everything else as you stand there, legs trembling from the effort of going the short distance from your room to the end of the porch. 

You can see it. 

Emotions swirl inside of you like a hurricane as you stare out where the grey water meets the grey sky in the line of the horizon. Those emotions threaten to choke you as you stand there trembling at the edge of the porch. There’s a breeze, a cold one that bites through the fabric of your sweatshirt and into the skin below, but you don’t care. 

You can’t care. 

Your legs shake from the exertion, the neverending exhaustion that’s settled deep into your bones. It’s not just a physical exhaustion, but a mental one as well. It’s been a long week. 

Only a week. 

So much has happened in a week. 

You want to sit. You want to sink down onto the porch and rest. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

There’s a pain in your chest as your breath catches in your throat. The emotions are whirling, tightening around your chest, squeezing your lungs until they feel like they might pop. 

Breathe. 

In and out. 

You needed certainty. You needed to know. 

You can hear it. You can smell it. You can see it. 

A single tear rolls down your cheek as you stare out at the sea. 

NEXT ->

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[colorlessjay]

hello! may be a weird request but do you have any fanfic recommendations?

BUCKLE THE FUCK UP

OH DO I HAVE SOME RECS FOR YA'LL

Mind you, 90% are based on personal preference and fics I think about way too often than I should. A lot of them influenced the way I make characters interact

Some of them might not be your taste and that's cool!

First off, Gotta promote the fics that people wrote inspired by my art (I am truly honored)

Time Cast A Spell On You by bethefirstwhoeverdid

Cabin of Feathers by Featherpie (Izupie)

Return To The Past by faeryn

NOW FOR MY COLLECTION

Just any fic written by everandanon

I swear to you, all of their fics are worth a read. They are frustrating (In a good way for me) but the worldbuilding, comedy, dialogue, and character interactions always have me physically getting up and laughing. At one point during Quarentantion, I had to stop reading to rant to my friends about it because it made me feel so much that I went to 3 different friends about it. With Interest actually made my heart physically hurt at certain points. Expectations had me on a roller coaster ride But if you think their fics are a little overwhelming, I recommend reading Casicorn. It's the first ever fic I read from them and it solidified my love for this author. I swear I am on my hands and KNEES waiting for them to finish their newest fic

Where All My Journeys End - (a Twist and Shout alt universe) by Say_It_In_Enochian

Did reading Twist and Shout devastate you? Did it emotionally hurt your heart and make you wish there was something to make the pain lighter? READ THIS FUCKING FIC NOW I got so fucking lucky when I found it immediately after reading T&S and when I tell you the JOURNEY this fic took me? It healed my soul The struggles, the history, the relationships, the LONG fight to get to their happy ending I am FLOORED this doesn't have 1000 Kudos!

The Ed Sheeran Effect by tricia_16

It made me laugh. That's it. It's sweet and funny and really fun and just feels very campy, like it could've been a decent movie I would rewatch on days I just feel like feeling good Am I a sucker for HighSchool/College AU fics? Yes do I fucking care? No

The Best Years of Our Lives, My Ass by ireallyhatecornnuts (CharleyFoxtrot)

I. fucking. love. this. fic The story alone was so interesting but it was the DIALOGUE that hooked me in. I swear I think about this fic in the middle of drawing and go "Damn, good times" like it's a long lost friend

Slide Away by Castielslostwings

It's the TENSION that got me. I can't explain to you how much I just love their hate-pining for each other Read it, love it, in my digital bookshelf

Sleep Without You by turningthepages

Hilarious. The density is so high it could float. I swear to god I've read this fic at least three times and think about it once a week I remember reading it and cackling so much that I woke up my mom

Should've Just Asked by Annie D (scaramouche)

I wish this fic had a follow-up that was just Dean's perspective because I would LOVE to read more of it. The situation is so absurd and I binged it all in one day (I'm a very slow reader)

Pinfall by crowleyo

I'm gonna say it. I'm so actually angry this fic doesn't get enough attention. It is so so SO well-written and heart-wrenching. Am I still a sucker for highschool sweethearts? YES! I OPENLY ADMIT THIS! But COME ON

Of fuming and partaking and so on by zation

This fic and literally any fic from Zation. I absolutely love the way this author writes. It's so funny and self-aware and the dialogue and scenarios always keep me entertained and laughing They have such a large catalog of fics that I'm pretty sure I have at least 15 saved on my phone

Mr. Blue Sky by anyrei, queerwolf79

This fic specifically and literally ANYTHING from these two. I swear, a lot of their fics are certified bangers. Mr. Blue Sky is probably a personal favorite of mine cause I actually teared up

Love Me More by Saiorse_Irvyne

I'm not the biggest fan of A/B/O stuff, but MAN this has me feeling things. When a fic makes me feel strong emotions, I just gotta recommend it

Lock and Key by tricia_16

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH it's THAT good

Kind Of A Forever Deal by komodobits

It's FUN. It's FUNNY. It's so fucking campy and cute and the progression of their relationship was just AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

It's Always the End of the World Somewhere by Annie D (scaramouche)

I can sit here and recommend Annie D's fics all DAY, but I'm recommending this one specifically because of this: “Get a room, assholes,” someone mutters. “Hey!” Crowley whirls on the offender. “I could set on you on fire!” And that's one of many fantastic quotes

Cinderwings by bendingsignpost

One of the first fics I've ever read from this fandom, and I recommend it to ANYONE regardless of whether they know Destiel or not. The story is so fucking captivating it makes me want to eat my foot it's so GOOD

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

Do I have a type when it comes to fanfics? Yes

But I like gravitating towards funny dialogue and silly shenanigans. I thrive off of fun fics that sometimes take themselves seriously, but still pull me back and make me laugh

If a fic can make me feel such a strong emotion that I PHYSICALLY have to get up? Then fuck yeah it's going in my archives

I would recommend some of the darker fics I have, but this is for fun

[thefreakandthehair]

grow where you're planted

written for ‘stuff’ | wc: 483 | rated: teen & up | tags: modern AU, no upside down, landscaper steve harrington, homeowner eddie munson, eddie munson & gareth friendship, confident!steve harrington, flirting, different first meeting @steddiemicrofic

“What is all that stuff?” Eddie mutters under his breath.

He’s alone in his shiny new shotgun house with no one around to hear his question but he asks it anyway because seriously— what is all that stuff? How much mulch does one Indianapolis front yard need?

A lot, apparently.

He keeps watching through the glass window in the front door as they slice open bags and pull plants gently from their pots. One of the landscapers, a lean guy who’s worked up a sweat with toned shoulders and moles that cascade from the side of his neck, runs his fingers through his hair. Dirt sticks to his temple as he bends down to plant something with yellow flowers beside the mailbox and Eddie wants to lick him clean.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispers to himself, yanking his phone from his back pocket.

Eddie: landscaper is too hot help Gareth: you brought this on yourself Eddie: there’s a guy in the shortest basketball shorts i’ve ever seen. like, 80s pin-up short. i’m in over my head Gareth: then go talk to him? Eddie: good idea, lets get all the bad ideas out now Gareth: i’m serious! Eddie: i pre-paid online for a reason, i can’t even look him in the fucking eye

Eddie looks up from his phone, intent to watch Shorts Guy from a distance only to find himself face to face with Shorts Guy through the offending glass window.

“Fuck!” He blurts, dropping his phone in the process. Please don’t be broken, he thinks as he tries to discreetly slide it aside with his foot and opens the door.

“Hey! Sorry to scare you. We’re all set,” Shorts Guy says with a smirk as he glances up and down from Eddie’s phone to his warm, flushed cheeks.

“Cool! Awesome!” His voice is about an octave too high– he clears his throat. “Looks great!”

“Thanks! If you’re satisfied with the work, leave us a good review. Goes a long way. And uh…” Shorts Guy does that thing with his hair again and Eddie might actually be sweating more than him now. “Maybe you can give me a call if you’re extra satisfied? And if your phone’s not broken.”

Shorts Guy nods to Eddie's discarded phone and what the fuck is happening right now? Eddie blinks and then shakes his head, grabbing his phone to find it blissfully still intact.

“All in one piece,” he says, turning the phone around toward Shorts Guy as if he needed to prove it. “I’d– yeah! Totally. I’d love to. Y’know, since it’s not broken and all that.”

Shorts Guy takes Eddie’s phone from his outstretched hand and saves his number as Steve. He texts Steve immediately, exchanging numbers and names before Steve’s even left the driveway.

Eddie: hey, it’s Eddie. extra satisfied. free this Saturday?

Gareth is never going to let him hear the end of this.

doubling up with a microfic and a gift for @starrystevie! happy birthday, bee!! here's some confident, sweaty landscaper!steve harrington for you! <3 I've been thinking about it for days and couldn't stop myself. love you!! have the best day!!

[cyberluvzu]

TICCI TOBY DATING HEADCANONS

Ticci toby x reader

Hello people, I haven't written in years but I have some spare time and have been DROOLING over Toby lately so I thought that I could do this.

(please go easy on me I literally haven't wrote anything like this in 2 years)

- COMPLETE LOSERRRR

- Absolutely no dating experience at all

- You're his first everything

- And because you're his first everything, he gets incredibly nervous when it comes to doing new romantic things ( especially something physical)

- He wants to do all the cute couple things with you but he's scared that he's gonna end up scaring you off or making you uncomfortable

- At the beginning of the relationship he would probably be so awkward

- You'd go to hug him and he'd just stand there like🧍

- Don't get me wrong he appreciates the affection, he just doesn't know how to respond because he hasn't had a good relationship with physical touch

- After a couple of months he would slowly start to be more open to physical affection and being more romantic

- Just give the man some time

- When you get to the point of being completely comfortable with eachother he goes CRAZY BRO

- When he does get comfortable he is constantly on your ass

- He comes back from missions and immediately wants to go to sleep with you in his arms

- Bro doesn't even care if he's all bloody, he WILL have you

- You will have to pry him off of you and get him in the shower, or at least change his clothes

- After you get him to clean up he is all over you

- Holds you so close and just knocks the fuck out

- I also like to think that he'll bring you little knick knacks when he goes out

- Flowers, cool rocks, maybe a couple of things he got stole when he was in town!

- He's kinda like a crow

- In the sense of, if he likes you, you're gonna get some stuff

- He likes going on walks with you, it's nice just being alone with you, away from his life

- Is somewhat totally obsessed with you

- When he's not with you he is always thinking of you

- On his mind 24/7

- Totally infatuated with you, loves you completely.

- Has an irrational fear that he might lose you and doesn't want you to ever leave him, because you're the best thing that's happened to him

- Gets jealous, but not in the aggressive way, at least not with you

- Might go kill that person that was hitting on you, but you don't need to know that!

- Will absolutely be passive aggressive with you though

- Says little things to let you know that he's still upset at you

- He just worries he'll lose you to someone else

- Someone give bro a hug already

- Speaking of that, he absolutely adores your hugs, wants to stay in your arms forever

- He likes hugging you from behind

- He also really likes to silently creep up behind you and scare the shit out of you, but ends up giving you a hug to make up for it

- He just loves you

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

GUYS IM BEGGING ON MY HANDS AND KNEES FOR Y'ALL TO REQUEST 😭🙏

I'm literally so in the mood for writing about silly little characters now, I have so so many more headcanons for Toby and all of the other pastas, but I'm gonna post this because I've delayed doing it for a while because I'm irrationally nervous 😭

[thewadapan]

So why did Transformers One bomb?

Look, I'm just going to say it right off the bat: no, Transformers One is not the best Transformers movie of all time. I am (gritting my teeth) very happy for every single Transformers fan except me, who all seem to have liked it, and most of whom seem to have loved it. I agree that, as a production, it meets some baseline level of technical competence. It's a perfectly fine movie.

It's also the worst-performing Transformers movie Paramount has ever made.

Hopefully, now that its theatrical run has unceremoniously ended, people aren't going to try to rip me to shreds for theoretically threatening this multi-million-dollar film's box office revenue some miniscule amount by sharing a few teensy weensy complaints with my fifty followers.

Because I do just have a few little nitpicks, which I've tried my best to communicate, over the next 17,000 words of this post.

If you're not a Transformers fan, sorry, this essay is mostly written with the assumption that you've seen Transformers One. However, it might still be of some interest as a window into the current state of the franchise. I've written a basic plot summary of the movie to bring you up to speed, in that case. Because Transformers One purports to be the perfect introduction to the story, no homework needed, I've also done you the courtesy of elucidating background context as needed—think of this less as a review, and more as a history lesson, or maybe a "lore explained" YouTube video. After all, that's pretty much all that Transformers One is.

(And if farcically long posts aren't really your thing, you might prefer to listen to the special episode of Our Worlds are in Danger where my pals and I chatted about the film. Many of the hottest takes and silliest bits in this essay are shamelessly stolen from Jo and Umar.)

We've been waiting for Transformers One for a very long time. It's the first animated Transformers film to get a theatrical release since The Transformers: The Movie came out in 1986. It first entered development around a decade ago. Many fandom members I know online got to see it as far back as June. Its US premiere was in September; those of us in the UK had to wait a full extra month before seeing it, for no clear reason. This is a film which purports to show, in broad strokes, for the first time on the big screen, the origin of the Transformers: where they come from, who they are, and why they're fighting.

By the end of its runtime, Transformers One does not actually answer these questions. Don't get me wrong, it takes great pains trying to answer a lot of different, related questions—just ones which nobody was really asking in the first place: What does the word "Autobots" mean, if not "automobile robots"? What does the word "Decepticons" mean, if they're not actually deceitful? Why is he called "Optimus Prime"? Why is he called "Megatron"? If they were friends, why did they fall out? Why does Starscream sound Like That? Where does Energon come from? If "Prime" is a title, what were the other Primes like? How do Transformers transform?

Writer Eric Pearson, coming onto the project as an outsider to Transformers, describes having to go to Hasbro to ask these kinds of questions:

they had a script that outlined the story that they wanted to tell. I knew Optimus Prime and Megatron and I knew Bumblebee as well, or B. I had to ask about some of the other deeper ones, the mythology, “what exactly is the Matrix of Leadership?” Stuff like that.

See, Hasbro does in fact have the answers written down somewhere. The story as I understand it goes something like this. During the wild west of the '80s and '90s, Transformers "canon" was largely a by-the-seat-of-your-pants consensus-based affair between the freelance writers and copywriters the toy company would bring on to advertise their toys. That changed around the turn of the millennium, when late later-CEO Brian Goldner saw how Hasbro's licensed IP lines (such as Star Wars) were more financially successful and realised they could make more money by aggressively promoting their own in-house IP, which they didn't have to pay licensing fees for. (For the curious, a similar thought process at rival toy company Lego was what led to their creation of BIONICLE.)

The guy basically singlehandedly managing the Transformers brand at the time, Aaron Archer, eventually set to reconciling all the self-contradictory lore surrounding Transformers, an endeavour which dovetailed into the creation of the HasLab internal think-tank (best known for Battleship, the 2012 store-brand Michael Bay knockoff which was a failure critically and commercially but not in my heart) and ultimately the creation of the so-called "Binder of Revelation", an internal story bible which cost over $250,000 to produce and has strongly influenced nigh on every piece of Transformers media released since, but which we hadn't actually seen until it got leaked a week ago. As it turns out, the document itself (compiled mostly by marketers and toy designers) is patently useless to any writer: it's a typo-ridden internally-inconsistent wishy-washy mess that mostly describes the characters in terms of a made-up form of Transformers astrology that has otherwise never seen the light of day.

So although the Binder is the baseline story bible for most modern Transformers media, its influence isn't direct per se; it's more accurate to describe it as being an elaborate game of telephone between high-profile cartoons, comics, and other internal documents, with the Binder itself apparently just sitting in a drawer somewhere at Hasbro; Eric Pearson says that he never received a "binder", with the "script" he mentions either being the earlier draft from Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari (the guys who originally pitched the story), or some other unseen internal document. Director Josh Cooley, however, definitely seems to have been physically handed the Binder or its mass-market adaptation:

I knew that there was a lot of origin to be told, and when I first started, [Hasbro] gave me the Transformers Bible. I could not believe how big it was. I was like, "This is way more than I ever anticipated."

When trailers first dropped for Transformers One, a lot of my friends who are savvy were immediately like: "Oh, this is a weirdly faithful adaptation of the Binder of Revelation, huh."

I. The One True Origin of the Transformers

Half of the people reading this are Transformers fans, and half of you literally could not give less of a shit about Transformers, so if you're in the 'former group (so to speak), you'll just have to bear with me while I bring the rest of us up to speed.

Before the Transformers' civil war begins, Cybertron is being oppressed by the Quintessons. The Quintessons are a race of five-faced aliens (as in, not Transformers), who execute everyone they come across, first introduced in The Transformers: The Movie, presiding over a kangaroo court on a castaway world. In the followup cartoon five-parter "Five Faces of Darkness", writer Flint Dille established that, gasp, they were actually the original creators of the Transformers! But basically nobody else at the time was particularly compelled by this idea, it seems, with most fans preferring the more mythological origin story conceived by Bri'ish writer Simon Furman for the Marvel comics. I think people kind of just didn't like to think of the Transformers as being robots—mass-produced, a fabrication, programmed—as opposed to an alien race of thinking, feeling beings like us. But because the cartoon was important to many kids, a lot of early-2000s media tried to reconcile the cartoon and comic origin stories by stating that the Quintessons didn't actually create the Transformers; rather, they simply colonised the planet early in its history and pretended to be the Transformers' creators, until the truth came out and they got kicked offworld. This is how the Binder of Revelation ultimately paid lip service to the Quintessons. In Transformers One, the Quintessons are just sort of here, they're these evil aliens secretly skimming Energon from its miners, they don't speak English (or whichever language the film was dubbed into in your market region), they're just these nasty societal parasites.

Energon is Transformers fuel. In the original cartoon, it was these glowing pink cubes the Decepticons were always trying to produce using harebrained Saturday-morning-cartoon energy-stealing devices. There was a Cold War going on, America had just been through an "energy crisis", maybe you're old enough to remember any of that. Transformers are these big, complicated machines, so I guess the idea is they need this hyper-compressed superfuel to run off, and their homeworld has run out. By the time of the Binder of Revelation, the concept had been telephoned to the point where Energon is like the lifeblood of Primus or some shit.

Primus is the Transformers God—but not the kind of God you have "faith" in, rather this actual guy whose existence is objectively known in various ways. He transforms into a planet, that's kind of cool, right? Where does Primus come from? Look, it doesn't matter, he's like, the God of Creation, he was there at the start of time. He created all of the Transformers. All the other species in the galaxy, though, they evolved naturally thanks to "science". Actually wait, didn't that Quintus Prime guy go around the universe seeding all the planets with different kinds of Cybertronian life? That's why they're called Quintessons. See, now you know. Who's Quintus Prime?

Okay, so the Thirteen Original Transformers, or the Primes, are the thirteen original Transformers created by Primus. Most of them correspond to different kinds of Transformer: Nexus Prime is the god of Transformers who can combine, Onyx Prime is the god of Transformers who turn into animals, Micronus Prime is the god of Transformers who are small, and Solus Prime is the god of Transformers who are women. You might remember the Primes from Revenge of the Fallen, although there were only seven of them there for whatever reason.

Honestly, The Fallen was the only one who mattered for a long time. The whole reason there's thirteen of them is because thirteen is kind of an unlucky number, right? Twelve would've been fine. But throw in a thirteenth guy, and he betrays everyone, he's this fucked up evil guy. In the Binder of Revelation, though, the Thirteenth Prime is his own special guy shrouded in mystery, because they kind of liked the idea that Optimus Prime would secretly turn out to have been the Thirteenth Prime all along, and he just forgot or something, because that means he has the divine right of Primes. In IDW's 2010s comic-book reboot, the Thirteenth Prime was called "The Arisen"—in reference to that one line in The Transformers: The Movie, "Arise, Rodimus Prime!" (this margin is too narrow to explain who Rodimus Prime is). Towards the end of his run, writer John Barber did some actually interesting stuff with the concept, playing with the ambiguity over whether-or-not Optimus Prime was actually the chosen one.

All of Optimus Prime's immediate predecessors as Autobot leaders, Sentinel Prime, Zeta Prime, the lineage seen in "Five Faces of Darkness"... they're all false Primes. They're Primes in name only. In fact, IDW had a whole procession of these cartoonishly evil dictators thanks to a few continuity errors leading to the addition of a couple of extra narratively-redundant fuckers. Transformers One tries to simplify it slightly by just saying that Zeta Prime was one of the Primes for real—occupying that thirteenth "free space"—and it was just Sentinel Prime who was only a normal Transformer pretending to be a Prime, then Optimus Prime who's a real boy.

But if he's not a Prime from the start, Optimus Prime needs another name in the meantime. In the '80s cartoon episode "War Dawn", before he was called Optimus Prime, he was called "Orion Pax". Have you noticed that Optimus Prime is kind of an odd-one-out amongst all the straightup-English-word names like "Bumblebee" and "Ratchet" and "Jazz"? That's because his name was one of a tiny handful from very early in the franchise's development, before writer Bob Budiansky came onboard and came up with identities for the vast majority of the toys. Practically everyone Bob Budiansky named is called like, "Bolts" or some shit, long before the characters even know of Earth, which has always just been a contrivance of the setting you're not supposed to think about.

Presumably to create a parallel with Orion Pax's transformation into Optimus Prime, someone at Hasbro in the 2010s came up with a new name for the bot who would become Megatron: "D-16". In real-world terms, this was nothing more than a dorky reference to the Megatron toy's original Japanese release being number 16 in the line ("D" stands for "Destron", which is what they call Decepticons in Japan). But in-universe, the name "D-16" was drawn from the sector of the mine where he worked. I don't get the impression it was originally intended to be part of a broader pattern.

Which is why I'm baffled as to what the hell the reasoning was behind Bumblebee's pre-Earth name, "B-127". There's this bizarre situation in the Bumblebee film, where the name "B-127" first cropped up, where literally every other bot gets a normal cool name with personality like "Cliffjumper" or "Dropkick" except for Bumblebee, who is stuck with this clunky sci-fi name until he makes friends with a human teenager on Earth and she gives him the name Bumblebee. I guess I don't find it confusing that the writers would (correctly) realise it's a bit weird for Bumblebee to be called Bumblebee on an alien planet where bumblebees don't exist. What I find confusing is that they didn't extend that logic to any other character.

So despite everything else in the franchise's direction pointing away from "robot" and towards "alien", Transformers One ends up with this ridiculous situation where two of the most important guys are, for practically the whole movie, simply referred to as "Dee" and "Bee", I guess because the writers correctly realised the numbers sound fucking stupid.

And if you squint, "Elita-1" sorta fits this naming scheme. But the great irony of it is that the very same cartoon episode which coined "Orion Pax" simultaneously established that Elita-1 also used to go by a different name: "Ariel"! Like the Little Mermaid. Y'know, because an "aerial" is a type of electrical component- oh, forget it.

By the time the script made it into Eric Pearson's hands, it's obvious that he simply was not thinking about it that deeply. He describes the genesis of a scene where Bumblebee introduces his imaginary friends, "A-atron, EP 5-0-8, and Steve." A-atron was impov'd by Keegan-Michael Key as a reference to one of his own skits on Key & Peele. Steve ("He's foreign.") was literally just because Pearson thought it would be funny. It's true that Steve is an inherently funny name, and I guess if you're struggling to come up with jokes of your own, it can be handy to fall back on something which is inherently funny.

And again, our silly answers to these silly questions beget yet more questions. If he started out as "D-16", then where did the name "Megatron" come from? And if all the Primes have epic made-up fantasy names, then surely that one guy can't just be called "The Fallen", right? That's not a name, that's an epithet. Unfortunately, someone at Hasbro had the bright idea to answer both these questions at once: The Fallen's real name was "Megatronus". Later, for consistency, they threw on the title, and we get "Megatronus Prime", which sounds like what a thirteen-year-old on deviantART in 2014 would call their Steven Universe fusion of Megatron and Optimus Prime. So you see, Megatron actually named himself after Megatronus Prime, famously the most evil of the Primes. In Transformers One, this is changed slightly so Megatronus is merely the strongest of the Primes, as part of its overall effort to make Megatron not look completely insane.

Which, it must be said, is a tall order. Better stories have tried and failed. Back in 2007, Scottish writer Eric Holmes came up with Megatron Origin, a perfectly-fine comic miniseries which drew heavily from the miners' strikes that took place in the UK from 1984-1985, coinciding with the inception of the Transformers franchise. In that comic, Megatron is a lowly miner who, through a series of chance events, winds up at the head of a dangerous political revolutionary movement.

For some reason—I guess because nobody had ever tried to make Megatron anything other than a bloodthirsty cackling madman before—this take on Megatron as a guy who rose up against a corrupt system became the defining interpretation of the character, copy/pasted pretty much wholesale into the Binder of Revelation. Orion Pax also opposes the system, and bonds with Megatron over it, but they disagree on how to fix it: Pax believes in peaceful reform, Megatron just loves to kill. In Transformers One, the problem everyone has with Megatron is basically "whoa, this guy's a little TOO angry!" and there's a point towards the end of the film where Megatron suddenly starts jonesing to kill literally anyone who stands in his way, because he's irrationally angry.

The core problem here—and it's kind of the Magneto problem, the Killmonger problem, whatever better-known example you care to insert here—is that these guys all fundamentally exist just to be a big villain who loves to kill people and who ultimately gets defeated, but the kids who grew up on this stuff in the '80s are now adults who are no longer satisfied with cardboard cutout villains. People like a complex villain, they like a villain who has a point. They like to root for both sides. And in fact, it's easier to sell more toys to people who are rooting for both sides, if your villain is just another kind of hero. But you don't really need to take the same effort with the good guys: they're good by design, righteous by nature. They don't need to stand for something, they just need to stand against the guy whose whole thing is that he loves to kill people.

But again, we're starting from a place where the evil faction—who half the planet will ultimately align themselves with—are literally called "Decepticons". It's a name you'd only ever call yourself ironically, maybe reclaiming it from your enemies. In this film, there's some tortured logic that implies they're called Decepticons because they were deceived by Sentinel Prime. Like if you met a gang of guys who call themselves "The Robbers", but it turns out to be because they got robbed one time, and they actually have zero intention of stealing from anyone.

The Autobots are easier, of course. "Auto" is a prefix that just means, like, the self, or whatever. And the most agreeably American ideal of all is selfishness the power of the individual, the freedom to seize one's own destiny. Prime's original '80s motto, "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings," is bastardised in Transformers One into the slightly less rolls-out-off-the-tongue "Freedom and autonomy are the rights of all sentient beings," because (I can only assume) they forgot to work the word "autonomy" earlier into the script. If they ever greenlit Transformers Three, I suppose the motto would have ended up as something like "Freedom, autonomy, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope are the rights of all sentient beings." Even though bodily autonomy is one of the most salient motifs present in the film—all but referred to by name—I suppose the filmmakers were worried that you might think, when Prime says "freedom", that he actually means something completely different. So now you see! "Autobots" is actually the descriptive name of a political movement which believes in obviously good things. Like "Moms for Liberty".

Okay, so the cannier among you have probably spotted the mean rhetorical trick I'm pulling with this encyclopedia-entry-ass introduction. By sarcastically relitigating all the storytelling choices I dislike from the last 20 years of Transformers lore, I can build up a negative association with Transformers One without even reviewing the movie itself! On a subtextual level, I'm deliberately misattributing these bad ideas to the filmmakers, conveniently ignoring the mountains of evidence to suggest that they were just trying to make the best of whatever Hasbro handed them from on high. If anything—you might think—the filmmakers deserve even more credit, for spinning this shite into something even remotely good on the big screen.

Like, you'd be wrong, but I can see why you might think that.

II. The Spider-Verse of Transformers

Okay, I can see that I've spat in your soup. I'm sorry. There are lots of good bits in Transformers One. I can even think of one or two of them off the top of my head, without really racking my brains.

Maybe halfway through the film, there is one specific moment where the story suddenly promises to get good. You can pinpoint it down to the word, down to the frame even. Our heroes have just discovered that their planet's leader, Sentinel Prime, is a complete fraud who's been secretly exploiting them ever since they were born—and worse, castrated them by removing their transformation cogs. They are all very cross about this. Orion Pax expresses that he wants to come up with a plan to expose Sentinel Prime. Megatron is too angry to listen. Orion Pax asks, "Don't you want to stop him?" And Megatron replies, "No, I want to KILL him!" And there's like, a little tint of red creeping into the glow of his eyes.

Whoa. Chills. Up to this point in the film, Megatron has been kind of surly at times, but he's otherwise a generic kids' movie protagonist. He's often chipper. He makes quips. He has this banter with Orion Pax where he's always complaining. It's literally that one "Optimist Prime"/"Negatron" comic, committed to film. Like I'm not even being facetious, one of the film's few obligatory "emotional moments" has Elita-1 sit Orion Pax down and say, "You know what I love about you? You always see the bright side. Like you're some kind of OPTIMIST or something." And then later completely unrelatedly God gives him the mandate of heaven and says "ARISE, OPTIMUS PRIME!" Y'see, as originally conceived, "Optimus" is the word "Optimum" if it was a name, which is why people sometimes localise his name as "Best #1". But it's genuinely kind of cute to reverse-engineer the etymology as coming from "optimist", I guess. Like, it's stupid, but it's cute.

Argh, I got distracted with naming minutia again! Entirely my bad. That's the last time, I promise. Where was I? Right, we'd just found out that Megatron is kind of scary. Brian Tyree Henry's line delivery as he growls "KILL" is his crowning achievement in this film.

Where Optimus Prime's character arc in this movie sees him change from a funny, rebellious spirit to a complete personality vacuum, Megatron's character arc is kind of the opposite. When we're first introduced to him, it's weirdly hard to get a handle on who he is. He's a fanboy for Megatronus, the strongest and most morally-unremarkable of the Primes. He looks up to Sentinel Prime. He likes sports. He doesn't like breaking the rules. In fact, we get the sense that, were it not for his friendship with Orion Pax, he would be literally indistinguishable from the legion of silent crowd-filling background characters he works with. But the moment he starts to become Megatron, it's like everything starts to click. Gears catch, where once they ground and idled. There is something in this guy that was made to fight, made to kill, made to rule. It's sick.

And the underlying tension in his friendship with Optimus suddenly snaps into focus. Megatron is mad at Sentinel Prime, but Sentinel Prime isn't there, he's somewhere else, far below... and he can't help but turn that anger on the next closest thing to an authority figure he has in his life, which is his peer-pressuring bestie, Orion Pax. There is a part of Megatron that wishes he'd never learned the truth, and he blames Orion Pax for his cursed knowledge, for constantly leading them into predicaments on his stupid flights of fancy. Now that he knows, he can't go back to how he was. He can't stop thinking about it.

I'll be honest, it rules. Obviously it rules. It's complicated and toxic and darker than this movie was marketed to be. In interview, Josh Cooley describes the draft of the script he was presented with when he joined the project as having been far more jokey, light-hearted, glib—and it seems we can credit him for saying "Look, this ain't right, the minute the credits roll these guys are going to be at civil war for millions of years."

So, they started talking about it in — what did you say, 2015? I came on board in 2020, and when I came on board there was the first draft of the script. So I don't think they'd been working on it that entire time, but they'd been thinking about it, for sure. And the script that I read was a little more comical? But it was clear that that wasn't the right tone for this film specifically, because we know there's gonna be a war, civil war on Cybertron, you can't have everybody making jokes and then all of a sudden there's a war. So, um, the stakes were really important for this film. And because our characters at the beginning are a little naive, and just on the younger side, not as experienced, it allowed more freedom for them to be a little looser and have fun really getting to know these characters. But once they realize something's going on and things are getting real, it needs to get real.

Cooley also describes his "in" on the film as being the brotherly relationship between Optimus Prime and Megatron (they're not literally brothers in this film, though they have been in the past), which perhaps explains why Megatron and Optimus Prime get to be characters, instead of just like, guys who are there.

That was always the goal from the beginning and what got me on board. It was this relationship between these two characters that was very human and brotherly. I thought about my relationship with my brother and how I could bring that in. It’s not like we’re enemies, but we grew up together and then went down our different paths, but we’re still brotherly. I became a writer-director and live in a fantasy land, and he became a homicide detective who deals with reality, so we’re two very different mindsets. I have always been fascinated by the idea of two people who come from the same place but end up in different ones. From the very beginning, I was like, ‘That’s something I can relate to.’

Anyway, things I liked, what else. There's that joke at the very start, after the excruciating lore powerpoint, where Orion Pax does a fake-out like he's going to transform, the music briefly swells, and then it just cuts to him legging it down the corridor. In a similar vein, I liked the idea behind the Iacon 5000, where Orion Pax has them run in the race. I felt like the execution of the race left a bit to be desired—the only other participant who matters is Darkwing—but it's still honestly the best big action setpiece in the film. There's also that bit at the end where Megatron and Optimus Prime are both changing into their final forms simultaneously, and it's basically a Homestuck Flash (what would that be, "[S] OPTIMUS PRIME. ARISE."?), so obviously I liked that. Oh, and I really liked the environment design where the planet's landscape is constantly transforming, that's brand-new, someone had an Idea there, and it creates visual interest during the initial Energon-mining scene... even if I wished it had actually paid off in a more meaningful way than "the planet's crust opens as Prime falls to get the Matrix"—like, someone really should've gotten eaten by the planet, that's a cracking Disney death scene and they left it on the table! I also liked getting to see my blorbo, Vector Prime, on the big screen.

I think, as a Transformers fan who's had to sit through a lot of really quite sexist, racist, and plain bad films, you're well within your rights to come out of this one ready to give it a fucking Oscar. You should be ecstatic! It has none of those pesky humans clogging up the frame. It has plenty of robot action. It has jokes which- well I struggle to call many of them "funny", but they're at least trying to be funny in a different way to Michael Bay's films. The film is obviously a massive love letter to... honestly every part of Transformers except the live-action movies. It is an incredibly faithful and earnest adaptation of all the lore and iconography that has randomly accumulated the way it has over the last forty years of bullshit.

My main point of contention, then, is with the overriding sentiment I'm seeing from pretty much everyone else in the fandom: that this is not just the best Transformers movie, but that it's a great animated movie period, that it does for Transformers what Into the Spider-Verse did for Spider-Man, what The Last Wish did for Puss in Boots, and what Mutant Mayhem did for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That, in effect, this film will make you "get it". That it's better-looking, better-written, and more meaningful than a silly toy commercial has any right to be.

I think you can definitely see some loose influence from Spider-Verse in the overall look of the film—particularly in its color grading, and in the design of its main setting, the underground city of Iacon, where the upside-down skyscrapers hanging from the ceiling evoke the iconic "falling upwards" shot from Spider-Verse. Like The Last Wish, it's an animated franchise film that spent much longer than you'd think in development, only for the release of Into the Spider-Verse to have an immediate impact on its visual style... without actually affecting the basic story to the same extent. Both Transformers One and The Last Wish, in many ways, feel like stories concocted using an older formula; in particular, Transformers One bears startling similarities to a similar toy-franchise-prequel, BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui, which was released twenty years ago! By contrast, Mutant Mayhem—which had a much shorter development period—is a direct reaction to Spider-Verse in both aesthetic and narrative, and it has a much more distinctive creative direction as a result.

If you look at how all these titles have performed in cinemas, I think you can make a pretty strong case that audiences are perfectly willing to go out and see this kind of flick. A glance at Wikipedia tells me that Mutant Mayhem, The Bad Guys, and The Last Wish grossed double, triple, and quadruple their budgets respectively. In terms of the pre-existing cultural cachet they were banking on, we're talking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a children's book series I'd never heard of, and fucking Puss in Boots. You cannot tell me that Transformers, as a brand, is on the same level as any of these properties. Meanwhile, Transformers One hardly broke even, while The Wild Robot—another DreamWorks film based on a children's book I've never heard of, which it ended up competing with in theatres—grosses three times its budget. My friends who've seen The Wild Robot say it made them cry.

Face it: Transformers One has not lit the world on fire. I've seen a lot of people cope with this by suggesting that it's to do with the film's staggered release, or even by claiming that the film's marketing was somehow misleading. I'll be honest, upon seeing it, it did not strike me as being at all dissimilar to the trailers. You can maybe say that the trailers undersold the depth of Orion Pax's and Megatron's relationship—which is its best aspect—but honestly, I think if they'd taken a lot of those scenes out of context and put them in early teasers, audiences would've laughed it out of theatres. Like, c'mon, it's toy robots, stop pretending it's Shakespeare. And otherwise, what you see is what you get; it's exactly what it says on the tin.

I wonder how many Transformers fans, on some level, have noticed that even when we're supposedly "eating good", and watching "peak cinema", our films just aren't as good as everyone else's. They're something you'll enjoy if you're already highly predisposed to enjoy them. But otherwise, they're not turning heads. They're not as funny, or as heartfelt, or as complex, or as exciting, or as charming, or as memorable, or as beautiful as these other films. Unlike with Spider-Verse, there's no word-of-mouth amongst normal people to say that this is a film worth seeing.

What I perceive in studios hoping to recreate the flash-in-the-pan success of Spider-Verse is a misunderstanding of what made people go crazy for that movie in the first place. Yes, it changed our conception of what an 3D-animated film could look like. Yes, the multiverse is very cool and all that. Yes, it had a huge IP attached to it. But on a more fundamental level, that movie has a fantastic story underpinning it. The script is razor-sharp. The story is beautifully complex. The vision of New York City it presents is a living, breathing place, populated by real people. It has the kind of craft to it that can only come from truly obsessive creators cultivating an absolutely miserable professional environment for a legion of passionate animators.

In interview, Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura actually spoke surprisingly candidly about his view on crunch:

I probably shouldn't answer this question, because I'm not exactly PC on my answer. I think the nature of filmmaking is, we're really lucky to work in a business that's about passion. Passion doesn't fit really well into a timeline, so inevitably you come to a crunch time. It's just true in the live action, it's true in every movie, and authors always tell me that about when they're writing their books — it's the same thing happens to them! There's something about the creative process that's not — it's unruly. So, I think if you're enjoying it, you need to recognize that. Like, you know, I don't wanna abuse anybody, and y'know — if you get into that period where people have to really work too hard, you gotta help them in that situation, then. 'Cause it's gonna come. It does on every movie. I've never seen it not come, no matter how well you plan, et cetera. 'Cause it's not a science what we're doing at all, and there's all these discoveries that happen near the end, which makes you go "oh, let's do some more, come on!". We discovered that on this movie, where we're calling ILM going "we've got a few ideas, you know, do you have enough man-hours?". [...] Like, you gotta be conscious of it — in live-action, for instance, there are some studios that are so cheap that when you're on — sort of medium location-distance and you're shooting 'til midnight, they don't pay for a hotel room. It's like, well, no-no-no, you pay for a hotel room. You protect the people.

According to everyone who worked on Transformers One, everyone who worked on Transformers One was very passionate about it. But there are parts of this film where I think you can say, pretty objectively, that it's falling short of its intended effect. So I guess maybe they weren't that passionate. I'm not saying that to be mean! It's just... isn't that better than the alternative—that this was the best they could do?

III. I did not care for The Godfather

At one point in the film, the gang's magic map leads them to a scary cave, which looks like this:

Bumblebee fills the dead air by saying, "A cave, with teeth. Nothing scary about that!" The joke here is that this is a cave that looks like a mouth. But as depicted, it's a cave that looks like a mouth that doesn't look like a cave! I get that this is an alien planet, but stalactites don't grow that way on Earth, so when you see the cave onscreen, your gut reaction isn't "oh my, what a frightening cave!". No, this is a cave that makes you say, "that's not a cave, that's some kind of alien monster".

(It's not like "cave turns out to be a monster" would in any way be a fresh twist. In BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui, there's a bit where a character swims into a scary cave, and it turns out to be the mouth of a massive sea serpent. In The Empire Strikes Back, the Millennium Falcon briefly hides in an asteroid tunnel which turns out to be a giant space worm. So I'm definitely not saying Transformers One would've been a better film if it had used this stock trope.)

Then once the heroes go inside, we're whisked off to an entirely different set of concept artwork, for this lush organic underground paradise. There's no danger there. The cave itself is reduced to a strange little footnote. Maybe it's only in the story because a concept artist drew it before they'd worked out the finer points of the narrative, and Keegan-Michael Key just ended up ad-libbing the "teeth!" line when he was told to vamp for a few seconds. Or maybe the teeth gag was fully written into the script from the start, and the environment artists just interpreted it way too literally.

Like, I'm sorry, I don't mean to start off on the wrong foot here by harping on about the cave thing—it's not a perfect example anyway—but to me it's a microcosm for my frustration towards what I perceive to be a lack of creative vision in this film. So much of the film feels like it's not there to be entertaining, or meaningful, or narratively load-bearing... it's just obligatory, something they threw in for the sake of having anything at all. It's colors and sounds. When you see the spiky shape onscreen, you think, "ooh, this film was pretty bouba earlier, but now it's more kiki!" They get the comedian to improvise a few one-liners while the characters walk from place to place. And it's like, yes, this is a film for children. Of course the heroes have an adventure map with a big red X on it. In many respects this is a glorified episode of Pocoyo, or the modern equivalent, which I guess is "Baby Shark | Animal Songs For Children".

Nowhere is this sense of "we are obliged to put this in the movie" felt more strongly than in its supporting cast. When you look closely, you notice that Bumblebee and Elita-1—placed prominently in the film's marketing and being technically present for much of its runtime—don't actually do anything of narrative significance. They don't make choices that impact the story; they're just there, and it would not take much rewriting to excise them entirely, so it's just Orion Pax and Megatron on their little adventure. In fact, I'll just come out and say it: I think Transformers One would have been a better movie if Bumblebee and Elita-1 were not in it.

It helps that, from a Doylist perspective, the motivations for their inclusion are perfectly transparent. Firstly, think of the merchandise! Secondly, in Bumblebee's case, it's fucking Bumblebee, he's the whole reason half the kids will be watching, you can't not have him in there. Whenever Bumblebee's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking, "where's Bumblebee?" Also, I think the creative team felt that they could use Bumblebee tactically to balance some of the darkness in the story.

In the G1 cartoon, Bumblebee just has the default Autobot personality—good-natured, a little sarcastic—with the dial turned a little more towards friendliness. There's this iconic anecdote from the production that cartoon, where writer David Wise found himself in exactly the same situation Transformers writers are finding themselves in forty years later: he was told to write a story about something called "Vector Sigma", and he had no fucking clue what Vector Sigma was supposed to be. So he asked story editor Bryce Malek, who also had no fucking idea. Malek in turn asked Hasbro, and was told that Vector Sigma was "the computer that gave all the Transformers personalities". Upon hearing this, Malek said, "Well, it didn't do a very good job, did it!" Vector Sigma, in case you missed it, does actually appear in Transformers One, as the polygonal shape that transitions into the Matrix of Leadership in the opening powerpoint; I guess they're one and the same now. Some things never change: in Michael Bay's Transformers movies, there is again just a single default personality that every single Autobot shares, a braggadacious action-hero facade over genuine bloodthirst. Who can forget that iconic moment in Revenge of the Fallen where Bumblebee rips out Ravage's spine in grisly slow-mo?

Aside from the fact that he's small and yellow, Bumblebee in Transformers One bears very little resemblance to any incarnation of the character kids might be accustomed to. Instead, he occupies a stock comic-relief archetype, he's a zany guy who goes "Well, that just happened!" If anything, his one joke in the third act—wanton murder—reads like it could maybe be a reference to his many Mortal Kombat fatalities in Bay's films. Beginning in 2007's Transformers Animated, Bumblebee has sometimes possessed deployable "stingers" that flip out from his hands, as a fun action feature for toys. Clearly someone on Transformers One saw this and thought it was the funniest fucking thing that Bumblebee has "knife hands", because the character spends the third act of the movie just shouting "knife hands!" and cutting people in half like a medieval terror.

(In the UK, Bumblebee's lines were re-recorded at the last minute so he says "sword hands" instead. This is because in the UK, we generally aren't able to kill each other using guns, so it's knives that are the big armed-violence boogeyman. Everyone's always talking about how all the kids have knives. And look, I'm not someone to indulge in moral panic, but genuinely, when I look at Bumblebee chasing around people with knives, saying, "I'm gonna cut these guys, watch!", I'm like... what the fuck were they thinking when they wrote that?)

Frankly, whatever is going on with Bumblebee is just an entirely different movie to everything else that's happening. When Bee shanks his twelfth nameless lackey in a row, the movie's like, awww, you're sweet! But when Megatron tries to kill the one (1) evil dictator who's just fucking branded him, who's still lying to his face while his people continue to die to the guy's fuckin' honor guard, Optimus Prime is like, HELLO, HUMAN RESOURCES?

Bumblebee is solely here to be funny, but there's a point in the film where it needs to become a war story, and the best they can think to do with Bumblebee is to have him kill people but in like, a funny way.

As for Elita-1... look, to put it very bluntly, she is in this movie to be a woman. Transformers has had a long, long forty-year history of boys'-club exclusionism, if not outright misogyny, and each new series usually has a token female character, as a kind of fig-leaf for the fact that really, the only fucking thing Hasbro cares about is that the boys are buying the toys. Beginning in the 1986 movie, it was Arcee who got to be "the pink one" for many years of fiction—but not toys, y'see, when parents want to buy something for their beloved young lad, they don't buy "the pink one", no sir. In the 2010s, wow-cool-OC Windblade took over for a stint as leading lady, decked out in a commercially-non-threatening red color scheme. Recently, though, it's been Elita-1—Optimus Prime's girlfriend from the original '80s cartoon—who's been the go-to female character, and she's increasingly allowed to be pink.

There is a lot of love for these characters amongst creatives and fans alike, and especially in the last decade, female Transformers have been both more numerous and better-written than ever. Unfortunately Transformers One, which depicts Elita-1 as an arms-crossing career-obsessed buzzkill, whose arc sees her learn her place in deference to a less-competent man... well let's just say it struck me as a significant step back in this regard.

There's this great interview with Scarlett Johansson, voice of Elita-1, where she's trying to describe what makes her character interesting, and it's like she's drawing blood from a stone. She's like, "yeah, so Elita-1, I would say, she's on her own journey, because at the start of the film it's sort of like she's working at a big company, you know, and she wants to get a promotion, but then later on she learns that she can't, y'know, get a promotion". Look, it's not that Scarlett Johansson does a bad job—in fact, considering the material she's working with, she practically carries Elita-1 entirely on the back of her performance—it's just that I can't shake the impression that the filmmakers would rather pay Scarlett Johansson god knows how many thousands of dollars than try to think of a second actress that they know of.

As I've already complained, Transformers One has a pretty thin cast, but it effectively only has two other female characters who do anything. Airachnid is a secondary antagonist, Sentinel Prime's spymaster/enforcer, and it's clear that some concept artist really fucking popped off when designing her. She has eyes in the back of her head, and it's ten times creepier than that makes it sound. Her spiderlegs also create some visual interest during fight scenes. As a character, Airachnid has zero internality and is not interesting, but she is cool, so you'll get no complaints from me there.

The film's other other female character is Chromia, who wins the Iacon 5000 race at the last moment. She really comes out of nowhere to clinch it. It's funny, because the leaderboards show this one guy, Mirage, hovering near the top of the rankings for almost the whole sequence. And Chromia's character model really looks suspiciously like Mirage's. In fact, there's a different character who stands around in the background a couple of times who looks much more like Chromia. Funnily enough, that background character is even called Chromia in concept art! So if you connect the dots, it really seems that the "Chromia" who is the best racer on Cybertron was originally meant to be Mirage, a guy, until they switched the character's gender at the very last minute, and didn't bother changing the leaderboards to match.

There are two possible explanations for this. The first is that Mirage was the dark horse of Rise of the Beasts, and for some reason they felt like his depiction in Transformers One would've gotten in the way of their plans for the character somehow. It's plausible, I guess. The second, infinitely funnier option, is that at some point someone working on the movie realised that they only put two women in the film, scrambled to look through the feature to find a suitable character to gender-swap, only to discover to their horror that they'd forgotten to put in any characters whatsoever. Fuck it, the racer guy! He can be a girl. Diversity win, the fastest class traitor on Cybertron... is a woman!

In case you were wondering about the Transformers One toyline leaderboards, by my count, Orion Pax has ten new transforming toys currently announced or in stores, Bumblebee and Megatron have six each, Sentinel Prime has four, Alpha Trion has two, Elita-1 has two, Airachnid has one, Starscream has one, Wheeljack has one, and the Quintesson High Commander has one. In fact, one of Elita-1's toys—the collector-oriented high-quality Studio Series release—isn't scheduled for release until some undetermined point later next year, and she was entirely absent from leaked lists of upcoming releases, which to me smacks of "we realised last-minute that it would look really really bad if we didn't bother to release a good toy of the one woman in the film". Oh, and obviously, Chromia has no toys—but there is an "Iacon Race" three-pack consisting of Megatron, Orion Pax... and Mirage. Go figure.

The thing is, all of the stuff I'm grousing about here is pretty much standard fare for kids' films targeted more at boys. Hell, even The Lego Movie—which is basically the gold standard of toy commercials—gave supporting protagonist Wyldstyle a pretty similar arc to the one Elita-1 gets here, which was probably the weakest element of that film. Evidently conscious of this, Lord & Miller redeemed themselves by devoting the entirety of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part to deconstructing common narratives surrounding gender roles. I guess I just wish the young girls who presumably comprise some portion of Transformers One theatergoers could actually get anything out of Elita-1 as a character. Ah, what do I know, maybe it's still considered countercultural simply to depict a woman punching people.

Still, to give credit where it's due: Transformers One doesn't remotely touch the gender-essentialism prevalent in the Binder of Revelation, treating female Transformers no differently to their male counterparts in lore terms. Solus Prime is, it seems, just a Prime who happened to be a woman, rather than the mythological Eve after whom all women are patterned. There's a scene where our heroes are gifted the Transformation Cogs of the fallen Primes, and the Primes named thankfully bear no particular relation to the characters; in other words, Elita-1 isn't given Solus Prime's cog. As Alpha Trion puts it: "What defines a Transformer is not the cog in his chest, but the spark that resides in their core." Dude really remembered nonbinary people exist halfway through that sentence huh.

(Actually, the bigger mistake would've been with Megatron: if he was given Megatronus Prime's cog from the start, then this would've created the unfortunate implication that his descent into evil was only the result of Megatronus Prime's fucked up and evil cog, rather than a choice Megatron made of his own free will. The film instead has it the other way around: Megatron's radicalisation into a "might makes right" philosophy is what causes him to covet Megatronus Prime's transformation cog, to steal that power from Sentinel Prime, who stole the cogs of both Megatronus and Megatron in the first place. That's cool! This does create a bit of unfortunate narrative dissonance with Alpha Trion's words, alas, as it does seem like Megatronus Prime's cog really is more powerful than the others, because it gives both Sentinel Prime and Megatron a powerup.)

There's just something that I find so dreadfully mercenary about this movie's cast—honestly, everyone except Orion Pax, Megatron, and maybe Sentinel Prime. Take Darkwing, for example. Bro was clearly designed from the ground up to fill this stock character role of "bully who pushes our guys around and later gets his comeuppance". For a more interesting take on that exact same archetype, look no further than Todd Sureblade from Nimona, a bigoted knight who gets a whole damn character arc in the background, which directly complements that film's main themes.

Again, I'm not playing some kind of guessing game here, the authorial evidence is right there: Darkwing didn't even have a name until Hasbro designer Mark Maher was shown a picture of the character and asked, "If this was a Decepticon flyer, who would it be?" This is actually par for the course with ILM; most of their concept art is labelled with very basic descriptions, with the exact trademarks being picked in conjunction with Hasbro at a later point. Darkwing just stands out in Transformers One because he's the only recurring speaking character who's an OC in all but name (unless you count Bumblebee), he's the one guy who's been invented from scratch with total creative freedom, and he's boring as sin. It's like the filmmakers just couldn't conceive of a children's movie without that stock character—and they clearly had no idea what to do with him once they'd invented him, because he disappears entirely from the film at the start of the third act, when Orion Pax throws him into an arcade cabinet, which they have in the mines on Cybertron for some reason.

In a film with as painfully few named speaking characters as Transformers One, there's really no excuse for having this kind of one-dimensionality in their portrayals. Genuinely, I ask—who are Orion Pax and Megatron fighting to liberate? Jazz, one of the biggest personalities from the original G1 cartoon, who gets all of two boilerplate lines here? Cooley seems to think so:

As you’re designing them the background characters are almost like Lego pieces where you put different heads on different bodies just to fill in a crowd. But some of them would be brought forward and be painted specific colors so that it represents a character that I didn’t know was such a big deal. But there was stuff—like Jazz, for example, has a pretty big role. It was important to have a relationship with a character that we know gets to be saved.

To me, the idea that casual cinemagoers would be invested in any of the Transformers as characters is laughable. Michael Bay's characters are famous for being hateful non-entities. In terms of the films, Jazz is best remembered for dying at the end of the first one, seventeen years ago; he looks completely different here. The one breakout character in recent years—Mirage, as played by Pete Davidson in Rise of the Beasts—was, as I've already mentioned, written out so that the movie could reach its girl quota... not that he would've had any lines anyway.

And I just don't buy the idea that the complete dearth of compelling characterisation in this film is just an unfortunate side-effect of its clipped one-hour-thirty runtime—that, given even half an hour longer, the film would suddenly be crowded with rich portrayals of all your Transformers faves. Bumblebee and Elita-1, ostensibly two of the most important characters in the film, are not in this movie because the movie is interested in telling their stories. They are in this movie for the sake of being in this movie. It insists upon itself.

IV. No politics means no politics

In fact, putting aside merchandising considerations, Elita-1 and Bumblebee serve one very specific purpose in narrative terms. The trait Optimus Prime and Megatron have always had in common is that they are both leaders—and what is a leader, without anyone to lead? Without Bumblebee and Elita-1, you'd have this farcical situation where the only person Optimus Prime ever gets to boss around is Megatron, until the very end of the movie when God makes him king of all Cybertron. The High Guard, Starscream's gang of exiles, serve a similar narrative purpose for Megatron; they're a ready-made army who've just been sitting around waiting for him to show up and take charge.

Towards the end, the movie does actually take care to show both Orion Pax and Megatron rallying groups of Cybertronians: in Pax's case, he reveals the truth to his legion of interchangable miner friends, while Megatron riles up the High Guard mob. Again, there's a bit of that narrative sleight-of-hand, a bit of a thematic cop-out, where the question of "how do Optimus Prime and Megatron come to be leaders of their factions?" is answered only in the most literal possible interpretation. Yes, we technically see the exact chain of events that lead to this point—but both characters are portrayed as born leaders. We don't see them grow into the role, except physically. The moment Megatron decides he wants to rule, he's able to take charge. Likewise, Optimus Prime just gets divinely appointed by God. At a key point, Megatron loudly declares "I will never trust a so-called leader ever again", and the movie plays a fucking scare chord like this is supposed to be ominous. Like, oh no! Optimus Prime is a leader! And they're friends! Whatever will Megatron do when he finds out his friend, Optimus Prime, is a leader?

I don't think the movie has given any real thought to what a leader actually is. It seems to take a stance that power cannot be taken, i.e. through violent action, as Sentinel Prime and Megatron do. That one scene with Elita-1 suggests the most important trait for a leader to have, above and beyond any particular competency, is simply hope and optimism. What I just can't wrap my head around is the fact that the counterpoint the movie presents to Megatron, in the form of Orion Pax becoming Optimus Prime, does not support a belief in collective action or basic democracy—rather, it's a boring sword-in-the-stone divine-right-of-kings fantasy.

Except I do have a theory for why the film is like this. Let's look again at that interview with Eric Pearson, who came onboard in the "late middle" of production:

One of the first things that I did was a big pass on Sentinel Prime. I just felt like he was too obviously telegraphing his wickedness in previous versions, and I felt like, “No, he’s a carnival barker.” He’s got to be a big salesman. He’s a bullshitter, honestly is what he is.

(Honestly, if this is Sentinel after a "big pass" to make his villainy more of a twist, I shudder to think what the earlier drafts were like.)

Now, let's see how WIRED introduces their interview with Josh Cooley, titled "Transformers One Isn't as Silly as It Looks":

He liked the script, which traces how Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry) went from friends to enemies. But as the world went into lockdown as Covid-19 spread, Cooley found his story changing, if only slightly. Trump was still in office when Cooley started working on the film, and he was having meetings with the producers and they’d “start these meetings off on Zoom just going, like, ‘Holy crap what is going on in this world?’” he says. Ultimately, the infighting they were seeing between Democrats and Republicans in the same family became an undercurrent in the film’s friends-to-enemies storyline, “because that’s what Transformers is.”

So it's like, oh, this is a 2016 election thing. This is just that one election that broke everyone's brains. Of course this movie about a made-up political struggle on an alien planet being developed from 2015-2020 wouldn't be like, hey, you know what might fix our society's problems, is if we had an election. Of course the main villain is a "big salesman" "bullshitter" who says things like "The truth is what I make it!". Wow, guys, your film is so-o-o politically-conscious, and very pretty.

The fantasy is more or less that Donald Trump's army of reactionaries is marching on Washington to seize power through violent means, and on the way he drops Joe Biden into the Grand Canyon, but just before Joe hits the ground a giant fucking bald eagle swoops in to catch him and squawks, "God finds you worthy! Arise, President Biden!"

In our escapist little morality play, our best friend slash allegorical dad gets made king of the planet, and we all get jobs in the government. As in, one of the funniest lines in the movie is straightup Bumblebee exulting, "This is the greatest day of my life. I get to work for the government!" When Prime met Bumblebee—an hour ago—the dude was talking to imaginary friends, and honestly the only fucking skill he's demonstrated since then is cold-blooded murder. We have this dissonance in the storytelling, where it's mostly a story about four friends going on an adventure (are they even friends? Most of them hate each other!), but it's also a founding-fathers political origin story, which means there comes a point where our hero just suddenly starts bossing his friends around in a deep voice, and they're like, "Yes, sir!" It creates this unhinged situation where the "good" faction on Cybertron is ruled by the biblical chosen one and his nepotism buddies.

Per that quote from WIRED (or are they just putting words in Cooley's mouth? I can't help but notice they don't give an exact quote!), the film is ultimately sympathetic to the bad guys (the Republicans, I guess). It deliberately suggests that there is really nothing that should divide the Autobots and the Decepticons: their political goals, it claims, are identical, and they only disagree on the means by which to achieve them. The Decepticons, who are angry and hateful, have simply been misled by a power-hungry liar with charisma—first Sentinel, then Megatron—and so the tragedy is that they are artificially pushed into conflict with their fellow men, when really they should be uniting to stand against their common enemy, the foreigner illuminati trying to steal Cybertron's wealth.

Now, I know I've just handed you a get-out-of-jail-free card. My political allegory here is chock full of holes. What, are Sentinel Prime and Megatron both Donald Trump? Get a grip. Obviously any real-world commentary in Transformers One was only intended in the loosest sense imaginable: things like, "people should be free to change into whatever they want!" I'm being unfair, I'm reading too much into it, this is a cartoon movie for children, and if I want politics, I should start reading some fucking books. Also, come to mention it, my whole argument about that cave earlier really didn't hold water, and- I know, alright? I know.

V. Place / Place, Cybertron

I'm not mad at this toy commercial because its politics don't quite align with mine. I'm not mad at it for having a boring-ass supporting cast. I'm not mad at it for reheating a bunch of half-baked lore I didn't care for from the early 2010s. I've actually spent a lot of time mad about Transformers media that I've thought was bad. There's Transformers: Armada, where the English translators are fully asleep at the wheel and render even the most basic cartoon plots incomprehensible though constant mistranslations. There's Transformers: Micromasters, where two white guys wrote a downtrodden race of tiny Cybertronians who greet each other like "Wattup, my micro!". There's the recent series of Transformers: EarthSpark, where there's an episode that I can only describe as "the Wonka Experience but it's an episode of a children's cartoon", with a plotline that mostly revolves around our child heroes straightup robbing a Onceler-looking businessman of his most valuable possession. There's Transformers: Age of Extinction, with that one scene, and also the rest of that movie. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most Transformers fiction is some combination of bad, offensive, and offensively bad.

So even though I've just spent thousands of words whinging and moaning about how I didn't like Transformers One, the truth is that I had a perfectly nice time at the cinema. I got to go see it with five of my pals who love Transformers just as much as I do, and we had a blast. It is easily in the top 50% of all Transformers fiction.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I guess I've always given a lot of thought to what Transformers looks like from the outside. Maybe it's that I'm compelled to spend so much time and money on it, that it somehow compels me to vomit up these kinds of essays, and all I want is to be able to make it make sense to anyone in my life. It would be so, so nice if I could just sit down in the cinema with a friend or family member for a couple of hours, and at the end of it, they'd be able to walk out and say, "Okay, I guess I see what you get out of it." Rise of the Beasts was kind of that movie for me, but Rise of the Beasts is also the seventh instalment in a blockbuster franchise. It kind of takes for granted everything about Transformers.

It doesn't answer, "what the fuck is a Transformer anyway?"

For many years now, fans have noticed a marked aversion to using the word "transform" as a verb, or even as a noun. Optimus Prime no longer says, "Autobots, transform and roll out!", he just says, "Roll out!". Transformers no longer transform, they "convert". In fact, Transformers are no longer Transformers at all: they are "Transformers bots", the italics here serving to distinguish a registered trademark. This is because the worms in suits at Hasbro are worried that, if they continue to use the word "transform" by its dictionary definition—that is, to change—then rival toy companies will be able to make the case that anything that transforms can legally be described as a Transformer. It will become a generic trademark, like Velcro, or Band-Aid, or Dumpster.

Yet in Transformers One, "Transformers" is not just the noun by which the characters are referred to—rather, it's used in a descriptive sense to specifically mean "Cybertronians who can transform"! Characters are constantly talking about whether they can or can't transform. Prime gets to say his catchphrase in full. It's a miracle. Not only that, characters even get to say the word "kill" instead of "defeat" or "destroy".

Transformers One has a level of unrestricted creative freedom not seen since the 1986 animated film. This is a film unconstrained by location shooting, or licensing deals, or uncooperative actors; through the magic of CGI, for every single frame of its one-hour-thirty runtime, the filmmakers can put literally whatever they want on the screen. They were given the assignment, "Make an animated prequel set on Cybertron telling the origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron", handed an estimated $147 million and a blank page, and told to go nuts. Like those born with transformation cogs, Transformers One had the power to become anything it wanted to be.

The 1986 animated film took that carte blanche to do whatever the fuck it wanted, and basically singlehandedly defined the direction of the franchise ever since. On a lore level, in terms of tone, I would say that Transformers owes practically everything to The Transformers: The Movie. Cartoons, comics, films, and video games have adapted every single one of its scenes countless times over. I'm not necessarily saying that it's a good film, or even that it's a particularly original film—much of it is ripped off from Star Wars—just that it took the franchise somewhere it hadn't gone before. It was looking to the future. As in, literally, it was set in 2005, at the time two decades into the future.

What gets me down about Transformers One is that—like most major franchise media released since The Force Awakens—all it can do is think about the past. Swathes of it are devoted to painstakingly recreating or setting up the various bits of iconography which have arbitrarily come to define the franchise. Even when it appears to be taking things in a new direction, it's not long before it course-corrects back into familiar territory: Steve Buscemi invents a surprisingly fresh take on Starscream's voice, and then Megatron half-strangles him to death, saddling him with a post-produced rasp to emulate Chris Latta's iconic performance from forty years ago.

The very title of the film, Transformers One, is an allusion to the line, "Till all are one," which originates in The Transformers: The Movie. In an early script for that '80s feature, it was actually "Till all life sparks are one", referring to a literal metaphysical process in that draft whereby one Transformer's life force could be passed on to another, presumably with the belief that they would all eventually be merged into a single afterlife. In the finalized story, it's just this kind of mystical phrase vaguely evoking concepts of togetherness and unity.

Transformers One brushes up against the phrase a couple of times. Alpha Trion almost says it at one point, when passing on his dead siblings' transformation cogs: "They were one. You are one. All are one!" Whatever that means. Later, Orion Pax starts a chant amongst the miners: "Together as one!" And finally, at the very end of the movie, during his obligatory film-ending monologue, Optimus Prime again goes: "And now, we stand here together... as one." (Half of Cybertron has just been banished to the surface forever.) "[...] Here, all are truly... Autobots." (Again, half of Cybertron- Optimus, what the fuck are you talking about?) Regardless, this is inexplicably the one instance where the movie doesn't twist itself up into knots trying to nail the exact phrasing.

Actually, there is one other sideways reference like this I can think of. Early in the film, Orion Pax is chatting up Elita, and he remarks, "Feel like I have enough power in my to drill down and touch Primus himself." To which Elita replies, "You don't have the touch or the power." This is kind of a nonsensical retort unless you know that in the 1986 movie, one of the most iconic songs on the soundtrack was "The Touch" by Stan Bush, which had the chorus line: "You got the touch! You got the power!" It's a banger. Anyway, remember when I said Darkwing gets chucked through an arcade cabinet? Well, here's Cooley revealing why that arcade cabinet is in the film:

I actually wrote [that exchange between Orion Pax and Elita] because I love that song. [...] And we had this one version where D-16 and Orion were playing a video game, like a stand-up old arcade game—it was inspired to look like that, but a Cybertonian version of that. They’re playing that together like friends and the song, like the 8-bit song that’s playing is ["The Touch"]. But that scene got nixed. And so I wanted to work it in there somewhere. And I just felt like a natural place for it. But that was one where I’m like, "I just love that song and those lyrics and that’s Transformers to me so I want to get that in there."

(I've had to amend that quote to fill in the blanks where the article has redacted "spoilers" for the movie. Spoiler culture is an absolute pox, I swear. Can't have the audiences knowing about one (1) mid joke in advance—the movie barely has enough jokes to fill a "Transformers One Funny Moments" compilation as it is!)

This actually isn't the first time Hasbro has "nixed" a reference to "The Touch" in major Transformers media. In the Transformers: Cyberverse episode "The Alliance", a character references "The Touch" right before a training montage which is clearly supposed to have the track playing, except instead it's been replaced by a generic rock instrumental, presumably because they couldn't afford the license. And in Daniel Warren Johnson's Eisner-award-winning bestselling comic run, there's one panel where he clearly wanted to include the song's lyrics as a sound effect, but wasn't allowed, so the final sound effect famously reads "YOU KNOW THE SONG". But that's a random episode of a bargain-bin cartoon, and an indie-darling comic series—not a $147 million blockbuster. You really have to wonder if it came down to money, or if it was something else. God knows Transformers One would not actually be improved for having a chiptune remix of "The Touch" in it, anyway.

The most egregious misplaced bit of fanwank in the film isn't even in dialogue. In the 1986 film, there's this one iconic moment when Optimus Prime arrives at the besieged Autobot City, drives through a crowd of Decepticons in truck mode, then fires some afterburners, launching his cab up into the air, where he transforms mid-leap, drawing his blaster to shoot a couple of Decepticons before hitting the ground. It's a fantastic bit of original animation. It's the Akira slide of Transformers. And, surprise surprise, it crops up in Transformers One. In the climactic final fight, Orion Pax shows up to save Megatron, and he does the thing.

But the problem is... he's not in truck mode! The film just cuts to him standing there in the middle of some anonymous mooks, then he does a standing jump into the air, the movie momentarily goes into extreme slow-mo like he's doing a fucking quick-time event, then he shoots a couple of guys and drops to the ground. There's no momentum. It exists purely to create that simulacrum, to take the single most iconic frame from that bit of 1986 animation, and stretch that one frame into infinity. The context is discarded, irrelevant. All that matters is that brief moment of recognition: "I know what that iiis!" God knows Transformers One has precious little in the way of impactful fight animation of its own; the choreography is stiff and uninspired, while the shots themselves are nauseatingly cluttered. Often, the best it can do is pilfer from older, better stories.

"Did you clap at any of the new moments and memorable characters?" "Were there any?"

Look, I get it. Transformers One is a prequel. By definition, it can't change the future. It has to play with the characters that are already in the toybox. But I do think it had this really special opportunity: to show theatregoers where the Transformers come from. To show us Cybertron not as a distant star or a barren scrapyard, but as a living, thriving alien world, unlike Earth, something special and worth protecting in its own right. Something new and memorable. In Rise of the Beasts—probably the best Transformers movie by default—when Optimus Prime is at his lowest, he wants nothing more to return home... but home is something we've only ever seen as a cold dystopia, ruled by Decepticons. The version of Transformers One I had hoped to see was one that would have imbued Optimus' homesickness with greater meaning. I wanted to feel his loss, and to hope that one day the war will end, and Cybertron can be restored.

I think Transformers One sincerely tries to achieve this effect. The concept artists have clearly put a great deal of time and thought into Cybertron as an environment. When the artbook comes out, I'm keen to see how much stuff didn't make it into the finished film. You have to assume most of it got cut, because there's next to nothing left!

At the end of the film, battle lines are drawn, the civil war is about to start... but strangely, the movie's setting does not convey the sense that anything beautiful is being lost. Nobody is unwillingly turned to violence, innocence-lost; they're all too eager to get to killing, friggin' Bumblebee is gleeful about it. There's no beautiful, iconic landmark, which gets tragically destroyed, like in some kind of Transformers 9/11—"What have we done! Where will this war take us!". There's no part of Cybertron's natural ecological environment to be ruined by the war, because the surface world is already turbofucked by the Quintessons to begin with. No, rather, we have the total opposite: Optimus Prime finding the Matrix (which was just, like, hanging out in the core of Cybertron or whatever) actually restores Energon to the planet, removing the unnatural scarcity which was the entire impetus behind the film's dystopia. He made Cybertron great again. So again, Transformers One fails to answer one of the most fundamental questions one might expect of a Transformers prequel: "When did things on Cybertron get so bad?" The movie ends with the planet in better shape to how it started!

The big original idea that Transformers One has is that Cybertron, the planet itself, should be in a constant state of transformation. I've already talked about the beautiful shapeshifting landscapes, but it's also the moving buildings, the complicated mechanisms, the roads and rails that magically lay themselves between the vehicles and their destinations. I've already mentioned how odd I find it that none of these environmental transformations have any significance to the story; the closest it comes to some sort of payoff is when Orion Pax falls into the hole that makes you king.

What I find most perplexing are the deer. When the gang makes it to the surface, the idea is to show the natural beauty of the surface, which the cogless have been denied their whole lives. The mountains glisten as they move. Nebulae glow in the night sky. The surface is blanketed in organic (?) plantlife, like a watering can forgotten in a garden. And, most strikingly, there are deer: mechanical animals, just like those found on Earth, being hunted for sport by the evil Quintessons. When the cruisers near, their glowing horns turn red with alarm, and they prance around in fear.

I'm reminded of a brief gag from the third season of Transformers: Cyberverse—one of very few shows to have devoted any serious effort to Cybertronian worldbuilding—in the episode "Thunderhowl". Bumblebee and Chromia stumble across a "singlehorn" (read: unicorn), and when it senses danger, it neighs, transforms into a rocket, and blasts out of frame. And apart from being really cute and funny, it's like, oh, of course that's what animals are like on Cybertron! Everything on this planet transforms. Why not the animals?

For whatever reason, the deer in Transformers One are like the one thing that don't transform. Why the hell not? If Cyberverse could find the budget for its split-second sight gag, surely this blockbuster could, I don't know, have them turn into dirt bikes with antler-handlebars. That would've been something, right? If not, then at least could we maybe see some other animals on Cybertron, to really get across that alien biodiversity? Of course not. See, the deer exist to communicate one very specific story beat: a single moment of trepidation, where the heroes know there's danger nearby, but they don't know what. And all you need for that is a single kind of prey animal, with some kind of warning light to let you know, hey, there's danger! Once this purpose is fulfilled, the deer have no further significance to the story.

We need only look to BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui to see this exact same beat play out with a modicum of competence and creative flair. Also in the second act—in fact, at practically the exact same timestamp—our heroes, the Toa, have a run-in with the bad guys, and they're nearly captured... but then there's this sudden rumble of danger approaching, we don't know what. It turns out to be a herd of giant Kikanalo! They send the bad guys packing, except they nearly trample our heroes too! But then, Toa Nokama's mask begins to glow, and she discovers that her mask grants her the ability to talk to animals. They learn some vital information from the Kikanalo, and are able to ride the creatures for the next stage of their adventure. Finally, when they can go no further, the Kikanalo cave in the passage behind the heroes to ensure they won't be pursued. Holy shit, that's like, five different story beats with just that one type of creature!

It's not just that Transformers One struggles with that kind of basic narrative flow, where a single element serves multiple purposes. It's that often, it wastes precious time creating redundant setups to achieve the same effect twice.

For example, Megatronus Prime's face happens to look exactly like (what we know will be) the Decepticon insignia. At the beginning of the movie, Orion Pax mollifies Megatron by giving him a rare decal of Megatronus Prime's face. Traditionally, Megatron wears his insignia in the middle of his chest—but in this film, nearly every character has a big hole in the middle of their chest, where their missing transformation cog should go. So Megatron sticks the decal on his shoulder instead.

Later, he gets a cog, and the hole in his chest is filled. When Sentinel Prime captures Megatron, he notices the Megatronus sticker, and rips it off. Then, he re-applies it on Megatron's chest—purely so it's in the "right" place for the iconography. And then, he uses his gun to crudely brand Megatron with a tracing of Megatronus' face, inadvertently creating the Decepticon symbol. Finally, in a post-credits scene, Megatron has fashioned a proper Decepticon brand with which to brand himself and his followers. So in effect, there are four separate moments where Megatron gets the symbol! Orion sticking it on his shoulder, Sentinel moving it to his chest, Sentinel mutilating him, and finally Megatron branding himself. You can make an argument that the symbol starts out meaning one thing, but ends up meaning another thing, which has a kind of tragic significance—but I think you would struggle to distinguish subtle shades of meaning from all four of these brandings. Considering the movie only has an hour and a half to work with, I find this lack of narrative economy to be honestly embarrassing.

(My friend Jo also points out what a misstep it is to just have Megatronus Prime's face perfectly resemble the Decepticon symbol from the start. Had it been a looser, more stylised—that is to say, original—design, the moment where Sentinel Prime roughly carves it into Megatron's chest could be a shocking reveal, as the basic outlines are abstracted and simplified. Gasp, that's the origin of the Decepticon symbol! Instead, from the very moment that sticker first shows up, it's like... oh, well, there it is I guess.)

In a similar vein, both Optimus Prime and Megatron undergo two different transformations at different points in the movie: first, when Alpha Trion gives them transformation cogs, and second, when respectively they obtain the Matrix of Leadership/Megatronus' cog. The gun that sprouts from Megatron's arm in his intermediary form bears a much closer to resemblance to his iconic "fusion cannon" than the triple-barrelled cannon he ends up with in his final form. Again, in such a short film, can we really say whatever subtlety this brings to Megatron's arc is worth all this fanfare? Now, Redditors ask: "What is the EXACT moment D-16 became Megatron?"

In fact, probably the only point of criticism I've seen levied at Transformer One from within the Transformers fandom at large is that Megatron's arc is maybe a little "rushed". He starts out being best bros forever with Orion Pax, and by the end of the film, he's ready to drop the guy into a bottomless pit. The film takes a lot of time to justify his anger at Sentinel Prime, but the deterioration of his friendship with Orion goes much more unspoken, and is framed more as a point of irrationality: psychologically, Megatron comes to conflate his bossy friend with his oppressive ruler. I liked this, personally. I liked that it's as if a switch gets flipped in Megatron's head. But you do just kind of have to buy into it. The film itself does not put in the work to really sell you on the friendship souring, because again, it's too busy fucking around with two (2) magical girl transformation sequences for each of them.

Everything in the film is like this. They go into the cave and meet Alpha Trion, then leave the cave so they can watch a FMV cutscene with Sentinel Prime and the Quintessons, who've coincidentally arrived at that exact moment, basically just to rehash what they've just been told... and then they go back into the cave so Alpha Trion can resume his infodump, and then they end up clashing with Sentinel Prime's forces once that's done. At the beginning of the movie, they're at the very bottom in the mines, then they get banished to an even lower level, then they banish themselves all the way up to the surface, then they return to Iacon, and then Megatron gets banished to the surface again so he can be mesmerized by the beauty of the world and/or get gunched by Quintessons depending on what the film wanted me to take away from this. Compare to Minecraft but I survive in PARKOUR CIVILIZATION [FULL MOVIE], where the theme of class struggle is pretty efficiently depicted in the vertically-stratified setting.

I just find it so wasteful. Outside of the one scene where they're introduced, the Quintessons—ostensibly the true architects of Cybertron's oppressive status quo—may as well not exist. If not for Orion Pax addressing his closing remarks to the Quintessons, almost as an afterthought, I'd assume the film wants us to forget about them entirely, as it knows full well that its paltry runtime does not give it time for a second action-climax against the aliens. Even as sequel bait, it feels halfhearted at best; Josh Cooley is clearly already bored of Transformers, and seems unlikely to come back for another round unless the money is really really good (which *glances at the box office* it's not). So what the fuck are the Quintessons here for? Was the idea that Sentinel might just have pulled off his coup singlehandedly really so hard to stomach? Could the conspiracy not have been simplified to just involve Sentinel and his Transformer cronies? Hang on, are all the Transformers seen at the start of the film in on it, or just some of them? How's it decided who keeps their cogs and who doesn't?

VI. Into nothing

Why does this movie, where the main selling point is ostensibly that we're getting to see Transformers civilization for the first time, mostly focus on all these guys who can't fucking transform? Surely the entire thing that makes the setting fun is the Zootopia angle of, look, they're all different animals! Or the Elemental angle of, look, they're all different elements! Or the Emoji Movie angle of, look, they're all different emoji! Or the Cars angle of, look, they're all different cars! This is a Transformers film which features several significant sequences involving these cool trains, and there is absolutely zero indication that these trains are themselves Transformers. This is a Transformers film which extensively focuses on miners, and none of them transform into mining vehicles; they're holding, friggin', space jackhammers. Even the premise of "isn't it sad that these ones can't transform" is kind of undercut by the fact that all the miners get to wear fucking jetpacks, which is a frankly much cooler and more effective method of locomotion than driving.

I'm just sick of Transformers stories having zero interest in the basic premise of Transformers, which is to say, they transform into something. I also think this is the biggest dissonance between casual audiences, who think "oh yeah, Optimus Prime, that guy who turns into a truck", and Transformers fans, who think, "oh yeah, Optimus Prime, the messiah or something". Normal people love to know what the Transformers turn into. They ask, "Wait, is there a Transformer that turns into [insert silly vehicle here]?" Of course people are interested in that angle! Vehicles are such a huge part of our daily lives—honestly, for those of us living in cities, more so than animals, the classical elements, or emoji—but the closest Transformers One comes to engaging with this lens is that aforementioned Iacon 5000 race sequence. By and large, it presents a world which is made for standing up and walking around. And personally I do think that's an insane approach to take?

Is the excuse that cars can't emote? Nonsense. If you've ever seen a traffic jam, you'll know that cars can sure as hell emote. Pixar, where Josh Cooley cut his teeth, famously spent a lot of time working out how to put a facial expression on a car. No, the problem dates back to the very start of the franchise.

In the 1980s, two main people were responsible for writing the comic stories: American writer Bob Budiansky, and British writer Simon Furman. Budiansky approached the premise of the franchise from an external, human perspective, writing about culture clash, and taking delight in the Transformers' mechanical alien nature as "robots in disguise". Meanwhile, Furman wrote the Transformers as giant people: he focused on their own internal conflicts and motivations, and the grand history of their war. Pretty much every Transformers story ever told can be boiled down to one of these schools of thought: Budianskian, or Furmanist.

Budiansky quit the comic after fifty issues, allowing Furman to take the reigns as sole writer, and Furman basically got the final word on what the Transformers are. They did not evolve from naturally-occurring gears, levers and pulleys. They were not designed by a supercomputer, or built by an alien race. They are the chosen sons of God. The Thirteen are, of course, an invention of Furman's. And Transformers One is perhaps the most Furmanist story ever told. It's the culmination of years and years of lore building up, ossifying into something you can no longer describe as the history of a universe—no, this is a mythology. It's the most perfect form of brand alignment imaginable: this is not an origin story, this is the origin story. It's been the origin story for a better part of the decade—and now that everyone's seen it in theatres, it will be the origin story forever.

It's not just the fiction, either, by the way. These days, if you go into the store to buy a Transformers toy, chances are it'll turn into some misshapen made-up futuristic concept car with unpainted windows and wheels that don't even roll—and that's terrible.

There's truly a lot to hate about Michael Bay's Transformers films, but with each new entry that's released following his departure from the franchise, I feel like I only find myself appreciating them more. In the 2007 Transformers movie, we see the Transformers crash-landing on Earth in their "protoforms", and their movements are animated like they're shy, like they're naked until they scan an Earth vehicle and adopt a disguise. The visual impact of Megatron, meanwhile, is that he doesn't adopt a disguise in that movie: he's a horrible metal skeleton that turns into a jet made of knives. It's weird and alien and it rules.

In the 1980s Transformers cartoon, and in the last-minute Cybertron-set prologue added to Bumblebee, and now in Transformers One, the Transformers look basically the same on Cybertron as they eventually do upon their arrival to Earth. Optimus Prime turns, unmistakably, into a truck. He has windows on his chest, and smokestacks on his arms. He doesn't have these features because he disguises himself as an Earth truck. He has those details because that's just what Optimus Prime looks like. They're his "essential brand elements", or "trademark details", which "identify the must-have elements in character design to be carried across all creative expressions". Prime may take any form he wishes, so long as it looks exactly like himself. A mask of my own face—I'd wear that.

What I find fucked up about the reception towards Transformers One is that a lot of people seemed very invested in its success—and not its popular success, certainly not its artistic success, but rather its commercial success. They wanted this to be the first film to make one bumblebillion dollars. They wanted Hasbro to line its fucking pockets and make movies like this forever. So if you express any kind of negativity towards this film online, which might theoretically affect some other person's decision of whether or not to go and see it, which might theoretically affect the profit it makes at the cinema, which might theoretically affect the future of the franchise in some unknown way, then you're some sort of fandom traitor who oughta be executed.

If you're so worried about the future of the franchise, the fandom really isn't where you should be looking. Like, c'mon, the Transformers fandom has been good as gold, we buy so many toys. Meanwhile, Hasbro just got finished laying off around 100 employees with no warning to make their books look a bit better. Transformers designer John Warden—who'd worked at Hasbro for 25 years, is widely credited with inventing the modern paradigm of Transformers toylines, and ultimately became the creative director of both Transformers and G.I. Joe—was on assignment to a convention in the UK with the rest of the Transformers team when he heard the news. Suffice to say, he did not end up making a public appearance at the convention. With his work's health insurance snatched away without notice, he's had to resort to crowdfunding to pay his family's medical bills. As a well-known figure in the toy industry, he will presumably find a new job and land on his feet, but the same cannot be said for all 99 of the remaining employees we're told have been unceremoniously dumped.

The Binder of Revelation, which has been something of a holy grail of behind-the-scenes material for over a decade, has finally been leaked—presumably by one of these guys, presumably out of spite.

Now, I'm not going to pretend to have been paying particularly close attention to Hasbro's financials, but from where I'm sitting, it sure seems that ever since the sudden death of then-CEO Brian Goldner in 2021—credited for saving the company in 2000, and overseeing the explosive growth of its intellectual property ever since then—his replacement, Chris P. Cocks (or "Crispy Cocks", as we're all now calling him), has been dead set on gutting the company for all it's worth. The Power Rangers franchise, which the company acquired for $522 million in 2018, is dead in the water, with huge quantities of physical assets being flogged at auction for quick cash. In 2019, they acquired the entertainment company eOne for $4.0 billion, and now they're selling off the whole shebang (except the cash-printing Peppa Pig franchise) for just $500 million. I guess maybe they just fucked it big style?

Because now, Crispy Cocks has proudly announced that Hasbro is going to stop financing movies altogether.

I'm sure that in the wake of this announcement, many of those aforementioned fandom pundits will be drawing a correlation between this announcement, and the box-office figures for Transformers One, and the fact that you personally failed to convince your Mom to go see it with you or whatever. "Ah, you see! They didn't make enough of their money back, and now they're consolidating. Simple economic cause and effect. Market forces." And look, I'm not going to sit here and claim these things are wholly unrelated. Of course they're very related. But I am going to make the case that, in truth, nobody at Hasbro really cared how Transformers One did. Unless it turned out to be some pie-in-the-sky runaway hit, I don't think the future of the Transformers film franchise would've been particularly different if only the film had done better.

With Paramount, Hasbro has been making these movies and having them underperform ever since 2017's The Last Knight—which apparently lost Paramount $100 million—and that's because at the end of the day, what they're most interested in isn't making movies. It's making toy commercials. And on that level, the Transformers films have clearly been a success so far.

Now, Crispy Cocks' skinsuit fashions itself as a gamer, so he can personify Hasbro's hardcore pivot towards digital and tabletop gaming. While we await the release of the assuredly-dogshit, assuredly-hell-to-have-worked-on, assuredly-never-coming-out Transformers: Reactivate, the brand has been whored out to a procession of mobile games you've never heard of, glorified gambling machines designed to hack the monkey part of your brain with bright colors and Things You Recognize. The exact content of these games is irrelevant; all that matters is the announcement, on every single pop culture news outlet simultaneously (naturally—they're all owned by the same company, talk about Monopoly), of New Collaboration Between Transformers And Goon Warriors Free To Download Now. Your daily, weekly, bi-annual reminder to think about that thing you can buy.

That's all any of this stuff is.

All these words spilled about what a good movie Transformers One is, and how bad it is, and why the marketing failed it, and what the next one might be like, and- none of it mattered! It does not matter. From the beginning, this movie was always going to be too preoccupied with its own mercenary interests to be something anyone would ever be able to seriously talk about as a work of art, even corporate art. The actual content of the movie is irrelevant; I've spent very little of this review talking about it, because there's nothing there to talk about. It is the mere fact of the movie's existence that serves its purpose. Like the Optimus Prime Fortnite skin, it's enough for it to occupy our attention.

Maybe that's why they staggered the film's release date: because some marketing exec watched the rough cut and realised, if everyone saw it at once, we'd be done talking about it within a fortnight. And in ten years' time, after it has been paraded around whichever streaming services survive 'til then, and nearly every last cent of revenue has been squeezed out of it, the kids will be able to watch it on YouTube with ad breaks, and decide what they want for Christmas.

To the Transformers fans reading this, I am begging you, unless you happen to own shares in Hasbro for some fucking reason, to disabuse yourself of the feeling that you owe any kind of loyalty to a toy franchise. It shouldn't matter to you one jot how Transformers One did in theatres. The people who actually make the product you care about, the friendly faces paraded before you on livestreams and press tours, don't see this money anyway—they too are merely assets, who can be fired and replaced with cheaper, inferior equivalents.

I'm sure many of you will have, from the very start, seen this review for the foolish endeavour it is. I've wasted all this time criticising Transformers One for its lack of artistic vision, when the truth is, Transformers One is playing an entirely different game. Like the Disney Channel running "Fishy Facts!" segments to subliminally get kids interested in fish a full year and a half before the release of Finding Nemo, this is not a product—it's an ad for a product.

...

Okay I'll be honest, I don't entirely love where this review has ended up. It ends on kind of a "bummer note", I guess you could say. Flashing back to sections I. and II., I feel like things started out so fun. We had that whole bit at the start where I was telling you about the Transformers, remember that? We learned so much together. And there were even a few moments where I was able to express some kind of sincere joy and appreciation over this thing that I supposedly adore so much. Sure, I did a lot of complaining, but it was fun complaining, right? It had like, a sarcastic edge to it, sort of.

What happened? Why am I suddenly talking like I want to cut someone's head off? As I grow more bitter, I type this essay with increasing difficulty. The massive gun that's sprouted from my forearm keeps colliding with my monitor.

Hasbro descends from on high to reward @TFHypeGuy, a grown-ass adult who has spent untold unpaid hours fearlessly replying to every single viral tweet to tell people to go see the film, somehow netting himself 80,000 followers in the process, with a crate of toys, which was probably his end goal from the start. He and I duel. We trade blow after blow. Finally, he clobbers me with a Walmart-exclusive light-up Ultimate Energon Optimus Prime figure. "It didn't have to end this way," he says. Then he banishes me to the surface world to think on my sins.

VII. The Wrong Trousers 👖 | Train Chase Scene 🚂 | Wallace & Gromit

When Eric Pearson came onto the project,

It was late middle of the game. They had a script that had the outline of the story, which is still very much the structural bones of the story now. But what I found interesting about animation is there are certain things that were far along in the process. The train escape to the surface was very far along, so that was just kind of locked. Maybe you could change a line here or there. Meanwhile, the opening, the whole first 10 minutes, was all storyboards and sketches, which changed a bunch of times.

And I do think that's a really difficult position for a scriptwriter to be in. Sure, the parts of the screenplay I feel able to attribute to Pearson, I wasn't particularly impressed by. But I think this anecdote goes to show how unnatural the constraints can be on a story like this. When you think of like, a scene that's key to Transformers One, you're probably imagining something like the Megatron/Optimus fight, or the scene in the mine—not the train scene, which is basically a bit of arbitrary connective tissue bridging the two main locations in the film.

Josh Cooley, the film's director, the face of the film on the press circuit from a creative standpoint, came onboard after five years of previous development work was already done. Writers Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, who originally pitched the film and presumably wrote the early drafts of the story, might have already left the project by that point. Aaron Archer and Rik Alvarez, the creative forces behind the Binder of Revelation, left Hasbro years before the film was even pitched. It's no wonder to me that the final result feels incoherent, disjointed, and oddly stilted. It's certainly no wonder that nobody at Hasbro today really seems to care about the film; it's not their baby. If any of the people credited with bringing the project to completion had been given full creative freedom to make whatever Transformers movie they wanted, it would've looked completely different.

Luckily, there are still plenty of areas of the franchise where creators have just been allowed to go ham. Over in Japan, TRIGGER has taken a modest budget for a music-video and produced one of the most visually-striking bits of animation in the franchise, a true love-letter to all the weird parts of its forty-year history. And in America, comic creator Daniel Warren Johnson is halfway through his Eisner-winning new run on the title, which is the kind of thing I would basically recommend to anyone without caveats as being a phenomenal story, period. If that comic can be said to be an advert for anything, it's for Skybound's other, nowhere-near-as-good comic series, or for the unofficial unlicensed copyright-infringing Magic Square Optimus Prime toy Daniel Warren Johnson apparently used as reference the whole time.

I dunno, maybe Hasbro stepping back from financing these films is a good thing, in the long run. Maybe we can do without Transformers movies for a while. And however many years down the line, maybe Paramount or some other studio will put together a new team of talent, and they'll get to do whatever it is they want. And maybe the movie they make will be the one that knocks everyone's socks off.

Truly, I don't know where the road leads from here. It hasn't been built yet. It could turn out to go anywhere.

If you made it this far, I hope some of what I've said has been entertaining or interesting. Thanks for reading!

Time to for me to come clean. There is one other reason why I've waited so long to release this review... and that's because I have a special announcement to make. Last month I set myself a little challenge: to write something that's at least as long as this review, but which isn't another negative-nancy tirade. It's a story.

The working title is "Ice Road Transformers". It's like an episode of that one reality TV show about Canadians driving trucks across frozen lakes—except the truck is Optimus Prime.

Early reviews say it's good! It'll be going through several rounds of revisions, to turn it into a well-oiled machine, hopefully in time for a seasonally-appropriate wide release in February. I'm very excited for you to be able to read it. You can follow me here or on Bluesky to be the first to find out when it's ready!

I'd like to thank my friends Jo and Umar for their work interviewing Cooley and di Bonaventura during the film's press circuit, along with Viv, Callum, and Omar for allowing me to enjoy this film much more than I otherwise might have. I wouldn't have been able to express many of my feelings about this movie nearly so cogently if not for the conversations I had with them. Additional thanks go to Chris McFeely, as his Transformers: The Basics videos (linked throughout this essay) refreshed my memory on a lot of the Aligned stuff, sparing me from having to read The Covenant of Primus again.

[maximumzombiecreator]

I would actually like to know what you consider the basics of improv to be! If nothing else, you phrase these things really well and in ways I haven't heard before, and I'm also aware there's a lot of things I don't know (I'm in a student run college improv group, our theory might be a bit lacking)

Be glad to. A lot of improv stuff is just oral tradition at this point, passed down in musty school drama rooms and community centers, so everyone has to pick it up somewhere. When I've taught people before, beyond the basic definition of what an improv scene looks like, I usually focus on a set of do's and don'ts.

Do's:

Make offers, and make them good offers. A good offer should be strong and elegant, like a power lifter in a ball gown.

Broadly speaking, I'd say the strength of an offer refers to how much it establishes about the scene, and how much what it establishes is different from a theoretical "default" scene. Typically, you think about how much an offer is establishing in terms of the questions words: who are the characters, what are they doing, where are they, etc. An offer that establishes "two characters who are old friends since high school meeting up at a coffee shop to catch up" is establishing a lot, but it's still a weak offer because it's such a typical scene. You're not adding much that can't just be taken for granted.

When I say a good offer should be elegant, I mean that it should be as compact as possible while still doing a lot. The typical inelegant offer is verbose and unnatural. A character walks into a scene and says, "Hey, big brother Billy, I hope you're recovering from the illness you've had for the last six months, ever since our father died," or some other expository nightmare.

So, the best offers are both. They create a lot of unique, interesting details about the scene, and they do it quickly. Let's say you stagger into the scene, miming carrying something under your arm, and say, "Doctor! I've been decapitated again!" In five words, you've established who you and another character are, where you are, and why, and you've implied a lot of very unusual details about the scene, world, and your character's history.

When thinking about elegant offers, it's also worth noting that a lot of offers that you should be making are physical. Depending on the type of improv you're doing, you might be physically embodying objects and the environment, and if you're doing background like that you can add a ton of detail that the audience can pick up without friction. But even if you're not, you can establish location through miming actions, you can create details about your character through how you walk and hold your body, you can endow others with traits through how you physically react to them.

That brings us to the next do: make strong character choices and enhance other actors' characters. People have written whole books on what comprises a "strong character" but for improv purposes I'd focus on three details: quirks, status, and connections.

Quirks are fairly straightforward: what makes this character unusual? Establishing character quirks is the focus of a lot of improv games and exercises, and the best quirks are quick to establish, significantly inform the character, and are handled with enough sincerity to make the character compelling rather than only funny.

Status refers to how powerful and important a character is. High status characters will command the room, low status characters will be ignored or mistreated. Status might shift over the course of a scene. The sheriff is a high status character until the king shows up, for example. Status might seem like an obvious thing to figure out from a character's role, but it's useful to play with it. What does a low status king look like? What does an employee-boss scene look like if you decide your employee is higher status than the boss?

Connections refer to the relationships between characters. This is going to drive scenes more than most other character details, and you almost always want to avoid unconnected characters. Choosing a connection to an existing character is a very good first choice when entering a scene, as it should immediately suggest a direction for the scene to take. This is also a reason to favour unusual connections. If two actors are in a scene where they're arguing about a fender bender they've been in, you could choose to enter as one of their friends, but it'll be far more dynamic if you choose a more unusual connection. What if you're one of their anger management therapists? Their boss? Their dominatrix?

In addition to creating your own character, you should add to other actors' characters. The main way you do this is endowment, giving the character traits through your offers. Direct endowment is when you simply ascribe them a trait. If you say, "Bill, you've been mayor for the last ten years," then you're obviously giving them the trait of "mayor." But there's also indirect endowment, where you add something to a character through part of how you react to them. If you flinch when another character moves suddenly, you're endowing them with the traits of being dangerous and erratic. If you speak to them very slowly and simply, you're implying something about how intelligent your character perceives them to be.

Putting it all together, the last big thing to do is build up. There can be a temptation in improv to build out, to add new details to scenes that sort of sprawl outward from the original premise. Try to avoid that. When you add new details, make them ones that build on the existing details. Instead of adding new tensions or conflicts, raise the stakes of existing ones. Reincorporate and re-contextualize things that have already been established. Incorporate audience suggestions repeatedly, using them to colour other offers.

Don'ts:

No blocking. This is the one even people who don't know improv know. If someone adds something to the scene, go with it. Don't reject or ignore offers, incorporate and build on them.

No wimping. Whatever the scene is, whatever your character is, whatever offers are made, fully commit. Bring all your energy to it. If someone says your character is on fire, don't just stop, drop, and roll and then go back to whatever else was going on. That's wimping. Be the most on fire that you can be.

No dithering. When you're in a scene, always be adding to it or moving it forward. Saying something that just fills space, at best makes a joke, and doesn't add to the scene is bad form, it doesn't give other actors anything new to work with. If you're dithering, you're forcing other actors to pick up the slack. This is called "gagging" if you're being funny by not adding to the scene, and is a great way to be popular with the audience and have everyone else hate you, don't be that person.

Don't make yourself look good at the expense of your scene partners. It's okay to get laughs at the expense of other characters, but not at the expense of other actors. Help others get into the scene, develop their characters, and give them things to respond to, add onto their offers.

Related to the above, don't steal the spotlight. If there's a scene going on that you're not the focus of, you should be trying to figure out how to enhance what's going on. Everyone can tell when an actor can't bear to be in a supporting role, and it's not a cute look.

More than anything, don't betray the trust of other performers. All theatre requires trust, but improv requires so much trust. If you lose that trust, you're done, you've got nothing.

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 22: I May Be Right or I May Be Crazy

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy.  This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter twenty two of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 9.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this one 18+ because it handles some heavy subjects! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. Seriously it is DARK. THIS ONE IS REALLY DARK! Angst, Cursing, Mentions of Abuse (sort of- it's more the reader being used without knowledge of it and I'm not sure what to call that), Numbness, Mentions of character going through some HEAVY EMOTIONS and INTERNAL TRAUMA , Violence, Explicitly Described Torture, Fire, Graphic depiction of death, Blood, Gore, Sexual References, Family Problems. Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, completely a little OOC. Soldier Boy is really all you need as a warning.

Note: This is told from the Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. Reader is described as "curvy" occasionally. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

A/N: I'm serious guys this one is really gory, violent, and bloody. I mean, so is the show. BUT this is an additional warning if you don't like reading that kind of stuff, please do not read this. It also handles a really delicate issue with the reader going through something that no one should ever have to. I've never written something like this before and honestly I don't think I ever want to again, but it had to be addressed...

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

"Are you sure you want to stay here?" Ben says, gently pushing back a few strands of your hair from your face, fingers trailing against your cheeks, warmed from the morning sun that peaks through the large trees which shield Legend's property from the rest of the world.

Butcher had finally found Mindstorm, figured out which cabin he was hiding at, and although you wanted to go to make sure that Ben was alright, you knew that you couldn't go with him.

There was something you needed to do and you needed to do it without Ben there. It had to be handed delicately. You weren't sure what you would learn, what it would confirm or deny, and as much as it hurt you to be apart from Ben, you had to do it alone.

It was two days after your revelation, after you received what seemed like divine wisdom while staring at your daughter as if seeing her for the first time in forty years and understanding what it was that you'd forgotten. It had been hard to laugh off why you'd shattered a mug during Butcher's little pow-wow, even Rosemary was concerned after, but you'd waved her off and said that you were just getting accustomed to your new supe strength.

But Ben wasn't fooled. When you went upstairs to clean the alcohol from your clothes Ben had followed and tried to get you to tell him what was wrong, but you'd only said that you were tired. He knew you were lying, but he only sighed and hugged you because he didn’t really know what else to do.

And now standing outside of Legend's house while Ben, Butcher, and Hughie were about to go after Mindstorm you wanted to tell him what you believed, but you still couldn't.

You had to find out for yourself.

"Yeah. I don't want to leave Rosemary or Lou." You reply leaning in to his touch. It was true, you didn't, but it wasn't the whole truth and it made you feel guilty. You'd never lied to him before or well, hadn't tried to intentionally trick him. And it felt worse to do this now that the two of you were starting over, and when everything felt more wonderful than you could have imagined all those years ago.

Ben eyes you for a moment and you're suddenly worried that he's been a mind reader this whole time and he's just never said anything.  But then his expression softens. "Are you sure you're okay? You haven't said too much since the other day."

"I'm fine." You touch the front of his supe suit, laying your hand directly over his heart and feeling the gentle thud in the palm of your hand. It was difficult not to touch him now, not after the boundary had been crossed so many times over the past two days. Somewhere deep down you worried that Ben was still uncomfortable with you doing something so intimate in public.

You were aware that everyone was looking at the two of you, Rosemary and Lou standing more towards the house on the front porch and Hughie and Butcher were standing by Butcher's car parked in the long driveway. Butcher's car still had a giant hole in the roof from when Ben punched through it and when he saw the hole, Butcher had threatened to send Ben back to Russia and you threatened to melt Butcher into a puddle.

But Ben gently touches your wrist, where your hand rests against his chest, frowning slightly.

"Fine. I've got a few things on my mind-" You whisper, hating how easily he could read you, but at the same time you loved it.

Ben made you feel seen, and after years of feeling invisible, feeling like you were losing you best friend, and feeling like he would never care about you the same way, it made you happy and comforted.

"Then tell me. I want to help." Ben's hand slides up your wrist to your hand, entwining his fingertips with yours and surprising you again. He was being so open and thoughtful in front of everyone. His eyes search yours as if he was trying to see your thoughts and it made you smile again to understand how much he loved you and cared about you.

"Ben." You breathe, squeezing his hand. "I don't want to talk about it now. Can we talk about it when you get back?"

"Is it why you're not coming with me?" His frown deepens.

"A part of it. But I really want to make sure that Lou and Rosemary are safe."

Ben raises his gaze to look at where Rosemary stands frowning at the two of you, before he looks back at you. "Okay." But he doesn't seem happy with the turn of events.

You didn't blame him, you didn't want him to go face Mindstorm alone even with Hughie and Butcher. You still didn't trust Butcher and of all your old teammates Mindstorm was the most troubled.

"Can you promise me something?" You ask Ben, looking up at him.

"Anything."

"Watch out for the kid."

"The kid?" Ben looks confused. "Lou?"

"No. Hughie." You glance over to where Hughie is standing at the back of the car with Butcher.

Probably talking about the Temp V they're going to shoot up to take down Mindstorm.

You really didn't want to leave Ben with Mindstorm of all people. Mindstorm was probably one of the only supes that could do something to Ben. Ben did have some psychic immunity, but you thought that Mindstorm could peel away the layers, sink deep into his mind, make Ben see the things that always plagued him. And the last thing you wanted was for Ben to be trapped in an automatic loop of him listening to his father say what a disappointment he was. You were trying to make him forget those things, just as Ben tried his hardest to make you forget the things your mother said to you.

If Mindstorm put Ben through that, you were going to hunt him down to the ends of the earth and make him understand what it was like for someone to peel the skin from your flesh bit by bit and then make him eat that brain of his that he loved so much.

Plus you figured that the worst thing that could happen is Mindstorm would lock you in your own head and you'd have to spend your final hours with your dead mother, which yes that would suck, but at least at the end of it you'd have a new fun superpower to torture Mindstorm with.  Seemed like a good trade-off if you had to spend your last moments with the bitch herself.

I wonder what he'd make her say to me, what I'd see. I've heard it all before, don't really think that he'd make me see anything I haven't seen before or heard before.

"Why?"

"Hughie's not like us. None of this is him. He's different. He's a good person and all of this is-” You glance over at Hughie again, before looking at Ben. “ Just look out for him."

Ben's hand tightens in yours where it still rests against his chest. "Fine. But if that fucker comes for me I'm not going to tip-toe around Hughie's feelings. I'm going to kill Mindstorm, that's why I'm going there."

"I know." You nod.

"I mean you saw the shit he did to those kids-" Ben whispers the last part because he doesn't want Lou to hear, but notices Rosemary perk up, where she stands on the front porch.

"Yeah. I remember."

Mindstorm was more fucked up than most of the others on your team, found joy in making people see terrible things. And his favorite targets were children. Stan had a hell of a time covering that up, covering up Mindstorm's morning walks through parks and on the edges of elementary schools. He liked to live in their minds as he took them apart bit by bit, exposed them to his own twisted reality.

Mindstorm wasn’t a good person, but you knew that Hughie was.

"I'm not asking you to spare his life." You whisper back. "He was one of the worst from our old team. I'm just asking you to look out for the kid."

"I will."

You nod, still worried. He was going with Hughie and Butcher, but it still felt like he was alone if you weren't with him. The problem was you couldn’t see the way around it. This was your chance to go alone to find some answers, but you didn't like it, didn't like leaving Ben.

Probably about as much as Ben hated leaving you.

“I promise I’ll come back.” He murmurs pressing his forehead against yours, green eyes soft in the morning light. He was mistaking you hesitation for your fear of him leaving and never coming back.

You reach up with your free hand to touch his cheek. "I know." Your thumb gently rubs over his bearded cheek, smiling up at him. "I love you." You whisper.

Ben leans down and kisses you softly, just a fleeting brush of his lips against yours that leaves you wanting more. "I love you too Sweetheart." He murmurs with a soft smile.

Again you weren't used to that, used to him looking at you like you were his whole world, and you never wanted him to stop.

Ben pulls away and raises his gaze to where Rosemary stands arms crossed over her chest with Lou standing beside her watching with wide eyes.

"Be careful." Rosemary says, but it sounds pained, almost as if it took a large amount of effort to say, but you were happy she said something to him that wasn't meant to hurt him.

Maybe that's a good sign. You think to yourself, but then you notice the frown on her face. Or maybe not.

He nods once, but as soon as he takes a step towards where Hughie and Butcher are waiting by the car, Lou runs to him, her tiny arms pumping as fast as she can.

"Ben wait!" She cries, throwing herself against his leg and pressing her head into his right knee. "Don't go. If you go Aunty y/n will be sad again!" Lou mumbles into the fabric, hugging him tight.

Ben stiffens, his eyes shifting to you and for a second you see something unfamiliar flash in his gaze, something painful. It shakes you to your core, and makes you remember how he looked when he stood above your bed the night he came back and said that he couldn't lose you and when he sat in the car and showed you how upset he was that he wasn't there for you when you were pregnant with Rosie.

It made you want to pull him into your arms and hold him close, make him feel loved all over again, show him how much you wanted him here with you despite everything that happened in the past.

He crouches down so he can look Lou in the eye. "I won't be gone long. I'm a little harder to kill than these other sons of-" Ben stops to sensor what he was going to say and clears his throat. "Um. I'm a little harder to keep away than other people."

"Do you promise?" She says.

"Yes I promise honey." Ben smiles tightly.

"Take this for good luck." Lou reaches into the front of her bright pink overalls to pull out a small yellow flower about the size of Ben’s pinky, holding on to the stem in her little hand.

You have no idea where she got it, only that she was holding it out to Ben as if it had the power to save the universe.

Ben looks from Lou's face to the flower, but takes it from her. “Thank you.” He places it carefully in his pocket and zips it in, but before he can stand to go, Lou throws her arms around Ben’s neck and hugs him tight.

You're sure that Ben must barely feel it, you'd seen a supe try to choke him out and Ben only laugh at them. But this is different.

Ben doesn’t move, in fact it doesn’t look like he’s really breathing. His eyes flick to where you’re standing, wide  in surprise and you give him an encouraging smile, because Lou already loves Ben just as much as you do. Ben’s arms are still at his sides awkwardly, but he finally wraps one arm over Lou’s back to hold him to him, gently as if he’s afraid he’ll crush her.

"I'll come back." He murmurs to her. "I promise." But his eyes aren't on Lou, they're on you, open and almost earnest. Making you understand again that he didn't want to leave you, that he wanted to stay, but if he had to go, he'd always come back to you.

Rosemary watches with a frown from the porch, but doesn’t say anything. In the days that had followed their initial meeting she was still trying her best to let him know that she wasn't going to be his friend, that she wasn't going to forgive him.

It hurt you. You didn't say that to her, because you didn't want her to be guilted into liking Ben, but it hurt. It hurt to see your daughter push him away, when all Ben wanted was family. You understood that. Understood that in the way he treated Lou and understood it in the way he treated you.

He was so different than before and you wished Rosemary could see it like you did, but you understood that she needed to realize that all by herself no matter how long it took. You all had time.

Maybe that was the problem, Rosemary had an eternity to hate Ben, but maybe the good thing was that you had an eternity to make him feel loved.

Lou pulls back from him and you take her hand while Ben stands.

"Oi' while we still got daylight!" Butcher shouts from his car, leaning back against the door.

But just before you think Ben is going to go to the car, he steps close to you and kisses you so fiercely you don't remember how to breathe and then he's gone just as suddenly.

You watch the car pull away holding Lou's hand tightly, while it goes down the long drive and finally vanishes in the thicket of trees. It doesn't feel as warm anymore, you're not sure if that's because Ben is gone or because you're preparing yourself for what you have to do next.

"Here you go kitten. This is the only one I could find" Legend says walking through the front door of his house and past Rosemary to hand you a knee-length dark green leather coat. It was vintage, and you had asked him to find something that didn't make you look ridiculous. Legend had closets full of clothes that would have made you look like you were in a Solid Gold music video, and Ben had started wearing the clothes around the house because he didn’t have anything else.

Of course on him they looked good, Ben could be wearing a paper bag and a shower cap and still somehow pull it off.

"Thank you." You release Lou's hand to take it, putting your arms through the sleeves so it hung over your jeans and your black t-shirt.

I swear if I lose one more jacket someone is going to pay. Yeah, because that's what I should be upset about, losing another jacket.

"What do you need that for?" Rosemary asks.

"Lou." You crouch down next to her, smiling up into her freckled cheeks. "I want you to go inside and draw me a field of sunflowers okay?"

"A whole field?" Her eyes brighten.

"A whole field."

"Can I give it to Ben?" She asks.

"Of course you can honey. I think he’d like that very much.” You tuck her dark hair behind her ear before she turns and runs through the large wooden double doors at the front of Legend’s home.

You stand. "I have to do something."

"What do you mean? I thought you just told Ben that you weren't going after Mindstorm?"

"I'm not going after Mindstorm."

"Then what? You’re going to kill someone else aren’t you?” Rosemary crosses her arms over her chest, obviously upset.

You don’t answer.

“Why? Why are you doing this-“ She shouts exasperated.

“Something about everything that happened doesn’t sit well with me.”

“What do you mean everything that happened?”

“Ben was Vought’s golden boy. And I don’t understand why Stan Edgar would just let him be taken like that.” You look at where Legend stands. You didn't think that he knew anything about it, hoped that he didn't. He was one of your oldest friends and to find out that he had betrayed you the same as Payback had betrayed Ben wouldn't end well.

By now he's lit a cigarette, smoking it thoughtfully. "I've wondered the same thing. Stan Edgar was involved in everything, and for him to give the go ahead for Payback to hand Soldier Boy over, means that there must have been some money exchanged for him to green light it." Legend blows out a lungful of smoke that hangs in the air in front of his face. "Stan never brought up much with me, just that he was excited that the team was going to be given a chance to help out in Nicaragua." Legend frowns. "I will say that before the premiere that night, Stan seemed to already know that y/n wasn't going to be on that trip. In fact he was convinced that you were going to stay state-side and work with Vogelbaum on some things."

"Vogelbaum?" Rosemary questions looking at him.

"He was the main scientist for Vought, he had in fingers in every pie, knew the extent of all our powers, except mine." You wave a hand. "I always refused bloodwork, I didn't want him to be poking and prodding around in my DNA for too long. But he definitely was big on genetic testing. They were trying to make a new hero-" You pause remembering what Vogelbaum said the night of the premiere. You hadn't remembered what he said until now. When Vogelbaum mentioned the next generation of heroes.

"What is it?" Legend asks.

"Stan knew I wasn't going to Nicaragua. He knew that Countess would make Ben push me away, but what if he was working with Vogelbaum?"

"What would that help?" Rosemary interjects.

"The night of the premiere Vogelbaum said that he wanted me to come by the lab, to meet someone. He said that he was working on "the next generation of heroes" or something." You shake your head as if trying to move things back in place so you can understand. "There's something I'm missing about the whole situation. Some missing piece that doesn't fit." You bite the inside of your cheek. "Stan tried to come talk to me after Ben died, but I never heard what he had to say- I broke his nose and threw him out."

"Maybe he was going to try to get you to come to the lab again." Legend shrugs.

"But why were they so adamant about that it just makes no sense. Why was I important? Why me? It could have been anyone. Hell, they could have had Countess go instead of me. There were other women, other supes. Why did I matter so much?"

You glance at Rosemary again, examining her face and seeing the same thing you realized the other day. Deep down you understood why, but you wanted to be wrong, you didn't want to believe that someone would take that from you, that someone was capable of doing something like that.

"But do you have to kill someone to find out why?" Rosemary pleads. "I don't understand how you're okay with killing people-" She begins to say looking at you like she's never met you before.

"You think I'm okay with killing people?" You ask her. "You think I like this?"

"No but-"

"I've done a lot of shit that I'm not proud of. I've lost control. I've killed people. But believe me when I say that what I'm about to do, I do for you. It might not seem that way right now, but I hope that one day you can understand that."

"Mom I-" She starts, but you hold out your hand. She looks from it to you as if confused, but then finally takes it.

"If Homelander comes here, you kill him. Do you understand me? You don't give him a chance to speak, you kill him." You say, feeling your powers transfer into Rosemary. It didn't hurt, it never did, in fact if she did it to anyone else they probably wouldn't have noticed. Her ability was almost undetectable, the only thing that changes is the quick flash of molten gold in her eyes when she does so. But it was instantaneous and it didn't matter how long Rosemary held on to someone, all it took was skin to skin contact, one touch and that was it.

Rosemary's expression hardens. "Okay."

"I love you." You squeeze her hand once more before you let go.

"I love you too mom."

You take a few steps away from her. "I'll be back tonight. I promise. If Ben gets back before me, just tell him that I needed to do something and that I'll be back. Don't let him try to come after me."

"He's not the easiest person to tell what to do." She sighs.

"I know." You shrug. "He's just like you."

"He is not-"

"He is."

"You need to borrow the car kitten?" Legend asks, beginning to search through his pockets for the keys to his black 1967 Impala. It was in mint condition and Legend was proud of it.

He should be. It's a nice car.

"Nah I think I'll hitch-hike." Your smile is triumphant and maybe a bit mischievous, as you take to the sky, leaving the world and everything you know behind.

If only you knew what was coming.

Stan Edgar was a simple man. He liked his whiskey neat, his coffee black, his cigars Cuban, his suits pressed, his dinner at 6 pm sharp, and his women poised. Stan Edgar rarely deviated from his plans, never cancelled a meeting, and took every phone call no matter how late. He read the Wall Street Journal each day, checked his blood pressure meticulously, and was in top shape for a man of his age. After years of shaping his image, Stan Edgar's life was the epitome of control and composure.

Not a hair was ever out of place, his apartment on the Upper East Side was perfectly organized, and he never got angry, he got even. He never lost a minute of sleep. He never raised his blood pressure and he knew the exact price that a minute of his time was worth.

He took his morning coffee in the dining room of his large five-bedroom penthouse apartment with a bowl of oatmeal while he read the Wall Street Journal and left his home at exactly 7 am only to return at 5 pm to read through various briefs before his housekeeper delivered his dinner to the same dining room table that he had previously had breakfast on.

When he was taken off the board from Vought, his schedule had deviated slightly, but it was easy for him to control the company, especially with the connections that Stan Edgar had worked his entire life to maintain.

Stan Edgar's life had reached a point of comfortable routine and after forty years it was as it should be. He knew the ins and outs of New York City, he had a stable home, various rental properties, rising stocks, and a control of most of the inner workings of Vought even with Homelander's hostile takeover. Homelander was proving to be a bigger problem than he hoped, but Stan Edgar did not allow himself to revel in Homelander's destruction of the company Stan worked so hard to build up.

Every moment in his life was mapped out to the second and Stan Edgar had worked hard to make it to the top, had crushed many an executive, assistant, and person to gain the power and status that he had.

When Forbes did a profile on him, they had proudly described his rise to power, of course there were details left out, pieces of Stan Edgar's life that he had worked hard to sweep under the rug. But he did not lose sleep over that.

His apartment is cold, silent, and dark when he walks through the front door at 6 pm sharp, odd because Stan expected his housekeeper to be standing there to take his coat as she had been for the past twenty years. The same navy blue wool coat he shrugs out of and hangs on the maple coatrack just inside the front door in his foyer.

You can hear the sound of his footsteps along the marble tiled floor as he makes his way through the silent apartment, his dark brown shoes polished to a shine, squeaking slightly against the polished tiles.

"Roberta?" Stan calls looking for his housekeeper. His voice caries through the darkness.

You could smell the tobacco from his last cigar on his suit coat, his heady cologne, and his hair oil that was just a little spicy. It was old fashioned, something that you could remember from the first time you met him.  You could hear the steady beat of his heart in his chest, perfectly maintained by the bottle of medication you had found in his bathroom only a few hours ago.

You already knew Stan Edgar's routine by heart, knew exactly how he spent his days, and the kind of person he was. Today was not the first time that you had trailed him, wove through the crowded streets behind his thin form as he moved oblivious to your shadowing, and watched his driver Carlos pick him up and drop him off at the correct times. You had done it many times, taken days to understand who he was, understand where he went at what time, and who he met with.

Nothing in Stan Edgar's life was a mystery to you.

Hughie's revelation of Victoria Newman's relation to Stan Edgar was not a surprise. It was a piece of information you held close to your heart if things between the two of you ever went South. You didn't fear her power and you weren't above torturing the weapon that Stan had turned her into. It would have been difficult, she was after all a senator, but it would be easy to inflict a small problem within her body telekinetically, something that looked normal to the naked eye.

Of course what you were about to do to Stan was going to be difficult to explain to the police.

You had contingencies in place for that though, there was nothing to worry your head over. The hardest thing you'd done today was get out of bed this morning and your day had included disposing of Stan Edgar's security detail, who hadn't even been able to touch you, let alone know that you were following him.

Some security detail.

You took a drag from your cigarette, leaning back in the high-backed chair in Stan's ornate living room, the tip burning orange in the darkness, the smoke obscuring your form where you lounge back against the faded green velvet. It already smelled like cigar smoke and you knew that it was where Stan smoked his nightly pipe after dinner, the velvet holding the strong scent of tobacco and Stan's ancient cologne. You hadn't had a cigarette since you were pregnant with Rosemary, but there was something about the drama of smoking one that you couldn't pass up.

Stan turns into the living room, but his foot hits something solid where nothing should be and he pauses.

"Roberta?" He says again hesitantly. "Did you move the couch?"

She wouldn't answer him, couldn't answer him. Killing her had probably been a mistake, but when you realized that she was an ex-hero hired by Stan as an extra precaution to make sure no-one entered his apartment, it had made you feel better, especially when she tried to electrocute you, which had surprisingly slowed you down, but not enough to spare her life.

You hear Stan's fingers fumble against the light switch on the wall and the hiss of his surprise when his hand comes back sticky and wet.

You can see him clearly in the darkness, Homelander's x-ray vision meant that you'd never have a problem seeing in the dark ever again. You watch Stan's nose wrinkle in disgust, confused at the discovery, but then watch as he reaches again and flips on the light, his eyes leveled at the ground trying to figure out what it was that he stumbled onto.

His security detail had come to sweep his apartment as they did each day thirty minutes before he arrived home, and it had been the last thing that they had ever done. The blood from the bodies was soaking through the hardwood floors and trickling down to the oriental rugs below Stan's modern living room furniture. The thick copper smell of blood was everywhere and you weren't sure how he missed it.

You hear the sharp intake of his breath as he sees the bodies, traces the ripped limbs and headless forms of his pathetic security detail at his feet. There were others in his bedroom, one in the kitchen, and another hanging from the horns of a moose head over the fireplace at your right where you sit, the blood flowing thick down the beige wallpaper and dripping onto the once pristine floors. There were nine in total, and although the past version of you would have maybe felt some remorse for their deaths, you were finding it difficult to, especially after realizing what you had.

"It's hard to find good help these days." You arch your brow taking a drag from the cigarette perched between your index and middle finger. "I'd say you paid too much for their service given how easy they were to dispose of. I'm kind of disappointed, thought that they'd be a bit more of a challenge."

Stan looks up from the bodies, eyes wide, to see you sitting there in the armchair. There was blood flecked over your shirt, on your jacket, in your hair and on your cheeks that you hadn't bothered wiping away, you figured that there would be more soon and you didn't care.

"Y/n." He keeps his voice composed, but you can hear his hand shift to his pocket for his phone.

It doesn't get far.

You telekinetically pull him over the back of the couch and force him on his knees in front of the ornate square coffee table poised in the center of the room. His hands palm down, fogging the glass with his body temperature. His body is outlined in bright purple, completely at your mercy and under your control, your own eyes glowing bright purple.

You allow yourself to take another drag of cigarette and let a cloud of smoke trickle out from your full lips. "It's good to see you Stan. How long has it been? Ten years? You look good better than my teammates did anyway."

"I was wondering when you were going to drop by." He says tightly eyeing you. "Are you going to keep pretending that you're not Indigo?"

You smile and laugh at him. "I think I'm done pretending."

You weren't surprised that Stan knew. When you'd seen him at your art show all those years ago when you moved back to the city you had suspected he knew, not to mention that he had called Legend to ask about you. It was unfortunate that Stan knew, because now you worried who else knew, but you also figured that the cat was out of the bag as soon as you fought Homelander.

Plus, maybe the secret would die with Stan.

"Is Ben here?" Stan asks, and you hear the way his voice sticks on Ben's name. His eyes shift to the dark corners of the room as if he believes that Ben will materialize from the shadows.

It's like him to be more afraid of Ben than me. No one was ever afraid of me. I was just Ben's little friend, another supe that they could dress up and put on display. They should have been afraid.

"No, I came alone. Thought I'd give him the night off."

"I’m surprised you let him back into your life after everything that happened." Stan replies, but you don't miss the twitch of his body as he tries to escape the grip of your powers. He wouldn't. Your hold was unbreakable for someone like him. If you had decided to use your powers on Ben or on Homelander, you were sure that it wouldn't hold them for long, they were too strong.

You examine Stan again. His body is rigid in your hold, head tilted up to stare at you, hair flopping forward into his face from when you yanked him over the couch, and his knees are pressed into the blood soaked carpet on the living room floor.

You knew what he was doing, he was trying to get inside your head, try to make you turn against Ben the way everyone else did, but you wouldn't fall for it, not again.

"Well you did you best to keep it that way, didn’t you Stan?"

"I don't know what you're talking about-" Stan's words are cut off in a gasp as your telekinetic grip tightens on his body, squeezing him tight for a moment before you release the pressure, but keep him where he is.

"Do me a favor, don't lie to me. It's insulting, plus we're old friends." You smile sweetly. "And I always love seeing my old friends. Especially ones who stabbed Ben and me in the back."

Your glowing purple eyes flick to the large painting on the living room wall. It's one of yours, a depiction of a quiet forest from your last show. It was weird to see a piece of the new life you crafted hanging there. "I'm flattered you bought one of my paintings."

"You always were talented. I was disappointed that you didn't start trying to sell them earlier. Probably would have sold more when you were a hero,  could have enhanced your image." He says, but you can hear the edge beneath his voice. He's trying to keep conversation, make this diplomatic, when he knows there's no way out. You’d made sure of that. No one was coming to help Stan Edgar.

"I sell enough now. Thanks though." Your body stands from the chair, listening to the rapid beat of his heart in his chest, and gesture to the collection of tobacco pipes that line the mantle beneath the body of the security guard. "My dad had a pipe just like this one." You stop at a simple one, not carved, plain, a dark cherry wood that tapered into solid black. "Used to smoke right before he went to bed every night. I spent a lot of time sketching him sitting in his chair by the fireplace, learning what he looked like, tracing the plains of his face." You take another long drag from the cigarette.

It was hard to think about your father after all these years, you hadn't thought of your family in a long time, not when you had Rosemary and Lou and now Ben. But you could still remember those quiet evenings when there was a hint of a chill in the air and your father would smoke his pipe and listen to music from the phonograph he had in the corner while you sat at his feet and drew him. Sometimes your mother would join him with her own embroidery in the matching arm chair next to his. As much as you never got along with her, you could see how much she loved your father and how much he loved her.

"I'd never met Homelander in person before a few days ago. I'd seen his face on billboards, on energy drinks but never in person. I would have realized it years ago if I had." You trace the gentle curve of the pipe with a fingertip, exhaling another trail of smoke.

"Realized what?"

"I'm only going to ask you this once Stan." You pause as you turn to look at him. "Why does Homelander have my father's nose?"

It was obscure. You knew that. But it was what you had realized the other day when you were looking at Rosemary, the one feature that distinguished her from Ben, the one piece of yourself that she had, was the same one that Homelander did. You suspected that the smell of hair dye you smelled when you met Homelander for the first time was to cover up the brown hair that he must have shared with Ben, just as the makeup on his cheeks would cover the familiar freckles Rosemary had. They could have been twins, you could see it now.

Stan doesn't breathe, his muscles straining under his suit as he silently fights for his freedom, his heartbeat thuds loudly in your ears, but he doesn't answer you.

Your eyes glow a dangerous purple and the ceiling light flickers above the two of you, the sound of the static with each blink breaking up the wet tap of the blood dripping to the floor and the low pitched thrum of your powers that fills the room.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Stan swallows.

"What did I say about lying to me?" You sigh, flicking the cigarette into the full length white curtains that remain closed over the living room windows, immediately catching fire. Of course they would, you'd soaked them in gasoline moments before Stan came into the room.

His eyes flick to the flames as they reach up to the ceiling, but the fire alarm wouldn't go off, you'd sabotaged it. 

"The human body can withstand 50 pounds of pressure per square inch before it starts to crush. I’ve never crushed anyone before, mind you I’ve also never been crushed." You shrug your shoulders turning back to look at him. "But I'm very interested to see what it will do to your body."

Stan utters one word. "Please."

"It's funny." You take a step closer to him, tapping your lip thoughtfully. "I didn't ask you to beg for you life, I asked you to answer a simple question."

Stan still doesn't answer. The high pitched snap of his fingers one by one breaking is sharp as you increase the pressure on his hands , like the crisp sound of a wishbone at Thanksgiving.

Stan inhales sharply, his gaze lowering to what used to be his fingers, not quite realizing what the sound was. You watch as the realization rolls across his face like thunderclouds on a stormy day, as he realizes  they have been reduced to mush beneath your powers and a scream rips from his throat, echoing through the empty hallways, but there's no one there to hear him scream. Blood swells beneath the ruined flesh, turning his skin a sickly shade of purplish-red, before oozing through the breaks in the tissue by the sharp points of what were the delicate bones of his hands.

"Ooo. That doesn't look too good buddy." You click your tongue. "You want to rethink your answer? Or do I have to do your toes to match?"

"Vogelbaum tried to tell you at the premiere." His voice is a weak growl, eyes not raising from his hands. "I tried to tell you too, but you broke my damn nose."

"Tell me what?" You hold your glowing purple hand over him like a warning prepared to crush whatever you have to, to make him speak.

He continues to look down at his ruined hands.

"Ah-ah-ah." You place a fingertip beneath his chin, feeling the stubble of his five o'clock shadow, so his gaze is now on you. "I want you to look at me."

"Ben was a manic, crazed, he needed to be replaced. He wouldn't follow orders, wouldn't listen to us. He only listened to you!" Stan spits, his eyes filled with rage and pain. "It was easy to turn the rest of the team against him. Countess was jealous of his attention on you, it was logical that she would be the one to break whatever you two had. Even Noir was easy to convince. He always was obsessed with you after you saved his life from that asshole." More blood seeps over the glass table.

You withdraw your hand from Stan's chin for a moment surprised. You knew that Countess was always trying to get between Ben and you, but the news of Noir's obsession was new.

"What do you mean Noir was obsessed with me?"

"Oh please." Stan seethes through his gritted teeth. "Did you really think that you kept losing things? Your hair ties, your underwear, your hairbrush, even that stupid fucking necklace you always wore! Noir was harder to keep out of your apartment than Ben whenever you were out of town. Not to mention he always asked to be put on the same interviews, given auditions in films you were in. Noir was always trying to get between Ben and you, but you never gave him the time of day. Do you have any idea how hard I had to work to make sure you never figured out that he kept breaking in to your apartment?"

Your body goes cold. You knew the necklace Stan was talking about, the pearl necklace that your father had given to you all those years ago, the one that you'd lost a few months before your birthday and never figured out where it went, and the one that Ben had replaced on the night he gave you everything you wanted. You had noticed some things missing, the hair-ties and hairbrush, but you thought you'd left in the hotel rooms that Vought paid for, you had no idea that Noir had been in your apartment.

Whenever he talked to you, you thought that he was being friendly, that Noir was trying to be nicer to you because the rest of the team avoided you due to your close relationship Ben, but you never imagined that he wanted to be more.

"Noir was first on board with the plan. It didn't take much to get the others to fall in line." Stan continues.

"What plan?"

"The plan to replace Soldier Boy. But it had to be handled delicately, there couldn't just be any supe that took over. It had to be someone worthy, someone who exemplified the bullshit American Ideals that Ben used to boast about in all of those ridiculous films."

"So what? You sent Ben off to fucking Russia and you replaced him with Homelander? You shoved all that American dream shit down Homelander's throat and look what you created. You created a fucking monster!"

"It wasn't supposed to be that way. Vogelbaum wanted the replacement to grow up with a mother. He saw how Ben lived with only a father's influence and he wanted a soothing reassuring person in the replacement's life."

"You're not answering my question." You snarl, your hands beginning to glow brighter as you tighten your grip on his feet, preparing to crush them into mush.

"We had the genetic material from Soldier Boy it was harder to get it from you!" Stan shouts, feeling the pressure intensify in his feet, thinking that if he answers your question you'd spare them.

You stop for a moment, tilting your head to the side. The heat from the flames on your left growing with every passing second as they spread to the other curtains on the second large window. “What are you saying?”

“Did you really think we didn’t know what you could do?" Stan almost laughs, but it comes out in a choking cough. "We knew. Your power is one of the rarest we’d ever seen. And Dr. Vogelbaum hoped that your son would have the same one, that your son would possess some quality that you had and the qualities that Soldier Boy had. The perfect weapon. The perfect supe." Stan croaks. "A supe that could adapt and walk away from death like you could. A supe that was perfectly under our control, different than Soldier Boy."

“Are you saying that Homelander is my son?” Your voice is dangerously low, no more than a snarl.

Stan swallows. “Yours and Soldier Boy.”

With those words, the bones in Stan’s feet snap loudly as they both are reduced to nothing, but crushed bone and flesh, never to be used ever again.

But his scream of pain is wiped out by the roaring in your ears as you realize what he's said, realize exactly what Vogelbaum did all those years ago, realize exactly why he asked you to come to the lab when you danced together at the premiere.

It was what you suspected, but that didn’t mean that you were any less ready to hear it. The wave of emotion that crashes over you squeezes your heart in your chest, because what kind of a monster would do that? What kind of person would take something like that from you or from anyone?

Anger, pain, shock, rage, and horror all war in your chest, grappling against your ribs, choking your next breath from your lungs, and make you feel as though your body is tearing itself apart.

You think about the hollow look in Homelander's dark eyes, remember what Hughie told you he was doing to Annie, what Hughie told you he had threatened to do, and remember what Butcher said that Homelander did to his wife. You remember how cocky and confident he was at the Twins home, how unaffected he was by the gore of the bodies on the upper levels, and remember the way he didn't seem to care that he was hurting Ben, that he killed Butcher, and then tried to kill you.

That monster is my son, is Ben's son. He's Rosemary’s brother-

You could feel the anxiety rising, threatening to rip your own heart out of your chest, but then it suddenly shifts to all encompassing rage. The entire room shakes with the force of your anger, spider cracks appearing in the drywall all around the room, the windows in the room shatter sending glass blowing outward onto the street sixty stories below the penthouse apartment, and the furniture begins to shift and slide along the floor restlessly as the flames flare bright red and orange and cause the wallpaper to curl black.

"How did you get my genetic material?" Your voice is eerily calm as you gaze at him, vision going red.

Stan looks up at you, painful tears in his eyes. "We couldn't do it when Ben was with you. He was so damn protective of you, if we tried to touch you with him around he would have torn us apart, so we had to wait for him to go shoot one of those stupid films overseas." He gasps. "Vogelbaum said that you wouldn't remember. Said that it would be just like a bad dream.

You freeze when he says that, the memory of the nightmare that had plagued you for decades flashing across your mind, every detail becoming crystal clear. The voice of Vogelbaum telling the nurses to hold you down, the smell of his breath, his face gazing down at you from between your legs with a sickening smile on his face, while you tried to clear your head, the sound of your own screams ripping from your throat as you tried to fight the drugs they pumped into your system to keep you quiet.

"Egg extraction was difficult." Stan coughs, blood appearing on his bottom lip. "You killed two nurses and two orderlies. Almost killed Vogelbaum."

"I should have." You spit savagely. "If he was here, I would make him suffer. How could you do that? How could you do something so inhuman-"

Your body doesn't feel like your own, your skin is too tight, your next breath catching in your lungs, and a shudder of absolute disgust shakes through your bones. You feel the urge to throw up, to expel whatever images you can, to purge yourself because it meant they had been inside you, touched you, defiled you in a way that they believed was justified. Disgust, shame, horror and pure uninhibited rage shift along your skin in waves crackling in the air around your body. Everything you know is a lie. Everything that you thought you knew about the past nothing more than shades of gray.

"In the name of science there is no boundary, no limit that cannot be surpassed." Stan tries to smile, but it comes off as a grimace and as soon as he opens his mouth, his entire front row of top teeth rip from his mouth and land on the glass table, flecking blood over the surface.

Stan sputters, choking on the blood, eyes widening in pain, but he continues, his voice sticking around the holes where his teeth once were. “Vogelbaum tried to tell you that night. Tried to get you to come to the lab but you refused. He wanted the subject to have a mother, a figure that he respected, a way of reigning him in-"

"You have taken everything from him!" You snarl grabbing Stan by the throat, raising him to your face. "You have denied him the right of family. You made him into something inhuman something unrecognizable-"

"We didn't do anything." Stan cannot hold on to your wrist, tries to raise his ruined hands to place them against you skin, but they only slide off leaving smears of his blood against your flesh. "You chose this. You did this to him. You denied him a mother. We tried to allow you into his life and you refused."

"Don't you dare turn this on me. What you did to my son is not my fault. You turned him into a monster because you wanted a puppet, a weapon you could control. What Homelander became is all you and Vogelbaum. It has nothing to do with me." You throw Stan back against the opposite wall. "You made damn sure of that."

He lands in a heap, tries to rise to his feet, but the ruined stumps no longer work so he props himself up against the wall,  taking shallow breaths, blood trickles down the corner of his mouth.

But Stan doesn't stay on the floor long, you raise him up, his body glowing again bright purple as he slams back into the wall, arms outstretched, legs hanging limply beneath him as he gasps for breath.

"When Butcher's wife had her son, Vogelbaum was happy he got another chance. Happy that Ryan had a mother figure to rely on, but Ryan has not turned out anywhere near as powerful as your daughter.”

Your jaw tightens as you tilt your head, fear breaking through the rage and numbness that has begun to build beneath everything else.

"What did you just say?"

"It took us years to find her, but as soon as I saw her at the art show ten years ago I knew. She's the spitting image of Ben. So we put things in motion."

"What things?" You snarl, tightening your grip on his chest so tightly that you hear the cracking of his ribs.

"Her ability to keep powers for 24 hours is unmatched. She’s almost indestructible. Almost as indestructible as you. She was so helpful in our development of our Temp V.” He exhales in one breath sharply, wincing in pain.

"What?" Shock grips you tight, holding you in place.

They used Rosemary for that? For the shit that Hughie and Butcher shoot up?

"The scientists at Vought couldn't figure out a way to temporarily give someone powers." Stan gasps. "But her blood was just what we needed to understand it."

"You took her blood?" You roar, the furniture in the room flipping back towards the door, crashing against the walls.

"She gave it to us. When I approached her she was adamant about not telling you. You were so against being a hero again and having her do anything connected to Vought.” He smiles around the holes in his mouth. "She agreed to help us if it meant leaving you alone. But-" Stan swallows again, gasping out another breath that sounds like a wheeze. "We were always watching. Always have been watching. There is no where you can escape us, no where you can go to get away from us. You think you're free?" Blood trickles over his dark lips and down his chin, but he continues to smile. "You never will be. And when your granddaughter finally develops her powers, she won't be either. Vought is already prepared for her, nothing can stop it."

Your face hardens at his mention of Lou, anger flaring deep in your soul, rational part of your mind no longer in control. There was no semblance of the control you were so proud of left.

You didn't know who you were anymore. All you knew was that this man had taken something from you, stripped you of what you were so long ago, and he would pay. Because you'd be damned if he was going to take Lou away too. If he really had already gotten to Rosemary, you'd failed her, but you wouldn't fail Lou.

You take in a breath, but the cold numbness is quickly coming to pick away at the heat of your rage, filling your chest cavity. "You've always been a snake, slithering your way to the top, choking the other people who challenged you, slimy, pathetic. You were afraid of Ben all those years. Cowered in the fucking shadows from his rage, afraid to speak, afraid that he would be your end. You were wrong Stan. You should have feared me instead. Because I am the end of you."

"Y/n please-"

But his next words are lost in the blood curdling scream that rips from his throat as his body begins to cave in on itself, the snapping of bone and the smell of blood filling the room as his limbs flatten and shrink into his body, ribcage caves in to his torso, his head crunching down into his neck until the thing that was Stan Edgar is nothing more than a soccer ball sized lump of flesh and ground bone, dropping to the ground with a sickening wet thud.

The flames lick at the walls behind you, steadily curving around the room as you stand there. Stan's blood is soaked into your hair, dripping down your cheeks, but the heady copper smell is obscured by the smoke that floods the room.

Despite it all you can't hear the sound of the flames, can't hear the sounds of the city below, can't feel the heat of the fire, can't feel the stickiness of the blood as it coats your cheeks. There's a buzzing your ears, that comes after Stan's death. An uncontrollable shudder shakes your body as you stand there in the ruined room, the cold feeling unfurling from the center of your chest like the petals of a flower. You can't feel anything, not rage, not shame, and definitely not remorse.

Because everything you know is a lie, everything you knew about Homelander, and now everything you knew about Rosemary. And if she hid that from you, what else had she lied about?

A/N: I did try to warn y'all. This chapter was a lot, and completely out of my comfort zone and I really miss writing the happy fluff 😭. But this chapter had to be done. And honestly… the reader's Homelander is showing. Somethings I think he may have inherited even though he was kept apart from her.

If you'd like to read something a little happier please try my series:

Take A Chance On Me

Thank you so much for reading! If you'd like to be added to my taglist please let me know :)

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[stjohnstarling]

When you think about it, the success (relatively speaking) of What Manner of Man is kind of miraculous. I have no social media presence outside of Tumblr (not for lack of trying! I just utterly do not have the knack,) no connections, and I've already given the book away for free. I simply have not written this book in a way that gets me anywhere with BookTok, Bookstagram, the Facebook communities of Kindle Unlimited readers - any of the online indie publishing infrastructure.

And yet it’s been wonderful! In some ways, writing this book has gone indescribably better than I ever dreamed it could. Every day I'm floored by the number of people who’ve read What Manner of Man and cared enough to help it along. The little community of friends and readers this story has gathered around it is one of the best experiences I’ve ever had creatively.

Now that the book is about to be irrevocably published, though, I’ve become wracked with doubts. What if it’s still not enough? What if all the people who’ve read and enjoyed the free version of the novel vanish tomorrow in a puff of smoke, and I have to start again from scratch with a more conventional publishing model? What if my subject matter is just too transgressive/queer/kinky/blasphemous and I have to pivot to writing something that’s less of all of those things? What if I run headlong into the woods and get torn apart by coyotes? Etc.

Listen, I’m going to be so real with you guys right now. I hate all ads with a deep, personal hatred, and I loathe and despise writing self-promo stuff. It’s by far the worst part of this job. But this is a very weird, risky thing I’ve done, and I need to make an appeal to Tumblr for help. For this to work - for this risk to pay off - I basically need enough people to 1. buy the e-book and 2. leave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads within a certain timeframe to catch the favor of the evil god known as The Algorithm. If that happens, I might be able to sell enough copies to enable me to continue doing this.

Without further ado, therefore - if:

You're tired of being sold safe, sexless, sanitized, advertiser-friendly queerness in stories 

You want more art that embraces uncompromisingly queer, transgressive desire

You view - now, more than ever, in this moment of religious backlash towards all manner of sexual expression - sexual freedom as inseparable from queer liberation

(And you want to see that explored in metaphor via a vampire seducing a priest)

Then may I present... ✨ What Manner of Man ✨

(Now with a beautiful cover by @beastliness!)

You can read the draft version for free here, and, if you enjoy it, acquire the completed version from your preferred retailer or DRM-free on my itchio store.

If you've made it to the end, thank you for reading all that 💜 (and thank you in advance if you decide to share it!)

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Getting hot under the collar and in the kitchen and on the pool table and...

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

Aug 2024 Week 3

Ongoing Series - Thai

Monster Next Door (Thai Thurs Gaga ) eps 3-4 of 12 - one of the things I'm enjoying about this show is the fact that the introverted super shy uke is having hot fantasies, and the extroverted seme is having the sweet fantasies. It's another way this show is highlighting God being the world's greenest flagged seme BL has ever produced. (And he's being given stiff competition this year - trend alert.)

Anygay: God is so cute and so not cool and so in love and all the consent asking word salad coming out of this boy. I LOVE him. 

Diew: It’s ep 4 so I’ve decided we can talk face-to-face.  God: So how many children do you want? 

The teaching him to play basketball bit, where God politely asks to hold his hand, is so freaking adorable I can’t.

I'm thinking of calling this show the anti-Mame pill.

Blue pill? Red pill? GREEN pill!

My Love Mix-Up Th (Fri YT) ep 11 of 12 - We gotta talk. I do like this version, but it’s starting to feel lackluster. Perhaps it always was by comparison to the bright sparkle uniqueness of the original. Perhaps I didn't notice because I was distracted by G4. But now I gotta say it's become a bit disappointing and even my love for G4 can’t seem to bind me to this. Frankly, this show is making me want to watch either the Japanese version, or My School President. It’s never a good sign when a currently airing BL makes me want to stop that and go rewatch an old one I’ve already seen.

NO SINGING.

Meanwhile, the "locked on the rooftop" trope! I haven’t seen that one in years. Cool. Also cute kisses. They learning. 

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans (Fri iQIYI) ep 7 of 8 - I can’t believe this is ending next week. But also I can. And I have thoughts.

I really love SailubPon. They might be one of my favorite newer pairs on the scene right now. But I just don’t believe in these characters or this couple. I don’t feel like they are going to have a lasting relationship. It feels like they’re just using each other for sex and distraction, and that’s how the script to set it up, and as a result they’re never gonna make it as a couple. As soon as the sexual fire between them burns out, what do they have to build a relationship on? Frankly? That would be fine if this were a modern love drama, and not a BL. But this IS a BL.

Putting the health code violators aside, I really do believe in the secondary pair, but they haven’t been given enough bandwidth to develop as a couple. There’s no way they’re going to adequately resolve Methas and JJ in the final episode.

At this juncture, I’m mostly finding this show annoying. Which in itself is annoying, because I wanted to love it.

Why is it that Thailand, the land of the best food in the world, king of BLs, struggles so hard to produce the restaurant set BL of my dreams? I’m really pissed about this.

That said, the Methas & JJ stuff is killer. Loved JJ running away. So good. Plus the age old decision - love or money? 

Battle of the Writers (Sun YT) ep 2-3 of 12 - The issue was me and I've managed to get hold of this show again. The story within the story is so ridiculously badly written I'm going spare. I’m not sure if the outside show is not ALSO badly written. That said, I do love how the 3 writer friends are all shipping our leads. It’s VERY silly. Meanwhile, cohabitation trope is a go. 

I like the side couple too. Stern Daddy + lost puppy is a very cute dynamic, I hope we get more than just crumbs. I actually am enjoying this show now. Ep 3 kinda derailed into this weird chimera novel that they’re all writing together and I’m finding that bit the least interesting, but I adore the domestic components which I think may turn out to be TutorYim's strength (if they're allowed to lean into it). 

Addicted Heroin (Thai Tues WeTV) ep 1 of 10 - Man I hope this gets some kind of distribution at some point. It was a pain to find and watch. But I enjoyed it. The focus is more on the seme in Thailand’s version. Which I don’t mind since that's rare in BL, and it’s more August on my screen. It’s all round softer than China’s version but still feels very familiar. I know some fans are struggling with it, but not me.

Sunset X Vibes (Sat iQIYI) ep 10 of 12 - I like that Sam’s crafty business espionage has paid off. Them teasing Sam & Yo really had me belly laughing. It was so funny.

Legitimate question. Would one put perfume on one’s cheeks in Thailand, as one does on wrist or sternum? Because of the sniff cheek thing? Scented face powders?

I do feel like with MosBank & SailubPon scorching up our screens, we’re being spoiled by some of Thailand‘s best high heat pairs at the moment.

I Saw You in My Dream (Weds Gaga) ep 5 of 12 - It remains kind of sweet and cute. It's also calm and slow moving. Oddly it reminds me of La Cuisine in its style and execution (if not content). I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would.

The Trainee (Sun YouTube) ep 7 of 12 - I don’t know. I’m getting bored.

Love Sea (Sun iQIYI) ep 10fin - Fort’s acting during the break-up was truly great. But I feel for Rak. It’s rough to learn that someone else is playing a long game with feelings while you were playing a short game with d**k.

Ultimately this is probably a solid 8/10 show but I’m mad I wasn’t madder at it, and I'm mad I was so bored throughout. So it gets a 7/10 and let us not speak of this again. I’d like to simply forget about it. Trash watch.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Sugar Dog Life (Japan Sun grey) ep 1-2 of 10 - OMG a uni student who looks young and a... COP! GAH. The subversion and kink of it all. I had to go grey to get it and I hate everything about what I had to do. But ya know what? Fucking worth every single repeated crash-causing advertisement.

I love it. The grumpy lonely little student cook and the cheerful mature police officer. What a fabulous dynamic. Is the cook looking for a boyfriend or a Daddy, and do we care if it has the same result? It is filmed VERY manga style camp. I’m a little nervous about that, but this means it’s also very fluffy and so damn sweet. It made me squeak with the cute. I’m gutted this didn’t get distribution.

Ironic that Tawada Hideya is in a new BL while Sunspot is re-airing.

Cosmetic Playlover (Japan Tues Gaga) eps 3-4 of 8 - Ah, the gays are doubting the bisexual again. How familiar. I like how this one is paced and moving through time, even if the relationship seems to be going comparatively slowly by contrast. I love the way Sahashi is always looking at Natsume, even when they’re in conversation with someone else. Ah yearning. I think the conflict was kind of inevitable, given the two personalities of the protagonists, and I like that. (No manufactured angst here.) But I still hope they can repair the breach and I’m still interested. Frankly this is so classically Japan - I don’t know what story beats it’s following and I’m not entirely sure where it’s going, but I kinda like that unpredictability. Makes me think it could go into "must you, Japan?" territory but fingers crossed.

I Hear the Sunspot AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan Weds Gaga) ep 9 of 10 - I'm enjoying it very much. I could do without the girl character. I know she’s more interesting than most (this is Japan after all), but she’s not really for me. It’s the complexity of the connection between the leads (and why they like each other) that’s being executed so brilliantly in this show (and in the manga, FYI). Both actors are so on point with their roles and the nuanced emotions required of these characters that every time it’s only them interacting I'm riveted. I could do without the rest of the cast tho.

Seoul Blues (Korea Fri? YouTube) ep 1 of 8 - I have a confession to make, I’ve been watching this whole series as it goes along. But this is the pair I absolutely like the most. I’m not sure I would necessarily recommend any of the installments, and I’m not sure how this one is going to go, but I’m VERY invested in this particular couple. They are so pretty!!!! This is a true friends-to-lovers struggle. I like that a lot. (Reminds me of I Cannot Reach You but a different dynamic.) Did I mention how pretty they are? And we already know they gonna kiss well. I bet the uncut version is stellar.

Meet You at the Blossom (China) - It's no one's funeral, turns out! Reports are in - not only are there kisses but it ends happily with wedding plans. So I'm eating crow, binging the fucker, and live blogging. I'm enjoying it. Ya'll know I adored Chinese BL before censorship. It has a certain unhinged quality I very much apreciate (and is the reason I'm so tolerant of the Thai pulps) that I think will marry well with Wuxia's effervescent and ever-present tropes. Watch me suffer here.

First Note Of Love (Taiwan Mon Gaga) eps 1-2 of 12 - About a singer with stage fright and his timid fan starring Charles (H4 the puppy one) and Michael Chang (the youngster in My Tooth Your Love), plus side couple featuring a Thai actor Jame (Koh in Gen Y) and Liu Min Ting (of Guardian fame). What a damn team. With their powers combined they are...

fine.

This is a fine BL. The fight scene was fun and I like the meet cute. I’m not sure about the chemistry of the leads, but I think they’ll probably do okay. I admit I’m struggling a bit with a singing and the music. Are you surprised? I think I like it enough, but I’m not wowed.

Takara's Treasure AKA Takara No Vidro (Japan Mon Gaga) ep 7 of 10 - Oh! Out of the blue attack kiss. What IS this show? I don’t get it at all. Bah. I guess they’re dating now. It’s… so odd...

It's airing but...

4 Minutes (Thai Netflix/Grey) - A rich boy at uni suddenly gains the supernatural power to see four minutes into the future. I have a source, but I've decided to hold off and binge if it ends okay, since it's only 8 eps. I depend upon y'all to tell me if it's safe.

8/16 The Last Time (Thai Fri YT) ? eps - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something. Again delayed? Not sure what's going on with this one but the continued push-backs do not bode well.

In case you missed it

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer IS COMING IN SEPTEMBER!!!! (Yeah this is gonna sit here until then).

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

Still Coming This Month!

8/22 The On1y One (Taiwan Thurs Gaga) 12 eps - announced in 2023 this one has a high school set stepbrothers trope and is reputed to be high heat. From Taiwan! It's made for me. Based on a novel Mou Mou from the Your Name Engraved Herein folks, so it could go dark. Still, I'm very excited.

8/22 The Paradise of Thorns (Thai movie) theater release - Jeff Satur is back but this does not look like a BL (the gay lover's death is the inciting event). More in Goodbye Mother vein. Looks dark and dramatic. He opposite and extremely well known actor Toey Pongsakorn who has never done gay before.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

WHY IS HE SO FINE?

I truly belly laughed. Sam & Yo did not go in the direction I expected, but this scene alone made me not mind that they curtailed the suffering Sam was rightfully due. (SunsetXVibes)

Tall boyfriend armpit, anyone? (Monster Next Door)

The two extremes of BL in one show (Long Beans indeed).

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in its infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

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𝐈 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐊 𝐓𝐎𝐎 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇: 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄

pairing: denki kaminari x reader, (hanta sero x reader)

word count: 6.6k

content warnings/things in part five: not a lot in this chapter! some inappropriate thoughts and daydreams, reader kind of has self esteem issues but it's mainly fuelled by the paparazzi, reader wears a bikini, petnames (babydoll, pretty girl, princess->used playfully), jealous denki, maybe jealous hanta (if you squint really really hard??), mineta (ewww), written with a chubby reader in mind/// minors do not interact (in later chapters there will be more smut and more explicit content!!)

a/n: chapter five is finally out!! sorry it took so long but it's finally out and boy is it longer than previous chapters. i really really really hope you enjoy this part, i've loved writing it! i was meant to finish it last week but i've been binging romance animes lmao.

summary: it's terrible when you're in love with your best friend. it's terrible that he's in love with someone else.

<< previous | next >> | masterlist / polls for this chapter: 1 & 2

"I can't believe our agencies are letting us go to the beach! Out of all the ways they could deal with the current situation they choose this!" You say excitedly and beam as you walk a little ahead of everyone but they can still all hear you.

"Yeah it's like that typical anime beach episode." Denki runs up over to you grinning. As denki runs up to you he trips over on the sand before catching himself, you bite you lip to stifle a laugh and process what Denki just said.

"Did you just compare what's happening to a beach episode right now Denks?"

"She's right Kaminari, this may seem like a relaxing day but we're here for a reason. If those League of Villain copycat group show up here like we suspect then we need to be ready." Todoroki 'reminds' you all and you have to resist the urge to roll your eyes. You weren't referring to the mission when you said that Denki, you were just stating that beach episodes are different to real life beach trips.

A couple of heroes with you seem so suspicious, shifting their eyes around the surrounding area. Plus you don't understand the choice of bringing along Todoroki and Bakugo, they're to recognisable and well known, even if the villains did show up they wouldn't stay for long after noticing who's here too.

You have a gut feeling this mission will come up with nothing. This whole time will be a wild goose chase leading you here with zero results. You've told them just as much, 'when have I ever been wrong about this kind of stuff guys? this whole mission to the beach will be useless we should focus on other things, find out where they really are.'

It's so frustrating that they don't believe you... Well most of them... All of them to be honest but they can't voice that out loud. Everyone whose hair is currently blowing in the wind and sand beneath their feet knows you very well and trust your instincts but they can't just ignore this lead they've been given. Katsuki expects you have a second quirk that allows you foresight, he especially trusts your intuition.

Denki stretches, groaning in pleasure while you quickly turn your head away from him and try to drown out the noise.

"Well I for one think we can relax, I have it on good authority" he grins at you before continuing, "that nothing will happen today. We might as well relax. This reminds me of our extended three day weekend holiday our class went to on the last week before leaving school."

All of the UA, Class A, alumni heroes that are present reminiscence on your time together. Bittersweet feelings flood your emotions as you think about how much you miss seeing them so often, yet glad and blessed with the time you did get to share with them back when you were all teenagers.

"Or when we went to Nabu island in our first year," Ochako adds.

"I didn't like that at all. Not only did villains attack but on top of that every single hour of every day people on the island was calling into the hero centre wanting us to do something, no matter how trivial." Minata replies, his voice more apparent with age, mostly losing the lisp he had.

"That's not the reason why and you know it. Every other day you were being perverted to random girls on the island." Hanta doesn't try to hide his annoyed tone from everyone. He's never concealed his disapproval of Minata's actions and that was originally one of the first things that drew you to strike up a conversation and friendship with him.

"Can we just sit down and make snide comments in a minute?" You ask, holding onto a large cooler with both hands and a couple heavy bags slung over your shoulder.

Ochako hums in agreement and pulls the massive beach towel from under her arm and places it down.

You hear Mineta mumble, "how are you a hero?" as he sees you strain to hold the icebox and it becomes so quiet but even though it's mumbled it sounds like the loudest anyone has spoken since you got to the beach.

Your quirk isn't suited to strength, everyone knows that. Your quirk isn't like Midoriya's or Kiri's or Sato's. It doesn't mean you aren't strong though, your quirk is very strong. Struggling to hold a box full of ice cubes and cold drinks plus two bulky bags for over an hour doesn't make you weak.

He's so hypocritical... he wouldn't even be able to lift it up and get it off the ground.

You're a hero for a reason, you know how brilliant you are but hearing that bothered you and distressed you for a reason and coming from Mineta it's even stranger that it effected you, he's made plenty of jabs towards you before but the way he said it irked you, especially because he said it in front of so many other heroes.

Before you can even defend yourself and before anyone else can, Denki does. Mina was about to speak, Hanta was about to, Katsuki took a deep breath in to start yelling and making tiny explosions in the centre of his palms but Denki beat them all to it, he even beat you to it. "What the fuck does that mean?" You stand in shock and your eyes widen at how much rage is in his voice, almost hostile. You've never heard him speak like that before. It doesn't only shock you but everyone else is taken aback.

Denki was so distracted and enraged by what Mineta said he didn't even notice his own tone, all he could think about was 'how dare he say that about you.'

Mineta started stuttering a response about how it was a joke and he didn't mean it. That snapped you out of you stupor and you pull on Denki's sleeve. "Denki, what are you doing?"

His eyes snap up to look at you and his body relaxes, "I- I no one should speak to you like that 'doll," he murmurs gently but you still hear him, all of you do.

A small smile slips on your face and you grip his sleeve tighter. "Thank you Denki," you tell him sincerely. He turned bright pink and you miss it instead whipping your head round to face Minata and pointing a finger out in the air, "listen here small fry, don't speak to me like that again. Who beat you all the times in training? Oh yeah, it was me." You tell him sternly and firmly, not leaving room for any hollow argument.

Katsuki smirks when you call him 'small fry' and wonders how many other nicknames he's made that you use.

Mina claps her hands together after you said your peace and had shut Mineta up, "right, let's get this towel down so I can start sunbathing," she grins. She sees from the corner of her eye that Todoroki is about to say something again about how they need to stay completely focused so before he can say anything Mina adds on, "just kidding," mumbling "kinda" under her breath.

One second Mina's fully clothed and the next second she's only in her bikini laying face down with her face to the side pouting at you and Ochako, "can someone put sunscreen on me? I don't want to burn."

"I'll do it!" Mineta replies automatically, just when you thought he wouldn't say anything else perverted today.

"The fuck you will!" Katsuki yells and you can almost hear the threat of explosions coming from his palms. He stays silent after that and doesn't say anything else, he leers over all the girls but in silence this time.

Everyone relaxes and starts up idle chatter and it was worth it carrying all those heavy things when you finally get to open up a cold drink, refreshing you. Ochako lathers Mina's body in sunscreen claiming that she doesn't want her to burn. You pat next to you and set your eyes on Todoroki, "come sit down Todoroki, you look really shady just standing around."

His lip quirks up in a rare small smile and accepts your offer. "You're right, we're heroes, we're ready to fight and apprehend a villain at the drop of a hat."

You giggle, "that's the spirit."

Due to the sweltering heat everyone has shredded layers, apart from you and Hanta. Even Todoroki has taken off his shirt and is currently annoying Katsuki while most of the heroes are playing beach volleyball. You're boiling and you can feel a few drops of sweat running down your neck but you don't get changed- you can't.

Underneath your clothes you're wearing a bikini but you feel too self conscious to get rid of your clothes, even though your hair is sticking to your face and your skin feels tacky and kind of gross. In your head you curse out those paparazzi from the gala a couple months ago who made you feel insecure as the photos taken of everyone started circulating online.

You gaze up at Hanta, squinting as the sun hits you eyes. Noticing this, Hanta moves the parasol to the side so it covers your eyes from the light. Now in the shade, Hanta grins "better?"

You make a noise of confirmation and nod your head, "thanks Hanta."

Hanta tells you that you're welcome while he lifts up his top starting at the top of his body, near his neck, his voice muffled under the top making you giggle. Your brain catches up with the situation too late as you watch his midriff exposed and the rest of his top half soon after. You swallow your saliva and time seems to slow down as you check him out. His hero costume is skin tight so it's not hard to imagine how he looks under his clothes. It wouldn't be fair to actually compare the two of what you envisioned to reality because after seeing him topless, wow reality is that much better you'd thought.

You wish those thoughts didn't rush though your mind but alas they do, 'my subconscious didn't do Hanta enough justice in my dream.' His arms are particularly muscular, which makes sense with his quirk and you wonder how much he can lift up with all that upper arm strength. There's a large pink scar on his shoulder that you've never seen before and you speculate silently how he got it.

One minute you were admiring his physique and the next you were nearly jumping out of your own skin as Hanta takes off his shorts and you feel the need to bury your head in your hands. You see his thick thighs and you have no control as all you can hear in your head is him calling you 'pretty girl' over and over again.

You're incredibly embarrassed by thinking about your sex dream. You try to avert your gaze away from him but beforehand Hanta can feel your watching eyes on him and spins his body around making eye contact with you, grinning wide and winking. You fiddle the hem of you top, suddenly shy that you've been caught and Hanta flops down next to you, still grinning. "Like what you see princess?" He asks teasingly, emphasising 'princess.'

"O-oh, shut up," you roll your eyes at him. Hanta chuckles and reaches over to the cooler and gets himself a drink. You elbow him on the shoulder, "idiot," and burst out in a fit of laughing and Hanta joins in.

"What's with the shirt?" Hanta asks gesturing to what you're wearing.

You feign ignorance, pretending you don't know what he's talking about. "Huh?"

"You must be hot in that."

"I'm okay," you say and you hope he doesn't notice that you're lying.

"I can see sweat trickle down your forehead, don't get me wrong you're still hot, just now in every sense."

You feel a combination of scoffing at his playful flirting and wrapping your arms around yourself shy and embarrassed but Hanta doesn't let you get too in your head and grabs an unopened drink and places it on your cheek, making you yelp and interrupting your thoughts. "Any better?" He moves the can up onto your forehead. "Why don't you want to get changed pretty girl?"

You stay silent and Hanta waits for you to speak patiently. "What I'm wearing underneath exposes more than normal."

"You've worn swimming costumes and bikini sets in public before, has anything changed. Is it a bad day today?"

Your heart warms when he asks if you had a bad day. "Not a bad day as such but there's been photos of everyone circulating after the charity gala a little while ago and the dress doesn't look as good as I thought it did. Because we're in public I'm kind of wary if someone takes photos and like I said it's more revealing than other ones I have... I regret choosing this one to wear today, it's not very flattering."

"I'll be the judge of that pretty girl." he grins lazily and you huff at his behaviour. You were intending to condone his reaction after you've just been so sincere about how you're truly feeling, especially since Hanta is typically more considerate than that but you should know not to jump to conclusions because after a pause he starts speaking again.

"In all seriousness you looked beautiful that night and I saw photos of everyone all over my twitter feed the day after and it didn't change my mind about how you looked that night. If people take pictures then they take pictures, we're here on a mission," you wince at the reminder that this is a mission but he gives you a reassuring smile, "a pointless mission with your perfect intuition but a mission all the same. You shouldn't sacrifice the relief of cooling down and if your swimming costume is revealing then that's okay, Mina is practically naked," you giggle and he smiles wide. "All of us are hot so anyone who sees us should be lucky,"

There's a cross between a chuckle and a raised eyebrow as you ask him, "even Mineta?" The immediate hard reply of 'no' makes you laugh again. "Haven't you always preached body positivity and acceptance for all?" You tease.

"If he wasn't such a pervert than my answer would be different," Hanta's says simply and you don't know if he's unaware of the affect that had on you. Hanta never once treated anyone different if they didn't fit societal norms, even when other people would, he didn't. Both him and Kiri were like that, it's probably why you always respected them so much.

Hanta's words did convince you to pull off your clothes, you were boiling but you finally shed off your clothes, grimacing as the top sticks to you. Hanta's resting his face in the palm of his hand, looking at you with hooded eyes that makes you feel almost bashful. You can tell his gaze isn't one of leering so you don't mind it so much.

You're completely free of clothes now and feeling a lot better now but you're still sticky, planning to go for a swim in a bit.

"I knew it," Hanta smirks and you look at him confused. "You look beautiful in that pretty girl, pink and white suits you."

"Oh please Hanta, sweat is trickling down my back and clinging to my eyebrow and cupid's brow. I can practically taste it," you disagree with him.

Hanta chuckles deeply, "you're still beautiful."

You tut and grab the sun-lotion from one of the bags, wanting to hide your face for a second. "Who first?" You grin at each other.

"Whoever you want."

"Okay, turn around to face me." He does what he's told, beforehand downing the rest of his drink and sitting so close that your knees are nearly touching his back as you sit on your heels. Opening the cap and squirting some in your hand, you begin to place you hands on his back. Hanta jumps slightly and you ask if he's okay, he responds that he is but it was colder than he expected, you apologise but laugh louder than the apology you give at that answer.

You rub your hands over him, making sure you don't miss any spots not wanting him to burn and have to take a deep breath as you feel his defined shoulder muscles under your palms. You lift his hair up slightly that's covering his neck and make sure it's covering his neck too. Half of you is thinking about how you're very physically close to Hanta and you've never done anything like this before but a louder voice is disagreeing, you both are very touchy-feely, you fall asleep on him and spar together all the time and when watching films in groups you'll share blankets, so is this really different?

'He's kissed me too, so this isn't a big deal...'

You don't pay much mind when you start to press your hand over the places that he can reach. You don't think as you rub cream on his arms and get up and face him, sitting back down as you make eye contact and give him a small smile. He doesn't say anything and neither do you. You put sunscreen on his chest and marvel about how built he feels, you carefully pick up his arms and make certain you cover every inch of him. You squeeze more sunscreen on your hands and close the lid before gently swiping along his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. You see the genuine smile that adorns his face and that snaps you out of your stupor, you momentarily stop putting the lotion on him, freezing, before starting again, although this time a bit more bashfully and not being able to make eye contact with him, instead just looking at the rest of his face.

"Think I'm nearly covered. Next it's you, yeah?" He says softly and you hum confirmation.

At the same time Denki's breathing deeply, trying to catch his breath after overdoing it while playing volleyball and he lets everyone know he's going back to get a drink and he's missing the next match out. He runs up, not noticing until he got close how your hands are running along Sero's body and how you're too close for comfort, it's looks far too intimate, too sensual. Denki clenches his teeth so hard it's a wonder they don't shatter.

"What's this?" Denki asked you both, forcing a smile on his face. You're surprised by his sudden appearance and feel almost guilty, you're really not sure why though.

Kaminari chooses to ignore the exasperated sigh that comes from Sero and gazes at you. You take your hands off Hanta and place them in your lap, "helping each other with putting on sunscreen. Have you already put yours on?"

"Uh. Yeah?"

You scrunch up your face not believing that and give him a pointed look, crossing your arms and it gives both Denki and Hanta everything in them to not look down as you unknowingly push your breasts up higher as you cross your arms. "I don't believe you."

"I did! Just.. Probably not the most thoroughly." He admits sheepishly and you cross your arms.

"Hey Sero, come join our team! We're a player down," Mina hollers to him, not asking you, knowing that you wouldn't want to play. Hanta goes slightly rigid at the request, he doesn't want to leave, he's supposed to put sunscreen on you in a minute and being around you one on one was wonderful, your soft touch on his cheeks and how you delicately moved his hair out of the way.

Little does he know you're in the same situation, although Denki's here now you don't want Hanta to go, you want him to jokingly make more flirty comments and call you pretty girl again. Even though you know he isn't serious about it and even though you know he does it with everyone it still makes you feel good.

Denki sits down very close to you and has a drink before saying, "You should go Sero, a lot of them won't let it go about an unbalanced team. They'll either have won unfairly with an extra player or lost unfairly because they were a player down."

Hanta sighs again before sitting up, "yeah you're right, I don't think I can handle another repeat of similar situation with Bakugou beating Todoroki at the sports festival." You chuckle and he leaves.

You want to ask Denki if he likes your swimming costume but you can't get the words out so instead you ask him, "Hanta was going to put sun-lotion on me but he left, can you do it instead? Just my back and stuff," you ask him. "The places I can't reach," you clarify. You really don't want to get burnt and hopefully if Denki's only touching quickly from behind you won't get too flustered and if you slightly do he won't see. You're definitely not strangers to physical affection with Denki but you are strangers when it involves so little clothes.

"I... uh-"

You interrupt him, taking his pause and lack of answer as reluctance and you don't want to force him to do something he doesn't want to do. You try and ignore the voice in your head that's asking a million questions about why, what's so bad about it. "Don't worry about it Denks I'll just put my top back on," picking up your top and turning it the right way round. 'Ah it was really nice to cool down for awhile.'

Denki grabs onto your top before you can put it back on. "No!" He rushes out and lets go of your top. Levelling his voice back to normal he says, "no, don't do that, you'll get too hot. Let me just move behind you." You give a tiny nod and hum. "Can you pass me the bottle babydoll?"

"Oh yeah," you open your hand and lay the sunscreen bottle in it so he can take it, his fingertips brush against your palm as he takes the bottle from you and you feel him shuffle behind you. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah! All good!" He hopes you don't hear the strain in his voice as he tries to sound okay and squeezes some cream out. "Okay it's going to be cold now," he warns you, "although it might just be refreshing," he adds. He talks so close to you, you can feel his breath on your shoulder blade and for a second there you thought he was going to kiss it by the way he lingered after he spoke but he pulled away and you told yourself about how ridiculous that idea was.

Denki pulls back and repeats that he's going to start now. He's right when he's said it would be cold but also when he said it would be refreshing. However you underestimated thinking Denki touching you wouldn't impact you. What you didn't realise is Denki was doing worse of than you were and you don't hear his swallowing over your own thoughts. Your soft body melds in between his nervous fingers as he makes gentle large circular motions on your skin.

You fight back a shiver as he touches your sides and goes all the way up to your shoulders. "Do you want to lay down?"

"Huh?!" You say a little louder than necessary. Denki is taking so much care with you, more than you thought and it's making you try to force down all the butterflies that are trying to flutter in your stomach. With every minute that passes with his gentle touch, the more heat rises to your cheeks and the more bashful you become. You don't know if you'll be able to handle much more of this.

"You asked me to help you with the places you can't reach." He reminds you and you wince. You didn't ask Hanta to lay down but now the man you love is asking you to and that means he'll be touching you more. Half of you is almost happy about this but the other half is thinking back to how Denki was silent when first asked and why was he silent, it would of been so much easier if Hanta didn't have to leave but you do what he says and lie down on your front, your head turned to the side watching everyone play volleyball in the distance.

You jump as Denki touches you again, still with care. You start to ball up your fists and your cheeks get hotter and hotter, especially when he touches your thighs. You were about to break the silence between you both when he touches your plush thighs but he quickly moves on, quicker than when he's touching other parts of your body.

Simultaneously Denki sucks in teeth and squeezes his eyes shut when he touches your thighs, he almost regrets asking you to lie down. He doesn't stay on your thighs long and goes over to your hips, you feel like his hand itches a bit to close to the string of your bikini bottoms but you dismiss it as he quickly moves his hand away again.

"All done," he says quietly but deeply as he retracts his hands from you.

"What?" You ask. It's not your fault you're distracted it's his, if Denki's going to hover around certain parts of your body he's to blame for any daydreams. It's not your fault if you imagine Denki lowering your bikini bottoms and untying the strings of your bikini top while he actually does place kisses on your shoulder blade, all along down your spine reaching the place he normally keeps his hand when you get too panicky and overwhelmed at events. Holding onto your hips and leaving bites and marks all over your body, letting small sparks go from his fingertips in your inner thighs making you moan-

"I said I'm all done now," you nearly squeak as you're interrupted from your daydream again and swiftly move to get up, Denki holding out his hand for you to take to help you up and turn you back round so you're facing each other again. "Do you want me to do your front?"

You shake your head rapidly and reply, "it's okay I can do it." Your eyes narrow as you see how red his cheeks are, "I know you said you didn't put sunscreen on properly but come on Denks at least put it on your face," you condemn.

"I did!" Denki rebuttals but you don't believe him for one second as you see his face and you tell him just as much.

"I don't trust you, if you've put sunscreen on your face why are you so red?"

"I must not have put it on properly, I should have had someone do it for me. Even though it's the front of my body I should have been more careful with applying." He hopes you don't call him out on his lie and his wording, you don't. After you don't he pushes a bit more, "Sero won't have the same problem because you made sure he was completely covered... I don't want you to burn."

You weigh the pros and cons and in the end the pros outweigh the cons. On one hand you'd prefer not to have anymore dirty inappropriate imagery of Denki but you don't want to get burnt, you're going on a blind date in a few days from now and you don't want them to see you with peeling skin and burning, angry, crimson hot streaks from wherever the sunscreen didn't cover.

"I'll take you up on that, if you still don't mind."

"I offered didn't I?" He smiles at you kindly and gestures for to lie on your back.

"Do I have to lie down Denki?" You ask a bit wary about any more daydreams you might have.

"You don't have to if you don't want to, it's your decision. I think it would make the most sense though."

You're not entirely sure about his logic behind that answer but you trust him and if it makes the most sense then you're sure you'll be able to survive a couple more minutes.

"Great!" Denki says a bit to enthusiastically and he's not deaf to how strange it must sound with how quick his attitude towards this situation seems to have changed.

Lying on your back you suppress the urge to cover your face with a sun hat to hide from him and from this position. The sight you're seeing takes your breath away. You're often reminded about how attractive Denki is, and at random times of the day too, like right now. His pretty golden eyes are reflecting against the sun at this angle, making you get lost in them. Denki unintentionally flexes as he reaches over you to pick something up you don't see and it's only natural that your eyes drift to his well-earned muscles from hero work, his lean body shining with sweat and his blonde hair is falling down his face. You don't even think about it before reaching up and running your hands through his hair and away from his face so you can see his whole face more clearly. A tender smile that you return appears on his face and you swear his face looks redder than before.

What he was reaching before becomes into your view and you see it's his black headband to push back his hair, he didn't think it was necessary earlier but now he's more confident in his movements and in his mind getting his hair completely out of his face so he can see you properly is the best way to go to make sure you're completely covered from the sun and he tells you just as much, although leaving out the part of him being previously not confident and being nervous about it, because you would ask 'why?'

He pushes his hair back with his headband and continues to rub lotion in circles on your skin, this time on the front of your body.

Denki's hand stops and even though you can't see what he's looking at you just know. "Denki?" You say quietly.

He's jolted from his thoughts at your voice and rests his whole hand gently on your rib where a faded jagged scar decorates your skin. His hand is now no longer covered in any cream after rubbing the remaining sunscreen left over in his hand and was currently just gently stroking your scar after hearing your voice.

Subconsciously he's moved his other hand to your hip and normally you would be more flustered than you are by this gesture but the way he's holding you clues you in that all he's thinking about is how you got that scar and he's holding you for comfort- his own comfort.

The first year of hero work out of UA you encountered a villain that got the better of you. You were too slow or maybe she was too fast but either way you ended up with her arm slicing into you. Realising too late that her quirk allows her to form rough, sharp, knife-like shapes in her forearms, cutting deep into your skin as the quirk then secretes poison after making contact with your blood after the slash.

You don't remember much after that just everything fading to black and waking up, lying in a hospital bed, with Denki by your side, looking like he hasn't slept in days as he tells you that Sero found you and luckily he did find you because you lost a lot of blood but more urgently the poison had entered your blood stream and destroying your body from the inside, luckily you were treated when you did.

That wasn't the only time getting injured while working but it's the one that seemed to scare Denki the most, from your point of view that's what it looked like at least. You surmised a long time ago that that incident was more serious than everyone told you.

"Denki, I'm okay now." You assure him softly.

"Yeah," he says so quietly that it's almost silent.

Trying to cheer him up but also sharing your honest feelings about the matter you admit to him, "plus I think it's kind of cool y'know? It's almost like we're matching now. It reminds me of a lightning bolt."

Denki's eyes snap up to look at you, and squeezes your hip subtly for a second before letting go. His mouth opens and it looks like he's about to say something before closing it.

"You're right babydoll," he doesn't say anything for a second before adding, "I promise you won't get hurt like that again," he tapers off at the end and it becomes more of a mutter.

You giggle because how's he going to do that? You're a hero, just like him and his protectiveness of you makes you giggly and giddy because what is he going to do, wrap you up in bubble wrap?

Denki brightens up as he hears you laugh and smirks, uncapping the lid of bottle again and finishing the rest of his assigned role. He surprises even himself as he lifts up the strap of your bikini top a bit to put sunscreen under it, he's not sure what he'll say if you question it but you're too busy biting the inside of your cheek because 'that was intimate, he was basically undressing me'. You know that's not entirely accurate but he was still moving your clothes, and your bikini top no less!

Luckily for your own sanity the only other noteworthy thing that happened was when Denki applied the cream to your neck unlike how he's been doing the whole time beforehand. Instead of making circular motions he was wrapping his hand around your whole neck all at once and rubbing it in all in one go. You can only imagine how rapid your pulse was beating and it's astonishing that Denki didn't say anything. You think at that moment you exploded and couldn't help but wonder about how his hands seemed very confident and comfortable around someone's neck...

Lifting yourself up, Denki stands at the same time and holds out his hand for you to hold onto, "wanna go swimming?"

"I'd love to," while taking his hand you answer.

As soon as you stand up the voices from your friends get closer and you watch as they make their way over to you. You hear Mina exclaim, "Ahh, I love your bikini! It really suits you. Where did you get it from?" You heart warms when you hear the compliment, knowing that not just Hanta likes it but Mina does too.

Even though you haven't been playing volleyball like some of the others you're still equally hungry having been sweating all day and only having a light breakfast so your plans to go swimming gets delayed as everyone sits down and gets ready to eat lunch. Bakugou starts laying out food prepared by him, not trusting some random person at his agency to do it or anyone else going on the mission, people like Todoroki are notoriously bad when it comes to anything involving or similar to cooking. Denki grabs a couple of sandwiches for the both of you, and you can't help but scrunch up your nose at his choice, having a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich is completely normal but the amount of mayonnaise he adds to it is not. He's kind enough to grab your favourite though so you don't verbalise your slight disgust (this time at least) and happily eat lunch with everyone else, listening as Katsuki brags about how he scored the most in the volleyball.

After finishing your sandwiches Denki picks up a watermelon slice from the platter and holds it near your mouth, "say ahhh" you automatically open your mouth humming 'ahhh' not even thinking about it. Denki feeds you the watermelon as you take a bite of it.

"Want to go swimming now?"

"Sure."

" 'Kay." Denki then speaks louder so everyone else can hear him, "we're gonna go swimming."

Then a swarm of replies of people saying 'okay' and Kiri saying, "see you in a bit, i'm going to go swimming after finishing up eating".

Taking the already inflated doughnut with you, you leave and get to the sea line, yelping as the cold water moves and touches your legs. Denki chuckles and you scowl at him. He sprints into the water and sighs as it cools him down, gingerly you walk into the water, reaching him and a cross between a sigh and a shiver escapes you.

Denki takes the doughnut ring from your grasp and places it over your head onto your waist, pulling the side, with you in it, further into the water while you float along with him, you halfheartedly complain but he grins at you while you pout.

"Cooler now than you were earlier in the day 'doll?"

"Yeah," you smile softly.

"I'm glad," Denki replies back.

As you get farther from the tide Denki stops and spins the float that's holding you around a couple times, before stopping and holding the inflatable with his two hands on either side and grins as you. "Remember when we were like fifteenth and we went to the beach together, you ended up burying me in sand, I still have nightmares about it," Denki says solemnly, jokingly.

You giggle uncontrollable at the memory remembering it like yesterday. "It's your fault, I mean who falls asleep while eating an ice cream at the beach. It was only natural for me to lay you down and bury you. Plus, it was payback!"

"Payback for what may I ask?" He knows what you'll say.

You gasp in fake horror of him forgetting, "you knocked down my sandcastle when we were little! We went to the beach together for the summer, both of our families, and I begged you to make a sandcastle with me but you didn't want to, you ran off and made a new friend for the day and while you were running back from the sea with him you ran into my sandcastle and knocked it over! It was traumatic!"

"I don't remember that, are you sure?" Denki smirks and you slash him. He starts spinning you around again, this time rapidly and continuously, you squeal and get dizzy. You try and splash him more as you both laugh. He halts spinning you and you make eye contact, "please forgive six year old me, it's not like he brought you a coke and an ice cream and let you decide what film to watch that night when you stayed at mine to make up for it or anything." He teases you with a grin and you think about how you'd like to stay in this moment forever, this perfect moment, his arms brushing against your body as he holds onto the float, the grinning and laughter you share, the memories and the now, just the two of you.

You're thankful you were right about the mission.

tag list: @st4r-girl-official @xnorthstar3x @cherribxio @stabbygabyy @boreaswrites @skylardarling (i don't remember if you wanted me to tag you, sorry but you sent me an ask about i talk too much so i thought i'd tag you) @kelly-fushiguro345 ♡♡

[hischierswhore]

eternal pining | jack hughes

pairing: childhood bff!reader x jack hughes

warnings: major angst // unrequited pining // slight cursing // probably other stuff that i missed

author’s note: this might be the longest fic i’ve ever written??? anyways i’m backkkk and hopefully i’ll start being consistent soon. i have so much planned and this has been in the works for quite a while now.

You were sitting on the couch at the Hughes lake house as you discussed your plans for the day. Well, more like you were listening to Ellen & Jim as they told you that they would be leaving on a trip for a few days and Jack was just there. He was on his phone, typing aggressively like the world would end if he didn’t finish whatever he was typing.

A sigh left Ellen’s lips when she realized that her middle child wasn’t even paying attention to what she was saying. You looked at Luke & Quinn, who both also saw that he was just not focusing. Quinn extended his arm to hit Jack’s knee in attempt to get his attention.

You said bye to Ellen & Jim, wishing them a safe trip before helping them carry their bags to their car. As you made your way back inside, you plopped right back into the same spot you were in before.

Moments passed and you turned your phone off, sparking conversation with Quinn & Luke about what the groups plans were for today.

“What do you guys wanna do?” You asked, hoping someone would come up with something fun.

“Boat day?” Luke suggested and you nodded in agreement.

“Are you gonna join us, Jack?” you questioned as you turned around to look at your best friend. His eyes didn’t shift from the device in his hands, causing you to roll your eyes.

You were annoyed, so you moved off the couch and walked to your room to change into your swimsuit.

"Where are you guys going?" Jack asked as you, Quinn & Luke walked towards the deck, his phone now off and on the couch.

"Boat day. We were talking about it but you were too indulged in your phone to even contribute to the conversation" Quinn stated as Jack's mouth formed an 'o' shape.

"Are you joining us or not?" Luke asked, waiting for his brother to respond so he could finally get some sun.

“Oh uh yeah. I'll join y'all. Just give me a few to change" He hopped up from his spot on the couch and went to his room to change while you made your way outside, the other Hughes brothers following.

10 minutes passed and Jack had not yet come outside. You were all getting rather impatient and annoyed with the boy.

"Can we just go without him?" Luke sighed, beyond frustrated with his brother. Just as he said that, the boy trotted out of the house and down the dock to where you all sat. You all immediately noticed his lack of swim trunks and rather a button-down shirt & some jeans.

"Hey guys. Sorry to bail on you all but I've got a date in like-" He looks down at his phone for a moment to check the time. "20 minutes so I've gotta get going. See you all later" Jack waved as he hugged everyone goodbye.

Your heart shattered the moment you heard "a date". You had been hopelessly in love with your best friend since you were kids. You'd known the Hughes brothers since you were 6, and you'd all been inseparable since day 1.

The ever-growing crush you had on Jack was evident to everyone around you except for him. Quinn and Luke would relentlessly tease you when you three were together. Hell, even Trevor and Nico would join in on the teasing whenever you saw them.

You faked a smile at his words, hoping he couldn’t see the tears welling in your eyes. You looked around at Quinn and Luke, who had already been looking in your direction, knowing damn well what you were thinking.

"Have fun, J. See you later" You said as you looked down, seeing as your mood had now been more ruined than it was before and you didn't want to deal with all your emotions, or rather the cause of these emotions, right now. You knew that if you made eye-contact with the boy, you would have a breakdown.

Jack jogs back up to the house and shuts the patio door, leaving you and the two other Hughes brothers on the boat for the day.

2 pairs of eyes immediately found your figure as you curled into a ball on the couch and let it all out. Both boys immediately came to your side for comfort, knowing how difficult this must be for you.

Luke rubbed your back as you sobbed while Quinn held you in his arms, holding you ever so carefully.

Hours passed before you all decided to head inside.

“I’m gonna head up to my room. If he asks, I'm out. I don't want to talk to him right now" You told the remaining brothers before going into your room and locking yourself away.

— later —

Jack arrived back at the lake house.

“Hey, where’s Y/n?” He asked as he wandered into the living room, noticing his brothers sitting on the couch watching a movie but you were nowhere in sight.

“She went out” Quinn simply said, not feeling the need to give his younger brother details.

"Out? What do you mean she went out?"

"She's not here, Jack. She wanted to go out so she did" Luke shrugged, trying to focus his attention back on the movie.

"And you both let her go by herself?!" Jack was practically shouting.

"She's 22 years old, Jack. She can make her own decisions" Quinn paused the movie to turn his attention to his brother. Jack let out a huff and sat next to his brothers to watch whatever movie they had put on, still ever so slightly upset that you had gone out without him.

20 minutes had passed since that initial exchange when Luke's phone got a notification. He glanced down at it and immediately got up and excused himself to the kitchen with a simple "I'll be back".

“What’s up with him?” Jack whispered to Quinn, who shrugged and paid no mind to his brother's curiosity. Moments later, Luke emerged from the kitchen and raced upstairs quickly.

You had texted Luke asking him to bring you some medication for the growing migraine you had from crying nonstop. He quietly knocked on the door to avoid attracting Jack's attention. You slowly unlocked the door and let the boy in as he handed you the pills and a bottle of water.

"You good?" He asked as you had a hand on your forehead and your eyes were red & puffy.

"I'll be fi-" The words got lost in your throat as you heard footsteps ascending the stairs and you saw the one person you did not want to see: Jack.

You muttered "shit" as you tried to hide behind Luke's tall frame, which was to no avail.

"Y/n? What're you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be out?" Jack asked as he made his way to your doorway.

"I uhh, came back early. Didn't feel too great" You lied through your teeth.

"How'd you come in? And when did you even come in?" Jack questioned you as he leaned against the door frame.

"Came in through the back door. Didn't wanna make too much noise to interrupt the movie" You slowly tried to push your door closed, but Jack was blocking the way.

Luke was stood there, watching the encounter unfold.

"Oh what's that Quinn? We need more popcorn? I'll grab some" He shouted down the stairs to remove himself from the extremely tense conversation he was witnessing.

“What’s wrong?” Jack's voice was low as he slowly pushed the door open and grabbed your hand.

“I’m fine, Jack. I just don’t feel good” You were on the verge of tears as you pulled yourself out of his hold.

“You look like you've been crying, Y/n/n... did someone say something to you?" Jack's anger slowly increasing at the thought of someone hurting your feelings.

"Nobody said anything. More so what you did. But I'll be fine, I'll get over it" Thankfully, he had back up enough to give you space to close the door, and his reflexes weren't fast enough to grab the door handle before you shut and locked it, leaving him on the other side of the door.

Your words left Jack extremely confused. More so what you did. What in the hell did he even do?

Once you had locked the door, you slid down the back of it as more tears spilled freely onto your cheeks. Why did you have to fall for your best friend?

Jack stomped down the stairs, confusion & frustration written all over his face as he threw himself onto the couch.

“What the hell did I even do?” He screamed into one of the cushions. Quinn & Luke exchange a look before ultimately deciding to tell him bits of the truth.

“You went on that date” Luke said quietly, praying that Jack has heard him the first time so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself. Fortunately for Luke, Jack lifted his head up as soon as the words left his mouth.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Jack was more confused than before. He didn’t understand what was going on.

“How is it that we all see it except for you, dude? She’s in love with you. She’s been in love with you for years now, and you’ve never once noticed or acknowledged her feelings. It’s evident to everyone in our lives except for you. You leaving on that date today made her feel like shit” Quinn spoke.

“Well, it made her feel more like shit than she already did before. You neglected her all morning because you were on your phone and then when we all agreed to go on the boat, you bailed on us and she felt more forgotten than ever before” Luke added onto Quinn’s speech.

Jack sat there in shock. There’s no way that you, his best friend of 16 years, were in love with him. He couldn’t fathom the thought, but slowly the realization sank in and now he felt horrible for his behavior. He didn’t mean to hurt you. He never knew.

He didn’t say anything before he raced up the stairs and knocked on your door but received no response.

“Y/n please let me in. I want to talk to you. Please hear me out” Jack pleaded as he rested his ear against the door, listening closely in hopes of hearing movement on the other side.

Silence. All that could be heard was the sound of the fan circulating air throughout the room.

Quinn & Luke had followed him up the stairs and watched as Jack slowly fell to his knees infront of your door. They’d never seen him like this before.

“J, she needs some space right now. Let her get some rest and talk to her in the morning. It’s the least she deserves” Luke suggested as he placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

— the next morning —

You woke up to a massive migraine, probably from all the crying you did last night. You felt uneasy as you stood from your bed and made your way to the connected bathroom.

You knew you’d have to see him again. You couldn’t avoid him, hell it was his house.

You braced yourself for the day as you washed your face and changed into something more comfortable before heading downstairs for breakfast.

You overheard a conversation taking place as you silently made your way down the stairs, in hopes of not alerting anyone of your presence quite yet.

Just as you turned the corner and entered the kitchen, silence filled the room. You chose to not acknowledge it, just as Jack had not acknowledged your feelings for him.

You felt multiple pairs of eyes on you as you grabbed yourself a bowl to pour some cereal. You slowly carried your bowl to the dining room, where everyone was seated.

It was only then that you had noticed the extra eyes staring at you. Seated at the table included Quinn, Luke, Jack, Trevor, Cole & Nico. The latter 3 must’ve flown in early in the morning because they weren’t here last night when everything happened.

You softly wave at the 3 boys before placing your bowl on the table.

“Morning” you quietly said as you sat on the bench between Quinn & Luke, which was ironically as far away from Jack as possible.

Small talk is made and you barely speak unless you’re spoken to. You quietly converse with everyone except for the middle Hughes brother. He hasn’t said a single thing to you this morning except for stare at you occasionally when he thought you didn’t notice. Of course you did, you always noticed.

Breakfast finished & you kindly collected everyone’s dishes and headed towards the kitchen to clean them.

You stood infront of the sink on your own for about 5 minutes when you felt a presence behind you.

“Can we talk?” You knew that notice all too well. You placed the plate in the sink as you turned around slowly, resting the plane of your hands on the edge of the counter.

You took in his appearance for the first time since he left for his date yesterday afternoon. His eyes were swollen, much like yours, and his hands were fidgeting at the back of his neck.

“Sure” You simply spoke, not wanting to be the one to bring up the elephant in the room. Jack cleared his throat before he spoke.

“Could we maybe go outside? I’ll get Luke to do the dishes or something so we can talk in private” He suggested as you nodded your head.

Jack led the way to the backyard before holding the door open with a simple “After you”.

You sat on the couch next to the fire pit, leaving Jack to sit next to you.

You sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the calming breeze the morning had brought. That peace was interrupted when Jack cleared his throat and turned to face you.

“I want to start with an apology. I genuinely had no idea that you even felt neglected yesterday. I was a shit friend and I shouldn’t have ditched you for someone else. I know I messed up. And I’m sorry that it’s taken me til now to realize how you feel towards me. All this time I thought it was just you being friendly, I never knew you liked me. I was so confused by what you meant yesterday that the realization didn’t click until Luke & Quinn said it. I couldn’t believe the fact that I had been the one to hurt you and I will forever be sorry for that”

Jack looked into your eyes, and he swears he could see your heart shatter into a million pieces at every word. God, how he wishes he wasn’t the reason behind it.

“I’ve been in love with you since we were 6, Jack. I’ve spent years pining after you, only to watch you pine after every other girl on this planet. This summer was different though. You paid no mind to other girls and you treated me like I was yours, and I stupidly believed that things would change between us. That was until yesterday. You act all lovey with me one second and then suddenly I’m nonexistent the next” You watched the frown grow on his face as you spoke.

“I’ve never been in a relationship because I’ve been holding out hope for you, Jack. Hope for you to finally come to your senses and see that I’ve been here waiting for you this whole time, stupidly thinking that my chance will come” Jack stayed quiet as you let it all out.

“I’m in love with you, Jack. I have been for the longest time and I really shouldn’t be” You cried into the hands as he stared at you in silence.

“Y/n/n…” Jack was at a loss for words. He didn’t know you felt that strongly about him, or that you watched everything unfold from the sidelines of his life.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Y/n/n”

“It’s okay, Jack. I’ll be fine, I’ll get over it. I just don’t know if I handle anymore heartbreak” You sobbed as Jack brought you into his embrace, holding you in his arms.

Despite you feeling this hurricane of emotions, his arms still felt like home to you. He felt like home.

“I hope I’m not too late” He whispered softly, causing you to remove yourself from is hold, a look of confusion spread across your face.

“Huh?” You sniffled as you wiped your nose.

“I’ve been in love with you from the moment I met you. Not even, the second I saw you holding that little bear of yours as you walked into your new house, I knew you were someone special. Someone who would be the only consistent person in my life besides my family. I always thought you saw me as a friend and never anything more, hence all the failed relationships. I’ve tried to get over you so much since I thought you’d never return the feeling. I looked for you in other girls, but none of them were you, so they never lasted. You have been the only person I have truly wanted since we were 6, Y/n/n. I now know that you’ve felt the same this entire time, and I have somehow misread everything for 16 years. The timing of this is horrible and I’m afraid I may be too late, but please know I do love you, Y/n/n. I always have & I always will” Jack confessed as he held your hand in his.

You searched his eyes for some sign of this being a sick and twisted joke, a prank that would forever haunt you and ultimately be the end of your friendship with the boy.

But you found none of that. You found love & hope & sadness. He hoped that the love he had for you was enough to fill the hole of sadness that he had accidentally burned into your heart. He hoped that you would forgive him and give him a chance to redeem himself.

A shy smile appeared on your face before you removed your hands from his to wipe the tears on your face, and the tears that were slowly trickling down his.

“I love you too, J. You’ll always have a chance” A goofy smile took over your face as the boy brought you into a tight hug, holding you there for what felt like an eternity.

After who know how long, he finally pulled away and let you breathe.

“I’m so happy right now that I could kiss you, but I won’t solely because we just made up and I’m not trying to ruin my chances & lose you again”

“Oh shut up” You placed both hands on the sides of his face & pulled him for a kiss.

The world felt like it had stopped but like it was also spinning simultaneously. The butterflies you got in your stomach when his lips touched yours felt heavenly.

Jack, who was a little taken aback by the kiss, immediately kissed you back once he realized what was happening. One of his hands found its way to your face and the other at your hip.

You wish you could live in this moment forever, and you genuinely believed you could, that is until you heard cheering coming from behind you. You both pulled apart to see Quinn, Luke, Cole, Trevor & Nico all cheering from the patio.

“THEY FINALLY DID IT!!!” Trevor shouted as he jumped up and down.

“Hurt her again, Hughes & you’re gonna regret it�� Nico said before making his way back inside the house. You looked back to Jack to see him gently caressing the back of your hand.

“Wouldn’t even think about it” he smiled as he pressed a kiss to your temples, holding you closer than ever before.

[thanosscross]

Hello hello!! Welcome to my little meet your writer section!! 🫶🫶 I’m so excited you’re here! Welcome!

I felt like with you all being my lovelies and being so kind and amazing, you might want to get to know the writer behind some of your favorite stories of mine! 🫶💕☺️ please keep in mind this is a judgement free page, where none of it will be tolerated, unless we’re judging the man who shall not be named 🙄 so welcome! Get to know me here 🫶🫶

Hi! I’m currently 19 turning 20 this February 5th! 🫶 which I’m very excited about,

I go by she/they, really anything you’d like to call me! I’m somewhat the middle child, I have an older brother and two younger brothers, so I’m the only daughter/niece/granddaughter on my dad’s side (my dad’s only child). I grew up with somewhat of a rocky childhood so I’ve always got a soft spot for kids, I’ve become the ‘Mary Poppins’ of my family rather quickly so I’ve always got a kid on my hip, whether its my cousin, youngest brother (5&6), or my fiancée’s niece (5).

I’ve been engaged for almost a year now, I met my fiancee working at a local grocery store, She came through my check-out line, before applying a few weeks later. I ended up being the person to train her for the job position, and ever since then we hit it off, We were both in pretty toxic relationships before, so whenever we got together it was a little weird, but we quickly found a healthy groove together, and it's just been happy times ever since <3 A lot of people say it's too soon, or we're too young, but we prefer it this way, it gets all of the big stressful stuff out of the way, that way we'll have more time to focus on each other and building our family in the future <3. I was always taught that whenever you find the person you know is not only a good relationship partner but also a good business partner, you've found the one, and nothing is too fast, and I know I found my perfect partner in life <33.

I like writing a lot, I’ve been writing since I was about, 9 or 10? So almost full decade now, holy shit, I started out on wattpad, moved to writing on paper, and then eventually moved to tumblr around the time I turned 14? I like to call myself a 'detailed writer', I think of it as a writer who is more focused with writing out physical feelings and emotions. I like my stories to not only be easy to read, but I also like my stories written in a way where you can really picture or imagine the feelings behind the words, I feel like those are the best stories to read, in my opinion <33

I have five animals in total (I know! A lot!) I have three dogs, and two guinea pigs, MooMoo, Charlie, Daisy, Winnie, and Honey Bunz, who are all pain in my asses, but I wouldn't know what to do without all of them <3. For the longest time I wanted to be a lawyer, then it changed to a police officer, all because my original dream of being a firefighter was kinda taken from me whenever I was diagnosed with something that prevents me from safely working in overheated conditions. Now I'm set on writer, or just in the public eye, I don't really mind how, preferably some type of dancer (Competition teams/back-dancer/etc) Or a screen writer, I just want a position in the public eye where I'm actually heard and not just drowned out over the sounds of everybody else (Told you lovelies, rough childhood) I want my words to mean something, I want to be a voice for the people who can't find theirs yet <3

Favorites? Music wise? It's a little all over the place but my top five? (not in order) BigBang, ATEEZ, ENHYPEN, Sir-Mix-Alot, and stray kids <3 Shows? Squid game definitely, or a spin off series of the walking dead that's recently come out, The Walking Dead: The ones who live, I also watch 911, and the Rookie (I really miss being a firefighter when I had the chance). Movies? Really anything horror, I'll always be excited about a new scary movie that comes out, I've been like that since I was itty bitty though >< Jobs? I'd have to say either being a firefighter at only 16-17, or being the Easter Bunny one time at my local mall, those two were the most fun!

My style? I have three different types of styles, I either dress in Baggy Clothes (cargo pants, baggy t-shirts, my black jacket) or tight clothes (undershirts, skinny jeans, a flannel or button up, kept open, to go over it) or a mixture of both 😂 I’ve been mainly sticking with my baggier clothes lately though 🤌💕

Hmmmm...Last get to know me section..What should I put? We'll get a lil personal. I've struggled with severe depression and anxiety since I was around 11 or 12, whenever I had something bad happen to me at 13, it just caused it to become worse, along with other diagnoses. This one is a little more recent, and I'm still a little iffy about sharing it, just because a lot of people give it a bad rep, but I was recently diagnosed Bi-Polar. It wasn't that much of a shock, almost every female in my family has it, and it made a lot of sense for some things I experienced, especially the manic part of it. I've slowly been learning just because I was raised around people who are Bi-Polar who weren't good people, doesn't mean I'm a bad person just because we share the same diagnosis. I go to the doctor, take meds, just like anybody else <3, Some of you lovelies might question why I got so personal on here about it, but for the few that have the same thoughts, know you're not alone, I'm in the same boat with you, so why not us hang out and chill while we're here <33

And without further a-do....

Hi! Lovely to see you here lovely <3 this is the face behind some of your favorite stories! 💕🥰 so glad we can finally meet!

[emilem-forevermore]

hey! intro post :D

are you having a panic or anxiety attack? here :)

here is a link to the trevor project (a helpline for queer youth) if you are struggling. remember you deserve love and recovery :)

need a boost? check out my tag #em says it’ll get better <3

and if you know me irl, don’t follow me here- go to @peanut-jelly @squirrelfrienddd or @femininemilem

okay, a bit about me:

personal

my name is ollie, or oli, oliver, or em.

my pronouns: he/xe/it/fae/they. no she/her or fem terms.

my age: i am a minor. don’t be gross.

my birthday: april 8th! i’m an aries :3

nicknames i've collected: emilem, gay little frat boy, catboy tea, cheeto boy, leaf boy, em and em

my height: 5'0! i am tiny :)

i'm happily dating @nyxerer120 (how! i’m the luckiest boy in the world holy shit)

poetry blog! @emilems-poetry

vent blog: @emilem-is-sad

just another one: @femininemilem

the other one where you can't mention my main bc my friends see it: @peanut-jelly

therian blog: @emilems-a-cat

also just another one: @squirrelfrienddd

i also run one of the color shark blogs, you can figure out which one ;)

i also have a pinterest, spotify account, and scratch account. this isn't something i'll be sharing with the world but if we're moots or smth and you want it lemme know :D here is one scratch acc tho

fun facts about me:

i earned a black belt in taekwondo (i no longer do it tho).

i cannot play any instruments but would like to learn guitar one day

i’m a norwegian forest cat therian but i’m fine with being called human/person too @emilems-a-cat

fandoms and interests

music: harry styles ⋆ 1D ⋆ hozier ⋆ noah kahan ⋆ chappell roan ⋆ sabrina carpenter ⋆ taylor swift ⋆ the amazing devil ⋆ a lot more

fandoms: gravity falls ⋆ warrior cats ⋆ heartstopper ⋆ brooklyn nine nine ⋆ only murders in the building ⋆ a good girls guide to murder ⋆ wild life smp + more

interests: poetry (check out @emilems-poetry) ⋆ drawing ⋆ digital art ⋆ writing ⋆ reading ⋆ french ⋆ veterinary sciences ⋆ the human body ⋆ psychology ⋆ hebrew, spanish ⋆ chinese ⋆ italian ⋆ music ⋆nature

check this out:

my favorite post on this website, a slight tw for self harm mentions, but aside from that it's extremely moving and well written and might help if you're feeling down :)

PLEASE:

ask me stuff! i love answering questions

message me if you think i’m cool!!

send me art and poetry!!! it’s so awesome to look at :3

interact w me! i love talking to yall and i don't bite that often

talk to me about heartstopper, poetry, wild life, and noah kahan :)

if i say/do something that upsets you, let me know! i try to do my best to be inclusive and kind but sometimes i mess up so help me out :)

i love my moots more than the world!!! here's a list of some of them:

@hotteststar my first moot and fellow bisexual :)

@rins-batcave my reason /p

@raeprise mon cœur /p

@sparky4577 my brother (not irl but i wish)

@mcshizzle-the-fire-boy the most sigma of them all /pos

@crowofthestars just really fuckn cool. go follow them!

@thecrazyalchemist my bestie with the coolest name(s) ever

@mrblazeflappybird my cool uncle!!!

@wishiwereheather13 my really cool moot im too nervous to talk to (your banner is so cool btw. just sayin.)

@boldofyoutoassumeicanspell my wise gal i should talk to more

@holiday-spice my favorite seasoning (get it. cause his name is spice. lol.)

@halflingwithaknife i get excited whenever you're in my notifications you're so cool :0

@aflairforthemelodramaticc my father :)

@blaxolt one of the funniest folks i know :3

@catinasink uh. uh youre so cool. wtf im scared of you youre really awesome :0

@theronanlynchshow LITERALLY AWESOME I LOVE SEEIN YA ON MY DASHH AHHH

@the-toaster-rat genuinely one of the nicest ppl ever he’s amazing go follow him >:3

if you'd like to be added to (or removed from) this list lemme know! i have so many mutuals and i love them all beyond words <3

oh also i tag my weekly polls with #ollie’s polls so those are there if you wanna see

[drdemonprince]

Hey so i'm going through some stuff, and processing that by writing

In your professional opinion, is it... cool to blog about exes? Firmly anonymised, and entirely about my feelings but still. Is it freak weirdo shit or just messy bitch shit

I was once read the advice that you should never write about a person if you want to continue having that person in your life. Obviously, this is is advice I have not taken. I have written about my mom, my sister, my grandparents, my cousins, aunts, and uncles, current partners, ex-partners, friends, and coworkers. Several of these people have been very very angry with me for how I described them, or have been hurt, and it has damaged some relationships profoundly and caused others to end. Though I have often endeavored to anonymize my accounts, create composite characters, and give stories in my life the benefit of time, I have still paid quite the price. I wouldn't change the creative calling that I have listened to, or undo almost anything that I've published in no matter how formal or informal a form. But there have been costs, and perhaps it was for the best I didn't fully appreciate what they could be when I was starting out, because otherwise I might not have done any of it.

I say all of this just to give you things to consider. I'm not the one to make declarations about what is okay or what is not okay, I try not to moralize like that. It doesn't matter whether I think it's fine, whether I think you are entitled to your art, your processing, and whatever camaraderie might come of it. Regardless of the action's rightness or wrongness, other things may arise from it, too. You may alienate people or hurt them, someone might crack your anonymized code, people might sympathize and offer you community, friends or partners might grow distant because they fear getting the same vagueblog treatment should they ever wrong you. A great number of things might happen, some good, some not so great, and you can only undertake what you think is worth it for you, and weather whatever may come from it.

If what you are needing is a space to vent, there are diaries and private google docs for that. If what you seek is camaraderie, a blog, subreddit, or social media page may very well give you what you want. If you want there to be some art in this, you may find it. I certainly have. I would not be above bitching about an ex anonymously online. I have done it many many times. And it felt good and some other people resonated with it, and good things came of it, and also someone that I adored for ten years and still think about all the time will probably never ever talk to me and my mom treats me funny because my vindictiveness has scared her. I think that is unlikely to happen to you, but what is published publicly exists forever and no longer belongs to you. So just be aware of that.